Matt Lowe

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: It's Calgary's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:06] SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is Mario Tonigusi coming to you today with Calgary's podcast, a member of
[00:12] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast network, where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen
[00:17] SPEAKER_00: in Calgary, Alberta, so you can listen, discover and engage.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Matt Lowe, who is co-founder and CEO of Zero Key.
[00:28] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today, Matt.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks for having me.
[00:32] SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about Zero Key.
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: What exactly it is and what do you guys do?
[00:38] SPEAKER_00: Sure, you bet.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: So Zero Key is an industrial IoT company, and our big claim to fame is that we track things,
[00:47] SPEAKER_01: really, really accurately and precisely in 3D space.
[00:51] SPEAKER_01: So you can think of it kind of like GPS, but it works indoors.
[00:54] SPEAKER_00: Okay, how did this start and maybe give me a little bit of the history of how it came about?
[01:02] SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much time you have.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it started actually.
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: Zero Key was a business recreated for the augmented reality and virtual reality industry,
[01:12] SPEAKER_01: which isn't where we ended up, so we did make a bit of a pivot in between.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: But it actually started, the whole interest for the company was actually my eldest daughter,
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: when she was younger, was quite the colloquial baby.
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: And at the time, I was going to a lot of software development work on a consulting basis,
[01:31] SPEAKER_01: and I had a couple deadlines that I had to get some code finished work.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, though, my daughters are so colloquial and so cranky,
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: I couldn't set her down.
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: So I was just constantly having to rock her.
[01:43] SPEAKER_01: And it was somewhat frustrating for me because I knew exactly the code that I just had to get
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: for my brain into the computer, but I just didn't have free hands to sit down and type it.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: I thought back, there's all these sci-fi movies, like minority report with Tom Cruise and stuff
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: like that, where you got these awesome sci-fi interfaces where you can interact with your hands.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, why couldn't I get one of those?
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that most of them are science fiction and the fiction part is true.
[02:14] SPEAKER_01: And so we actually started zero key to develop this next generation human machine interface.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: And that's actually where the name comes from.
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: So we wanted to build a virtual keyboard, or in other words, keyboard was zero keys.
[02:30] SPEAKER_01: That's where we started.
[02:32] SPEAKER_01: We built this really, really awesome positioning technology to fuel that human machine interface
[02:40] SPEAKER_01: use case. And then we got pulled by our nose into the industrial space where there's just a huge
[02:47] SPEAKER_01: product market fit for the tech we ended up developing.
[02:50] SPEAKER_01: When did you start it?
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: What year?
[02:52] SPEAKER_01: So we're a little over three years old, so 2016.
[02:58] SPEAKER_00: How was the business been like since you started?
[03:02] SPEAKER_01: Well, it's never what you expect.
[03:04] SPEAKER_01: It's been a lot of fun and absolutely just had a wild time meeting some of the people that
[03:12] SPEAKER_01: got to be along the way, building a team, bringing a big team around us.
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: We're up to about 30 guys now in house.
[03:21] SPEAKER_01: It was a bit of a change from the early days when it was a company of one.
[03:27] SPEAKER_01: So it's been an absolute blast.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't trade it for anything.
[03:31] SPEAKER_00: Now you're based in Calgary.
[03:34] SPEAKER_00: What has been the, I guess, key benefits of doing business in Calgary and being an entrepreneur
[03:41] SPEAKER_00: in Calgary?
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: Well, to start, you don't have to pay triple the rates for tech talent like you would the Bay Area.
[03:49] SPEAKER_01: So it's really cost effective.
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: You hear that a lot from really famous tech founders and whatnot that they didn't necessarily
[03:59] SPEAKER_01: have to be in the Bay Area.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it may have a lot more sense to be someone where you can actually build a business
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: without necessarily straining your cash flow and stuff like that.
[04:12] SPEAKER_01: That's one of the big benefits in Calgary.
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: I think right now, because so much of the workforce is retooling with the economic downturn
[04:22] SPEAKER_01: in the oil and gas industry has opened the doors for a lot of people to come into the tech space.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: And so really, we have such a wealth of talent here in Alberta that maybe it doesn't get the
[04:33] SPEAKER_01: recognition it deserves.
[04:34] SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're so good at engineering and the oil and gas industry has historically
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: encompassed so many different fields that is really also included in tech.
