Back in 2010, I received an email that started like this:

My name is Brennan and I am a fourth year student at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of a local start-up called Avitu.  In a nutshell, Avitu is social and community driven online advertising platform and ad management tool. For the past 4 months myself and my two classmates (both software engineering students at UofO) have been incubating out of Shopify in the Byward Market trying to develop the ultimate tool for publishers to easily sell and manage their online ad space.

I responded and did what I could to help out. After all, how could I not admire a group of students so industrious that they are spending their spare time starting up a company? (If you knew me in university, please do not share what I was doing in my spare time as a student! Let’s just say it wasn’t nearly as productive, and may have involved quite a bit of rum and Diet Coke.)

During one of our email conversations, Brennan signed off like this:

Thanks again!  Next time we should meet in person (coffee is on me)!

I never did meet him in person or collect on that free coffee. Now, three years later, Brennan is Head of Business Development at Shopify and his coffee promise was still valid and included a tour of the oh-so-famous Shopify offices, which have been featured in virtually every major piece of business press in Canada. (If you want a quick catch-up on this Ottawa success story, try this article in Profit Guide which pronounces Shopify as “Canada’s Smartest Company.”)

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