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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Mario Tonigus,
[00:07] SPEAKER_01: a managing editor of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: My guest today on Edmonton's Podcast is Crick Chris Misatish,
[00:15] SPEAKER_01: who is General Partner of Brass Fund I in Edmonton.
[00:20] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today, Chris.
[00:23] SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much for having me.
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: All right, so you're involved in a lot of stuff
[00:29] SPEAKER_01: and I know in your profile, there's a quotation there
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: of being a serial entrepreneur.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: Tell me just what you're involved in right now in the businesses.
[00:43] SPEAKER_03: I have several things I'm involved with.
[00:46] SPEAKER_03: Mainly, I continue to operate for Dorifar M. Suticos.
[00:49] SPEAKER_03: It's a drug discovery company involved in anti-infective research.
[00:54] SPEAKER_03: I also operate as the founder, president, CEO of Brass Don Ventures.
[00:58] SPEAKER_03: That originally started as an investment company,
[01:01] SPEAKER_03: but evolved into business management and consulting company.
[01:04] SPEAKER_03: We also run a pre-accelerator here in Alberta,
[01:07] SPEAKER_03: helping post-secondary academics commercialize their ideas.
[01:11] SPEAKER_03: That's called Innovation Masterminds.
[01:12] SPEAKER_03: Recently, rebranded the Innovation Masterminds, they'll bird up.
[01:16] SPEAKER_03: So several different things I'm involved with.
[01:19] SPEAKER_03: Tell me a little bit about your background, Chris.
[01:21] SPEAKER_01: Where are you from?
[01:23] SPEAKER_03: I was born here in Canada.
[01:25] SPEAKER_03: My great-great-grandfather was a Slavic sailor,
[01:28] SPEAKER_03: shipwrecked off the coast of India.
[01:30] SPEAKER_03: He settled in India and grew up in an Anglo-Indian colony.
[01:34] SPEAKER_03: That's where my grandfather and my father were born.
[01:38] SPEAKER_03: But I was born in here in Eppenton, Alberta in Canada.
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: When you went to, let me give you a little bit about your education
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: where you want what you took.
[01:50] SPEAKER_03: My original background, not sure what I wanted to do coming out of high school.
[01:55] SPEAKER_03: My father was a world-renowned medicinal chemist.
[01:58] SPEAKER_03: I thought, well, why don't I try going to science route?
[02:00] SPEAKER_03: I entered at the University of Alberta into science, majoring in chemistry.
[02:05] SPEAKER_03: I really didn't like it.
[02:06] SPEAKER_03: I wasn't good at it.
[02:08] SPEAKER_03: Ironically, I've been managing a chemistry-based company
[02:10] SPEAKER_03: and I've offered 37 years.
[02:12] SPEAKER_03: I didn't really enjoy science as far as chemistry went.
[02:17] SPEAKER_03: I migrated over to faculty of education.
[02:21] SPEAKER_03: I have an education degree.
[02:22] SPEAKER_03: I taught one year that in 1987,
[02:25] SPEAKER_03: I helped my father start a company.
[02:27] SPEAKER_03: He was building a joint venture company with a Japanese company.
[02:31] SPEAKER_03: I came in and helped him involve with all the administrative aspects of the company.
[02:36] SPEAKER_03: At that time, I went back and, while I was working,
[02:39] SPEAKER_03: took business at the University of Alberta.
[02:41] SPEAKER_03: A fairly diverse background that started with science into education and into business.
[02:46] SPEAKER_01: In terms of what you're doing now, what do you like about that?
[02:52] SPEAKER_01: What do you like about the industry that you're in?
[02:56] SPEAKER_03: I think when I first went to school involved with education.
[03:00] SPEAKER_03: I liked helping kids turn on light bulbs and share experience.
[03:06] SPEAKER_03: I really enjoyed coaching in my younger days.
[03:09] SPEAKER_03: I've now become more mature in the business world.