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't realize that you can take the same kind of skills and apply it in maybe
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: a slightly different way, but you don't necessarily have to start over at step one.
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the big advantages and we've actually been able to leverage that as we built our
[05:00] SPEAKER_01: team.
[05:01] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when you're looking at flip side of that question, what have been sort of the,
[05:08] SPEAKER_00: the guess the challenges of doing business and being a business owner in Calgary?
[05:13] SPEAKER_01: You know, this is a question that comes up all the time.
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: And if you talk to tech founders, we almost have like a unanimous opinion on it,
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: which is rare, especially for founders.
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: But the fact of the matter is, in this area of the country of Canada in particular,
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: you know, we historically have not invested in a whole lot of tech.
[05:35] SPEAKER_01: And so there is kind of this hesitance, this inertia that we're fighting.
[05:39] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot of capital and we're very entrepreneurial.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: But it's not flowing as quickly into tech as you see in a lot of other areas.
[05:48] SPEAKER_01: And it's just because people are not yet comfortable with it.
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: It is changing. It's getting better.
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: But that's, I'd say, access to capital is probably one of the biggest challenges here.
[05:59] SPEAKER_00: So is it a matter of, you know, the fact that we're so oil and gas centric and have been,
[06:07] SPEAKER_00: you know, in our history that it's tough to overcome, I guess, that image and perception.
[06:13] SPEAKER_00: And perhaps the rest of Canada that, you know, Calgary, hey, Calgary is more than oil and gas.
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's, I think it's both of those things.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the calculus is different.
[06:25] SPEAKER_01: When you look at valuing a tech company and investing in a tech company,
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: you're looking at different metrics, different ways to make your money back,
[06:34] SPEAKER_01: different cycle times in terms of when you could see an exit.
[06:38] SPEAKER_01: So it is a different world.
[06:41] SPEAKER_01: And that's, it's definitely one of those things that brings people out of their comfort zone.
[06:46] SPEAKER_01: If they've historically been in the oil and gas industry.
[06:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[06:51] SPEAKER_00: What's your vision for the company as you look forward?
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's a fun one.
[06:57] SPEAKER_01: So we're scaling like crazy.
[06:59] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, a year and some ago, we were about six people.
[07:02] SPEAKER_01: Now we're about 30.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: We're going to be about 60 by the end of 2020.
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: And opening a few offices around the world, one in Germany pretty soon.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: And already have kind of a space down, down across the border as well.
[07:16] SPEAKER_01: You know, I think the big thing for us, we're right on that inflection point where our technology
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: is really starting to be adopted by the market.
[07:24] SPEAKER_01: We've really found a clear product market fit.
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: And kind of one of my favorite sayings when it comes to this actually comes from
[07:32] SPEAKER_01: Mark and Dreson.
[07:33] SPEAKER_01: He always says, you know, this product market fit is one of the things that you always don't have.
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you found it, you know, there's no question.
[07:43] SPEAKER_01: Product is flying off the shelves and you can't keep things stocks long enough.
[07:48] SPEAKER_01: And that's really kind of the point that we've just hit.
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: So it's an exciting next 12 to 24 months for us.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: We're just moving actually right now into a new space hearing category.
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: But if you're bigger space before times as big as we're in now.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of the guys in the office here are happy.
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: So I'm about to have a beauty on my hands if we didn't get that nailed down.
[08:09] SPEAKER_00: So what has been your biggest challenge in setting up and operating this company right now
[08:17] SPEAKER_00: or over the last couple of years?
[08:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think it's the same for every startup.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: And it's well, except for the guys that are just having an ill right out of the gate.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: But finding product market fit in any company, whether it is a growth startup or not,
[08:38] SPEAKER_01: is the challenge right? That's the tough thing, the filter that most startups never make it pass.
[08:45] SPEAKER_01: And that was a challenge for us.
[08:46] SPEAKER_01: You know, as I mentioned, we started out trying to do the human machine interface stuff.
[08:50] SPEAKER_01: And you know, we still have some 10 gently related stuff going in that world.
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: But you know, find the product market fit took us a while and we had to change how we approach
[09:00] SPEAKER_01: the industry. We even changed which customers we were approaching.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we really had to learn a lot about the industries we were getting into.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: So that was by far the biggest challenge.
