Inside the Mind Behind Canada’s Boldest Tech Moves

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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's Entrepreneur, where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen
[00:05] SPEAKER_02: across Canada and deliver the news, trends, knowledge and opinions from entrepreneurs and business
[00:13] SPEAKER_02: influences across the country. Hi everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, founder and CEO of Canada's Entrepreneur
[00:22] SPEAKER_02: coming to you today from Toronto. To all so many, we spent over 25 years helping
[00:28] SPEAKER_02: organisation spark change through innovation. It makes business transformation faster,
[00:37] SPEAKER_02: smoother and more effective. Whether it's a startup or a well-established organisation,
[00:43] SPEAKER_02: it's all about building a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. As the Chief Strategy
[00:49] SPEAKER_02: Officer at Community, he's had the opportunity to reshape the strategic direction, strength and
[00:56] SPEAKER_02: connections and help drive growth in Canada's tech ecosystem. During the Covid-19 pandemic,
[01:06] SPEAKER_02: we launched a different initiatives like the Future of Retail Programme, which supported Canadian
[01:11] SPEAKER_02: startups and local retailers. It's also been probably some pretty cool initiatives, like NATO
[01:19] SPEAKER_02: Diana and Khan Health, which helped Canadian innovators tap into Canadian and global markets
[01:26] SPEAKER_02: for opportunities. And boy, we need those global markets right now. And when I see policy changes
[01:33] SPEAKER_02: that could, when he sees policy changes that can make life easier, he's pushing for those two.
[01:42] SPEAKER_02: He loves to help organisations innovate. He co-founded and skilled ImageNet in 1997.
[01:51] SPEAKER_02: In 2008, he also created an international venture studio targeting manufacturing,
[01:58] SPEAKER_02: healthcare and transportation and partnered with Accelerators worldwide. He also advised a range
[02:05] SPEAKER_02: of companies on adapting to fast-changing markets. So let's get into a conversation with you all.
[02:13] SPEAKER_02: I think we're going to be able to get some very good insights into innovation and how to open
[02:22] SPEAKER_02: up new markets and not just the US. So, you're welcome to Canada's entrepreneur. It's great to see you.
[02:33] SPEAKER_02: And I see you've got your community brand there. That's a great organisation.
[02:43] SPEAKER_02: They've been around for quite some time now. I'm just trying to think how long
[02:47] SPEAKER_02: I can remember and they start it up.
[02:50] SPEAKER_02: They started about 1997. So it's been around for quite a while.
[02:56] SPEAKER_02: Before we get too deep into our discussion, conversation, whatever,
[03:02] SPEAKER_02: why don't you just give everyone a little bit of knowledge about yourself,
[03:08] SPEAKER_02: what you do, how you got here. And a three minute kind of description.
[03:17] SPEAKER_00: So I tell everyone I'm a recovering entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur since
[03:23] SPEAKER_00: about 1994. I got sold out of my companies late 2016-2017. Was it drifted a little bit,
[03:34] SPEAKER_00: but I was always really passionate about how can I give back. I spent a lot of time in Asia,
[03:39] SPEAKER_00: in Europe, and United States, and ran also my own accelerators during that journey.
[03:44] SPEAKER_00: Came across community tech. And they were that organisation that was spearheading all the things
[03:49] SPEAKER_00: that I wanted to do and to give back to people who were like me, maybe a younger version,
[03:54] SPEAKER_00: less grey hair version of me. And so joined the organisation in 2020, and my role now is Chief
[03:59] SPEAKER_00: Strategy Officer. Not a lot of people know what that is, and sometimes neither do I on a given day,
[04:05] SPEAKER_00: but really I'm thinking about the broader landscape of the tech ecosystem. And more importantly,
[04:11] SPEAKER_00: what we can do to really unleash the opportunities for founders specifically in the Waterloo region,
[04:17] SPEAKER_00: and also collaborate with partners across Canada to create something greater than the some of its
[04:21] SPEAKER_00: parts. So that's really the focal point of my role right now at Community Tech.
[04:27] SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you've been lucky, you've been an entrepreneur, you've been an organisation.
[04:33] SPEAKER_02: What would you say are the top three things you've learned in your entrepreneurial journey so far?
[04:43] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny. A lot of people ask me if I've got one more venture left in me,
[04:47] SPEAKER_00: and I contemplate that because I go, I wonder if I know too much now.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: Like I wonder if I'm too wise in terms of the experience that I've had, because I think
[04:57] SPEAKER_00: naivety is a superpower, sometimes when you're trudging head long into the uncertainty of building
[05:04] SPEAKER_00: a tech startup. And what you've got is that hope and what you've got is that dream that you have to
[05:08] SPEAKER_00: make to make to make impact. But you know, certainly the one thing that there's a couple things that
[05:14] SPEAKER_00: I've learned. One is just to surround yourself with people who really want to share in your success.
