============================================================
TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
============================================================
[00:00] SPEAKER_00: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:16] SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone and thanks for listening.
[00:19] SPEAKER_00: I'm Philip Bliss, a business visionary and co-host of Toronto's podcasts,
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: part of the Canada's podcast network.
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: Your source for great insights from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: Today I'd like to introduce you to Rob Hunter.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: Rob has been an entrepreneur ever since he was a kid.
[00:36] SPEAKER_00: He had an e-bay account by the time he was 12 and sold Japanese professional wrestling,
[00:41] SPEAKER_00: VHS types, tapes and DVDs to pay his way through university at the Ivy School of Business
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: at the University of Western Ontario.
[00:49] SPEAKER_00: He did so well he was able to establish a mini-student real estate empire.
[00:54] SPEAKER_00: After graduation, he sold his properties and got into the ice cream business,
[00:59] SPEAKER_00: opening seven marbles slab ice cream stores by the time he was 25.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: Rob has had lots of tremendous highs and lows as a multi-unit franchisee
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: and led a lot of lessons along the way.
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: In 2012 he got offered a great scholarship to do his MBA at the number one school
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: in the world for entrepreneurship Babson College.
[01:19] SPEAKER_00: Since moving to Boston, he made a co-founder, a wife,
[01:22] SPEAKER_00: and also immersed himself in the technology startup culture of the city.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: Right now he's back in Toronto and he's focused on growing higher me
[01:31] SPEAKER_00: away from retail and hourly employees to find screen and hire better employees fast.
[01:39] SPEAKER_00: So Rob, tell us a little bit more about yourself,
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: you know, where you're from, give us the details on your current business or businesses.
[01:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, just who is Rob Hunter?
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:51] SPEAKER_01: So you know, grew up in a small little town called Simco
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: about an hour and a half southwest of Toronto.
[01:56] SPEAKER_01: We're both very familiar with family and us, okay?
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: Well, and it was funny, you know, my mom was a teacher at the local high school
[02:03] SPEAKER_01: for a very long time.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: My dad was a security guard.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: So like sort of kind of, you know, basic small town background.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: But it always sort of been interested in the entrepreneurial journey.
[02:14] SPEAKER_01: When I was 14 years old,
[02:15] SPEAKER_01: I walked into a video store in Brantford Ontario just up the road from Simco,
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: the big city for us, if you will.
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: And I bought an old VHS professional wrestling video tape
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: from a video store there for $9.
[02:30] SPEAKER_01: I put it on eBay and a few short days later it sold for $60 American dollars.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: And I sort of realized the 14 that I may have something on my hands here.
[02:39] SPEAKER_01: And so I eventually ended up building sort of a basic website
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: of the eBay Presence selling primarily actually Japanese professional wrestling
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: and mixed martial arts like USC, video tapes and DVDs on the internet.
[02:53] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, went off to university in London.
[02:56] SPEAKER_01: I did the IB Business School there and saw that a lot of my friends were getting
[03:00] SPEAKER_01: into, you know, the traditional investment banking and consulting sort of
[03:03] SPEAKER_01: student-tied day street rules.
[03:05] SPEAKER_01: But with my Japanese wrestling tape money, I had invested in a little bit of real estate.
[03:10] SPEAKER_01: I owned a few student housing properties, which is a story for another time.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: But I sort of stayed away from those student-tied jobs and ended up taking the money
[03:19] SPEAKER_01: I had earned from those two ventures and actually getting into the ice cream business.
[03:23] SPEAKER_01: So I opened up an ice cream store, a marble slab creamery.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: I was a franchisee in Kitchener.
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: I opened up a second money a year later when I was 23 in Waterloo.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: And those two were gangbusters.
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: They did amazingly well.
[03:36] SPEAKER_01: Ultimately proved to be a little bit of sort of false positives.
[03:39] SPEAKER_01: I ended up opening up five more stores very quickly after that.
[03:43] SPEAKER_01: And frankly, they weren't very successful and really dragged down.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: And all the results I got from the first two.
[03:48] SPEAKER_01: So I found myself sort of wandering a little bit in my late 20s and not sure what I wanted to do next.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, it was very fortunate to get a scholarship to go do an MBA down in Boston and Massachusetts.
[03:59] SPEAKER_01: So I moved to the US and sort of got out of the ice cream business.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: And through a long and sort of winding road, as I was finishing my MBA,
[04:07] SPEAKER_01: we got hire me started.
