The Loew Down

Send us Fan Mail You built something people love walking through the door for. Scroll through your Instagram and you'd never know it. You've been posting consistently, maybe even trying the trends everyone tells you to, and it still isn't bringing anyone new through that door. • The real reason your view count might be lying to you about what's driving customers in • Why one Hamilton small business owner tells his hospitality clients to skip the trending dance completely and what he has them do instead • The difference between content that gets views and content that gets you remembered • Why he deliberately works with fewer people on purpose, and what happened right after he did • What he wants to be known for in the Hamilton small business community (hint: it's not “the social media guy”) This isn't a framework or a course. It's the real advice one Hamilton agency owner gives the food and hospitality brands he works with every day. If this one hit home, hit follow so the next conversation lands in your feed automatically. Resources Mentioned: Instagram: @socialby_andybWebsite: socialbyandy.com

Send us Fan Mail Ever hit a wall as a small business owner with absolutely no one nearby who's been through it before? You Google it, you ask around, and you still end up piecing it together completely alone. Here's the relief: it gets figured out. Cailen's story is exactly what that looked like for her, coffee cart, permit fight, and all. • The city rejected her original plan, again and again, over months and what she had to build from scratch to finally get approved • The moment she realized there was no one local she could call for advice, and what she did instead • How a customer's syrup swap turned into her best-selling matcha • The very first event that pulled a six-hour line, except for one 200-strong uninvited guest • What she said when asked how she wants to be recognized in her community. Not the answer you'd expect from someone running a coffee business • She's doing this from a repurposed horse trailer parked in Hamilton. This isn't a framework, it's what actually happened. If this one hit home, hit follow so the next conversation lands in your feed automatically. Resources Mentioned: Pinkies Coffee Co. Instagram & Facebook: @pinkiescoffeeco Greenbelt Coffee (local roaster, Parkdale) Small Bites Baking (baked goods partner)

Send us Fan Mail You know that feeling of facing something scary in your own body, completely alone, with no one there to tell you it's going to be okay? You've probably told yourself that's just what it costs to build something alone. Here's what that isolation turned into for her: • A pelvic floor injury at 28 that nobody warned her about and what she says would have changed everything if just one person had said the right thing at the time. • The pregnancy complication that came from something every new mom does without thinking twice and what it revealed once she finally listened to her body. • A one-hour conversation with an AI expert that changed how she runs her clinic, her conference, and her podcast and the systems she built because of it. • A photo of herself running into the ocean at 51 that she could barely get through without tearing up on the mic and what it taught her about needing other people. • What she said when we asked what she wants to be recognized for in our community not the clinical answer you'd expect from 25 years in the field. She built this as a Hamilton small business owner, one patient at a time. This isn't theory, it's what happened. If this one hit home, hit follow so the next conversation lands in your feed automatically. Resources mentioned: Blueberry Therapy blueberrytherapy.ca IG @blueberrytherapypelvichealth Kristen's podcast: The Hole Shebang AI coaching: Callan Faulkner / The Uncommon Business

Send us Fan Mail Our season finale, and what a conversation to close on. Katie from Cake & Kale is a Hamilton-based custom cake and wedding cake artist, a mom of two boys with a third on the way, and someone who has spent years being radically honest about mental health while building a business that runs entirely on precision and detail. She lives with OCD, anxiety, and depression. And she makes wedding cakes for a living. She went full-time in 2022 and has been figuring it out, out loud ever since. In this conversation we get into what Pure O OCD actually looks like when you're mid-build on a wedding cake, the summer before her wedding when a panic attack brought her to the darkest thought she'd ever had, and the cat named Butters who somehow showed up at exactly the right moment. We also talk about what it looks like to run a business at 60% capacity, why she made hiring decisions before she needed them, and the guilt of not enjoying pregnancy when you're expected to love every second. Find Katie at @cakeandkale on Instagram and at cakeandkale.ca. Because your story matters. 🎙️

