Justin Hartzman

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[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.
[00:18] 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.
[00:25] SPEAKER_00: Your source for great insights from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: Today I'd like to introduce you to Justin Hartzmann.
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: Justin is a born entrepreneur, motivated, hardworking, ambitious and a high level
[00:40] SPEAKER_00: thinker and he's passionate about business.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: He's a graduate of one of Canada's premier business and economic programs at
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: the University of Western Ontario and comes from a long line of entrepreneurs
[00:51] SPEAKER_00: and investors from an early age, Justin worked retail in his family's businesses,
[00:57] SPEAKER_00: rising to managerial and buying position.
[01:00] SPEAKER_00: Understanding sales, forecasting, team management and learning from others are what
[01:05] SPEAKER_00: continues to drive him.
[01:07] SPEAKER_00: Justin is an average traveler, investor, knowledge seeker and a family man.
[01:12] SPEAKER_00: He's also a Scotch enthusiast, something that I share with him.
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: Justin, with his team, owns and manages a portfolio of websites and businesses.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: He's fall into the B2B, Venusy and consumer content spaces.
[01:25] SPEAKER_00: With his extreme knowledge of everything internet and past experience and start-ups to exits,
[01:31] SPEAKER_00: Justin's current focus is to mature his business, flourish and take a leap back into the
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: start-up culture with needles.com.
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself, you know, way from?
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: Give us a five minute, you know, who Justin is, basically.
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so, well, a lot of it wasn't that intro that you read, so thank you.
[01:52] SPEAKER_01: But I think where I'm coming from, my mouth is always a little more entertaining with story.
[01:56] SPEAKER_01: So he said, I started very young understanding from my parents, my grandparents,
[02:01] SPEAKER_01: what it was like to be an entrepreneur or not to go work for someone.
[02:05] SPEAKER_01: And it's something that's been ingrained in me for a long time.
[02:07] SPEAKER_01: And I have this crazy urge for sales and sales at any level.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: Well, it's $100,000 or $100 million or $100.
[02:16] SPEAKER_01: I still get that same four-card for making a sale.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: And that's in anything that's ever making a sale for a new customer.
[02:24] SPEAKER_01: Am I selling someone how they should come work with us at our business and help us to grow?
[02:28] SPEAKER_01: Because it's hard to win great talent right now, whether that's getting investors to come on board.
[02:34] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what it is.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: It's the art of doing a deal that helps move forward and helps me to attain the goals
[02:40] SPEAKER_01: I've set forth myself as always something that's been interesting to me.
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: And the internet has been a conduit for that since I was very, very young.
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: I remember the 14-4 motor, making my house.
[02:52] SPEAKER_01: When you had a, you wanted to load up a picture or a video and come line by line by line by line.
[02:58] SPEAKER_01: And you'd see a little piece of the picture at a time.
[03:00] SPEAKER_01: And I just knew there was an ample opportunity for us to grow.
[03:02] SPEAKER_01: So early on, I got an app called Start a website called rootjoke.com.
[03:07] SPEAKER_01: Rootjoke became the largest content site online for people to come and visit to see funny jokes.
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: And get content to post on their websites.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: And from there, it's just kind of flourished.
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: I went from a small site that became big.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: And to getting into new markets all the time.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: And currently what I'm working on, and what's exciting for me, is needles.com.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: It's the first artificial intelligence-based robo agency.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: What that means is in six questions.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: We know exactly who you are, who you want to sell to, and what is that you're selling.
[03:36] SPEAKER_01: We create your ads for you.
[03:38] SPEAKER_01: And we optimize and target for you constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: What we're doing different in the AI space is we're finding people's intent to purchase.
[03:47] SPEAKER_01: So what does that mean?
[03:48] SPEAKER_01: When someone on Facebook or Twitter or somewhere says, my two thirds, what do I do?
[03:53] SPEAKER_01: We know that they have a need for a dentist, so we can show them an ad for a dentist at that time.
[03:57] SPEAKER_01: So that's a really big project that we've been working on for four years.
[04:01] SPEAKER_01: We're in a good growth phase right now, which is pretty exciting.
[04:04] SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, if I wasn't crazy enough to be doing a startup at this time,
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: which is crazy itself.
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: It takes crazy people to do that.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: We started another one, which is now about a year old called coin smart dot com.
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: And coin smart is a cryptocurrency digital exchange here in Canada, which is an absolute nuts market to be in.
[04:21] SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't have it any other way.
