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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_03: Hello, this is Robert Smiley with Canada's podcast where we talk to the entrepreneurs
[00:09] SPEAKER_03: we're making it happen here in Vancouver, British Columbia.
[00:12] SPEAKER_03: Get ready for an inspiring conversation, Lee Christie.
[00:16] SPEAKER_03: Lee is a Vancouver-based engineer, entrepreneur with degrees from UBC and MIT.
[00:22] SPEAKER_03: He invented the machine, vision, robotic, heat, spotlight, and the Mando spider, a 1500
[00:28] SPEAKER_03: pound walking machine.
[00:30] SPEAKER_03: In 2009, Lee co-founded Misty West, a leading product engineering design firm focused
[00:36] SPEAKER_03: on novel sensors, low power wireless and edge AI.
[00:42] SPEAKER_03: Misty West recently created an AI inference and vision system called Misty Vision.
[00:48] SPEAKER_03: Welcome Lee to Canada's podcast.
[00:51] SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Robert.
[00:54] SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you having me.
[00:56] SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
[00:57] SPEAKER_03: Okay, so let's dive right into it.
[01:00] SPEAKER_03: Your born and raised man career, I take it.
[01:02] SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: I am.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: Bank of Bernative.
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a rarity these days.
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: It's a city on the grow.
[01:10] SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
[01:11] SPEAKER_03: How long have you been an entrepreneur for?
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: Hold my life, I guess.
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it depends on whether you count the candy store I started when I was a kid.
[01:21] SPEAKER_03: Next to really work is factory.
[01:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I went to Costco and bought those big tubs of sourkeys and put them in little bags
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: and smuggle them into my elementary school where I sold them a recess.
[01:33] SPEAKER_03: So you started a young age, you kind of just stuck with it, never really been employed
[01:38] SPEAKER_03: and just kind of continued creating businesses.
[01:41] SPEAKER_03: You're not holding it?
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I used to joke that I'm unemployable, but that actually turned out to not be true.
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: I've had a couple of jobs.
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: I worked for a baller power systems on fuel cells in Vancouver.
[01:51] SPEAKER_01: That was a really fun job.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: I had some great amazing colleagues and even more amazing boss who really kind of mentored
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: me and helped me a lot to sort of integrate into society as a feral animal.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: And then when I was in New York, I worked for a company called Isovara.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: I was there for five years.
[02:09] SPEAKER_01: It was a sort of more traditional, you know, Matt, you know, show Mad Men.
[02:16] SPEAKER_01: It was a little bit like that.
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: It was like, except for it was a digital agency as opposed to a pure advertising company.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: And I got, I got deeply, deeply into the world of innovation consulting.
[02:26] SPEAKER_03: Cool.
[02:27] SPEAKER_03: And has the job experience helped you with your modern day entrepreneurial journey?
[02:34] SPEAKER_01: Is that absolutely absolutely?
[02:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no question.
[02:38] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm a much better entrepreneur now that I've had some more life experience.
[02:42] SPEAKER_01: I think all entrepreneurs at some point or another should go and try working for another
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: company just to get a feel for what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot.
[02:54] SPEAKER_01: So to speak.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: It's an important skill for sure.
[02:58] SPEAKER_03: Mr. West, in terms of starting your company, did you need financing to do that or are
[03:03] SPEAKER_03: you currently making money in the business now?
[03:05] SPEAKER_03: So you needed financing to build this out or is it self-funded?
[03:08] SPEAKER_03: Was it bootstrapped and how you make money?
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was bootstrapped.
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: I think the way to look at it is that we basically underpaid ourselves for a very, very long time.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: My business partner, Josh Usher in particular, just kept his expenses lean for the better
[03:25] SPEAKER_01: part of a decade.
[03:27] SPEAKER_01: And as the business revenue kept growing, we could afford to pay ourselves more and more.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't until pretty recently that we got to the point where we're paying ourselves
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: enough money to survive in Vancouver.
[03:40] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really a, you could argue it's like a 15-year slog, basically.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: And that's probably the reason why there's not that many engineering consultancies out
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: there for specifically for intelligent and connected devices.
[03:53] SPEAKER_01: And that's because it just takes the better part of a decade to get to the point where
[03:57] SPEAKER_01: you can really afford to pay yourself anything near what you need to live in a city like
[04:02] SPEAKER_01: Vancouver.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: To this day, I'm still kind of underpaid though.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: Like I don't, like I'm still, I still treat myself like I'm in startup mode, which means
[04:10] SPEAKER_01: it reinvesting as much profit into the growth of the business as possible as opposed to
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: paying out fat salaries.
[04:17] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[04:18] SPEAKER_03: Tell me a little bit about your industry in general.
[04:21] SPEAKER_03: What piece of knowledge or information about your industry that you could share with
[04:25] SPEAKER_03: me that would resonate or give us some impact to the general business that might not know
[04:30] SPEAKER_03: what you're into?
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no problem.
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can answer that question at the same time as the question you asked previously.
[04:36] SPEAKER_01: It's like, how do we make our money?
[04:38] SPEAKER_01: The short answer is that we charge fee for service and fixed price contracts.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: We sell our time and we sell solutions to our clients, our customers who are typically
[04:48] SPEAKER_01: businesses in the mining tech vertical for the most part.
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: But also we do have customers in the smart infrastructure industries, plural like industry
[04:59] SPEAKER_01: 4.0, manufacturing 4.0, smart cities, smart construction.
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: We can lump those all into the smart infrastructure category.
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: And then the third category for us, which is facilitated through an ongoing partnership
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: with a Canadian medical technologies company.
[05:18] SPEAKER_01: We also have this sort of health and wellness offering where we do low power wireless sensors
[05:25] SPEAKER_01: and specifically Zephyr Bluetooth for using a Nordic chip sets.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: That's a strong skill set that we have that's applicable to more than just medical of course.
[05:39] SPEAKER_01: But that alone accounts for a significant percentage of our revenue.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: And so really, but if you really had to narrow us down to one industry, it's mostly mining
[05:48] SPEAKER_01: tech.