[05:20] SPEAKER_00: And that could be, you know, business partners for sure, but that also means the ecosystem
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: in the community. People who are giving to you and truly want to see you succeed. And
[05:34] SPEAKER_00: and it's very interesting how many people and how many communities are out there that I like that.
[05:39] SPEAKER_00: And I had never realized the power of that. You know, when I started my companies, I was a
[05:43] SPEAKER_00: alone wolf trying to kind of make it on my own, but I realized that I had started to gravitate
[05:49] SPEAKER_00: to a few different mentors who kind of been there, done that. And they became a really important part
[05:55] SPEAKER_00: of my my inspiration, but also my sanity. You know, it's like, is has anybody else experienced,
[06:01] SPEAKER_00: you know, these problems that I'm experiencing right now and I had those kind words saying, yeah,
[06:06] SPEAKER_00: yeah, no, this this happens. I'm like, oh, good. You know, this roller coaster ride isn't just
[06:10] SPEAKER_00: made made for me that there's other people who have survived this and thrived in it. And so
[06:16] SPEAKER_00: that ecosystem that that community, I've found sometimes I still meet entrepreneurs today who are
[06:23] SPEAKER_00: maybe hesitant to jump in, but I say jump in and find and surround yourself with people who
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: who truly want to help you out and see your success. The other the other point of view that I always
[06:35] SPEAKER_00: really agonize over these days is we need to think big day one. I talk to a lot of founders who
[06:42] SPEAKER_00: like, I'm going to be big in Canada one day and then I'm going to be big, you know, and have this
[06:46] SPEAKER_00: incremental mindset. And we live in a new world where, you know, as we think about markets and
[06:51] SPEAKER_00: market access, finding customers is different than, you know, how we found customers 20, 25 years ago,
[06:57] SPEAKER_00: or when I started almost 30 years ago. And we need to think about global market and market access
[07:02] SPEAKER_00: right away. And so I'm I always encourage tech founders and entrepreneurs to think really
[07:09] SPEAKER_00: broad about where those big markets are. And also to think beyond Canada and even think beyond
[07:14] SPEAKER_00: the United States to think about how we can think about really engaging with that market as soon
[07:19] SPEAKER_00: as quickly as possible. And then I think the third thing that I've learned that I try to promote
[07:24] SPEAKER_00: when I work with founders is don't wait. I find a lot of startups like to wait until they feel
[07:30] SPEAKER_00: like they've got something perfect to start releasing to the world. I'm like, no, no, you actually
[07:35] SPEAKER_00: want to do, you know, engage your early market as quickly as similarly possible because they're
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: going to help make those micro course corrections or guide you through those micro course corrections
[07:45] SPEAKER_00: earlier than later. So, you know, get over the the perfection syndrome and just jump in, work with
[07:52] SPEAKER_00: those early customers, work with those early markets wherever they might be on a global scale,
[07:57] SPEAKER_00: and really surround yourself by people who can can coach you, encourage you, and support you
[08:02] SPEAKER_01: through that that long journey. So think about what you said, like don't wait.
[08:10] SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a some observations that you can throw at us because you've seen lots of
[08:16] SPEAKER_02: organization, lots of lots of startups. Is there something there that sort of signals that they're on
[08:26] SPEAKER_00: the right track? You know, I come back to a book called Crossing the Casm. It seems to be the book
[08:35] SPEAKER_00: that I have often gifted the most because I feel that it encapsulates the narrative of what I'm
[08:42] SPEAKER_00: talking about right now is that they're, you know, out of any customer segment, there's going to be
[08:46] SPEAKER_00: people who are early adopters and there are people who are laggards and you really can't spend time
[08:50] SPEAKER_00: worrying about your laggards quite yet. But what you really need to think about from the early adopter
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: segments are two sub-signans. There's one literally called an early adopter and there's one called
[09:00] SPEAKER_00: the innovator. And out of 100 potential customers, it's about 2%. And those innovators are very special
[09:06] SPEAKER_00: people because when you talk to them, they go, oh my god, I've been looking for you. Yeah, they get
[09:12] SPEAKER_00: they get you. They want to be engaged with you. They might not give you money, but they're going
[09:17] SPEAKER_00: to give you time, they're going to give you energy and they're going to give you feedback. And
[09:22] SPEAKER_00: sometimes I feel that founders don't find that segment as early as they can. But once you find
[09:28] SPEAKER_00: them, you got to latch right on to them because now you're going to have that feedback cycle.
