AS a technologically inclined teenager, Ruben Daniel Ugarte knew there was money to be made on the Internet.
He just needed to figure out how to do it.
Through trial and error, the Sutherland secondary student taught himself HTML and website-building skills, and started brainstorming business ideas.
Today, at 21 years old, he is CEO of Edukaans, an online platform that allows clients to distribute educational material on the web.
"Basically we build the software that makes it easy for anyone to monetize their educational video content," Ugarte explains.
What that means is organizations that hold seminars or training courses, and want to sell that content online, can hire Edukaans to take care of video conversion, video delivery, account management, and whatever else is required.
Ugarte, who moved to North Vancouver from Honduras with his family when he was 12, founded Edukaans with his father.
They settled on the business concept after talking to a number of local professional associations that hold conferences and seminars.
"They kept telling us that if they could find a way to deliver that content online, back to their members, that could be something they'd be willing to pay for."
In late 2011, Ugarte secured some funding from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. He officially started selling his services in the summer of 2012 and now has eight clients, both Canadian and American.
One client is a New York-based dance fitness video company.
"They've been selling that content on the DVD format for the past 10 years, but now they wanted to move to online delivery, online streaming," Ugarte says.
He worked with the company to convert all its DVDs into online videos. Now customers can rent access to the online videos for periods of time.
Another client in Texas invented a medical device used by U.S. doctors.
"They have a lot of doctors buying the device but they wanted to provide training on the device to the doctors," Ugarte says.
So the Texas company created a series of how-to videos and hired Edukaans to make those videos accessible through an online subscription.
Now that Ugarte has established a client base, he is focused on growth.
"We're just trying to add more clients. We're very close to becoming cash flow positive. Once we do that, we're able to grow the team, perhaps look for outside funding, and just see what other opportunities we have," he says. "I think there's a lot of different markets that could use the same technology."
