Hessie Jones

Absolutely. OK. So let’s start. Let’s start with Stephanie, because it’s probably easier to figure out how you got started by telling us a little bit about yourself and your company.

Stephanie Lipp

Sure. Yes. Stephanie Lipp, the CEO of MyCo Futures, I actually began my began my career in art and photography. I love fashion industry So I was a fashion photographer and worked with other brands. On their digital marketing, their branding and I really, really loved helping create a brand and doing visual communication because I think no matter how big your company is, the way you present yourself to the world is really valuable. But then I took a detour from the arts to manage nonprofit housing and that gave me a whole other lot of lessons about building a business and working with people. But it was really when my co-founder partner and I moved to Newfoundland to start a gourmet mushroom farm, which then pivoted into a startup, creating a next Gen. material made from my ceiling, which is the root system of fungi that we cultivate in vertical farm. That I really came back around to my roots in branding communications and I saw how useful that was to building my presence online. And then after the pandemic out in the real world.

Hessie Jones

So this came easy to you. It seems like is that that was.

Stephanie Lipp

That was the case.

Hessie Jones

Background. OK, Stacy, I’m going to turn to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You just seem to do so many things and obviously your presence has evolved online over time, so. Who are you and what do you do?

Staci LaToison

Oh, I have a lot of energy, so I I’m involved in several things that I’m really passionate about. I’m an award-winning investor, best selling author. I’m a consultant. I’m a podcast host of Her Money Moves podcast where I interview women. CEOs and influential business leaders who are making an impact on our economy and in our communities and I. Just all-aroundlove empowering women. I worked for Chevron for 22 years around the globe, managing billion dollar budgets and global teams. I was in China for five years. I was in Angola, Africa next that day or two and got to the point where it kind of during the pandemic. I decided that I’m going to put my fate in my own hands and decided that I was going to go out on my own and I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. So it was time to give it a chance. Especially I’m a single mother and I’ve always told my children to go for their dreams. And I said, well, why am I not doing the same? So that’s how Dream Big Ventures was born. And you know, there’s a huge gap with equity and wealth and education on finances. You know, we don’t grow up talking about money. And so I’ve made it my mission to. Ensure that women are equipped with the tools because we make up half of the population and yet and so many facets, so many different industries, there is a huge gap. We’re not on boards, we’re not having equity, we’re not the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies. I mean it’s just. Really ridiculous. So it’s time to make a change and takes people take action. And make bold moves if. We’re ever going to move the needle.

Hessie Jones

Exactly. And you just actually highlight something important because when I talk about people having specific expertise or or even I know something to say within a specific topic area, I think for both of you it’s important. This whole idea of equity, especially in the tech space and. And I think you both have loud critical voices when it comes to this lack of equity and how we can get it. So you know, I think we could talk about that a little bit later and how that actually moved the needle for both of you. But let me ask something really basic for both of you. First of all, what? Social platforms. Are you on Stephanie?

Stephanie Lipp

LinkedIn is my biggest one right now, and we have an Instagram that we’re going to be revamping this year.

Hessie Jones

And Staci?

Staci LaToison

I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram and I think the Instagram automatically updates on Facebook, but I’m also our podcast is on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. It’s on all the major platforms.

Hessie Jones

And do you two track the growth? Of your followers on your, on your respective channel steps.

Stephanie Lipp

Yes. Yeah, this year was it was one of the biggest jumps in, in followers and connections and and just a wide range of people. So it was really exciting to see all the different people that you know want to connect with me and the startup as well.

Hessie Jones

And Stephanie? Oh, sorry, Staci.

Staci LaToison

Yes, same here. It’s really important to track your analytics to know who is your community, who’s the audience that most resonates with you. So yeah, most of my community, it’s women between the ages of like 25 and 55. You know who are really thirsty for. For information. Who want to learn and continue to grow in their careers and in their personal journeys?

Hessie Jones

OK, so let’s, let’s, let’s start with you first, Stacy, because you’re, you’re doing this amazing job and in giving women the tools for this information, you’re a community builder. Your strategist, what was the moment that you actually thought that this is something that you wanted to do? Or was it? Was it something that just kind of happened? And leveraging your brand building, building it the way you have.

Staci LaToison

Yeah. So I have always, always been an advocate for equality. Since I was a little girl. I was always very independent and I think I had attended a conference during the pandemic and Serena Williams was a keynote speaker and that’s when I first learned that only 2% of VC funds go to women and underrepresented founders. So I mean, that was definite igniter for me to, you know, to do something about it, I figure. Well, I have thetoolso to do this. And more of us women need to, but also. I also attended a conference outside of my company, so I mean, you’re talking 22 years with a pension. I never even went to many career Expos externally because we do everything internally. And I saw that there was a Puerto Rican woman who was vice president at Pepsi. And it just like wow, really touched me because I had never seen that. And I still haven’t seen that to this day in oil and gas. Never ever was there a Latino woman who was at the. Top and in the C-Suite. And so, that made me realize there’s many others like me who are not seeing it. And so if you see me a lot on social media, it’s because I want to make sure that there is representation. So that others who are, you know, at these conferences and who are. You know, working in the corporations know that it is possible. You can do it too. So even though it might not look like it. Because you don’t. See that every day. But we are more than capable and anything is possible.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. So, Stephanie, I see you a lot also on LinkedIn and a lot of the stories that you tell like to me that there there’s a humbling effect that you have when you actually post the stuff that you do especially especially as. A biotech founder, you know? And in the clean tech space, where it’s incredibly hard. So did this come easy to you? Do it like I I understand that you you learn communications and you have been doing this before, but to actually leverage it for yourself. How how hard was that?

Stephanie Lipp

Yeah, it definitely wasn’t as easy to do it for myself. I always love to champion others, and I can always, you know, pick out the things that I want to share about other companies or people. But then I realize, oh, gosh, now I really have to do it for myself. And it wasn’t really until late 2021 when I won my first pitch competition, the 1st when I. Or did a couple weeks later I opened LinkedIn. There was so many connections and messages and people had shared things and I was like, oh, it just didn’t occur to me that anyone. Would you know care that much? It was. It was big for me, but I forgot how how much of A community there was out there and and I really realized that people actually like to support others. And so I wanted to. Be part of that. And it was just great that I could connect with a lot of different types of people from investors, ecosystem partners, other founders. That’s been a really great way to connect. And on the other side of that, as well as an early stage founder and startup, there’s a lot of value and pressure on making progress because that’s. A way to signal to investors and people that support you that you’re working hard, you’re making things happen and and so that was a great way to highlight. Like that? Yeah. It was a place to accumulate all my business activity and even just for myself to show that how far we’ve come. Sometimes it feels like we’re moving at a glacial pace, especially given the the conditions of the last year. But then I can look back. Or sometimes someone will like something for way back. I’m like, oh, yeah, we did that. And it just is. It’s a nice reminder that Rama was making progress and that there’s people out there who are cheering, so I always appreciate when Hussey. When you say, oh, I saw you do this and this because it reminds me that, yeah, there’s value in taking the time to to share the little wins and also, you know, talking about equality and representation. I never saw anyone that looked like me, you know, out there doing biotech, running company. And so if there’s someone else that happens along my my profile maybe. I look like them. They can resonate with me in some way and and. See that there’s all kinds of people that make a CEO. It’s not what we’ve just seen growing up. There’s like, yeah, so there’s possibility out there.

Hessie Jones

OK, now Staci has this become overtime. I think you guys both of you are starting to see a little bit of traction in in you actually just being out there and saying the things that you do and it is resonating with people. Are you starting or have you developed an actual strategy now to make this? Intentionally a channel that actually performs for you for your business, for your community.

Staci LaToison

Yes, I pretty much highlight what I’m going to post a little ahead of time, depending on what events are planned where I’m speaking, but it has helped to develop that thought leadership and as a result I’ve been reached, you know, reached out for speaking for judging pitch competitions. Co investments, you know, a little bit of everything. So, and mentorship.

