Boleyn Media: A Match Made in Hackathon!

Guest Blog Written by: Alison Bell co-founder of Bolelyn Media

Our marketing agency, Boleyn Media has had incredible support from the City’s Economic Development team right from the very early days of launching our business back in early 2019. One event, in particular, comes to mind where we were first introduced to our web developer, Liam. Looking back on it now, that introduction inadvertently helped shape our agency before we even knew what we needed.

We met Liam last spring when we volunteered as mentors for the City of Campbell River's first-ever Youth Hackathon. We were introduced to Liam by one of his North Island College teachers and learned about the Web and Mobile Application Development program he was about to graduate from. Both he and his teacher Ashley were also volunteering as mentors for the event and right away we knew Liam's skill set was the perfect fit for our just-budding marketing agency.

We are beyond thrilled to have Liam our team and are forever grateful to the City and the Youth Hackathon for unknowingly playing matchmaker! Since then, we’ve grown into a busy remote team, and as we continue to grow, I’ve encouraged our staff to participate in other Ec Dev initiatives including the Business Resilience program. This program not only helped how we pivoted our business during COVID-19, but also how we helped our clients adapt to the changing landscape as well.

Since the Youth Hackathon, we’ve worked with the Ec Dev team on many collaborative projects, most recently helping design the “Shop Local” blue boxes in support of the new “Naturally, Campbell River” brand. Rose and her team are always so supportive of us and we have a lot of fun working with them. It’s wonderful to see their initiatives getting noticed in the community and beyond, and I know we are just one of many local businesses that feel fortunate to have built such a strong working relationship with them.