The freedom and impact of being an entrepreneur

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, Founder and CEO of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: Come to you today from Toronto.
[00:12] SPEAKER_01: We can meet Robert Saunders, who's the Founder and CEO of Dormat,
[00:16] SPEAKER_01: the tech company that wants to make real estate transactions dead simple.
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: Buying and selling properties in Canada couldn't be so complicated
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: and there are missions to simplify the process by pairing modern technology
[00:31] SPEAKER_01: with top to your service.
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: Robert is a creative and self-moded software engineer and entrepreneur.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: He's always been driven to build products that excel other people's lives
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: and is a deep passion for technology.
[00:47] SPEAKER_01: So Robert, welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: It's great to meet you.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: I think your particular area is interesting because lots of people,
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: you know, buy houses and things like that.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: And the story's pretty solid as well.
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: So just sort of to put the thing in context, why don't we get,
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: so that you get a little bit deep into who Robert Saunders is,
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: a little bit about how you got to where you are and the solution that you saw
[01:30] SPEAKER_01: is an opportunity, Phil.
[01:33] SPEAKER_00: Well, first off, thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Phil.
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure to be here.
[01:38] SPEAKER_00: I guess starting a bit about myself, so hi, everyone.
[01:43] SPEAKER_00: My name's Robert.
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: I'm the CEO and co-founder of Dormat, which is an online real estate legal services company.
[01:51] SPEAKER_00: I'll get into the story about how Dormat came to be in just a moment,
[01:56] SPEAKER_00: but a little bit about myself.
[01:59] SPEAKER_00: So I grew up in Toronto, always being in love with computers and building things
[02:04] SPEAKER_00: and really kind of my passion for technology came from a very young age.
[02:10] SPEAKER_00: So my dad is, is had a long career in technology, and so a lot of that inspiration came from him.
[02:17] SPEAKER_00: And throughout high school and university, I was always building apps and was fascinated
[02:25] SPEAKER_00: by mobile devices.
[02:28] SPEAKER_00: And so one of my earliest memories of getting into technology was when the iPhone 4 came out in 2010 or 2011,
[02:38] SPEAKER_00: I was in high school.
[02:39] SPEAKER_00: And when the iPhone came out, I was like really kind of taken aback by the design and the ease of use of what was ultimately just a rectangle
[02:51] SPEAKER_00: that you could interact with your finger.
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: And so my school at the time had a website where students could see their homework online.
[03:02] SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't very mobile friendly.
[03:05] SPEAKER_00: And so right when that happened, I quickly realized an opportunity there to make a mobile version.
[03:14] SPEAKER_00: And that was one of the first apps that I ever made.
[03:17] SPEAKER_00: So in high school, I self taught myself to build that app.
[03:22] SPEAKER_00: So students at my school could see their homework on their phone.
[03:27] SPEAKER_00: And through that experience, I fell in love with the active building, which ultimately is what I know entrepreneurship to be right now.
[03:38] SPEAKER_00: And so quickly I launched that app to my school, released it to them.
[03:42] SPEAKER_00: And I started to feel the results of what it's like to build something.
[03:48] SPEAKER_00: So I stood up in my assembly and I shared the app.
[03:52] SPEAKER_00: And I got a, I have a very memory of getting a standing ovation and people clapping for me.
[03:56] SPEAKER_00: And then people in the hallways coming up to me and my locker saying, hey, like this is such a cool app.
[04:01] SPEAKER_00: This is so exciting. I have this teacher for you, I have this teacher for you.
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: And that kind of started, kickstarted my journey into entrepreneurship and the love of building things.
[04:10] SPEAKER_00: And so obviously I was quite young at the time.
[04:14] SPEAKER_00: And my parents were in two came on me wanting to stop school and start to go build ventures myself.
[04:20] SPEAKER_00: And so to wrote the rest of high school and throughout university, I went to Queens University, which is a couple of hours outside of Toronto.
[04:29] SPEAKER_00: And I said the computer engineering there.
[04:31] SPEAKER_00: I continued to build things on the side.
[04:35] SPEAKER_00: And ultimately because I found that through building, I was learning more than what, you know, the curriculum was teaching me.
[04:43] SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of been my path to where I am now is I've always been a builder.
[04:49] SPEAKER_00: I've always loved getting the feedback from the things that I build and actually see any impact that they have on people.
[04:58] SPEAKER_00: And so shortly after university, I started working at Shopify.
[05:04] SPEAKER_00: And when I was at Shopify, I worked on the API patterns team.
[05:08] SPEAKER_00: And on that team, I worked on the platform side of Shopify, which gave me really good exposure to, you know, how to build APIs and platforms at scale.
