As soon as the American tariffs kicked in, tech entrepreneurs Alexandre Hamila and Christopher Dip sprang into action, creating an app that helps Canadian shoppers keep their money in the Great White North.
The duo runs a Montreal-based studio, La Viral Studio, that specializes in building B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) apps.
According to Dip, the idea for BuyBeaver came about after witnessing people pitch in across social media platforms with their own “buy Canadian” tips.
“We were seeing a lot of social media posts sharing lists of products that were Canadian, and we saw a big opportunity to reference all the different products on a single website,” explains Hamila. “Our thinking was, ‘What can we do as two tech entrepreneurs to help Canadians shop more local?’”
He and Dip then developed the first web-based version of BuyBeaver at warp speed over a single weekend. The first week the app was up and running, Hamila and Dip saw some 35,000 users along with media interviews from national outlets, including CTV and CBC.
“[CBC] pulled up right outside our office in the snow—it was the first interview that we ever did,” recalls Hamila with a chuckle. “Then we got on the French news and even the local Korean broadcast.”
Scanning your way to Canadian goodness
One week after launching BuyBeaver.ca, Hamila and Dip launched their mobile app and saw their user base balloon to over 150,000.
The app, says Dip, goes much further than providing a central listing of Canuck-friendly products. The main reason? Buying Canadian can get complicated, with different ingredients—and components—that might have different countries of origin. Plus, one can’t always tell just by staring at the packaging.
“What we found was that certain products, like Doritos chips, could be made in Canada but also made in the US and you’d never be able to tell,” he says. “Our approach is that we go with the barcode.”
With BuyBeaver, users can scan any product barcode and instantly know where that product is made, where its ingredients are from and who, ultimately, owns the company. The app even rates a product’s “Canadian-ness” from a scale of one to five.
According to Dip, BuyBeaver sources all of its product information from several sources—the brands themselves, users scanning products in store and from freely available public information.
“We’re building the biggest database of Canadian products and trying to be as accurate as possible,” he says.
“At the same time, we’re not trying to be a destructive force—we’re not trying to cancel people,” adds Hamila. “We’re just trying to promote Canadian brands and provide people with full transparency, as that’s part of who we are.”
.CA an “absolute requirement”
For Hamila and Dip, choosing a .CA domain was something of a no-brainer—especially for an app that helps consumers buy Canadian.
“It would’ve made no sense to choose something else,” says Hamila.
“People trust the .CA,” adds Dip. “If it had been something else, like .com, it would’ve been less trustworthy. The .CA shows that it’s a reliable website built by Canadians, for Canadians.”
And, as a Montreal-based tech startup, the duo are determined to build a strong local tech community that employs their fellow Canadians.
Growing the BuyBeaver movement
As for future plans, Hamila and Dip are looking to keep growing the app and get more brands onboarded to the platform.
“We’re always going to be committed to helping Canadians shop locally and keeping the BuyBeaver app itself free,” says Hamila. “Even before the tariffs hit, there was always this notion of ‘shop locally’ going back a number of years and now, I think it’s only going to get stronger.”