[09:10] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so looking back in time, what you know now, what would have been helpful for you when
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: you first started? Yeah, so many things. I think one of the big things is you're kind of forced to
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: learn how to set things up to operationally succeed. You know, you can have the best tech,
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: you can have the best everything. But if you are not set up to execute, then it doesn't really
[09:39] SPEAKER_01: matter. And you know, we've kind of trial by fire and learned a lot of hard lessons in the
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: earlier days. I think a lot of those things I would bring with me if we were to do it all over again.
[09:51] SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's little things like, you know, understanding what what lead times would be
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: through certain manufacturers when, you know, one of the holidays in a different country that is
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: producing a key component to your products. And just, you know, all of the little things that add up,
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: all the little details that you might not take into account here your first go around.
[10:12] SPEAKER_00: Okay, then, when you look back over the beginnings of this company and uptold now,
[10:20] SPEAKER_00: is there any piece of advice that you kind of resonates with you and sticks with you that
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: that you've heard or been told for being an entrepreneur? Yeah. So there's one key piece.
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of a non-answer. So I apologize in advance. Probably my favorite book on
[10:42] SPEAKER_01: on startups in general is Ben Horowitz's book, The Heart Thing, The Heart Things. And it really
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: does kind of hit home that there's not any given magic formula. You know, anyone who kind of
[10:57] SPEAKER_01: tells you that they have all the answers is probably lying to you. And one of the challenges is,
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: especially in the early stage where everyone is really looking, you know, you have all these questions
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: and, you know, as a startup, you don't necessarily have the answers. I think realizing that
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: advice is really about realizing that, you know, the challenge is unique for every business,
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: for every entrepreneur, and there really aren't any, any easy ways. It's all about putting in the hard work
[11:28] SPEAKER_01: and the effort and really trying to figure out for that specific business how you have to,
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: champion it through to the next level. Okay, outside of the office environment, obviously,
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: the mind is always going on about work, etc. What kind of things do you do or what kind of activities
[11:49] SPEAKER_00: that take place in your life that you seem to find creativity flowing and ideas popping up,
[11:57] SPEAKER_01: anything like that in your world? Well, I don't get a whole lot of time on set of work these days.
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: Yes, scaling up the one thing they never tell you is how much you actually spend more time
[12:10] SPEAKER_01: working than you expected, as opposed to go the other way in an ideal picture, but it never does.
[12:16] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think for creativity is more of a mindset than it is a place, and really,
[12:24] SPEAKER_01: and you'll find this with a lot of founders and whatnot, but they have a mindset that when they
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: see something that's wrong with whether it's, you know, the way something is built or even to the
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: way traffic lights are set up, I've heard lots of ideas about that, but you'll find that they're
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: always looking for ways to improve things. They're always looking for, you know, how could this be
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: built better than it is right now? Yeah, exactly. I could switch gears a little bit to ask you a
[12:50] SPEAKER_00: couple of personal questions. Matt, everybody these days has a bucket list, a personal bucket list,
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: as do you have one in it's and what sort of sits atop that bucket list right now? Sure, sure.
[13:05] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's lots of little things. It is right now, especially at this point in time,
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: where we're so ultra focused on business, it's a little hard to focus on the other stuff.
