GTM Strategy — Airdrie
Own the AI-adoption wedge: partner with the city, ride the federal money, get the Code to Cloud name known fast.
The AI, Cloud & Cybersecurity partner for Airdrie business then Alberta.
One clear identity, so when anyone in the region thinks AI, cloud, or security, the reflex is Code to Cloud. Land-and-expand: win Airdrie as home turf, then let the reputation carry across Alberta. It’s a seat no creative agency can take — and nobody here owns it yet.
The edge
Stop competing on “free websites” (Switchback owns the charity/creative lane). Become the person who helps Airdrie businesses adopt AI — right as the city has a mandate to push future technologies and the feds just put $3.5B behind AI adoption. It’s our actual lane as an AI & cloud firm, the timing is perfect, and it’s a seat nobody in Airdrie owns yet.
Federal “AI for All” strategy
Launched June 4, 2026. Inside it, BDC’s LIFT program earmarks $500M to finance SME AI adoption ($25K–$5M) — and pairs owners with an expert AI advisor.
bdc.ca/en/solutions/liftThe city already wants this
Airdrie’s 10-year economic strategy names “A Connected Community: future technologies” and “Right for Business.” We deliver the thing they said they want.
airdrie.ca — economic strategyThe adoption gap = the opening
Only 30% of Canadian SMEs used AI in 2025 — and those that did were 24% more productive. Most Airdrie owners don’t know where to start. That confusion is the opportunity.
BDC LIFT launch dataWho opens the door
Tara Levick
Economic Development Officer, City of Airdrie
With the city since 2011, born & raised in Airdrie. Owns business retention & expansion and led the 2026 business survey. The AI angle is a gift to her file.
Jessica Williamson
EDO + SMARTstart Program Coordinator
Runs SMARTstart (Airdrie Entrepreneur Common) — 166 entrepreneurs trained since 2014. She owns the pipeline of exactly the businesses we want in the room.
Approach as a partner helping them deliver their own mandate — not a vendor asking for business. EDOs can smell lead-gen instantly.
The play — 3 moves, in order
Offer the city / SMARTstart a free workshop: “AI for Airdrie Business — what the federal money means and how to actually use it.” Makes us the authority, not a salesperson. Every attendee is a pre-qualified warm lead. Press-friendly.
Co-host a competition with Economic Development + SMARTstart: local businesses pitch one AI idea, and we build the winner’s (owners cover only the small ongoing running costs like hosting). The city gets a headline; runner-ups become pipeline; our name is on all of it.
A dedicated prize path for Jessica’s SMARTstart graduates: one cohort business wins a launch-ready website + professional email setup + an AI starter kit — everything a new Airdrie business needs to open online. Plugs straight into the pipeline of owners we most want to reach.
LIFT requires an expert AI advisor. Position as the Airdrie business’s guide to the federal funding AND the one who implements it. We help them get the money and spend it well — work no creative agency can offer.
How the City operates — who’s who
Economic Development is a 7-person, award-winning team inside the City. Work it bottom-up — champions carry you to the approver.
The decision-maker (20 yrs, since 2007). Your champions report to her — win her and it happens.
Your warm front door. Her whole job is keeping & growing existing Airdrie businesses.
Owns the cohort pipeline — your exact target market, in one room.
Matters when you pitch Airdrie as a tech location down the road.
General business & downtown SMB relationships — future prospects.
Note: former lead Kent Rupert has moved to the Blue Zone Project — the team lead is now Sara Chamberlain.
The buy-in path
Champions
Get Tara or Jessica excited — they carry it up internally.
Approver
Sara Chamberlain signs off. A no-budget offer moves fast.
Execute
Workshop / SMARTstart prize runs. No Council vote unless it grows a budget or city branding.
Tip: apply for a citizen-member seat on a City standing committee — a rare route straight into the room.
The climb — Airdrie today, Alberta CTO tomorrow
You don’t declare “trusted advisor” — institutions appoint you to it. Win the town completely first; the region and province are built on that proof.
Land the city workshop, apply for a citizen-member seat on the Community Infrastructure & Strategic Growth committee, and bank testimonials. Become Airdrie’s de-facto tech advisor.
Publish & speak on AI · cloud · cyber for Alberta SMBs. Extend the Airdrie playbook to Rocky View, Cochrane, Crossfield, Olds, then Calgary.
