My Vote, My Future: Luke Aulin

Young voter Luke Aulin is taking matters into his own hands at his company (Luke Aulin)

Ahead of the BC election, Daily Hive is profiling young voters from across the province. Want to join in and share your thoughts? Email [email protected], subject line: My Future.

Who are you?

Luke Aulin.

How old are you?

37.

What do you do?

Founder/CEO of RTOWN, a digital marketing company serving small to medium-sized businesses all over British Columbia today.

Where do you live?

Vancouver.

Have you voted before?

Yes.

Do you plan on voting this time?

Yes.

Does your family influence how you vote?

I’d like to think they don’t but they most certainly do. I think this is true for everyone where politics finds its way to the dinner table growing up.

How closely do you follow BC politics?

Not as closely as I’d like to.

Do you know who your local candidates are?

Not yet.

Can you name the three party leaders?

Not yet, but I will educate myself thoroughly before I vote.

Would you ever consider running for office? Why/why not?

Hell no! I’m an entrepreneur. I’ll make the world a better place much faster outside of the public sector. Plus, I don’t think Canadians would want me in politics. I believe in personal accountability more than what the broader public’s appetite seems to be able to handle today.

What issues do you care most about?

Affordability and housing

I own and run a business with fantastic people headquartered in Vancouver. The affordability of housing in this city puts pressure on our team’s ability to grow our individual wealth while living here. This puts pressure on companies like ours as many small- to medium-sized businesses cannot afford to solve this problem by paying people more.

Even very large companies are being impacted by this. For example, Jimmy Pattison–one of BC’s richest employers–has even chimed in on the pain this is causing him. I don’t feel sorry for Jimmy, necessarily, as I have a feeling he can find a way to do more for the staff he’s losing. And not to pick on Jimmy, he does do good in many ways, but I do feel sorry for those business owners who want to help their teams grow financially but truly cannot afford to pay their staff more.

At our company, we’re not waiting for the government to solve this alone here. I know the government is trying things and I hope they don’t screw it up. How we are taking accountability for our part of this problem is by pivoting our business to find ways to hire people outside of Vancouver to grow our business profitably.

We’re also making everyone an owner in our business so our team’s personal long-term wealth creation will grow alongside the business we’re growing together. We also encourage our team to take part in this solution themselves. Want to earn more at RTOWN? Come up with new way our company can grow, bring that to the leadership team and earn a part, personally, in the upside you help create.

All people, not just our institutions need to take ownership over their own part of the solution to this problem.

Jobs and the economy

Our business, RTOWN, serves small- to medium-sized businesses around the entire province today and we’re expanding into the rest of Canada soon. Small businesses make up ~98% of the companies in our province and they employ most of BC’s people. Most companies in Canada fail by their third year in business. About 85,000 companies go out of business every year in Canada. When our customers go out of business, we feel it. When our employers go out of business, communities everywhere feel it.

One of the long term solutions connected to small business success, and therefore the economy and jobs, HAS to be educational reform. We all get 12 years of publicly funded education and people still come out not knowing about managing their finances, the tools of innovation, how to approach taking risks, etc.

Some of the knowledge we don’t get in this time will be faced by many people once they enter the “real world” – fixed or variable mortgage (hint: you can’t always trust your bank’s advice), own vs lease a car, etc. The list goes on and on and on.

We’re super passionate about life-long learning at our company so, again, we’re not waiting for the government to sort out the above idea alone. We educate our team on financial statements. This is so they can understand how we earn money and generate cash and also so that wherever they go next–if they leave (we hope they don’t!)–they can apply that knowledge to their next job.

The score kept by all companies is the same and since most people are employed by businesses, more people should learn about financial statements so they can understand how we earn money and generate cash – organizationally and individually.

Again, people need to do more themselves and own their own personal education plan. Hint: the internet is FULL of information you can access for very little money today. Go get smarter EVERY SINGLE DAY, folks!

Are you a young British Columbian and eligible to vote in the BC election? We would love to profile you. Email [email protected], subject line: My Future, to find out more.

Daily Hive is your home for BC Election coverage throughout the campaign period. To access our full BC Election coverage click here: Battleground BC.