[05:19] SPEAKER_00: And I quickly realized that I wanted to get back into the consumer side of things and build solutions for consumers.
[05:27] SPEAKER_00: And so while I Shopify transitioned over to the shop app, which is their consumer app that's competing with Amazon.
[05:36] SPEAKER_00: And through that, I work on the conversion team building product features and enhancements that ultimately got people to buy more things, which was very cool.
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, I had always wanted to go and do my own thing.
[05:52] SPEAKER_00: And my experience at Shopify was really rooted in just getting the skills, the skillsets to build something out scale.
[05:59] SPEAKER_00: And I was waiting for the idea to come to me about, you know, what I should build.
[06:06] SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the where the origin of Dormat comes from.
[06:09] SPEAKER_00: At the start of the pandemic, I was looking to buy a property.
[06:14] SPEAKER_00: And obviously, I'd never been through the residential home buying property, property purchase process before.
[06:23] SPEAKER_00: And I was working with my real estate agents to find a property.
[06:27] SPEAKER_00: And once I found that property, I put it, I quickly put in an offer.
[06:33] SPEAKER_00: And my agent had said, you know, do you have a real estate lawyer?
[06:38] SPEAKER_00: And so it was news to me at the time that you needed a real estate lawyer to buy property in Canada.
[06:43] SPEAKER_00: I had no idea what a real estate lawyer was or what they did.
[06:49] SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up just taking the recommendation for a lawyer that they gave me.
[06:55] SPEAKER_00: And so quickly, through that process, I worked with my real estate lawyer and found it to be an experience that didn't really match my consumer expectations.
[07:04] SPEAKER_00: So obviously, being a younger millennial, I'm akin to all of the different digital services that are there today.
[07:13] SPEAKER_00: And I'm the first person to take any of, to use any online service that I can, whether that be like selling my taxes, booking my hair appointment, all these things.
[07:24] SPEAKER_00: And so when I worked with my lawyer, everything was being done in what felt like a very traditional way, you know, going into the lawyer's office to sign the documents,
[07:33] SPEAKER_00: to transfer the money, drop off the check, pick up the keys.
[07:38] SPEAKER_00: And then also everything was being done through email, getting asked questions about, you know, what's your insurance funder?
[07:45] SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what your transfer funder was or sending documents back and forth.
[07:50] SPEAKER_00: And so I quickly found that there was an opportunity stream that she and I not process and make it better for consumers.
[07:59] SPEAKER_00: And so while I was working at Shopify, on weekends and nights, I worked with somebody else that I founded my network, who's a real estate lawyer, to better understand, you know, what the process of the real estate, what a real estate lawyer does.
[08:17] SPEAKER_00: Because obviously I have no background in real estate law and trying to build consumer app for residential property, property closings.
[08:25] SPEAKER_00: I needed some help. And so I quickly found them who is now one of my co founders at Dormat.
[08:32] SPEAKER_00: And we worked together to better understand, you know, could we apply technology and build software or residential property closings that brought transparency, reduced price and, you know,
[08:44] SPEAKER_00: gave time, time savings to consumers.
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: And so over the course of last year, we built an MVP product that we brought to market this past February.
[08:57] SPEAKER_00: And since then, we've done over 60 transactions through the platform.
[09:02] SPEAKER_00: And we've raised a bit of venture funding, which is very exciting.
[09:07] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's been our journey so far. We're still very early in our process, but really kind of the foundation for Dormat came rooted from my own personal experience of going through the residential property closing process.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: Really interesting to hear the story and sort of obviously you're following your passion in terms of application development on that front.
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: But it was also, it's also been interesting to hear how you progressed from Shopify, the kind of employer employee thing.
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: Not the only one with that means Shopify has done good operation.
[09:52] SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
[09:53] SPEAKER_04: And transition out.
[09:59] SPEAKER_04: In terms of, you know, getting on the journey, you're stepping out of it.
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: It is, you know, why didn't you just quit and get some friends to fund you and get there faster, et cetera, et cetera.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you think it, I mean, was your, was your approach.
[10:25] SPEAKER_01: The right logic, you think to get to where you wanted to be.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good question and it's funny. You know, some people ask me if you were to restart and do it all over again. What would you do differently? And one of my answers to that question is saying I would start sooner.
[10:45] SPEAKER_00: And also, it kind of my advice, Annie, you know, potential entrepreneur or people who are looking to do their own thing is to just start.
[10:54] SPEAKER_00: And that there's never a right time.
[10:57] SPEAKER_00: I think I definitely fell into a bit of a trap when I was at Shopify in the sense of I needed to build the conviction and the idea.