Hessie Jones

But when you’re, so when you’re in, let’s say conferences and this goes to both of you. You know, everybody has to take a selfie or they have to. They take pictures and they say, oh, this is a great speaker, this is this is someone who’s doing something amazing, whatever. But sometimes it’s forced in a way because they have it’s almost like I’m at this conference. I hear some people that that that resonate with me is there. Can you balance out the need to actually post as opposed to, How do you know when? When it is a good post to post. You know what I mean? Let’s start with Stephanie. Do you understand my question?

Stephanie Lipp

Yeah. No, that’s a that’s a really good question because I mean especially my background photographer, the lesson I tend to do is ask anyone to take a photo of them or take a picture with me. It’s just, I don’t know, just weird. So I tried to. And I also like to have a variety of things. So I’ll take a picture, someone on stage or a poster, just to have a. Of of content. Because I think sometimes. Yeah, with the selfie it’s it’s great and interesting, but if you’re just have a whole carousel of these pictures, it it kind of almost becomes about you and it’s it’s about you know name dropping in a way that oh, I met this person, this person. But if you can actually you know take a variety of pictures kind of set the scene and and then that’s I guess it’s about bringing value to whoever is reading the post so that they can feel like they were there and they were. In it, rather than just seeing seeing you in a bunch of selfies because you know they’re hardly ever flattered. And then you don’t really get a sense of what the event was. So I think that’s why I kind of.

Hessie Jones

Thank you, Stacy. What about you?

Stephanie Lipp

Yes. Similarly, I’m very intentional with the messaging, you know, want to always empower and inspire. And for those who were unable to be there, maybe they couldn’t pay for that $500 ticket for that conference. They could feel like they were there and they could experience and get all the key takeaways. And bring that you know, back to them without having to, you know, pay that pricey ticket.

Hessie Jones

Well, so you also have a podcast I want to learn more about the podcast like. When did that start? And why and why did that start?

Staci LaToison

Yeah. So this is a groundbreaking podcast. I interview women across all industries who are CEO’s and influential business leaders. And, you know, oftentimes they are not the ones who are sought after for some of these major conferences. So I mean. That have all of this experience. They are like amazing outstanding powerhouses and. And so I just love being able to highlight them. There is no other podcast out there like this, for example. I interviewed a best selling. Author Liz Elting of Dream Big and Win, and I’ve seen her. Speak at a you know a different event, but they’ve really resonated with me since my company is called Dream Big Ventures. And I just. I asked her if she would be on the podcast and she said yes so, so, so exciting. And she sold her business for a billion dollars. So this show is all about providing tips and strategies. Or entrepreneurs for corporate professionals. For, you know, all women to be able to succeed in business and to learn more like it’s a safe space for because my guests are often they’re vulnerable and they tell like they’re they’re real, authentic stories because it’s not. Easy, getting to the top, you know, it is such a challenge, and a lot of times people only see the end. They don’t understand everything that you had to go through to get there and so on the show, they share all of the hard times and the hurdles. But also offer a lot of great advice and strategies so that others can succeed. So this show is about uplifting other women.

Hessie Jones

And it’s been resonating obviously with your audience.

Staci LaToison

Yes, yes. I mean, I’ve got VC’s who are GP’s that have raised $100 million funds to founders who are unicorns to, you know, women who started their own film and film studios. To you, I mean it across the board. A A woman who’s a Columbia law professor who is a huge advocate and investor in Women’s Health. So I mean, I. It’s just so exciting for me every single time I sit down with these women and interview them and, you know, learn about their stories. And I personally learn so much. And I know that the audience will, too. And they do.

Hessie Jones

So you said something that was really important. I want to turn this to Stephanie and you talked about authenticity and and so from Stephanie from your perspective, I mean this is this is almost like I would say the Holy Grail of social media, if you’re going to get people to connect with you in a way that. It’s not only profound, but from a relationship perspective, but also eventually, to help you build important connections. Tell me about how this has made a difference for you.

Stephanie Lipp

Oh yeah, this is. It’s been really, really great to build my presence online and yet again, as I mentioned bringing into in real life, you know, talking about clean tech and biotech and then you know, that really spilling over into the fashion side and being a female founder has brought me some really amazing opportunities to speak on panels. It’s a wide range of. Events you know on LinkedIn, you have time to make a draft and craft this message. But when you’re in a room with people and you know your your adrenaline’s going it, it’s a a really big challenge. So that’s something really been able to hone with these different experiences and it’s really brought me to the point of talking about the intersection of clean tech, our technology and solution in the fashion industry, which is exactly where my passion. Is and why? You know I’ve dedicated so much to to bringing this solution. Market. So it went from my first panel that was ever invited to was from the New York, Newfoundland Young Farmers Forum, which was in a small hotel in Gander, NL, talking to a room of, yeah, farmers who work really, really hard. So I was like, why, why am I selected to do this? You know, always with the a bit of imposter syndrome. But just last autumn, I was invited to speak at Elevate. Conference on the stage and then an event at Holt Renfrew for the H project anniversary. In the same week, so it just shows that I was just blown away that anyone want me to speak about farming in Newfoundland and then, you know, getting. These amazing panels in Toronto has been really cool to to see that progression.

Hessie Jones

So what do you think that is like when, when, when people see you like what? What do you think is the thing about Stephanie that wants people? What that that makes some of these organizations? Want to hear more or have or put you on stage to actually tell your story?

Stephanie Lipp

On the one hand, I hope it’s it’s positivity I by no means mean I believe in toxic positivity. I don’t sugarcoat things, but at the same time, I always remind myself it’s such an immense privilege to be able to pursue this. Fashion. Lots of people have to make choices with their lives and careers for survival. And so for me to be able to take this very untraveled path is is, is always a privilege. And so I always have to show gratitude along with any of the challenges. And I also try to be the type of person who always shows up, who’s prepared who, you know. Adds value and so that whenever someone puts my name out there, they can be confident that I’m going to perform and a little bit of a people pleaser, so I never want anyone to to, you know, not feel that I. I contributed to to whatever is going and they’re always for great reasons and purposes. And again, being someone up on the stage representing someone they haven’t seen before, I. Think that’s that’s. Always part of it. That’s really important and I do appreciate all the people giving me opportunities, not just because, you know, a founder of color because I’m a woman, but. I think it’s still. Acknowledge that there’s there’s a still a gap in the diversity of representation.

Hessie Jones

Yeah, I think that you know the one thing that I’m starting to realize is that there’s a lot of strength and vulnerability. And those who put themselves out there in ways that you know, it it it is hard, it’s hard to be able, as you say to, to tell the good, the bad and the ugly. But those are the things that resonate with people. So, Stacy, what about you, To be social. Naturally comes easier than doesfor for other people. For those people, for those founders just starting out right and who don’t come from the kind of background that both of you do, what do you say to them? Like, what? What kind of pieces of advice would you give them to? If they’re just.

Staci LaToison

Well, I think first of all, you don’t ever grow unless you step out of your comfort zone. So why not give it a try and you could do it your way. You know, even if you are more of an introvert, you don’t necessarily have to at least be in the forefront. You could put your product in the forefront. You could know what is some of those emoji and what do you call, you know, Jeff, that are funny, you know, and different. You know charts, I think female quotient does a lot of that where they don’t necessarily see, I don’t even know who the CEO is, but you always see them put different animations and different graphics. So yeah, you could do it your way and just be creative and to reach audiences. Also wanted to share that. One of the best compliments I’ve ever received was someone telling me Stacy, you’re a master in authenticity. You know. I am proud, you know, to to share that. No, my journey was not like the the spoon wasn’t silver spoon wasn’t, you know, handed to me. I was a teenage mother at 17. And you know, nobody would ever know that. But, I mean, I share it. Like and then I’ve had other women. It was like I the same thing happened to me. And they’ll come up afterwards and give me a hug. And like, just thank you for sharing that because looking at you and never would have never would have known. And then I I have one testimonial where she said, Oh my God, Stacy, I saw you speak in LA last year and, you know, I was so excited to see you and tell you and give you an update on what’s been going on in my life, she said. You know, based on what you said, I took action and I left that job, and now I’m making 50% more and I just bought my first home for my baby. I mean that is powerful. And so I feel like I am doing exactly what I’m. Supposed to be. Doing and living out my purpose in life to help others, and that’s something that when I was working my corporate job, I didn’t have that kind of reach. Yeah.

