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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Brian, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:09] SPEAKER_01: We've seen you a couple of times at the last three weeks.
[00:17] SPEAKER_01: But why don't you tell everybody a little bit about who you are
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: and what you're doing today, kind of thing, so that they can at least start from that perspective
[00:27] SPEAKER_01: and then we can get on to the journey, definitely.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: Sure, it's great to be chatting with you, Phillip.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: I'm an entrepreneur. I've been a founder of companies for the last boy must be 25 years.
[00:40] SPEAKER_00: Time goes by fast when you're having fun.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: And so I've been a software entrepreneur and financial services entrepreneur.
[00:49] SPEAKER_00: I've been a VC, excuse me, successful venture capital fund.
[00:55] SPEAKER_00: I've invested as an angel.
[00:58] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I love, I'd say I love being an entrepreneur the most more than being an investor.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: But I really care about entrepreneurs working with entrepreneurs, their journey, their struggles.
[01:10] SPEAKER_00: And today what I focus a lot of my time on is I run a company called hockey stick, which is really a fun raising platform.
[01:18] SPEAKER_00: It's really designed to help small businesses and startups raise money.
[01:24] SPEAKER_00: I run also I'm the founder of a company called flow ventures, which is also in fun raising, but more specialty on the grants and loan side.
[01:33] SPEAKER_00: And I work with a lot of entrepreneurs every day, every week on pitching.
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, storytelling pitching, I wrote a book last year, and I love working with entrepreneurs hearing their pitch and helping them develop this story.
[01:49] SPEAKER_00: Partly because I just get to hear their story, right? So, selfish day, I just sit back and hear and learn.
[01:54] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if I can be useful and help an entrepreneur perfect their pitch, it just feels, feels amazing to see them go from frustration and confusion.
[02:04] SPEAKER_00: I just can't get my story straight and out there to, oh, now people learn to stand what I do and it's been helpful.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I get what you're saying, but I mean, you know, you've got a terrific education.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: You've bumped around finance and obviously bumped into institutional finance, which in some ways is the antithesis of entrepreneurship.
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: And not trying to be unfair, but it really sometimes is.
[02:40] SPEAKER_01: You grew up in that two degree, I think.
[02:44] SPEAKER_01: What made you move out into the other side of risk, if you like, dangerous curious on that?
[02:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, like, I would say that I didn't really grow up in this.
[02:59] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I, you know, back when I was a kid, like my parents, they did try running some small businesses. They had a plumbing store.
[03:08] SPEAKER_00: They had a convenience store. They had different things and they ended up going into different careers after.
[03:17] SPEAKER_00: But my original career was music. I was a classically trained musician, a pianist, a composer.
[03:23] SPEAKER_00: And so I really started my first company having just graduated with an arts degree.
[03:30] SPEAKER_00: So I was, like, you could argue that I was at least qualified person, but except every so many entrepreneurs I know have exactly the same, you know, I have a degree in philosophy.
[03:39] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start a software company and I think you're just as qualified to start a company as anybody.
[03:47] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if I understand your question that, you know, my journey, it's really been about being on both sides of the table.
[03:54] SPEAKER_00: So when you're, when you're an entrepreneur raising money, and by the way, it is absolutely frustrating and unfair.
[04:00] SPEAKER_00: And we could talk about that all day.
[04:03] SPEAKER_00: You know, it's unnecessarily unfair to have money to run a business.
[04:08] SPEAKER_00: So I've struggled through that big getting turned down on a credit card loan.
[04:14] SPEAKER_00: I've been turned down for every type of financing I've ever invented.
[04:17] SPEAKER_00: And then running a fund and being an angel and, you know, seeing the other side, it kind of filled in my perspective of why it's so frustrating.
[04:27] SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of the things that frustrate entrepreneurs about financing, they're different things on the other side.
[04:33] SPEAKER_00: But the other side is also frustrated. Why can't I find those great companies?
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I kind of still ended up on being an entrepreneur, but it's, you know, as a, as a bit of a hybrid that my, my focus now is I'm a founder, I'm an entrepreneur.
[04:49] SPEAKER_00: But I help other entrepreneurs raise money and do those things that are going to help them be successful financially.
[04:56] SPEAKER_00: You know, I think the reason is just because it's, it's very broken, frustrating, difficult, odds are stacked against people.
