PORCH 

It's hard out there and exponentially harder for an immigrant entrepreneur. 

The existing ecosystem is only focused on business needs. But we all know you can't build a billion-dollar business (or any business) if you can't live happily in a new country. 

PORCH is an exclusive club of international entrepreneurs who have been there, done that, and are still doing it. They have come together to support one another on the personal side of the journey (from living to finance to relationships) to learn and grow and to share their superpowers.

This comes to life through events and community. 

PORCH Events include topical sessions with high-profile speakers and experts and highly engaged IRL events focused on relationships, learning and fun.
PORCH Community: 24/7 real-time discussion and support through the active PORCH platform, on-demand resources and content for asynchronous learning, and powerful perks.

PORCH was built to level the playing field and give you a greater chance at success.

Founder / COO

Unfiltered w/ PORCH

They say entrepreneurship is hard. Well, try doing it in a country where you weren’t born, in a language that isn’t your first, with a social network you’ve had to build from scratch. 

That’s the story of the immigrant entrepreneur. However, the biggest problem is the story is rarely told from the POV of the immigrant. So, let’s change that. 

Welcome to Unfiltered w/ PORCH, where we explore what it means to be an immigrant entrepreneur from the POV of the immigrant.  Real stories. Real journeys. Immigrant entrepreneurship, told by those who have lived it.

Co-Creator

HunterMorris

I wear many hats, but they all point in the same direction: helping brands communicate clearly, creatively, and consistently. I lead full-scale marketing initiatives with a strong focus on storytelling, design, and strategy.

My primary role with companies is with Newsletter Creation: I manage end-to-end creation of monthly newsletters for multiple companies, from CRM setup, content planning and writing to design, distribution, and analytics.

Other projects have included ongoing graphic design (logos, social content & graphics, etc), many website design projects (from full website builds to revamps), and full community builds.

Founder

WeitzmanGTM

Intuitive AI

Sales And Market Development

Look Media

Sales and Business Development

Oil Thigh Designs (OTD)

Managed team of 5 responsible for in-store processes such as payment collection, inventory, POS functionality, and managing International Shipping program. Oversaw e-commerce and retail store sales channel growth.

E-Commerce Director

Digital Operations Coordinator

Smith School of Business at Queen's University

Working as a Teaching Assistant for COMM 161: Introduction to Mathematical Analysis for Management (Calculus) and COMM 162: Managerial Statistics

Teaching Assistant

Cam's Kids Foundation

Cam’s Kids Event Head

Tree2Table Originals

Founded an e-commerce business making handmade charcuterie boards, managing production, sales, and website/social media marketing

Founder / COO @PORCH – helping 1M immigrant entrepreneurs succeed in Canada

Combining my passion for entrepreneurship and desire to make a change with my first startup, PORCH. 

1.  My job is to make the journey as an immigrant entrepreneur easier.
2. I am a firm believer that community, when done right, is so powerful.
3. The diversity of Canada is truly beautiful and the possibilities are endless. Everyone just needs access to the right people and resources to succeed.

One specific event didn't inspire me to be an entrepreneur. For me, it was something that I was passionate about since I was very young. Whether it was watching Dragon's Den with my dad or spending the long car ride hours on the way to hockey games coming up with full businesses, being an entrepreneur was what I have always wanted to do.

Fast forward through years of entrepreneurship classes in high school, participating in youth business and entrepreneurship competitions, and starting a few small businesses of my own, I entered my fourth and final year of the Smith School of Business at Queen's University, and I decided it was time to put my education, experience, and passion to the test and go after my dream of starting a true business.

After working with some great companies (Intuitive AI, Look Media, Knoow) and also starting my own custom charcuterie board business during the pandemic (which was such an incredible experience), I learned about the endless effort it took to run a startup/company.

So, in October of 2022, I founded PORCH, an exclusive club of international entrepreneurs that have been there, done that, and are still doing it. They have come together to support one another on the personal side of the journey (from living to finance to relationships) to learn and grow, and to share their superpowers.

It was a full circle from those long nights on the couch watching Dragons Den and Shark Tank. I have the honour and privilege to be able to pursue this entrepreneurial journey with my co-founder, friend, and Dad.

We need more of this. Let's make the world a better place.