Hessie Jones

To keep going on that theme because Stephanie, can you tell me maybe some stories? Of people that you’ve met along the way where you’ve impacted them much like what Staci was talking about, how has your journey made an impact on on people as they start to progress?

Staci LaToison

Sure. Yeah, there’s this one really favorable moment in Elevate conference last autumn where this young woman came up to me, like, very gingerly. She’s like, hi, I was like, hi, how are you? And she’s like, are you Stephanie? I’m like, yes. She’s like, oh my gosh, I am so excited to meet you. I follow like that. I was just like, I could not believe this. This was just so she was so sweet and sincere. And I literally could not fathom it. Anyway, who I was out on like the Internet. And she was excited to see her purse, our prototype, talk to me. And that was like, a really good reminder that you really don’t know who’s out there. And if I. And, you know, make someone excited about material science and clean tech, and being, you know, a woman and running a company that was just really cool and sweet and so and. And yeah, people are constantly like, oh, I saw you on this and that and it’s. Yeah, it’s humbling and exciting that there is a wider world out there. Inside of my little bubble of clean tech and and the, you know, fundraising blows where it’s always positive, no one’s come up to me and said anything negative about what I do. They’re just happy to support. And I think that’s one of the nicest things about, yeah, the the community that I found and the people that follow is that they’re so incredibly supportive. You everyone can be united in trying to make the planet better and and preserve it for future generations. So I think there’s really powerful energy in that where, you know, there’s lots of great innovations. I think particularly in in clean tech. Yeah, everyone, it’s like really uniting and and positive.

Hessie Jones

I agree. I agree with that. I mean, I think with clean tech is because it’s one of the hardest sectors to actually evolve because it has to go through testing. It must go through validation that it’s not a SAS product you can put in the market within a year. It has to work right and. You know your purses. They have to be rock solid and you can’t have anything falling out of those purses, right? Especially if you’re developing an alternative material. So kudos to you for, for, for doing that. And I think the important thing for founders. Is that when you relay your stories, you know it’s important that you’re you’re telling, you’re telling, you know, the hard truth of being an entrepreneur. And I think for both of you, I think that that that’s very important. So for like Stacy, would you say there are challenges? With being with putting yourself out there. The way you do, whether or not it you know, is it is it a constraint on you? Is it a constraint on your your business? Is it is it? Is there weakness in being too authentic?

Staci LaToison

I don’t think there is. If anything, I think. It builds trust. With the community, because you’re being genuine and. No, I don’t think that. There’s, I haven’t seen any disadvantages yet, but are there? And what about? What about just?

Hessie Jones

With respect to time and effort. Because this is now integrated into your business, you have to do this every day. You have to continue to build a presence. It’s not like it’s probably equivalent to, let’s say, buying ads every day, but this time it’s really just about making sure that Stacy has to get out there specific time, every day or every other day. Etcetera. And so it it has to be baked into the stuff that you do, is that right?

Staci LaToison

Know what my biggest challenge? My biggest challenge is raising capital. And my other big challenge is, yeah, it’s time when when I talk about time, it’s more like because when you have meetings and then then the follow up. So but this part of it I I don’t think is. That challenging?

Hessie Jones

It’s the fun part, right? Yeah. So, how can you like, what? What kind of impact has this had? Do you think overall, let’s say now you say you you need to raise money, the connections that you’ve made to get to that specific goal, how has that impacted it?

Staci LaToison

Now there’s where I do see that there’s an advantage because of building. I mean, I have built a brand and a professional reputation for dream big ventures and for her money moves. And for Stacey Littleton, so. So yeah, people can go out and and they see what I’m doing. And oftentimes people in the community are like, Stacy, I see you’re killing it. We’re so proud of you. You know, what can I do to help and support you? And they want to partner with you. So you know, there’s been a lot of benefits from it.

Hessie Jones

So if I were to ask both of you if you were to Google your name today. Versus let’s say 10 years ago, what would? What would Google say about who is Stephanie versus who is Stacy? So I’ll start with Stephanie.

Stephanie Lipp

Sure. Yeah. I don’t think I had much of AA footprint 10 years ago or even three years ago. It was really in the last, yeah, 2-3 years that I started going out there actually told something. I’m like, I’m not. I’m not anonymous anymore. People can definitely Google me and they know exactly what I do, which is fine. I’m always proud about that. But yeah, there’s. I’ve had so many opportunities to speak and be interviewed. So I think it’s it’s cool that I have a footprint out there now, and no matter what happens, at least for this time in the Internet history, I could say that I was doing something and I was going for it and and and again, knowing that I do try to always, yeah, interject my values and and what is really important to me in terms of representation. Responsible consumption production to those things. So it’s it’s really consistent and I think that’s important in general to have that distance the online versus in person, you wouldn’t want me to talk a certain way in, in my post. And then you meet me and then I’m not really as pleasant that’s that’s not a nice surprise. You try to avoid surprise like that. So yeah, remembering what what people will read out there and then. Remembering to to carry that on into in my day-to-day actions and behavior.

Staci LaToison

Yeah, I don’t think I didn’t even create a LinkedIn account until maybe two years ago. So, yeah, 10 years ago I was in China, living my best life as an expat with Chevron and had no idea that I would be an entrepreneur one day, but definitely now when you look me up, I mean, you’ll see the podcast episodes. You’ll see me speaking at the rice women and Leadership Conference. You’ll see that I’ve won some awards. You’ll see the book. So you have made a lot of progress and a lot of momentum in the the last two years.

Hessie Jones

So if I were to ask both of you because it still feels like you both have a certain amount of advantage over a lot of startup founders. OK, so we have a startup founder who who’s building something, but they absolutely have like 0 social media presence. Maybe except for GitHub, let’s just say. All the developers know that person. What are some, let’s say no brainers to get them started? Like how? How do they start doing this on LinkedIn, especially among a community where they’re they’re trying to find out, get more customers or potentially find investment? Stephanie.

Stephanie Lipp

The two things I was thinking about are one that no one is too small, so don’t let your impostor syndrome in the way, which is easier said than done. But if. If you. Just participate in an event even if you didn’t win right about it. If you even read an article that’s a win for your your industry, that’s something to share. But to go along with that, which is the the key part is to reciprocate so. You know, liking, commenting and sharing in other peoples wins, however big or small, is really important because it means just as much to them as it does to you. When people do that for you and it just shows to everyone that you’re showing up for others, and I think that’s a really nice way to show that you’re committed because. It’s easy just to take all the likes and the shares, but to to to put it back out there in the world, I think will will really show on a human level and on a thought leadership level that you’re you’re in it for the right reasons and that you’re someone that other people want to amplify. And then those small wins will definitely turn into medium sized wins to bigger wins and huge. And then you’ll you’ll bring people along that journey with you. And I think at the beginning. Yeah, it really seems like, oh, just one, one thing people are gonna come. They just. I just one little pitch competition. But then, you know, in a couple of months it’ll be the second pitch competition. Then an article and and they’ll snowball that way. And as long as you’ve cultivated the the simple things like liking and commenting and sharing at the beginning you’re going to you know see that. Come back to.

Hessie Jones

You OK, Stacy?

Staci LaToison

Yes, I don’t know that I have much to add from Stephanie’s response.

