Episode 30 – Aaron Wayne (First Aid Canada Inc.)

With so many local small and medium sized businesses facing economic uncertainty in the face of the global pandemic, we thought it timely to get StartWell Member company First Aid Canada Inc on the microphone for this special episode of our podcast. Aaron Wayne is a first aid instructor, lifeguard and VP of Sales at First Aid Canada - an eCommerce vendor that believes 'every person has the capacity to save a life.' Their online shop sells a variety of first aid/medical supplies, equipment and defibrillators (AEDs) sourced globally but shipped from here in Toronto. In this episode, Aaron tells us a little about his company's offering, how they sell online and what challenges he is facing because of the pandemic. Amazingly, despite the economic down-turn and supply chain issues, Aaron and his team continue to stay open - servicing regular institutional clients, the general public and Canada's healthcare workers. [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virjee 0:14 All right back once again, for this the 30th episode of the struggle podcast. I am your host, as always Qasim Virjee, the founder and CEO of start well, here in the studio at about six feet distance, we're keeping our distance we're keeping clean with some hand sanitizer here. I'm sitting with Aaron Wayne, who's one of our members has been a member of struggle since November 2018. And we've got some interesting stuff to talk about. I think Aaron, which is your business kind of has an angle on the current pandemic, in the sense that you're able to continue operating and your services help people, which is kind of cool in this time of uncertainties. So, Aaron, why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself? Aaron Wayne 0:59 Yeah, thanks for having me. First off. Yeah. So my name is Aaron Wayne. I am a co owner and VP of Sales first aid Canada. And yeah, I'm a distributor of first aid and medical supplies. Qasim Virjee 1:12 Okay, so tell me a little bit about the background on the company. This was this is a family business unit. Aaron Wayne 1:17 Yes, family business. I own it with my father, my brother. Pretty well. How we get started was actually my brother initially started. He and I both have a lifeguarding swim instructing background. Qasim Virjee 1:29 Okay. This is like a high school thing. Yeah, for sure. That high school or Aaron Wayne 1:33 in high school? Yeah. Yeah. My brother's seven years older than I am. And yes, when he was a lifeguard and swim instructor, and then going into University took kinesiology in that program, course a lot of people required the Center for C certification. And CMC was certified to teach, he thought I'd why not provide that kind of service to his fellow students. So he just started a small company aside, just doing first aid training. When I got old enough to be able to teach myself I kind of came on board again, just as a side thing while I was a first aid and some instructor or sorry, yes. Instructor and then. And then yeah, when I was dead on side every now and then was working my job and being in school. And after Ryerson, I went to Ryerson and finance and closer to the end of the program, I thought, you know, why didn't I get into something more along the lines of some I can control myself my own project. And at the time, he wasn't doing anything with it, he was doing his PhD. And so I asked him if I can kind of take over the company and build some out of it. And I've been doing it ever since. So Qasim Virjee 2:40 at that point, when he came out of university with a be calm, yeah, guessing. What was the like? What was the state of the company? Were you guys actually selling a lot of? So was it ecommerce at Aaron Wayne 2:51 that point? It was Yeah, I think my brothers did a little bit of E commerce very lucky, Steve, you know, paid a few 100 bucks to get a very small, very low tech e commerce company at the time, foun