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: And I think this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs feel is, you know, no matter how much you believe in your idea or how passionate you are about the problem space, like there is this like big chasm that you have to jump from when you leave that stable, that stable job that pays you a really good salary.
[11:28] SPEAKER_00: And that's comfortable.
[11:30] SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's a different journey for everyone in terms of how you jumped at housing.
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: And so for me, when I was at Shopify, one thing that I was doing constantly was just trying to build up that conviction and remove any doubt in my idea by building out the founding team.
[11:49] SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, who figuring out who I was going to do this with, who were the right people to do with.
[11:56] SPEAKER_00: And also better understand if it was a problem that was worth solving.
[12:02] SPEAKER_00: So, so like, you know, while I was at Shopify, I was interviewing recent home buyers and home sellers to understand like what their process was with their lawyer to understand if, you know, the experience that I had with my lawyer was something that was common.
[12:17] SPEAKER_00: And that process helped me build that conviction to leave.
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: But I mean, ultimately, I think to your point, why didn't I do it sooner? If I were to go back, I definitely would have.
[12:31] SPEAKER_00: And I think like an interesting point of that question is like the funding.
[12:37] SPEAKER_00: I think like a big part of my journey was as soon as I did quit, I had to go find funding because I just bought a property and I have a more just to carry now, which is kind of funny as it relates to kind of the problem that we're solving the storm at.
[12:53] SPEAKER_00: I was incredibly lucky that when I quit Shopify, one of the VP of products at Shopify gave us our first seed, angel investment.
[13:04] SPEAKER_00: And he was kind of a catalyst for us to take it a lot more serious because he knew that we had this problem that was worth solving, but also that we just needed to be given a shot.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: And he really enabled that through the funding. And so I guess your point of like, why didn't you go to people and and get funding ultimately that's what we did. And ultimately, I didn't, I don't think I had the.
[13:30] SPEAKER_00: I didn't recognize that there is especially in Toronto and in kind of the tech community in general, there is this like large group of supporters that are more than happy to support entrepreneurs and people that have dreams and visions.
[13:48] SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I was particularly clear to me at the time because I hadn't been through it.
[13:53] SPEAKER_00: The thought of somebody giving me money to go to this, this thing that I really believed in.
[14:01] SPEAKER_00: It was something that I didn't quite understand that was like available to people.
[14:07] SPEAKER_00: And if I was to say anything to anyone else, like if you have a good idea, you put all the right things in place, you do some work.
[14:15] SPEAKER_00: You know, to get it off the ground, there is that support there for you.
[14:20] SPEAKER_00: And looking back, I would have, you know, made that transition from full time Shopify to full time dorm head, a little sooner knowing that now.
[14:30] SPEAKER_01: What do you like most? Well, having having stepped out of the corporate world. What do you like most about being an entrepreneur?
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: That's a really good question. I think like the number one thing is, you know, the feeling of impact and the freedom of the work that you get to do.
[14:52] SPEAKER_00: You know, one thing that I particularly felt that Shopify, you know, I was at Shopify.
[14:58] SPEAKER_00: I started in 2018 as an intern there. And I kind of saw the company grow from, you know, I was in the first 6000 employees.
[15:07] SPEAKER_00: And then it, you know, throughout those years, it grew to be much, much bigger, obviously through the COVID pandemic.
[15:14] SPEAKER_00: And I saw the company change quite a lot. You know, I was in a small office.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: When I started and I finished in an office and then I finished remote.
[15:21] SPEAKER_00: So the company itself grew quite a lot. And what I was increasingly feeling was I was feeling kind of a cog in the machine.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: You know, Shopify is a massive company now. And that impact that it felt as an earlier employee there was starting to kind of fade because the company was just getting bigger and doing more things.
[15:45] SPEAKER_00: And so what I was working on didn't feel as impactful. And so I think being an entrepreneur, one of the best aspects of it is that you have total freedom.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: And you clock in clock out not from nine to five. It's whenever you want. And you also can have real tangible impact in what you're building every day.
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: And also just the journey itself is such a such an interesting thing, you know, like going from the highs and lows to, you know, talking with investors, trying to, you know, story tell your way into getting some funding and sharing that product building the product, you know, staying laid up at night.
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: And then seeing the proof of your labor at the end of it is is, you know, such an exciting path to be on.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: So what do you think business is going to be in the next five years?
[16:38] SPEAKER_00: That's a good question. I think like what we're focusing on and if you say like where we're going to be in five years, I don't actually quite know because every year or every month feels like a year at the current stage.