[05:50] SPEAKER_01: And then we also organize ourselves by horizontal.
[05:52] SPEAKER_01: So I kind of mentioned already low power wireless sensors, low power wireless solutions.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: And then the third sort of emerging category, I would say our vision systems more specifically
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: inference at the edge.
[06:05] SPEAKER_01: So let's call it edge AI to use the buzzword.
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and companies hire us to do these things.
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: They could hire internally.
[06:13] SPEAKER_01: They could hire freelancers.
[06:14] SPEAKER_01: They could hire a contract manufacturer.
[06:17] SPEAKER_01: But they tend to hire us because we've done it many, many times before.
[06:21] SPEAKER_01: We're experts at these things and we're highly specialized in these things.
[06:25] SPEAKER_01: And so it's faster, better and usually cheaper to get us to do it.
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: And that I think is maybe the way to kind of think about it is we've specialized to the point
[06:36] SPEAKER_01: where it's very hard for anyone to compete with us in the Pacific Northwest.
[06:40] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[06:41] SPEAKER_03: What advice would you give someone starting out as an entrepreneur?
[06:44] SPEAKER_03: Imagine you were mentoring someone.
[06:46] SPEAKER_03: They're kind of got a company and they, you know, they're new to this whole thing.
[06:50] SPEAKER_03: You've got a lot of experience.
[06:51] SPEAKER_03: You've been doing this very long time.
[06:52] SPEAKER_03: Can you give me some key little tidbits of advice that you would give someone if he's across
[06:56] SPEAKER_03: the table from you and saying, I'd like to start my own company.
[06:59] SPEAKER_01: What would you say to that?
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: Sure.
[07:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
[07:02] SPEAKER_01: I think I think a lot of people think that they look at the stats of like one in 10,
[07:08] SPEAKER_01: you know, only one in 10 businesses make it or sometimes they, depending on what the
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: industry is, and it's like one in 50 or one in 100.
[07:15] SPEAKER_01: And they get, you know, I think that discourages a lot of entrepreneurship in Canada.
[07:18] SPEAKER_01: And it's also kind of BS.
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: Like if you're young and educated and hard working and you put in your 60 hours a week,
[07:26] SPEAKER_01: every week consistently, you stay away from parties, stay away from the whole, you know,
[07:31] SPEAKER_01: the whole scene of just hedonism or whatever and just stay very focused on what you're doing.
[07:38] SPEAKER_01: And you do, and you keep your expenses low.
[07:41] SPEAKER_01: Like keep your rent really, really, really low and keep your, you know,
[07:44] SPEAKER_01: keep all of your lifestyle expenses super low.
[07:46] SPEAKER_01: And if you do that and you pick an egg growing industry with a, with a technology that you
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: understand and that you're passionate about.
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, if you fall in love with the problem that you're trying to solve
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: and you're a bit agnostic about how you solve it, your chances of success are extremely high
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: at that point, right?
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: Like what if you have those all those ingredients that I would, I would guess that the success rate
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: is much higher than 50%.
[08:10] SPEAKER_01: And so that's probably the best advice I can give.
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: The other piece of advice I can give is like,
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: figure out really early on who your partners are or could be, who your customers are or could be
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: and who your competition is.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: Because I think what a mistake, common mistake we made that a lot of other companies make too,
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: is they assume that there's all these companies out there that are, that are your competitors.
[08:34] SPEAKER_01: And as it turns out, for us, as we focused more and more and we became more and more specialized
[08:41] SPEAKER_01: in mining tech and smart infrastructure.
[08:44] SPEAKER_01: And as we became more and more focused on low power wireless sensors and DJI,
[08:49] SPEAKER_01: what happened was all these companies that thought we were competitors with them
[08:53] SPEAKER_01: said, oh my gosh, we're not competitors with them at all.
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: We should be working with Misty West.
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: They could be partners of ours.
[08:58] SPEAKER_01: And a significant percentage of our revenue now comes from leads from new business that's
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: kind to us, from whom we thought were former competitors.
[09:09] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so I think this happens with product businesses too, right?
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: Where they try to capture early on an entire category, which makes all these other companies,
[09:18] SPEAKER_01: their competitors, the wrong way to go about it.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: Try to capture a small, narrow niche first.
[09:24] SPEAKER_01: Use that as the sharp tip of the spear or as some people say, your beach head,
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: right, landing on the beach, Normandy, I guess, is the expression.
[09:33] SPEAKER_01: And then expand from there.
[09:35] SPEAKER_01: And if you do that, you'll find that you're far less likely to create a bunch of unintended
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: competitor consequences.
[09:44] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[09:44] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[09:45] SPEAKER_03: Let's talk a little bit about you doing business obviously in British Columbia.
[09:49] SPEAKER_03: You're from there, you know, the area well, you know, the landscape business-wise.
[09:54] SPEAKER_03: What are the biggest benefits for you being an entrepreneur in British Columbia?
[09:58] SPEAKER_03: I want you to give me some of the good points about starting a company in British Columbia,
[10:02] SPEAKER_03: but also some of the challenges you have along the way.
[10:05] SPEAKER_03: Can you explain?
[10:06] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[10:07] SPEAKER_03: No size of the product.
[10:08] Speaker UNKNOWN: All the way through.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll start with the challenges.
[10:10] SPEAKER_01: I mean, wage inflation is absurd in Vancouver, right?
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: I mean, how much you have to pay people just to live here,
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: just so they can rent an apartment is just insane.
[10:20] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, on top of that, we have a very, very poor,
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: historically poor, emphasis on manufacturing in BC.
[10:28] SPEAKER_01: And so there's the infrastructure here, there's nowhere near the same as it is in Ontario.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: Or in large portions of the US.
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, let alone comparing us to Shenzhen in China.
[10:40] SPEAKER_01: So that we started to disadvantage because of the manufacturing, because of the wage inflation.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: But the advantage here is that people want to live here.
