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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_03: Hi, I'm Cynthia Lockery with Canada's podcast, where we talk to entrepreneurs
[00:11] SPEAKER_03: who are making a difference right here in BC.
[00:15] SPEAKER_03: Today, I'm excited to be joined by Amar Singh.
[00:19] SPEAKER_03: He's the CAO and co-founder of Elevated Signals in Vancouver.
[00:24] SPEAKER_03: His work is driven by a commitment to enhancing global health and societal well-being.
[00:29] SPEAKER_03: With a focus on food security and environmental sustainability.
[00:35] SPEAKER_03: So let's just jump in by welcome and tell us a bit about yourself and the work that you do.
[00:42] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, Cynthia.
[00:44] SPEAKER_02: So I'm Amar Singh, I'm the CAO and co-founder of Elevated Signals.
[00:50] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, we've been working on this for several years now.
[00:56] SPEAKER_02: The project started when I was in grad school at UBC in 2016.
[01:02] SPEAKER_02: Before that, I had a history of working with controlled environment research centers.
[01:08] SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I think we share some connections from back when I was in Ontario and worked at the biotron in London.
[01:17] SPEAKER_02: So this was called the biotron experimental climate change research center.
[01:21] SPEAKER_02: And so I worked with some top scientists from around the world,
[01:25] SPEAKER_02: but mainly headquartered at Western in collaboration with the University of Guelph in Agriculture Canada.
[01:31] SPEAKER_02: And these scientists were trying to understand the impacts of climate change and environmental stress on live ecosystems, but in a controlled environment.
[01:41] SPEAKER_02: So we're trying to figure out how to sort of replicate and look at different future scenarios of how things could change in the future
[01:49] SPEAKER_02: and how we would be able to adapt to that and be able to still grow crops in changing conditions or harsh environments, low water conditions,
[01:59] SPEAKER_02: or when say pests are being introduced.
[02:03] SPEAKER_02: So at the biotron, we built these chamber, well, it was actually a five-story building.
[02:08] SPEAKER_02: It had glass chambers on the rooftop.
[02:10] SPEAKER_02: It had all sorts of custom designed growth chambers.
[02:13] SPEAKER_02: It had this birth science chamber where you could bring a six meter tall core, like a permafrost core.
[02:21] SPEAKER_02: So you could go to the Arctic and or this six meter by one meter core,
[02:27] SPEAKER_02: bring it back to the biotron and store it in there in this like chamber.
[02:32] SPEAKER_02: And then there was like glass around it.
[02:34] SPEAKER_02: So you could sort of see the different striations in there and then subject it to a changing climate,
[02:39] SPEAKER_02: increase the temperature, change the CO2 and things like that.
[02:44] SPEAKER_02: So that we could as the scientists figure out how do we adapt?
[02:49] SPEAKER_02: Like what's going to happen to to forest? What's going to happen to agricultural fields?
[02:53] SPEAKER_02: And therefore, we need to read crops that can survive in those conditions or genetically engineer them.
[03:02] SPEAKER_02: So there was like a transgenic steam there as well.
[03:04] SPEAKER_02: So it was very exciting, but for me, what that did was it opened my eyes to the challenges that were facing in society
[03:14] SPEAKER_02: and the need for better technology to help us adapt.
[03:18] SPEAKER_02: So it was really that intersection between natural science and technology that got me excited by my training, my undergrad, was in environmental science.
[03:29] SPEAKER_02: But during the biotron, we were building these the state of the art infrastructure, but within that, we installed all sorts of sensors.
[03:38] SPEAKER_02: It a whole imaging and microscopy suite that we connected over the internet so that scientists around the world could actually log in and manipulate the microscopes.
[03:49] SPEAKER_02: Like we had scanning electron microscopes, confocal like laser microscopy, but the whole idea was collaboration and using technology.
[03:56] SPEAKER_02: So that people could see what was happening, see the sensor conditions.
[04:00] SPEAKER_02: So you could come in and basically set up an experiment and then go back to Sweden or wherever your home base was, your home university, but still see what was going on.
