Auto-Generated Transcript Human-reviewed transcript coming soon During the pandemic, Canadian small and medium -sized businesses suffered while internationally owned big box stores made record profits. Even now, many people shop online for the convenience while feeling guilty because they know they really should be buying local. But what if there was a way to do both? To buy local with the convenience of online shopping. Travis McDonald and Amir Kendic recently launched launched Elevate Local .ca, a Canadian marketplace that is far more than just another business directory. Across the country, you can find local businesses, actual storefronts that you can visit if you wish, but you can also buy their products and services online to Elevate Local. Elevate Local is a community, a community of consumers who want to buy from local businesses. connecting with a community of local businesses who believe in ethical business practices and providing quality goods and services to their fellow Canadians. Together, the Elevate Local Marketplace is the answer to big box stores. And because online shopping is available, it's safe from possible future lockdowns. In this interview, interview, Travis and Amir explain how Elevate Local provides convenience to Canadian consumers while keeping their money in Canada and how they help local businesses to connect with a broader customer base and even help new businesses to get off the ground. Travis and you're welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much for having us here. Well, yeah, excited to be here. Thank you. So now as I told our viewers in the introduction, we're here to discuss elevate local and Because this is something a lot of people wouldn't be familiar with I want to start with just the simplest and most basic question What is elevate local? Well elevate local and its most most primary essence is goods and services board where we can list our goods and services, whether they're subscriptions, whether they're products or complicated products, or whether we want to book appointments. So it's a goods and services platform, but it's made to help Canadians, it's made to help Canadian families, it's made to help local Canadian businesses, and it's made so that it can be also used to help new business owners. start up a new business very easily and get independent, free, and financially secure. And so before we get on to how you help new business owners do this, how is Elevate Local then different from any other number of business directories? Well, I'll start and then I'll lend a mere answer after as well. So Elevate Local is much different than a business directory. So a business directory and we'll compare it to a couple things. So there's Amazon and there's Etsy, and then there's business directories throughout Canada and oftentimes you can find them. And what we feel like is that they don't offer enough. So there's quite a few things that are different and I think the major thing that's different is that we're focusing on bringing the products and the services directly to the business listing so when people find the business listings, they can buy the products and the services right on site. There's a couple other things. When you look at somebody like, let's take Amazon, let's take a non, let's take a globalist or a global entity that is working and selling products online. That money goes outside of Canada for the most part. It's going to the United States, that is going on to all the Chinese manufacturers and all the Indian manufacturers and all the manufacturers outside of the country. And also the people that are selling the products aren't even Canadians. So they're selling products basically from China or from other countries and they're selling products on Amazon. And they've made a business basically of shipping our money outside of the country. And so when we took a look at what we're doing, we said, well, we want to keep the money inside the country. We want to help Canadians. families, we want to make them stronger." And I would say that's one of the biggest, like, most significant differences is that we're not here to make money off people. We need to survive, but we're here to help Canadians. We're here to help Canadian families, and we're here to help Canadian businesses. You take a look at someone like Etsy, it's nice, but looking at these companies, you know, anyway, can can sell on the platform, we're only open to Canadian producers selling on the platform right now or Canadian businesses selling on the platform. We validate ID, we check ID, we check business documentation when it's necessary. And we sell to Canadian somebody like Etsy or somebody like Amazon or some of these other companies. What you'll find they'll do is they're interested in building their brand. And And what's different with us is is that we're not just interested in building our brand. Yeah, that's important People need to recognize us and feel safe and shop with us But we actually provide a store each each company gets a store on the site and each company Interacts with the customer and each company can can drive business and develop a customer base If you're creating a brand you actually create your brand on your store and then you can focus on developing your business instead of being pulled into a system where it's all about the big company and no development for the small company. So we're very interested in developing for having the small companies develop and grow and providing an opportunity to counter what's going on in globalization, which I do. call localization. Let's add a counter to it and help localize. Then when we look at it and we say from the business directory point of view, what's different about it is, I've seen a lot of business directories over time. They're not interesting to me. Quite frankly, I go on, I find it very hard to find a listing. I find it hard to follow it. It's kind of like a home job. It's... it's done unprofessionally, and they're great, they're trying to help businesses, but I find it very hard to sort through and find what I need, and I find it easier to go to someone like an Amazon or an Etsy, which I don't want to go to. The other thing with