[16:51] SPEAKER_00: Right now what we're focusing on is is building, you know, the world's best closing process for residential properties in Ontario where I see us going is bringing that nationwide.
[17:05] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, building Canada's real estate lawyer, the first consumer brand for real estate law. If you think of, you know, real estate law in Canada, there's not a single consumer brand that comes to mind.
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: Much like when you think of, you know, banking or like simple banking Canada, you think of like, well, simple or the big banks in real estate law, there isn't there isn't that it's a market that's traditionally dominated by
[17:31] SPEAKER_00: you know, smaller law firms that focus on very geographic specific areas. So, you know, in Toronto, there's a handful of lawyers in Toronto specifically or in Mississauga or Brantton or wherever.
[17:44] SPEAKER_00: We're really aspiring to do with Dormatt is build that consumer brand around real estate law so that when you want to close on your property or do your mortgage refinance, you think of Dormatt like you think of TurboTax when you know, it comes to be your tax season.
[18:02] SPEAKER_00: That's one aspect and I think like one thing that's quite interesting about the space that we're operating in is that is that there hasn't been this, you know, consumer brand for real estate law yet and it's primarily driven by regulation, but also, you know, lack of adoption of innovation in the legal tech space.
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: And prop tech in general, they're just a couple of industries that are a little bit behind some of the others in terms of adoption of that tech and I think there's a big opportunity for us to to step in and kind of fulfill that mission.
[18:42] SPEAKER_00: And then outside of just taking our current product and applying it nationwide, I think one thing that's really cool is being able to expand along the homeownership journey.
[18:55] SPEAKER_00: So one thing that became apparent to me when I was buying my property was I didn't need a real estate agent, I didn't need a mortgage broker, but I fundamentally needed a real estate lawyer to do the deal in Canada, you need a real estate lawyer, they're the only people who transact on a residential property, they're the only people who can transfer title from one person to another.
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: And what's unique about their position in the homeownership journey is that they're the ones who fundamentally give you the keys at the end of the day, they're the ones you asked for your information about your property transaction.
[19:37] SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a big opportunity for us to expand along the homeownership journey.
[19:42] SPEAKER_00: So once we close a property, maybe we help them move into their property, like here's some move for your move, or once they're in the property, maybe through our platform, you could see your investment portfolio, a real estate investment portfolio, because you close your property with Dormat, and you could track the value of the property over time.
[20:02] SPEAKER_00: Or similarly, we could help with insurance. One of the things we have to ask our clients is where are you getting your insurance from?
[20:12] SPEAKER_00: It's very real that we could have an embedded insurance product where we can offer property insurance directly in our product, because you're already closing with Dormat, and we know that you're going to need it.
[20:25] SPEAKER_00: And so I think right now what we're focused on is building that world's best property closing experience and really focusing on the niche of that real estate, the law piece of it.
[20:39] SPEAKER_00: But where we'd like to go as a company is expand along the homeownership journey and expand across Canada.
[20:47] SPEAKER_01: So in terms of growth, what's the business advice? What's the best piece of advice that you've received that you kind of, it's there, it's in your back pocket kind of thing.
[21:05] SPEAKER_01: The carry around you.
[21:10] SPEAKER_00: That's a, it's been lots of advice. I think that's one thing that you, you are lucky, but also it's like a gift in a curse as an entrepreneur is there's a lot of people who have lots of really good thoughts and experiences to share with you.
[21:31] SPEAKER_00: But the problem with it is there's so many different pathways that you can take from that advice and experience, and it can be hard to understand, like, to pick which is the best for you.
[21:43] SPEAKER_00: And so what I often tell people, you know, who are kind of going through the same thing or I talk about with my, with my founder friends is, you know, how do you kind of parse the good advice from the bad advice?
[21:56] SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, kind of what we come, come back to is you kind of just have to do it yourself to understand what works.
[22:03] SPEAKER_00: Sure, there are like course correcting advice that can be really helpful.
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, like, and what I'm realizing as a first time entrepreneur is that there's an element of it where you just need to experience it so that you can learn for yourself.
[22:19] SPEAKER_00: And so that's not just saying I don't have any advice. I think, you know, one thing that recently resonated with me that was told to me by another founder, very successful multi-time founder was that you have to be unreasonable as an entrepreneur.
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: And so he asked me this really question, which was what's the most unreasonable thing that you've done? And he said, I asked that to everyone that, you know, every founder that I meet because entrepreneurs have to be unreasonable.
[22:56] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what does it mean to be unreasonable? It means to think that, you know, your vision of the world, like, it's probably unreasonable.
