Brendon Sedo

About

Brendon Sedo studied entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, graduating in 2011, and ran Deco Windshield Repair Inc. as a managing partner while still in school. After a brief run co-founding Recroot, an applicant-tracking tool for service businesses, he teamed up with Justin Kathan and, soon after, technical co-founder Michael Gauthier to build Joist, launched in August 2012 out of Winnipeg. The idea grew out of a custom iPad app the founders had built to run their own mobile service company, which drew enough client interest to become a standalone product for small contractors doing estimates and invoices from their phones. Joist moved its headquarters to Toronto and later to Silicon Valley in search of technical talent, a move that preceded layoffs of 60 to 100 staff in 2016. Sedo, originally the company's COO, took over as CEO in January 2018, shut down the Silicon Valley office, and rebuilt the team back in Toronto around the core mobile product. By the time EverCommerce (NASDAQ: EVCM) acquired Joist in August 2019, the app had more than 115,000 active contractor customers; it has since grown to claim over 850,000 contractors and roughly $2 billion processed annually. Sedo stayed on through the transition, launching the Joist Pro subscription product as Co-Founder and President before the company folded into EverCommerce's EverPro suite. After Joist, Sedo spent time with the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, a New Zealand-based program for entrepreneurs and investors, before moving into crypto. In August 2022 he became an initial contributor to Core (Core DAO), a proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain built around Bitcoin. Based now in Lisbon after stints in Winnipeg and Mexico City, he leads Core's Web2 business development partnerships and oversees Core Ventures and the Core Venture Network, which funds builders in the ecosystem, and describes himself as an angel investor on the side.

Work and impact

Sedo built one of the more durable Canadian SaaS exits of the last decade: Joist scaled from a two-founder side project into a contractor platform with well over 100,000 paying customers and, according to Core Ventures' own bio of him, fintech products used by more than 1 million small and medium businesses processing roughly $2 billion a year before its sale to EverCommerce (NASDAQ: EVCM). He took over as CEO during a difficult stretch for the company, cutting back a Silicon Valley office and rebuilding around Toronto rather than walking away. He now applies that operating experience to Core, where he is credited with securing integrations with more than 10 major blockchain projects and running the venture arm that funds builders on Core's Bitcoin-based chain. Contractors who still use Joist, and the founders Core Ventures backs, are the two constituencies most directly shaped by his work.

Canadian story

Sedo is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he studied entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba and ran his first ventures, including Deco Windshield Repair Inc. and the recruiting startup Recroot. Joist, the company he co-founded and later led as CEO, was built and headquartered in Winnipeg and then Toronto before its 2019 sale to EverCommerce. He has since lived abroad, including in Mexico City and now Lisbon, but his formative business experience and best-known company are rooted in Canada.

Highlights

• Co-founded Joist, a contractor estimating/invoicing app (founded Winnipeg, 2012)
• CEO of Joist, 2018-2020; COO, 2012-2018
• Joist acquired by EverCommerce (NASDAQ: EVCM), August 2019
• Studied Entrepreneurship, University of Manitoba, graduated 2011
• Initial Contributor, Core DAO / Core Ventures, since August 2022