Run, Breakfast & Panel (Building Commerce in an AI era) with ECOMsquare x RunAsYouAre
We've partnered up with RunAsYouAre to give a fun touch to our signature ECOMsquare Breakfast during the Vancouver Startup Week 2026. And as a member of our community, you get VIP access. RSVP to save your spot. LIMITED SPOTS available.
Join us to energize your week with a fast-paced run or walk around Vancouver!
It’s a great way to meet new people in your industry, build a healthy habit, and refresh your mindset. Some of our best ideas come while we’re outside.
After the run, stick around for a panel discussion featuring three subject matter experts on “How to Build Experiential Retail Through Technology.”
We’ll be announcing the speaker lineup soon—keep an eye out for the update! 👀
Shoes on, and see you soon!
Note: Running experience is highly recommended.
🗓️ When: Wednesday, April 29th at 8:00 am
- 30-40min of running (3-5km)
- 1 hr of discussions and networking
📍 Where: We start and end the event at the RunAsYouAre store.
🅿️ Parking: Only street parking is available.
Our Panelists
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Larry Lau is the Co-founder and CEO at RunAsYouAre, a leading run health brand and retailer striving to redesign your run by assessing how you move, matching you with the right footwear, and prescribing personalized exercises, ensuring you run comfortably and healthy.
Ryan Smith is CEO at Smith Horn Group, Founder of Skillsmith, x-Shopify Product Lead, a faculty member at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and workshop instructor at Northeastern University Vancouver through 021:Events. He previously founded a deep learning company, Digital Animal, and holds a US patent in computer vision.
Bijan Vaez is the Founder & CEO of Merchkit, an AI-native product catalog that gets product data ready for agentic commerce, and automatically generates product content that drives sales across all of the channels you sell on.
Prior to Merchkit, Bijan helped scale a high-growth D2C marketplace as CTO, where he architected the platform's expansion to $65M GMV and helped secured Series A funding. He currently serves as a Venture Partner at Antler VC, where he leverages his operational experience and past startup success to support portfolio companies in their growth journey.
Moderated by: Steve Krueger is the founder of Compass, an AI commerce operating system layer, and JIBE, an award winning commerce agency, and has over 20+ years building, leading, and investing in ecommerce brands. He has worked with organizations such as Arc'teryx, 7mesh, SEGA, GE, Grouse Mountain in helping craft beautiful commerce experiences.
ECOMsquare is a collaborative community of 2,000+ e-commerce creators, operators, and owners who are dedicated to growing the e-commerce industry in British Columbia. Our focus is on sharing knowledge, building community, and establishing lasting relationships to help entrepreneurs build successful, profitable, and sustainable e-commerce businesses.
We thank our monthly sponsor, JIBE, for its contributions to our community!
Since 2009, established brand and retail executives have turned to us for our expertise, passion and success in improving the performance of their eCommerce businesses. We partner with brands whose mission resonates with our values; one that our team wants to rally behind and that will inspire our collaboration. We help plan, build, execute, and grow D2C and B2B eCommerce-focused brands through technology implementation and performance marketing.