Kerri Kinna is a Metro Vancouver entrepreneur, app developer, and founder of BARTR, a peer-to-peer trading platform built around the idea that the things you already own have more value than you think. Her path to tech was anything but linear, and that is precisely what makes it worth paying attention to.
Most people in Vancouver know Kerri from Cocoa Tanning, the tanning studio business she took over while still a university student in 2013. For more than a decade she built it into a loyal community brand, growing its locations and learning the full weight of what it means to operate a customer-facing business, manage leases, carry debt, and show up every day regardless.
What fewer people knew was that, behind the scenes, she had been quietly building mobile apps for years, collaborating with developers across time zones during the hours the studios were closed. When the time came to close Cocoa Tanning’s original Tinseltown location, that parallel life became the main event.
Kerri’s story is not about any single industry. It is about the willingness to evolve, trust hard-won instincts, and keep building when life forces a restart.
BUSINESS BIO
BARTR is a peer-to-peer trading app built on a straightforward premise: the things you already own have more value than you are giving them credit for. Instead of letting items collect dust or spending money on something new, BARTR lets you trade directly with other people for things you actually want.
The concept is as old as commerce itself, but the execution is entirely modern. BARTR removes the friction that has historically made informal trading impractical, connecting people through a clean, community-driven platform that handles the logistics most traders dread. Built-in delivery through Uber and integrated shipping options mean users never have to coordinate meetups or figure out handoffs on their own.
The result is a platform that does three things at once: it saves money, reduces waste, and unlocks value from the items already sitting in people’s homes. In a culture increasingly focused on sustainability, conscious consumption, and making the most of what already exists, BARTR arrives at exactly the right moment.
This is not a resale platform. It is a trading community, one where the currency is what you already have and the reward is getting something you actually need. BARTR makes that exchange simple, seamless, and worth showing up for.
IN HER WORDS
“I have never fit comfortably into the idea of a steady paycheque or a predictable routine. Not because there is anything wrong with that path, it just never quieted whatever was going on in my head. Growing up on Vancouver Island, I felt restless long before I had the words to explain it. By seventeen, I was gone.
I moved to New Brunswick and started working at my first Fairmont hotel. Twenty-hour shifts became my best friend. Exhaustion, both mental and physical, was welcomed, especially when I could see my hard work contributing to something bigger than myself. I was fascinated by what I was capable of when pushed to my limits. Looking back, I do not think I chose entrepreneurship as much as entrepreneurship chose me. I have always had an appetite for uncertainty and a tendency to dive headfirst into things I do not fully understand.
The earliest sign of what I was becoming showed up in school. My first entrepreneurial venture was doing other kids’ homework. I loved reading, so I had often already read the books people needed reports on. I charged $10 per book report and guaranteed an A or a B. In one class I wrote eight reports, changing my prose and point of view for each student. The telling detail is that I often did not do my own homework. I was writing reports for students in grades above me while struggling with my own attendance. Chasing only efficiency, even then.
DEBT AND EARLY LESSONS
The first time real money entered the picture, it arrived as loss. Taking over Cocoa Tanning in 2013 while still a university student meant converting years of carefully saved student loan money into startup capital, practically overnight. One day I had savings. The next, I was looking at loans that dwarfed my student loan, leases personally guaranteed by me, and a security complex that had gone fully haywire.
I had told myself: I started with nothing, so how bad can it go? The answer arrived quickly. The debt that followed would sit on my chest for a long time. But I kept going, because the alternative was not something I was built for.
What followed was more than a decade of building Cocoa Tanning into a genuine community, growing its locations, learning operations, managing staff, and carrying the full weight of a customer-facing business through every season. I also ran Vegan Organic Essential Oils, spending considerable time in Los Angeles, learning manufacturing and brand-building from the ground up. The products were strong, and they are still sold at Cocoa Tanning today. But the economics of shipping physical goods made the ceiling visible early. Canada Post charged $16 to ship a single essential oil from BC to Ontario. The more I ran that business alongside my early app experiments, the more the contrast became impossible to ignore. Software does not ship. That matters.