Hessie Jones

But on the but on social media, so for let me see. I’m just trying to think, oh, maybe maybe the the question is where do you draw the line between between being someone who’s authentic, who’s sharing things and then being, let’s say, a spammer. Because some people can do it. Really some people can be really good at putting stuff out there all the time, but then for somebody that’s just starting out and they’re putting out. Content they they’re trying to get to the right audience and but they don’t want to be annoying. They don’t know the definition of authentic yet. Right? Because like I said, it comes easier to some people than others. How did they? How did they find that for social media post?

Stacie LaToison

Yeah, I think if you read a really great book, you know you could do a book review and share that. You could, you know, that’s relative to your industry and to what your to your company, you could, let’s say you attended a conference and maybe highlight some speakers. That really resonated with you and in your industry. Umm. Maybe you host kind of a webinar like what we’re doing. You know, it’s a good way to to highlight your product and and your business. That’s actually that’s a good thing in a way. I was just thinking about that because.

Hessie Jones

If you don’t. Know how to do social media as well. Then do something like a podcast where you’re the one asking questions and the experts are the ones giving their opinions, and so vicariously what you’re doing is you’re creating the content for those, for, for yourself, in a way, because you’re the one that needs a lot of those answers, right? So I mean it’s hard. And I completely get it and that these are the questions, the questions I’m asking you are the questions that many founders are asking me because they it’s it’s not easy for them and they don’t want to buy ads. They want to be relevant. They want to start connecting with the right audiences, but they don’t know how. So OK, so any closing thoughts for either of you, Staci, I’ll start with you.

Staci LaToison

Yeah, I mean, do your research, if there’s certain people that you follow and you really like what they’re doing, don’t be afraid to even reach out to them. And maybe that’s they can be your first interview. I am. And yeah, don’t feel like. Your you know, just don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and say, I mean, especially if you want your businesses to succeed, then it’s kind of part of the it’s part of it. You know, if you look. At a lot of very successful businesses, I mean. They have commercials, they have their name out there in the public. So especially if you’re going to be the CEO of this company and you’re representing it, then you’re going to have to learn how to get. Comfortable doing that, Stephanie?

Stephanie Lipp

I would say be as willing to take advice as you feel like you’re in a place to give it, and on the flip side, be as willing to give help as much as you’re willing to ask for it. Definitely be kind and show gratitude because that will show that will shine through anything that you do and. And I always ask how you’re bringing value, because I think that intent to bring other people value is how, again, you’ll get that returned many times over just by having it putting a good intent out there. Into the world.

Hessie Jones

Very nice. Thank you that that’s on that note. That’s all we have time for today and I thank you so much, Stephanie and and Staci for joining me. I know that I know I was grilling you, but I I’m thinking there must be an easy way for to be by who you two are. And I think there are a lot of people who continue to struggle. But I think the advice you gave today is great because now now founders who are just starting out will have at least some basic tools. And I would say be natural. Get out there and just try. Right. Nobody’s going to slam you for trying, and you’ll get better every day. That’s what I believe, anyway. So thank you both for coming for our audience. If you have topics, you want us to cover, please e-mail us at communications@altitudeaccelerator.ca and until next time, everyone please have fun and stay safe.

Jennifer Cameron

Thank you, Hessie.

Hessie Jones

OK, so let’s start from the beginning when for both of you and I’ll start with Devin, tell us, tell me about your early startup experience. You developed this amazing idea. You want to see it grow. What made you become an entrepreneur?

Devin Ramphal

Yeah. Good question, Hessie. Thank you. I think in the beginning, the first real entrepreneurial journey I had was after university, right? So it was actually a totally different company. It was in clean air. dot AI was a. Company called DRAM. Innovations where we invented a fuel nozzle that doesn’t drip when you pump gas at the gas station, so you know you pump gas. And now you take your nozzle out. It drips all over the floor. That was the first venture that was featured on the CBC’s Dragons den. That was a special energy innovation episode. Our technology actually came second place across the entire country for sustainable innovation. Unfortunately, 2nd place didn’t get anything from Dragon so we but we got a lot of publicity and within a month our company was like like hurled into this media frenzy and people were emailing us from all over the world. We had, you know, six weeks to put a business together and A and a website together and manage all of these inquiries which was really. Cool. So that was the first venture. We took that pretty far. We have a patent for it. We have we received an offer to purchase the technology a few years ago from one of the largest OEM’s in the market. So we didn’t take the offer at the time. We didn’t feel the offer reflected the value, but that was that was venture #1. And then we kind of morphed into venture #2, which was clean air dot AI, but really to answer your question why it started off, it sounds kind of cliche to say, but it sounded it. It started off almost like altruistic. Like we wanted to help make the world a better place, right, with like. With, you know, stopping these unnecessary drops and saving gasoline when you look at it on a grand scale, it was 300 million liters of fuel every year around the world that was being wasted. But really at the crux of it. A feeling entrepreneurship. It’s just it’s it’s internal and it’s a drive to to do something bigger and kind of leave a legacy, right? Something that will last, you know, beyond beyond you as a person. Right. Like when when I’m gone from this planet, you know what’s what’s what’s remaining? I think for me, that’s that’s really what it is. It’s just leaving something behind. So yeah, I don’t know. That’s that’s why it’s morph. I don’t think it’s altruistic anymore by any means, but that’s kind of how we started being fresh out of school and out of university.

Hessie Jones

So thanks. Thanks, Devin. Jennifer, what was your catalyst?

Jennifer Cameron

I don’t think my catalyst, like Devin, said there is an altruistic element to it. When I look at both Hyper Wallet and inverse, I know that I have an underlying passion and belief. And prosperity with hyperwallet making. The ability for people to transact easier was a motivator and to to to stimulate. Business growth was a motivator, and with INVRS, there’s a desire to see sort of wealth unleashed. I mean, if people learn how to invest properly from an early age, that has tremendous consequences of how you know, like a generation of people who grow up being far richer than anyone ever. Else has been, so there is an an altruistic element absolutely for sure, and as far as the legacy absolutely, I’m definitely motivated by successful outcomes and. You know making value, but when my true motivator, the thing that really gets me going is. I really like to be creative. I really like to see an idea come to fruition and just as importantly for people to enjoy it and like it so. Sometimes I say. I’m an artist. This is when I’m being a little bit silly, but sometimes I say I’m an artist and entrepreneurship is my canvas, but I know it’s a little bit silly, but that is sort of how I feel very passionate about creation.

Hessie Jones

Yeah, yeah. You’re the type of people that live. That draw outside of the boxes, right, you you would like to think out-of-the-box. You don’t want to be constrained, correct?

Devin Ramphal

Jen gave me a thought as. Well, I think. That those are really, really good words, Jen. For what? What? That made me think about is one word which is building right. Like, for me, it’s what gets me excited, is building something. Right? So. And, you know, in Brampton, we’re building this Brampton Innovation district. And in the tech startup, you’re building a cool technology and and and new market need for it. So I think really. To add to what I said before, the crux of it for me is building something.

Hessie Jones

So so, Devin, you started your company with your friends and this is a commitment that you all decided this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to be here for a while. So now your friends become your business partners and your Co founders. What was that transition like? For you.

Devin Ramphal

It was. It was a long transition. So we actually stayed in business for almost a decade and give or take, you know, so some people came and some people left, and then they came back. So but for the more or less it was about a decade of of, of, of, of Friendship and business together. The transition was, was it. It was easy. In the beginning and it got harder as the business grew and got more serious and especially when you bring in other stakeholders, investors, customers, it could be VC’s. It could be, you know, family and friends or angels, it doesn’t matter. But when when you had others. With expectations and that’s when. I would say friction started could build with your friends, right? So that’s when that’s when things really started to transition and started to change. But in in the beginning, when you’re still developing your product you you know you don’t have many customers yet. You don’t have many investors you know on your board of directors. It’s just your group of friends and maybe some family members. It’s I don’t want to say it’s a funny games, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot smoother, right? But again, these external stakeholders when they come in, things get a lot more serious and that’s when friction would start to.