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: Surprise, surprise.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: People want to be close to environmental, beauty, wilderness,
[10:54] SPEAKER_01: and economic prosperity.
[10:56] SPEAKER_01: You've got mountains, you've got ocean, you've got trees,
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: surfing, and snowboarding, all in the same area, just pretty nuts.
[11:05] SPEAKER_01: And so that just attracts people from all over the world that want to come live here.
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: So the smartest, best, brightest engineers in the world, you know,
[11:13] SPEAKER_01: want to make Vancouver their home.
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: And as a result, the town pool here is extremely deep.
[11:17] SPEAKER_01: So that's, I think, the number one advantage.
[11:20] SPEAKER_00: Stay ahead of the game with our expert tips and strategies that will help your business thrive
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[11:29] SPEAKER_03: Okay, I want you to imagine you've never been to Vancouver.
[11:33] SPEAKER_03: And the reason I'm asking this is there's a lot of immigration coming into Canada.
[11:36] SPEAKER_03: People starting businesses, a lot of entrepreneurship, very popular now.
[11:39] SPEAKER_03: It wants to be, if you would have started all over and you just moved your Vancouver.
[11:44] SPEAKER_03: Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently than what you did before?
[11:49] SPEAKER_03: Is there anything that you kind of go, you know what, if I could redo this, rethink this,
[11:55] SPEAKER_03: to your driving down Oak Street.
[11:57] SPEAKER_03: You just got here from the airport.
[11:58] SPEAKER_03: You want to start a company.
[11:59] SPEAKER_03: What's that looked like?
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, got it.
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: So I'm new to Vancouver and I want to start a company in Vancouver.
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think, I'm not sure how much I would do differently.
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: I think I'd, I mean, a lot of things that do differently are just sort of general advice
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: to entrepreneurs more generally.
[12:16] SPEAKER_01: Nothing to do with Vancouver.
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: I don't think we made any real mistakes with respect to Vancouver.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: I think we got pretty lucky in our evolution here.
[12:24] SPEAKER_01: And we made a lot of good, good choices.
[12:28] SPEAKER_01: One thing that we did is we started out in a co-working space,
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: which saved us a ton of money and allowed us to scale early on.
[12:36] SPEAKER_01: We only used as many seats or desks as we needed.
[12:39] SPEAKER_01: We had, we were a founding member of the hive in Vancouver.
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: And then we worked out of like a pretty dingy kind of derelict building for a while
[12:47] SPEAKER_01: and then moved to where we are now.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: So in terms of office space, we've gotten very lucky.
[12:52] SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't, honestly.
[12:54] SPEAKER_01: We have an amazing office.
[12:55] SPEAKER_01: We're super lucky about that.
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: I would say, like, really, honestly, all the things I would do differently
[13:00] SPEAKER_01: would are all sort of more generic.
[13:02] SPEAKER_01: Like, like, first things first,
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: like, at the beginning of the company,
[13:06] SPEAKER_01: we treated it like family.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: And we just wanted to be family so bad.
[13:09] SPEAKER_01: We wanted to make sure we take care of everybody all the time
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: and just never let anybody slip through the cracks,
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: never fire anybody, never lay anybody off.
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: If someone had a problem, just give them infinite chances to solve their problem.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: That's how we kind of treated the company for the first, I don't know, seven years or so.
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: And that was cool.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: Like, I think those were like really special days for us.
[13:35] SPEAKER_01: But you can't run a scalable business that way.
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work.
[13:38] SPEAKER_01: It's not a charity.
[13:39] SPEAKER_01: It's not a nonprofit.
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: And as much as I would like to run a business that way and scale to a large size,
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: you know, I think that's where my heart is in some ways.
[13:49] SPEAKER_01: But it just conflicts with the entire
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: capitalist system.
[13:55] SPEAKER_01: And what you end up with, unfortunately, are people with a lot of problems
[13:57] SPEAKER_01: who are no longer a good fit.
[14:00] SPEAKER_01: And they just, for whatever reason, their heart's not in it anymore.
[14:03] SPEAKER_01: Or they're having some other issue that you can't help them solve.
[14:07] SPEAKER_01: And so I think that was probably the biggest mistake we made.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: We should have much, much sooner graduated to being a real business.
[14:14] SPEAKER_01: And harder ways with people with whom it just didn't make sense anymore.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: That was the wrong career path for them.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: Oh, somehow you went on mute.
[14:25] SPEAKER_03: So you're saying treat your company like family to a point?
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's some, I think you can borrow from that philosophy,
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: like treating your company like family, I think is at the heart of it is probably a good thing.
[14:39] SPEAKER_01: But if you start telling people that you work with is that they're like family,
[14:43] SPEAKER_01: and then eventually push comes to shove and there's a monetary decision
[14:46] SPEAKER_01: that a cold calculated decision where you have to part ways,
[14:50] SPEAKER_01: they're going to be pretty upset, right?
[14:52] SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, you're going to cut off a family member because of money?
[14:55] SPEAKER_01: Like, that's just, I think it's just a recipe for disaster.
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that businesses should be treated that way.
[15:00] SPEAKER_01: I think it's unprofessional, ultimately.
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: I think, I mean, keeping that philosophy in your heart and not saying it out loud,
[15:07] SPEAKER_01: but treating people like family as much as you can without actually saying those words.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: I think it's probably a good, generally a good thing.
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, it's got to be the right fit for both parties.
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: And people need to have their careers nurtured.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: Like, they can't just have it so that their careers stagnant for half a decade
[15:25] SPEAKER_01: because they're working for a company because they don't want to leave.
[15:28] SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not healthy either.
[15:30] SPEAKER_01: And so that's a major change in my mentality from day one to today.
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: I'm a different person in that respect.
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: And I would say that's true across the board,
[15:40] SPEAKER_01: with partners, clients, customers, vendors,
[15:43] SPEAKER_01: just like, at the end of the day, it's a business.