[04:09] SPEAKER_02: So that was for the first time I really saw this intersection between technology and research, but the need for, you know, this was back in the mid 2000s.
[04:18] SPEAKER_02: And there was still a lot of potential like it's see in terms of improving software and systems.
[04:25] SPEAKER_00: Stay ahead of the game with our expert tips and strategies that will help your business thrive in a digital era.
[04:31] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast dot com subscribe now.
[04:34] SPEAKER_03: And you have a very impressive background in resume.
[04:39] SPEAKER_03: So what made you go this entrepreneur route versus many job opportunities? I'm sure you had.
[04:49] SPEAKER_02: Well, I think when during the biotron days, I was the project manager and I became the general manager.
[04:55] SPEAKER_02: So if you're thinking about like what drives an entrepreneur during those days, I've learned a lot.
[05:01] SPEAKER_02: It was I was fairly young in my career as I was absorbing as much as I could, but I saw all the scientists around me, they were the ones that were actually contributing to the discipline.
[05:11] SPEAKER_02: And they were the ones creating the IP, doing the research. And I was more as just enabling them to do that.
[05:17] SPEAKER_02: So the time that it was created, the projects were exciting, but I was like, I'm not the one actually doing the research here.
[05:24] SPEAKER_02: So I kind of stuck with me as like, okay, how do I up skill like what could I do to?
[05:29] SPEAKER_02: And I knew I wasn't going to go to the PhD route. That wasn't really, I guess, my strength.
[05:35] SPEAKER_02: I knew I had more business skills and I was like doing project management during that and collecting all this information, assembling it, helping get grant funding and things like that.
[05:45] SPEAKER_02: And then ultimately managing the design and construction project for that.
[05:50] SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't, but I wasn't going to be the scientist. I worked with a professor, Norm Hunter there who he was by boss and like, you know, just I spent so much time with him absorbing knowledge.
[06:03] SPEAKER_02: We play tennis every week and of course work together. But I was like, okay, there's got to be other ways that I can contribute.
[06:11] SPEAKER_02: Eventually I did go back to grad, well, I went to grad school at Western. So I did my undergrad at U of T and environmental science worked on the bio-tron for four years.
[06:19] SPEAKER_02: Then I joined the master of environment and sustainability graduate program there because I saw these smart people around me. I was like, yeah, let's let's upgrade my academics.
[06:30] SPEAKER_02: But then I went back into working on research infrastructure. So I worked for a consulting firm after I left Western.
[06:42] SPEAKER_02: And because I had that background in helping get these facilities up and running, I got recruited into helping more other universities, new projects, actually out in Victoria.
[06:52] SPEAKER_02: I was working, I was working with a consulting firm and one of my clients was the University of Victoria. So I was doing that.
[06:58] SPEAKER_02: But then it was always still in the back of my head. Well, okay, I'm still helping. I'm managing bigger projects, more projects, but I'm not really the one creating the IP and building the teams and contributing to the solutions.
[07:12] SPEAKER_02: So that's where we got to the start of elevated signals was in 2016. I decided to go back to grad school again. There was a program. I was actually just looking for courses to do because I was working at this engineering consulting firm and they were they were landing these drinking water and wastewater treatment facility projects.
[07:33] SPEAKER_02: And I thought that would be that's exciting. That's really interesting to me and it ties with my environmental background.
[07:40] SPEAKER_02: And so I started looking for courses to do and at UBC it just turned out that they had this this master program master of engineering leadership in integrated water management engineering.
[07:51] SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, okay, you know what maybe I should do more than a few courses on the side and actually do this full time.
[07:59] SPEAKER_02: So consulted my friends advisors and wife and decided that yeah, let's let's apply and I got in and I intended to go back to the consulting firm like that. That was the plan.
[08:14] SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'm going to upgrade my skills become like the in house water water project and water engineering expert.