[03:14] SPEAKER_03: I really enjoy giving back and mentoring.
[03:17] SPEAKER_03: As far as the many things I'm involved with,
[03:20] SPEAKER_03: one of the big things I enjoy through Brasco Ventures and Innovation Masterminds
[03:24] SPEAKER_03: is really helping up and coming on entrepreneurs achieve their dreams and share my experience
[03:30] SPEAKER_03: and help them avoid some of the pitfalls and roadblocks that I faced in my career.
[03:34] SPEAKER_03: That mentoring and that helping is something that really I enjoy doing.
[03:41] SPEAKER_03: What do you think that comes from?
[03:43] SPEAKER_03: I think it comes from coaching when I was coaching young children
[03:48] SPEAKER_03: and especially in a team game where they learn what they're really good at
[03:53] SPEAKER_03: and then have them understand how that impacts interacting with other people on a team,
[03:57] SPEAKER_03: like building that team concept so much of that relates to business and running a business.
[04:02] SPEAKER_03: When you have different staff members with different personalities
[04:05] SPEAKER_03: who all have different strengths,
[04:07] SPEAKER_03: having them recognize what their strength is and figure out how they can work with others.
[04:11] SPEAKER_03: So the company can be successful.
[04:14] SPEAKER_03: It's something that intrigues me and I'm really,
[04:18] SPEAKER_03: I love working in that kind of space.
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[04:31] SPEAKER_01: When you embarked on your own entrepreneurial journey,
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: where did you find support?
[04:39] SPEAKER_03: When I started in the business with my father in back in 1987,
[04:45] SPEAKER_03: is when he founded the company, not to date myself,
[04:48] SPEAKER_03: but in 1987 we started and I was a young, up-and-coming,
[04:52] SPEAKER_03: alpha entrepreneur, really aggressive and trying to get help from the city,
[04:57] SPEAKER_03: the government, the province.
[04:59] SPEAKER_03: At that time, there was no support, especially for a pharmaceutical company.
[05:03] SPEAKER_03: I was often told, Sory Chris, we're an oil and gas province.
[05:06] SPEAKER_03: Sory Chris, we're an oil and gas.
[05:08] SPEAKER_03: So it forced us to run the business on our own to not count on city or government support.
[05:13] SPEAKER_03: And it helped me be a better entrepreneur.
[05:17] SPEAKER_03: And then as things evolved through time,
[05:21] SPEAKER_03: Edmonton or sorry, Alberta ran into problems with the energy sector.
[05:25] SPEAKER_03: When the energy sector was strong, there was lots of funding.
[05:29] SPEAKER_03: And the universities were really focused on publishing or perishing.
[05:33] SPEAKER_03: There was no interest in commercializing.
[05:36] SPEAKER_03: It was a different environment.
[05:38] SPEAKER_03: And then when the energy sector crashed here,
[05:40] SPEAKER_03: or there was a concern about that,
[05:42] SPEAKER_03: the province had to find a new identity and shift to innovation.
[05:46] SPEAKER_03: And when that shift occurred, they started looking at how they can build innovation in the province.
[05:53] SPEAKER_03: And that's when I became involved with city boards on my soapbox saying,
[05:58] SPEAKER_03: look, we're not inventing innovation,
[05:59] SPEAKER_03: but we have to recognize the innovation that's been under our nose.
[06:02] SPEAKER_03: So then how do you tap into existing businesses that have been successful outside the energy sector?
[06:10] SPEAKER_03: And so then you started to see more support happen.
[06:13] SPEAKER_03: So now when we're helping startups,
[06:15] SPEAKER_03: there is so much support for startups now that never existed years ago.
[06:19] SPEAKER_03: So I say even over the last five years,
[06:22] SPEAKER_03: the shift towards helping startups and understand innovation better,
[06:26] SPEAKER_03: that never happened early in the early days.
[06:28] SPEAKER_03: So when I started to answer your questions,
[06:31] SPEAKER_03: when I started, there wasn't much support for entrepreneurs other than those in the industry.