[05:03] SPEAKER_00: You know, you can go into, there's bias, gender bias, you know, race bias.
[05:09] SPEAKER_00: You know, there's so many different things that if you looked at it from the outside, you'd think, oh, well, I guess the best companies get funded.
[05:16] SPEAKER_00: And that's true some of the time, but it's not true many times.
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: I agree. But I mean, in a Mark's old, what would you say, what for you? What's the best thing about being an entrepreneur?
[05:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for me, it's about creativity, right? Maybe this is where, you know, having been an artist before.
[05:38] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and by the way, artists are not the exclusive owners of creativity athletes are creative business people are creative.
[05:46] SPEAKER_00: Accountants were creative, hopefully not to a creative, but the, you know, I think that for me being an entrepreneur means there's so many, you know, challenges and problems.
[05:59] SPEAKER_00: You have to be creative to solve it, right? So there's so much uncertainty.
[06:03] SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that are many days, the uncertainty is very stressful and challenging and difficult. And you worry, but you have this, you know, these creative moments where, you know,
[06:14] SPEAKER_00: you, you see this problem, maybe it's a financial problem, I'm running out of money or a technological problem, I don't know how to build this product.
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: And it's, on day one, it's insurmountable. You have no idea how to fix it. And you basically convince yourself, you're going to fail.
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: But something happens on in the second day where you have this creative leap where you think, oh, well, I didn't think about this. I'm going to try something. I'm going to call this person. I'm going to pitch at this competition or I'm going to, you know, call this client to try to close the sale.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: And then it happens. It works. So you, you almost do the impossible. And that's, it's addictive, right? It's, you start to see how powerful creativity is to solve problems. And I think that's the, you know, the number one, the superpower of entrepreneurs, those who are able to do it is to be creative.
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think that's fair. Let's move on to some sort of, let's say challenging questions, but questions about challenges. So let's move to the obvious one was, you know, what's the greatest challenge you faced today?
[07:24] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, how did you overcome it? I mean, that's the detail, but the mindset that let you overcome it.
[07:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, there's so many, right? I could, I could list so many challenges I have, you know, even that today's challenges, but, but, you know, if I could use me pick one, I'd say that, you know, early in my career, like when I, you know, I mentioned, I graduated with a music degree and started a software company.
[07:52] SPEAKER_00: And I remember it was both in an exhilarating time, but a very difficult time where I really didn't know what I was doing. I had no real business training.
[08:02] SPEAKER_00: And I had no access to money, speaking of financing, like zero. So, you know, barely a personal credit card, no bank loan, no investment. And, and I was running a consulting company.
[08:14] SPEAKER_00: And it had to be profitable every two weeks because every two weeks was payroll. And I remember this, you know, I have to be thinking back of no idea how we did it, but, you know, it was this insurmountable challenge.
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just the money. I mean, a lot of entrepreneurs, every entrepreneur stresses out about money. I stress out about money. But back then, it was really the feeling that I just, I didn't feel that I could scale up my own knowledge fast enough.
[08:42] SPEAKER_00: So even simple things like I didn't know anything about accounting. And I remember learning accounting through the QuickBooks help files.
[08:52] SPEAKER_00: So I was sitting there doing my bookkeeping so we could do payroll and pay people. And I was, I had no idea what a balance sheet was. So I go to the help file. And I read up on balance sheet. And that's how I learned accounting.
[09:03] SPEAKER_00: But it was very challenging because, you know, I felt that if I don't learn everything and learn it quickly, my business is going to fail and go to business.
[09:13] SPEAKER_00: And that applied to sales and marketing and technology and, you know, even even what to wear at a meeting. I remember going to Ottawa sitting down and pitching a government agency and being nervous because I was a high degree.
[09:26] SPEAKER_00: And I was a degree, I used to wear black turtleneck all day. So the idea of like, what should I wear? How early should I show up? And, you know, these things that just felt like an accelerated MBA.
[09:37] SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, nowadays you make tons of entrepreneurs funded and things like that.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: Maybe you can pass on some advice in terms of, you know, maybe there's three things that you constantly find.
[09:59] SPEAKER_01: Sure. For people. Yeah.
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: You know, people should fix before they see you get the thing.