[04:23] SPEAKER_01: I need that constant change in her and rush going through my blood and my veins.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: So that's what I do currently.
[04:29] SPEAKER_00: We've done some crypto stuff as well.
[04:32] SPEAKER_00: So you kind of explained it a little, a little bit Justin, but I like to ask you know,
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: yes, you had, you know, grandparents, parents in the business.
[04:41] SPEAKER_00: What was that stop moment when you said I have to be an entrepreneur?
[04:45] SPEAKER_00: Was there a flash?
[04:46] SPEAKER_00: Maybe there wasn't easy for me.
[04:49] SPEAKER_01: I got I was hired one time to work for someone who wasn't in my family.
[04:53] SPEAKER_01: I was actually in high school, maybe grade ninth grade, grade nine.
[04:59] SPEAKER_01: And I got a job at the gap.
[05:01] SPEAKER_01: I was there.
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: I was crushing that job.
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: They two things is great.
[05:06] SPEAKER_01: They're metric driven there, which I think is really great.
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: I don't know for 20 years, but back then they're metric driven.
[05:11] SPEAKER_01: So how many sales are making?
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: How many sales per hour items per sale?
[05:15] SPEAKER_01: And when you put a scoreboard in front of me, I want to win.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: I want to be the top.
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: So that's what I did.
[05:22] SPEAKER_01: I was the best damn sales person that gap has ever seen.
[05:25] SPEAKER_01: They posted, they printed at that time a monthly newsletter and inform a magazine and listed their top salesperson.
[05:33] SPEAKER_01: I was always there in the top, like maybe three to five people.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: I was number one for a long time.
[05:39] SPEAKER_01: But after about two or three months of being there, the Christmas season ended and they were letting go some people.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: And they said, Justin, you know, can't say much about your sales.
[05:50] SPEAKER_01: They're doing amazing, but we're going to have to not renew you into the next season.
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: I said, but why is that?
[05:55] SPEAKER_01: They said, because you didn't fold the single piece of clothing the entire time you were here.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: And I said, well, that's not my job.
[06:01] SPEAKER_01: I was hired as a salesperson, not to fold clothes.
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: And I was the best darn salesperson.
[06:05] SPEAKER_01: Your store has ever seen or they've seen nationally.
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: So what's the problem?
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: That's not the culture that we were going for.
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: That's not the sales that we're looking for.
[06:14] SPEAKER_01: Sorry, it's not for you.
[06:16] SPEAKER_01: And I knew from that point on, I could never work for somebody who hammered.
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: Not only was it not game-pick commission, but still doing a good job for them.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: I'm not really going to let someone hammer or stammer me in the growth that I want to bring.
[06:28] SPEAKER_01: When I can see efficiencies or deficiencies that I can bring,
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: I want to be able to implement those with the right people who are like-minded
[06:34] SPEAKER_01: and working for someone else really never made that opportunity for me.
[06:38] SPEAKER_01: So that's where I am.
[06:40] SPEAKER_00: Still, I said, you really weren't going to be happy working for someone else.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: How did you get to started?
[06:46] SPEAKER_00: How did you get into business?
[06:49] SPEAKER_00: You're going to work for your family?
[06:51] SPEAKER_00: Did you?
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: No, I started with my current business partners now.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: We met when we were six years old, went to camp together.
[06:58] SPEAKER_01: He's close to Canvas.
[06:59] SPEAKER_01: We know each other for 30 years now, considering the 36.
[07:04] SPEAKER_01: And we all had the same entrepreneurial spirit.
[07:07] SPEAKER_01: And we just saw it with the Internet came opportunity.
[07:10] SPEAKER_01: With the technology came opportunity.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: We got in really early and we saw that we can make money from all these great ways.
[07:16] SPEAKER_01: And we just started trying and testing and looking what was hot.
[07:20] SPEAKER_01: And that's where we got to where we are today.
[07:22] SPEAKER_01: And like I say to everyone, I do a lot of mentoring.
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: And I help other people who are new to start-ups or new to doing business or being entrepreneur.
[07:31] SPEAKER_01: And the question I get is, how did you do it?
[07:33] SPEAKER_01: Same question you asked.
[07:35] SPEAKER_00: How did you focus?
[07:37] SPEAKER_00: I think lots of people, you know, they want to do it.
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: But they can't get the focus.
[07:42] SPEAKER_00: How did you?
[07:43] SPEAKER_01: It's not focused. That's what I would like to say.
[07:45] SPEAKER_01: It's not focused.