Hessie Jones

So we’ll get into the external stakeholders then in the future question. But Jen, I wanted to to ask your experience. You raised, you raised money in two economically difficult time periods. So in the early 2000s with Hyper Wallet and now in 2020. We were, we were seeing high interest rates. What was similar and? What was different between the two and what happened in the the early odds that help you navigate what’s happening today?

Jennifer Cameron

Right. So. I guess you could say that we had the misfortune of starting hyperwallet justasthe.com bust was starting. I remember BC saying to us when we were at fundraising, he said there was a cold wind blowing up from San Francisco and then, you know, it really did hit. So I mean that was, you know that was like 2 decades ago, but it was. So, Devin, you probably don’t have experience with it, but it was not good. And then when we started. Inverse, we were just starting to do the fundraising and then inflation hit and interest rates hit and the stock market was crashing. And it’s, you know, if you’re talking about. And like an investment research platform and in the investing environments, not so good. You know, people aren’t as interested because they’re losing money, so. On the Surface 2. Scenarios of bad timing. However, I don’t hold to that notion of bad timing. It may look like bad timing on the surface, but time passes and then that bad timing turns out to be good timing. So it’s a bit of a wait and see. I will say that I haven’t gotten serious about fundraising for inverse because of what’s happened in the marketplace. We went back to bootstrapping and I’m very, very focused on revenue. Laying the ground for fundraising but not being active at it at this stage. So I guess what’s different is back in the couple of days like we just. Kind of kept. We, you know, we knocked maybe for longer than we should have because it just was not the the right time. And this time, at least I have the experience of going through a bad. Time to raise money. Realizing that it can be negotiated and just keeping my focus more on the business rather than at knocking on doors.

Hessie Jones

So let me ask when you were raising with Hyper Wallet to talk to me about the dynamics between you and the Co founders in your company, what was what was that like like would you consider best friends, I guess because you started the company together that you had worked in previous companies. Together, what was your relationship like with? Your Co founders.

Jennifer Cameron

Well, I very much admired my co-founder. I thought that she was brilliant and I still do. I still admire her. I still think she’s brilliant. I think we went through a big honeymoon phase at the beginning. There was so much enthusiasm about what we were doing and we did raise some some early financing, roughly about half, $1,000,000 before, you know things got too too bad. So there’s all this energy that we’re pouring into it and. And then sort of, you know, reality started to hit as money started to dwindle out of the bank account and, you know, fundraising was becoming increasingly different. Difficult and we. Didn’t have. Proper business model at the time, like a way to make money.

Hessie Jones

So let me turn to Devin. Because as you grow your company and you realize that, OK. These are my business partners and my friends, but at the same time, now that we’re growing up, we have to actually start thinking about how we protect the business and how do we protect our individual interest in the company. What does that? Look like when when you get to that stage.

Devin Ramphal

Takes a lot of foresight, right, and I guess. Being so fresh like we’re we’re a first-time entrepreneurs, we didn’t really have companies before. Some of us had some professional experience in industry, but so the start-upup start a game as you know is a totally different game going through it a second time. I would do things very, very differently and I think Jen, Jen had a really good point where times. Age, right? And as an entrepreneur and when you’re working, you know, with your Co-founders and you’re raising this money, it’s it’s important to recognize the time frame that you’re in. And think to think about how that time frame could change in the future. For example, we raised money with with the venture capital firm in 2021, right. And at the time, you know, funding was fairly high, interest rates were low. It was relatively easy to raise funds. Just 12 months later. The tide starts to change, right? Like, as Jen said, like a cold wind was blowing from from California. So. The reins of the VC started to tighten up and we started to get squeezed a bit. And whereas in right in a regular time frame, VC would have said, yeah, we’ll give, we’ll extend your convertible note by, you know, X amount of months. That didn’t necessarily happen with us. It was really like, hey, you know, you got to. You gotta step it up. And by the way, we’re going to do X&Y to your company and add them. The other conditions and into your notes. So there’s I think having the foresight of of knowing what what time frame you’re in and how things could get worse or how things could get better is really important for an entrepreneur to know. And so much of the time as entrepreneurs, we’re just happy to raise money. Someone’s going to write us a check. Oh my God. Like, yeah, I’ll, I’ll take that. But if you don’t, if you have a good product and good business, someone will come and give you money. You don’t have to take this check today, right? And. I think that. Part is really. Important for us with with my Co founders and I we we we got super excited with the first check and then. We were even. More excited with the second check, right and. And ultimately, you know, you founders could end up digging themselves a hole for their startup company, right? If if, if you if you get too excited and carried away with being in that moment with with with that you know that funding, does that answer the question?

Hessie Jones

It it does, it does. So I wanna. I wanna actually talk about the relationship with your investors because you you have made a point of saying that, you know, people go with the money. Is, but that shouldn’t always be the case, because when people when companies go into relationships with investors like Sorry, financial relationship with investors, it’s really a marriage that’s going to last the length of the time that you know the the where the money keeps flowing so. For for you, maybe I’ll start with with, with Jennifer. What was it like when you were when you were raising? When you’re raising money? What kind of investors did you go after in the beginning?

Jennifer Cameron

I guess you’re talking about hyperbolic phase. When we were raising them, because we have.

Hessie Jones

Yes. Yeah. Or or and and. And yeah, and how did that change your criteria in for inverse too?

Jennifer Cameron

I think the the environment was different than it is now, so I don’t know if what I have to share is going to be entirely relevant for. For new investors for excuse me for new founders. It was a lot less structured than it is now. There weren’t accelerators, incubators, and that sort of thing. And all of the sort of was well, wisdom best practices? Maybe it’s the better word that have grown up around. He raised around testing and failing fast and all these sorts of things that just wasn’t there. So yeah, so I guess, I guess I just wanna, I just want. To be clear about that. I still I. I guess my strategy at this stage going forward is to. I want to when I start speaking with investors, I want to. I want to have as much power as I can and I believe that will come from having a strong company and strength comes from having product market fit which is. Just a, you know, 50 Cent way of saying there are people willing to pay for what you have so. That’s. I’m just I’m. I’m just more focused on business rather than fundraising at this stage for now for the moment.

Hessie Jones

But but you you also talked about coming from a position of strength. So I’m going to ask Devin, this is that so when you look for investors? What? What would you look for differently than you did in the beginning? Like what? What are the things that resonated with you?

Devin Ramphal

Yeah, yeah. For the company that we were building. So we were in the clean air dot AI was in the HVAC air filtration space. We had an an HVAC filter that produced hypocras air quality, but also reduce the energy consumption in the building. And we had sensors building to it. So you can know exactly when to change your filter and you can gather intelligence on on the air quality. The air quality in the building. So looking for an investor, what was important for us was someone that was connected in that space. It was that we weren’t just looking for and just for money, you know, we we were looking for someone that could make those strategic connections with customers. So the industry was property technology, our prop tech for short. We were looking for Proptech specific. And we found some, right. We found some we we started off the journey by joining a prop tech accelerator and this accelerator actually put some funds into the company. So that was really helpful. And through that prop tech accelerator, we actually and that was like our first round and then through this prop tech accelerator we actually met the more of like a larger. Prop Tech VC, who ended up putting some funds. In their round. So we were when we were identifying potential funders, I think we did a fairly a fairly good job like we were very. Tensional, we did have some funding that was offered to us from angels, but we again wanted to be very careful of like our CAP table. We’re trying to keep it as clean as possible, so we didn’t end up going with the funding from from, from the Angels. We stuck with the VC’s. But you also need the other part of this is you need to be careful. The strings that come with the funding right, we were offered funding from a few other sources and some of those other sources we didn’t want to, we didn’t want to go and attach yourself to those strings, right. You know, one of them would have made us relocate our company entirely. Which you know wasn’t. Uh, wasn’t really possible for us. And that’s just an example of some of the strings. That can come with the money.

Hessie Jones

Is there like from both your perspectives, knowing what you’ve lived through, especially with investor relationships from your perspective, was is there an? Inordinate amount of power imbalance when it comes to this, like Jen did you experience a power imbalance when when you, when you eventually got funding from from the investor side like how much that the kind of pressure that they would put on you as a company and a founder?

