Sitting down with the SVZ's Winter 2025 Cohort
Introducing the four new startups here at the SVZ tackling issues ranging from the literacy crisis to construction and demolition waste in our landfills.
By: Aqsa Rehman
March 17, 2025
It's hard to believe, but our Winter 2025 incubation programming is already nearing a close. To mark our current cohort’s final incubation session last week, we sat down with the founders to chat about their startups, the change they hope to create, and how their journey has been so far. Introducing our four newest members:
English Islands, founded by Erica Derrickson, is working to solve the literacy crisis in North America. English Islands is an online platform that helps students receive one-on-one tutoring outside of school.
Celiapp, founded by Tania Batista and Sam Giorgievski, is a mobile app created for people afflicted with Celiac Disease. Inspired by co-founder Sam’s personal journey with Celiac, Celiapp is working to simplify food safety and access for those with Celiac disease.
Ryzome, Founded by Alexandre (Lexi) Parott-Mautner, is working to improve the environmental impact of urban demolition and construction waste by recycling elements of construction waste byproduct into natural soil enhancers.
Finanzo, founded by Maria Kamila González and Juan Pablo Molano Buenaventura, is focused on providing financial education and support to the Latin American community within Canada. Finanzo offers online and in person tools through their workshops to provide financial education with over 10,000 participants already trained.
Here’s what they had to say in a roundtable discussion at the SVZ last week.
Aqsa, SVZ: Hi everyone! To start us off, what do you want people to know about your startup and your work?
Erica, English Islands: Essentially what we do is we help teachers who are really struggling with some of the things that I struggled with as a teacher. You just don't have enough time to give individual students the targeted intervention that they need. That's when students go home and they don't get any help… that's where the achievement gap starts to grow. That's where you see this huge inequality problem in education. So essentially we're helping teachers to solve those two problems. And then when [students] go home now we’re leveling the playing field so that all students have access to somebody to actually help them out.
Tania, Celiapp: In terms of the community, I guess I would want the Celiac community to know that Celiapp cares about them. It's not that we're doing this because we just want to get rich quick or anything. We genuinely care about them. We want their input. We want to serve them. And we want to make things cheap and easy for them.
Lexi, Ryzome: So, we have to rethink our relationship with our built environment, and we have to rethink our relationship with the way that our built environment relates to these production centers. So, ultimately I think that the thing that I would like people to know is that sometimes there are other options than the landfill, there are other options for throwing your stuff away. And it's a very uninspiring space right now. So, my hope is to get people thinking really creatively around what they can do with materials that come out of our consumption centers.
I would want the Celiac community to know that Celiapp cares about them. It's not that we're doing this because we just want to get rich quick or anything. We genuinely care about them. We want their input. We want to serve them. And we want to make things cheap and easy for them.
SVZ: What were some of your biggest challenges in founding your startup? How did you overcome them?
Maria, Finanzo: We just have a lot of work! It wasn't possible to do everything by ourselves. We tried to delegate the tasks, which was not easy. And I think human resources is a big challenge along with [implementing] systems and structures. Our project definitely grew too fast in the past year, so that’s been a challenge too.
Tania: The biggest challenge for me… I'm thinking interns or individuals who were not the best fit. Other challenges were that I went down the engineering path of overcomplicating everything because I liked to, not because it benefited the users. So if I were going to go back in time, I would have just created something way simpler using a programming language that everybody knows instead of just what I wanted to do.
Erica: We actually pivoted. We were originally trying to help students learn how to speak English as a second language, and it didn't work out for a variety of different reasons. We learned the hard way that the way that you ask questions in customer discovery is very important because you don't want to be impacted by people's kindness in a negative way, right? Essentially leading with sales so that we know right from the outset whether or not something is viable, whether the business can actually generate revenue.
Lexi: Yeah, we also pivoted really early on. The idea was to install more greenery in urban environments. And that was the original goal, but it's not something that most people are willing to invest in. And so, we had to pivot away from that to think, okay, well, where else can we extract value from in the urban environment? And that was a difficult pivot. Finding that first customer is a really, really hard thing to do.
SVZ: What are the biggest goals that you have for your startup in the future?
Tania: We want to change the face of celiac and gluten free living. Just make it so much easier, and also be a bit more involved in the advocacy so that everyone knows what it is and how difficult it is. And then also have this app just be a full suite of tools that can help them in every aspect of their lives. We really want to partner with a lot of gluten free companies.
Erica: We definitely would like to keep 1 million students on the platform. And looking to do so through partnerships, especially nonprofit organizations, to try to help them help their students.
Lexi: My goal would be to really solidify a waste supply chain. So looking at partners that are unique in a space that can provide high quality end of life materials. Another goal is to solidify a few relationships outside of Ryzome, where further exploration can take place. Can these products be combined to form something that's unique and useful in the industry.
SVZ: If you could give any advice to future startup founders or current TMU students aspiring to become entrepreneurs what would you say?
Erica: I'd say the biggest thing would be just to try to sell first. Before you build anything in whatever way, shape or form humanly possible. Focus on sales right away because it's going to solve so many problems down the road.
Tania: So in our case, we started with an event because we knew that we had this theory that celiacs wanted more of a community. So we thought, why don't we just throw an in-person event to see if people are willing to give us money or partnerships? And that sold out. So we're like, okay, there's value here.
Lexi: Defining the problem really effectively, but defining it specifically for a potential consumer or a potential customer is a really challenging thing to do. And it's worth spending time selling first, just as an example, so that you can understand who your customer should be. And then you have to decide on whether or not that is a big enough problem.
Maria: I think you need to find something very meaningful to you because it takes a long time and can be challenging. For us, we started with our own budget, credit cards and loans. It’s a lot of responsibility and hard work, so if you don’t have something really meaningful you won’t be able to continue.
We are trying to value inclusion. Everything is in English and not all of our communities speak English. Now, the first thing that we are trying to change is to translate that… take the information and give it to them in their native language, because finance is not easy.
SVZ: How has the Social Ventures Zone impacted your startup’s journey and what have you learned?
Erica: You get a lot of help with questioning assumptions. We might overlook things, and I think that the SVZ team is very good at calling those things out that you might be assuming and highlighting that. That also gave me a few insights into how I can improve processes more and without spending thousands of dollars, and it is difficult when you're in an early stage startup.
Maria: It's our first time in a structured incubator. Now that our program and our project has grown, we need business structure, finance and legal research that we didn't before. The research library that has all the resources to find the information for us, which is powerful.
Tania: I think one of the best things we got out of it is emotional support. They were so nice when we came, and they were riffing with us, trying to give us more ideas and always positive feedback. Finally getting that validation. I liked a lot of the business aspects that they've been teaching us, customer personas and things like that.
Lexi: It's definitely challenging assumptions. Alex and the rest of the team here are so great at being like, can we really care about your stuff? So, “You make a problem that works, and then we will care and build with that”. That's a really helpful approach. This team is really invested in you and helping you succeed. And access to other startups has been super cool, to see other people in the same phase and going through some similar stuff emotionally is very helpful.
SVZ: Thanks everyone, this has been great! How can the community connect with your startup and the work you do?
English Islands:
Celiapp: Download the app on iOS!
Ryzome:
Finanzo:
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