Countries I have been to:
Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Monaco, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Australia, Dominican Republic, U.S.A, Vatican City

Hunter Weitzman

Bell

• Build data solutions for the 10,000+ workers who repair, maintain, and build the Bell network
• Tasked on the Virtual Repair and Wi-Fi Checkup team (go try them yourself on the MyBell or Virgin app under the Support tab!)
• Created Bell's first customer-driven live outage detector and alert system that uses customer reports from Virtual Repair to instantly detect upticks in reports on a given network element, along with detailed diagnostic and report data to reduce outage identification and resolution time by up to 1.5 hours (plus 20 minutes faster than Downdetector on average); this also created 15 new opportunities on other teams including TCMO and NOC, plus won an Excellence & Innovation Award
• Work in cross-functional teams that included analysts, programmers, AI/ML developers, data scientists, and ETL engineers

Developer, Data Science

• Completed university during this time

Incoming Data Scientist

• Built a preliminary machine learning model that detects errors and fraud in the contractor space to save $90,000+ per year (project has since expanded to save $500k+ per year and was used as a basis to explore anomaly detection applications in other spaces)
• Accepted full-time return offer as a Data Scientist

Field Services Business Intelligence Analytics Developer Intern

Queen's Data Analytics Association

• Lead a team of 18 students to create speaker panels, hackathons, and educational material on the data analytics industry
• Took initiative to bridge the data divide by securing a recurring annual $10,000 DataCamp Donates scholarship, which grants free DataCamp subscriptions to students in need, plus increased accessibility by creating Queen’s first low-code reenforcement learning hackathon in partnership with AWS on their DeepRacer platform

Co-Chair

Logistic Coordinator

Queen's Project on International Development (QPID)

• Help 10 interns fundraise $25,000 total to fund global summer internships at non-profits and NGOs
• Host a 100+ delegate conference and raise money for the Kingston Youth Shelter and awareness about youth homelessness

Finance & Alumni Outreach Facilitator

• Led a team in seeking out sponsors to raise money for the Kingston Youth Shelter and awareness about youth homelessness
• Spearheaded the creation of a corporate sponsorship portfolio to fund international development projects and internships

Sponsorship Director

Queen's Capital

• Co-manage a university-wide student-led investment fund of North American equities, spread across 2 portfolios and 6 
sectors, with placement in the Diversified sector group that achieved a 15% annualized return in the last fiscal year
• Construct and present stock pitches and sector updates by employing qualitative and quantitative valuation techniques
• Created a public newsletter outlining the business, market, and political news that reached 100+ active readers every week

Senior Portfolio Manager, Consumers & Healthcare

Portfolio Manager, Diversified

Analyst, TMT

Junior Analyst

Queen's Trading Committee

• Host weekly educational initiatives about the finance industry for the public, including speaker events and presentations
• Publish reports and educational material to 1000+ followers across multiple different platforms and mediums

Senior Analyst

Analyst

Queen's University

• Managed database of 10,000+ patrons to fulfil booking, transaction, and distribution logistics of 500+ different rooms
• Took initiative to create a contactless digitized document distribution solution utilizing QR code slips and a website I designed and developed, which saved 15,000+ pages of paper waste, decreased contact, and increased accessibility and satisfaction
• Overhauled the Recommended Restaurants guide to include in-document clickable bookmark hyperlinks and standardized formatting to increase search speeds for patrons by over 50%

Guest Service Representative (Summer Conference Season)

Walmart Canada

• Helped spearhead the launch of Walmart Online Grocery and the subsequent DoorDash integration for the Oshawa location
• Took initiative to recommend and implement process improvements to certain pick routes to increase pick efficiency by 22%
• Coordinated 5+ employees to fulfil up to 10 customer orders of up to 50 different items from shelf to car in under 5 minutes

OMNI Customer Experience Salesfloor Associate

I'm So Board

• Led the finance department of a student start-up with 20+ employees for the Junior Achievement Central Ontario Company Program where I oversaw accounting, budgeting, forecasting, and production
• Manufactured and sold board games promoting wildfire prevention and relief efforts and donated profits of $1,000+ in sales to Alberta wildfire prevention and relief funds

Co-Founder and Vice President of Finance

Patçhion

• Led the finance department of a student start-up with 10+ employees for the Junior Achievement Central Ontario Company Program where I oversaw accounting, budgeting, and forecasting
• Made and sold mental health awareness products and raised $100+ for the Canadian Mental Health Association

“You have to be odd to be number one” -Dr. Seuss

Not only does that quote incorporate my love of numbers, but it also represents how I approach life by pushing myself to think outside the box. I love innovation, strive for optimization, and embrace change no matter what circumstance I am in. Whether that is the analysis of data, optimization of a business process, or formulation of a new product or strategy, my unique background, extensive skill set, and creative mindset serve me to approach problems with a novel way of thinking.

This leads me to today, where I am a Data Scientist at Bell Canada. I have a keen interest in data science, digital technology, strategy, product, and business development and optimization. Outside of school, you can find me playing bocce ball, board games, or experimenting with new photography mediums (cinemagraph is my new favourite)!

If you would like to talk further about anything, feel free to contact me at: benkostiuk4@outlook.com


𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀
• Recently completed courses in data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning
• Attained two data science class top project awards for an NFT Shill Bidding Detector and Predicting Productivity in the Garment Industry
• Recently completed an internship at Bell, where I used machine learning to build an anomaly detection model

taplio

The Battle

Hunter Weitzman

Benjamin Kostiuk

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