Jennifer Cameron

Well, I mean, as it turns out that first money that we raised was. Well, no, it it wasn’t too onerous or anything like that. It was just the person who happened to invest. He was. Just I guess. Bit of a. Different sort of guy. And no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t like your typical BC. I mean, he was a professional investor, but it was just different. It was just different time, right than it is now.

Hessie Jones

Why is that? Why? Like maybe, maybe. Devin, you can. You can answer that like, it just seems to be maybe the early 2000s were a different time when technology was starting to peak and then everything was like, Oh my God, I got to get into all this New stuff and now like there is I think because there there’s a reticence in in what’s happening in the market that investors too have put more pressure on founders to meet specific milestones and to the point that they’re they’re hovering, right, I mean what? Devin, what do you think?

Devin Ramphal

Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, it really depends on the, the the type of the investor and the type of the BC, right. So I’ve seen the smaller the investor, I I found that you have. More and more. Pressure, right? If you have a much bigger institutional investor, you have a little bit more flexibility and the founders have typically. Like a little bit more saying the company right, the smaller VCs, maybe they’re not as well known, they tend to exercise their strength and the power over over the founders and try to. A lot of them. It’s it’s it’s, it’s kind of weird because they some of them get the get the inclination that they could. Run the company better than the. Founders. But we’re seeing in the market that that’s not actually the case. So like a lot of these VC’s that take over a tech company and try to run it, they end up running it downwards instead of upwards, right? So it’s. And I I’m seeing that’s more common with the smaller, lesser known VC’s rather than the bigger VC’s. If, if I could give advice to a startup, I would say try to go to a bigger more well known VC and raise funds there. I think that would be a better experience than a smaller V. And that’s just. My personal opinion.

Hessie Jones

So let me let me pivot a little bit and and talk about a different type of relationship. So these are partners and suppliers. And so a lot of. Startups. They begin by not by trying to do everything themselves right, so they may not necessarily seek out potential partners or vendors early at the early stages where they could actually get some competitive advantage. So I’ll ask Jennifer this because first of all, in either through hyperwallet or or through inverse, do you rely on certain partnerships or or suppliers? And if if based on those two experiences? What are the things that you that you look for in defining a good partner or vendor relationship?

Jennifer Cameron

It’s certainly more relevant to talk about suppliers with respect to Invrs. So when we were creating inverse or sort we are, it’s still active creation, but. When we were first. And the idea was first there we needed data suppliers, but we weren’t sure what our business model was going to be and there was but a disconnect between how the supplier would price out their their data. Versus how we were going to be consuming it. And then, you know, earning money from it down the road so. But we needed that data in order to start building, and there are other. Tools and that sort of thing. So that was tricky. That was a tricky negotiation to try and. Create a contract that was flexible enough to support. You know where we thought we were going to go, but like I said, it was just where we think we’re going to go, so contracts, OK, it’s tolerable knowing what I know now, I would probably want to tweak it. They are receptive and good partners. And we have been able to make. Some changes to, like we reinterpreted what a customer was, which was, you know. Very good. My favorite and help. Us having to start paying additional money so so that was great. I guess what I would say the the piece of advice I would give to nascent entrepreneurs is to really read those contracts carefully. It’s so difficult because they can be so dry and they. They just. But if you can try and put yourself into different frames of mind under different scenarios, you may. It may be it may help to enlighten. What you’re signing on to and then give you some latitude to negotiate.

Hessie Jones

OK.

Jennifer Cameron

Things that would be more in your favor. But I think.

Hessie Jones

Yeah, go ahead Jen.

Jennifer Cameron

I think working with contracts and that sort of thing, I definitely think it’s something you get better at you. You need to have experience doing it and practice doing it.

Hessie Jones

I think so. The other thing about contracts is that I guess when you’re when like very, very early on, people don’t put as much importance in contracts because they think that hey, my friends doing something over here, let’s collaborate and then they failed to even put a good contract together to to make each other accountable for the things that they said that they would do, right. So I’m going to turn to to Devin because like. Choosing the right partner is going to be important, especially in the beginning when let’s say. You need to establish a certain level of trust, especially when you’re bootstrapping, and you don’t. You can’t necessarily afford to pay the supplier for the things that they that they are are providing you. So tell me what like what these negotiations or agreements? Like to to make sure that there’s some mutually beneficial thing that happens between the the both of you without one actually having a a stronger upper hand than the other.

Devin Ramphal

Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a good question. I would almost come back a little bit to what Jen was saying earlier and kind of watching how the winds are blowing, right and. A lot of the time when the start up signs a contract with someone, they’re very excited about it, right? And it’s it’s in a happy time and you know, hey, we have a new partner on board. All we got our first supplier locked in, there’s a lot of excitement. And UM and startups can. Caught in that right and not realizing that there’s going to be dozens of contracts down the road and more suppliers, right, that that you can secure. But I think it’s important to say, you know like from like different viewpoints like which ends at how can this go South? How can this relationship go South? How can this partnership go South? How can this supplier go South, right and. One of the key things that we learned. Is especially specifically to suppliers, multiple sources of supply always right. Never rely on a single source of supply. So we were a hardware company and we had to visit by these physical filters that we were selling to customers and. And it would have derisked our company greatly had we had a second source of supply, right. But so exclusivity is one thing to look for in these contracts, payment terms, right, net 30, net 60, net 90, ideally from a startup perspective, you want to push out your payment term as long as you can. The the supplier would want to squeeze it down as much as you can. Right. So working with that supplier to find that ballot. UM, keep an eye out for how the contract could be changed, right? You don’t want someone to make a unilateral change. These change. Like, if there’s a suggested change to the contract, you’d want it to be a mutual change. So those are a few of the things I’ve seen with supplier relationships. But coming back to partnerships in general. Hey guys. Can you repeat that part of the question? Has the partnership part?

Hessie Jones

Yeah, OK. So what did I say here? So what would it? What would the negotiation agreement look like so that there is equal benefit to both of you without one having the upper hand?

Devin Ramphal

Yeah, yeah, I would. I think there’s creative ways to do this with partnerships, right. One thing I would advise against is going in, going rushing into like any sort of joint venture or a 5050 partnership, 5050 partnerships, they, they there’s a lot of challenges with them, a lot of the time. They don’t work out as. Well, and essentially what happens with these 5050 partnerships is you can end up in a deadlock right between shareholders. Your board of directors, all of that. So avoid fifty 50s and try to find other ways that you can make that partnership equally even you don’t necessarily have to give equity for partnership. But if you’re in that situation. Where you know you found. We found a strategic partner that’s willing to put some money in and or give you X for a certain piece of equity. Don’t give a ton of your company away. Try try to hold as much as you can and try to find another way. Think from your partner. This potential partner shoes. What do they want, right? What’s in it for me with them? Right and. And try to see if you can give them something else other than equity or or control in your company. Keep your company the operations, the board as much internally as you can. I’ve been trying not to give. Too much of that out.

Hessie Jones

OK, perfect. So let’s go to the last topic where we’re going to talk to you and talk about you as the CEO and and what makes you tick. So Jennifer, as a two time founder, what do you think has kept you going despite the hurdles that you’ve experienced? And what do you think? What do you see in yourself that may not have been evident at the time of, let’s say, your first company?

Jennifer Cameron

So what keeps me going? I guess a desire to see my vision manifest. To put it simply. And what do I see in myself that I? Maybe didn’t have before. Well, I was pretty wet around the ears when. I co-founded Hyper wallets so you know I’ve added a lot of experience to that. One of the things that I heard back in the day was no credibility. So I did a lot of work to close that credibility gap again, like. Nobody’s going to say that to me again. And then there’s a lot of soft skills. I mean, business is about. You know. Improving your skills around empathetic listening. Trying to find. Win win scenarios. I mean, I just there’s a lot I would say that I’ve added since over the 20 years.