Be the bridge between Alberta SMBs and the money + tech — federal “AI for All”/LIFT, Alberta Innovates, Platform Calgary. Advisory, not sales.
Allies to build
#1 credibility ally. Co-host the workshop + AI Challenge; they lend you the city’s legitimacy.
Strongest referral there is. Ask for a testimonial + an intro to 1–2 other Airdrie accountants.
Happy advisory client. Ask for a quote and a referral to her network.
Perfect partner for the LIFT/funding angle. Co-host the ‘how to access the money’ workshop.
Switchback’s amplification channel. Pitch your own AI-funding story — a fresh angle they don’t have.
Get on the lunch-and-learn roster; build one reciprocal referral partner (accountant / marketer).
Convert the room to referrers. Offer to build the site for the charity they vote in — announced live.
They do branding, you do AI/technical. Explore mutual referrals rather than treating them as the rival.
Visibility channels
Your podcast (owned platform)
Feature SMARTstart grads & local owners with an AI/tech lens — free visibility for them, authority + reach for you. A strength no agency here has.
Teach in public
Chamber lunch-and-learn + a SMARTstart session. Positions you as the expert, not a vendor.
Earned media
Pitch airdrielife + Airdrie City View the AI-funding story; feature every client win.
LinkedIn trail
Document every win, workshop, and launch — before/after + owner quote. Weekly cadence.
Show up with a camera
Chamber mixers, ribbon-cuttings, 100 Men. Generosity nobody sees builds no market.
Case studies (fastest win)
Turn Ester, Karen & PaSu into public proof. Costs nothing; you already did the work.
If I ran BD in Airdrie — the operating rhythm
Small-town BD is a compounding game. Win it with consistency, not intensity — a steady rhythm of allies, teaching, and proof.
5 warm follow-ups (no cold), 1 useful post, 1 coffee with a potential ally. Follow-up is where deals live — almost nobody does it.
1 teaching moment (workshop/talk), 1 media touch, ask 1 happy client for a referral or testimonial.
1 flagship event (AI Challenge / charity build) that generates press and puts the city beside your name.
Follow-up email — Tara & Jessica
Subject: Building on our chat — turning it into a real edge for Airdrie business Hi Tara and Jessica, Really enjoyed our conversation — thanks again for the time and for being so open to ideas. I've kept thinking about it since, and I wanted to put a bit of shape around how we could take it further, because I think the timing is genuinely in Airdrie's favour right now. Here's the piece that makes it urgent: Ottawa's new "AI for All" strategy and BDC's $500M LIFT program are live this summer — real financing ($25K–$5M) for local businesses adopting AI. Almost no Airdrie owner knows it exists, let alone how to use it. That's an open goal for Economic Development to be the office that helped local business get ahead of it — and I'd love to help you make that the story. A few ways we could work together, building on what we talked about: 1. A free "AI for Airdrie Business" workshop — for local owners and the SMARTstart cohort: what the federal funding actually means and where AI moves the needle for a small business. I'm a Microsoft Certified Trainer, so this is squarely my lane — practical, no sales pitch. 2. An "Airdrie AI Challenge" — businesses pitch one AI idea, and we build the winner's, on me (owners just cover the small ongoing running costs like hosting, kept low and clear). A great story for the city, a concrete on-ramp for owners, and a clean line to the LIFT funding for the ones ready to go bigger. 3. A SMARTstart "Digital Business in a Box" — a graduating cohort business wins a launch-ready website, professional email setup, and an AI starter kit, built on me (they cover just the small ongoing running costs like hosting). A real leg-up right as they open their doors. 4. The Code to Cloud Podcast as an Airdrie platform — guest seats for your team, SMARTstart entrepreneurs, and local owners to tell their story with a light AI/tech lens. Free visibility for the businesses you support. The through-line: Code to Cloud is a local technology company — cloud, AI and cybersecurity — so I can be the hands-on partner who helps Airdrie businesses both access the federal funds and actually deploy them well (and securely), not just point at a program and hope. All of this is on me, no cost to the city. Want to pick one to run with first? I'm happy to pull together a short one-page plan for whichever excites you most and we go from there. Thanks again — genuinely excited about what we could build here. Kevin Evans Code to Cloud · kevin.evans@codetocloud.io
Testimonial requests — reusable for any client
Turning happy clients into public proof is the fastest visibility win on the board. Swap the [brackets], send, then add the reply to your site + LinkedIn. Offering to draft it for them sharply raises the yes-rate. Start with Ester and Karen.