[09:33] SPEAKER_00: You're going to have a group of people who are totally invested and they get what you're trying
[09:37] SPEAKER_00: to do. There's no selling. There's no anything. And all of my successes in life have always been
[09:43] SPEAKER_00: actually jumping off the cliff with that group. They really are excited when they're doing,
[09:49] SPEAKER_00: participate and engage. And they want to see something raw. They want to see something that has
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: not been polished yet so that they can have a way of giving you feedback and excitement into that.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: By doing that part right, you're going to have all the traction you need to get to that
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: other early adopter market, which will get you all that traction that you need to cross that
[10:10] SPEAKER_00: chasm. And so I really do encourage the group to find those innovators and you know them because
[10:16] SPEAKER_00: you don't have to sell to them. You said, I'm doing this and they go, oh my god, that's amazing.
[10:21] SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about this problem that you're solving for a long time and I'm so glad that
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: you're trying to solve it. How can I help? And that's when you know and you put all of your energy
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: into that group and really start those feedback cycles quickly.
[10:37] SPEAKER_02: Some of that stuff is great. You're back on this innovation and you've done a lot of international
[10:44] SPEAKER_02: initiatives and you've brought it. We're talking a little bit about it, but maybe we can be more
[10:49] SPEAKER_02: specific. What can others learn from your experience based on today's changing trade landscape?
[11:02] SPEAKER_02: Because it's not going to differ. There's a big change.
[11:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is certainly a topic of conversation that we have ongoing right now with a lot
[11:14] SPEAKER_00: of our founders. And maybe let me back up the bus a little bit to go forward. We hear the same
[11:20] SPEAKER_00: story from founders over and over again. And in fact, this was my own journey. I would start here in
[11:25] SPEAKER_00: Canada and have a few early customers, but it was so difficult to get my products, you know,
[11:32] SPEAKER_00: adopted by Canadians. So I'd be like, where's the next biggest market for me to jump into? And I
[11:42] SPEAKER_00: think it's a very big, very dense, very aggressive market. And you can get a lot of traction. And
[11:46] SPEAKER_00: funny enough, when you get some traction there, you have enough credibility to come back to Canada
[11:51] SPEAKER_00: and sell back into Canada. Again, something similar that we've seen from a lot of our
[11:57] SPEAKER_00: organizations. And by no means has that changed the condition. There is a big, vibrant market
[12:04] SPEAKER_00: that's right underneath us. But I think what it's also putting a spotlight in on to is how to
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: diversify markets in my market access. So especially with early traction, you want to minimize as much
[12:17] SPEAKER_00: friction and increase the cycle time as much as humanly possible because you're learning. And you
[12:22] SPEAKER_00: need really customers and early traction to do that. And really, it makes a lot of sense to do that
[12:28] SPEAKER_00: in a nice, dense market of your early adopters. And in a lot of cases, that's going to be in the
[12:35] SPEAKER_00: United States. But at the same time, we shouldn't be dropping or thinking that we're, you know,
[12:40] SPEAKER_00: that that's the solution. We should always be thinking about, you know, where are other
[12:45] SPEAKER_00: dense markets? Or maybe we should think about how we can tap into growing European or Asian market
[12:51] SPEAKER_00: as a starting point as well. Sometimes that's more difficult because there's more friction,
[12:56] SPEAKER_00: time zones, travel time, relationship, cultures. But we should always be thinking about how we can
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: really diversify those markets. And, you know, we had an event last night at Communitech
[13:07] SPEAKER_00: called our CEO dinner and we brought in a speaker and we talked about kind of sometimes it's too
[13:14] SPEAKER_00: easy and we get too complacent with having that large market underneath us and we haven't diversified
[13:19] SPEAKER_00: as much as we should. But certainly that is on the top on the mind of most of our founders right
[13:24] SPEAKER_00: now. I was like, where are the other markets that I can diversify in and across into?
[13:31] SPEAKER_02: You know, do you think entrepreneurs, if hung out with a lot of them, as well as being one yourself,
[13:37] SPEAKER_02: do you think entrepreneurs are wired differently? Is it something you know, you've sort of spent
[13:44] SPEAKER_02: some time kind of corporate life as well? What's different about entrepreneurs?