[06:36] SPEAKER_03: Those in the business that I would meet through my father,
[06:39] SPEAKER_03: senior people that were more soul friends,
[06:41] SPEAKER_03: I really tapped into them as being mentors and asking them a lot of questions about
[06:46] SPEAKER_03: some of the things I was trying to do,
[06:48] SPEAKER_03: what I was trying to accomplish.
[06:50] SPEAKER_03: But I looked at season entrepreneurs in our industry to provide support.
[06:54] SPEAKER_03: We didn't have support from anywhere else.
[06:57] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you look at the province today,
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: you know, for an aspiring, say entrepreneur,
[07:05] SPEAKER_01: what are the business conditions in the province for someone who wants to start up a business right now?
[07:12] SPEAKER_03: I think right now there is an incredible amount of support for entrepreneurs that want to start up a business.
[07:18] SPEAKER_03: I think in my personal opinion,
[07:20] SPEAKER_03: I think there's too much support.
[07:21] SPEAKER_03: I think we've almost created a cesspool of startups that are not viable, not investable.
[07:28] SPEAKER_03: But with the support,
[07:30] SPEAKER_03: through non-diolated, pollutive funding, through accelerators and so on,
[07:35] SPEAKER_03: ventures that should most likely fail sooner and fail forward.
[07:41] SPEAKER_03: Because when something's not viable,
[07:43] SPEAKER_03: you want to shift your attention to something that will become more viable.
[07:46] SPEAKER_03: So I think we've got a lot of support, too much support,
[07:50] SPEAKER_03: thrown at the early startup stage.
[07:52] SPEAKER_03: And then when the cream starts rising to the top through that cesspool,
[07:56] SPEAKER_03: and that cesspool is not a good word,
[07:58] SPEAKER_03: but you're in cesspool when you start having some ventures that are generating revenue,
[08:03] SPEAKER_03: employing people,
[08:04] SPEAKER_03: there's no support for them at the scaling stage.
[08:07] SPEAKER_03: And so those ventures tend to leave.
[08:10] SPEAKER_03: They leave the province or they leave your city, move somewhere else.
[08:12] SPEAKER_03: So with so much support at the startup,
[08:15] SPEAKER_03: we're missing the key areas, the cream that comes through the top.
[08:20] SPEAKER_03: So I think right now,
[08:21] SPEAKER_03: to start a business is, I'd say fairly simple,
[08:25] SPEAKER_03: because the amount of support there is at the early stage,
[08:28] SPEAKER_03: but where should the real attention and support be provided
[08:32] SPEAKER_03: to have the biggest economic impact in the province?
[08:35] SPEAKER_03: And I think that's more at the scale stage.
[08:37] SPEAKER_03: That those should fail sooner, fail forward.
[08:40] SPEAKER_03: And I'm coming from the School of Hard Docs,
[08:42] SPEAKER_03: where I didn't have the support.
[08:44] SPEAKER_03: And we turned out okay, we turned out better for it, actually.
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: What, you know, when you look back on your entrepreneurial journey,
[08:53] SPEAKER_01: what was the biggest challenge for you?
[08:57] SPEAKER_03: Well, when I first started into business,
[08:59] SPEAKER_03: I started, as I said, in 1987,
[09:02] SPEAKER_03: where you joined venture with a Japanese company.
[09:04] SPEAKER_03: My father was a visionary, world-renowned, medicinal chemist.
[09:08] SPEAKER_03: And not so much on the business side, but on the science side.
[09:12] SPEAKER_03: It's a fantastic vision, but how to deliver,
[09:14] SPEAKER_03: how to make a dollar out of it was not his strength.
[09:18] SPEAKER_03: That was more my strength I brought to the table.
[09:21] SPEAKER_03: And I think, sorry, I lost my track, my, my,
[09:27] SPEAKER_03: the biggest challenges.
