Stephen Yeung

Today, I’m thrilled to announce our ‘24 Fall Release at Brex 🍂 With this release, we’re putting our money where our mouth is, by introducing a new Impact Dashboard that shows you real-time data on the value you’re getting from Brex — directly within the product. Across spend controls, time savings, rewards and yield, you’ll also find personalized recommendations on how to automate more manual work, and help every dollar of spend go further. Every feature we build at Brex (including this release) is designed to do one thing — make every dollar count toward your mission. We felt this was a critically important north star, because it means founders and finance leaders can spend confidently on Brex, knowing every dollar is making a clear, discernible difference in growing their business. There is so much incredible work to talk about — but here are a few key highlights: 📈 A new Impact Dashboard with detailed, real-time metrics on expense policy compliance, time saved through automation, and total rewards and yield earned. And more importantly, suggestions on how to further optimize spend to earn more. 🌎 Local-currency bill payments in 50+ countries by ACH, check, or wire from a Brex business account, with zero FX markups. 🔎 A smarter search experience that helps you find exactly what you’re looking for in fewer clicks, so you can spend less time in Brex. 🔥 50+ new features that make it easier to spend smarter, including vendor migration, a new Sage Intacct integration, improved bookkeeping access, simplified accounting, card integrations, and so much more. Link in the comments to learn more.

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tl;dr Overcoming fear of posting, Aypex Inc. update, and general ideas around startups. Long Version: I’ve been head-down for a bit now working to find the right direction for Aypex. Thought it was past time to give an update and start posting more regularly. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to keep building and establishing a robust foundation for the company. If you’ve known Aypex for a while, you’ll remember that we started in resistance training data automation by leveraging computer vision, moved towards B2C mental health and digital therapy, and are now finding our stride in the performance optimization realm. The challenges of startups are known by many, but I feel like the benefits aren’t quite highlighted enough—especially outside of monetary topics. Not only do I continue to learn each day about business, health, psychology, and myriad other fields, but the personal development I’ve experienced is priceless. Resilience, confidence, and patience are just a few areas I’ve noticed tangible improvement. Each day can be a beating but also a wonderful lesson. I crave the challenge of the adventure despite some days being much lower than others. The “core why” when starting Aypex was, and is, to help others live better lives. I just didn’t realize going through the startup gauntlet with the company would help me to do the same. With that said, much, much…much more progress to be made both on the company and personally and that’s the beauty of the journey—the target isn’t necessarily an endpoint, it’s to maintain constant progress. To speak more on Aypex, we’ve recently moved into performance optimization. The pivot stems from my experience as a rower at Santa Clara. If how and what we think dictates how we perform, why don’t we track and train our mind like we do our body? Current approaches to this are disjointed or nonexistent. Have there been attempts at this? Yes. Do sports psychologists play a role? Yes, tangentially. Are any of the available options effective? Not especially. What’s truly exciting though are the opportunities opened up by tech progress in the last year combined with a growing acceptance of the mind-body connection. More to come on this, but here’s Aypex in one sentence (at our current stage): We’re an app to help athletes improve performance and reduce injury risk by optimizing the mind-body connection. The plan is to start posting more on psychophysical health and how we not only become better athletes, but also better people. Feedback much appreciated, so we’ll see what direction this ends up going. Thank you to everyone who has helped me along this journey and continues to do so. I wouldn’t be here without your encouragement and guidance. 

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Who better to talk about Shopify's trajectory and future than Benjamin Lang • OLY.? In our 50th podcast episode, I had an extremely interesting conversation with Benjamin about a lot of awesome topics that are close to my heart, and I can't be more excited about what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem. For example: • B2B features • From only online commerce to commerce in the more broad sense of the word • The focus on TCO • Customer centricity I'm very grateful I had the chance to talk to Benjamin, and I hope we can do it again some time in the near future as things are moving so fast. Thanks a lot for your time and effort Benjamin! #deardigital #shopify #podcast