Hessie Jones

So this is something that you said you said being a leader is tough. You have to give courage when you feel none. I don’t find any of that easy. You have to be curious and you have to have faith in yourself. But I do know I’m improving as a leader. I know I’m better than I was when I started paper wallet. I can evaluate my decisions objectively. So what do you think? How you changed as a leader over time?

Jennifer Cameron

So that quote. That’s still true from where I sit right now, it is tough to be a leader. You do have to show you do have to encourage other people. You have to be curious asking those questions. It’s really a skill of art. Rather than just, you know, maybe jumping to a conclusion.

Hessie Jones

Is there a now? Would you say that you did anything differently and and back then I don’t even know if there is a thing called mental health back in the but now it like it seems to be a way for a lot of founders to actually find strength if they have the time to meditate.

If they have time to take care of themselves, like their mental health or their physical health is, that is that something that has changed with you as well?

Jennifer Cameron

I you know, in a way, I think life has even gotten more difficult than it was. I mean, now I have a family I have any and, you know, a parent is dying. It’s really gotten more difficult. And the demands on my mental health have grown. So yeah, I meditate. I do a lot of a lot of internal work. I really try to keep my I find if I focus on what I don’t want, it’s not helpful at all. I have to keep, you know, quote UN quote eyes on the prize. The vision of where I want it to get to and how that’s going to feel. So you have to, yeah, you have to be intentional about your emotional state, absolutely.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. So, Devin, let’s turn in to to turn to you about the topic of asking for help, because you, you, you are all for it. I know, I know you you have relied on mentors to help you while you were dealing with some some. Issues with with your company. Tell me about the importance of mentorship and and seeking advice and how what that has meant to you during that time.

Devin Ramphal

Yeah, it’s a. It’s a good question. I think you know, as the co-founder, CEO of a company, it’s especially the CEO role like it’s very lonely at the top, right. There’s not a lot of people that you can turn to, especially around you like it in your executive circle, in your coping circle and your director circle. You can’t necessarily turn and speak to these people openly about about some of the issues that are the companies having, or even you’re having personally. So very lonely at the top as the CEO, but having external advisors was one of the most powerful things for for us at clean air and all through my entrepreneurial journey. I I I had an EIR multiple IR like one at at altitude accelerator. I had one all the way in Guelph. I had another one that was a professor at at Rotman where I would. And I would routinely and especially as you know, we’re going through the acquisition phases as we’re raising funds as we’re negotiating with the suppliers and building this partner relationship. I would be on on the phone with these advisors and really just using these advisors as sounding importance, right. That’s all it really is. It’s you’re you’re asking some questions and you’re getting some feedback. And as the CEO, it’s your job to take that feedback and just you make the decision on it whether you want to take it or not, take it or take action on it or do the the total opposite. It’s entirely up to you. But as as long as you’re gathering as many of these qualified opinions as you can. And and then I find that you’re essentially collecting this data, and that allows you to navigate a little bit better as as the CEO. So advisors very critical, multiple advisors, very critical because there’s times when my advisors were saying the total opposite, right and that would help me calibrate in terms of the next steps. So yeah, I would highly recommend having multiple diverse advisors for for anybody growing your company.

Hessie Jones

OK so I have one more question to to ask both of you as you look. Yeah, and you, let’s say, reconcile your vision of entrepreneurship based on what’s real and based on what you envision, what was the most telling lesson for you, Jennifer, like regrets, anything that you would do differently? What do you think?

Jennifer Cameron

I think. Having faith. Is really important. Because when it’s dark and leak, which it certainly will be from time to time. Have to have faith and I think that goes circles back to what you started this podcast with resilience and how much you’re going to hang on. To make your vision a reality. Because it’s not about, it’s not about the honeymoon stage. It’s not about, you know. When things are great, the the the. When the rubber hits the road is when things are really dark. And that’s what you must get through.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. That’s powerful. Devin, what do you think?

Devin Ramphal

Yeah, regrets. I don’t. I don’t have any regrets. I would do it all over again if I could. The amount of learning that came out of it was unbelievable, right? It was just like the the things that we were put through as a company, the challenges we faced, I can’t put a value on that education that it that, that it taught me. Would I do things differently 100%? But but that doesn’t mean I regret it, right? Just looking back, there’s a million mistakes that we’ve made, but that’s, that’s again how we learn, right? That’s how we grow. So I wouldn’t go back and change anything. It is, it is what it is. But for the next time I know way, way better, I won’t make the same mistakes twice, right. So definitely happy. Happy with the experience of going through it and. And no regrets.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. So I think that’s going to be our last word and and that’s all we have time for today and I thank both Jennifer and Devin for lending the wisdom to this important. Topic and sharing your journeys about a topic that not many people talk about. So thank you again for coming. If you and our audience have any topics that you do want us to cover, please drop us the line at communications@altitudeaccelerator.ca in the meantime. Have fun and stay safe.

Hessie Jones

OK, so you said something interesting there liberate patient data, which is scary, especially for if you talk to the Privacy Commissioner, you talk to anybody. Even in the healthcare space, because as you know, patient data is considered one of the most sensitive information out there. So how do you do something like that within the guise of compliance without putting risk to the information especially? From an app perspective, that probably will have to go through an equivalent of like a Health Canada or an FDA approval.

Devin Singh

It’s a really great question because we must remember that at the core of healthcare and providing outstanding care to a patient is the trust that you have between a health system and a patient or it’s that trust that you have between a physician and that person you’re caring for. So that trust is critical. And so one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve done obsessive stakeholder engagement to interview not only just parents and families. It’s like it’s but the kids themselves, right? Like, how do you feel about the way your data might be used? And so there is that point of understanding that the user really well and trying to gather what do they want to see happen to their data and what are their concerns about their data. But then there’s also that point around like legislation, privacy law. You know, we’re working with a set of laws that really wasn’t built, to think about big data and so how do you then take these opinions that are really important from those patients? How do you harmonize that with? What are the boundaries of the law? And then how do you add layers of cybersecurity? How do you add layers of patient safety and be really obsessed about delivering a product that checks all those boxes? That was really difficult. Like it took us years to go through a really authentic engagement with both lawmakers with Health Canada and with our patients and and even like privacy commissioners and experts to figure out how do we harmonize those things together in a way that’s really genuine and authentic. And that’s what. Is there a single clear path right now in Canada to go from creating an AI innovation like what we’ve done to then getting it deployed safely and in a way that respects privacy? There isn’t, because the laws weren’t written for AI specifically, but that’s part of the advocacy that our group does as well. So I have my AI researcher hat at Sickkids as well, and part of the research I do is around regulatory reform, privacy reform. How do we think through creating streamlined pathways that can ensure we can deliver AI solutions to patients, but do it in a way that is obsessed with privacy? Obsessed with equity, right? Obsessed with fairness to make sure that these solutions are actually closing health gaps rather than widening them.

Hessie Jones

So, we’ll unpack that a little bit because from your, my perspective when I think of systemic racism, it’s included within the hospital system, there’s only limited amounts of data that we have that can treat patients based on a limited set of circumstances. And so, what you’re advocating for is aggregation of data from almost anywhere within the healthcare system that allows you to surface some insights about a certain disease and to be able to have it be inputted from all from all areas, from, all from, from, genders, from different ethnicities. So, you can understand the impacts and also potential solutions that that actually impact some of those different groups.