[09:29] SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, the biggest challenge for me was when I came in to the business,
[09:33] SPEAKER_03: we were a joint venture with a Japanese company.
[09:36] SPEAKER_03: And at that time, the Japanese didn't have much respect for foreigners,
[09:40] SPEAKER_03: and they didn't have much respect for you.
[09:42] SPEAKER_03: And when I was trying to negotiate for budget,
[09:45] SPEAKER_03: and it was a really hard grind for me as an up-and-comer,
[09:50] SPEAKER_03: as a future entrepreneur, to earn my stripes, to earn my respect.
[09:56] SPEAKER_03: So it was, it was a top goal for me in my early years as a minority shareholder
[10:01] SPEAKER_03: with the Japanese company.
[10:03] SPEAKER_03: And I think the other thing was, is that there was not support for companies in our industry.
[10:08] SPEAKER_03: And when we looked back at time, we had a lot of rock star pharmaceutical biotech companies
[10:12] SPEAKER_03: that came from the province, but as far as the province in the city go,
[10:16] SPEAKER_03: there was really no support for them with a strong energy sector environment in the province.
[10:21] SPEAKER_03: So we really had to find our way, make lots of mistakes, learn from them.
[10:26] SPEAKER_03: And you know, when I look back, I'm grateful for, for, for the path that I was on.
[10:31] SPEAKER_03: And I do believe that it did make me a better entrepreneur.
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: What's your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
[10:39] SPEAKER_03: My advice is always to find somebody who's been there and done that,
[10:45] SPEAKER_03: and suck as much information as you can from them.
[10:49] SPEAKER_03: You know, when you're looking at mentorship programs,
[10:51] SPEAKER_03: and there's a lot of mentorship programs in the, in the province,
[10:55] SPEAKER_03: there's a lot of programs that are being run, or being,
[10:58] SPEAKER_03: are mentors that are providing mentorship that have never founded their own business,
[11:03] SPEAKER_03: have never taken the risk, wondered how to make payroll to Lensso,
[11:07] SPEAKER_03: come out on the other side and gone through that.
[11:10] SPEAKER_03: But here they are mentoring up and coming entrepreneurs that are just starting that journey.
[11:15] SPEAKER_03: And then, and I always, I use the analogy if you want to learn how to fly an airplane,
[11:19] SPEAKER_03: would you ask a flight attendant to teach you?
[11:22] SPEAKER_03: Of course you would at, and if the flight attendant had 30 years of experience,
[11:25] SPEAKER_03: would you be more comfortable?
[11:27] SPEAKER_03: You know, for, and of course you would,
[11:29] SPEAKER_03: you'd probably be more comfortable with an experienced flight attendant,
[11:32] SPEAKER_03: but still to learn how to fly an airplane,
[11:33] SPEAKER_03: I would want to talk to a pilot.
[11:36] SPEAKER_03: And if I found a pilot that crashed a few times and survived,
[11:39] SPEAKER_03: he's probably the first pilot I would want to talk to you before I become a pilot.
[11:42] SPEAKER_03: It's the same thing with it's startup entrepreneur.
[11:45] SPEAKER_03: If you're a startup entrepreneur, find somebody that you respect
[11:48] SPEAKER_03: that has been a successful entrepreneur,
[11:51] SPEAKER_03: and ask for their mentorship, ask questions,
[11:54] SPEAKER_03: and learn from them, because they've been there,
[11:57] SPEAKER_03: done at the, know what you're going to, going to go through,
[11:59] SPEAKER_03: and there is credibility with that mentorship.
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[12:11] SPEAKER_01: Now does it take a special, I don't know, a person or a special personality
[12:16] SPEAKER_01: to be a successful entrepreneur?
[12:20] SPEAKER_03: Oh, I absolutely.
[12:21] SPEAKER_03: I think I've been asked the question before,
[12:23] SPEAKER_03: if entrepreneurs are born or are they made,
[12:26] SPEAKER_03: I believe in large part, you have to be within you.