[13:17] SPEAKER_01: At one point, it's one of the things I always want to do is do an Atlantic crossing the sailboat,
[13:23] SPEAKER_01: so that's definitely the top of the list. Hopefully, at some point in the future, I'll get the
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: chance to do that, but yeah, I'd say that would be my topic. Okay, super. If you weren't doing what
[13:34] SPEAKER_00: you're doing now, what kind of career or business do you think and profession would you be involved
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: and do you think? That's a tough one. So I've been software developer by trade, I guess, you know,
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: that was been my background, but I've always been entrepreneurial right ever since I got into the
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: workforce. So I think you'd be something software related, but I would imagine myself just really
[14:00] SPEAKER_00: doing the whole sort of thing all over again. Oh, cool. You mentioned books. Obviously, you do read
[14:07] SPEAKER_00: books. Is there anything that you can tell me that's been an important book for you in your journey
[14:12] SPEAKER_00: as an entrepreneur outside of the one you mentioned earlier? Yeah, not a huge reader. So I guess,
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: other than the one book, I'm a book to quote, so there was Andy Groves or Grover,
[14:26] SPEAKER_01: Cameron was last name quite his book actually and for everybody got Cameron, but the title off
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: top of my head, his book helped me out a lot. You know, it was one of those things where you kind of
[14:38] SPEAKER_01: broke down a typical day. And so he was CEO of Intel, broke down a lot of the different day-to-day
[14:46] SPEAKER_01: ways he operated his business. And it kind of gives you a little head start, I think, when you're
[14:51] SPEAKER_01: first getting out there and scaling a company because you don't have to learn a lot of lessons
[14:57] SPEAKER_01: the hard way. If you take the advice, I guess. But he also does say to, and this is maybe so one
[15:04] SPEAKER_01: true for my case, is that you kind of have wartime CEOs, you have peace time CEOs, and it's,
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: depending on what flavor you fall into really also determines how much how you kind of conduct
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: yourself when it comes to free time and whatnot. And you know, more often than not, you have wartime
[15:22] SPEAKER_01: CEOs that don't really end up reading a whole lot of books on the start of world and peace
[15:26] SPEAKER_01: times CEOs that do, and frankly, you need both, right? It's not to say that you need one or the other.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: But I'm definitely more on the, or at least I would call myself, I don't know, objectively,
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: what it would be, but I'd be more on the wartime side because I don't spend a whole lot of time
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: reading very startup books. Okay, if you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be and why?
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm relenting a lot, I guess, and the main reason is just that, especially when it comes
[15:57] SPEAKER_01: to startups, you're going to hear no, you know, a hundred times a day, and really your goal is to
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: to make it through, you know, hearing it a hundred times one day, maybe here 99 times the next day,
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: and then eventually you get down to where the nose turn into yeses. And if you don't have that
[16:13] SPEAKER_01: as really hard to start a startup, because it doesn't matter whether you're Bill Gates, Steve Jobs,
[16:19] SPEAKER_01: or pick any other famous founder, they were all in the same situation where you hear no, basically
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: nonstop. Okay, do you have a favorite place outside of Calgary that you'd like to visit?
[16:30] SPEAKER_01: We were just on that trade mission through the governments of Alberta actually to Singapore,
[16:38] SPEAKER_01: Singapore's really, really nice place, really enjoyed it there. Of course, it's a nice
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: soft landing too, and when the government throws that kind of support there to help companies
[16:48] SPEAKER_01: expand their exports and whatnot, so I throw that at the top to list. Okay, and so we're really
[16:55] SPEAKER_00: creatures of habit, right? Where we get into sort of patterns and routines, etc. Do you have a daily
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: routine that you follow every day? I wish. So one of the challenges with our company is that none of
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: our clients are local here, or very few are, I guess we have a handful, but most of our clients are
[17:16] SPEAKER_01: across Europe and Asia, and so yeah, we're constantly on the road, so it doesn't leave a lot of
[17:22] SPEAKER_01: opportunity for some of those rigid habits. You know, aside of my coffee idea, I need my coffee
[17:28] SPEAKER_01: or I can't add two and two together, but I'm excited at that, not really. Yeah, I'm with you on the coffee.
[17:35] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to present to you a scenario and just want to get your reaction to it. So imagine a
[17:40] SPEAKER_00: beautiful tropical island in the middle of the ocean with only one full moon booth and absolutely
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: no other technology whatsoever there. We're going to drop you off there, and at any time you can
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: use the bonebook to call us and we'll come pick you up. Two questions here. First of all, how long
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: do you think you would last before making that phone call? And secondly, just what do you think you'd
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: be doing while you were there? I don't think I'd last very long. You know, I'm definitely one of those
[18:14] SPEAKER_01: guys that I see the grasses greener approach to really having that relaxation, but it never seemed
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: to be satisfied with it. So I think I'm one of those types of people that always needs to be doing
[18:27] SPEAKER_01: things. So I don't think I'd last a huge amount of time. And while I'm there, probably thinking about
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: the next thing I want to be working on or you know, solving the last problem I was working on that
[18:37] SPEAKER_00: haven't solved yet. Okay, super. Is there anything you'd like to add, Matt, before you leave us today?
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: No, I just want to say thanks. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and your viewers and
[18:50] SPEAKER_01: really enjoyed the podcast and be following it quite with myself. Hey there, thanks for taking the
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: time today to listen to Calgary's podcast on Canada's podcast network. We hope you enjoyed the show
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