I was sitting down with David Au-Yeung, Chief Talent Officer of Flipp. He and three friends (all University of Waterloo BASc grads) started Flipp back in 2007, and have since grown the company to more than 140 employees. It was clear to me that David was digging really deep for gold nuggets of life advice — especially things that would be useful to university students, the young twenty year-olds of the world.

“There were times when we worked 80 hours a week,” he begins, “but I don’t want to scare students away from startups. It’s extremely rewarding, working on something you can call your own. And as the company has scaled, we’ve learned to work a lot smarter. Once you learn to focus on the core of product, a constant 80-hour week is no longer necessary.”

Indeed, Flipp is all grown up and is no longer a startup. With more than 3.4 million downloads of their latest mobile app, Flipp is transforming the flyer industry from paper to digital. They’re making it easier for consumers to find the best offers for their weekly essentials.

“The coolest part is waiting in line at the grocery store, and having people come up to me and tell me how much money they’ve saved on groceries this week because of our app,” David tells me.

The co-founders knew they were onto something when they realized the retailers were more excited about the technology than they were. That’s when you know you have a killer product — when your customers are just itching to adopt it. The paper flyer industry was ripe for disruption, and Flipp has been helping retailers generate more sales while helping consumers save more money ever since.

The journey to success was by no means easy, however. Before settling down in the flyer industry, the company built software for online-shopping, comparing currency exchange rates to help consumers look for the lowest prices online. But at the centre of it all, the main driving forces of the company has always stayed the same — focus on the customer, pursuit of high performance, and people with incredible amounts of passion for the product and the mission. At the bottom of it all, the company was started because four best friends wanted to change the world together.

David and his co-founders — Wehuns Tan, David Meyers, and Matt Cheung — are all Waterloo Computer Engineering 2004 grads. When they left Waterloo, they temporarily went their separate ways: David Au-Yeung did consulting; Wehuns and Matt worked at Microsoft; and David Meyers did technical personal consulting.

“Full-time work is very different from co-op. The experience we gained from learning from very experienced people in the field really solidified our foundations to do things on our own.”

But in February of 2007, the four friends came together and decided to build a company together. It made sense for them. They had common goals and all really wanted to work together. Along the way, they have picked up old classmates from Waterloo — out of a class of 90 people (Computer Engineering), 10 work at Flipp today. Former roommates. Best friends. You name it.

“The business has grown because of our passion for building the team, and our ability to work together. I think the most rewarding thing about Flipp is just building it with your friends. I’ve known these people since 1999. It’s incredible to work with people you love and to look back at what you’ve achieved together.”