I met Abbas Jaber less than two years ago at one of our community events.
The energy was undeniable. So was the passion. But what struck me most was something harder to name: the look in his eyes when he talked about what he was building. That particular combination of belief, courage, and full awareness of what he was stepping into.
Abbas arrived in Canada with dreams, with conviction, and with the courage that not everyone finds when they need it most. Because fear is real. I know that personally. Things go wrong, and sometimes the version of reality you face is not the one you were prepared for or willing to repeat. But the founders who keep going are not the ones without fear. They are the ones who have decided that fear is not a reason to stop. For Abbas, fear is a motor.
One of the things I admire most about Abbas is something many founders resist: he asks for help out loud.
He does not shy away from it. He walks in and says it directly. And then he does something equally important: he does not follow every piece of advice he receives. Because when you are building something, conflicting advice is the default. Everyone has a perspective. At some point it comes down to instinct, pattern recognition, and the courage to make a call that is your own. If you follow every voice in the room, you build something that looks like everything else. Abbas understands that. He appreciates the difference his own perspective brings, and he guards it.
What makes him rare is not the asking. It is the discernment that follows.
I have been in the room with Abbas when he has had to present. I have seen the kind of stillness that comes right before you commit in his eyes before he steps up.
And then he steps up anyway.
He says what needs to be said. He does what needs to be done. He finishes, takes the feedback, and the show goes on. And at the end, almost without fail, Abbas is smiling. We laugh together about what went wrong, what could have been better, and what he will do differently next time. That laugh is not avoidance. It is the satisfaction of someone who knows that every step forward, however imperfect, is still a step forward.
Trndzy is a social discovery platform built on a simple but powerful premise: people are tired of sponsored content and fake reviews. Real discovery happens through real relationships and real trust. Abbas is building the platform he always wished existed, and he is doing it the way all great things get built: by showing up consistently, listening carefully, and refusing to stop.
Abbas represents the most recent chapter of our community. Less than two years in Canada. Less than two years in our ecosystem. And already someone who has hosted his own events during Toronto Tech Week, taken the stage at TechTO, and built a company that is gaining real traction.
His story is short compared to Victor’s or Carlos’s or Bea’s. But that is exactly why it matters to tell it now.
Because this is what the beginning looks like when someone is doing it right. Not perfectly. But right.
As Global Startups turns 10, Abbas and Trndzy remind us of something we never want to forget: the most exciting stories in this community are always the ones still being written.
Are you a founder building something in Canada? This September, Global Startups is celebrating 10 years with a week of expert-led masterclasses designed to help companies at every stage grow faster and smarter. Seats are limited and vetted. See the full lineup and register at luma.com/globalstartups
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