Sitting Down with the SVZ's Fall 2025 Cohort

This week at the SVZ, we saw the conclusion of our Winter 2026 cohort with a fantastic set of community pitches. As the W26 cohort has worked diligently on their business development, the cohort that came before them has had plenty of time to reflect on their progress, SVZ membership, and overall entrepreneurial growth. Our Communications Coordinator Jake brought together the founders (or a co-founder) from each F25 venture earlier this month to catch up. The Fall 2025 ventures are: 

SingWell, founded by Arla Good, Meghan Hila, Frank Russo, and Amber Krogel, addressing social isolation through radically accessible, research-informed group singing opportunities.

Ribenn, founded by Kalid Musse, working to provide affordable financial support, emergency repair help and trusted bike shop partners to Toronto's growing population of e-bike couriers.

MentorHub, founded by Joyeuse Senga, building a digital mentorship ecosystem with human connection, linking youth to mentors, opportunities, and growth.

Jake, SVZ: Thank you all for being here! Megan, I’ll start with you: what issue or issues are you working on, and what made it important to you?

Meghan Hila, SingWell: The problem that we're trying to solve is increased isolation for older adults in Toronto, and really eventually in Canada. And we are seeking ways to give this population access to group singing opportunities, because there is a lot of evidence based on Singwell's extensive research and networks around the world, that group singing can have significant positive impacts. I have been singing in choirs and groups since I was a child, so I personally know the benefits that come from group singing. I also have a background in music therapy, I was the Executive Director of Choral Canada, so I was seeing the amazing impacts that were happening for the population, but also seeing that there still weren't enough opportunities for people to sing in groups and access those benefits.

Kalid Musse, Ribenn: I'm working on creating a system that helps food couriers, especially those working on e-bikes. We noticed that the industry is increasing food delivery, and the majority of these individuals are using e-bikes as a better and cheaper way to move through the city, rather than buying a car and paying for parking tickets and things like that. I noticed that this industry is mainly newcomers, students; people that are trying to get extra income into their life. And they have lots of different issues that they face in this industry because of being a contractor. I wanted to be that bridge. 

Joyeuse Senga, MentorHub: I think part of it is really the personal experiences that I've had navigating coming out of high school and going to university abroad. I did my undergrad in the US and then moved to Canada as an immigrant. I think part of it is that we've seen that many youth leave school, especially high school, which is really a monumental part of life where you're kind of shaping up what you want to do with your career. So a lot of youth leave school very motivated. They want to build meaningful careers but really find themselves unaware of where to start. And so for us we really found that mentorship has been a way to boost confidence, unlock opportunities and help youth turn their ambition into actions.

K: We're trying to make the unclear clear. We're trying to create something that allows decisionmakers to understand what's going on, and be the company that provides the information that we need to address this issue

J: The biggest takeaway is really addressing the gap left by the lack of mentorship, ensuring that every youth has the support they need to navigate either their personal or professional growth. That's what we're really here for.

M: The most important thing about SingWell is that it's an evidence-based program that provides an opportunity for older adults to connect through music and through social interactions that are meaningful and well-researched.

J: I would say join SVZ earlier [Laughs], which I don't know if I could have changed, because I joined when I had already kind of built some things. Being able to go through the program and just learning and doing the theory of change, and thinking through my idea, I find that I'm having to go back with the knowledge that I've gained and make changes, which is not a bad thing. My advice for other people would be to leverage programs like this earlier in the process so that as you're going through these problems, you’re leveraging expert knowledge.

M: The only thing that would make our lives easier is if certain things that we wanted to happen might happen, but no, there's nothing that we would change at this point. At this point I can't really imagine us coming into this in a different way, except if we knew of some, you know, investment grant with no interest. [Laughs] Yeah, what everybody wants… we started to feel like maybe we'll find out from the SVZ about these, you know, injection funds to make us grow better…

SVZ: We know about secret money?

M: Yeah, [Laughs] that's not a lie, there was a little bit of like… I wonder if they know...

SVZ: Wouldn't that be great.

Sarah from across the office: Hey, sometimes we can make it happen. We have gotten our startups in front of the right people in the past!