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: And hire me is a recruitment platform specifically built for the ice cream store owner that I was right built for the restaurant world, the retail world.
[04:17] SPEAKER_01: And so first and foremost, we're a software service platform that helps find screen and higher employees for customers like Dunkin Donuts, Panera bread McDonald's, Tim Hortons, etc.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: And so we've been in about four years now.
[04:30] SPEAKER_01: We've gotten some great results over those few years that I'm excited to talk more about.
[04:33] SPEAKER_01: We work with a few thousand customers all across North America.
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: And along the way, we actually had the opportunity for me and an apportion to team to move home and then come back to Canada.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: So in the back of Toronto about a year now, and it's just been sort of wonderful to kind of come full circle after spending some time down to US.
[04:50] SPEAKER_00: You know, you talked a little bit about it being 14, but when you kind of discovered you can make money doing things that you didn't expect.
[04:59] SPEAKER_00: But really, you know, what was the stop moment in your life that made you think, you know what, I'm not going to be an investment banker.
[05:07] SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to do that. I'm going to become an entrepreneur. That's my life.
[05:12] SPEAKER_00: Well, there's something that I've discovered that there's things that go off at certain times with people. What was that time?
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question.
[05:21] SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were things even before 14, right? Like there was yard sales where I would be so excited to pop up at 6 a.m. in the morning and sell old garbage.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: I remember buying like little Tamagotchi toys in Bramford and selling them to my friends. I was like 11 and 12.
[05:38] SPEAKER_01: I don't know. I have this sort of vivid memory of being around 14 or 15.
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: I mean, just sort of looking up at the sky at night and sort of thinking about what I would want to do with my life.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't know what an investment banker was at that moment in time. So I guess it wasn't necessarily deciding against that path.
[05:55] SPEAKER_01: But I sort of knew from right around that age that, you know, I really did not want to build my own thing and doing my own thing.
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: What it would be at the time, I had no idea.
[06:07] SPEAKER_01: I suppose I was a little techie at the time.
[06:11] SPEAKER_01: And so I think I sort of maybe thought that eventually I would find my way to technology.
[06:15] SPEAKER_01: Certainly ice cream very far removed from that. So I'm going to spend some time waiting for it.
[06:20] SPEAKER_01: But I don't know. I just I did the Ivy thing and I had a great time.
[06:24] SPEAKER_01: My last year in particular with a lot of entrepreneurial courses was was wonderful.
[06:28] SPEAKER_01: But just sort of looking around and seeing the student die and not knowing how to tie a tie until I was probably 20, 30, right?
[06:35] SPEAKER_01: I don't know. It just did not feel like like who I was.
[06:39] SPEAKER_01: And so I think that was sort of like the rubber stamp on a decision that frankly was already sort of in motion.
[06:45] SPEAKER_01: You know, eight or nine years earlier.
[06:47] SPEAKER_00: So what was interesting when you were doing your intro and sort of about the focus thing.
[06:52] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I kind of stopped and focused thing of entrepreneurs.
[06:56] SPEAKER_00: You know, you started the ice cream business. You blew it up to five and blew it up. So to speak.
[07:02] SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little about that. That was that was that Rob losing focus.
[07:08] SPEAKER_00: Or I'm just curious. You know, I mean, well, you know, it's funny.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: I really do think with with this specific chain, you know, about half of the locations that open in Canada did end up closing, right?
[07:19] SPEAKER_01: And so I think it really was a case of false positives.
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: You know, the first door did okay. The second store was amazing.
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: And that was really where I started to hit the gas.
[07:30] SPEAKER_01: And so I think there was a bit of an element actually of like, you know, I had read the e-meth with with Michael Gerber there about, you know, not necessarily by like a lot of entrepreneurs end up sort of buying a job.
[07:44] SPEAKER_01: And I sort of wanted a system rather than a job. And so I think I had sort of like had in my head that.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: You know, these stores individually like can't really support like a dedicated salary professional manager.
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: And so I sort of had it in my head that I needed to get up to like four or five to really support like eight in operations manager sort of a professional manager.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: So I mean, you'd be able to kind of take a step back day to day. And I guess the master plan was always, you know, have five, six doors generating 75 grand or so an individual profit per store that would then allow me to hire a great manager for 100 grand for all five, but sort of step back from day to day and then pursue the grander idea.
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: So I don't know. I was pretty focused and I think we really did try a lot, you know, to make those stores successful, but ultimately a lot of it was just found found to like making bad real estate decisions, making bad financing decisions, bad city decisions, right?