[13:51] SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's really interesting that you bring that up. I have this general set of categories
[13:59] SPEAKER_00: that I look at. I think of an entrepreneur versus an innovator. And to me an innovator is someone
[14:04] SPEAKER_00: who is running towards the fire versus a wave from it, right? They see a problem and there's this
[14:10] SPEAKER_00: like compulsion in them to solve that problem. And you can't explain it. There's no logic in it,
[14:16] SPEAKER_00: but they're like, I think I got to do something about that problem. Right? And so they go through
[14:22] SPEAKER_00: a number of different steps. First, they see a problem that needs to be solved and like, wow,
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: that problem needs to be solved. And then in their mind, they go, I think I've got a solution to
[14:30] SPEAKER_00: that problem, right? That's the innovator in them. And then the final part of that compulsion that
[14:35] SPEAKER_00: pushes them on that journey is this need to be the one to solve that problem. Now innovators exist
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: within organizations and they exist as entrepreneurs building their own organizations.
[14:49] SPEAKER_00: But they kind of share that same premise, that same run towards the fire. The difference is,
[14:55] SPEAKER_00: in my opinion, that separates maybe an entrepreneur from an entrepreneur is also the need to create
[15:03] SPEAKER_00: something broader than that. Like there is this internal drive to see what they can accomplish by
[15:09] SPEAKER_00: creating an organization of their own versus working within the confines of an existing one.
[15:16] SPEAKER_00: It turns out that most of my successful founders that I work with are driven not by money or
[15:24] SPEAKER_00: their ability to think about their future wealth. They're compelled about the building of something.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: Compel to run towards creating something that is authentically new and has impact.
[15:37] SPEAKER_00: And sure, there's lots of financial impact. But that's the difference that drives them forward.
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, this is a long journey. The shortest overnight success is seven
[15:48] SPEAKER_00: years. So all the overnight successes that we see about on TV, those founders have been at that day
[15:54] SPEAKER_00: after day, you know, Chuck Wood, Carrie, Carrie water, Chuck Wood, Carrie water day after day.
[16:01] SPEAKER_00: And the thing that keeps them on that roller coaster is that compulsion, that something that's
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: inside of them that says, I want to build this thing. I want to see what we're capable of doing.
[16:11] SPEAKER_00: I want to make impact. And sometimes they've, they've, but at the, at the core, they're still an
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: innovator. They're still running towards the fire and wanting to drive that. So yeah. And honestly,
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: there's a few other characteristics. One of the things that I found, I'm dyslexic, very heavily
[16:27] SPEAKER_00: and I'm ADHD. And I come across a lot of founders who are also dyslexic and ADHD.
[16:33] SPEAKER_02: I don't want it to one of those two. Yeah. And I find that old, I find that all the time with other
[16:40] SPEAKER_00: other entrepreneurial buddies. Yeah. So for me, I had a hard time working in an organization as a
[16:47] SPEAKER_00: result of that. But I found that I flourished when I worked independently as, you know, as an entrepreneur.
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: I was able to leverage that as a superpower versus something that would maybe be harmful to me as
[16:59] SPEAKER_00: my career progressed up a ladder in some sort of corporate job. I mean, do you think, you know,
[17:09] SPEAKER_02: with today's, you know, businesses, obviously, you know, so much change going on. Do you feel that
[17:21] SPEAKER_02: the, you know, what do you feel about the future of entrepreneurship? In, let's say, Ontario,
[17:28] SPEAKER_02: KW, whatever, and the rest of Canada, if you want, but that's where we live and we're specifically
[17:37] SPEAKER_02: not knowledge. Is there anything changing already with this last, you know, two months kind of thing?
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: Oh, undoubtedly. I mean, but what's really interesting is that entrepreneurs are treating this as
[17:52] SPEAKER_00: another fire that they're running towards. They're, they're, they're trying to solve the problem.
[17:57] SPEAKER_00: Some of them are getting out of from an opportunistic perspective. I met a group last night who are
[18:03] SPEAKER_00: creating websites to help organizations buy more Canadian like they're jumping in. They're already
[18:08] SPEAKER_00: entrepreneurs, but they're doing something else to help the ecosystem, you know, buy from one another.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: So I feel that the innovator entrepreneur spirit is actually being lit up again because we've got
[18:20] SPEAKER_00: a brand new fire. And that actually gives me a ton of hope because it's, and these are the
[18:26] SPEAKER_00: organizations, you know, startups were born out of uncertainty, you know, if they didn't have
[18:32] SPEAKER_00: uncertainty, they would not have built a startup as they were. So they're good at uncertainty.
[18:38] SPEAKER_00: And this is where I'm seeing startups really shine because they're looking at this as not only
[18:43] SPEAKER_00: a problem that they're going to try to solve, but perhaps even an opportunity to think differently
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: and try something new and perhaps even pivot. And this is reflective of my own experience as well.