[08:21] SPEAKER_02: But during that year at UBC things changed. They took a turn to a different direction in my career and I had a lot of great professors there that kind of saw this tent like but of an entrepreneurial bugging me and UBC itself just had the E at UBC program.
[08:42] SPEAKER_02: That's really where it started. They had this lean launch pad accelerator. And so our one of our like the program director actually for the master's program said, hey, who wants to sign up for this.
[08:53] SPEAKER_02: That was a doctor tomorrow at Mansky and so me and a couple classmates. They were in the three classmates that were in the clean energy.
[09:01] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, clean energy program. I was in the water program. We teamed up and we decided to start brainstorming ideas so that we could enter this program is kind of like a competition in this lean launch pad.
[09:11] SPEAKER_02: I'm up with an idea and see if you can, you know, they'll parry with some mentors and see if you can get an idea off the ground.
[09:19] SPEAKER_02: And so that's that's what we did. And this was all in conjunction with doing a full course load.
[09:24] SPEAKER_02: I mean, on top of that. So, but yeah, so then during this course of the year, I started to realize that we were on to something and maybe I'm not going to go back with it.
[09:35] SPEAKER_02: It wasn't it wasn't decided yet because I still have that job waiting for me.
[09:39] SPEAKER_02: But during the course of the year, we started to make some progress. So the initial idea was I was back to food security and, you know, using technology to help us adapt.
[09:52] SPEAKER_02: I was interested in sensors and how we could use wireless sensors to monitor temperature humidity CO2 lighting all these aspects that are important for crop production and greenhouses.
[10:04] SPEAKER_02: And we actually were doing some port like in some of the classes, just some of the projects that we were doing. We're playing around with sensors.
[10:11] SPEAKER_02: I guess beyond playing around with sensors, we're actually like building little sensors and then deploying them into these greenhouses.
[10:17] SPEAKER_02: We are there's a UBC greenhouse that we put some of the sensors in there. And so, I guess that kind of sparked this interest in, hey, maybe we can turn this into a project and scale this up into some kind of company or at least use it for the lean launch pad accelerator.
[10:35] SPEAKER_02: So that's what we did. We're like, and I actually I called one of the professors, Dr Mike Dixon that I used to work with at the biotron out in at Western and wealth and said, hey, would this be a good idea?
[10:49] SPEAKER_02: Like if we took these, if we built these sensors, we were able to find some off the shelf and then put them into into the greenhouses and use that to monitor the conditions.
[10:58] SPEAKER_02: Would we be able to basically improve crop health, look for pathogens and potential risks to the crops as well as like figure out if we could use that data to help the farmers and the crop producers improve production.
[11:14] SPEAKER_02: And he said, yes, so we took that advice and went on with it went through the the UBC launch pad program.
[11:23] SPEAKER_02: At that time, actually like I was interested in tying the water aspect to it too. So irrigation optimization.
[11:31] SPEAKER_02: But at that time, the cannabis industry was being federally legalized in Canada. So the funny story is that my parents actually live out in suburbs near Vancouver.
[11:43] SPEAKER_02: And there was my dad was in the RCMP. So he was actually, and he was actually like a drug enforcement agent back in the day.
[11:52] SPEAKER_02: And but they saw this newspaper clipping of this facility that was being built like a greenhouse was being built not too far from where they live.
[12:01] SPEAKER_02: And so my mom was like, hey, maybe you should go talk to talk to them and see if they have any needs or for because she kind of knew I was playing around with this idea with the greenhouses.
[12:12] SPEAKER_02: And so sure enough, based on my mom's little insight there, we we called up I just reached out to the company that they were called tantalous labs on Facebook and all places like I just like, I don't know how to reach them.
[12:25] SPEAKER_02: It's going Facebook. They had a Facebook page message them gave them a bit of my background told them like what I'd done in the past with the biotron what I'm doing at UBC. And they were just like, sure, come on in.
[12:36] SPEAKER_02: We've got lots of got lots of challenges here. They were already hacking around with wireless sensors because the systems that they had within their facility were.
