And so Xpeeria begins…
From the warm, sunny beaches of Los Angeles, to a one bedroom condo in the heart of Ottawa, the first year of Xpeeria has been anything but dull. Holding true to it’s name and purpose, it’s been full of new experiences. Founder and CEO, Joelle Parenteau, has willingly worked around the clock to help bring her vision to life. Creating a marketplace where anyone can create an experience and thus making more experiences accessible to all, is just the beginning.
After successfully growing her first business to the point where it pretty much ran itself, Joelle Parenteau, a native to Ottawa, got bored. At about the same she was going through a divorce and wondering what to do with her life. Then she had an idea… she bought a one-way ticket to LA. With no plan she simply knew it was time to get outside her comfort zone — cause that, she had read somewhere once, is ‘where the magic happens’.
Joelle arrived in LA and wanted to try all sorts of new things. However, she knew no one, had nothing, and resisted commercial tourist traps or canned lessons. Being bold and resourceful, she simply started wandering and chatting with people — who would inevitably ask what she was doing in LA, to which she would respond “I’d really like to try surfing…” until she finally found what she would call “a legit surfer dude” who had an extra board and offered to teach her. Not the most conventional or arguably practical method but, she was always looking for an adventure. By connecting with these ‘strangers’, she was able to spend her days surfing in the ocean, running the Hollywood hills, dirt biking in San Diego, target shooting at the LA gun club, and experiencing all that the Golden State has to offer.
As she posted her activities on Facebook old friends started noticing and asking how in the world she was getting to do all these amazing things. People were jealous of her experiences, they too wanted to try new things. She admits actually starting to feel guilty. She believed everyone should have these same opportunities, she wanted them to have access to similar experiences. And that’s when it hit her, her entrepreneurial DNA kicked in as she thought to herself: I can fix this — I can build a platform for this. She saw an opportunity to create a peer-to-peer marketplace for experiences that would have otherwise been out of reach.
On September 1st 2015, Joelle decided to take a quick visit back to Ottawa to see family and friends (or as she puts “let her mom know she was still alive”). That’s when she realized she had just one problem: having given away her house and condo in the divorce (in exchange for her first company), she was now homeless in Ottawa. Fortunately a friend, also a startup founder, stepped up and said she could crash there… on one condition: she had to tell him her idea. Ready to have her idea shot down, she was stunned with his immediate answer: “You have to build this”. Still in shock, Joelle ultimately thought to herself, why not? He started mentoring her each night and the idea started coming together. The second person she shared her idea with, another mogul in the startup community, had a similarly shocking response: “Are you fundraising?” he asked. Uh… sure?!
At this point, she could tell she was onto something big. From her experiences in LA she had found her mission. But her two supporters had one condition for her : that she build this company from Ottawa — not run away back to LA. Good thing she always bought one-way tickets. Oh, and if anyone is in LA, can you please pick up her stuff?
Fast forward to now, October 2016, Joelle has built a small team made up of two software developers, two business developers, and an intern . The young, hard working, driven team, meets up regularly to work out of her 400sq ft condo in Lansdowne. Exhibiting the characteristics of a true startup, Xpeeria is well on its way and determined to create a platform and community for sharing experiences. Both for it’s founder, Joelle, and for its first few employees, Xpeeria has been an exciting adventure, and it’s only just the beginning.