[18:53] SPEAKER_00: I started my first big company in 1997, you know, boom.com bust soon after that, you know, 2001 happened
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: after that, you know, 2008 happened after that, 2014 oil crash happened after that. And in every
[19:08] SPEAKER_00: single time, you know, it was, there were existential risks to my businesses. I was going through that,
[19:14] SPEAKER_00: but it also gave us an opportunity to rethink everything and to, to, I built my most successful
[19:20] SPEAKER_02: adventures from the recession, the bottom, the bottom up kind of thing. Exactly right. In fact,
[19:30] SPEAKER_00: you know, one of our ventures, so I run a bit of a venture studio for a while and it was in
[19:35] SPEAKER_00: partnership with a bunch of other organizations, but we were on out hiking in Everest region when
[19:42] SPEAKER_00: Lehman's crashed. And, and so we were still stuck on the mountain for, you know, a number of weeks,
[19:48] SPEAKER_00: but it certainly gave us a lot of time to go, okay, now what? Like, what's what do we do now? And to
[19:53] SPEAKER_00: your point, that was, that was pretty rock bottom. I mean, things didn't get much, you know, worse than
[19:59] SPEAKER_00: that in that time period, but it also provided like the bottom part of that roller coaster that all
[20:05] SPEAKER_00: you can kind of do is work your way back up. And so we saw that as certainly a new fire that we
[20:10] SPEAKER_00: were running towards and it helped us rethink things. Like a laser laser pointer.
[20:17] SPEAKER_01: You know, you, you yourself and, and you've seen others, you know, face unexpected challenges.
[20:29] SPEAKER_01: Do you, do you have or have you seen a process that can manage that?
[20:37] SPEAKER_02: Hmm. And we talk about the pivot. I mean, that, that sort of an unexpected challenge usually.
[20:44] SPEAKER_02: You know, is there a process to, to do the pivot, if you like, that, that, that you've seen the works
[20:52] SPEAKER_00: basically? Yeah. You know, and I think there's, there's two aspects of that. One is like a personal
[20:58] SPEAKER_00: process. Like, what do we need to have in us internally to be able to, to weather that? And, um,
[21:06] SPEAKER_00: you know, and I think, you know, entrepreneurs are kind of built for it anyway. We, we, we actually kind
[21:11] SPEAKER_00: of like the stress. We kind of revel in it. And, and it helps us hyper focus as an ADHD or the stress
[21:18] SPEAKER_00: gives me superpowers because I can hyper focus on something for extended periods of time. And,
[21:24] SPEAKER_00: and feel really good about it because you go into flow. So I think naturally there's a personal
[21:28] SPEAKER_00: side of things. But, um, in really great organizations, they're already thinking about the new thing
[21:36] SPEAKER_00: already. So, you know, I think that's really the key aspect that I like to bring to the
[21:42] SPEAKER_00: tables that a lot of really successful entrepreneurs are starting and skilling their business. But
[21:47] SPEAKER_00: they're, they're from the future. They're already thinking about the next thing. And they're running
[21:52] SPEAKER_00: experiments already, right? They're running, they're doing a little side project themselves. Maybe
[21:57] SPEAKER_00: they got another little side team. That's what I used to do. I used to have a little side team on
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: the side. It's like, we're going to experiment with, you know, some new technology to see what we
[22:05] SPEAKER_00: can do. And so they're already dabbling with something that is new. And sometimes, um, a crisis
[22:12] SPEAKER_00: comes along that accelerates that. So, oh, we got to do that faster. Like, maybe we were onto something.
[22:17] SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's really the, the heart of things is that sometimes we get into the,
[22:23] SPEAKER_00: you know, we hyper focus on the scaling growth side too much without also continuing to think about
[22:30] SPEAKER_00: the what's next, you know, um, and always trying to figure out, you know, how to all, you know,
[22:37] SPEAKER_00: to, to displace ourselves as something that we used to think about. So, for example, I'm personally
[22:41] SPEAKER_00: infatuated with AI. I'm so interested in how, you know, if I were to create a new company today
[22:47] SPEAKER_00: with AI and where it's going to be with agents and, and, and, you know, and almost it being a co-worker
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: of mine, like, how do I do things different? And I feel like the organizations that are already
[22:58] SPEAKER_00: thinking about that and running some experiments are going to be the ones that are best set for
[23:03] SPEAKER_00: when hard times come because they can, they can, they, you know, they're already dabbling, they're
[23:07] SPEAKER_00: already making a few bets. Um, they're not big bets. They're smaller bets, but there's certainly
[23:13] SPEAKER_00: bets that are being made that they can jump on as AC fit. And, and you can see it in some of the,
[23:18] SPEAKER_00: the greatest pivot stories of our time, right? You know, if you remember Slack, you know, it didn't
[23:23] SPEAKER_00: start off as Slack. It started off as a gaming company and, you know, but they were already,
[23:28] SPEAKER_00: let's, hey, we're building this communication tool internally that eventually became Slack. And
[23:34] SPEAKER_00: it's one of those things that allows these organizations to rethink everything, um, but they get
[23:39] SPEAKER_00: good at, you know, running those little experiments to de-risk what that future looks like.