the directory is you can't buy the products and the services on the site. So, with Elevate Local, you can actually order your products and services. on the site as you're looking through the business directory. So it provides a unique advantage. You're not going from one website to another and then having to research and then try and buy. You can buy right on the spot. And I would say those are the major differences and also we're here to help. And there's customer service involved, which you really don't find these days. Right. Amir, what do you have to add to that? So, you know, we know that small and mid -sized businesses have been squeezed heavily over the last, sorry, what, three, four years. We know that the lockdowns decimated that sector. We know that small and mid -sized businesses make up a large part of the Canadian economy. So it was no coincidence that this was the sector they went after. And during that time period, what did you add? have you have the big box stores thriving making record profits? You know, they had the ability to the power and the resources to lobby to keep themselves open and While squeezing mom -and -pop shops, you know, is it that you know Walmart was safer to walk around in during the lockdown and you know The local local hardware store wasn't no, we know it's it's ridiculous But it was done by by desire and What was it that you know? We felt was was difficult was that the small and incised businesses didn't really have a network There was no network at the time to help you You were pretty much on your own to try and figure out how to navigate through it for myself I own a business and much of my business relies on getting out there into Restaurants and coffee shops and entertaining and when that was taken from me, I had to use resources where I was fortunate enough to have enough contacts in my network to find places that would open up the doors to me. So what we wanted to do here with Elevate Local is tie a network together. Help strengthen and fortify small and mid -sized businesses through Unity and power by numbers. Power by numbers only work when you have numbers, okay? So for a small business, you're not getting help from a regular customer. They're not coming to save you. Okay, it doesn't matter how hard to be, squeeze, how difficult the time is, they're not coming to save. Unfortunately, some people are relying on a new politician to come in. And I think you're not voting your way out of this. I think history has shown us repeatedly that nobody cares about you. So the only way for us to really stand a shot here is to find, you know, a large body of people that are willing to come together and work together in unity. So how do you do it? So we looked at a number of different ways and we felt that, you know, coming up with an online digital platform and using it as a conduit to tie, you know, businesses coast to coast, I think is a good start for us. It also gives another option and, you know, why do you want to keep putting money in? into big box stores? Why do you want to keep putting money into Walmart? Why do you want to keep putting money into Costco and Amazon where these businesses lobby to destroy you? So the idea here is to create a platform that now gives more exposure for Canadian businesses and gives people another choice where to put their dollars. And I think it makes sense to help support your community, help support the small business. and help put life back into the essence of what Canada was, which was it community, it's small communities that help build this country. Right. Now, what is the current scope of it? I know you guys are in Ontario, this is where they've started out. I poked around the site a couple of days ago. It does appear right now that the majority of the businesses are in Ontario, but the system is functional all across Canada, is it not? Businesses, customers can register anywhere in the country. - Yes, so it is coast to coast, whether you're in Nova Scotia or out in Vancouver, you can create your business profile online and get your products uploaded and you'd be ready to go and sell immediately. You know, we're a startup, we're brand new, we're just opening up the doors, just take in. you know, the better part of the year to piecemeal a bunch of resources together to get this thing going. So it's a grassroots movement and like any grassroots movement, it's slow, it's a slow burn. We're not heavily funded like some of the big box stores, but we feel that through the power of the people, we could start to create a momentum here that will get this thing spread far and wide. Travis, how did you you get the original companies that are in there? Because of course, as Amir just said, you guys are startup. You don't have a budget to advertise, but you do have a number of businesses already in your system. Where did you find them? How did you get them involved? And how, I guess the other thing I would like to know is what was their reaction when you came to them with this idea? So yeah, okay, sometimes I'm not great at, that's like five questions. So I want to write a comment. of those down. Well, let's start with, let me break it down for us. Do the one at a time. You already have a number of businesses in the system. How did you find them? Because you guys are just new. I mean, I'm hoping this interview is going to help to bring some more in, but obviously starting out, you didn't have that. So how did you find the original businesses that are in the system? Well, I mean, that goes into a whole nother for profit that we've been working with and, and helped. out. Everybody's been volunteers trying to help out over the last three years with community building and with getting embedded within communities with helping during the turmoil that existed with providing people safety and support to try and keep them comfortable, make them feel safe, provide them with solutions. That was one thing that we came up with was it's nice that people can sit in the room and and be upset, but we need to come up with solutions. So a bunch of us, you know, got around together and started talking about how do we actually build solutions. And so we have three main solutions that