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think the first thing I always tell people is, you know, when people ask about advice. And I was asked recently about what's the number one piece of advice you have. And if I only could pick one, I'd say, listen to less advice, including, you know, from me right now, it's.
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: You know, entrepreneurs are magnets for advice, right? You're your parents, your spouse, your customers, your team, everyone's going to give you advice. And you somewhat have to inoculate yourself against too much advice. Otherwise, you end up with this spaghetti monster of like, you know, your strategy is just the combination of everyone's advice and you're trying to please everybody.
[10:44] SPEAKER_00: And I'd say that, you know, you have to sort of have your own point of view.
[10:50] SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying be so stubborn that when somebody gives you really good advice, you know, listen, but I actually think that's maybe less of a problem needs a bit of a cliche that entrepreneurs are so strong willed and then I'll listen.
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: I actually see more entrepreneurs, especially when they're funding like pitching for VCs, where they really really want the money. They don't get the money and they get some advice, but it's very confusing advice.
[11:12] SPEAKER_00: I just tell people ignore it.
[11:15] SPEAKER_00: Right? Because not because that person wasn't smart and you shouldn't listen, but because it wasn't no.
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: So if you didn't get a check and you got advice, the advice was really a no. So you put that in a, you know, so I think my first thing I'd say is, you know, be comfortable with your own point of view.
[11:31] SPEAKER_00: It's better that you have your own point of view in your wrong. Then you try to focus group your point of view and you'll never have I'll never have one.
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: The other thing I'd say is that, you know, there's, it's something I learned that I may have been still learning because I like to multitask is you as a leader and as an entrepreneur, you can't do everything.
[11:53] SPEAKER_00: You, you have to really kind of decide that there's certain things and everyone's different. So you might be more of a technology leader or sales leader or people leader or strategy leader.
[12:04] SPEAKER_00: You have to really focus on that thing that is going to define you as a leader and not try to do a little bit of everything.
[12:11] SPEAKER_00: Right? I've certainly done that, you know, I've been guilty of that, a little bit of accounting, a little bit of legal, a little bit of sales, a little bit of product, a little bit of tech, you know, and so you, you going back to what I'm saying is you feel you've got to learn everything and learning is great.
[12:23] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, the, the entrepreneurship attracts generalists.
[12:28] SPEAKER_00: But if you only do a little bit of everything, you will not be an effective leader and you won't have any focus.
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you can go back to what I was saying, especially around pitching, when you pitch, you're just going to get so many types of feedback about everything that you think, well, if I only do those 50 things, I will be good, but it's not true.
[12:46] SPEAKER_00: Right? You just need to do the two or three things better than everybody else.
[12:50] SPEAKER_00: And then your website can be crappy. The name of your company can be hard to pronounce. Your revenue model can be bad.
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: You know, all these things, your hair could be messy, doesn't matter as long as you do those few things really well.
[13:04] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that goes back what I was saying about point of view.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: You give a lot of advice.
[13:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: Best piece of advice that you've had, that you can carry around in your hip-hop and then, you know.
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: I mean, that I've received.
[13:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I remember one, I'm, I know you've had lots of advice, but this usually went to jazz.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: Sure.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: You never forget kind of thing.
[13:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:28] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, in general, like the first one I got early in my career, you know, somebody, many people kept saying you just need to focus.
[13:36] SPEAKER_00: And I took me a long time to understand what that actually means.
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: But I actually want to tell you one that I do carry around with me is a general.
[13:45] SPEAKER_00: I won't tell you who it is, but a well-known, very successful entrepreneur investor, you know,
[13:52] SPEAKER_00: visit by more than 10 years ago, but we're working together on something.
[13:56] SPEAKER_00: And I just said, look to me and said, you know, Raymond, you're just, you always have some, so many intelligent things to say.
[14:02] SPEAKER_00: You're like the smartest person in the room.
[14:04] SPEAKER_00: You just haven't really hit it financially.
[14:06] SPEAKER_00: You just haven't really succeeded financially yet.
[14:09] SPEAKER_00: And he meant it in the most, like I think the most generous, honest thing that you just said, you know, you're so smart.
[14:16] SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you more successful?
[14:17] SPEAKER_00: And in one sense, his brutal feedback, it like hits to the core of of entrepreneur shame.