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Just had to share this gem from Collision Conf in #Toronto. Among the #startups and VCs, I spotted a guy with a shirt saying, "Ask me about my CAC." Naturally, I asked. Sebastian Fallenbüchl, BASc., the wearer, shot back, "My CAC is getting lower as you just approached me." Genius. Seb’s witty remark was more than just a laugh — it was a reminder that business is about people. Metrics like CAC are crucial, but so are the connections and conversations that drive them down. Takeaway? Be #approachable. Humor and humanity can make all the difference. Thanks for the insight and the laugh, Seb. Here’s to more moments like these! #Networking #BusinessInsights

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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HOTTEST TECH STORIES IN THE ECOSYSTEM. As 2024 wraps up this year, we count the top stories that shaked up and moved the ecosystem: 🔥🚀 10. Canada’s Top 100 Startup Accelerators What are some top startup programs to for founders in Canada? Check out the complete guide. 9. Calgary Tech on the Rise Two Calgary companies to keep on the radar would be: ZayZoon and Motiv. 8. Top Women-Led Startups at Collision Toronto This story highlights the top women-led startups featured at this year’s Collision conference. Some standout names include PolyCareers, Part3, Toast, and many others. 7. Equivesto led by Ryan Correia and Alexander Morsink reaches $100 Million in Raised Funds for Canadian Businesses. 6. Top Real Estate Companies Explore the list of companies driving these innovations, such as Bidmii, Kompas, SingleKey, Bōde, and more. 5. 600-Pound Beaver in the Canadian Ecosystem Mainstream media spun a story from the Elevate Conference, claiming Canadian founders lack ambition. The reality is that the ecosystem needs better support. 4. Top AI Startups to Watch AI continues to dominate the startup landscape, with more companies entering the space. Check out the complete list of AI startups to watch. Companies such as Gambit Technologies, Binoloop, and 409.AI (Techstars '24).ai are some to keep an eye on. 3. Top 16 HR Tech Companies on the Rise The HR tech space is primed for more innovation in 2025. From rising payroll software companies such as Wagepoint to employee appreciation platforms like Chocolate Soupand others like Fortay.ai, Tenure and other, the top companies making significant strides in this field. 2. Top 50 Hottest Companies at Collision Conference Toronto Collision in Toronto was absolutely epic as it concluded. The conference is moving to Vancouver for next year. airfairness tops the list of the companies along with Bidmii, Maple, Vetster, Biiibo Inc., RideAlike, and more. 1. TOP 100 COMPANIES Earlier this year, we released the annual Top 100 Companies to Watch. The 2025 edition will be out soon. Founders or team members can nominate directly. https://lnkd.in/gYbwGyCT

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This is a really good post by Ghassan Halazon. It's easy for armchair quarterbacks to say "Canadians sell our companies out too early", or "we don't think big and therefore sell out early", but it's never that simple. I don't agree with Ghassan that first-time founders should always take the offer (eg. Google could have sold to Yahoo in 1998, and I'm sure Shopify had multiple interested suitors on their path to an IPO), but he's probably right in most situations. The first exit I had as a VC was a 5x return over about 4 years. I recall the negative comments I received from people in the ecosystem that we sold out too early to the Americans (Microsoft was the acquirer), and that we weren't thinking big enough. But none of those critics saw the slowing sales pipeline, or the increasingly competitive sales cycles, or the churn rates, or the difficult fundraising. No matter how good things are, there are always risks to the business. Most companies plateau long before they achieve a market dominating position, and distinguishing between approaching that final plateau vs. just a slowing blip before the next growth wave is difficult for entrepreneurs that are usually 'half-glass-full' people. And, on a related point, despite what many say, it is never that companies sell out early because they lack the access to capital needed to scale. They may lack capital at a valuation they desire, but that's different, and in fact a datapoint on where a business is on its path to plateauing or market domination.

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VanHack has brought over $150M in annual salary to Canada and is on a mission to bring $1B in salary to our economy. This article explains how we'll get there.