[23:45] SPEAKER_02: You know, thinking about advice and mentorship, you know, what's the best piece of advice that you
[23:51] SPEAKER_02: received that, you know, that you carry around with you all the time kind of thing? Yeah, I've had
[23:58] SPEAKER_00: a lot of great mentors and, and I've been debating writing a book on all these little sayings that
[24:03] SPEAKER_00: they've been giving to me over the past, you know, 30 years that sometimes only hit me as relevant
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: when, you know, it's like my mom giving me advice before I was a parent and then it became a
[24:14] SPEAKER_00: parent and say, oh, I get that now, right? But, and it all came back. One of the things that really
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: has sit with, that sat with me very deeply is the need to recover as a founder. We are,
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: in a sense, like athletes, you know, if you take a look at an Olympic athlete, there's no good reason
[24:33] SPEAKER_00: for what they do. There's a dream, there's a compulsion, there's a ton of work for a long period of
[24:39] SPEAKER_00: time for them to get to the point they're at. But, Olympians can't train every single day in the
[24:47] SPEAKER_00: same way. They have to integrate rest periods in there. And I find, you know, we, you know, there's
[24:53] SPEAKER_00: obviously a hustle culture that I'm not debating is good or bad. But, while you're performing at
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: your peak, you can't be there all the time. You need to recover. And it was when I truly started to
[25:07] SPEAKER_00: focus on my recovery, my personal recovery, that I saw higher performance and my ability to be
[25:16] SPEAKER_00: resilient to change and uncertainty. Otherwise, I was kind of hitting that burnout threshold all the
[25:21] SPEAKER_00: time. So I would be very strategic in terms of, no, no, no, I need to recharge, but I want to recharge
[25:26] SPEAKER_00: before I'm burnt out. I don't want to recharge when my battery is dead. And I've been on fumes for
[25:32] SPEAKER_00: a month already. I want to recharge when I'm at 30%. So that when I come back, I can be fully supportive.
[25:40] SPEAKER_00: And that has been with me. And that's one of my coaching elements that I, when I work with founders
[25:45] SPEAKER_00: as a doing a raise, for example, that's a lot of work, right? Raising your, your first or second
[25:50] SPEAKER_00: rounds, you've got to be on, you are pitching like crazy and you're doing all the hard work. But
[25:55] SPEAKER_00: after you've raised, I need you to go and take a holiday in the woods. I need you to go and walk
[26:02] SPEAKER_00: in nature a little bit. I need you to go fishing. I need you to shut off your phone. And
[26:07] SPEAKER_00: and guess what? If your investors don't want you to do that, maybe they're not very good investors
[26:11] SPEAKER_00: because your good investors will know, no, now I need a high performing athlete coming out of this
[26:17] SPEAKER_00: and they need to rest and they need to recover. And they need to clean your mind ever so often.
[26:21] SPEAKER_02: I know. If you go back in time, what advice would you give your 25 year old self?
[26:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I think about this a lot actually, especially as my, my children have aged and have
[26:37] SPEAKER_00: moved out. It and especially a founder, myself who has gone through having children, I have a
[26:44] SPEAKER_00: very interesting perspective that they leave one day. And then you start to reconsider everything
[26:51] SPEAKER_00: when that happens. Like, damn, they're gone now. They're, you know, starting their own lives and
[26:56] SPEAKER_00: stuff like that. And if I could do anything over again, I probably would have given myself more
[27:03] SPEAKER_00: permission to be a father and enjoying that time that they are at home. I always felt this
[27:09] SPEAKER_00: compulsion, this race is every single day race. You know, I remember going to Disneyland and we
[27:15] SPEAKER_00: would take them to Disneyland, but here I am now working from 11 till 3 o'clock in the morning,
[27:19] SPEAKER_00: keeping up with things because I had this compulsion. And at the end of the day, those emails are
[27:25] SPEAKER_00: there when you're back from vacation too. Like things, things can wait. You should, you should try
[27:30] SPEAKER_00: to enjoy the life that you have because in reality, there's no overnight success. You're going to be
[27:36] SPEAKER_00: grinding at this for for seven years. Do you really want to give away seven years or more of your
[27:42] SPEAKER_00: life for a one day success when so much amazing stuff happens to you during that time? Because
[27:48] SPEAKER_00: fundamentally when I work with a lot of founders, there's certainly a lot of internal intrinsic
[27:53] SPEAKER_00: motivations on why they're doing it. One part of it though is to feel how if they can actually
[27:59] SPEAKER_00: achieve it themselves, but at what cost, right? And to balance that cost of what you're giving away
[28:07] SPEAKER_00: and what you hope to get at the result of it because, you know, some of that time doesn't come back.
