jeff.io

Entrepreneur · Musician · Author · Speaker · Dad

About Me…

Jeff K. Ward

First and foremost I'm a father of two cool little men and a husband to my amazing wife Robyn. I am grateful to live and work on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen Peoples of the Coast Salish Nation in what is currently called Victoria, BC. I'm of mixed ancestry; my father is Ojibwe (Sandy Bay) and Métis. My settler heritage is English and Ukrainian on my mother's side. I identify as a proud Indigenous man and my background informs not only my creative work but my business philosophies as well.


My first experience with business was as a kid when I got a few friends together to start a car wash at the end of my street. This would be our candy fund for this hot summer day. My mother told me to tell my customers that I was an "Entrepreneur". I had never heard this word before.  Late in the day, when our rags were dirty and buckets of water full of grimey water, our last customer of the day pulled up.  She was not pleased at all with the quality of service we provided as her car wasn't very much cleaner than when she arrived. I told her that I was an "Entrepreneur" and she responded with a scoff and said "Entrpreneur?! Hmph!", and drove away. That day I learned what that word meant and got a tough lesson in the value of customer service :)

I got bit by that entrepreneurial bug early on and I'm proud to have built several companies. I registered my first business at the age of 17 and below are the 3 endeavours that keep me busy these days.


Watch My TEDx Talk

My Companies

This is my longest running company, founded in 2003, after a brief stint living in Silicon Valley. I wanted to create a company rooted in the Indigenous community that I grew up in.  We're a mid-sized digital agency serving Indigenous-focused organizations by maximizing their social impact through technology.  Animikii means "Thunderbird" in Ojibwe and is based on Lekwungen territory.

Visit Animikii

Through delivering websites for Animikii clients, I saw a need for an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) so that they could update websites themselves. Today, YikeSite powers many websites and other digital agencies have based their business on our white-label platform. This site is a YikeSite :)

Visit YikeSite

ContentGems helps digital marketers find, curate and share engaging content. It is one of the leading "content curation" tools on the market and has thousands of users. I co-founded this business with 2 of my friends back in 2010 but acquired it in 2020 and brought it under the Animikii umbrella.

Visit ContentGems

Testimonials

Energize Your
Entrepreneurial Spirit

EYES Book Cover

I wrote this book with one of my older brothers, Scott Ward. He's a traveling comedy stage hypnotist, I'm a web geek. We got our heads together where our business experiences overlapped and wrote this book to encourage others to start their own businesses.


"Entrepreneurial brothers Scott & Jeff Ward share their ideas, approaches & strategies to inspire and motivate you down your path to success. Presented in 52 bite-sized essays, this book is packed with nuggets of information to help budding entrepreneurs get going."

Buy on iBooks

BUY on AMAZON Kindle

BUY in Print

Read FREE Online

News River

Here's content I'm reading and sharing on social media. This content is powered by ContentGems and our new "workflows" features. I share news and articles relating to entrepreneurship, internet stuff, and the Indigenous community in Canada. If you're interested to have the same for your site, check out ContentGems



Get in Touch

Feel like saying hi? Send me an e-mail or connect with me anywhere below (ordered by how often I'm active). I'm available to keynote at your conference or event. For speaking inquiries, please e-mail to check my availability. Please include dates, budget, and details of your event.