We had the good fortune of connecting with Shannon Ferguson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shannon, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
In 2017, my co-founder Kris and I were managing the sales and marketing of two minor professional hockey teams and while selling sponsorship (rink boards, scoreboard ads, coupons in the game-day program), businesses kept telling us they wanted more out of their sponsorship dollars, they wanted something digital, something that drove people into their business and tracked customer demographics and return on investment. We didn’t have anything like that to offer them, so we created FanSaves.

FanSaves is a digital platform that offers fans dicsounts and deals from sponsors and affiliated brands of their favorite sports teams, events, schools, media and influencers. We like to say that everyone is a fan of something and FanSaves helps you save money just for being a fan!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Founding and scaling a startup is no joke. It’s the opposite of easy and completely different from the first small business (a marketing company) I started and ran before co-founding FanSaves. As non-techinical co-founders, Kris and I have had to learn so much about app and webapp development, hiring the right development team and ensuring our product keeps improving.

We are now a team of 11 and working with over 45 organizations and offering more than 600 deals from brands and businesses across North America and I often look back to the challenges we had at the beginning and how they have changed as we’ve grown. It’s so true what they say, that growing won’t solve your problems and usually just creates new ones.

But I love a good challenge and problem solving is sometimes the most exciting part of running a startup. We’ve really got to where we are today by continuously overcoming challenge after challenge. Kris and I both grew up playing competitive hockey (he played pro for seven years) so we have both have a very competitive nature and we are incredibly resilient.

Being resilient has been one of the most important parts of our business and of our growth. Never giving up and never taking no for an answer. Hearing no and believing that it’s for a reason, knowing that we just have to keep improving and one day it will work out. It’s like the quote “Fall down seven times, get up eight”.

As a startup founder, you ALWAYS have to keep getting back up. It’s like in hockey, when you fall down in the middle of the play you don’t just stay down, you get up and you push harder and when the game is over you practice evern harder so you can be better next time.

We always relate so much of our success and growth to competitive sports and that resilience we have is such a big part of our brand. We share all our wins but also the learning opportunities. We share the journey (especially through our Living the Startup Podcast) and we always give back as much as we can to the startup community because being real and letting others know they aren’t alone on the rollercoaster is very important to us.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
This is such a great question and exactly where FanSaves comes in handy. We partner with a lot of Tourism, Chambers of Commerce and Downtown BIAs so that people who are visiting cities can become a fan of that area, follow that FanPage and see deals for great places to check out!

Since Covid, we’ve become an entirely remote team with employees across Canada and contractors in the US. Kris and I have been afforded the opportunity to travel and work from anywhere. While our home base is in the Eastern Ontario/Ottawa area we truly feel like we are taking advantage of the new digital nomad lifetsyle. Currently, we’re visiting Florida and checking things out here.

This allows us to always be discovering new places, people and organizations that can benefit from FanSaves, which is one of my favorite parts of the business! If you’re ever in the Ottawa or Cornwall area I’d encourage you to follow both cities (Ottawa Board of Trade, Explore Cornwall) on FanSaves to see all the amazing things to do in those areas!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to dedicate this shoutout to my FanSaves co-founder and life partner, Kris McCarthy. When I met Kris, I was going through a hard time in life after my Mom passed away. He helped lift me up and constantly continues to shine a bright light into my life. Kris has been a big factor in how I have found my voice as a woman in sports-tech over the past few years. He is very in-tune with the gender bias in our industry and while I used to ignore it, he ensures to let other men know that I am the driving forced behind out company.

Being a woman in sports, I am sometimes overlooked and people have even asked if I’m Kris’s secretary. Kris is always eager to correct them and let them know I am actually the CEO. This type of support truly means so much to me and I woudln’t want to be on this startup journey with anyone but him. We are such an amazing team and I feel very lucky that we get to to life and business together.

Another shoutout goes to my Mom who was a true driving force and taught me everything I know about entrepreneurship, as she was an entrepreneur herself. Losing her was a pivotal and terribly hard time in my life but I know that she continues to be with me everything step of the way and that I am never alone. I am so grateful for all the amazing things she taught me and the love she surrounded me with everyday.

Website: www.fansaves.com and www.shannonferguson.ca

Instagram: @fansaves and @shanferg12

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/shannonferguson12

Twitter: @fan_saves and @TheRealShanFerg

Facebook: www.facebook.com/fansaves

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