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By Bonnie Nethery

“At the time, I thought: no way,” Hiroko Mahoney remembers. “The first store we knocked on actually is going to let us do this?”

She didn’t have a pitch deck, or a content portfolio. She hadn’t worked with a client before. She was a student with a deadline and a question about social media.

The answer was still yes.

At the time, Hiroko was in her final year of the BCom program at UVic’s Gustavson School of Business facing an assignment called the “Innovation Project”.

“The premise was to make as much money as you can in two weeks without any capital, ” she remembers.

With a randomly assigned team from her Entrepreneurship class, Hiroko chose to start by asking. “We went door-knocking downtown to see if we could make social content for businesses.”

The first door belonged to The Papery, a local stationery shop in downtown Victoria, and Hiroko walked out with a major yes.

"Crazy enough," she adds, "the first door we knocked on said yes, and a year down the road, our class project is a business, and The Papery is still our client."

The Papery’s owner had been thinking about social media for a while but didn’t have the capacity to take it on himself. Seeing how prepared and proactive they were, he trusted the student team with full control of the brand’s digital presence, even though it was their first client engagement.

Today, Hiroko is a recent BCom graduate with a specialization in Entrepreneurship. With her classmate Aiden Bamford, she is a co-founder of , a social media and creative agency that grew from their Innovation Project.

“I don’t really see it as success yet,” she says. “It still feels very early.”

She frames Download as a place to start instead of a final goal. “Even if our business fails, it’s opened doors and changed how I think about how I can spend the rest of my life.” 

Learning To Ask

Hiroko grew up in Japan, in a city called Fukushima. “I grew up as a competitive dancer in hip hop, so that was my passion. And I spent every moment that I wasn't in school, dancing.”

Because her dad is Canadian, Hiroko spent her summers in Canada with family, and those visits gave her a different perspective. “I really wanted to move and experience life differently.” She remembers worrying about having been in an all-Japanese school and having all her documents in a different language. “I was very worried about that,” she says, “but I think it increased my confidence a lot, knowing that I could move, pack up my life to a different country and just start from scratch.”

As a high school student, Hiroko had been in regular contact with a Gustavson BCom staff member during the application process. “She helped me get my transcripts translated and walk through all the requirements I was worried about,” Hiroko says. “She was very kind and helped me through everything.”

Once enrolled at Gustavson, Hiroko began to see how much group dynamics were shaped by who was willing to step forward first. In the cohort system, it became clear early on who took initiative and who waited.

“I learned very quickly that the combination of people you’re with changes the way you act,” she says.  “Within the first week or two, you kind of know who’s going to set things up. It’s whoever grabs the phone and makes the group chat, whoever puts everything into the calendar.” Leadership felt natural to her: “I enjoyed taking on that role.”

Staying with the same group through the cohort system changed how Hiroko approached collaboration. “You work really closely with these people, and it allows you to develop a deeper friendship and a deeper connection,” she says. “You're actually able to see what person has strength in what area. So I thought it was a good way to work.” 

Following Up

Throughout her studies, Hiroko saw again and again that initiative mattered. “I really wanted to get a co-op in real estate, and I had no idea how,” she says. “I had no connections.” So, she started emailing. A lot. “I think I cold-emailed every single real estate agent in Victoria.” One of those emails grew into an ongoing mentorship with an agent Hiroko describes as “such a baddie.” The response surprised her. “She answered in a big, long essay email. It was just super genuine.”

Moments like that became part of how Hiroko approached people. “Being open to meeting everyone and taking away from everything is a skill in itself,” she says. “That's something I've definitely learned through the BCom program. Just talk to people, learn from them, follow up, ask questions and ask for what you want.”

She started noticing how often momentum stalled. “A lot of people actually don’t follow up.”

She did.

"Maybe you're just the only one that actually showed up," she says. "And you should take advantage of that opportunity."

While some connections were small and more informal, others stayed with her longer. “Sometimes talking to someone at a random cafe for no reason turns into something years later,” she says.

From Project to Partnership

Hiroko’s willingness to ask shined in her final year during the Innovation Project. The assignment had clear constraints: make as much money as possible in two weeks, with no starting capital and no guarantee anyone would say yes. Hiroko brought experience in marketing and social media and her project partner Aiden brought photography and videography skills. “So, we decided, why not? We’ll go knocking in downtown Victoria.”

At first, it didn’t feel like a long-term project. “We just kept doing the work, even once the class project was done, because it was fun,” Hiroko says. “I didn't really envision that it would actually turn into a company.”

Then, Hiroko and Aiden met Andrew Wilkinson, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of , a Victoria-based holding company, who had recently been awarded Gustavson’s Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year (DEYA) Award. He guest lectured in one of their classes.

“Aiden and I talked with Andrew about what we were doing and asked how he would scale it if he was us. And he gave really good advice.”

Andrew suggested they meet for coffee. Then another. “And then it turns out he had been wanting to start a social media company for a couple of years. And we just really clicked.” Their conversations evolved into a partnership and Andrew joined as a co-founder. What had started as a class project was now Download Media.

The Decision

At the same time, Hiroko had been preparing for more traditional next steps and had landed a job offer for a full-time position in marketing.

“I had always pictured myself to just start working straight after grad,” she says, adding that she was “all about stability, and I always pictured myself getting a job and a promotion and then another promotion.”

It was time for a big decision.

“I ended up rejecting the job offer that I'd got after a lot of thinking, but I knew that I wouldn't regret doing this.”

“Worst case our venture fails,” she adds. “I'm 23 years old. Why not just try it?”

For Hiroko, being a co-founder gave her room to grow with every task. “Everything we do is learning by doing,” she says. Payroll, invoices, sales calls. “You slowly become confident by doing it.”

Confidence, Hiroko says, didn’t come overnight. “I think the number one thing that I've learned, and I'm continuing to improve on, is confidence. I think I really underestimated the confidence piece. And being okay with the unknown.”

She is also quick to point out that the journey hasn’t been a solo one. “I definitely didn't do it on my own. I have a great partner and I have amazing mentors. It's because of them, too, that I'm doing what I'm doing today.”

For Hiroko, the approach she returns to is the same one that started everything. Ask. Follow up. “Say yes to things and don't close the door.”