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: If you want to achieve your mission in vision,
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: you need to be laser focused on that and not get distracted by all these other people's
[15:54] SPEAKER_01: missions in vision start to invade the site.
[15:57] SPEAKER_01: Guys, they start to invade the company culture.
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, your company culture is hijacked by outside forces
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: that have nothing to do with your mission in vision.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: And that's just not good for business.
[16:10] SPEAKER_01: It's not good for your growth.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: It's not good for scaling.
[16:12] SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, it's not good for achieving what you're trying to achieve.
[16:15] SPEAKER_01: So that's probably the most important piece of advice I'd have for myself 10 years ago.
[16:20] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[16:21] SPEAKER_03: How do you define success and how do you celebrate success for your company?
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: We find success largely through building community.
[16:29] SPEAKER_01: I think community building is at the heart of our entire sales strategy.
[16:32] SPEAKER_01: Try to find good people, good people to do business with,
[16:34] SPEAKER_01: good people that we like, people we trust, people that we know have really similar values as us.
[16:41] SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, are on a similar mission as us.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: I should have mentioned our core purpose or mission in vision, if you will,
[16:47] SPEAKER_01: if you lump it all together into one, is to help achieve the UN sustainable development goals
[16:52] SPEAKER_01: by leveraging and developing intelligent connected devices.
[16:57] SPEAKER_01: That's at the very heart of what we do.
[16:59] SPEAKER_01: And it's a pretty compelling mission.
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people that a lot of engineers want to work on that.
[17:04] SPEAKER_01: They want to make the world a better place.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a great measure of making the world a better place.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I mean, that's, if we find a bunch of people that want to do that
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: and their potential partners or potential customers or potential employees,
[17:19] SPEAKER_01: we hold on to those people tightly within our community.
[17:23] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's very critical in any industry, especially when you have clients and
[17:29] SPEAKER_03: employees is that if the client's not fitting with your vision and they're tough to deal with
[17:35] SPEAKER_03: or they're demanding, don't pay what you have to kind of regulate the client's as well.
[17:39] SPEAKER_03: Not just the people that we're shooting.
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: We've been pretty lucky with our clients.
[17:43] SPEAKER_01: We haven't had to do a lot of that.
[17:45] SPEAKER_01: The larger clients are slow moving, which means we have to kind of help them move along.
[17:50] SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we're playing that role where we're the fast moving nimble partner for them or vendor.
[17:57] SPEAKER_01: But with the biggest problem with us has been with startups.
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: Like startups they can't pay.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: Startups that basically are writing checks that they can't cash.
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: Like spending money they don't really have.
[18:09] SPEAKER_01: And they sign a contract with us to do a bunch of work and then they don't actually have
[18:15] SPEAKER_01: the money to pay us.
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: Or they thought they were going to like they're going to go and raise the money and they were
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: pretty confident that they're going to raise the money.
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: But then they didn't successfully raise the money.
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: So that's been the bigger problem and we've been burned by that many too many times.
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: I said this earlier, like lessons learned that being a bit more mercenary or being a bit more
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: focused on just being a solid business.
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: Like one of the easiest things you can do is just do business deals where you know you're going
[18:40] SPEAKER_01: to get paid. And if you're and if you're not sure you're going to get paid,
[18:42] SPEAKER_01: but in legal consequences, like you continue to own the intellectual property or continue to
[18:48] SPEAKER_01: own the results of what you produce for your client or customer,
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: making sure that you have something that puts you in a strong negotiating position,
[18:56] SPEAKER_01: should there be a creditor situation on the customer side or client side where they can't pay you,
[19:03] SPEAKER_01: you want to make sure that you have something of value in that situation.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: In some cases that can be a deposit, that's one way of solving that problem.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: And it just took us a really long time.
[19:14] SPEAKER_01: We were just so naive in the beginning, right? We were just incredibly naive.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01: And it just took us a very long time to realize that you need to protect yourself
[19:21] SPEAKER_01: when working with unknown entities with an unproven track record.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: We still do a lot of business with startups, but they typically are Series A, Series B,
[19:30] SPEAKER_01: and they typically give a fairly large deposit upfront to make sure that we're
[19:37] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're not chasing money all the time.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's not a fun life to have to go around with a lead pipe chasing after debt.
[19:44] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, okay, let's talk a little bit about your routine.
[19:48] SPEAKER_01: Decisionally, of course.
[19:49] SPEAKER_03: Talking about your routines and, you know, entrepreneurs need to stay healthy.
[19:53] SPEAKER_03: We need to, you know, obviously eat right because obviously if we're not there and for
[19:57] SPEAKER_03: not performing, then the company is affected.
[20:00] SPEAKER_03: So what are the keys to having place throughout your day in the morning, exercise wise?
[20:06] SPEAKER_03: Anything that kind of keeps you motivated balances your life so you're not working all the time?
[20:11] SPEAKER_01: Pretty much working all the time, but I'm pretty happy about it.
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: I think that people really don't understand most,
[20:17] SPEAKER_01: people, most young people in particular don't really understand what work life balances.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: Like I've got a wife, I got a little baby boy, I got a baby girl.
[20:25] SPEAKER_01: She's three years, well, baby, she's not baby anymore, three years old.
[20:28] SPEAKER_01: My baby boy's three months old.
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: I get a lot of time with my kids.
[20:34] SPEAKER_01: Like I'm working with my kids, but ever I'm not working, I'm with my kids.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: When I'm socializing, I'm socializing with my kids.
[20:39] SPEAKER_01: When I, when there's a barbecue at work, I bring my kids to the barbecue at work.
[20:43] SPEAKER_01: When I'm mowing the lawn or maybe not mowing the lawn,
[20:46] SPEAKER_01: but like when I'm doing yard work and stuff, I've got the baby strap to my chest, right?
[20:50] SPEAKER_01: Like so I think when it comes to work life balance, I think people kind of
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: don't understand that like there are ways to combine what you do for a living in such a way
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: that it doesn't have to feel like drudgery, right?