Subject: A quick favour — would you share a few words? Hi [First name], It's been a real pleasure working with you on [project / your website / your books]. I'm hoping to help more Airdrie-area businesses, and nothing does that better than hearing from someone who's actually worked with me. Would you be open to sharing a short testimonial I could use on my website and LinkedIn? It doesn't need to be long — even 2–3 sentences is perfect. If it helps, here are a few prompts: • What was the problem or worry before we started? • What did we do, and how did it go? • Would you recommend Code to Cloud to another business owner — and why? If you're short on time, I'm happy to draft something based on our work for you to tweak and approve — no pressure either way. Thank you, Kevin Evans Code to Cloud
Hi [First name] — really enjoyed working together on [project]. Would you be up for a quick 2–3 sentence testimonial I could use on my website? Happy to draft one for you to approve if that's easier. No worries at all if not!
Hi [First name] — so glad we could help with [project]! If you have 60 seconds, a quick Google review would mean the world and helps other Airdrie businesses find us: [your Google review link]. Thank you!
Leave-behind one-pager
Code to Cloud · AirdrieAI for Airdrie Business
Helping local businesses adopt AI — and access the federal funding now behind it.
Ottawa just launched “AI for All” — a $3.5B national strategy, including BDC’s $500M LIFT program to finance small-business AI adoption. But only 30% of Canadian SMEs use AI today, and most Airdrie owners don’t know where to start. Code to Cloud — a local technology company specializing in cloud, AI & cybersecurity — wants to help the Airdrie business community get ahead of it, in partnership with Economic Development.
A practical, no-sales session for local businesses and the SMARTstart cohort: what the federal AI funding means, and where AI actually moves the needle for a small business.
Local businesses pitch one AI idea, and we build the winner’s — on us. Owners just cover the small ongoing running costs like hosting, which we keep low and transparent. A lovely story for the city about helping Airdrie adopt tech.
A SMARTstart cohort prize: one graduating business wins a launch-ready website, professional email, and an AI starter kit — built on us, with only the small ongoing running costs (like hosting) on them. A leg-up right as they open.
A recurring guest seat on our podcast — for the EcDev team, SMARTstart entrepreneurs, and local owners — free airtime to tell their story, with a light AI & tech lens. An owned platform Airdrie business can tap.
Why it fits Airdrie’s strategy
- • Delivers on “A Connected Community: future technologies” and “Right for Business.”
- • Connects local owners to real federal money (BDC LIFT: $25K–$5M for AI adoption).
- • Gives Economic Development a fresh, press-worthy story — and businesses a concrete on-ramp.
- • Zero cost, zero risk to the city — Code to Cloud sponsors the builds and the airtime.
Kevin Evans
Founder, Code to Cloud — Cloud · AI · Cybersecurity
kevin.evans@codetocloud.io
codetocloud.io
Founder & company brief
Code to Cloud · AboutKevin Evans
Founder & Fractional CTO — Cloud-Native, AI & Cybersecurity
A platform engineer turned technology advisor with 25+ years of experience — from the British Army’s Royal Signals, to racking servers in data centres, to architecting cloud platforms and agentic AI systems. Kevin founded Code to Cloud, an Alberta-based AI, cloud & cybersecurity firm, to bring enterprise-grade capability to local businesses — in plain language, with no unnecessary complexity and no vendor lock-in.
- • Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert
- • Microsoft DevOps Engineer Expert
- • Microsoft Azure Security Engineer
- • Microsoft Azure Administrator
- • Kubernetes & Cloud Native Associate (KCNA)
- • Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT)
- • CNCF Ambassador (Calgary summit host)
- • Founder, Cloud Native Calgary
- • Host, Code to Cloud podcast (global reach)
- • Creator of Kodra (agentic Azure toolkit)
- • Organiser, Code to Cloud Days
Why it matters for Airdrie
A Microsoft Certified Trainer and CNCF Ambassador teaching Airdrie business owners about AI isn’t a favour — it’s enterprise expertise delivered locally. The same person who architects cloud & security for larger firms, helping the businesses next door adopt it affordably and safely.
Code to Cloud Inc.
AI · Cloud · Cybersecurity — Airdrie & Alberta
kevin.evans@codetocloud.io
codetocloud.io · kevinevans.tech