Most Press Waits
Until You’ve Made It.
We Don’t.
Most startup media shows up after the round closes and the acquisition lands. By then you don’t need it.
We come early, while you’re still figuring it out, and we put the spotlight on early-stage startups when it can actually open doors and build momentum: a raise, a client, a partner.
Why BYVI exists, and why I started it.
The press shows up to applaud the win. I think that’s backwards.
I’ve been a founder. I know what it’s like to build something real while nobody’s looking yet, when one introduction or one well-timed story would change everything.
That’s the exact moment the media skips, and it’s the moment we’re built for. So we feature early-stage founders to keep them going, and to point attention where it does the most good.
Every startup has a great story to share.
Every founder has a story worth telling, regardless of funding stage or round size. The bootstrapped founder grinding toward profitability has as much to teach as the venture-backed unicorn.
This is founder-driven media. Insights first, always. If you’re building right now, we want your story.
Welcome to BYVI.
Editor in Chief
Lidia Vijga
CO-Founder at DeckLinks
Lidia is a tech founder by day and ghostwriter by night. It’s a combination that taught her exactly what’s missing from startup media.
She started the publication after experiencing firsthand how difficult it was to secure press coverage for her first startup. The pattern was clear: journalists gravitated toward fundraising announcements and acquisition stories, while bootstrapped founders and early-stage startups struggled to get noticed, no matter how compelling their work was.
That realization became BYVI’s founding mission: making press coverage accessible to all founders, regardless of their startup’s stage or funding status.
Lidia believes every tech founder has a story worth telling and lessons worth sharing. BYVI exists to shine a light on those stories – the ones that typically live in the shadows of the tech news cycle.
Contributing Authors
Andrew Jenkins
Founder at Volterra
Andrew Jenkins is an International Speaker, Podcast Host, University Instructor and a founder at Volterra, a Social Media Management Agency. Andrew has been teaching social media marketing strategies for enterprises at the University of Toronto for the past ten years. He is also the author of ‘Social Media Marketing for Business: Scaling an Integrated Social Media Strategy Across Your Organization.’
Assel Beglinova
CO-Founder at Paperstack
Assel Beglinova is a CEO and Co-founder at Paperstack, a platform that provides working capital for e-commerce sellers. With her expertise in revenue-based financing, Assel helps merchants achieve their growth goals and thrive in the competitive world of e-commerce.
Daniel Rizzi
CO-Founder at We WATCH and Toronto Business Lawyer
Daniel Rizzi is co-founder at We Watch and Toronto based business lawyer that helps founders in software, Crypto, Fintech, BioTech, and the AI space navigate the legal landscape and make better decisions. From incorporations, shareholder agreements, terms and conditions, privacy policies, to fundraising and M&A, Daniel helps the underdogs become titans.
Daniel Zhao
Serial founder
Daniel Zhao is Head of Finance at Landbase and a multiple-time founder, most recently co-founder of LavaReach (acquired). He started his career as a CPA, building the financial rigor that still shapes how he operates, then moved from the ledger into the parts of a company where the numbers are actually made or lost: revenue, operations, and go-to-market. That path, from accounting fundamentals to B2B revenue leadership, gives him a rare vantage point on how startups really grow, and where they quietly break.
Derek Jouppi
Founder at Advite
Derek Jouppi runs Advite, an AI-powered social monitoring platform that helps startups and SMEs with comment marketing by alerting them when potential leads discuss relevant problems online. He also founded Founder Poker Toronto, a social club for 1k+ verified founders. Previously, he built ByCanada (10k+ Canadian tech directory), SPOTMYUV (color-changing sunscreen stickers, acquired 2020), and Blackoot (detective board game, 200% Kickstarter-funded, 2023).
Rob Comeau
Founder at Cinemads
Rob Comeau is a founder of CinemAds, a video production company that handles creative development, production, post-production, and marketing. Rob produces high-quality video content for various B2B startups to help them grow faster and become the leaders in their industry.
Tasha Van Vlack
Co-Founder at The Nonprofit Hive
Tasha Van Vlack is Co-Founder at The Nonprofit Hive – a platform for impact-driven, nonprofit professionals to meet weekly for free 1-1 video calls. She is passionate about the social impact sector and hopes her startup will build community and connection for the industry she loves.
Sascha Hoffmann
Founder at Lifecycle Marketing
Sascha Hoffmann is an editor at Back 2 Marketing School and a marketing professional with 4+ years in the heart of Silicon Valley, London, and Germany. He started his Lifecycle Marketing consultancy in September 2020 and has helped small and medium-sized businesses with their digital marketing in SEO, Paid Media, and Marketing Automation.
Joe Hu
the founder of Just Joe Technologies
Joe Hu is the founder of Just Joe Technologies, a one-person, AI-powered studio based in Ottawa, Canada, where he builds products with AI and shares the journey publicly. His first iOS app, Joe Speaking, started as a fix for his own English-speaking problem. He writes about building as an explorer, builder, and founder at hubeiqiao.com and posts on X @hubeiqiao.
Adam Gellert
Founder at Linkus Group
Adam Gellert is a hiring expert and a founder at Linkus Group, a high-touch recruitment agency for mission-critical hires. With extensive experience in team building and a deep understanding of organizational growth, Adam is dedicated to helping startups and SMBs find their most passionate teammates. His innovative approach and commitment to improving candidate experience have made him a respected figure in the tech and startup community.
Got insights to share?
Bootstrapped or funded, 6 months in or 6 years, if you’ve learned something worth passing on, this platform is for you.
What we want: raw, honest, hard-won. The kind of thing you only know because you did the work.
- The pivot that saved your startup
- The framework you actually use to make decisions
- The mental model that got you through a hard moment
- The growth play that actually worked
- The failure that taught you the most
Why it’s worth it: your insight could save another founder the mistake you already made. And you never know who’s reading. Your next customer, co-founder, investor, or partner might be in the audience. The best opportunities start with sharing what you know.