Borderless AI’s Make It Click podcast continues its look at the founders and operators behind Canada’s most interesting technology companies with a conversation about fintech, timing, and building around a problem worth solving.
In Episode 2, host Willson Cross sits down with Andrew Graham, CEO and co-founder of Borrowell, for a 53-minute conversation about building one of Canada’s leading consumer finance platforms.
Borrowell has grown from an early-stage idea into a fintech company used by nearly four million Canadians. The platform helps people access credit, understand their financial health, and make more informed financial decisions. Graham, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year award winner, has led the company from its early days at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Digital Media Zone to becoming one of the country’s best-known fintech brands.
The episode traces Graham’s path from political staffer to Harvard MBA to corporate executive, before eventually leaving a more conventional career track to pursue entrepreneurship. As Graham explains in the conversation, Borrowell did not begin with a fully formed product roadmap. It began with a problem he could not stop thinking about.
That idea sits at the centre of the episode: founders do not always need the perfect startup idea before they begin. Sometimes they need to fall in love with a problem, stay close to customers, and keep working until the right solution becomes clear.
The conversation also explores some of the less visible challenges of building a fintech company in Canada. For Borrowell, that included the complexity of fundraising for a lending business, building trust with consumers, scaling a financial platform, and finding ways to grow in a competitive market.
For Canada’s tech talent ecosystem, the episode offers a useful look at what it takes to build a durable company over more than a decade. Borrowell’s story is not only about product-market fit or user growth. It is also about hiring, resilience, remote-first company building, and the discipline required to keep solving the same customer problem as the company scales.
The discussion also touches on how Borrowell has grown by understanding consumer behaviour and market dynamics, including how the company has turned competitor advertising into its own growth opportunity. It is a reminder that strong companies are often built by teams that understand both the customer and the category better than anyone else.
As with other episodes of Make It Click, the conversation is especially relevant for founders, operators, HR leaders, and talent teams interested in how Canadian technology companies are built from the inside. Graham’s journey shows that there is rarely a perfect time to take the leap, but there can be lasting value in committing to a meaningful problem and building through the uncertainty.
Watch the full episode of Make It Click below.
Borderless AI is a sponsor of Techtalent.ca. Through its Make It Click series, the company is spotlighting conversations with technology leaders about company building, talent, AI, and the future of work.