THE PARALLEL LIFE
What most people did not know during the Cocoa Tanning years was that I had been building mobile apps on the side for a long time. It started as a creative outlet, something I worked on outside salon hours, collaborating with developers across time zones while the studios slept. It was in Los Angeles, targeted by a Facebook ad of all things, that I first learned how to work as a non-technical project manager on app development. That education quietly changed everything.
When the time came to close the original Tinseltown location, the decision was data-driven even if it did not feel that way emotionally. The location was not following the growth pattern the others had. When that trend became clear, we knew. Closing it meant packing everything up and throwing it away by hand. It was heartbreaking in the way that only something you built yourself can be. But it also created space. The app side of my life was no longer a hobby running alongside a business. It was the business.
STARTING OVER WITH BARTR
Bringing BARTR to life introduced a new category of setback I had not encountered before. I thought having built successful businesses in the past meant I had it figured out. Instead, I got a whole new set of challenges, and I have been tested not to give up more times than I can count.
In software, failure is largely invisible. Most of the work happens on a screen. There is no physical space filling up with evidence of effort, no community walking through the door to remind you that what you are building matters. Sourcing honest feedback on an early product is brutal, and the consistent feeling that you are throwing money into a void can be all-consuming. I have had to learn to open my ears, accept support from the people around me, and in the moments when my own self-doubt becomes paralyzing, borrow their words until I can find mine again.
The milestone that shifted things was Web Summit. We had been building, testing, and gathering feedback on the app for a year, adding features and listening to what users actually needed. Walking into that environment and facing serious scrutiny changed the nature of the questions being asked. It was no longer, “what is this?” It was, “why does it work this way?” That is a different conversation entirely. It meant we had outgrown our minimum viable product. The next phase is a full rebuild from the ground up, keeping what users told us they needed and designing a scalable experience from scratch.
PEOPLE WHO SHOW UP
My mentors are better described as friends who are equally tormented by creative work. There is a particular kind of person who understands what it means to make things for a living, and I have been fortunate to find several of them.
Kat Pellatt was a client I built an app for, and working with her became one of the more unexpectedly meaningful professional relationships of my life. I used to get stomach cramps for hours before our early meetings. As someone who has long been intimidated by traditional workplace dynamics, I was braced for the version of leadership I had feared. What I found instead was a genuine collaborator. Her feedback consistently elevated the work, and my confidence grew alongside the project. Good leadership produces good work. Working with Kat proved that.
At an art show called Neo Noir, I volunteered selling clothes for artist Caliden Paint. The event was a major success, and I watched the organizers finish a night of relentless physical work, mopping floors, running bar back, and bending over backwards for every question, only to look at each other and quietly say, “you just never know.” I later learned each of them had achieved success in other industries. That moment stayed with me longer than most.
Tamar Kate and I were colleagues at Tiffany and Co. years ago and reconnected as entrepreneurs outside a Home Depot after she returned from completing her master’s degree. We have shared victories and heartbreaks in equal measure ever since, the kind that only other small business owners in Vancouver truly understand. We find a way to laugh it off, or sit with one of our dogs, and keep moving.
WHAT COMES NEXT
Scared money cannot win. If you see a vision, spend the money, even when no one else can see it yet. Just do not forget to follow through.
BARTR is at the beginning of its next chapter, and what it needs now is the right kind of attention. Users who are curious about trading rather than selling. Partners who understand community-driven platforms and want to help build the network that makes BARTR indispensable. And collaborators, whether in development, growth, or brand, who believe that the things people already own deserve a better second life.
I wish I had slowed down to enjoy the ride earlier. Closing a location and launching something new puts the past in sharper focus than I expected. The old days were not easy, but looking back at them now is like flipping through a photo album of things you did not know you were building until they were already built. That nostalgia surprised me. It also reminded me why I keep going.”
Author Profile
- This story is created in collaboration between Helen Siwak and the featured subject. As the founder and publisher of Portfolio.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine, Helen works closely with entrepreneurs to share their paths of innovation, resilience, and growth. Each story in this series is co-developed through interviews and first-person insights, blending authentic voices with Helen’s editorial expertise to highlight the remarkable individuals shaping British Columbia’s business landscape.
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