[21:04] SPEAKER_01: Like if you love what you do, you're really passionate about the problem you're trying to solve
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: and you get to see the results, the fruits of your labor,
[21:10] SPEAKER_01: then at some point work in life kind of blend together a little bit.
[21:15] SPEAKER_01: And this will work life separation where people are just like,
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: oh it's 5 p.m. I'm no longer at work, like don't call me, you know,
[21:22] SPEAKER_01: it's, that's just not my style.
[21:24] SPEAKER_01: And the reason why is because if I get a phone call from one of my employees at like 7 p.m.,
[21:28] SPEAKER_01: I know it's important.
[21:29] SPEAKER_01: Like they're calling me for an very important reason.
[21:31] SPEAKER_01: And I'm really glad I took that call, right?
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: And if I get a call from a client after hours, I know it's important.
[21:38] SPEAKER_01: Like they're not going to call me unless it's important.
[21:40] SPEAKER_01: And so I think yeah, I think entrepreneurs need to understand that you're not going to have
[21:46] SPEAKER_01: what an employee would typically call work life balance.
[21:49] SPEAKER_01: You're not going to have that.
[21:51] SPEAKER_01: I mean, or you could have that, but you'll be a much less successful entrepreneur.
[21:55] SPEAKER_01: Entrepreneurs need to be ready to go 24-7, you know, and I would say,
[22:02] SPEAKER_01: maybe not quite 24 hours a day, but something pretty damn close to it, right?
[22:06] SPEAKER_01: And having that mentality, and if you set your business up right,
[22:10] SPEAKER_01: it doesn't happen that often anyway.
[22:12] SPEAKER_01: Like how many times do I get interrupted on a weekend or in an evening?
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, probably maybe once every couple of weeks, it happens to me.
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: And I'm usually able to put out the fire pretty quickly because I have people on call that I know
[22:25] SPEAKER_01: I can call to go firefight when needed.
[22:28] SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, that's my answer to the like work life balance question.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: It's like, prepare yourself for the worst.
[22:35] SPEAKER_01: And if you prepare yourself adequately, you won't have to deal with the worst very often.
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast is your gateway to success in the world of entrepreneurship.
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: Start listening today.
[22:46] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast.com subscribe now.
[22:49] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I talked a lot of entrepreneurs who are very calm because they
[22:54] SPEAKER_03: got systems down, they got people in place, you know, they can take an hour to do a podcast or whatever.
[23:00] SPEAKER_03: They're just seen to be in a calm zone, which is good to see.
[23:05] SPEAKER_03: Okay, we got some fun questions for you, Lee.
[23:08] SPEAKER_03: If you're doing what you do now, what would you like to do for a profession?
[23:12] SPEAKER_01: Oh, man, I'd be an inventor, 100% for sure.
[23:15] SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've actually told this to my employees.
[23:16] SPEAKER_01: I've told my CEO, I should have maybe mentioned this at the beginning.
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: I'm not the CEO of my own company.
[23:20] SPEAKER_01: I like that's another piece of advice for entrepreneurs.
[23:23] SPEAKER_01: Like figure out early on if you're the one who's going to run the entire company all the time.
[23:27] SPEAKER_01: If you have a special skill and you're really good at something,
[23:29] SPEAKER_01: but you don't necessarily want to run the entire company,
[23:32] SPEAKER_01: even if your skill is like essential for the growth of the company.
[23:36] SPEAKER_01: You know, in my case, like I'm very growth oriented,
[23:38] SPEAKER_01: that's kind of my main job is building community, recruiting,
[23:42] SPEAKER_01: finding new leads, right, finding new technologies, exploring those new technologies,
[23:47] SPEAKER_01: IT automation, that kind of stuff.
[23:50] SPEAKER_01: That's not, those are skill sets that are important,
[23:52] SPEAKER_01: but I don't have the most important skills to run the entire company.
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: So finding someone who you think is going to be the right person to run your company,
[24:01] SPEAKER_01: long term, is probably a pretty good idea.
[24:04] SPEAKER_01: Most entrepreneurs are not the best CEOs.
[24:06] SPEAKER_01: And it is possible for you to be the best CEO.
[24:09] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, that's possible.
[24:10] SPEAKER_01: And if that's what you want to do in life,
[24:11] SPEAKER_01: by all means go do it.
[24:13] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I would say that sort of narrows that down.
[24:17] SPEAKER_01: But what I told my CEO, Taylor Cooper, as I said,
[24:21] SPEAKER_01: hey, look, I want to be an inventor.
[24:22] SPEAKER_01: I want to full time in the lab, you know,
[24:26] SPEAKER_01: I don't know how many hours a week, 50 hours a week in the lab,
[24:30] SPEAKER_01: just cranking, inventing new things.
[24:32] SPEAKER_01: That is my dream job.
[24:33] SPEAKER_01: And I will eventually do that when I'm a bit more financially well healed, so to speak.
[24:39] SPEAKER_01: At some point in my future, I will be a full time inventor.
[24:42] SPEAKER_01: But probably the next time in the next four years,
[24:46] SPEAKER_01: I would imagine I'll shift over my time to about half time
[24:48] SPEAKER_01: on it on being in the lab inventing things.
[24:53] SPEAKER_01: So that's my plan.
[24:54] SPEAKER_03: What two words were you used to describe yourself and why?
[24:59] SPEAKER_02: Two words.
[24:59] SPEAKER_02: It's an entrepreneur.
[25:00] SPEAKER_02: How do you describe yourself?
[25:06] Speaker UNKNOWN: I don't know,
[25:07] SPEAKER_02: undeservedly fearless.
[25:09] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[25:10] SPEAKER_02: D.
[25:11] SPEAKER_01: Or with a complete lock of fear,
[25:15] SPEAKER_01: born with 100 percent confidence, I didn't do anything to deserve it.
[25:20] SPEAKER_01: I didn't like develop that skill.