[14:23] SPEAKER_00: And but it was really valuable to me because it allowed me to say, do I just want to be smart or do I want to be successful?
[14:30] SPEAKER_00: Not that those are mutually exclusive, but, you know,
[14:34] SPEAKER_00: it allowed me to kind of say like, what am I afraid of?
[14:37] SPEAKER_00: And should I just say, you know what? Actually, I want to be more financially successful.
[14:40] SPEAKER_00: It is business after all.
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: And I focused on, you know, I wrote that down on my whiteboard kind of thing.
[14:47] SPEAKER_00: And it worked.
[14:48] SPEAKER_00: So it was so helpful to me.
[14:51] SPEAKER_00: And maybe, you know, that's an example of when the other piece of advice I give people is, it's not the advice it's who's giving it.
[14:59] SPEAKER_00: And, and you know, the advice I got was somebody who I trusted.
[15:03] SPEAKER_00: He had a particular way of delivering it, which might be a bit, you know, brutal for some people.
[15:10] SPEAKER_00: I can handle it.
[15:10] SPEAKER_00: But I had a trusting, I knew where it was coming from.
[15:14] SPEAKER_00: And so if people are getting a lot of advice, you know, if I understand where that advice is coming from, if the person is really committed to you, you know, their time, their mentor, their teacher, their part of your team, even your spouse, maybe especially your spouse.
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: Who's committed.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: That advice means a lot, right?
[15:33] SPEAKER_00: Other, other ones, it's like theory crafting and talking and little Twitter things.
[15:37] SPEAKER_00: You can probably discard those.
[15:41] SPEAKER_01: Let's go into some more fun question.
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: Those, those are already fun questions.
[15:46] SPEAKER_01: They're fun.
[15:46] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[15:49] SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that, that, that, that, they're actually there.
[15:52] SPEAKER_01: That was pretty, pretty impressive.
[15:55] SPEAKER_01: I like that one.
[15:56] SPEAKER_01: That response.
[15:58] SPEAKER_01: If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing?
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: Would you be, be an artist?
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: Or can you be both?
[16:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I don't like, I would definitely not be a musician.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: The, the world thanks me for that decision.
[16:13] SPEAKER_00: I think I was, I was like, okay, musician.
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: But, um, I think I would be probably a teacher.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do do a lot of teaching now.
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: And, and I, you know, both my parents were teachers.
[16:25] SPEAKER_00: That's where it comes from.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: I just love that, that dynamic, you know, that kind of combination.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: It's scary and it's also really rewarding.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: So I think that that would be, you know, probably some, some time in my future.
[16:37] SPEAKER_00: If I, you know, write more, I love writing.
[16:41] SPEAKER_00: It's also difficult and, and very rewarding.
[16:44] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, maybe I, I would probably write more books.
[16:49] SPEAKER_00: And, and that's kind of the way I learn.
[16:52] SPEAKER_00: But, but I have a lot of interest, right?
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: So I would, I, I might, you know, open a restaurant or hotel.
[17:00] SPEAKER_00: I might, you know, I always think in my mind, I'll have other careers.
[17:04] SPEAKER_00: And, and I probably will, but it's mostly because I just interested in a lot of things.
[17:10] SPEAKER_00: That's definitely the best part of what I do.
[17:12] SPEAKER_00: And I see, I see thousands of entrepreneurs in a year.
[17:15] SPEAKER_00: And, and so I get to be a little bit of a part of their lives and what they do.
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: And without, you know, fully committing to it.
[17:22] SPEAKER_01: And, I was keeping it up at night.
[17:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like, like there weren't in an uncertain time, right?
[17:29] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's, we came through an uncertain time with COVID.
[17:35] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think just when it was like, yay, we made it.
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: We went back to normal.
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: Then we have lots of other issues, the economy and, and Ukraine and, and many things.
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: And, and now, you know, real estate, like rising real estate prices.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, all the standard things, but they're standard because they're things that human beings care about.
[17:55] SPEAKER_00: So, I think that there's, it's more entering or we're continuing to be in an uncertain time.
[18:01] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've lived through different, you know, cycles of uncertainty.
[18:06] SPEAKER_00: And, everyone's different, right?
[18:08] SPEAKER_00: So, if this, this is, if there's going to be a recession or a downturn, it's not going to feel like any other is because it's different.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: And, and I think that, that definitely keeps me up at night.