[08:43] SPEAKER_01: If it's a $9 ice cream cone, it just doesn't necessarily work in certain markets.
[08:49] SPEAKER_00: So I don't mean to be the right of investment bankers many times.
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: I thought of the entrepreneurial sector, but one of the things that most entrepreneurs is, you know, how do we get rolling? How do I finance? Where do I get it?
[09:05] SPEAKER_00: Give your knowledge of that from the 14 year old running through to where you are now? It's, you know, it's an interesting thing.
[09:12] SPEAKER_01: Well, and it's funny. I remember one of my entrepreneurial finance classes. I had my two of my best professors both undergrad and graduate were in that specific field.
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: I remember one exercise we had to do is like come up with 100 different like here's a specific business come up with 100 different ways that you can finance.
[09:31] SPEAKER_01: And so the creativity around financing, I think is really where I enjoy a lot of things. So I don't know with the ice cream stores, I can remember.
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: And perhaps I should have thought that's through a little bit more, but it was a great strategy at the time.
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: There were a lot of stores of this brand that were failing in the US. And so at 22, 23, I was on a plane popping down to Atlanta or Miami or Detroit, you know, Detroit even all over the place where a marble slab had gone under and was only two or three years old.
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: And the equipment was available for $0.10, $0.15 on the dollar. And so instead of paying 100 grand for a brand new package of equipment, I was sort of it, you know, maybe 20 or so all in between travel and transport and all that.
[10:19] SPEAKER_01: And perhaps the fact that there were so many failing might have been a good sign to pay attention to, but had it not been for those used equipment deals, I would not have been able to move with the pay site I did.
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: In fact, there were so many that I even turned the use equipment into a bit of a business as well and like flipped a few packages of equipment to tell their franchisees.
[10:38] SPEAKER_01: So that was certainly one piece. Obviously with the ice cream stores, we did a lot of traditional sort of Canada, small business, federation loans, CSBFL, I think is the acronym loans whereby they sort of loan against hard assets.
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: Certainly with with hire me, we've done more of sort of the, it's going to send the traditional, it really isn't the traditional, it's very different than traditional.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: But we've done a lot of the the angel investment venture capital and frankly, a lot of crowdfunding routes.
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: But I am always sort of attuned to the fact that, you know, a dollar from a customer is worth five times what a dollar from an investor is worth.
[11:12] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we've even structured stuff with customers where we'll gladly give a discount for paying a year advance because then it's money that we don't have to go borrow or don't have to go sell equity in the company for.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really just sort of having a mindset for when, when does the cash transfer to whom?
[11:30] SPEAKER_00: So let's move to you a bit more. I mean, what does a typical day look like for you? You know, how do you maintain the kind of focus it needs to keep on succeeding? Because you know, that's that's a big part of it.
[11:43] SPEAKER_01: I changed my routine up dramatically this year and it sort of gave me my sanity back. And so I'm a big advocate for this routine for any entrepreneurs with young children.
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: So we have an 18 month old. She's delighted my life and it would be terrible for me to let either her or my business, you know, go away.
[12:04] SPEAKER_01: So my typical day, I'm usually awake by about five to six or so, like 555 or six o'clock. I get up very quickly and I'm usually out the door by about six to 20.
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: I'm in front of my office computer by 635 640. No traffic at that time in the morning, which is great.
[12:22] SPEAKER_01: I will put in a good solid, you know, two and a half hours or so. And I find at that time in the morning, I'm really able to move at a double triple speed, where you're not starting getting more at all the time.
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: At nine o'clock, I will break and I will go and run. You know, I'm a marathon runner. I've done marathon's in nine different states, trying to 50 eventually.
[12:41] SPEAKER_01: And so that that sort of mid morning break is nice. I'll then have an early lunch, go back to work. And honestly, I'm typically home, I'm typically leaving for home by about 4 4 30 since I've been at the office in 630, which gives me, you know, two to a half hours with a baby before bed, spend some time with my wife.
[12:58] SPEAKER_01: And then usually another half hour hour of sort of email and sort of deep prep for the next day before bed. But I don't know, I found out I've always I've never been like a 14 hour a day for the canal of both ends guy, but I move it a quicker pace in the, you know, eight or nine hours I put in that just about anybody. So that's some, let's say, sort of how I operate.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: So with with higher mere, which is your focus now, I mean, obviously you're not just doing business in Canada. Why Toronto, you know, you're already in the states.