[28:12] SPEAKER_00: You look at yourself in the mirror. I remember in 2016 or so, I was very, very overweight compared to
[28:18] SPEAKER_00: even where I am right now because I had neglected my health for so many years. Like I will, and I used
[28:24] SPEAKER_00: to joke, I'm like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And I used to have this pride of this badge of
[28:29] SPEAKER_00: honors. Like I only got three hours of sleep last night. And I'm still, you know, functioning.
[28:34] SPEAKER_00: And then I look back and I go, that was ridiculous. I was tired all the time. I was severely overweight.
[28:41] SPEAKER_00: I was not healthy. And I missed a lot of really amazing, great moments, you know, with my family and
[28:47] SPEAKER_00: with my kids. So that's maybe that's my softhearted advice to my previous self and don't waste those
[28:53] SPEAKER_00: years. Well, let's get into some lighter things. Yeah. Are you a morning or a night person?
[29:02] SPEAKER_00: I used to be a night person. I'm because of my ADHD. I found that in absolute silence. I can't
[29:09] SPEAKER_00: relax. I'm on do not disturb. I'm not sure where that sound came from. My, and from 11 p.m.
[29:19] SPEAKER_00: to about two or three in the morning. Boy, that's when I got my most work. There was no emails
[29:24] SPEAKER_00: coming in. There was no one to chat to. It was just me and my screens and my notebooks and my white
[29:29] SPEAKER_00: boards. And I got a lot of time done, done. As I aged, I'm now a morning person. And so I prefer
[29:37] SPEAKER_00: to get up early in the morning. My wife gets up and goes to the gym. I go down and I start working
[29:43] SPEAKER_00: on kind of like my one or two big things that I need to get done. Get all that kind of accomplished
[29:49] SPEAKER_00: by eight or nine in the morning. And then I kind of carry on in my day. And so I've switched the
[29:54] SPEAKER_00: switch the narrative quite a bit as I've aged. And I prefer the morning versus the evening now.
[30:04] SPEAKER_00: What book are you reading? You know, I would think to what do you know, I have to be reading it.
[30:12] SPEAKER_00: Again, because of my nature, I read four or five at the same time, depending on how I feel.
[30:18] SPEAKER_00: I actually just finished the singularity is near by Ray Kurzweil. And it was a very optimistic
[30:26] SPEAKER_00: view of our future and how AI is going to reshape thing. And I love the optimism that he has, but it
[30:32] SPEAKER_00: was after just also reading Nexus, which was a less than optimistic view of our future with AI.
[30:42] SPEAKER_00: And I love them. I love the dystopic utopic comparison between those two. And I love the
[30:50] SPEAKER_00: conversations that are having I just read another book as well called the Experience Machine.
[30:56] SPEAKER_00: That just talks about how the human brain works. You know, behind me, at the end of the day, this is
[31:01] SPEAKER_00: about the human brain, you know, as marketers, as business people, our job is to engage with that
[31:07] SPEAKER_00: brain and our customers and change their behavior to get them to work with us and collaborate with
[31:12] SPEAKER_00: us and buy from us. And so truly understanding how the brain works is something that I wish I would
[31:18] SPEAKER_00: have done earlier in my career, because now it all makes sense once you understand how that brain
[31:24] SPEAKER_00: works. So those are the three that I actually just finished over the weekend.
[31:29] SPEAKER_01: So if you had to pick one word to describe who Joel is, what would it be and why would you choose
[31:37] SPEAKER_00: that word? Curious. I think that's always been defined, you know, defines my approach to everything.
[31:44] SPEAKER_00: I'm just insatiably curious about things. And you know, I grew up on a farm in Manitoba.
[31:54] SPEAKER_00: And my dad worked for Manitoba Hydra at the time. And he was also a curious person as well.