[07:46] SPEAKER_01: There's something that's written from these people's face.
[07:48] SPEAKER_01: Something that stops them like you're saying.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: And that's one word.
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: That's called fear.
[07:52] SPEAKER_01: And when you can take that one step over fear, you can cross that line and jump into it.
[07:58] SPEAKER_01: That's when you're going to make the best effort to get done what you need to do.
[08:02] SPEAKER_01: There's always something to fall back upon.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: And if you're always waiting for the perfect opportunity, it's never going to happen.
[08:07] SPEAKER_00: So you realized that the Internet was full of opportunity at that point.
[08:13] SPEAKER_00: How do I mean?
[08:13] SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's like this big kind of thing.
[08:16] SPEAKER_00: How did you decide on what I said for this?
[08:21] SPEAKER_00: You know, where your focus was going to go?
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: Well, it's where my interests were at the time.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: So like early on, I was into first player shooter games.
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: So because I was into that, I built a community around it.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: And I provide services for those people.
[08:34] SPEAKER_01: And if they use server space, they needed the hosting.
[08:37] SPEAKER_01: I provide that for them.
[08:38] SPEAKER_01: That was interesting to me.
[08:39] SPEAKER_01: I got to bring two patches together, making money, building community, and the games they like.
[08:44] SPEAKER_01: And then from there, following trends online was really big for us.
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: Something that was new that gave us a platform or an opportunity when eBay came out.
[08:52] SPEAKER_01: That was a big thing for us.
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: That's a great way to make money when Amazon affiliate came out when my space was,
[08:58] SPEAKER_01: which helped us.
[08:59] SPEAKER_01: How we became we sold our first two companies in 2005 within one year.
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: Because my space gave us the platform to produce third party content for their users.
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: So anyone who had a my space page that wanted to customize it or pimp their profiles,
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: they said, we made the content for that.
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: And we saw that opportunity really early on.
[09:21] SPEAKER_01: And because of that, it helped us grow.
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: So we look for the early opportunities.
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: We look for the places that other people have the gaps in the market.
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: And that's what we try to hone in on.
[09:30] SPEAKER_00: How did you find, I mean, how did you finance all that?
[09:33] SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what, that becomes a, that's always a big issue for startups for entrepreneurs in general.
[09:38] SPEAKER_01: Until needles, we bootstrapped absolutely everything.
[09:41] SPEAKER_01: We started with zero dollars.
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: We made a first dollar.
[09:43] SPEAKER_01: We reinvested it.
[09:44] SPEAKER_01: We put the Mac game.
[09:45] SPEAKER_01: We put the Mac.
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: We still two businesses off bootstrapped when needles came to the market.
[09:50] SPEAKER_01: And we went from being, you know, three founders and offshore teams all over helping us build them.
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: And we went, let's build a startup.
[09:58] SPEAKER_01: Let's build a culture.
[09:59] SPEAKER_01: Let's build something here that we can be proud of that we can have a legacy.
[10:03] SPEAKER_01: We knew that to get that to the size that we want to while we had some mild successes.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: We wanted to see this in a much larger scale.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: And to do that, we had to go out and raise funds and to raise funds.
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: The first thing you have to do before anyone's going to give you any money is not only have an idea,
[10:19] SPEAKER_01: but you got to go sell to someone.
[10:21] SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're really good.
[10:22] SPEAKER_01: We can sell our products to people.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: We just need scale.
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: It's good that you say that because I mean, I think that's what's really interesting.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: You say bootstrapping.
[10:32] SPEAKER_00: Everyone thinks, oh, you know, you've got to find money.
[10:34] SPEAKER_00: You've got to find money.
[10:35] SPEAKER_00: But frankly, I would say, you know, 80 to 90% of the people I talked to as entrepreneurs,
[10:41] SPEAKER_00: bootstrapped their business heck of a long way before they bother with investment.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: Mr. Hector, a lot of things don't need that much investment.
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: Like needles, we have a whole AI department data science that involves so much technology and so much programming and learning.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: Like that's a huge expense that you have to do before you can get to market in the most cases.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: Without being the case, it's really hard to bootstrap unless you yourself have $1.00 on.
[11:05] SPEAKER_01: But if you have an idea, you know, you can read it any book, any entrepreneur has had any success will tell you the same thing.
[11:11] SPEAKER_01: Just go out there and sell it before you made it.
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: If you sell it and you know, people want it, you can find a way to make it and get to those people.