[13:30] SPEAKER_00: I think you said you married someone from the states and you know, you're in Boston. It's a pretty, pretty great city. I mean, I know it. I know it, you know, well, and it was really just sort of an interesting domino narrative, I guess.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: So we were in Boston. We had raised some money. And in fact, we'd, we'd actually just close some new money when we heard about a program called 43 North in Buffalo.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: And 43 North is sort of an ins, program funded by the state of New York and specifically upstate New York where they invest $5 million in eight, generally stage companies every year.
[14:04] SPEAKER_01: And in exchange for that, you end up sort of, you know, committing to spend a year in Buffalo. So we, you know, we're trying to have a baby at the time. And my wife's is from Rochester, New York, which is an hour east of Buffalo.
[14:17] SPEAKER_01: I'm from Southern Ontario. And I don't know, I think we were really sort of attracted by that program. So we ended up moving Buffalo took the investment, which was great.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: And I'll be honest, we just had a really hard time hiring in Buffalo. We were not really able to attract sort of the talent that we needed for the company.
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: And given that Toronto was sort of the nearest tech hub, we started hiring people in Toronto. And we ended up with some of the executives of the company there.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: And some major contracts and some major companies and stuff and relationships and partnerships with companies in Toronto.
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: And so after our commitment in Buffalo came to an end, it was just sort of a national decision. Hey, do we go back to Boston? Well, a good chunk of the company is now at Toronto.
[14:56] SPEAKER_01: And so it was just sort of this natural decision to come here. And you know, it's home. It's where, you know, I'm familiar with. And so to raise my daughter back home in Canada, but still be close to my wife's family.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: And still, you know, be able to hop on a border flight back to Boston and get there really quickly. It's been the best time.
[15:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a pretty good triangle kind of thing. Really is. Yeah.
[15:19] SPEAKER_00: So getting a bit less business, we do some of our best work outside the office. Is there a place in Toronto or close to the city where you like to recharge, get inspired?
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I will say since since coming here.
[15:33] SPEAKER_01: You know, last summer, I was sort of in summer fall. I was in marathon mode. And so, you know, I don't even know if it's got a name, but, but like the trail path that runs along the lake shore right right along the lake there.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: We're not too far or maybe a kilometer from that.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: We live and so I was putting in, you know, 20, 25, 30 kilometer runs on there pretty consistently.
[15:57] SPEAKER_01: A little cold this spring. So I haven't gotten out there too much this time of year, but I think that that was definitely where some of my recharging came from.
[16:06] SPEAKER_01: And frankly, some of my best ideas came from was running along that trail.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: Do you think entrepreneurs have to be weird, unique, kind of wire differently, or is it just the way that way it is?
[16:18] SPEAKER_01: I think many entrepreneurs are very quirky. And I think I am certainly an example of that. I do think quirkiness can also be found in sort of normal people, right? Normal employees.
[16:29] SPEAKER_01: I'm 34 years old and I've never really had a formal boss. I've, you know, had an internship here there. I've been a contract employee here there, but I've never had like a full time salary role.
[16:39] SPEAKER_01: And so I've got to say like I think I've been spoiled a little bit and I don't know whether I could ever deal with the sort of structure that would come with having someone else be able to make decisions for where I spend my time.
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: And certainly the summit's that I guess people do, you know, we have customers with investors like there's responsibilities that have to get done that I have to do, right?
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: But that flexibility around time and role I do think is maybe something that is a little bit more inherent and more innate and weird.
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: You know, my wife is getting back into the workforce now, you know, after spending, you know, year and a half with a baby.
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: And it's something that I'm finding tremendously hard to empathize with because I've never applied, like I know, applied, I've never never, never had a job.
[17:24] SPEAKER_01: So I think that piece of it is a little bit unique to the entrepreneur.
[17:30] SPEAKER_00: So what books are you reading now, you know, audio books or whatever? Is there a book that you would say change things for you?
[17:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's funny. I do a bit of reading now as best I can. I don't know. I'm at this moment in time I'm reading Pat Semitiri by Stephen King.
[17:47] SPEAKER_01: I like Stephen King. I most say there are some monumental books that frankly have sort of changed my life.
[17:53] SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll just all highlight too real quick. One is is called No Cash No Fear.
[18:00] SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of as marketed as like an instructional nonfiction book and obviously it's not fiction, but it really is more of a biography than anything else.
[18:10] SPEAKER_01: And it tells the story of Steve Allen something like that. Anyway, he is a lifelong entrepreneur has won and lost a million times in business and just sort of hearing hearing his tale of success and failure.