we're going to build as along with the community program and from that came Elevate Local. And when we did that, of course, we already had a fairly wide network. network that we're attached to like to say we're attached together with with you as well well well through and through many people through first and then second layer connections that we have and through that we had some marketing and some some basic emails on and the reaction is quite impressive with everybody. So the reaction is first of all, it's professional and and it's professional. done, and it's a great site. And then the reaction is, yes, we need this. We need this for Canada. We also need this for small and medium businesses, and we also need this for our communities across Canada. A lot of them have formed over the last three years, let's say, with all the turmoil, and we need this. We need to support each other. We need to keep money money in Canada We need to feed our families instead of what we're seeing is the big companies just you know, taking Full control of our jobs our lives and if we don't maintain this autonomy We're going to be at the whims of everybody else and we want to support that Yeah, just to add to what Travis said here, you know, there's many different ways Uh to, you know, fight what's going on here. This website, this platform is not meant to be political. That's not what we're about here. We're not looking to go head to head with the government. Okay. You know, they're heavily funded, heavily resourced. It's just a battle that I don't think, you know, an individual or one small group can really make it put a dent in. The idea here is just to help create. a parallel economy. All right, so we're one where the businesses aren't dependent on the government anymore. They're dependent on we the people, all right? So that's the idea here is to create a movement where we're all thriving just based on our own efforts and investing in each other. - Now, I imagine that the reaction you're getting from people who are shopping on the site must be very positive. because as Travis made a reference to, a lot of us don't want to be shopping at Amazon. We don't want to be shopping at the big box stores. We don't want to be sending our money out of the country. And you guys have solved all of those problems in one neat package. But I do have to ask about, is there any watchdogging of the companies that are on there? Is there, for example, a complaint system if perhaps a company is not being, you know, board with their customers. Yeah, there's quite a few processes. So the first process is our screening process when they come in. So we're not just going to let anybody on and we want them to be professionals, but we also understand and being professionals means that they have a registered business, first of all, that's level one, but they don't have to be a registered business all the time. They can be somebody who's trying to start out and we're here to support them. The second thing is we have people who are working with us who are in operations who monitor the site and make sure everything is going well, orders are being fulfilled, orders are being shipped, people are receiving what they paid for. We have a review system on there, so as people buy and as people provide reviews, that will accumulate how well a vendor is doing, and we have a verification system as well. So, on the bare... verification system, you'll see that people get a blue verified check mark. And what that means is they've provided us with their driver's license, they've provided us with their address, they've provided us with the business information, maybe a business document that's needed. And they've confirmed all that information. So with us monitoring, you know, and then watching the sales as they come through. validating before the vendors come on that they are somebody that we want to work with, we pretty much have it covered that it's very safe to buy from the platform. Okay. Now, you've made reference Travis a couple of times to helping out new businesses. How do you do that? Well, first of all, anybody can go and register. And then right now we have a 12 month long package when they register where they get the monthly fee waived for 12 months. Now, what we can do is to help them out. There's a couple of different things, but for elevated locals specifically, we can help onboard them and we can help market them and we can help get their message. We can also bridge their listings and bring their listings into another website where we can link them together and provide a linkage to elevate local. So instead of a new business owner having maybe a two, a $10 ,000 cost for launching some sort of website and then having to do all the marketing on their own, they can come and launch and elevate local and with the proper help, at least have a couple of products or services up in three or four hours. Wow. Yeah, you can literally start. your business in three or four hours, especially with some help. Uh, we have some videos made, but we can also do a system onboarding. But with it also comes advertising, right? So now you're getting advertising. And as we build the customer base on LLV local, your advertisements start going out through the email system. Additionally, we're going to, we're, we're starting to build the social media interfaces. And what that means is we're going to vendors. So we want real raw footage from the vendors. We want it from them. Why it's important, you know, what are they selling? Is there any struggle? We don't wanna be political, but is there any struggle and how is this helping? And then we wanna get that video out there in a real heartfelt way, you know, and this is why we wanna do it. Now, when you look at what everybody's doing, together, who's been working on things for the last three years, you can see also that we have a community program. And I don't want to distract everybody from Elevate Local, but the community program has been put on hold for a bit to build Elevate Local. But what we intend to do is to bring this as a tool out to the communities. So we go out and we engage the communities, and then we talk about how to launch a business and we help