[25:24] SPEAKER_01: I didn't, yeah, it's just purely based on,
[25:27] SPEAKER_01: I don't know, genetics and my the way I was raised by my parents.
[25:33] SPEAKER_01: But weirdly, my siblings don't necessarily have the same,
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: I don't think my siblings necessarily have the same fearlessness,
[25:38] SPEAKER_01: so I don't know, maybe it's not genetic. I have no idea.
[25:40] SPEAKER_01: I got really lucky. Like, I've just have 100% confidence all the time.
[25:43] SPEAKER_01: I'm never worried that things won't work out.
[25:46] SPEAKER_01: I never panic.
[25:48] SPEAKER_01: I drink very, I sell very much.
[25:50] Speaker UNKNOWN: I drink all the time.
[25:52] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, pretty much. It's very, very rare that I...
[25:55] SPEAKER_01: Let's put it this way. If I think something isn't going to work,
[25:57] SPEAKER_01: I don't get anxiety about it. I'm like,
[25:59] SPEAKER_01: oh no, this isn't going to work. I'm going to be a failure
[26:02] SPEAKER_01: and everything's going to suck.
[26:03] SPEAKER_01: My brain just never goes down that path.
[26:06] SPEAKER_01: I think, oh, it's not going to work, but I'll think of something better.
[26:10] SPEAKER_01: It's always like...
[26:11] SPEAKER_01: If something really bad's about to happen, I'm always looking at the bright side.
[26:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, well, that will help shake things up this way,
[26:17] SPEAKER_01: and then I can replace this with that,
[26:19] SPEAKER_01: and that'll finally enable me to finally do this other thing I wanted to do.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: There's always some positive spin on things.
[26:25] SPEAKER_01: I think it tries people crazy. I think the nickname for it,
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: that society uses is toxic positivity, because it really pisses other people off.
[26:32] SPEAKER_01: When things are going really bad,
[26:35] SPEAKER_01: sometimes all they want to hear from you is,
[26:36] SPEAKER_01: oh man, that sucks. I'm really sorry.
[26:38] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people just surround you and want empathy.
[26:41] SPEAKER_01: That includes your business partners, that includes your employees,
[26:43] SPEAKER_01: that includes your wife, your life partner, I should say.
[26:47] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the things are going bad. They just want you to say,
[26:50] SPEAKER_01: oh man, that's horrible.
[26:51] SPEAKER_01: I got your back no matter what. I'll support you no matter what.
[26:54] SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry that you're going through that.
[26:56] SPEAKER_01: That must have really sucked. That's what getting good at doing that is really important.
[27:00] SPEAKER_01: I think especially if you're a robotic, cold-hearted business person,
[27:04] SPEAKER_01: you got to learn those empathy skills.
[27:08] SPEAKER_01: Certainly, I would say I pride myself on the fact that I believe I have learned those skills,
[27:12] SPEAKER_01: but it didn't come naturally to me.
[27:14] SPEAKER_01: My natural tendency was, oh, it's not that bad. You're going to be fine.
[27:19] SPEAKER_01: Don't worry so much. Everything will be okay.
[27:21] SPEAKER_01: That was my natural tendency.
[27:22] SPEAKER_01: I just had to learn over the years to not immediately jump to that.
[27:27] SPEAKER_01: In my head, everything is going to be fine.
[27:30] SPEAKER_01: I just want other people to have a little taste of that.
[27:32] SPEAKER_01: That's what I want. I want other people to have what's in my brain,
[27:34] SPEAKER_01: which is a very high degree of confidence that everything's going to work out just fine.
[27:39] SPEAKER_01: We just got to keep working hard, stay focused, learn from our mistakes,
[27:45] SPEAKER_01: use first principles base reasoning to figure out things from scratch,
[27:48] SPEAKER_01: and do a little bit of reasoning by evidence as well.
[27:51] SPEAKER_01: Gather the evidence to solve your problem,
[27:54] SPEAKER_01: gather the evidence that supports your thesis,
[27:57] SPEAKER_01: and stay focused on it and execute.
[27:59] SPEAKER_01: As long as you have that sort of trifecta of reasoning,
[28:02] SPEAKER_01: and you're never going to give up, it's pretty hard to fail, in my opinion.
[28:06] SPEAKER_03: I always like to refer to people I'm working with,
[28:07] SPEAKER_03: and things go really, really tough.
[28:09] SPEAKER_03: I always love to say, well, here's the good news.
[28:12] SPEAKER_03: This is, you know, the good news.
[28:15] SPEAKER_03: How can you possibly see any good news in a night?
[28:18] SPEAKER_03: Did I explain it?
[28:19] SPEAKER_03: And then by the end, you know, the description,
[28:22] SPEAKER_03: they're like, yeah, I can see you.
[28:24] SPEAKER_01: I'm in the glass half empty, glass half empty, glass half full, right?
[28:28] SPEAKER_01: So you see the world's color glasses.
[28:30] SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, I think that what,
[28:32] SPEAKER_01: if I had to like point to like one reason why I maintain this sort of relentless optimism,
[28:38] SPEAKER_01: is I'd like to zoom out a lot and like look at the trajectory of the human species.
[28:42] SPEAKER_01: And when you do that, it paints a pretty good picture.
[28:44] SPEAKER_01: Like, if you zoom in in the last 100 years or 200 years,
[28:47] SPEAKER_01: you can find just like horrible, horrible, you know,
[28:52] SPEAKER_01: piece of history after piece of history, because you have the world wars,
[28:56] SPEAKER_01: you have, you know, famine disease.
[28:57] SPEAKER_01: You have some really bad things have happened, right?
[29:00] SPEAKER_01: In the last couple hundred years.
[29:01] SPEAKER_01: And, but if you really zoom out for thousands of years and you look at humans,
[29:05] SPEAKER_01: you know, the trajectory of the human species,
[29:08] SPEAKER_01: like we're on track to being a multi-planetary species,
[29:12] SPEAKER_01: where we will eradicate poverty, right?
[29:14] SPEAKER_01: We will eradicate sort of needless suffering.