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: I've done some adjunct lecturing and I actually read a chapter of his book around the holidays from when he tried to start a toy store at Christmas time.
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: And so that's my Christmas entrepreneurial. The second book I'll highlight is is a speaker author, you know, person that has just made an impact in my life.
[18:40] SPEAKER_01: When I was 13 years old, my uncle gave me success is simple by Larry Wingat.
[18:47] SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's in print anymore, but Larry Wingat is sort of a well known figure. He's written a number of books.
[18:54] SPEAKER_01: Success is your own damn fault. I think is one of them shut up, stop whining and get a life is another.
[19:01] SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Larry taught a 13 year old version of me about personal responsibility and about grit and about perseverance and positivity and not making excuses for yourself.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: I think those were very important life lessons for me to learn at that moment of time.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01: So if I was stranded on a desert island and needed to figure out a way to get off, I would read no cash and I'll fear.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: And one of the Larry Wingat books.
[19:25] SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing what you do now, what would you like to do for a profession?
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: I would be teaching. I would be teaching. I've done some adjunct lecturing back in Boston.
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: I would love to be doing it here and hopefully will if I can carve off some more time.
[19:38] SPEAKER_01: But I find I consider myself an extroverted introvert where I really do like quiet time and I like to be sort of left alone to get my own work done.
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: But I also like being the center of attention.
[19:51] SPEAKER_01: And so when I can stand up in front of an audience and help them and speak and sort of work on their level, I really do enjoy that.
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: And so some of the students I've taught limited amounts have been just some of the best stuff I've done.
[20:05] SPEAKER_01: So when lose your draw with with higher me, I think we're definitely going to be more than.
[20:10] SPEAKER_00: So what kind of job would you not like to do?
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: I have a feeling sometimes you sort of romanticize right? You see me?
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: And if I just go into work at a big company and sort of show up nine to five, not about stuff at the end of the day, you sort of romanticize a little bit.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: But I really probably think I would be very miserable.
[20:29] SPEAKER_01: You know, the idea of not being able to dictate my own schedule.
[20:33] SPEAKER_01: I remember, you know, there's certain that's certain times in my life, it's cool things where it's like you just sort of putting hours in for the sake of putting hours in that that's probably the thing I hate the most, you know, if it was a job where the culture would be to stay until seven or eight o'clock regardless of whether you have work or not.
[20:49] SPEAKER_01: Just because everybody else is staying until seven or eight o'clock and I think I'm a fast processor.
[20:54] SPEAKER_01: I like to get stuff done quickly so that I kind of can maintain focus and then focus on something other than work once it's done.
[21:01] SPEAKER_01: So I think something with too much structure with sort of those things would be maybe tempting but terrible for me.
[21:09] SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite word, you know, or quote that you use?
[21:12] SPEAKER_01: One of Larry Wingets, I've gone back to a lot and I hope I don't butcher it now that I said it going back to a lot.
[21:21] SPEAKER_01: Discover your uniqueness and learn to exploit it in the service of others and you will be guaranteed health, wellness, success and prosperity, something like that.
[21:31] SPEAKER_01: That one a lot.
[21:33] SPEAKER_00: What's your least favorite word or quote?
[21:36] SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can boil it down and do a quote.
[21:38] SPEAKER_01: I do think structure or over structure, I suppose, or you know, perfection over pace of work, right?
[21:48] SPEAKER_01: Anything that sort of ties to that, I think, is not, you know, a job worth doing, you must do it 100%.
[21:54] SPEAKER_01: I think 100% is foolish.
[21:56] SPEAKER_01: I think we need to get to 95 and get off the next thing is there so much to do.
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: So what keeps you up at night, if anything?
[22:03] SPEAKER_01: My baby last night.
[22:06] SPEAKER_01: She sleeps pretty well normally.
[22:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, you know, I will say one of the things we've tried to do with Iron Man and this is not related to the core business at all or not.
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we did why accommodate her years ago and I think we saw so many of our colleagues, frankly, almost over capitalized their businesses and go and raise millions of dollars of institutional capital and not necessarily turn it into a profitable.
[22:31] SPEAKER_01: So I think maybe there was a time in my life a couple of years ago where, you know, what objectively is this company worth versus how much of we raised?
[22:41] SPEAKER_01: Was a concern for me and like, oh my god, we are reliant on outside capital to survive.
[22:48] SPEAKER_01: I think we've just been scrappy and made good decisions and been smart with money.
