John and Malgosia Green started Savvica in Toronto three years ago. Savvica was run on a shoestring budget. John and Malgosia were hitting the pavement hard, working on financing deals, partnerships and generally promoting Nuvvo, a do-it-yourself online course community. It was hard, thankless work, and eventually it was time to make a decision. Running a startup out of your basement can be grueling. If you’ve been there, you can empathize, at some point you have to step back and re-asses.
So, after 2 years, John and Malgosia decided to take jobs in San Francisco. The benefits were obvious: Gain loads of experience, keep working in startups (they didn’t file themselves away in boring jobs), make connections and give themselves some financial breathing room.
Here is where their story takes a turn for the better however. Just when we all thought that Savvica was done for, John and Malgosia did the smart thing. They didn’t “go out of business”, or take down the site. They didn’t declare it a failure and start preaching about all the lessons they learned. Instead, they kept burning a little midnight oil, still looking for a deal or an opportunity, and most of all, they kept their dream alive.
Well, hard work pays off and things have finally turned around for Savvica. They have taken investment from an India-based e-learning company that was happy to have Savvica headquarter itself anywhere in North America. John and Malgosia packed up their things and headed straight back to Toronto.
If you know John and Malgosia, as most of us here in the Toronto tech scene do, you know they are not only hard working, but also incredibly helpful to other startups. We are all excited to have them back here in Toronto and we can’t wait to see them at DemoCamps, Torcamps and whatever other things are happening.
Savvica is hiring a handful of Rails engineers and I am sure there will be more hiring soon.
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