Around the web ×3
Quick answers
Did James Ciesielski co-found Rewind?
Yes. The Globe and Mail reported on September 15, 2021 that Rewind "was founded in 2015 by Ottawa technology sector veterans Mike Potter, the chief executive, and his friend James Ciesielski, chief technology officer," and that the two wanted to build a Shopify app in their spare time. Rewind's own blog profile of him, last updated August 30, 2024, says he knew Potter from an earlier startup and was the one who approached Potter with the idea of starting a business together.
What is his role at Rewind today?
Rewind's about page, checked September 23, 2026, lists him as "CPTO" on its leadership team. The Tesseract Talks podcast introduced him on June 3, 2026 as Rewind's co-founder and chief product and technology officer. The Ottawa Business Journal reported on July 30, 2026, when H.I.G. Growth Partners took a majority stake in Rewind, that Potter said he and Ciesielski would remain major shareholders.
What did he do before Rewind?
Rewind's about page, checked September 23, 2026, says he holds a Bachelor of Math in computer science and software engineering from the University of Waterloo and has more than 20 years of experience building software in telecommunications, media and financial technology. In Rewind's blog profile, last updated August 30, 2024, he says he spent about 10 years in Ottawa's telecom sector after graduating, worked on consumer technology with IBM and BlackBerry, and spent time at an alternative payments startup.
How did Rewind get started?
BetaKit reported on January 19, 2021 that Ciesielski and Potter built a backup app for the Shopify App Store that gathered around 500 installs in less than a year, and that the pair originally expected the outcome would be Shopify hiring them to end the project.