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: It's just not knowing what's going to happen and the effect.
[18:23] SPEAKER_00: And not just on me, but on the people I care about and, and friends and family and in different places.
[18:30] SPEAKER_00: You know, the, on the, I'm an optimist.
[18:33] SPEAKER_00: So, I'll answer that with an optimistic way as well, which is, you know, I don't worry so much about things like recession and economy contracting as it relates to being a business person.
[18:43] SPEAKER_00: The small business person or startup because I always like to say that when you run a company like a startup, it's always a recession.
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: You never have access to the capital and credit you want.
[18:54] SPEAKER_00: You, you're always doing things from zero to one. It's always difficult.
[18:58] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the benefit is that since it's always difficult, you don't notice so much that there's a downturn.
[19:05] SPEAKER_00: And you, you do like, you know, it's, you, maybe you raise a bit less money and, but there's a lot of advantages, by the way, to starting a company in a downturn.
[19:15] SPEAKER_00: People, there's less, less fluff less BS.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01: I started a more successful company and, you know, a big downturn.
[19:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[19:25] SPEAKER_00: Everything matters more, right? Everything matters more for the right reason.
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: You have to pick one word to describe yourself.
[19:33] SPEAKER_01: What would it be? And why would you choose it?
[19:37] SPEAKER_00: Well, for me, there were to be curious. I am, you can see the books behind me. I, I, I'm running out of, uh, I get a backdrop.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: So there's, sorry, no, yeah, it's not a fake.
[19:48] SPEAKER_01: There's lots around the, it is fake. Yeah.
[19:50] SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I was like, this is not fake.
[19:54] SPEAKER_00: And it's only about half the room, but, you know, both my wife and I are voracious readers and I think it's, I'm just, if you look at not only the volume of books, but what I, you know, what I read, I love reading history and they call micro history and the history of paper and the potato and, you know, this and this and that.
[20:12] SPEAKER_00: And I love reading fiction and science fiction.
[20:15] SPEAKER_00: And I'm just curious about other people's stories.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm currently reading.
[20:20] SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
[20:20] SPEAKER_01: What, what, what sort of book? Yeah.
[20:23] SPEAKER_01: I'm reading and maybe the other question is what business book could be read recently? Yeah.
[20:29] SPEAKER_01: You would say, go get it, kind of.
[20:32] SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah. I mean, well, the business one's easy because I recently reread, um, venture deals with by Brad Feld and is a co author. I forget his name.
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: And, and it's a book about, as the name suggests, it's kind of educating people about the terminology and, and, and the mechanics of venture capital fundraising.
[20:51] SPEAKER_00: What I love about the book is that it's, it's probably more than 10 years old, but for me, it's, it's the only book like an entrepreneur ever needs to read to learn about venture capital.
[21:00] SPEAKER_00: So you don't need to read 10 books and 100 blog posts and 10,000 tweets. You read, this is the only book you need to read. It's a classic.
[21:06] SPEAKER_00: So I reread that recently and also, I'm reading the founders dilemma by no masterman, which I had not read before shame on me is it's, it's just an incredible book, right?
[21:20] SPEAKER_00: Talking about all the things that founders face when they're starting their company, you know, including like how to, how to pick founders.
[21:28] SPEAKER_00: You know, so again, I, I'm not finished it yet, but I think it's, it's a reference. You know, you, you literally don't need to read another book.
[21:36] SPEAKER_00: If anyone's thinking about starting a company, if you read founders dilemma, if you're thinking about fundraising, you read venture deals. And then I hope one day that I can be in there too.
[21:45] SPEAKER_00: If you're reading, if you're about to pitch and you're writing a pitch deck, you read pitching a leap of faith.
[21:51] SPEAKER_00: I haven't achieved it yet in my own, my own self critical kind of analysis, but I'm working on it.
[21:59] SPEAKER_00: And then in nonfiction, I'm reading a really great book that I actually forget the title, the exact title, but it's, it's about anxiety.
[22:06] SPEAKER_00: And it is a really, it's kind of a holistic way to look at anxiety from the point of view, not just of, you know, obviously like your mental and psychological kind of origins of it.
[22:19] SPEAKER_00: But brain chemistry, diet, sleep, exercise, environmental factors. So it's something that I'm really interested in.
