Complaining about a lack of options for internet providers is a favourite Canadian pastime. Across the country, it seems like a ritual to jump between Bell or Rogers.
With such a lack of competition, Canadians often pay a premium for telecommunication services, often spending more than $100 per month.
But one Halifax company is taking on the big providers to create more competition in the industry. In 2019, longtime friends Bradley Farquhar and Joe Power created Purple Cow Internet with the goal to offer lower prices and, most importantly, tremendous customer service. Right now, the company is offering internet for $60 per month to customers across Nova Scotia.
“The two big guys that are here in Nova Scotia; most Nova Scotians just jump back and forth with whatever the promotion is,” said Farquhar. “And if you can set it up so internet is always less expensive, and better customer service, you’re casting a pretty big net.”
Purple Cow has been growing over the past two years and has gotten great reviews from customers online (A rarity in the telecommunications industry). During the initial Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, they couldn’t sign up new customers because manufacturers of internet modems were at a standstill. Nonetheless, Purple Cow got hundreds of people to join a waiting list.
The company was awarded for its hard work in 2021 when they were named “New Business of the Year” by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce.
Farquhar and Powers knew they were taking a huge risk by spending millions of capital investment to start a company dominated by two corporate giants. But Farquhar has a Carpe Diem attitude towards life and towards his business decisions. In fact, his ultimate dream is to be a contractor who builds structures orbiting the Earth in space.
“If you’re not trying to take on something big, what are you doing with yourself?” he says. “You have one life to live, you may as well chase some big goals.”
Both Powers and Farquhar grew up in rural Nova Scotia and both graduated from Saint Mary’s University, where they both played on the varsity lacrosse team. The two moved to the United States to chase business opportunities soon after graduation. In a great twist of irony, the two friends actually ended up being competitors when they owned different solar panel companies south of the border.
The two men learned a valuable lesson while seeing large solar panel companies come and go in the United States: when companies become big, they can become complacent.
“When you’re bigger you get either lazy, happy with the way things are, or you get too big to be nimble. So that was a big lesson I learned from living in the United States,” said Farquhar.
“So, when I moved back home about three years ago, I knew about the big guys that you were going to choose internet from and what the expectation is from those suppliers.”
When Purple Cow was founded, the two friends also realized that they had to focus on a target customer base to be successful. Trying to please everyone would mean pleasing no one. They knew that the younger generations were tech-savvy, so the main form of customer support is done via text message, rather than phone calls.
“You wouldn’t normally text message a business, you would text message friends or family. So, you start establishing a relationship with your customer,” says Farquhar.
“Right off the bat, you’re eliminating a good amount of customers that just wouldn’t like text messages as a form of communication. My grandfather wouldn’t be into text messages; my father wouldn’t be into text messages.”
Purple Cow also made the decision not to go into the television or landline business, where a larger company often bundles those services.
“One: both those services are dying, and why would you build out the infrastructure to do that?” Asks Farquhar. “But you’re also opening yourself up for a target market that wouldn’t like to text message us as a main form of communication.”
Purple Cow is planning to keep growing and aims to double its customer base in 2021. Farquhar says the more people who join an independent provider like Purple Cow, the cheaper Internet will be for everyone in the long run.
“The bigger this business can get, the more pressure it puts on the big guys to stay competitive and sharpen their pencil,” says Farquhar.
Huddle Today Limited and Acadia Broadcasting Limited are each part of the Ocean Capital Group
