In the latest episode of What the Tech from Boast, we sat down with Aaron Konyer, Chief Technology Officer at Modular Solutions, an Alberta-born SaaS company on a mission to drag the insurance industry into the 21st century.
Founded in 2015 (originally as Nude Solutions), Modular Solutions provides software that allows insurance carriers, managing general agencies, mutuals, and brokers to transform and modernize their business operations. As CTO, Aaron leads the design and evolution of the platform, bringing deep expertise in system architecture, distributed services, and backend engineering to build systems that scale alongside business needs.
What makes Aaron’s story particularly compelling is the journey itself: from tinkering with video game files as a kid, to building custom business applications as a university student, to ultimately leading a complete ground-up rebuild of an insurance platform based on years of hard-won lessons. It’s a masterclass in perseverance, strategic pivoting, and the kind of deep R&D work that the SR&ED program was designed to support.
From Video Games to Enterprise Software
Aaron’s path into tech started the way many great developer stories do; with video games and teenage curiosity.
“When I was younger I was really into video games and computers,” Aaron explains. “Playing and editing video game files were one of the first forays for me into how computers work a little bit and how modifying a file might be able to impact something in the real world.”
After graduating from university (having never written code beyond basic HTML before starting), Aaron faced the classic fork in the road: get a traditional job or try to make it work on his own. A friend approached him with an opportunity to build a business application, and Aaron decided to take the leap.
“I figured, hey, why not? I’ll try it out… I had to make a decision. Do I wanna just go get a job and work for somebody else? But I also had this contract thing on the side and I figured, hey, why don’t I just give this a shot and see if we can make this work.”
That decision to bet on himself—combined with the support of his network—set Aaron on a path that would eventually lead to Modular Solutions.
The Insurance Problem: More Complex Than You’d Think
Here’s the thing: Aaron had absolutely no background in insurance when he started working on what would become Modular Solutions. It began as just another contract project—building software for an online insurance brokerage.
What made it work was the team composition: a mix of insurance experts (including CEO Braden Bosch, who has spent his entire career in the industry) and talented software developers who could translate business requirements into flexible technology.
“That is actually one of the things about Modular Solutions I think that makes us really great—we have a lot of people on our team who are insurance experts… Most of the non-software developers come from an insurance background. So we have a lot of very qualified insurance people that have really helped bridge that gap between the technology and the industry.”
This combination of domain expertise and technical capability is essential in highly regulated industries. You can’t just be a great developer—you need to understand the nuanced requirements, workflows, and compliance considerations that make insurance different.
The Pivot That Changed Everything
For the first several years, Modular Solutions focused on the insurance broker space—building technology to help brokers (who act as intermediaries between customers and insurance carriers) operate more efficiently.
The reality? The infrastructure just wasn’t there yet.
“We worked at that for years,” Aaron recalls. “It had its struggles, and a lot of the software and the APIs and just things that were available for us to work with just weren’t there.”
But while building for brokers, the team started receiving inquiries from insurance carriers and managing general agencies (MGAs) who were interested in their software—even though it wasn’t designed for them.
That’s when the lightbulb went off.
“We realized we were actually doing a lot of stuff that was more on the carrier side anyway. We had brokers that had their own products, their own rates, their own rules… And we realized we were actually doing a lot of the stuff… that was more carrier-focused.”
About four years ago, Modular Solutions made a bold decision: start over from the ground up with a completely new application focused on the carrier space.
Rebuilding from Scratch: A Three-Year R&D Sprint
Starting over in software development is never easy. For Modular Solutions, this meant assembling a team that included experts who had spent their entire careers building insurance platforms for some of Canada’s largest carriers.
The challenge they set out to solve was deceptively simple to state but incredibly complex to execute: build insurance software that can be configured by customers without writing code.
Why Configurability is the Holy Grail
Insurance carriers don’t all work the same way. Each company has different products, rating rules, underwriting workflows, compliance requirements, and broker integrations. Most traditional insurance software is rigid—it does one thing, one way.
