DARRYL DEEN—BUSINESS CATALYST

Starting out as a self-taught techie, I was a natural entrepreneur as far back as I can remember, eventually building several reputable companies and trailblazing products that were eventually acquired by various parties and investment companies.

From a young age, I excelled at sales and service. I was a top-rated and oft-promoted technical support rep for companies like Compaq Canada and Dell Canada, a top-performing sales rep at Discount Car Rental, and a disciplined technical project manager for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Unilever Canada.

As a teenager I built computers from scratch and sold them to friends, family, and small businesses. It wasn’t long before I started moonlighting supporting small businesses.

I BEGAN WITH D-TECH

By my early 20s I had created D-Tech Consulting, my first company and immediately dedicated all my attention to building and expanding it with aspirations of growth from being a one-man company to a polished multimillion dollar organization.  I grew D-Tech into an industry-leading Managed IT Services company generating just under $5MM per year and with approximately 25 employees. I sold it in 2019.

THEN CAME SHIFT

While building D-Tech I saw opportunity in the Condo Property Management industry. I built my first software—Nexus/Condo Community Websites—in 2002, and eventually became the market leader with 1500 of the 85,000 condominiums in Ontario using our platform.

We continued to create more and more condo software products. Conduit—an industry first and today’s market leader—was built in 2008. The rapid successes of both these software products required a new company, which we called Shift.
With two successful products, I decided to tackle a monster of an idea: building an accounting package from scratch for the condo industry. Today that accounting package accounts for 20% of all Ontario condominiums’ monthly financial tracking statements.

BUT THE COMPANIES NEEDED TO BE SPLIT UP

This momentum eventually led me to build a digital marketing agency called Shift Engage, and a specialized condo software company called Shiftsuite. The birth of these three properties—D-Tech; Shift; Shiftsuite—and some key branding and strategy principles demanded their separation. I set up a family trust for future planning and created two companies for legal, financial, and exit strategy purposes. The foresight to create the family trust saved millions of dollars in taxes during the sale of each company. Shiftsuite was acquired by a private equity group, in which I’m involved in a part-time basis and as an investor.

20 YEARS

From a one man show to building two distinct business, conceptualizing, creating and developing several industry-changing products and ultimately selling them to third parties, I acquired multiple lifetimes of skills, experience, and knowledge. Along the way I made the usual mistakes and met amazing people, many of who have become dedicated associates.

I’m now ready to be the catalyst in your business. To help you create attainable strategies and tactics that support and further your goals, to work at your side overcoming pain points, and with hiring the right people and building solid processes.