[12:46] SPEAKER_02: But the funny thing is the stuff that we deployed to the biotron back in the mid 2000s was the same like nothing had really changed with the software and the sensors.
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: It was like the same control systems that were being used 10 plus years later.
[13:00] SPEAKER_02: So there was they were like, yeah, we want more we want wireless. It wasn't even wireless.
[13:06] SPEAKER_02: That was the first thing. So they brought us in and we're like, let's partner. And so, yeah, I can give you more details.
[13:14] SPEAKER_02: But that's essentially how it started that we found a local partner. It was willing to bring us into the fold and allows to work side by side with their team as they were, you know, going through their regulatory process as they were still just completing the last parts of their business.
[13:32] SPEAKER_02: And they had to get all sorts of ducks in a row. And so we had it was like a unique once in a lifetime opportunity with this new industry that had all these needs and had a vacuum of technology options.
[13:47] SPEAKER_02: And then a company that was also like looking to do things in a different way. They all had like tech backgrounds, high tech backgrounds and wanted to.
[13:58] SPEAKER_02: But then they realized that hey, we need to build this company in this brand and the products.
[14:03] SPEAKER_02: It's going to be hard to do the tech along with that. So if we could work with the team of engineers from UBC, they were all for it.
[14:09] SPEAKER_03: I love that story. My favorite part is your mom got involved. Yes.
[14:14] SPEAKER_03: I love the mom jumping in. So what are you most passionate about in terms of the work that you do? And being an entrepreneur?
[14:26] SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, I got to say it's building the team that we have.
[14:34] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like having worked for companies before I always had good experiences, but I guess it's twofold. So it's the two.
[14:41] SPEAKER_02: The one thing that I mentioned before is like I hadn't built my own IP and technology. I was contributing and enabling other people to do that.
[14:48] SPEAKER_02: So it's like by being an entrepreneur, we've now built a software platform that's being used in over 100 facilities around the world.
[14:57] SPEAKER_02: But we've also built up a team. So my own team and with my co-founders, so abandoned her deep. I didn't mention too much about them. Yeah, but that was like a huge part of the story.
[15:06] SPEAKER_02: So that I mean, this wouldn't happen without them. Basically, I met them when I was at UBC. They had technology back.
[15:12] SPEAKER_02: So sorry, I didn't say that there were some engineers in the program that I worked with, but going through this entrepreneurial journey, even within that first year and working with our mentors, we realized that this was not completely an engineering problem.
[15:25] SPEAKER_02: There was it was an engineering problem, but software solution. So I needed to find the software team and just like right time, right place, met someone through one of the TAs for our data analytics class at UBC.
[15:41] SPEAKER_02: It was Ben, Ben, his roommate was this Ben who's now one of my co-founders. And then one of his business partners, her deep.
[15:49] SPEAKER_02: They were both at a company that was acquired by Adobe. They had done their time in big tech, but they were a few entrepreneurs.
[15:55] SPEAKER_02: They had both grown up on farms and had this passion for agriculture and the future for agriculture.
[16:01] SPEAKER_02: And they had left Adobe and they were hacking on some other projects related to clean energy.
[16:06] SPEAKER_02: And I just met them at the right time, whereas like, hey, I've already, I built this relationship with a few local producers.
[16:13] SPEAKER_02: And this seems to be like kind of onto something. And so once they got involved, they're like, yeah, they decided that they wanted to jump in as co-founders.
[16:22] SPEAKER_02: So that's exactly where I was. I was like, so that's how it started. So then we built the team together, essentially.
[16:31] SPEAKER_02: So it's we have our own team and now we're sort of scratching that edge of building IP and an awesome team that is mostly based here in Vancouver, but we have some staff in different parts of the country.
[16:43] SPEAKER_03: I love that. So let's talk about Vancouver and the West Coast. What are some of the benefits of being based on the West Coast and B.C. in particular. And then we can talk about some of the challenges.
[16:58] SPEAKER_02: B.C. I mean, everyone knows how beautiful it is here. Like I was saying earlier, I just got back from the US even in Denver and like, you got the mountains there, but like everyone just knows.