[32:02] SPEAKER_00: I remember having one of those big copper satellite dishes, the one you have to kind of go outside
[32:07] SPEAKER_00: and crank. And as a result of that, I got, I got, instead of having two channels on TV, we had a
[32:14] SPEAKER_00: whole bunch of channels. And you know, one of them was HBO, one of them was MTV. And I got to see
[32:21] SPEAKER_00: shows like war games with Matthew Broderick. And I got to see Star Trek. Those things broke my brain.
[32:30] SPEAKER_00: And to this day, I've always been chasing kind of the art of the potential of that new technology
[32:36] SPEAKER_00: can can bring to us in terms of bettering our lives. But also interestingly, looking at the dystopic
[32:43] SPEAKER_00: side of things as well, making sure that we don't, you know, that the robots don't come in and take over,
[32:48] SPEAKER_00: you know, we also got to watch Terminator there. So I am just driven by curiosity. When new tech comes
[32:54] SPEAKER_00: out, when new theories come out, I try to dive in and, you know, learn everything I can, but that
[33:01] SPEAKER_00: could also be my ADHD and the ability to hyper focus on those things that drives that as well. It feels
[33:06] SPEAKER_00: good. So what's keeping you up at night? What's keeping me up at night? A future for my children,
[33:14] SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, my I have two boys, 27 and 23. One is going to business school. My youngest is
[33:23] SPEAKER_00: going to business school in the Okanagan. And I wonder what their future is going to look like. I
[33:30] SPEAKER_00: wonder, you know, economically, how they're going to jump on the bag. And I do know that
[33:34] SPEAKER_00: societally, we go through these these large cycles. And I do know that sometimes those cycles go
[33:41] SPEAKER_00: down before they go up. Sometimes I wonder, are we in the down point or are we still going down
[33:46] SPEAKER_00: before things get better? I wonder what their future is going to be. I don't, I can't even conceive
[33:53] SPEAKER_00: what their next decade will actually look like. My eldest son is going to be an academic. So I think he's
[33:59] SPEAKER_00: in an interesting place as well and a field that probably won't be replacing him too quickly with AI.
[34:04] SPEAKER_00: But certainly the future of my youngest son. Yeah, I think about a lot. I think about the journey
[34:11] SPEAKER_00: that that he's going to be on as he tries to make a mark in the world as well. And I, I agonize over
[34:19] SPEAKER_00: the experience that I can share with him because obviously things are different now. And I'm trying
[34:24] SPEAKER_00: to find out what's the same to help make sure that he's got all the things in place as he moves
[34:29] SPEAKER_00: forward. So those are the things that I think about the most. And you know, if we were to expand
[34:34] SPEAKER_00: that circle, it's, you know, people like my son, who are in that age group that are thinking about
[34:39] SPEAKER_00: what the future holds for them. And my hope is that they can find also that personal balance as
[34:46] SPEAKER_00: they're chasing uncertainty as well. Like those moments that they can feel fulfilled and happy in
[34:53] SPEAKER_00: their life during that process as we're dealing with all the chaos and uncertainty that, you know,
[34:58] SPEAKER_00: that happens, seems to be happened to us on a monthly basis now.
[35:03] SPEAKER_02: Joel, we've come to the end of our time. It's been really good, really, really productive.
[35:11] SPEAKER_00: Some have been listening and they spark something. How can they get a hold of you?
[35:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, best place is on LinkedIn. Very responsive. I read everything on LinkedIn. They can just
[35:21] SPEAKER_00: search, you know, my name and community tech and LinkedIn and you'll get me reach out.
[35:26] SPEAKER_00: At me as a friend, I love the conversations. I have about five or six going at any time
[35:32] SPEAKER_00: from everything from, you know, how procurement should change in Canada to, you know, the role of AI
[35:37] SPEAKER_00: in the defense sector. So love, love chatting, love talking with, with, with innovators and people who
[35:44] SPEAKER_00: are, you know, have that burning compulsion to make change. Thanks for coming on Canada's entrepreneur.
[35:50] SPEAKER_02: It is a great meeting, Joel. Thank you so much for having me.
[35:54] SPEAKER_02: Wow, Joel had some great observations that we can really learn from, really well-triffic.
[36:00] SPEAKER_02: And those book choices, well, they're worth reading. Yes, I guess innovation is everything.
[36:06] SPEAKER_02: So let's keep on doing it and building Canada's economy.
[36:09] SPEAKER_02: I'm Phil Bliss. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter on our website and subscribe
[36:14] SPEAKER_02: on our YouTube channel as well. Or any of our other major podcast channels. Thanks for listening
[36:22] SPEAKER_02: to Canada's entrepreneur. Where you meet the entrepreneurs, the drive Canada's economy. See you
[36:28] SPEAKER_02: again soon.