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Bliss & Beatz takes the yoga out of the studio and the party out of the bar


10 Chic Gamine shares its wisdom with


youth artists at Winnipeg Folk Festival August 2014 SMART TAB The door to opportunity in Manitoba Skip the Dishes rapidly expands its


national headquarters in Winnipeg The province is helping fund the startup’s speedy growth and establish its base in Winnipeg


By Brenlee Coates


busy corporate climbers among them – and, inevitably, the hungover ones. “When we first built Skip the Dishes, we originally


S


thought it would be for just corporate users working late nights,” says president and co-founder, Josh Simair. “All of sudden, there’s the huge hangover crowd. So in


Winnipeg, Stella’s Saturday and Sunday morning, you’ll see dozens of food couriers going in and out, servicing Winnipeg’s hangover crowd.” Tat aside, new highly skilled graduates may soon gain


a whole new appreciation for Skip the Dishes as part of its tirelessly growing young workforce. The province is funding Skip the Dishes just over


$400,000 to add to its staff and create a thriving national headquarters in Winnipeg. Staff expansion is on pace with the tech company’s


aggressive growth. “We’re taking a couple people a week basically,” says Simair. “We went from three people last year, to 44 people now


(across all the provinces). And we’re going to grow to about 100 in the next 12 to 18 months in Winnipeg alone.” When it comes to the jobs that’ll need filling, they are


diverse, spanning operations, dispatching, marketing and graphics, IT operations and development, human resources, administration and accounting. Training and tax credit support are being facilitated


by the province, as it recognizes that most new grads won’t walk into Skip’s doors prepared to work with its specialized technology. “When people graduate from a Winnipeg educational


institution or a Winnipeg university, you have a lot of skill that you need to do well in a career, but having a tech company, it’s very specific,” explains Simair. “So it’s really getting people to understand the mind-


sets of a tech company. Tere’s new iterations coming out all the time… it keeps changing. “We try to build everything that’s very intuitive and


self-explanatory, but there is a bit of a gap for people to be trained on.” Te reason Skip the Dishes is so successful, and is the


largest online food delivery network in Western Canada, is because of its technological sophistication. “It’s nothing really that new for what we’re doing, it’s


just that we’re the most efficient, cheapest and modern way to do it. We’re the only people using technology to automate the whole process,” says Simair. “It’s a whole bunch of mathematics behind the scenes


that goes on to make sure that the food courier picks up your pad thai very hot and then it comes to you hot too. “Tere are trillions of factors every single night that we


have to account for… and that’s all the work that we do.” Its technology is about to become even more advanced


with the development of an app which will allow cus- tomers to order from one of the many restaurants Skip the Dishes offers delivery for, and then watch the food courier in real-time and track its progress. “We have the alpha testing of that food courier track-


ing and we’re addicted,” says Simair, who expects the app to roll out in September. Because of its widespread automation which lowers the cost of offering the delivery service, Skip is constantly


 "Skip creates opportunities for the top-tier graduates" page 13


The best courier for each run is delegated by the high-tech control centre. Soon you will be able to track your order as it travels to you through Skip's new app.


Skip the Dishes president Josh Simair grew tired of ordering pizza and Chinese to the office before he co-founded the company.


kip the Dishes, the online food delivery network, has been an asset to young people in Winnipeg since it started, feeding the less gifted cooks and


smartcareers.ca


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