[12:30] SPEAKER_03: You have to be born with it, but to know whether you're an entrepreneur,
[12:33] SPEAKER_03: you have to be given such things as opportunity and challenge and hardship,
[12:39] SPEAKER_03: and that pulls out the real entrepreneurs.
[12:42] SPEAKER_03: But I think that it's not something that you can teach somebody.
[12:46] SPEAKER_03: I think it's an inherent drive that you have.
[12:50] SPEAKER_03: The successful entrepreneurs have to have an undying perseverance.
[12:55] SPEAKER_03: There has to be a no-quit.
[12:57] SPEAKER_03: There has to be a no fear.
[13:00] SPEAKER_03: I guess everybody has some fear, but less fear of failing.
[13:05] SPEAKER_03: But there's a lot of those kind of traits that entrepreneurs must have to be successful.
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you look at being an entrepreneur,
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: you really got two jobs, right?
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: You've got the job of what you're doing, like in your business.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: But then the other job is, you know, to grow your business,
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: the business side of it, right?
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: How do you juggle those two?
[13:34] SPEAKER_03: It's always a challenge for an entrepreneur.
[13:37] SPEAKER_03: Are you working in your business or are you working on your business?
[13:41] SPEAKER_03: And all good entrepreneurs, especially if they founded a company,
[13:44] SPEAKER_03: they are fully in their business.
[13:46] SPEAKER_03: And there has to come a time where there's a transition to working on your business.
[13:51] SPEAKER_03: And in order to do so, you have to surround yourself with people that are better at certain things than you are
[13:58] SPEAKER_03: and empower them to do those things.
[14:01] SPEAKER_03: So you can step out of the day-to-day routine.
[14:04] SPEAKER_03: And unless you can step out and look at your business from above,
[14:08] SPEAKER_03: you won't be successful.
[14:10] SPEAKER_03: And when we're mentoring entrepreneurs, we always stay.
[14:14] SPEAKER_03: We ask a lot of questions, but one of the biggest is,
[14:17] SPEAKER_03: let's talk about your exit.
[14:20] SPEAKER_03: Because most entrepreneurs don't think about an exit.
[14:22] SPEAKER_03: They just make a dollar so they start building business and then they're making more money.
[14:25] SPEAKER_03: But you never really think about, what do I want to be when I grow up?
[14:29] SPEAKER_03: And how do I exit this?
[14:30] SPEAKER_03: And that's the difference when you start working on your business.
[14:32] SPEAKER_03: You start thinking about, let's figure out the exit.
[14:35] SPEAKER_03: For example, am I building this to have some big company acquire me?
[14:40] SPEAKER_03: And if I am, my decisions to get there become a lot different than I'm working in the business just trying to make a dollar.
[14:47] SPEAKER_03: And so if you want to build it to acquire, why not talk to the suitor right now and say,
[14:54] SPEAKER_03: hey, this is who I am, this is what I'm building, is this a business you'd be interested in?
[14:58] SPEAKER_03: Because I want you to buy my business.
[15:00] SPEAKER_03: And they gave you the feedback saying, yes, this is great, but in order for us to buy you,
[15:05] SPEAKER_03: we would need to see this and this and this.
[15:07] SPEAKER_03: But now you've got a clear path forward on what you need to do to achieve success.
[15:11] SPEAKER_03: And I think when entrepreneurs first start, unless you have the experience,
[15:15] SPEAKER_03: you don't think of that because you're just trying to make a dollar,
[15:18] SPEAKER_03: you're just trying to make money.
[15:19] SPEAKER_03: And you're not thinking downstream and working backwards.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: You know, the other thing too is that you're so busy, you know,
[15:27] SPEAKER_01: I was an entrepreneur in your business, right?
[15:30] SPEAKER_01: And how important, you know, and all the entrepreneurs you've seen and the ones you talk to and mentor,
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: how important is the fact that they really need to develop some sort of work like balance,
[15:46] SPEAKER_01: that they can't just be 24 or seven on the business.