Modular Solutions took a different approach: build software that’s generic and configurable at its core.
“The more configurability and the more that you can customize it, the higher the complexity, right? Insurance companies, they all have different products, different rates, different rules, different workflows. They all need to configure this application in a very different way from each other. So we had to really rethink how we were approaching this and build really, really generic software.”
This meant developing:
- A flexible rules engine that lets carriers define complex business logic
- A product designer/builder for creating and configuring insurance products
- Configurable workflows that adapt to different operational processes
- A powerful broker portal for the carrier’s customers
The rebuild took three full years with an entire development team working on it before it reached MVP stage—three years of pure R&D without significant revenue from the new platform.
“In my 15 years as a software developer, it’s by far the best thing I’ve ever built,” Aaron says.
Funding the Vision: SR&ED, Grants, and Strategic Capital
Building a platform-level insurance solution over three years requires serious capital. Modular Solutions has taken a multi-faceted approach:
Government R&D Programs
SR&ED Tax Credits have been instrumental. Aaron credits Boast with helping the team maximize their claims and navigate multiple CRA audits successfully.
“Boast and the SR&ED program in general has actually been very, very beneficial for us as an organization. As a startup… we started a brand new project four years ago, so there’s still a lot of R&D happening. Very, very thankful that the government of Canada has these programs available.”
Important note on audits: Modular Solutions has been audited multiple times and passed every audit with full claims intact. The CRA audits approximately 25% of SR&ED claims as standard due diligence. Having detailed technical documentation and expert support (like Boast provides) makes audits manageable rather than terrifying.
Beyond SR&ED, Modular has also leveraged programs like Alberta Innovates and other government grants.
Self-Funding and Strategic Investment
For years, Modular Solutions was primarily self-funded through CEO Braden Bosch’s previous business ventures. Several insurance-related assets were sold in 2019-2020, and those proceeds were reinvested into building the new platform.
After proving the product in market, Modular closed a funding round about six to nine months ago. The timing was strategic: raise capital after you’ve built a proven product and demonstrated market fit, not before.
The Alberta Advantage
Calgary has become one of Canada’s fastest-growing tech hubs. Aaron notes that tech has overtaken parts of the oil industry in Calgary in terms of economic impact—a remarkable shift for a city historically known for energy.
What’s driving this? Lower cost of living compared to Toronto and Vancouver, a growing tech ecosystem with support from organizations like Platform Calgary, quality of life, and government support through programs like Alberta Innovates.
Key Takeaways for R&D-Intensive Companies
For Technical Leaders:
- Don’t fear the pivot – If market signals suggest a different direction, have the courage to rebuild
- Build for configurability when serving diverse customers – Generic systems are harder but create more value
- Document everything – Critical for both SR&ED claims and knowledge transfer
For Founders:
- Maximize non-dilutive funding – SR&ED credits and grants can significantly extend your runway
- Self-fund as long as practical – This gives you control to build the right product
- Raise capital after de-risking – Prove your technology works before seeking significant investment
For Anyone Filing SR&ED Claims:
- Audits are normal – 25% of claims get audited; it’s due diligence, not an accusation
- Partner with experts – Specialists like Boast help maximize claims and navigate audits confidently
- Understand that applied research counts – Learnings from your “failed” first version are legitimate R&D
What’s Next for Modular Solutions
After three years of focused development, Modular is in growth mode. The team is improving onboarding efficiency, leveraging AI to accelerate configuration, enhancing the broker portal, and expanding product capabilities.
As Aaron puts it: “Software’s never done. We’re always adding more, always iterating, always making it better.”
That mindset of continuous improvement—grounded in real customer feedback and genuine technical challenges—is what separates companies that just build software from companies that actually transform industries.
Listen to the Full Episode
Want to hear more about Aaron’s journey from video game modding to leading insurance platform development? Interested in the technical details of building configurable enterprise software, or the strategic decisions behind pivoting a product direction?
