Building subLime

Carly and Nick Kitchener have poured their heart and souls into health and wellness software they’ve been building for five years.

On May 18 they’ll showcase that passion to a panel of investors on CBC’s popular reality show Dragons’ Den.

The married couple and business partners auditioned for the show when producers stopped in Thunder Bay at the Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel and Suites two weeks ago looking for fresh business ideas.

The Kitcheners are, of course, looking for funding from the dragons, but they’re also looking for expertise.

"They’re all very successful business people and hopefully they have some skills we can also add value to their money that we’re hoping to secure," said Carly Kitchener.

The pair own a software development company – obZest, Inc. – and their software, subLime is a software package that enables users to reflect on everything that’s happened in their lives and use it to make effective changes in their lifestyle, said Carly.

"The reasons they would make this change is to prevent illness and to encourage wellness," she said. "It’s something we believe can improve public health and basically people’s lives today."

SubLime isn’t just a product; it’s something the couple hopes to do good with.

"There’s no question whether there’s a market for what we’re doing," Carly said. "We’re really believe in it … we believe we’re facing a health crisis in society today that needs to be addressed and we believe we’re part of that."

She added they’d like to see subLime go global in the future and said it can be used with public health initiatives, workplace wellness programs, schools and wellness professionals like naturopaths and personal trainers can use it with their clients.

Locally they’ve presented the idea to the Community Economic Development Commission in hopes of securing government funding and Carly said they’ll continue to trudge forward if Dragons’ Den doesn’t come through.

And while the pair is a bit nervous about their upcoming presentation, they’re also excited and a little shocked.

"Not so much shock that we’re surprised our product is worthy, but you’re competing with a lot of people and a lot of good ideas and a lot of innovation," Carly said. "We feel very fortunate, very blessed to have the opportunity to present to them."