[22:27] SPEAKER_00: I think it affects a lot of us. And, and I read a great book called Paradise about the horrendous wildfires in California in the town of Paradise back in the day.
[22:38] SPEAKER_00: That was, it was kind of like it's recent history, but it's, yeah, it just terrifying, like terrifying, scary, shocking, and still happening.
[22:50] SPEAKER_01: So, I guess I can't be, I can't be a shoemaker, which we both read.
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: Your father's one, which is not a really interesting story about the family.
[23:03] SPEAKER_01: We welcome it.
[23:04] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have a great story of a family business and on, you know, moves through the family business kind of.
[23:13] SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
[23:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that family business started in the, you know, the 1800s, right?
[23:19] SPEAKER_00: So, and, and it, but it's so interesting because, you know, family businesses inherently are just unstable.
[23:27] SPEAKER_00: And then interesting and entertaining for outsiders, probably not so much for insiders, but, you know, having, you know, we do and I both met Joe and, and through, and through L my wife and.
[23:37] SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, meeting him and seeing, you know, somebody who's been part of a really globally iconic brand.
[23:44] SPEAKER_00: And it's great in the book. I love because it was not just about, you know, boardroom backstabbing kind of business.
[23:50] SPEAKER_00: But history.
[23:52] SPEAKER_00: I loved about it.
[23:54] SPEAKER_01: Family story in there. It was kind of kind of interesting.
[23:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: So let's conclude because I see it.
[24:00] SPEAKER_01: I see on my little cloth in the room.
[24:02] SPEAKER_01: Now, hitting with 20, 25 minutes.
[24:06] SPEAKER_01: One advice, you know, would you give to an entrepreneur that's just at that point, the starting of business?
[24:16] SPEAKER_01: What are the, just two, two gems kind of thing that you would say?
[24:22] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[24:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. The first one is really, you know, follow your passion, do what you love. Yes, it's a business.
[24:29] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I always say, is this whatever you're planning to do if you're about to start, is this a business you can do for the next decade or multiple decades?
[24:40] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, through all the ups and downs, not just thinking about the IPO and, you know, being a billionaire, but are you going to enjoy the journey?
[24:48] SPEAKER_00: If not, don't do it.
[24:49] SPEAKER_00: There's many other ways to make money and have fun.
[24:52] SPEAKER_00: But number one is, you know, it is going to be a difficult journey.
[24:55] SPEAKER_00: So make sure it's something you're passionate about.
[24:58] SPEAKER_00: And number two, it's about people.
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: And I think especially at the beginning, you know, when you're creating a founding team or you're hiring initial people or bringing on mentors advisors.
[25:06] SPEAKER_00: In a lot of ways, you feel weak because you feel like I had nothing to offer these people.
[25:11] SPEAKER_00: So I'll just take the anyone who says yes, but it's actually the point where you should be the pickiest because these are the people that are going to set the DNA of your business.
[25:20] SPEAKER_00: And you again, it's like a maybe that like a marriage, you're going to be married to these people.
[25:24] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, find people that.
[25:27] SPEAKER_00: Yes, skills, experience, industry knowledge, but number one is, can you work with them?
[25:32] SPEAKER_00: Right? Over a long period of time.
[25:34] SPEAKER_00: And usually you get that gut feel or you can check references or you can try to get to know them, but I'd say passion and people.
[25:43] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Raymond, thank you very much.
[25:47] SPEAKER_01: This that was some great.
[25:49] SPEAKER_01: Great thoughts in the last 25 minutes.
[25:52] SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
[25:55] SPEAKER_01: How can people get a hold of you if they're listening to this and they say, I want to talk to this guy about this or about that.
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[26:01] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm pretty easy to reach, but the easiest way is on LinkedIn actually because I do a lot of posting there. So you just, you know, Raymond look on LinkedIn.
[26:11] SPEAKER_00: You can connect with me. I will connect with you back.
[26:14] SPEAKER_00: You can message, but you also post a lot of content there.
[26:18] SPEAKER_00: And then for things like pitch lab or, you know, I posted all on LinkedIn. So that's the ideal place to reach me.
[26:24] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Raymond, thanks for the moment.
[26:27] SPEAKER_01: Can't just podcast been a great session. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