them with business incubation Do you have a service? That's easy. Let's get you on there. Let's provide awareness to you. Let's get you listed You know, do you already have a business? Okay does is there a fit for you? How do we get you on there and how do we support you to increase your bottom line? We know that serve has decimated a lot of people a lot of businesses We know a lot of them are in debt because of the shutdowns overtures over two or three years. And I think now is the perfect time for us to step in and help. Right. Now, I don't know if this next question should be for you, Travis, or should be for Amir. As a former web developer myself, and I've looked at your site, and there's a lot of moving parts, it's very professional, it's polished, it works well. How long did it take to develop this thing? Yeah, Travis, you can go ahead, buddy. That said, it's a team of effort. We have people working with us. We have an IT company with us. We have, who's also helped provide some investigations and solutions. There is many working parts. And I would say, Amir, how long, about a year and two months to put this together. And that's working with volunteers and that's working with people whose hearts are in it. This is By the people for the people platform And with that we play, you know So it's been about a year a year and two months to get to where we are and now we're initializing the onboarding of vendors and Then it's and we're also initializing marketing now. So we haven't actually done that yet. Yeah, but now just before we I asked you guys for any final comments just to verify and I know we talked about this already but I'm going to absolutely certain that I'm not misleading people. Right now, you can go to elevatelocal .ca. If you're a business, if you're a shopper, it doesn't matter where you are in Canada, you can register on the site. Yes, you can. You can register and shop. Okay, very good. Is there anything else that you feel the viewers should know about Elevate Local? Well, again, just touching back on how important uni unity is at this juncture in our existence. You know, what we saw over the last couple of years was just a test, a dry run -through. It's going to escalate. It's going to become tougher. I think they, you know, almost watched our response time to everything. They got all the data they needed. They saw how we're going to react, what we were going to do. We had a lot of incredible progress. courageous individuals, strong character individuals, all fired up in their own niches to defend what they felt was most important to them. Whether you were, you know, standing up for children, for veterans, whatever the case was, everyone did an amazing job. But right now, we've got to figure out now how to take all these individuals that are in their own silos and come together for a strong, strong message that we are all one. We think that from our group the economic route is one of the strongest resistance you can form. So if you're not dependent on that and we can financially stand on our own, we stand a strong chance at whatever it is that they're gonna throw at us in the coming years. You know, going back to what I was talking about earlier with the shutdowns and how much of my business depended on me getting out there. I was lucky that I have a big network and I was able to find people that opened up the back doors to the restaurant. But many are not that much. Many do not have a big network. So a lot of businesses got squeezed because they just didn't know who to turn to. Well, this we find again brings a big stage for a lot of us to come together so that you do have that support. support. Grab us anything to add? Yeah, I would say along with what Amir said is we're very cautious. We're here to protect the small and medium businesses. We don't want to call attention out to the small and medium businesses. We know that in Canada, we're supposed to have an ability to believe in what we want to believe in, have alternate opinions, and that's been disappearing over the last few years. years. So when we go out and we bring people on, we wanna protect them. And we're actually here for all small and medium businesses, but of course for our communities, we're gonna help service them more and help provide them with the lag up. And we see a lot of stuff happening across the world right now. And it really does take a lot of time to initialize solutions. We all have to get organized, then of us. us were expecting certain things to happen. Some of us were. And it takes a long time. And so we see in Germany and across the world, there is a lot of disruption happening. And we need to keep moving forward. We need to keep moving forward and building solutions for all Canadians. 'Cause I truly believe that all Canadians believe in living a free and prosperous life. My only thing. is, I don't necessarily believe that they understand what that is anymore. The biggest way that we can make a difference, we still have the ability to be free economically. Well, we can be, you know, people can be silenced on social media and attacked, we still have this ability. And it's through this ability, I think, and over the next, you know, 10, 15 years that we need to to grow our friendly like -minded businesses. We need to help them strengthen them, have them become more wealthy. And then with that, we can start changing the morals and values of society. That's what I truly believe and bring them back to what people came to Canada originally for a chance, opportunity, freedom, you know, a way to speak your mind, to support who you want to support. support. That's what Canada is. That's what it was. That's what we know it to be. And that's what we want it to be. And we're here to support that. Travis and Mir, thank you both so much for what you've done. This is an excellent initiative. Folks, if you're watching this interview, we've released this interview in its entirety, absolutely free on all of our social media channels. Please go to elevate local, sign up, share this interview so that other people will notice that we can go grow this very important network. Girls else. Thank you so much Will, appreciate your time here. No problem guys.