[23:03] SPEAKER_00: Like, it's unreasonable to think that, you know, we're going to be a real estate law firm that everyone in Canada, you know, thinks to use that's unreasonable.
[23:14] SPEAKER_00: But entrepreneurs are built on being unreasonable and having these crazy visions. And so I don't really know what I was going with that one, but that resonated with me because in that kind of backlog that you mentioned.
[23:32] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm always asking myself, how am I being unreasonable in like, where can we be different as a team? And so anyways, that particular advice resonated with me recently.
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's get a little less serious. Let's go on to some questions.
[23:50] SPEAKER_01: What book are you currently reading, listening to, and would recommend that not necessarily the one that you're reading would recommend, but something that you've read that is one of those.
[24:03] SPEAKER_01: Made you, made you think, made you make some good decisions afterwards.
[24:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So I haven't been reading too much recently.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: I did say it was in the back there.
[24:17] SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do have books they they go to myself. And unfortunately, one of the things with being an entrepreneur is that you don't have a kind of extra time.
[24:25] SPEAKER_00: I am trying to practice the art of reading a little bit more, but what I will say, one book that I did read very early on in the journey of Dormet and entrepreneurship was the lean startup.
[24:39] SPEAKER_00: I think every entrepreneur should read that book. It's a very good book that teaches you, you know, how to those startups from experiences that have worked in the past.
[24:52] SPEAKER_00: And then also zero to one is another good good book, but yeah, I don't I'm not currently reading anything so yeah.
[25:03] SPEAKER_01: Are you a morning or a night person?
[25:07] SPEAKER_01: I'm a morning person morning. Okay, that's you belong to the majority. That's kind of there we go. Okay.
[25:17] SPEAKER_01: If you had to pick one word to describe yourself, what would it be? Why would choose the word?
[25:29] SPEAKER_04: That's a very good question.
[25:30] SPEAKER_04: I would probably say.
[25:42] SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's a few words that kind of mine, but I would say I'll go with the first one. I'll say creative. I think why creative is because I am constantly finding creative solutions that problems I'm having and I've always and actually going back to one of your earlier questions, which is talking about what you love about entrepreneurship.
[26:06] SPEAKER_00: When they love about entrepreneurship is you can really unleash your creativity because you have full ownership of what you're doing.
[26:16] SPEAKER_00: And I would say creativity resonates with me the most because I've always applied myself's in creative ways.
[26:23] SPEAKER_00: And specifically like, you know, building the product that is dormat I've had to be creative in so many different ways to just like understand, you know, what the process is of a residential property closing.
[26:35] SPEAKER_00: You know, how can we synthesize that into a consumer experience that is super simple and super delightful for people to use.
[26:44] SPEAKER_00: So whether that be, you know, like designing the user interface or designing the architecture for the code, the job that I'm currently doing and have always done is always tapping into a level of creativity that's required to get kind of the desired result that we need.
[27:03] SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I would say like one of one of my best traits is creativity.
[27:09] SPEAKER_04: What's keeping it up at night?
[27:13] SPEAKER_00: No, these are a good questions. I love them. I would just say everything that is the business.
[27:23] SPEAKER_00: So there's no shortage of things to do as an entrepreneur and one thing that I'm constantly doing when I go to bed is just thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow and what needs to be done, what hasn't been done.
[27:39] SPEAKER_00: And that's been something that's been keeping me up recently. Finally enough that you ask this question.
[27:45] SPEAKER_00: One of our investors I was talking to to them about this problem, like, you know, how do you disconnect from your company so that you can have good sleep and it's kind of funny.
[27:58] SPEAKER_00: You were saying why don't you just read a book for you?
[28:02] SPEAKER_00: So maybe I have to read a little bit more before I go to bed.
[28:06] SPEAKER_01: That's what I was going to want to my escape is that in terms of getting away from the company and just moving it to something else.
[28:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was saying that if like it doesn't even matter what book that you read, you just have to open up the book and just read a few pages and that just like will focus your mind somewhere else.
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you are tired. You're not not tired.
[28:31] SPEAKER_00: And so through the act of reading, you're just going to separate your brain and you'll fall asleep very quickly.
[28:36] SPEAKER_00: So I think I need to based on your question before what book you're reading.
[28:40] SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a good answer for that. And then now this question, I think the answer to my problems is just to read some books.
[28:49] SPEAKER_00: I'll get to work on that.
[28:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[28:53] SPEAKER_01: Robert, that's about it in terms of the time frame.
[28:59] SPEAKER_01: But it's been really interesting and thank you very much for coming on Canada's podcast.
[29:06] SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me thought this has been a lot of fun.