Jonathan Mongeau has The Goods

Mongeau and his wife, Annique Beaudreau, decided to start a weekly e-newsletter featuring positive stories to make up for the overwhelmingly negative news coming from traditional media. On February 1, 2017, they emailed the first issue of The Goods to family and friends.

Beaudreau, a nutritionist and creator of Niki Nutrition, serves as chief editor of The Goods.

Their first issue featured an article on heart health and, in honour of Black History Month, a profile on Viola Desmond, a black Nova Scotian who famously challenged racial segregation in 1946. Canadians not familiar with Desmond will be soon — she is the new face of the Canadian $10 bill.

The Good’s first issue opened with a promise of hope and positivity, signed by Annique and John:

“We’re tired of bad, negative news. We promise to only share new ideas, fresh perspectives and meaningful content. We want you all to learn more about: good, positive news, good stories about great people, and good ways to live better.”

It has been a year and they haven’t broken their promise.

“We had no expectations,” Mongeau says. “We just wanted to share some positive stories. But since then, every Wednesday, we’ve somehow managed to publish two-to-three stories without fail.”

In about a year they’ve doubled their team size from two to four people, adding Beaudreau’s cousin, Kaitlyn Nye, and their friend Danko Vassev, BCSc 12, to the team. They’ve also started working with a local designer to add polish to The Goods’s look.

“Kaitlyn is running our social media, mostly on Facebook and Medium right now,” Mongeau reports. “And Danko is our tech guy. He’s working on a WordPress blog for us. We’re building slowly and we’re taking our time. We’re learning and having fun.”

Finding the time

The biggest challenge is juggling full-time jobs while producing The Goods. Mongeau says he spends most evenings and weekends working on his passion project and during the day he leads sales and growth for WeWork Montreal.

WeWork provides private offices, open workspaces and services to individuals and businesses. It launched in New York City in 2010. Today WeWork has more than 200 locations in 20 countries — and with plans to double its global footprint in 2018, it’s growing rapidly.