[15:53] SPEAKER_03: It's critical and we talk a lot about work like balance.
[15:56] SPEAKER_03: And the happier your family is, the easier it is to be productive and successful at your business.
[16:05] SPEAKER_03: If you're trying to balance an unhappy spouse and unhappy family,
[16:08] SPEAKER_03: you're not involved with your kids' activities, it's very difficult to be successful in the business.
[16:14] SPEAKER_03: And so it is a critical thing.
[16:18] SPEAKER_03: And again, we see it often.
[16:19] SPEAKER_03: And when an entrepreneur comes, especially when we're helping close secondaries,
[16:23] SPEAKER_03: they're coming strong, technical people, but very poor with a lot of other areas like the business side,
[16:29] SPEAKER_03: you really, you really have to figure out, what do I want to do?
[16:33] SPEAKER_03: What do I enjoy doing in my business?
[16:35] SPEAKER_03: I don't want to do things I don't enjoy doing.
[16:38] SPEAKER_03: And also, what am I good at?
[16:40] SPEAKER_03: What am I good at in my business?
[16:42] SPEAKER_03: And if you have that self-awareness, you start surrounding yourself with people
[16:46] SPEAKER_03: who can do the things you don't want to do, and that starts to enable you to free up time,
[16:51] SPEAKER_03: to focus on family, focus on other things.
[16:54] SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs think they have to do it all.
[16:58] SPEAKER_03: And they don't have the money to hire somebody, or they don't have to trust the hire somebody.
[17:01] SPEAKER_03: So they get trapped in that way too busy doing everything,
[17:06] SPEAKER_03: and nothing else in the world gets their attention.
[17:10] SPEAKER_03: They're not going to be successful in the long run trying to balance it.
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[17:14] SPEAKER_01: So what about yourself personally?
[17:17] SPEAKER_01: What do you do to maintain that work like balance?
[17:22] SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
[17:26] SPEAKER_03: And I don't want to be a hypocrite when I'm answering,
[17:28] SPEAKER_03: because I do fall into the pitfall of being too busy or not being present.
[17:33] SPEAKER_03: But if I've been successful at anything, it has been recognizing what I'm not good at.
[17:39] SPEAKER_03: And I have built an outstanding team that are so good at the things that one is,
[17:43] SPEAKER_03: I don't like doing, and the things that they're been resuted to do.
[17:48] SPEAKER_03: I don't want to do them. I'm not good at doing them.
[17:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[17:50] SPEAKER_03: And so I've done a good job at building a team.
[17:53] SPEAKER_03: Having said that, I still need to put in a fair amount of time
[17:57] SPEAKER_03: and all of these ventures I'm involved with.
[17:59] SPEAKER_03: But I do things like I recognize it's important to keep my physical health up.
[18:03] SPEAKER_03: So I work out at play sports.
[18:05] SPEAKER_03: I also recognize the importance of friends.
[18:08] SPEAKER_03: I have a very big friend, Surkel.
[18:10] SPEAKER_03: I'm involved in an entrepreneur group.
[18:12] SPEAKER_03: I have friends that have no nothing about business as well.
[18:14] SPEAKER_03: So a diverse range of friends.
[18:16] SPEAKER_03: And when I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed, there's nothing like having a great conversation
[18:21] SPEAKER_03: with spending some time with my wife away from the office, friends that don't know anything about the business.
[18:27] SPEAKER_03: It kind of reminds me of what's important.
[18:29] SPEAKER_03: And then I go back to the office with renewed enthusiasm.
[18:33] SPEAKER_03: So I try my best to just drown myself with positive people, positive attitudes,
[18:38] SPEAKER_01: and keep myself healthy.
[18:40] SPEAKER_01: All right, wonderful.
[18:41] SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks so much Chris for joining us today on Edmonton's podcast.
[18:46] SPEAKER_01: Go as my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