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: So whether you have an MVP and you're showing them static screens on it, it's not a product that works.
[11:25] SPEAKER_01: If someone's willing to pay for it, then more people are and you can go out and get them right money to do so.
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: So it's all about taking the little baby steps.
[11:32] SPEAKER_00: So what does a typical day look like for you?
[11:35] SPEAKER_00: Is it super charged entrepreneur, if you like?
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: So I'm up around five o'clock every morning.
[11:42] SPEAKER_01: I get to then spend some time with my kids, my two daughters and my wife.
[11:46] SPEAKER_01: And I use that as like a, I take about the first 15 minutes to answer all the overnight emails for everyone overseas in Asia.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: I spend time with my family.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: I feed them breakfast, I take my daughter to school.
[11:58] SPEAKER_01: And then it's off to the office around 815 to 830 every morning.
[12:03] SPEAKER_01: And then from there every day is different.
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: I can be a day full of meetings. It can be day.
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: We I do a lot of travel for business all over the place.
[12:11] SPEAKER_01: But quite frankly, it's thinking about the big ideas, understanding the vision of his kind of place.
[12:16] SPEAKER_01: It's showing the people I have put in place who are much smarter and better than I am.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: How the resources that they need to do their jobs.
[12:24] SPEAKER_01: And then I constantly still I still work on the sales side of my companies.
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in doing that. It doesn't change my passion.
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: So I'm always playing some role in that, whether it's very large deals, whether it's fundraising.
[12:39] SPEAKER_01: And then I go home around seven o'clock every night.
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: I put my kids to bed. I have dinner with my wife. And then I go to sleep.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: And in between that, I have tons of events to be at or mentoring talks that I do.
[12:51] SPEAKER_01: Anywhere I can be useful. I try to be well, making sure I have my family time at the same time.
[12:56] SPEAKER_00: You know, what's your current business business model and how do you think you're going to execute on your long term vision?
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: Well, my current vision is to build companies that offer a great product and service to help the underserved.
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: And what I mean underserved is usually the long tail customer.
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: So the consumer who wants to start their own business, the small, small business, the solar printer.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: And by doing that, I want to build a great culture of people who are excited to do the same thing.
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: And I want to create for myself freedom.
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: I want to just feel like that's financial freedom, that's time freedom, that's the ability to do what I want to do as I move forward.
[13:36] SPEAKER_01: And what I love to do is spend more and my time to be useful to get back to other people when I can get myself into that position to do that full time.
[13:44] SPEAKER_01: So working towards something that's been very big in my life for the last 12 years between what we talked about and starting needles.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: I started how to come in, which we had sold now called we sell your site.com.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: We broke or to other people's web businesses and selling brokering and selling businesses key to me.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: So I build these business to build them up, sell them, get the right people and delete them from the $100 million range.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: I'm a good starter, a good visionary, but I know there's people that I'm good to get to $10 million.
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: I need people, the right people to get from $10 to $100.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: So knowing your weaknesses is a big thing.
[14:21] SPEAKER_00: Good knowing your strengths.
[14:24] SPEAKER_00: What are the biggest benefits for you being an entrepreneur and Toronto?
[14:29] SPEAKER_00: Why here? Why not somewhere else?
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: So good question. I'm not from Toronto. I'm originally from Kingston.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: I went and lived in Kingston and I moved out 17 to go to Western University and then from Western University I came to be here in Toronto.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: I've been here ever since.
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: I think that when I look back at it, there's a lot of opportunities that have been created for me outside of business here.
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: So fighting my wife, establishing, where's aware all my friends have come and moved from and all their little places that we lived before.
[15:01] SPEAKER_01: Whether it was Kingston, Windsor, Halifax, British Columbia, wherever it may have been.
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: This is a good central spot for us.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: I think finding the talent that we need is certainly key when we're working on like only a semi-distributed team.
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: We try to have people locally where we can come together and have everyone's brain in the same room and working on it.
[15:19] SPEAKER_01: We have lots of distributed people as well, but this is a central pub for them to come together.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: It feels like home for me now. It's a big city. I like that feel.
[15:28] SPEAKER_01: And I like being here and ever changing.
[15:31] SPEAKER_01: You know, having my office in one part of the city and then moving into another house we grow.
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: Let's just have different bits and pieces and feel like we're in different places.
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: Plus the amount of travel that I do, it'd be hard anywhere else in Ontario to be, to add additional hours of driving to my travel schedule.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: Being here with your airports, let's me get where I need to quicker.