[17:12] SPEAKER_02: Like my friends from Denver, they come up here all the time because they know how beautiful it is here. We've got the mountains, we've got the ocean.
[17:18] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just even being in other places that are flat. There's something about it. Like I was mentioning this to my wife on the weekend, because it is a little flat.
[17:27] SPEAKER_02: They're the mountains are just outside of Denver. But like in the town, it's it's fairly flat. I can just you can feel the topography.
[17:37] SPEAKER_02: And in Vancouver, you're right, you're living you're in the mountains like my house, like backs on to green like forests and mountains, things like that.
[17:47] SPEAKER_02: So I think for living here, having a family here, you're just enriched by the environment and then, you know, having that environmental background and we're working on things that are meant to protect what we have.
[18:00] SPEAKER_02: There's always a constant reminder in BC of, you know, how no special this planet and country can be.
[18:10] SPEAKER_02: I will say on the entrepreneurial, like founding company side, it's been phenomenal in Vancouver because I've taken advantage of we, the company have taken advantage of almost every program that the city has to offer.
[18:24] SPEAKER_02: And that's really got helped us get to where we are. So like I said, UBC just having professors within the program, then you B.C.
[18:33] SPEAKER_02: That led to getting us into E UBC and actually having a good idea that got legs that got us more mentors from the entrepreneurs and residents there.
[18:41] SPEAKER_02: Then then we applied for creative destruction lab, which is a national program started at UT, but now it's in universities and like different locations around the world, actually mostly in Canada, but also international.
[18:52] SPEAKER_02: So we got into that. That's it's basically like a very rigorous tech accelerator over nine months where companies get caught each, each session, which happens every two months.
[19:03] SPEAKER_02: And so that, but that was there was like a CDL Vancouver location. So we got into that and met some of our investor many of our initial investors for the seed round and one of our board directors who still a board director today, Colin Harris.
[19:18] SPEAKER_02: We met him there. He's one of the founding partners of CDL Vancouver and really expect that respected entrepreneur. And so he's been with us for that whole journey.
[19:28] SPEAKER_02: And then even throughout the city, there've been like various like pitching courses, networking events that we've been a part of. So yeah, I said the startup community here is has been a very positive experience.
[19:40] SPEAKER_02: And we even actually want to pitch competition just as we're leaving you B.C. that got us a free year of office space that attacking computer, but it was called discovery parks here in Vancouver.
[19:51] SPEAKER_03: I love that. And I would say it's an entrepreneur myself. There are so many entrepreneurs on the west coast. It's a, and it's a supportive community, not competitive.
[20:02] SPEAKER_03: So what are some of the challenges you have of having a business based in BC?
[20:11] SPEAKER_02: Well, not a ton. I mean, it's easy to get down to the California and states like when it's Silicon Valley is very close to here.
[20:21] SPEAKER_02: I'm going to Ontario is a bit more challenging like we do have a lot of our customer base is in Ontario and the back there's those huge markets out there.
[20:29] SPEAKER_02: So we do have to travel more and.
[20:34] SPEAKER_02: I'm we're all used to that flight. It's only four or five hours is not too bad, but it does, you know, it adds up in terms of time and just getting across to the more populated areas where some of like the manufacturing industry clients that were going after out there.
[20:50] SPEAKER_02: I think as a Canadian company, I think everyone probably feels that it's like there's a decision point that comes for most Canadian entrepreneurs of like should they have their HQ here or should they go to the US and.
[21:07] SPEAKER_02: I don't always say be.
[21:10] SPEAKER_02: Taken more seriously, but essentially like these just like I think there is something about being a US company and.
[21:17] SPEAKER_02: So just we have US investors on our on our cap tables, so we haven't had any major issues, but I think like there is always a bit of a question mark or.
[21:29] SPEAKER_02: It's like even just like the hey, can we invest in US dollars or like do you have a US court like the I think to get some tax benefits there, so it makes things a little bit more complicated.
[21:39] SPEAKER_02: We haven't yeah, like we have good lawyers and accounts here like asking that have helped guide us through having international investors.
[21:49] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I would say we made the decision to stay in BC and Vancouver and like keep our HQ here, we do have some staff in the US, so I'm kind of bridge the gap that way.
[22:03] SPEAKER_02: That might be got one of the challenges.
[22:05] SPEAKER_03: I can see that I spend a lot of time flying to Ontario myself.
[22:10] SPEAKER_03: So how do you define success, but more importantly, how do you celebrate it?
[22:18] SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean we're we're start we're start up, we're tech opening, we have a I guess a capitalist mandate, which is to grow our team and revenue.
[22:31] SPEAKER_02: So we are that is what we're measured on is recurring revenue growth, but I think for our team, it's it's getting building a product that people love and have having as many people benefit from that product as possible.
[22:49] SPEAKER_02: Many customers and the users within those facilities.
[22:52] SPEAKER_02: So internally that's the main way that like our team that's not just reporting numbers to the board and shareholders in terms of revenue metrics.
[23:01] SPEAKER_02: It's happy customers. It's like what is our customer health. We have a little customer health dashboard.
[23:06] SPEAKER_02: You know, we're in a hundred plus facilities. So we are looking across that because our cost a lot of our customers are startups too.
[23:13] SPEAKER_02: And so they have their ups and downs like we need to be responsive to their needs and.
[23:17] SPEAKER_02: And we can't let them down. So I think having our service like nowadays, like uptime isn't really a thing like servers don't really go down or anything like that, but there can be glitches or whether it's like an update happened and you know maybe a form or something stopped working.
[23:37] SPEAKER_02: It's like we need to be on that right away because those things happen, but we know.
[23:43] SPEAKER_02: Like because we've done a lot of competitive replacements that maybe some of the reasons customers haven't been happy with their previous solution is like their customer.
[23:50] SPEAKER_02: We call it customer success or customer experience.
[23:53] SPEAKER_02: They're teams are not as available. The software is is rigid and it's like hard for the users to make changes in it.
[24:02] SPEAKER_02: So we built something that's a like part of our design philosophies to make the software easy to use.
[24:08] SPEAKER_02: Very flexible so that customers can make changes on their own.
[24:12] SPEAKER_02: But you also need the team to be there so that to support them.
[24:17] SPEAKER_02: That's the I think they hidden secret of any enterprise sales company is having an excellent team. And so I would say our customer success team is most beloved in the industry.
[24:28] SPEAKER_02: Like we have great relationships with all our customers.
[24:30] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, like personally me, I come from like consulting background, which is essentially customer service. So at the firms I worked with, yeah, there's no tolerance for like, you know, not keeping a customer happy or.
[24:46] SPEAKER_02: Or missing an email or get a deadline or anything like that. So so we've tried to instill that culture here.
[24:54] SPEAKER_02: And we haven't really had to like I think we've just hired people that you know feel the same way about.
[25:00] SPEAKER_02: You know it it is helpful being in this these exciting industries like we're in these emerging industries where you've got new greenhouses being built.
[25:08] SPEAKER_02: And so we're now going into clean tack and climate tack.
[25:11] SPEAKER_02: Vertical farming of crops. So our teams like excited about what they're doing and they want their customers to succeed. And again, like I said, there's a lot of startups that we work with.
[25:21] SPEAKER_02: So it's like they're kind of on this journey with us. So our team is.
[25:26] SPEAKER_02: Like we haven't had to ask anyone to be more more dedicated.
[25:30] SPEAKER_02: But to your original question. It's yeah, I think it's just making sure.
[25:36] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast is your gateway to success in the world of entrepreneurship supporting software.
[25:41] SPEAKER_00: Start listening to the help start customers. Canada's podcast.com subscribe now.
[25:45] SPEAKER_03: So how do you deal though with the fear and doubt that can creep in?
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: To which part? Yeah, everything.
[25:55] SPEAKER_03: Just you're the entrepreneur. You're the one holding this, which is much different than being an employee where the buck stops somewhere else.
[26:07] SPEAKER_03: So how do you deal with holding all that weight on your shoulders?
[26:13] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great question. It's not all roses being a founder. And fortunately, I have a lot of the challenges when we were in creative destruction lab and different accelerators is.
[26:26] SPEAKER_02: You see other companies that had like founder issues where maybe you weren't contributing as much as another founder or they were actually having our right conflicts and good conflict is healthy.
[26:36] SPEAKER_02: But I think I've been blessed with great co-founders where we're like we're always on the same page.
[26:41] SPEAKER_02: We still, you know, we have that good creative conflict, but whenever we've made decisions or big decisions, we've, you know, we've, we've talked about it a lot.
[26:53] SPEAKER_02: And we've we've always been on the same page about what we're doing. So that is like the best support network.
[27:01] SPEAKER_02: You need that. Of course, you have advisors, you have family members like my wife has been very supportive about even starting this and like all through the early days.
[27:11] SPEAKER_02: But there's, you know, we've gone through a few financing. We had our first seed round coming out of creative structure, creative destruction lab.
[27:18] SPEAKER_02: And maybe this kind of ties back to your earlier question, maybe what I was trying to get a bit more about the event who like a Vancouver company versus the US company is just seems like US companies get larger round sizes and valuations.
[27:31] SPEAKER_02: Whereas we took a more conservative path in Vancouver where we just raised like about a million dollars at a time until we got to our series A, which was last year.
[27:39] SPEAKER_02: So it was like smaller slices of money that would maybe get us to, you know, 12 to 18 months. So I, yeah, you're right. Like I was always carrying that runway of, okay, we're still building stuff.
[27:51] SPEAKER_02: We're getting some good sales momentum over here, but maybe it's flattening out a bit here during this quarter. And then like are we going to get it, you know, growing again and so you're always carrying that.
[28:01] SPEAKER_02: And then meanwhile, we're running right runways running low. We need to go, go raise the next round. So, yeah, I don't know.
[28:09] SPEAKER_02: It's not for everyone. I've definitely had stressful moments. How I, the balance again is with the people around me, plus staying healthy, staying active.
[28:20] SPEAKER_02: Like I'm active in jujitsu competition. It's probably the best sport you could, you know, get your kids into. It's like wrestling grappling. And so it's very like physically intense, but it's also cerebral because you're using your mind.
[28:36] SPEAKER_02: So it's basically an active meditation that I do almost, you know, like as many days a week as I can. And that really helps me blow off the steam from stressful days at the office and stay healthy, stay young and then show up the next day at work with it.
[28:52] SPEAKER_02: It can literally relieve all your stress built up for that day. So I would definitely encourage any founders to try to find that balance.
[29:03] SPEAKER_02: And I think being able to, it's hard to say that like during a financing, like you just any second or like hour that you spend away from the financing, you're just thinking, okay, well, just this next email that I could have been sending instead of going for run.
[29:19] SPEAKER_02: Like this might be the email that gets us the round done or something like that. So you can't think that way. You just do have to carve out the time. Otherwise, your health suffers and everyone else around you will feel that energy.
[29:32] SPEAKER_02: So trying to cultivate positive energy can't be done by just like grinding and working all the time.
[29:41] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[29:42] SPEAKER_02: And not to be in BC because we got to create trails and places to go, you know, do your conditioning.
[29:48] SPEAKER_03: Well, and there's so much research that the more hours you work, the less productive you are.
[29:53] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[29:54] SPEAKER_03: And there's a tipping point where you're actually less productive at after 45 hours a week, then you are 35 hours a week.
[30:04] SPEAKER_02: That's all.
[30:04] SPEAKER_02: The finishing returns.
[30:06] SPEAKER_02: We've got to pick up those days. We try to keep our, we have, you know, some fitness equipment and weights in the office here.
[30:12] SPEAKER_02: And then we've got the sea wall nearby. People go for runs during lunch and pick whatever you're obvious.
[30:18] SPEAKER_02: Like almost everyone does something like we got mountain bikers here. Everyone likes keyboard, ski boards, no boards.
[30:26] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[30:27] SPEAKER_02: There's an entrepreneurial idea.
[30:30] SPEAKER_02: And then yeah, there's actually a few team members that do you just see here at my gym.
[30:35] SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's awesome.
[30:37] SPEAKER_03: So is there any advice you've gotten along the way or a book you read or anything that kind of you go back to that that inspires you or makes you hit pause that you want to share with our listeners.
[30:52] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's, it's a bit of a bundle of advice around business literature.
[31:00] SPEAKER_02: I've taken like in the two masters programs that I did.
[31:04] SPEAKER_02: There were about 25% of that was like MBA stream.
[31:09] SPEAKER_02: So it was like technical plus MBA like combined and learned a lot from those like, you know, you can't really beat that the case case methodology analyzing businesses.
[31:21] SPEAKER_02: And coming up with an analysis doing group work, the presentations with all the preparation around that.
[31:28] SPEAKER_02: And like I wouldn't, you know, that all helped me just being able to the pitch and and analyze and run a company.
[31:38] SPEAKER_02: But I'll say there's a lot of like books that I've discovered after even accelerators didn't introduce us to some of these books that I think like those alone would would have been possibly enough or like if you know if you didn't go to the school.
[31:54] SPEAKER_02: Like you can read some really good books that, you know, I wish we found even sooner.
[31:59] SPEAKER_02: I can list a few of them and I'll finish with like one that I'm reading now that I think is probably changed the way I view business reading in general.
[32:09] SPEAKER_02: But like the hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz is just I think essential for just knowing what you're getting into and how to navigate some of the challenges that you're definitely in a face being a founder.
[32:22] SPEAKER_02: Crossing the chasm is, you know, are you building the right idea and how to do that.
[32:28] SPEAKER_02: We've embraced jobs to be done now for just our product development and that's something that we probably should have done earlier.
[32:35] SPEAKER_02: But I think that's a great way for for any company at any stage to really make sure that they're designing the right product that's going to get the job done for their for their customers.
[32:46] SPEAKER_02: And then the last one that I was going to say is the biographies. I think I'm just totally sold on biographies.
[32:52] SPEAKER_02: It's the best way to learn about business.
[32:55] SPEAKER_02: I'm just in the like last two chapters of the Steve Jobs biography right now.
[33:00] SPEAKER_02: I've read that the previous Elon Musk one. I've got the new one by Walter Isaacson. So that's coming coming at next.
[33:05] SPEAKER_02: But just even in the Steve Jobs one. I just learned so much because it's contextual.
[33:09] SPEAKER_02: It's telling a story which I know that you're a big proponent of story, the power of storytelling.
[33:17] SPEAKER_02: You're getting a story. It resonates with humor because it's contextualized all these different scenarios.
[33:23] SPEAKER_02: And then there's there's so much business insight in there.
[33:26] SPEAKER_02: Just the way he used to negotiate deals the way he interacted with staff, which was not always not always great.
[33:33] SPEAKER_02: But you know, you definitely saw the times that he needed to push hard and then the times it and just how involved he was with with the product itself because being like in so many financing that's the past few years.
[33:46] SPEAKER_02: I felt myself getting a little bit away from product. But now reading that was always the plan was to go back and really help the team focus on product and but hearing how Steve Jobs said it was just like, wow.
[33:58] SPEAKER_02: He was really, really involved with product and deal making. So I would say biographies are phenomenal way to learn about business.
[34:07] SPEAKER_03: I absolutely love that. So thank you for this conversation today. And if our listeners want to learn more about your company, tell them where to go.
[34:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, come to elevated signals dot com. That's our website and on all the socials. It's just that elevated signals. So Instagram and LinkedIn is where we're most active.
[34:31] SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much. And we look forward to hearing from you in the future.
[34:36] SPEAKER_02: My pleasure. Thank you Cynthia.
[34:38] SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
