AC:RevLab Spotlight: Rhyse Maryniuk, founder and CEO of Audesse Automotive

Rhyse Maryniuk knew his team had hit a wall. Maryniuk was part of a team developing a new type of electric vehicle at the University of Waterloo’s Mechatronic Vehicle Systems Lab when they realized they were missing a critical component, a vehicle control unit. UWaterloo is the home of innovation, and Maryniuk remembers the old adage “necessity is often the mother of invention” running through his head.

“There weren’t any good off-the-shelf options. So we ended up building it ourselves,” he says.

That component would go on to inspire Maryniuk and Professor Amir Khajepour to launch Audesse Automotive, a startup that develops embedded controllers for vehicle manufacturers.

Building through flexibility and customer insight

“When we started out, we weren’t strict about what we were going to build,” he says. “We had an idea for a product, but as we talked to customers, we got a lot of feedback about what they wanted to see. That feedback helped us evolve the product and build stronger relationships. We still operate this way today, refining our products and services based on customer feedback,” he says.

That openness also allowed Audesse to bootstrap rather than take on outside investment. Alongside product sales, the team took on consulting work with manufacturers. Sometimes the work was unrelated to their main offering, but it always had purpose.

“We’d ask, ‘does this consulting work give our team experience or improve our product in some way?’ If the answer was yes, it was often worth doing,” he says.

In many cases, that consulting became a bridge to long-term partnerships.

“We’d often work with OEMs who wanted to buy our controller but didn’t have the internal team to develop the application software, so we’d help them build it.”

For Maryniuk, that combination of curiosity, adaptability, and customer connection has been the key to building a sustainable business that’s grown steadily without losing its engineering roots.

Navigating global markets and shifting trade tides

Audesse’s customer base includes vehicle manufacturers in Canada, the U.S., and Asia. Like many hardware manufacturers, the company has been impacted by changes to U.S. and Canadian tariffs.

“There is an increased demand in the U.S. for domestically produced parts, and we’re working on a system that would allow customers to manufacture our products in their home country,” Maryniuk says.

Tariffs are just another bump in the road for the company in its eight years of business. Maryniuk says bootstrapping the company rather than pursuing investments has given them the freedom to adapt when needed.

Vehicle production lifecycles are notoriously long compared to those in other industries, and Maryniuk says the company has adapted by building a continuous sales process.

“It’s usually two years from when you initially win the contract to when that vehicle goes into production. We have one customer going into production now at the same time we’ve been onboarding new customers at the prototype stage,” he says.

Turning sales into a system with AC:RevLab

After almost a decade of refining their technology, the Audesse team was ready to shift gears from development to scaling. With their embedded controller technology proven and production-ready, Maryniuk knew the next challenge was building out the business.

“We have what OEMs need to move into production. My goal was to learn how to find new customers and maximize revenue effectively,” he says.

Through the AC:RevLab program, Maryniuk worked with mentors to turn Audesse’s sales process into a structured, repeatable system.

“Lucas Oldfield helped a lot with getting our CRM set up and what the typical expectations are around how I should push people through the funnel. Getting that to be a more automated system is helping me stay on top and keep deals flowing through the funnel, and is also the precursor to me being able to hire a sales development individual to take over the day to day sales for me,” Maryniuk adds.

RevLab’s mix of workshops and one-on-one mentorship also helped refine his approach to marketing and sales strategy.

“Hearing from mentors like Kevin Hood about the importance of sales playbooks was another critical learning area for Maryniuk.

“Before, I’d meet a potential customer, get a question I hadn’t thought about, and the deal would stall. Now I have a basic sales playbook on how the conversation will go, the questions I’ll get, and how to keep things moving,” he says.

Always learning, always building

Coming from an engineering background, shifting into the business side of running a company has been both humbling and rewarding.

“I enjoy tackling new things and learning things I didn’t know before,” he says. “When I started, I had no idea how much time I’d spend on sales or marketing. Now those are the areas I’m most excited to learn about.”

After nearly a decade in business, that curiosity remains Audesse’s driving force. From building their first prototype at the University of Waterloo to supplying global manufacturers, Maryniuk and his team continue to approach every challenge with a willingness to learn, adapt, and build what doesn’t yet exist.