Send us Fan Mail Ayaan Ali built Fiore Med Spa in Westdale Village, Hamilton and she did it her way. Two and a half years in, she has a team of five, a waitlist of clients who found her after something went wrong somewhere else, and almost nine years of experience in a field where a weekend course is still considered the gold standard. In this conversation we get into what it takes to hold a premium position in a market flooded with discount Botox ads, what a vascular occlusion is and why it matters, the green flags and red flags every client should know, how she built and trains a team she trusts with her name and her patients, and why she started offering GLP-1 weight-loss injections and exactly how she does it differently. She said three words in this episode I have not stopped thinking about: time is tissue. Find Ayaan at fioremedspa.com or https://fioremedspa.janeapp.com/ and on Instagram at @fiore.medspa Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Elizabeth Den Hollander was six months into her career as a registered massage therapist when her mom was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. That same day, she took over the clinic. She kept it running for nine years, treating clients, building a practice, and navigating grief in the in-between, while her mom fought. A year after losing her, Elizabeth opened Painted Brick Wellness: a multidisciplinary wellness collective in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, where six independent practitioners each run their own business under one roof. In this conversation, we get into what it looked like to hold a business together while saying goodbye to the person who built it. Elizabeth talks about the Coco framework of grief and what it means that her mom’s clients are still receiving care. We talk about the collective model, what she calls a path that was chosen, and why she built something bigger instead of carrying on alone. We close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be recognized for in your community? Find the Painted Brick collective at @paintedbrickwellness and paintedbrickwellness.com. The practitioners: @rmtelizabeth, @rmtzoe, @inertia.pw, @msmith.osteo, @urbanholisitichamilton, @myocaresolutions. And Elizabeth co-runs @outdoorsypals — free community hikes and coffee around Hamilton, open to everyone. Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail She walked into rooms nobody invited her to. Cold called every single day selling a technology most people had never seen. Heard no more times than she can count. And kept going anyway. Alex Graham is the founder of Me-Tour, a Hamilton company building 3D virtual tours for businesses, schools, and healthcare spaces. Think Google Street View, but for the inside of a building. She started it during COVID with no marketing background, no social media, and no blueprint. Just a stubborn belief that this technology mattered and that accessibility is a standard, not a feature. She auditioned for Dragon’s Den, two days after catching the stomach flu from her toddler, and kept going when it didn’t pan out. Then she landed Mohawk College. All four campuses. With a popped rib. We talk about what it actually takes to sell something nobody understands yet, why she cold calls every single day, and what she told a room full of business owners about networking that I haven’t stopped thinking about since. Find Alex at @me_tour_inc and me-tour.ca. Because your story matters. 🎙️

Send us Fan Mail She's spent two decades in pediatric medical and mental health and she still has to convince parents she's worth paying for. Michelle McVittie is a certified child life specialist and parenting coach behind Mom the Manager, and the recurring parenting expert on CHCH Morning Live. She works with families navigating ADHD, anxiety, and strong-willed kids — the ones therapy waitlists can't always reach fast enough. We get into the real gap nobody talks about: she's not covered by insurance, even though a therapist with a fraction of her experience often is. We talk about the shame that keeps parents from picking up the phone in the first place, and the thirty-second introduction she's built so specific that people remember her name in a room of strangers. We also ask her the question we ask everyone — if she started over tomorrow, what would she do differently. Find Michelle at momthemanager.ca and on Instagram @momthemanager. Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Amanda Gurman spent years being the person other women called when they finally had something they needed to say out loud. She's the host of the Honest as a Mother podcast, a three-time bestselling co-author, and the founder of Her Truth Press — a publishing house she built from scratch in Hamilton, Ontario for women who have been carrying a story they were told to keep quiet. In this conversation we get into all of it. How she went from suffering through postpartum depression in silence to building a platform that has given hundreds of women permission to tell the truth. Why she walked away from the self-publishing model she'd used for three books and built her own company instead. The moment she stopped calling her identity crisis a midlife crisis and renamed it a breakthrough. And how she gets women to share their most vulnerable stories in print — with their real names on the cover — just by showing up as herself. We close with the question we ask every guest on The Loew Down: what do you want to be remembered for in your community? Her answer is eight words. And it's the whole episode. Find Amanda at @amanda.gurman and Her Truth Press at @hertruthpress. Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Matus Baran has been the guy nobody calls unless they have to — and he’s completely fine with that. He runs Green Heat Bed Bugs Exterminators out of Hamilton, Ontario, doing 100% chemical-free heat treatment for bed bug infestations across Hamilton, Niagara, and the surrounding area. He bought the business from a guy he met in Cuba, built it from the ground up, and has been doing it for a decade. In this conversation, we get into the stigma nobody talks about — why people panic, why they beg him to drive an unmarked truck, and why bed bugs have nothing to do with how clean you are. We talk about the families in tears when he walks through the door, why heat treatment beats chemicals every single time, and what it’s like to build a business in an industry where word of mouth is almost impossible. And we close with Matus’s first Father’s Day coming up and what he wants his son to one day understand about this work. Find Matus at bedbugsexterminators.ca or on Instagram @greenheatbedbugs. Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Safiya didn't plan to open a clay studio. She planned to take a break. After 15 years in higher education, teaching, research, coaching, she quit her job, moved to Ancaster, and picked up pottery as a hobby. Something just for her. Then the job market dried up. Then she couldn't find a studio space. Then she gave herself six months, and she almost ran out of time. In this episode, Safiya gets into the full story: growing up in Dubai, starting a dessert subscription box business before moving to Canada, the long search for a space, and what it actually felt like to open a creative studio six months ago with no roadmap and a lot of faith. Safiya talks pricing, pivots, building community from scratch, the tension between keeping things affordable and running a real business, and why pottery and small business have more in common than you think. Safiya also shares a moment from her studio that stopped the conversation cold — a story about a family, a funeral, and what healing with your hands actually looks like. Find Safiya at @kreativeklay.ca on Instagram and at kreativeklay.ca Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Annette Smith of Lip Service Beauty has been through a winery fire, a year-long insurance battle, COVID, two Canada Post strikes, a tariff war — and this week, hackers wiped out eight years of her Instagram and Facebook in a single afternoon. Annette is a certified aromatherapist and cosmetic formulator who left a corporate district manager career to build Lip Service Beauty from scratch — starting on Etsy, growing to 30–40 products, wholesale, and in-person markets across Niagara and beyond. In this conversation: the 2022 winery fire and the insurance battle she had to fight alone. The playbook she’s built for surviving external chaos. What the hack actually felt like — and what she’s building instead. Why she’s not reinstating her personal accounts. And how she thinks about community over competition in a way most people talk about but don’t actually do. We close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be recognized for in your community? Find Annette at lipservicebeauty.ca and @lip.service.beauty on Instagram. Because your story matters.

