I am a Lefty, a techy, and as my coffee mug at work says, a “hawt geek.” Those are a few words that sum up my co-op experience; all thanks to the rich culture that guides the core of this company.
I am currently doing my second co-op placement as a Business Analyst at Left of the Dot Media Inc., after being extended from the original 4 month term. I have been a certified Lefty here for seven months now. We call ourselves “Lefties” because we are a domain company that owns domain names on the left side of the dot.
This has been the most culturally unique experience from any work or school involvements that I have been a part of. It’s not often that you’ll hear about a tech start-up that’s developing an app and specializes in domain monetization; since only a handful of people in the world own a majority of the domain names. Our core specialty is taking domain names with potential and turning them into multi-million dollar businesses. That’s how different we are.
It is rare to find a firm that views each employee with equality, no matter what your position is, and one that treats everyone like family. That includes our office dog, Django, who is our Director of Greetings (D.O.G). However, it’s rarer to find a firm that is ready to invest every moment of their time to train you in whatever you are passionate about learning. From day one of onboarding we were told to focus on our strengths and to let our passion guide us to creating something legendary.
Through my curiosity of learning more about the core of the business, I was able to apply my project management and analytical skills to benefit the different portfolios that we manage. Some of these responsibilities have included optimizing our domain names through different strategies, including Google AdWords, Bing, and Adroll. Further, I had been given the opportunity to step in as a project manager for the marketing team.
Being part of the achievements and rapid expansions of this company throughout the last few months has been incredible. I started when there were 20 employees. Now, we have surpassed over 90+ in a few months, with operations in both Canada and Bangladesh.
Not only is the company growing in number of employees, but also in numbers of achievements. Earlier in the year, I was given the responsibility to plan and coordinate the YO! tradeshow at the 2015 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. This tradeshow was where we launched our new app YO! to the world. For those who have not heard of YO!, it is a mobile app that allows you to share files, pictures, and messages with your friends and family hyperlocally – meaning without the internet. This app has the potential to revolutionize the way people connect and share in places such as India, China, and Bangladesh, where the internet is expensive and many people cannot afford mobile data. If you’re interested check out www.YO.com.
Following the success of YO! on a global scale, we have won many awards such as the BCTIA Community Engagement Award, Best Mobile App Award, and were nominated for the TiE50 2015 Top Start-Up Award. However, the biggest achievement that I can say will be my most memorable moment as a Lefty was conquering Tough Mudder a few weeks ago. We started training for Tough Mudder early in the year by doing boot camp sessions twice a week, starting a salad club to eat right, and rewarding each other for taking part in other physical activities. Our dedicated team completed all obstacles and overcame their greatest fears. We made sure that no Lefty was left behind.
This daring, energetic, and family-oriented work place is what keeps me excited to go to work every day. There’s an African proverb which captures why a close knit company like us have been so successful, and it goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, you go together.
