What a side hustle taught me that university couldn't
In September 2023 I started building websites for local businesses between classes at the University of Alberta. I called it Unconventional Media, and at first I treated it like a small side project. The businesses I worked with never did — for them, that website was the difference between the phone ringing and not.
That gap in perspective taught me more than any course did. When a mover in Edmonton spends real money on ads, "we'll circle back next quarter" isn't a plan. The work either produces booked jobs or it doesn't, and you find out fast. So I learned to stop selling deliverables and start owning outcomes — because that's the only thing my clients could actually spend.
Eventually the side hustle outgrew the degree, and I left to go all-in. In January 2026, Unconventional Media became Unconventional Group Inc. — a real company with a team. And this April we launched AltaPro AI, because the same lesson kept repeating with AI: businesses don't need another tool demo, they need someone to build the system, make it work, and teach them to run it. That last part is why the AltaPro AI School exists.
If there's one thing I'd tell anyone starting out: find someone whose problem genuinely costs them money, and take responsibility for fixing it. Everything I run today grew out of doing exactly that, over and over.
— Haruun