[29:17] SPEAKER_01: And that's what that's, if you just follow the trajectory,
[29:20] SPEAKER_01: that's the trajectory we're on.
[29:21] SPEAKER_01: It's really easy to find hiccups in the like recent hiccups that sort of negate this trajectory.
[29:27] SPEAKER_01: You know, obviously people suffering from all sorts of mental illnesses
[29:31] SPEAKER_01: that have, that are a result, I think, of, you know, social media,
[29:36] SPEAKER_01: or at least unregulated social media, a result of being afraid of climate change
[29:42] SPEAKER_01: or afraid of, other some other global existential threat,
[29:45] SPEAKER_01: like a pandemic or something, that's a lot of anxiety for our kids, right?
[29:49] SPEAKER_01: And it's not being able to like manage these devices in a way that makes sense,
[29:52] SPEAKER_01: being kind of addicted to our phones, being addicted to our screens.
[29:56] SPEAKER_01: Like these are very, very solvable, very real problems.
[30:00] SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people look at these problems and go,
[30:02] SPEAKER_01: oh, this has led to mass calamity, the end of, you know,
[30:07] SPEAKER_01: leaps-dead capitalism, the end of Western civilization.
[30:11] SPEAKER_01: And it's just people that just tend to talk and hyperbole
[30:14] SPEAKER_01: because for some reason, they feel like cynicism, you know,
[30:18] SPEAKER_01: is going to endear them to others.
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: But if you're optimistic and you believe in the human species,
[30:24] SPEAKER_01: well, clearly you're trying to sell me something.
[30:25] SPEAKER_01: I can't trust you.
[30:26] SPEAKER_01: That's sort of the cynicism that's taken deep root in society.
[30:30] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, in my opinion, it's very important for entrepreneurs
[30:33] SPEAKER_01: to help play the role of, okay, yes, there are problems in the world.
[30:39] SPEAKER_01: There are also solutions in the world.
[30:41] SPEAKER_01: And if we stay focused on the solution and stay focused on a better future
[30:44] SPEAKER_01: as opposed to dwelling on the past or dwelling on the trauma,
[30:48] SPEAKER_01: we're going to make the world a better place.
[30:49] SPEAKER_01: And that mentality, I think, is at the very core of being an entrepreneur in my opinion.
[30:53] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[30:54] SPEAKER_03: Okay. We've all had mentors of some kind.
[30:56] SPEAKER_03: Even though we've been an entrepreneur for a while,
[30:58] SPEAKER_03: we've all had mentors who we had advice we received from other people.
[31:01] SPEAKER_03: Is there any advice you've received from someone,
[31:04] SPEAKER_03: whether it be an entrepreneur, parents, whatever that is,
[31:07] SPEAKER_03: that you can pass along to entrepreneurs throughout Canada?
[31:10] SPEAKER_03: Something that someone has told you that resonated with you,
[31:13] SPEAKER_03: that you know what, I can pass that on to someone.
[31:17] SPEAKER_03: That's something that sticks with me, right it on your wall.
[31:21] SPEAKER_01: It's something that you can do or suggest.
[31:24] SPEAKER_03: Do you have anything like that?
[31:25] SPEAKER_01: I do, yeah, actually.
[31:26] SPEAKER_01: My favorite one was from Dr. Lilliodol.
[31:28] SPEAKER_01: My high school calculus teacher, math teacher.
[31:34] SPEAKER_01: He said to me, if he's watching this, I'd be very stoked on that.
[31:38] SPEAKER_01: He said to me, Lee, success is habit forming.
[31:42] SPEAKER_01: And he said that to me when I failed,
[31:45] SPEAKER_01: I'd like to two terms in a row of near perfect scores in my calculus,
[31:51] SPEAKER_01: high school calculus.
[31:52] SPEAKER_01: And then I got into university and I just totally,
[31:55] SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I did.
[31:56] SPEAKER_01: I just like got really easy real fast.
[31:59] SPEAKER_01: It's pretty stupid actually.
[32:01] SPEAKER_01: I just didn't try anymore because I was already gotten into university.
[32:05] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I failed, I failed a test and he said to me,
[32:08] SPEAKER_01: this is totally unacceptable.
[32:09] SPEAKER_01: Like you're better than this.
[32:11] SPEAKER_01: He was hard on me.
[32:13] SPEAKER_01: He was like, you have no excuse here.
[32:15] SPEAKER_01: Like this is, this isn't a situation where you're struggling to learn.
[32:18] SPEAKER_01: And he's like, you, you just totally,
[32:21] SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to use the crude expression,
[32:23] SPEAKER_01: but you, yeah, there's a lot of crude expressions
[32:25] SPEAKER_01: through what I did, right?
[32:26] SPEAKER_01: It's like I was being lazy.
[32:30] SPEAKER_01: And there was just no excuse for it.
[32:32] SPEAKER_01: And he said, Lee, success is habit form.
[32:34] SPEAKER_01: And what he meant by that was that if you,
[32:37] SPEAKER_01: if you make it a habit to just take,
[32:40] SPEAKER_01: take the shot, take the shot on net,
[32:43] SPEAKER_01: score the goal and then go, okay,
[32:44] SPEAKER_01: I don't have to score another goal now.
[32:47] SPEAKER_01: I got, I got to, I scored.
[32:48] SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
[32:49] SPEAKER_01: I'm done my job.
[32:50] SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that that sort of,
[32:52] SPEAKER_01: that feeling, that feeling you get when you
[32:55] SPEAKER_01: succeed at something and then you chill out,
[32:57] SPEAKER_01: because you're like, oh, now I can chill out,
[32:59] SPEAKER_01: because I succeeded.
[33:00] SPEAKER_01: That is not going to make for a good entrepreneurship.
[33:03] SPEAKER_01: You will not be a good entrepreneur if you chill out
[33:05] SPEAKER_01: every time you score a goal.
[33:06] SPEAKER_01: You've got to keep on.
[33:09] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yeah, yeah.