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Earlier in my career, I spent 5+ years at Shopify as Head of App Store. The way I landed the job might surprise you. Here's how it went down... It all stemmed from a cold email. Back in 2012, I was a Comp Sci student at Algonquin College looking for a summer internship. When I was digging around, I came across Shopify. The company was right around the 80-employee mark when I found it. I had some experience in online business – I had started a sold a community in the online gaming space, and did a brief but wide ranging internship at a startup that I felt could translate, so I shot my shot. I cold emailed Tobias Lütke (email pictured below), asking for any opportunity to work for him at his company. Not gonna lie, I would've cleaned the floors and toilets if I had to. At first, I heard crickets. Nothing in response for 1 week... 2 weeks... Then, Tobi replied a couple of weeks later and asked me if I'd be interested in taking over this "app store thing" they had been working on and seeing what I could do with it. No surprise, I accepted. And then went on to spend the next 6 years working on the Shopify app store, taking it from ~40 apps to several thousand. The lesson here? I'm shocked more people don't send cold emails. The downside is so, so low--and the upside is near infinite. One more thing: I'll be sharing more learnings from my time growing the Shopify App Store & other experiences in ecommerce here on social. If that sounds interesting, follow along for more.

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Huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our Growth and Financing event last week in Toronto with our friends at Loop Financial 🏦👏 Starting a business is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do… until you start looking for answers to funding and fundraising. Thankfully, we were able to bring together an expert panel of successful CPG founders, VC investors, and entrepreneurs for a night to ask all the difficult, niche, unGoogleable questions. Here's my two biggest takeaways! 👇 💡 Venture financing comes with a high bar of expectations. Look for non-dilutive options like grants and a line of credit first. 💡 Learn the impact between a P&L and a forecasting model. If you don't know how to create a thoughtful forecasting model, hire someone who does! Huge thank you to Laura Burget at Three Ships Beauty, Charlene Li at EATABLE INC., and Colin Harding at BrandProject LP for being our amazing panelists. Also huge thanks to Christian Harinarain and Loop Financial for hosting the event with us at Centro Commerce. Can't wait for the next one! 👏 #fundraising #financing #torontoevents #CPG #ecommerce

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Some more thoughts on why we think SecondShop.com is one of the more ambitious investments we've made.

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#FeedbackFriday Still manually typing up recap emails after customer meetings? It's 2025 - AI can do it for you, faster AND better! Thanks Sandie and team from GFD of Canada for sharing the leverage you get from Spinach AI every day 💚🥬 #AI #productivity #collaboration

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If you're a Canadian entrepreneur, investor, or founder then this past week has made it painfully clear that when it comes to innovation and economic recovery the calvary won't be coming and is in fact running in the opposite direction. The federal government and associated regional innovation support agencies (ie Invest Ottawa) are failing to look at solutions aimed at effectively addressing an overall decrease in entrepreneurship and economic activity across the nation and it is now on us, as resilient Canadian entrepreneurs, to empower those who can bring the most value to the table if we are to strive for the quickest path forward towards economic recovery and helping the average Canadian family better their quality of life. I am proud to announce that RHA Ventures Inc. has answered that call 👏 In the face of rising costs for domestic businesses in Canada and competition from abroad, RHA Ventures, an Ontario-based venture capital firm specializing in cutting-edge technologies, announced today its investment in Real Life Robotics, a Waterloo-based company designing real robots for real businesses. This investment marks a significant milestone in the development of Real Life Robotics and underscores RHA Ventures' commitment to supporting true, tried, and tested founders and Ontario’s growing startup ecosystem despite an overall decrease in entrepreneurship across the rest of Canada. “Real robots, real people, and real-world challenges are what differentiate RLR as a technology company. We could not be more thrilled to have RHA Ventures, a group of experienced founders and problem solvers, on board as strategic advisors and investors as we help elevate Ontario globally as a home for first-in-class robotics and automation technology - empowering businesses with transformative robotics solutions that unlock new levels of efficiency, reliability, and scalability,” - Cameron Waite, CEO of Real Life Robotics. The numbers clearly show that the cost of getting involved in a business or launching a new product is too high for the average inexperienced Canadian and our economy has slowed in growth accordingly. On a macro level, we are placing too high an importance on new founders in a down market when we should be rewarding and doubling down on our true, tried and tested investors, founders and legacy businesses who have shown they are willing to take the risk. Thank you, Brian Foster and the rest of the team at RHA Ventures Inc. for taking this first step of the journey with us 🙏 https://lnkd.in/gSr5TP48