[15:51] SPEAKER_00: So you already mentioned Asia. You're obviously doing business, not just in Canada.
[15:56] SPEAKER_00: How did you get there? What's the trick about going into national?
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: Well, I know some questions that a lot of people ask me. There's a lot of talks that people go to about expanding international.
[16:06] SPEAKER_01: For me, it was like nothing seems international when I'm working on the internet.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: You know, you could be in Asia right now. And I wouldn't even know if you were there.
[16:16] SPEAKER_01: Because you're from a computer the same way I am. We're working at the same time getting the same things done.
[16:21] SPEAKER_01: So for me, it was never like an active choice. And the fact is as Canadians, if I could take American dollars, I get a huge advantage.
[16:29] SPEAKER_01: So if I go to other places outside of Canada, American dollars are normal, especially the US. They'll always key to us.
[16:35] SPEAKER_01: We always like that differential and all.
[16:37] SPEAKER_00: I think with video communication, just like we're doing at the moment, it changes things.
[16:42] SPEAKER_00: Is there a place in Toronto or a closeness city where you like to reach out, get inspired?
[16:48] SPEAKER_00: I think if you're like...
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I don't take that opportunity enough. So I would like to say yes.
[16:54] SPEAKER_01: And I would like to change my answer eventually. But one day, I hope to have a nice place outside the city.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: I do like being and renting a cottage or going to one of my friends.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: Where you don't just feel the buzz about you that you get in the city all the time.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: Everything is blurred back and forth. Just sit me down. Let me look at the water. I'm a big water guy. I've been a voter my entire life.
[17:17] SPEAKER_01: So sailing power boats a whole deal, small water crowds.
[17:21] SPEAKER_01: So I love that. It doesn't have to be outside of city. I'll happily go down to our place in Florida where we can do that.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: Or wait for my wife and I like to travel as much as we possibly can and with the kids.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: And just be in a quieter place in Toronto.
[17:37] SPEAKER_00: Do you think entrepreneurs have to be kind of weird, unique?
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're all a little bit nuts. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: You have to be even kill enough to know that there's abs and flows and there's good times when there's bad times.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: And there's probably a lot more bad times than there are good times, but the good times will eventually outweigh the bad.
[17:57] SPEAKER_01: And I was at a great talk last night. And it's so true.
[18:04] SPEAKER_01: Like it doesn't matter who you are. If you you can get knocked down a billion times.
[18:08] SPEAKER_01: That's what's going to happen as an entrepreneur. You're things are so great.
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: You have it's awesome contract. You're going to go fulfill it. The day before you get a phone call, sorry.
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: We decided to go a different direction. Well, shit's going to happen. You know, it's just going to happen.
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: It's not how you get knocked down. It's cliche, but it's how you get back up.
[18:25] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the main thing being an internal optimist and constantly just knowing that there's another opportunity is what drives me.
[18:34] SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of entrepreneurs out there.
[18:36] SPEAKER_00: So if you weren't an entrepreneur, what would you like to do for a profession?
[18:42] SPEAKER_01: I think that I would like to do something in the in the banking trading world.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: What wouldn't you like to do?
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: What would I I wouldn't like to work for anyone.
[18:59] SPEAKER_01: What would I like to do?
[19:01] SPEAKER_01: I think I wouldn't be good at not I wouldn't want to do is like manual labor out in the sun.
[19:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm sun adverse.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: So things are outdoor all the time. I wouldn't like less of the shade.
[19:17] SPEAKER_00: So in business, what's your favorite word or sentence? You know, phrase, whatever, you know, what's your favorite word?
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: I go back to my personal mantra, which is just being useful. And I can go under any form whatsoever.
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: You know, helping someone, giving something back, giving them a suggestion. It all comes back to you.
[19:34] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'm just being gentle.
[19:35] SPEAKER_00: What's your least favorite statement?
[19:38] SPEAKER_01: No, or impossible.
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick one or two words to describe you, what would they be?
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: Tnacious and convicted. I'm very convicted in what I do.
[19:50] SPEAKER_01: I will fight for it to the end. And Tnacious, I won't give up.
[19:54] SPEAKER_00: You know, what keeps you up at night? Maybe nothing.
[19:57] SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot. I'm not a good sleeper. And that's not a good thing.
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: People need to get your sleep. I got to, I have to work on that myself.
[20:05] SPEAKER_01: What keeps me up at night is not achieving the goals I've set out for myself and my company and hitting my milestones when I was supposed to.