Send us Fan Mail Holly Silenzi built Beyond the Bomb from scratch during COVID lockdown — a one-woman handmade bath bomb business out of Hamilton that became the original toy surprise bath bomb shop. Five years in, she’s one of the most respected makers in the city. Today she’s talking about something almost nobody in small business says out loud: copycats. What actually happens when someone takes what you’ve built — your products, your photos, your ideas, even your bio? Holly and Cassidy have both been through it. In this episode they get into the moment you first see it, the emotional hit that nobody warns you about, where inspiration ends and copying begins, what to do on social media (and what not to do), how to stay grounded and keep creating when you know someone is watching, and how you protect your business without losing yourself. Plus: Holly’s take on donation requests, building brand trust, and why focusing on your customer — not your competition — is the only strategy that actually works long term. Holly’s business: beyondthebombbath.ca | @beyondthebombbath The Loew Down: theloewdown.ca | @theloewdown.co

Send us Fan Mail Mersina opened Lion's Heart Family Martial Arts in Ancaster when she was 21 years old — with no business background, no financial cushion, and a school that had been open for exactly one year before COVID tried to take it all away. She's been running it for seven years. She has a 4th degree black belt, has represented Team Canada at the World Championships, and has built a school around one principle she will not compromise: make money to do karate. Don't do karate to make money. In this conversation, we get into what it actually cost her to stay true to herself when every school around her was pivoting. We talk about surviving COVID a year in, building radical inclusion into the DNA of the school, the parent who called expecting to be turned away because her daughter is deaf, and a solo trip to South Africa that gave the school its name. And we close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be remembered for in your community? Find Mersina at Lion's Heart Family Martial Arts on Instagram and Facebook, or in the business park in Ancaster. Listen to the Lions Den podcast with the kids. The Loew Down drops every two weeks. Find us on Instagram @theloewdown.co — because your story matters

Send us Fan Mail Kristi Grove has been running Tundra Leather on King Street East in Hamilton since 2015. The shop has been there since 1991. Her dad, Peter, built it. When he got sick and passed away, Kristi walked away from a stable finance job at McMaster University and took the reins — even though they never once talked about whether she would. In this conversation we get into how Peter started the shop, the moment Kristi knew she couldn't let it close, and what it actually felt like to step into a business she'd grown up inside of but never run. We talk about learning leather work from Sean — her dad's original hire — who learned it from Peter. About keeping a physical craft shop alive in downtown Hamilton in 2026. About the workshops that sell out every two months and what they've meant for the business and the community. And about what it's like to be a woman running a trade that still occasionally asks if the man is in. And we close with the question we ask every guest on The Loew Down — what do you want to be remembered for in your community? Kristi's answer is worth waiting for. Find Kristi: @tundraleather on Instagram · tundraleather.ca · 313 King St E, Hamilton · Open Tues–Fri 9–5:30, Sat 9–5 The Loew Down drops every two weeks. Find us on Instagram @theloewdown.co

Send us Fan Mail The best business advice Cassidy ever got didn't come from a book, a course, or a morning routine. It came from another small business owner who'd been exactly where she was and gave it to her straight. That's what's missing. So that's what she's building. Before you meet anyone else, meet Cassidy — former soapmaker, lip care and gift box creator, legal assistant, mom, and the quiet one in a group who somehow keeps finding her people. In this pilot episode she tells you who she is, why The Loew Down exists, and what you can expect every time you hit play. She gets into the rebrand from Allan Soaps to Loew and Co — what shifted, what stayed, and why her maiden name meaning lion in German had everything to do with it. She talks about moving to Hamilton before her first child was born, not knowing anyone, and finding that the small business community was the thing that finally made her feel like she belonged somewhere. And she answers the question she will ask every single guest before she ever asks anyone else. What do you want to be recognized for in your community? No guest today. Just the real story of why this show exists. The Loew Down — Real talk with Hamilton small business owners. Starting here and growing from there. Because your story matters.