M: Exactly! And I know that that stuff can happen.

K: Exactly.

K: No, because I feel like it wouldn't have gotten us to where we are today, right? Because there’s things you have to understand and do as much as you can to kind of work your way to a final understanding. Early on, we started with parking and charging. We wanted to say, okay, these individuals are having problems in the system, let's create something. And then it kind of went towards the benefits and the protection and all those things. But early on, even before the parking/charging, while I was doing my research on this, I had seen that there was not enough research. I could have seen that and said, this is the problem, but I didn't come from that angle because I didn't have the understanding, right? I just thought, okay, the research will come later on. Let me just solve this problem.

M: That's a really good question. I've never been asked that. If someone were to ask me to describe myself, I would not say I'm an entrepreneur, but do I have entrepreneurial skills based on my history and do I have an interest and passion for it? Absolutely. But this is my first opportunity to really flex those entrepreneurial skills with my co-founders.

M: My answer to them would be: there's a lot of things in life that you can do that can be fulfilling and exciting and where you can create change and make an impact in your community. And being an entrepreneur is one of those things and it's definitely a great choice, a great path to go down and to explore it. It's something I think that's within all of us in some way. It's just the opportunities have to present themselves, and you have to find those opportunities, and really believe in yourself.

K: I would like to piggyback off of that because I don't see myself as one hundred percent an entrepreneur yet, because there's certain criteria I definitely look for in an entrepreneur in my mind. I'm on that route. Right now, I'm more, to say, a ‘projectpreneur’. I've done a lot of projects in my life where I wanted to actually have some type of scale and bring something to the world. 

J: My advice is really to just speak to the communities that you're trying to serve and understand the solution that you're giving. We've discussed this at SVZ. I think sometimes as entrepreneurs we come with the solution, and we're like “this is what I'm going to do”, and then we go pilot and find that the community is looking for something different or they have other priorities.

M: We have definitely learned a lot.

SVZ: [Laughs] Okay, fantastic.

M: Yes, hands down.

SVZ: We were hoping. 

M: I think the main thing it did for us in particular, for me, was to help me learn that our focus needs to be less on our product and more on solving our problem. Because we know our product, we love our product, we want to share it, we want everyone to be singing in groups, but it's really helped us shift our focus to thinking about what is the problem that we're trying to solve. Because that's also what speaks to people when you're trying to share about ‘what change are you trying to make’. It's not “we want to have singing groups”, it's “we want to help people who are isolated be connected together in an evidence-based program”. So I think that shift is one of the biggest ones, and just essentially the tools, the resources, the structure. It felt like a mini MBA in a way.

J: There's so many components to building a startup and I think as a founder you forget that you cannot do everything. So it's coming back to reminding myself that I don't know everything, and I don't have to know everything, but rather: how do I leverage resources at the SVZ, or other resources in the community, to kind of strengthen the parts where I'm not really strong? Let's say I come from a different background, if it's like finance, or marketing, how do I leverage other resources that can provide that kind of knowledge? 

K: Yeah, I'm just thinking about my whole journey in the SVZ. From starting in Ideation, and everything else. I've come through the Social Ventures Zone and I appreciate the Social Ventures Zone because it creates a sense of belonging in a place where you’re accepted. You know, you come here with an idea of, I don't know, dog headphones [Laughs] and they’re still willing to listen. This is a place that actually helps you find who you are. A place where you belong. You feel you’ve found a place where you can actually do something, right? And that's the SVZ.

M: You can visit our website, singwell.ca (external link) . We’re also on Instagram (external link) , Facebook (external link) , and LinkedIn (external link) .

K: I'm more focused right now on LinkedIn (external link) . Message me. Send me anything. And if you're just curious about starting something from zero to one, I can help you with that. Maybe zero to 10, I don't know about that [Laughs]. But zero to one, I'm your guy. I can help you with that.

J: Our platform it's MentorHub (external link) . So, people can find us there. We are also on Instagram (external link)  as well. Personally, I'm on LinkedIn (external link) . I find that I love to just connect with people, especially as we're in the building phase looking to connect with other social entrepreneurs people that are in this space.