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: I think those are the things that it's just not achieving what I want to in the quickest amount of time.
[20:19] SPEAKER_01: It's being stagnant. I like to be always moving.
[20:23] SPEAKER_00: What are the top three things that inspire you? You're inspired list, basically.
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: I'm inspired. This is new for me inspired by watching my kids grow up and seeing how they learn and how how smart they take on things and even seeing.
[20:38] SPEAKER_01: Which is not always the best thing how my wife and I are in my children and how they think and do things.
[20:43] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that's crazy. That's how I would have thought at that time while I think now, how does she do that?
[20:50] SPEAKER_01: So I think that's pretty inspiring for me.
[20:52] SPEAKER_01: Second of all is the ability that I can go out there and create my own destiny is inspiring for myself and whether it's a good day or a bad day.
[21:02] SPEAKER_01: There's always tomorrow and if you're smart, you can get through whether the bad days.
[21:06] SPEAKER_01: I think those are mostly the inspiration for me and the fact that you can build something from nothing.
[21:12] SPEAKER_01: If you just really care and you really really want it to happen, there's always a way if you have the will to do it.
[21:20] SPEAKER_00: So this is our favorite island question, but maybe you heard a few answers.
[21:25] SPEAKER_00: There's a small tropical island just off 3G that has just one fond booth, no internet.
[21:31] SPEAKER_00: We drop you off there, you don't have a computer or a smartphone or a tablet.
[21:36] SPEAKER_00: You can use the phone booths located at any time to call the boat, but that's all and we'll come and pick you up.
[21:42] SPEAKER_00: How long would you last before you made that call and what would you do while you were there?
[21:46] SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a good question.
[21:50] SPEAKER_01: My answer is this, I would call that boat when the time was right.
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: And I think the time is right, depending on the variables that happened to me on that island.
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: Is the weather permittable where I'm comfortable, I can stay there and recharge or am I on a stormy island that I'm wet and I'm getting hypothermic.
[22:10] SPEAKER_01: It's a different situation.
[22:11] SPEAKER_01: So situationally, I would decide that based on my surroundings and knowing my limits, what I could handle, not handle.
[22:20] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you just to wrap things up a bit, you've given us lots of good input, but there's any advice that you've received that you want to pass on to entrepreneurs across Canada.
[22:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say I've said it earlier. I'll say it again, just take that opposite, take that step over fear.
[22:41] SPEAKER_01: You see that line, just take that step over it. You can always jump back if you're ever YouTube.
[22:45] SPEAKER_01: If you never try, you're never going to see what you're capable of.
[22:49] SPEAKER_01: Be tenacious, be convicted in what you're doing.
[22:52] SPEAKER_01: Stand up for what's right and what you believe in.
[22:56] SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as no, nothing's impossible.
[22:58] SPEAKER_01: You just have to find the way to get around that wall. Sometimes it's through it, sometimes it's over it, sometimes it's under it.
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's blowing it up.
[23:06] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what it is. There's always a way if you want to make that happen.
[23:10] SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
[23:11] SPEAKER_00: How can people get a hold of you?
[23:12] SPEAKER_00: You know, people listen, they want to talk.
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[23:17] SPEAKER_00: That's part of this network we're building.
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I always do that. I was happy you asked. So we're glad to know.
[23:22] SPEAKER_01: Anyways, you can reach me at J H at needles dot com.
[23:27] SPEAKER_01: So my first and last initial J H at N E E D L S dot com or J H at coin smart dot com either or you can get a hold of me.
[23:38] SPEAKER_01: That's you can ask any questions.
[23:40] SPEAKER_01: I have awesome opportunities. I do podcasts at this all the time and put my email out there.
[23:45] SPEAKER_01: There's nothing more valuable.
[23:46] SPEAKER_01: I got a new deal that comes through someone and gets me to an investor or someone asked questions.
[23:51] SPEAKER_01: I help them. They come work for me eventually or work with me.
[23:55] SPEAKER_01: So I love it. If you want to know anything, I can be helpful at all.
[23:58] SPEAKER_01: Please feel free to email where happy to do so.
[24:01] SPEAKER_00: Thanks everyone for taking the time today to listen to Drondas podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoyed the podcast today.
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: Make sure you sign up for our newsletters or write a review for us on iTunes.
[24:14] SPEAKER_00: You can connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or at Canada's podcast dot com.
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: You can also check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country.
[24:25] SPEAKER_00: I'm Phil Bliss. See you next time.