Top 40: Steve Cowburn
Okanagan Edge Staff - Feb 09, 2018 - Columnists

Image: Contributed

This year, Okanagan Edge and the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce have partnered to showcase some of the Okanagan’s most exciting entrepreneurs, through the Top 40 Under 40 program.

Sponsored by BDO, the Top 40 Under 40 recognizes innovative young professionals in our community and showcases their accomplishments.

Okanagan Edge will feature a new honouree each week, so check back often.

This week we recognizeSteve Cowburn of Perfit Dental Solutions.

Image: Contributed

Steve Cowburn graduated with his Bachelor of Commerce while working full time for a major corporation in Edmonton.

Upon graduating, he moved to Calgary with his brother, where they started the largest chain of denture clinics in Western Canada.

They quickly grew the company to four locations but got frustrated with the lack of technology. After growing their operations to $2 million, it was clear to them the existing technology made it difficult to scale.

With eight years operating clinics and waiting for technological innovations that didn’t arrive, they made the bold decision to sell everything to focus on developing a technology of their own.

They chose the Okanagan for the project, which Cowburn says was the “obvious choice” to start a new business in digital dentistry.

Their new company, Perfit, was established in 2015, with two employees. Within months it had developed the world’s first fully digital denture – a temporary flipper denture – taking a process that used to take weeks and making it possible in hours.

And Perfit Dental Solutions is still growing quickly. Leveraging a new digital workflow, the company has grown to nine employees and has attracted talent from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and recently a from France to fill the role of CTO.

Perfit has also recently been recognized as an Emerging Rocket in the digital healthcare industry. The company has experienced 584 per cent  growth in 12 months of operations.

As the Co-Founder and CEO Cowburn’s  passion for his business is often unparalleled; from picking up a hammer to literally “build the business from the ground up” to being a “first-in and last-out” type of CEO.

According to Stacey MacAulay, Cowburn’s teamwork and ability to overlook seniority in order to make sure his team has the support he needs is acclaimed.

Recently, Steve has also started to give basic business advice to other Accelerate Okanagan startups on raising capital and growing beyond small business.


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