Startup Stories: Featuring Sucre Interactive Technologies
This week we are excited to be featuring Kyle Hamilton, Co-Founder of Sucre Interactive Technologies Inc., a high-risk work environment training and assessment tool.
Sucre Interactive Technologies Inc., located in Fernie, BC, was established with the goal of facilitating change within high-risk heavy industrial settings, and they focus on big data to fully understand staffing skill sets and capabilities. This previously unattainable data makes it possible for organizations to make strategic decisions based on a better understanding of the workforce.
Sucre’s analytics present information in an easy to navigate dashboard that outlines skills gaps and training needs within the workforce whilst also highlighting candidates suitable for internal progression.
We met Kyle last February when he won the Kootenay Pitch Competition, hosted by our partners at the Kootenay Association for Science & Technology (KAST)!
Without further ado, we are honoured to introduce you to Kyle.
Hello, Kyle! Let’s start with where we met. You pitched virtually at the Kootenay Pitch Competition, hosted by KAST.
Can you tell us more about your experience in the competition?
We were quite excited to be accepted for the Pitch event, and then to actually win the event was amazing.
As a startup we are new to pitching at this sort of event, and the team at KAST offered impressive mentorship and guidance on how to build a pitch deck.
We are grateful for the opportunity we had through KAST to work with Paul Brassard, who we had met before through a previous webinar. We had the chance to talk with him one on one and ask him questions specific to our business and our pitch and he gave us some tremendous feedback.
We’re glad to hear that it was a valuable experience for you. Aside from earning Top Pitch, what are some recent company highlights or wins that we can share?
We (virtually) presented our proof of concept for avalanche training assessment at the international Snow Science Workshop (VSSW 2020) in Fernie BC.
We are also in negotiations for a couple of partnerships and prototype projects, more to come soon!
One of the most recent highlights is that we made it to Round 2 of the New Ventures BC Competition.
So, what has been your greatest challenge as an entrepreneur?
The greatest challenge for me has been bootstrapping a startup while also managing another business and raising a family.Managing time constraints, financial constraints, and building the critical momentum required to grow and develop the startup business is quite tough.
Given all of this, what is one piece of advice you would give to someone just beginning their startup journey?
Without sounding too glib, I’d say “You’ll never know unless you go”. Building a company is not all glitz and glamour, there will be many, many long days, and many times where you think it’s time to quit.
Unless you push to the end, you’ll never know what you, and the company, are capable of.
In my experience, you’ll learn more from your failures than you will from your successes.
Great tips! As you may know, we define Volition as ‘the will to do what you want and to get it done’. What is your volition?
The volition behind this company comes from a quite sensitive episode, a terrible work accident, that really impacted our little community in Fernie.
We realized that with our combined skill sets in content creation, hazard safety, and training we could create this company to help this sort of accident never happen again and make sure no family, no community, ever experiences that sort of loss.
Also, there is something inherently magical about creating “something” from “nothing”, and when that something creates a meaningful impact on people’s lives, how can you not be motivated to see it through?
This is such a great answer! So–what is your ask today? How can the Volition community support your vision?
We are seeking $450,000 to complete a V2 prototype project, which will prove our value proposition to clients.
Is there anything else that you would like to share before we sign off?
I would highly recommend anybody who is looking to start or scale a business to talk to Paul Brassard and get involved in any of the accelerator programs that are in the province.
We’ve received an amazing amount of support from KAST and they gave us access to an incredible network of experts and advisors, including Volition ones.
Thank you! We appreciate your support. So, how can people best connect with you?
They can connect with us on our website or on LinkedIn:
