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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, I'm Phil with Founder and CEO of Founder's podcast,
[00:09] SPEAKER_00: coming to you today from Toronto.
[00:12] SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to be Graham Barlow, who's a four expander
[00:16] SPEAKER_00: and is now CEO of Iverson.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: His co-founders for companies including the Digital Currency Company
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: in the early 2000s that was bought in 2010.
[00:28] SPEAKER_00: He co-founded Rocket Al for those of you that know social gaming.
[00:32] SPEAKER_00: And he sold that one as well.
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: And in 2014, he co-founded ProPET Software
[00:38] SPEAKER_00: and Industry Leading Business Management Platform
[00:41] SPEAKER_00: for the PET industry, which is still operating in his privately held.
[00:46] SPEAKER_00: But in 2016 he joined Iverson to help build a world-class software development agency
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: that specializes in mobile and emerging technology.
[00:56] SPEAKER_00: So he joined the company they have moved from about 500 K-an annual revenues
[01:01] SPEAKER_00: to generating more than 45 million in lifetime services revenues.
[01:06] SPEAKER_00: Quite a kick.
[01:09] SPEAKER_00: As a serial entrepreneur for the last two days, Graham Spencer
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: got spanned, oh, multiple industries is employed hundreds of people globally.
[01:19] SPEAKER_00: And you know, done really well.
[01:20] SPEAKER_00: He's a pretty seasoned investor and advisor
[01:23] SPEAKER_00: and I'm looking forward to our conversation with him.
[01:26] SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Graham.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: Great to meet you.
[01:30] SPEAKER_00: And as I normally do, before we get too deep and too involved in our conversation,
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: start off by telling us a little bit about you, what you do, you know,
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: and how you got onto Canada's podcast kind of thing.
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: Not the actual physical call or whatever.
[01:47] SPEAKER_00: But you know, you're an entrepreneur.
[01:49] SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about it.
[01:51] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:53] SPEAKER_04: First of all, thank you for having me.
[01:55] SPEAKER_04: Really excited to be here and excited to dig into some good conversation.
[02:00] SPEAKER_04: I've been a tech entrepreneur effectively my entire life.
[02:05] SPEAKER_04: Got kind of pulled into it extremely early in building online communities
[02:09] SPEAKER_04: and selling items from online games back in 2000.
[02:13] SPEAKER_04: I ended up building a company around that for about six years before selling it.
[02:19] SPEAKER_04: From there, I ended up co-founding a game development company called Rocketel
[02:23] SPEAKER_04: that we launched games on Facebook in the kind of social impact.
[02:30] SPEAKER_04: Eco friendly zone at the height of kind of Zingha and Farmville and all the madness there.
[02:35] SPEAKER_04: Built it up over a million players.
[02:38] SPEAKER_04: I ended up selling that at the after a pretty crazy, crazy journey there.
[02:43] SPEAKER_04: Spend a couple years after that working with the group that had acquired us.
[02:47] SPEAKER_04: Investing in early stage SaaS companies through a small fund that we had set up.
[02:52] SPEAKER_04: Co-founder to company called ProPET Software,
[02:54] SPEAKER_04: which is business management tools for the pet industry.
[02:57] SPEAKER_04: That's still operating privately today with a couple million customers.
[03:01] SPEAKER_04: And then about eight years ago, while we were doing the investment side of things,
[03:06] SPEAKER_04: got enticed by two founders I had met previously
[03:10] SPEAKER_04: that were looking at starting a liquid cooling hardware company for data centers
[03:16] SPEAKER_04: and high performance computers.
[03:18] SPEAKER_04: And seemed really exciting tied well into my gaming background.
[03:22] SPEAKER_04: But every friend, mentor, advisor, and person I knew told me hardware was a horrible, horrible idea
[03:29] SPEAKER_04: and don't do hardware here, software person.
[03:32] SPEAKER_04: And so I ended up countering after they had asked if I would be interested in coming in as a co-founder
[03:38] SPEAKER_04: and CEO with yes, but you also have the software company over here called Liversoft.
[03:45] SPEAKER_04: But at the time was a team of five or six had been around for a few years,
[03:50] SPEAKER_04: but just kind of finding its way.
[03:52] SPEAKER_04: And so if I come in to do liquid Fox, which was our liquid cooling company,
[03:58] SPEAKER_04: if hardware is as awful as everyone tells me it is,
[04:01] SPEAKER_04: I also want to be a partner in the software thing.
[04:03] SPEAKER_04: And if we don't do the hardware stuff, then let's go about the software company.
[04:06] SPEAKER_04: And six months into the hardware hardware is awful.
[04:10] SPEAKER_04: Don't recommend it.
[04:11] SPEAKER_04: And pivot it into into software.
[04:14] SPEAKER_04: And since then we've grown Iversoft into the high figures,
[04:19] SPEAKER_04: scale the team to more than 50 across the country,
[04:22] SPEAKER_04: and done multiple acquisitions,
[04:26] SPEAKER_04: and been having an amazing time.
[04:28] SPEAKER_04: And then still still doing that with the majority of my time.
[04:32] SPEAKER_04: We've also since then launched a coaching organization helping companies scale
[04:37] SPEAKER_04: up to their first five million and still actively invest in early stage B2B SaaS companies.
[04:42] SPEAKER_04: So that's kind of kind of my role when I get to hang out with cool people like you on podcasts.
[04:48] SPEAKER_00: But I'm interested in you joined Iversoft, you know,
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: instead of starting another new venture, I mean,
[04:56] SPEAKER_00: which makes you in the lexicon more of an entrepreneur
[05:01] SPEAKER_00: than an entrepreneur or not.
[05:04] SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's your perspective?
[05:06] SPEAKER_00: I mean, from being like the founder to being the partner.
[05:14] SPEAKER_00: The partner.
[05:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, different kind of thing.
[05:18] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
[05:20] SPEAKER_04: So I mean, for me, it's, it was interesting, right?
[05:23] SPEAKER_04: Because when I left cash it and pro pat,
[05:27] SPEAKER_04: I was leaving to be a founder in the liquid cooling company.
[05:34] SPEAKER_04: And that was kind of the main jump was go start that thing.
[05:39] SPEAKER_04: And the periphery to that was there's also an opportunity to lean in Iversoft.
[05:45] SPEAKER_04: And Iversoft at time had done some really cool stuff.
[05:48] SPEAKER_04: But by virtue of kind of wear Matt and Vicki's backgrounds come from like Vicki had
[05:53] SPEAKER_04: interned at Apple and come up through the like Apple secret police of don't speak to anyone for anything ever.
[05:59] SPEAKER_04: And Matt had come up through mechanical engineering in the automotive world where it was also like don't speak to anyone ever or we throw a wrenches at you.
[06:07] SPEAKER_04: They built a great company that they didn't tell anyone about had no sales or marketing and was kind of the best kept secret working on mobile stuff.
[06:14] SPEAKER_04: And so it very much kind of felt like a kind of founding moment of establishing real sales and marketing process real.
[06:25] SPEAKER_04: Growth practice and I mean we very, very, very quickly took the company from a couple hundred grand revenue.
[06:33] SPEAKER_04: Up to millions and then 10 million plus so it's been.
[06:38] SPEAKER_04: Sort of entrepreneur but as a full kind of equity partner in the business and also treating it a little bit like a venture studio at times where it's like we get a first look at a lot of early stage companies when we're doing software development and we've used that as a vehicle to participate in seed rounds to make angel investments to invest as Iversoft.
[07:00] SPEAKER_04: So still get to dabble a little bit in the founder focused world of launching cool products and getting in the ground floor.
[07:09] SPEAKER_04: So kind of a trailing founder or whatever.
[07:14] SPEAKER_04: A founder and resident founder and residents refer slightly reformed but not retired.
[07:21] SPEAKER_00: You know, you're still an entrepreneur. You know, I can tell by talking to you.
[07:29] SPEAKER_00: What's different about as guys?
[07:32] SPEAKER_00: Why is there such an interest in entrepreneurship by people that really don't understand it?
[07:42] SPEAKER_01: It's interesting. I think for me.
[07:47] SPEAKER_04: I'm unbelievably unemployable.
[07:51] SPEAKER_04: I do not do well in other frameworks and like literally have a almost physiological response to other people telling me what to do.
[08:02] SPEAKER_04: Even if you're giving me good advice and this was really true when I was a young founder.
[08:08] SPEAKER_04: Last year now I'm better at like receiving advice and learning people.
[08:11] SPEAKER_04: But like you could be like there is a fire runaway.
[08:15] SPEAKER_04: You have to run away and I'd be like, do I?
[08:17] SPEAKER_04: What if I just stand here?
[08:19] SPEAKER_04: Maybe I'll stand here for my own because I can.
[08:22] SPEAKER_04: And so like that that innate desire that I just I wanted to choose my own path was it was an early foundation.
[08:30] SPEAKER_04: I got into entrepreneurship and the whole ecosystem.
[08:36] SPEAKER_04: Honestly, it was kind of a survival mechanism because I was escaping not the best home environment and not the best ecosystem.
[08:44] SPEAKER_04: And so it was a way of creating independence, a way of creating my own opportunity.
[08:49] SPEAKER_04: I was an abysmal student because again, sitting in a desk and doing what I was told.
[08:54] SPEAKER_04: That's so good.
[08:55] SPEAKER_04: And then where it's kind of evolved is it's the ultimate kind of competitive expression where you get to build anything and compete and thrive against some of the best, most creative and interesting people in the world.
[09:13] SPEAKER_04: I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
[09:25] SPEAKER_03: How about you? What pull do you end do it?
[09:28] SPEAKER_00: I think you know, I'm so unemployable, but I went to GM school.
[09:35] SPEAKER_00: I did this and did that and went back to university.
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be a teacher and my friends away with it said, Bill, get real.
[09:48] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[09:52] SPEAKER_00: So I ended up moving into a business life and very quickly kind of found myself in, you know, I didn't want to go back to corporate world.
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: So I went into small business and ended up building things for that.
[10:14] SPEAKER_00: I love building things.
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: I'm a tech guy.
[10:16] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I went, you know, did GM school to that?
[10:18] SPEAKER_00: So I'm a language and a marketing guy and a tech guy.
[10:22] SPEAKER_00: So I ended up being a...
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: For both right.
[10:24] SPEAKER_00: That's right.
[10:25] SPEAKER_00: So that's really it.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: I love it.
[10:28] SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm interested in asking people like this.
[10:31] SPEAKER_00: You know, the last four years have been really weird.
[10:35] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: I don't see why the language is so good.
[10:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[10:40] SPEAKER_00: And we've seen a lot of changes.
[10:43] SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit?
[10:44] SPEAKER_00: Is there some reflection on some of that stuff that you can pass on to people in terms of, you know, running a business, building a business, finding a business.
[10:56] SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing.
[10:57] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[10:59] SPEAKER_04: I like, I think the last four years, I mean, in some ways, as someone who very much grew up on the internet and built my first couple of companies very much online.
[11:08] SPEAKER_04: I felt like I've been training for this my whole life of like, the whole world's gone online.
[11:13] SPEAKER_04: I was like, excellent.
[11:13] SPEAKER_04: I know what to do here.
[11:15] SPEAKER_04: But I think it was, it's also been the ultimate test on how founders can pivot proactively versus reactively.
[11:27] SPEAKER_04: I think that's one of the biggest things.
[11:28] SPEAKER_04: And I'm, I'm proud to say I think we were able to take a pretty pro activist in terms of how we went remote with Iversoft, what that strategy looked like, how that paid off for us.
[11:39] SPEAKER_04: And I mean, in the height of, in the height of that, we tripled the company in about a year and a half.
[11:44] SPEAKER_04: On the back of really good talent acquisition strategy, really good growth strategies.
[11:50] SPEAKER_04: Obviously, high demand in the space.
[11:52] SPEAKER_04: But at the same time, making a lot of the right moves from a people and culture perspective that when the market was crazy and nobody could hire, we were filling roles within two to three weeks with some of the highest caliber time in the world.
[12:03] SPEAKER_04: So to me, it goes back a little bit to what we said about entrepreneurship is like entrepreneurship is kind of the ultimate expression of creativity and competition.
[12:14] SPEAKER_04: I, I think you never know what market condition you're going to be put into.
[12:19] SPEAKER_04: You never know what's going to be thrown at the company and being able to not be so set in your philosophy of this is who we are.
[12:26] SPEAKER_04: This is how we operate.
[12:28] SPEAKER_04: This is the golden rule and it cannot change is critical to navigating grow through uncertain and challenging times.
[12:37] SPEAKER_04: And I think one stark contrast or reminder for me of that is, and challenging all the assumptions that I look at like pre going remote during COVID, we had a work from home policy at Iversoft.
[12:50] SPEAKER_04: Which is great. With manager approval, you could work from home one day every two months, as long as it was scheduled well in advance.
[12:58] SPEAKER_04: And we, I think, approved 60 or 70% of the requests.
[13:04] SPEAKER_04: We went from that to fully remote distributed across the country in two weeks and kind of made it work and went all in on investing in the tools and the resources to make that happen.
[13:17] SPEAKER_04: But clearly that was not a core part of our ethos and philosophy prior to that.
[13:22] SPEAKER_04: But I think when you, when you see situations like that, being willing to make a decisive call and go all on it is, is huge.
[13:31] SPEAKER_04: And we saw a lot of companies that kind of half did it, half didn't do it really strung old.
[13:36] SPEAKER_04: We're seeing it now with a lot of companies that are flip flopping back and forth on are we back to work or like are we back to office?
[13:42] SPEAKER_04: Are we remote? Are we not? We hired a bunch of people that are distributed everywhere.
[13:46] SPEAKER_04: And now we're going to force them all to move relocate.
[13:50] SPEAKER_04: And so there's a huge shuffle in the job market in general.
[13:56] SPEAKER_04: I think one of the other big things and it's interesting right before this coming on the podcast, I was having a deep chat about this with the founder.
[14:04] SPEAKER_04: But like being extremely proactive about how you manage finances and cash flow in the business is also huge.
[14:15] SPEAKER_04: We've been fortunate we have a really good finance team and we pretty proactively try and manage the facilities will be have access to whether that's kind of a floating.
[14:26] SPEAKER_04: So when you're on the line of credit for accounts receivable or just general lines of credit or good relationship with BDC or RBC or different different facilities when everything is good.
[14:35] SPEAKER_04: And this is the thing that I think a lot of founders miss is like when times are good, they don't talk to the bank.
[14:40] SPEAKER_04: And they don't spend time building relationships.
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: Which is what you should be talking to them.
[14:44] SPEAKER_04: Which is abbed like on your best day when you are celebrating your biggest win. Call the bank.
[14:50] SPEAKER_04: Go back.
[14:51] SPEAKER_04: Tell them.
[14:52] SPEAKER_04: Show them.
[14:53] SPEAKER_04: Right? Because because what doesn't go well is when the first phone call they get from you in three years is when you're in a crisis and you need money to make payroll the next week.
[15:02] SPEAKER_04: Because they have no context and how the business is doing.
[15:05] SPEAKER_04: They have no confidence in what your consistency is.
[15:09] SPEAKER_04: And you're starting that relationship from scratch. Whereas if you can establish some of that credit if you can establish some of that flexibility before you need it.
[15:16] SPEAKER_04: It's a lot easier to operate it when one of your customers unexpectedly doesn't pay you on time like we about a year ago.
[15:24] SPEAKER_04: We had two of our largest enterprise clients that are on net 30 contracts.
[15:29] SPEAKER_04: Inform us that new corporate policy was they would be paying that 90.
[15:34] SPEAKER_04: And we just needed to eat that.
[15:37] SPEAKER_04: And they're like you can fight it. But this is this is like this is the new stance from the billion departments.
[15:42] SPEAKER_04: Hopefully they'll change it back at some point.
[15:44] SPEAKER_04: And it was like, well, all of a sudden you're floating multiple six figure a month contracts for three extra months.
[15:52] SPEAKER_04: You need to have a plan for that. And you need to have relations that can help you solve that.
[15:58] SPEAKER_04: And if you don't you die. And so I'm a huge on just being super, super proactive.
[16:05] SPEAKER_04: Like be optimistic in your forecasting your sales and how you approach that.
[16:08] SPEAKER_04: Be so pessimistic on how you manage cash flow.
[16:11] SPEAKER_04: Assume everyone's going to be late. Assume you're going to chase everyone. Assume everything gets hung up in wire transfers and everything else and have system.
[16:17] SPEAKER_04: So that when all of that goes sideways, you're still OK with over 700 episodes and 500 news articles.
[16:25] SPEAKER_03: We are your go to source for all things entrepreneurship.
[16:29] SPEAKER_03: Canada's podcast dot com subscribe now.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: Create some great advice that bring to super.
[16:34] SPEAKER_00: And you've faced a lot of challenges growing these businesses.
[16:41] SPEAKER_00: If you kind of found a process that you use that helps you go from, you know, get round the wall over the wall.
[16:51] SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want to say.
[16:52] SPEAKER_00: Is there some kind of process that you you used to do that?
[16:56] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's one that I think my team sometimes makes fun of me for another founders that I talk to you make fun of me.
[17:06] SPEAKER_04: But I've gotten very, very, very good at the reflexive muscle of problem hits me immediately go to my network.
[17:18] SPEAKER_04: Who do I know that's done this before or who in what company has solved this before?
[17:23] SPEAKER_04: Like I try not to net new figure anything out myself.
[17:27] SPEAKER_04: And I try to immediately go, OK, if I if I haven't solved this.
[17:32] SPEAKER_04: Accenture has and there's probably someone smaller than Accenture that has.
[17:36] SPEAKER_04: So my job or the next 24 hours is to find somebody in the world that has dealt with this thing before I solved it once.
[17:43] SPEAKER_04: And I can buy them coffee. I can fly out to them. I can do something to go have a conversation with them and say, hey, what did you do?
[17:48] SPEAKER_04: And like we've built communities like fresh founders and there's organizations like YPO and you know, and others that make this kind of accelerated.
[17:56] SPEAKER_04: But I think one of the most important things you can do as a founder is have and curate a phenomenal network of awesome people.
[18:07] SPEAKER_04: So that when something unexpected hits you, you're not scrambling to figure it out and that new.
[18:13] SPEAKER_04: And you can lean on people talk to and when people lean on you answer them.
[18:17] SPEAKER_04: Because I think you you give back into that ecosystem because the system gives back to you when you need it.
[18:22] SPEAKER_00: That's really good advice. Speaking about advice.
[18:26] SPEAKER_00: What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: You know, but you carry it that's there all the time in the back of your mind.
[18:33] SPEAKER_00: And you know, you should just won't go away kind of thing.
[18:38] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think the one one quote I got when I was 21 and we closed around a rocket all I'm one of the lead investors and ended up becoming one of my best friends.
[18:50] SPEAKER_04: I'm a gentleman named Tim Kimber.
[18:54] SPEAKER_04: And I kind of brushed off a little bit at the time, but over the years has been been reinforced over and over again.
[18:59] SPEAKER_04: And he said 50% of everything is showing up.
[19:03] SPEAKER_04: And what's interesting to me about that is the number of times in my career and throughout my life where I've hit points where.
[19:12] SPEAKER_04: Whether it's a late night event or a flight or something. I'm just I'm not feeling it.
[19:16] SPEAKER_04: I don't know the energy for it. I'm like exhaustive.
[19:18] SPEAKER_04: Got a hundred other things going on.
[19:19] SPEAKER_04: As soon as I feel like I don't know.
[19:23] SPEAKER_04: That's almost become a leading indicator for me if I need to go show up because I don't know who I'm going to run into.
[19:28] SPEAKER_04: What's going to happen and.
[19:31] SPEAKER_04: What's kind of crazy to me now that we're also spending more time in the investment side is.
[19:38] SPEAKER_04: It's truly remarkable.
[19:40] SPEAKER_04: Finding people that show up consistently over extended periods of time.
[19:45] SPEAKER_04: You can see a ton of hostility from founders for 60 90 120 days.
[19:51] SPEAKER_04: When I meet founders that are like I'm going to give you an update on my business every month.
[19:56] SPEAKER_04: And I can look back at my inbox and I have a monthly update from them over two three four years.
[20:01] SPEAKER_04: Those are the ones that are building stuff.
[20:02] SPEAKER_04: Those are the ones that are actually moving the needle.
[20:05] SPEAKER_04: And.
[20:06] SPEAKER_04: That kind of consistency compounding over time to build incredible companies and credible results and credible networks.
[20:13] SPEAKER_04: Is huge and so like 50% of it might be skill and talent and whatever but literally 50% of it just show up every time.
[20:22] SPEAKER_04: Consistently and you're halfway there.
[20:24] SPEAKER_04: You're already ahead of the vast majority of people.
[20:26] SPEAKER_00: Cool.
[20:27] SPEAKER_00: Good.
[20:29] SPEAKER_00: Good observations.
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's have some fun.
[20:32] SPEAKER_00: Let's move to my rapid fire.
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: I mean, my schedule got about five ten minutes left.
[20:40] SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing instead?
[20:46] SPEAKER_04: I would run a collectible card store.
[20:50] SPEAKER_04: Collectible cards.
[20:51] SPEAKER_04: Magic cards, Pokemon cards. That is that is my guilty pleasure.
[20:55] SPEAKER_04: If I'm stressed out of my work at by a ton of cards and open them.
[20:58] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'm not going to be a good person.
[20:58] SPEAKER_00: Good.
[20:59] SPEAKER_00: You know, what book are you calling you reading, listening to podcasts, whatever.
[21:07] SPEAKER_00: What's kind of exciting.
[21:09] SPEAKER_04: Uh, biggest one lately has been buy back your time from Dan Martell.
[21:15] SPEAKER_04: Love it and pushing it through all of our teams and companies.
[21:19] SPEAKER_04: I think between that and $100 million leads.
