Jackson McDonough Founder of Upwardly – Telling It Like It Is

0:00 and welcome to another Talent like is my name is Jade Alberts a partner at netsource Capital and founder of peer 0:05 guidance telling it like it is is here to share stories tell stories if you have any questions it is live ask away 0:12 if you’re watching this after the fact on um you know on on repeat put your question in there uh Jackson and I will 0:19 we’ll answer them I would like to thank our sponsor today the Canadian blockchain Consortium our Canadian 0:24 blockchain Summit is October 19th and 20th here in Calgary tickets are available the website will be up here 0:30 shortly in the comments section but you know what let’s not talk about that let’s get after uh let’s get after this 0:36 conversation with uh the founder of upwardly Jackson how are you today Jade I’m great it’s uh super exciting to 0:43 be on the show you know a year and a half ago when we we launched here in Calgary going on LinkedIn seeing social 0:50 media this was a show that I loved seeing great conversations happening with really cool people a lot of them 0:57 I’d reach out to after uh they were on your show so it’s great to be here today and thanks for having me well like you 1:03 said it’s it’s long overdue it should have it should have happened almost to the day after we met to be quite honest 1:10 you’re a busy guy you’re a busy guy but you know I’m happy to be here today to talk about upwardly you know we’re in a 1:17 really exciting uh time of our our young business career and um just super excited to get into it 1:23 today well you know what let’s talk about that right I mean you you you 1:28 I I love your story right when we met for coffee I think we penciled in an hour and it was like an hour and a half 1:34 if not longer and and I mean you moved away you went to you went to Austin you you had your career and you’re like you 1:40 know what I’m gonna come back home so why don’t you you share your story uh you know about your in a little bit about your career and then why you 1:46 wanted to come back to Calgary and and how that started with upwardly 1:52 yeah absolutely uh you know I’m a born and raised calgarian my family’s here uh 1:58 my other co-founder is actually my mother Jill McDonough uh so we have a really great relationship there and when 2:06 I was graduating University it was uh back in 2018 looking at Calgary we 2:12 hadn’t quite hit that Tech excitement in the city you know there was a little bit of a cloud over it to me and it felt 2:18 like if I didn’t take a job with you know some kind of connect or you had to know somebody to get in somewhere uh and 2:25 and people just weren’t as excited energy had taken a little bit of a hit obviously and uh I wanted to go 2:33 somewhere that that really embodied that energy and that excitement that Calgary was when my parents were graduating 2:40 University and so I researched a few different cities and I saw that Austin Texas was you know really doing some 2:47 Progressive things in the tech space people were flocking to that City it was a Melting Pot of people from all over 2:54 the place with different ideas and different perspectives and a lot of those people were new grads and young 3:00 people so I went there started my career in Tech with a really great company I 3:05 had an awesome career with them we went public on the New York Stock Exchange but what became clear to me was you know 3:12 the power of hiring for potential versus pedigree was was amazing for for that 3:18 City and that ecosystem and all the while I was getting articles sent to me by Jill 3:24 talking about you know the flight of young Talent here in Alberta for the first time we are graduating more folks 3:32 and and not hiring them at a high level and actually seeing more of them leave 3:37 than stay here in the province to work and something had to be done about that 3:43 so Jill and I put our heads together and we wanted to figure out what can we do to talk about the abundance of 3:49 incredible high potential Talent that’s here in Calgary that’s got those Tech 3:54 skills that’s got those really great X factors that they can bring into a business and communicate that with 4:00 businesses so that they see the value in hiring tomorrow’s leaders today and so we came up with the business plan of 4:06 upwardly over about a year uh launched it back in June of uh 2021 and uh here 4:14 we are today and it’s just been an amazing journey and I’m excited to talk more about it and and 4:21 I love the journey that you’ve taken right not not just because of uh you 4:27 know of of the industry that you’re in I mean we’ve all probably used recruiting agencies in the fact in the in the past 4:32 and I’m just going to say it most of them suck right they suck they just I stopped using them 15 20 years ago right 4:38 I just don’t didn’t feel comfortable with them and then and then when we sat down and you you explained your vision 4:43 to me and what you wanted to do and it’s more of a it’s not a transaction of the you know what I’ve got these people and 4:48 I got