Shawn Hewat: Co-Founder & CEO, Wavy
Create Community in Quarantine with Shawn Hewat
Shawn Hewat is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wavy, a Toronto startup on a mission is to fuel curiosity in experiences so that people can spark plans, come together, get out of their comfort zone, and have a damn good time doing so.
Shawn chats with Marsha about how she pivoted Wavy to create and curate virtual community experiences for their users in COVID-19 times.
βToday, we're giving people recommendations for things that they can do from the comfort of their own home. Ideas for supporting local businesses and ways to continue to have shared experiences with friends, family, loved ones and colleagues. We're all about helping people stay positive and keep their minds engaged through this time.β
-Shawn Hewat
Listen to the episode:
Apple | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
(Tune in at the 20:30 mark for Shawn)
Connect with Shawn:
LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter
Learn more about Wavy:
Outside of working on Wavy, you can also find Shawn eliminating the Sunday scaries, one email at a time at good news on sundays. π
A huge thank you to Origins Media Haus for producing this podcast. You can find them at:
Website | Linkedin | Instagram | Twitter
Connect with Marsha:
LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Website
Transcript:
Marsha Druker 20:30
Hi Shawn, thank you so much for joining me today. Really excited to chat with you. So to start off, could you please introduce yourself and the company that you're working on.
Shawn Hewat 20:39
So happy to be here too! I'm Shawn and Iβm the Co-founder and CEO of Wavy. We're a Toronto based company that has a texting service that gives you smart recommendations on things to do in your own city, based on your interests, your mood and your location. And what's really special about what we do is we curate it all from local experts. People like chefs, sommeliers, bloggers, photographers, etc. so that we can give a really trustworthy and authentic recommendation.
Marsha Druker 21:03
That's super cool. I love what you are working on. You have such an amazing team as well.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you, your team, and the company? You are curating these experiences for people to find things to do. Obviously, that has shifted, how have things changed for you over the last few weeks?
Shawn Hewat 21:22
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of changed everything. The core of our company is giving people recommendations on experiences to get out and explore their city to feel the joy of travel in their own city. So we had to change just about everything with our company over the past few weeks, which has been a really interesting time. We've spent many hours on zoom calls, kind of tackling this problem.
And today, we're giving people recommendations that they can do from the comfort of their own home, ideas for supporting local businesses, mainly in Toronto, and the GTA, and really ways to continue to have shared experiences with your friends, family, loved ones and colleagues. We're all about helping people stay positive and keep their minds engaged through this time.
βToday, we're giving people recommendations for things that they can do from the comfort of their own home. Ideas for supporting local businesses and ways to continue to have shared experiences with friends, family, loved ones and colleagues. We're all about helping people stay positive and keep their minds engaged through this time.β
-Shawn Hewat
Marsha Druker 22:06
I was so impressed to see you guys pivot so quickly and to launch this incredible new initiative so quickly, but to do it. Tell me a little bit more about the community of people that are using Wavy and then how about community has changed over the last few weeks.
Shawn Hewat 22:22
We've been building our community for close to two years now through our app and texting service. We often host events that people can attend in real life. And we get requests all the time to host more and more events. So this has been a bit of an opportunity to bring our community together. We're hosting our first virtual event: a Trivia Night on 90s and 2000s. Nostalgia this Friday night, and the reaction from that has been amazing.
People are so excited taking their colleagues and friends to join trivia on Friday. And it's just giving us a lot of ideas of how we can bring people together, share a few laughs and have some fun amidst what's going on around the world.
Shawn Hewat 23:01
I think we have an interesting role to play here in bringing people together to still have those happy moments and experience joy. So, we're going to be looking into how we can host things like virtual wine tastings, virtual games nights, even things that are exercise related, and want to continue to step that up for groups of friends, or even teams throughout this time.
Marsha Druker 23:20
That's so cool. I love the creativity and I love the community aspect of it. It really is a true community that you've built.
Marsha Druker 23:27
On the personal side of things, how are you maintaining your sense of community during these crazy times?
Shawn Hewat 23:33
Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I would say I'm close to 100% extroverted so it's been a bit of an adjustment, but I definitely feel grateful to have my family with me while we're social distancing. So I've been keeping busy with them, but a lot of FaceTime, Houseparty, Zoom Calls to stay connected with friends. We try and stay true to what we're recommending at wave you.
I've been doing a lot of the activities that we recommend, like Playing Cards Against Humanity with my friends online or challenging friends in a game of chess over iMessage. Really just trying to stay social throughout this, even if it is just online.
Marsha Druker 24:12
What's something that you're grateful for right now?
Shawn Hewat 24:19
I've been loving the Nike run app. I'm very competitive. So I'm not usually a runner. It's been something to entertain myself during the pandemic. So I've been running every other day and following my friends who are doing the same through the app. So that has filled up a lot of time and kept me entertained.
I'm also grateful for how much the startup community in Toronto and really across Canada has rallied to come together and help each other. For example, the Upside Foundation and the work that they've been doing on The Home Front to support medical employees. Even just all the Facebook groups and Slack groups that we get to be a part of and then Toronto tech community has been amazing. So it's been great to have that like positive encouragement and support to keep going.
Marsha Druker 24:59
Yeah. I'm part of a lot of those groups myself. It's so amazing to see the support that's just taking part there. Shawn, thank you so much for joining me.
Shawn showed that physical distancing does not have to mean social isolation! Stay safe. Wash your hands. Donβt hoard toilet paper. And keep creating your community.
Check out interviews with other guests at createcommunitypod.com/quarantine