[21:23] SPEAKER_04: Those are two of the best business books I've seen come out in the last five, ten years.
[21:28] SPEAKER_00: You're a monitor and I'm a person.
[21:31] SPEAKER_01: Morning.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: You're just tonight.
[21:35] SPEAKER_04: It's changed.
[21:36] SPEAKER_04: I'm morning as of the last nine months.
[21:39] SPEAKER_04: Prior to that, I was like, see me at 1 a.m. to a person.
[21:42] SPEAKER_04: Now I'm done by like 10 in the evening, but I'm up it for.
[21:46] SPEAKER_04: I want to work out.
[21:48] SPEAKER_04: What did you change?
[21:51] SPEAKER_04: Uh, partially a push from my coach and just getting a lot more emphasis on physical fitness and recognizing the amount of energy that came from that and how much my productivity increased through that shift.
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: If you have to pick one word to describe.
[22:11] SPEAKER_00: What would it be and why?
[22:16] SPEAKER_04: Persistent.
[22:19] SPEAKER_04: I don't.
[22:21] SPEAKER_04: I think I think my greatest strength is still sticking around.
[22:29] SPEAKER_04: I love what I do and I love the people I get to build stuff with and so persistence.
[22:34] Speaker UNKNOWN: Because I can't get to the job I do.
[22:35] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[22:35] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[22:35] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[22:36] SPEAKER_04: Ultimately beat again, like consistency over ridiculously long period of time.
[22:41] SPEAKER_04: Means you win.
[22:42] SPEAKER_04: Nothing happens as quickly as we want it to.
[22:45] SPEAKER_04: And so most of the big wins are the overnight success that took 10 years to build beforehand.
[22:52] SPEAKER_00: If you go back in time, what advice would you give your 20 year old self?
[23:00] SPEAKER_04: Uh, advice I would give her advice I think I would listen to.
[23:04] SPEAKER_04: Uh, because I think I don't know how to solve the second one.
[23:10] SPEAKER_04: But I think what's interesting is I was very fortunate to have an incredible board and an incredible group of people around me when I was 1920 and we were doing rock it all.
[23:19] SPEAKER_04: And almost to a tee every single one of them told me to slow down, breathe and enjoy the journey.
[23:29] SPEAKER_04: And I was obsessed with 16, 18 hour days, seven days a week, push to get the exit.
[23:38] SPEAKER_04: You either go public or you blow up and die.
[23:40] SPEAKER_04: There is no other outcome and nothing else matters until you get there.
[23:43] SPEAKER_04: And I lived in that state for probably four years.
[23:48] SPEAKER_04: And don't have a ton of context on like what happened in my life during that time outside of the like the drive.
[23:54] SPEAKER_04: And so if if there's any way I get myself to listen to that advice and enjoy the journey a little bit more and enjoy the people I get to see in the cities I went to.
[24:01] SPEAKER_04: Like I remember I think I was in New York three times for conferences.
[24:06] SPEAKER_04: And I literally went and it was the first time I'd ever been in New York and I literally went airport hotel hotel conference room speak conference room hotel hotel airport gone.
[24:14] SPEAKER_04: I was like, oh, that was New York cool in out gone.
[24:18] SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't until six or seven years later that I actually went back and like saw the city and did did some stuff and saw some other people.
[24:26] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so a final question.
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: What's keeping up at night these days?
[24:31] SPEAKER_04: Oh, honestly excitement like there's so much so much opportunity right now with what we're seeing at the bleeding edge of AI and where I'm seeing at least like I host a dinner series across the country called Founder dinners.
[24:48] SPEAKER_04: And the amount of kind of pent up enthusiasm and excitement from founders and community to reconnect with each other to share stories to share resources is at a level I've never experienced before.
[25:02] SPEAKER_04: So I'm just I'm really excited to be building in that space and really excited to see what kind of the next generation of technology enables for us.
[25:10] SPEAKER_00: Cool, yeah, it's pretty it is an exciting time. I agree with it.
[25:15] SPEAKER_00: Graham, that sounds in terms of this interview. It's been really great.
[25:21] SPEAKER_00: Some some super insights great having you on.
[25:24] SPEAKER_00: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was awesome.
[25:26] SPEAKER_00: Well, good again.
[25:28] SPEAKER_00: I'm filled blissed.
[25:30] SPEAKER_00: Been great seeing you. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter on our website and also subscribe on our YouTube channel or any of the major podcast channels that we're on.
[25:42] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Canada's podcast where you meet the entrepreneurs that drive Canada's economy. See you soon.