[33:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, be chill.
[33:10] SPEAKER_03: That's a good time.
[33:11] SPEAKER_03: Some good time.
[33:12] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[33:12] SPEAKER_03: Give me a rat things up, Lee.
[33:14] SPEAKER_03: How can your listeners get whole of you?
[33:16] SPEAKER_03: Is there anything you would like to add before you leave us today?
[33:20] SPEAKER_01: Um,
[33:22] SPEAKER_01: yeah, I don't normally get political.
[33:24] SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to get too political here,
[33:25] SPEAKER_01: but I'm going to say something about Canada's economy that I haven't
[33:29] SPEAKER_01: said before on any publication.
[33:31] SPEAKER_01: I think we're on the wrong track in Canada.
[33:34] SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to blame this on any particular politician.
[33:36] SPEAKER_01: I'm not a very political person.
[33:39] SPEAKER_01: But I'm looking at the direction we're headed,
[33:42] SPEAKER_01: direction our economy is headed in particular,
[33:43] SPEAKER_01: our productivity numbers and foreign investment numbers.
[33:46] SPEAKER_01: And they're not good.
[33:47] SPEAKER_01: They're really bad.
[33:48] SPEAKER_01: Entrepreneurship numbers are dropping,
[33:50] SPEAKER_01: which is embarrassing.
[33:52] SPEAKER_01: And foreign investment numbers are dropping.
[33:55] SPEAKER_01: Productivity numbers are dropping.
[33:57] SPEAKER_01: And the only way to reverse that trajectory is for Canada to be
[34:01] SPEAKER_01: a lot more friendly to entrepreneurs, a lot more like night and day
[34:05] SPEAKER_01: comparison where we are right now.
[34:07] SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know what has to change.
[34:08] SPEAKER_01: I don't have the solutions here.
[34:10] SPEAKER_01: I'm not a politician.
[34:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm not an economist.
[34:13] SPEAKER_01: Um, I barely understand how things work at a federal level to encourage
[34:16] SPEAKER_01: entrepreneurship.
[34:17] SPEAKER_01: But there's one thing I can say to everyone who's listening right now is
[34:20] SPEAKER_01: like start learning about the economy, the Canadian economy and what drives it forward.
[34:25] SPEAKER_01: Start learning about what laws and rules help encourage foreign investment
[34:29] SPEAKER_01: and help encourage entrepreneurship in Canada.
[34:31] SPEAKER_01: We just need to do everything we can to change the trajectory.
[34:34] SPEAKER_01: Right now the American economy is ripping and a Canadian economy is suffering.
[34:40] SPEAKER_01: And that is a weird situation.
[34:41] SPEAKER_01: That shouldn't be happening.
[34:42] SPEAKER_01: We should be ripping alongside the US.
[34:45] SPEAKER_01: And I want, I don't know why that is.
[34:48] SPEAKER_01: But if someone on who's listening to this does know,
[34:50] SPEAKER_01: please, please, please speak up and let's get moving on this.
[34:53] SPEAKER_01: We need to solve this problem immediately.
[34:55] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we've had a few episodes on that.
[34:59] SPEAKER_03: I think we had the tax federation, um, independent tax federation.
[35:03] SPEAKER_03: And we had like 35,000 downloads and like, because you talk about it,
[35:08] SPEAKER_03: braced for impact on new tax.
[35:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and he just said, you know, what's coming and people is just very special
[35:14] SPEAKER_03: because we have business owners listen to this and we have certified over 35,000
[35:19] SPEAKER_03: downloads and that of ours.
[35:20] SPEAKER_03: And yeah, right away I knew we've hit a nerve with Canadian.
[35:25] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just touch the nerve.
[35:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I'm like, this isn't big, right?
[35:29] SPEAKER_01: We're only like 30 people.
[35:30] SPEAKER_01: And, um, you know, we're not a huge company.
[35:32] SPEAKER_01: But if you look at the way the laws and rules are written around things like capital gains and stuff,
[35:38] SPEAKER_01: it's shocking.
[35:39] SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, oh my gosh, like this is, this is really bad.
[35:42] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how did this happen?
[35:44] SPEAKER_01: It's really crazy.
[35:45] SPEAKER_01: It's like it's totally some of the, some of the rules and laws that have come out at some of the changes to the system are just like.
[35:51] SPEAKER_01: They're just going to wipe out businesses like, I think left, right and center.
[35:55] SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a whole bunch of people that are just going to move to the U.S. or whatever because they just can't stay in business.
[35:59] SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
[36:00] SPEAKER_03: Okay, so Lee, they can get hold of you.
[36:03] SPEAKER_03: What's the best way?
[36:05] SPEAKER_03: On email.
[36:06] SPEAKER_01: If someone actually wants to read you LinkedIn is the best.
[36:09] SPEAKER_01: If people want to get in touch with me, I'm very, very responsible on LinkedIn.
[36:12] SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm, I'm very used to find on the internet more generally.
[36:17] SPEAKER_01: And you can reach out to Mr. West, Mr. West contact at Mr. West email and just say, hey, I'm trying to get hold of Lee Christie.
[36:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's such and such and I'd like to give this help with yada yada.
[36:27] SPEAKER_01: And I'd be perfectly happy.
[36:29] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love helping entrepreneurs, right?
[36:31] SPEAKER_01: And I love helping people hard problems.
[36:33] SPEAKER_01: So don't be shy.
[36:35] SPEAKER_01: Come, come reach out.
[36:36] SPEAKER_01: Ask me questions.
[36:37] SPEAKER_01: I'll help you.
[36:37] SPEAKER_03: Do I already open at Lee Christie?
[36:40] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[36:40] SPEAKER_03: Okay, thanks for coming on the show.
[36:42] SPEAKER_03: I've learned a lot about you and sure about since I have as well.
[36:45] SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Robert.
[36:46] SPEAKER_03: Thanks for coming off.
[36:47] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks so much.
[36:47] SPEAKER_03: Take care.