[22:53] SPEAKER_01: And we're now at a point where we never need outside capital again if we don't want it.
[23:00] SPEAKER_01: And so I think having that optionality is allowed me to sleep better than I did a couple of years ago.
[23:06] SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was a good advice in itself.
[23:09] SPEAKER_00: Any other advice you want to pass on to entrepreneurs in Toronto or in Ontario in Simco, whatever?
[23:16] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think entrepreneurship has become all the rage startups have become all the rage and I think the biggest mistake we made.
[23:25] SPEAKER_01: And in terms of defense, I'm not sure what we necessarily would have done differently at the time.
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: I know stuff we perhaps could have done differently, but wouldn't have without the knowledge we have now.
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: It's just like if you have this great idea for a technology company, get to revenue as fast as you possibly can.
[23:42] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, pitch decks are wonderful. The ability to stand up at a pitch competition and articulate your grand vision is wonderful.
[23:49] SPEAKER_01: And it's all important. But the thing you need to figure out as quickly as possible is like will people pay for this?
[23:56] SPEAKER_01: And more like beyond that, it's like, is there a sustainable business model around whether people pay for it or not?
[24:01] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, don't overconcern yourself with having the 100% perfect pitch.
[24:07] SPEAKER_01: The pitch gets better if the business is better. So go work on the business and get it started before you, you know, obsess about raising money.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: So this is the one we ask everyone across the country.
[24:18] SPEAKER_00: And you sort of answered it a little bit earlier on, but there's a small tropical island off the tree that only has one phone booth, no internet.
[24:27] SPEAKER_00: We drop you off there. You don't have a computer or a smartphone.
[24:31] SPEAKER_00: You can use the phone with located there anytime to call the boat and we'll come and get you.
[24:36] SPEAKER_00: How long would you last before you made that call? What would you do there while you were there? I think you can maybe answer that.
[24:43] SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
[24:45] SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I can somehow figure out a way to survive that that would maybe be my first priority, right?
[24:51] SPEAKER_01: But, but, presuming I was able to be okay in that on that, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of me.
[24:55] SPEAKER_01: Is there a list of food behind you?
[24:58] SPEAKER_01: There's some food behind. I can see, I mean, you know, I want to get back to my daughter, right?
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a big consideration. But if time perhaps at home could stand still, I might hang out for a couple of months to be honest.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: I think I as an introvert, I can I can very much keep myself amused and, you know, the ability for long runs on the beach for a few months and, you know, to really sort of just internalize and environmentalize.
[25:25] SPEAKER_01: I would say if it if it weren't for my daughter, I would probably hang out for a little while.
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: But if time continues marching forward at home at the same pace, I'll probably make it pretty quick. I don't want to miss her.
[25:38] SPEAKER_01: Great.
[25:39] SPEAKER_00: So that's coming to the end of the interview. You know, how can our list is get a hold of you?
[25:44] SPEAKER_00: And there's anything you'd like to add before we call it a day?
[25:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Rob Hunter on LinkedIn. I think my LinkedIn game is pretty good.
[25:53] SPEAKER_01: So if you search for me, I should be near the top. Feel free to email me the folks that own hi or e me.com are incredibly unreasonable and want millions of dollars for their domain name.
[26:05] SPEAKER_01: And so we have branded ourselves as higher me h i g h e r m e dot com.
[26:12] SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just rob rob at h i g h e r m e dot com.
[26:17] SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, the one thing I will say having spent five years in the US before coming home.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: Part of the reason I went to the US is because it sort of felt like there wasn't this really developed like tech startup entrepreneurial scene.
[26:32] SPEAKER_01: And so I would say, a, it's just sort of really exciting for me to be home and see that that scene is is now here and sort of thriving, right?
[26:42] SPEAKER_01: And so kudos to everybody in that scene. Keep it up. And I'm really excited to be, you know, a big part of it in the future as well with this company and perhaps others down the road to some really cool to be home.
[26:53] SPEAKER_00: Thanks. That's great. Thanks for joining the zone Canada's podcast. We'll see everyone next time.
[27:00] SPEAKER_00: Thanks everyone for taking the time today to listen to Dronders podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[27:07] SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Make sure you sign up for our newsletters or write a review for us on iTunes.
[27:14] SPEAKER_00: You can connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or at Canada's podcast.com.
[27:20] SPEAKER_00: In order to check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country, I'm Phil Bliss. See you next time.
[27:30] Speaker UNKNOWN: Bye.