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Behind the scenes at #Elevate2024 - speaking at the biggest tech conference in Canada re: #VentureCapital investing in deep-tech. Joined by Janet Bannister (Staircase Ventures), Eva Lau (Two Small Fish Ventures), Chris Neumann (Panache Ventures), we covered: - what types of companies are exciting to VCs (hint: moonshots), - specialist vs. generalist VC funds (founders: while it’s wonderful to meet a specialist VC that knows your domain really well, that is currently the exception, not the norm - so the art of telling your story to a broader investor base is crucial) - how VCs construct their portfolio to meet LP expectations (as a founder, you need to understand what motivates the investors you’re interacting with) Glad Creative Destruction Lab assembled this epic panel on the Moonshots stage ! Elevate Sonia Sennik #FutureTech #Innovation #IOV

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Exciting news! Lightspeed Commerce unveils its quarterly round-up of innovative product updates tailored for retail and hospitality customers. These advancements tackle key challenges such as cost management, supply chain issues, and customer loyalty. Among the highlights is the introduction of advanced inventory management and auditing features. These tools streamline operations, enabling merchants to make stock adjustments on-the-go, prevent issues with damaged or expired inventory, and easily locate products with Product Bin Locations. This innovation equips retailers with the ability to maintain precise records and enhance productivity, especially beneficial for those handling high inventory levels or looking to expand. At Lightspeed, our commitment is to offer robust solutions that optimize efficiency and foster business growth. Curious to learn more about how these updates can revolutionize your business? Explore further at: https://lnkd.in/ejRX7y5H

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We've seen this so many times. Your brand/customers/product is unique, but that doesn't mean you should reinvent the wheel with your commerce/marketing stack experience. When brands choose heavily-customized tech stacks, it usually leads to high implementation & maintenance costs. But more importantly, it makes it difficult to iterate down the line. You'll be stuck with your "custom" ecom site, loyalty program, unique UX for years - while your competitors will blow past you with "out of the box" tools.

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The ability to make difficult decisions is not an innate skill; it is a muscle that requires daily exercise. Venture Capital portfolio decisions are rarely black and white. Each choice shapes both immediate outcomes and long-term results. The best investors excel at balancing intuition with data-driven analysis, understanding that gut instincts are often grounded in experience and a deep understanding of the market and people. Engaging with entrepreneurs, tracking market trends, and staying immersed in the industry sharpens that intuition over time. But experience and strong instincts alone aren’t enough—quantitative business analysis remains just as important. #DecisionMaking #Leadership #VentureCapital #ActiveListening #StrategicThinking

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Hi everyone! I don’t share too often on here, but we’re at a very exciting moment at AptDeco, and I wanted to let you all in on it. AptDeco opened a community investment round and the response has been incredible. We’ve raised over $2M so far from institutional investors, customers and supporters. Nothing is more validating than customers doubling down with their own capital. And now, I’m inviting you, my network, to be part of our journey. When we started AptDeco, we set out to make buying and selling furniture easier. Over the years, many of our competitors have come and gone, but AptDeco continues to thrive. Why? Our technology, logistics and branding continues to set us apart and that's why major retailers including West Elm, Pottery Barn, La-Z-Boy, Article and 30+ more have partnered with us. The beauty with this investment round is that anyone can be an investor. Learn more and invest directly at wefunder.com/AptDeco.

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We wrangled our whole team to Ottawa to celebrate Downpay's 2 year anniversary 😭 I can't believe how far we've come. Downpay's first year was Denis and I figuring out our MVP and finding the core problem we wanted to solve. In August of 2023, we publicly launched Downpay on the Shopify App Store. Fast forward to today and it's insane how far we've come. ✨ 6+ team members have helped... ✨ 800+ Shopify Brands process... ✨ $40M+ extra GMV with partial and deferred payments. 😍 Not to mention metrics I'd never thought I'd see in my #productmanagement career. ⭐️ + 47% checkout conversion ⭐️ + 25% AOV bumps ⭐️ + 30% increase in online sales ⭐️ Millions in GMV processed in less than a day, TWICE I'm so incredibly lucky to be on this journey with all these amazing humans who have the best laughing faces. Denis Zgonjanin Ian Kelly Brittney Oberfeld Jeremy Hanson-Finger Alain Achkar BFCM, Holiday season, 2025, we're here for it! 💪🏻 Let's go. 🚀 #shopify #startup

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