Unplugged

Good morning. Between the Rogers outage and Elon Musk backing out of the Twitter deal, last week was a doozy. We have no doubt that Musk's, Twitter's and Rogers' legal teams are recovering from a rough weekend.

In this edition:📵 Rogers ghosts 🏡 A cooling housing market?💅 Money Crush Monday

— Vindhya Kolluru, Editor

TELECOM

Rogers customers took a collective cell and internet break

Don't worry, your texts went green on Friday because they're a Rogers customer. Jokes aside, we're here to talk about the serious repercussions of a nationwide cell and internet outage.

ICYMI: The Rogers outage began at around 4:30 am ET and hobbled cellular and internet access for the telecom's ~11 million wireless customers all day Friday, forcing people to flock to coffee shops, public libraries or their neighbours (who don't have Rogers) for WiFi. By Saturday morning, Rogers said cellular and internet service was restored for most of its customers.

• It's the second disruption for Rogers customers in under a year. In April 2021, the telecom giant's network went down due to an issue with a software update.

Why it's a big deal: The outage took down several services, including…

🚑 Emergency services: Many 911 services couldn't receive incoming calls. Some hospital communications, including appointment reminders, were also impacted.

💳Payments: With Interac down due to the outage, many businesses could only accept cash or credit cards, and people could not send e-transfers. The small businesses that use Interac likely lost out on thousands of dollars in sales on Friday because of the outage, Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told the Toronto Star.

🎶Events: Concert- and event-goers were told to print out their tickets at home for shows. Meanwhile, The Weeknd postponed his first global tour stop at Rogers Centre (ironic, huh?) due to the outage since the venue is cashless, and all food, beverage and merch sales are tied to the Rogers network.

🛫Travel: Travellers at airports could not withdraw cash, check the status of their flights or fill out ArriveCAN. Toronto Pearson, which relies on the Rogers network, was also unable to process papers due to the outage, worsening traffic at the busiest Canadian airport and a hectic travel season.

The bottom line: Cellular and wireless networks are a critical piece of infrastructure that businesses, transit systems, emergency services and venues rely on. Critics have pointed to the outages as evidence of a need for more competition — and customer choice — in Canada's telecom sector.

What this means for you: Rogers said it will proactively issue credits to customers affected by the outage. In total, Rogers could be on the hook for around $28 million. In the meantime, some experts suggest unbundling your internet services so that you aren't dependent on a single provider and Rogers is warning customers to be on the lookout for suspicious texts that claim to be offering credits.

Bad timing: The outage comes at a critical time for Rogers, which is in the process of taking over rival Shaw Communications in a deal worth $26 billion. Canada's competition watchdog is scrutinizing the deal over concerns that the merger will further lessen competition in Canada's telecom sector.

— Vindhya Kolluru

On our radar

• At the age of 34, Rihanna is now the youngest self-made billionaire. The massive success of Fenty Beauty, which Rihanna co-owns with LVMH, propelled her to 21st place on Forbes’ 2022 list of America’s richest self-made women. B*tch better have my money, indeed.

• Erin Bury, the CEO and co-founder of the online estate planning platform Willful, penned a guest post in BetaKit on how to prepare for parental leave as a founder—from planning your leave two years ahead of giving birth to the few weeks in the lead-up to returning to work.

• The founders of biomedical startup Axolotl Biosciences, Laura De La Vega, Stephanie Willerth and Laila Abelseth, chatted with Victoria Tech Journal on their development of stem-cell-based bioinks. These tissues mimic human stem cells and are designed to speed up the drug discovery process, which is typically long and arduous.

• In an open letter, more than 50 Canadian business leaders and investors called on tech companies here and south of the border to support workers that have been affected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Some of the signatories of the letter include Real Ventures managing partner Janet Bannister and Mejuri CEO Noura Sakkijha.

• Knix Wear, a Canadian apparel brand that sells leakproof underwear, agreed to sell an 80% stake in the company to Stockholm-based hygiene product company Essity. Joanna Griffiths, founder and CEO of Knix, called the partnership a dream come true.

• Queenly, an online garment marketplace that sells formalwear for women, bought Mi Padrino, which specializes in selling quinceañera dresses. Since its founding in 2017, Queenly has raised more than US$9 million in funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Austen Allred.

HOUSING

To buy or to not buy is the question

Despite the warm summer weather, two of Canada’s hottest real estate markets — Toronto and Vancouver — are feeling a chill with drops in home sales and selling prices.

The deets: There was a 41% year-over-year decrease in home sales in the Greater Toronto Area and a 35% year-over-year decrease in the Greater Vancouver Area in June.

• Toronto home prices also dropped for the fourth month in a row, bringing the average cost down to $1.14 million.

• Meanwhile, the benchmark home price in Vancouver sits at $1.2 million, up more than 10% in the past year but down by more than 2% over the past three months.

What's driving it: Between economists warning of a recession, the Bank of Canada (BoC) predicted to raise interest rates another 75 basis points to 2.25% and inflation at decade highs, it is no surprise that the housing market is showing some signs of a slowdown.

• When the overnight rate rises, borrowing costs associated with a home purchase increase and can affect mortgage rates. Higher interest rates have a ripple effect across the whole market as purchasing power goes down, leading to fewer sales overall and lower sale prices.

What’s next: A recent TD Economics report predicts Canadian home sales could decline by 23% this year and have a cooling effect on prices through 2023.

Reality check: Despite a drop in sales and an ever-so-slight drop in prices, homeownership is still out of reach for many people, no matter how many brunches or avocado toasts they forgo. Housing affordability is the lowest in over 30 years, with 9% of Canadian adults giving up on their dreams of ever owning a home.

— Sabrina Dotsch

Things we read and we liked

🏠 If you read the story above, you know $250,000 won't get you far in Canada's housing market. But you could move to Minnesota and bid that money on this adorable Barbie house.

🐻 The little-known origins of bear and bull markets.

🧠 Some evidence-backed strategies to help you deal with work stress.

🎖 Maryna Viazovska, a Ukrainian mathematician, became the second woman to ever earn the Fields Medal, often dubbed the Nobel Prize for mathematics.

MONEY CRUSH MONDAY

Maya Adly built a booking platform for personal services

Today, Btchcoin is spotlighting Maya Adly, the founder and CEO of ROAR. Founded in 2021, ROAR bills itself as the OpenTable for personal services (like nail 💅 and hair 💇🏻‍♀️ appointments) and serves 200+ small- to medium-sized businesses in the Vancouver and Edmonton markets…and it’s just getting started.

On her 5 am morning routine: I wake up at five in the morning because I love to get my personal items out of the way to feel human and to get in the zone. I usually go for a half-hour walk with my dog, Ava, then I do my 30 minutes of meditation on the balcony, get my workout in, eat breakfast, and then get ready for the day. By around 7:30, I’m prepping for the day ahead and my meetings usually start around 8:30.

WFH essentials: Blue screen glasses, music, coffee, mangoes to snack on and Ava by my feet.

Favourite books: Relentless by Tim Grover and Situational Leadership & The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard.

Read the full Q&A to learn how Maya Adly made the leap from corporate life to entrepreneurship and what she’s learned in her journey so far.