Devin Singh

And so well, what we do is rather than thinking of such big picture because that could be scary, even hearing you describe that I’m a little bit scared about privacy and technology. And I think that patients and the public get scared. About these big sweeping ideas that we’re trying to absorb all the data and we’re trying to build these, these all-knowing AI solutions, that’s not necessarily it at all. So, what we’re really thinking about is what might be a very specific clinical problem that an emergency department might be struggling with. So, let’s say wait times for getting an abdominal ultrasound, right? Let’s say you might have appendicitis. For you to get that surgery, you’re going to arrive at the emergency department. You’re going to get that ultrasound done, and then that’s going to give the diagnosis. To get that surgical intervention you really need, right? So, we want that time to be really short. So we will discover that here’s a problem in healthcare, and then we will figure out what is the specific data that we need around that problem to build an AI model that might then be able to diagnose that you likely have an appendicitis, and then while you’re waiting those four hours, why don’t we just order the ultrasound, right? Why don’t we get the test done while you’re waiting? That’s research that we do. As kids right now, as we’re thinking through, how can we use AI and automated ordering potentially in a really precise way to advance care moving faster. But then you raised some really interesting. We could deploy that, and we’ve got really great perspective trial data that shows that this works really, really well, right. But here’s a really interesting point. How do we know that that model is going to perform equally depending on your language preference or depending on your gender or depending on your race? From my perspective as an emergency clinician, as an AI researcher at SickKids and as an innovator in the industry space. We must stand tall and proud and say to the public, here’s a solution that we’re deploying. Yes, you’re going to get that ultrasound way faster now. But it’s going to be fair regardless of what you look like, regardless of how old you are, what your gender is. And let’s say that there are areas where the performance slightly differs. We have to be transparent about that. So how do you do that? You need that data we can build the models off of the clinical data like the triage notes, the symptoms that people have, and we can build high performing models. But if I don’t know in that data set what your ethnicity is, I could never do the audit on the model to be able to say that. Yes, it truly is equitable. And so that’s a really key point of advocacy here is that if we just say ignore collecting that data, let’s just not even look at it. Let’s assume care is equal for everyone. Well, your initial premise was that care isn’t necessarily equal for everyone. We need that data to demonstrate where those deficiencies might lie for certain groups of people. And we also need that data to then really challenge the model and demonstrate that it is fair, or it isn’t fair, right? That transparency is needed. So that’s the thing that I advocate for deeply is around how do you create a regulatory landscape that promotes doing that, but then you can’t regulate something if there’s no data to then expect the innovator to be able to have access to do it right. And so it’s trying to merge these worlds together. And really this comes from like the patient perspective, we have to do this for our patients.

Hessie Jones

It just seems like an uphill battle like I know the way that the Canadian data landscape works. I know about health information custodians, who will die protecting that data. It’s not supposed to be shared. I mean that’s under the law. So how are you dealing with HIPAA Compliance and how are you trying to make them think differently from the perspective of patient outcomes? Are they receptive to rewriting or augmenting laws to be able to do that?

Devin Singh

Well, you know, it’s so powerful about healthcare is that when you drill down to that initial story that I told you about. Right. That’s really touching. Like this isn’t about circumventing laws and trying to figure out how do we just get something to market really fast this is. Think about trying to genuinely improve the way we provide care to patients and literally save lives like it’s written on their shirt here, transform, care, save lives. So, when you go into these meetings with privacy experts, regulatory experts, and you really galvanized support around like, this is why we were doing this. Yes, it’s an uphill battle. And it’s going to be an upper bound. I start off with these meetings. This is going to be challenging to work through, but remind ourselves why we’re doing it, right. We’re genuinely trying to improve the lives of Canadians in the healthcare system, right? A system that’s in crisis and overrun, and so that as a starting point, you’d be surprised, is incredibly powerful. Everything we do, it’s the kids, everything we do at hero AI all falls under the banner of being HIPAA compliant. It has to be right or else you’re breaking the law like it has to be. But you’d be surprised how people can help you navigate that complicated space when they’re genuinely motivated about trying to save a kid’s life because that’s really what this is all for, right? I never thought I would become a computer scientist by any means. Nor did I thought I would be at Collision trying to launch a new health tech company. But the real mode of is that case when that case happened, a fire ignited in me, and I said can’t be how healthcare in Canada is right now. It just can’t. And so, I am running up that hill really fast and we’re making the change to see these things happen.

Hessie Jones

OK, so what is your goal this year and what kind of hurdles have you run into and or have you kind of exceeded some of those hurdles?

Devin Singh

So all of those uphill battles that you were talking about around privacy, exploring like, what are the regulatory boundaries access to the data? Thankfully, we’ve run up that hill and we were now sort of at the top, being able to take a breath because we’ve got really great foundations in place. Like I said, we’ve done that patient stakeholder engagement to really, genuinely understand what their concerns are so that we respect that and now this year is all about deployment and impact. So, we’ve got models, for example, where if you’re a high-risk patient, I’m coming into sick, it’s the emergency department, whether it be a transplant. Or a cardiac issue. Our model will see if you’re waiting too long and flag that and send an alert to an app to make sure. You don’t wait too long, right? Something that someone said to me just earlier today was, you know, wait times are inconvenient for most people, but that’s often all it is. But for some people, wait, wait times is life and death. So, our algorithm is really detecting those people who really can’t wait and elevating them so that they get seen faster, right? We’re deploying that and the impact that we’re going to see from that is just incredible, right. We’ve also got a use case that we’re looking to deploy. It’s in beta testing right now around automating the advocacy for people with mental health issues. So now when a kiddo in a mental health crisis comes to our emergency department very soon. What will happen is, and if they’re in a real crisis, an automated alert will get sent to the psychiatry team. And that’s just the way technology saying, hey, there’s someone who needs your help. They haven’t yet seen the doctor, but why don’t you come down and begin providing that care? Think of how powerful that is with automation. Children with autism come into our emergency department. It can be really challenging to wait in a highly stimulating environment like the ED . We automate an alert to a child life specialist so that they can come and support that family during the process. Learning all through process automation all through that template of streaming health record data, decision logic, Rai algorithm and then output to a front end user interface right that that template allows us to just unlock the creativity and a lot of it you’ll see is like we’re just advocating for patients like using AI to advocate for patients’ need at massive scale, but that’s what’s so rewarding about all this.

Hessie Jones

That’s amazing. So I just want to tell you a really. Quick story before we wrap up my son. He was diagnosed with tonsillitis back in 2014. He was a little bit old to actually get the surgery because it would take much longer for him to recover, so we went through three specialists who all did not agree, one said make him get the surgery, the other one said. He’ll get over it. We took a third shot at a doctor at sick kids. And he said, yeah, just give him amoxicillin. It should be fine. So, seven years later, my son still has breathing problems. His tonsils are covering his airwaves. We finally gave him the surgery and it’s not only about the wait time. It’s about trying to make sure that the diagnosis is consistent, but also the remediation has to be consistent because if he had that, you know 7-8 years ago, it would have stopped a lot of the headaches that we. Experience today and his recovery time would been faster and he’d be able to breathe. And that’s the big, big part of it so.

Devin Singh

And and I know that those symptoms are so bothersome to kiddos, adults. I mean, imagine you as an adult, let alone a little kiddo. Right, so bothersome. But here’s where I’m hopeful in that exact story. Is that probably for 9 out of the 10 kids. Maybe it would have gotten better, and maybe that’s the experience that these clinicians encounter. But is there something unique about your son in this case where you’re right, maybe that decision should have been to do surgery faster. This is where this concept of precision medicine starts to come into play, right? How can we leverage AI? How can we leverage data and a precision medicine type framework to, you know what, actually, you should probably get the surgery earlier because it seems like according to this prediction, you might not respond in the way that everyone else typically does, right? That’s the promise of AI and healthcare right now, it’s definitely a major focus for the hospital. People at the kids and for a lot of these big research institutes around the world is pivoting from this one-size-fits-all type of medicine to a precision medicine framework is going to be incredibly revolutionary. And I’m so proud that Hero AI is trying to, like, bring that to the bedside and is contributing to that advancement in care.

Hessie Jones

Yeah, I I’m really happy that you’re here and I’m happy you’re contributing at a time when we have an aging population and our hospitals are probably going to be overfilled with those types of patients, so. Thank you for coming up today and I wish you luck, OK.

Devin Singh

Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it.

Bryan Duarte

So yes, he is right, I mean. People, I think we exist in this myth that all VC’s, you know, overall it’s performing well, it’s doing well. But if you go and dig into the numbers, what he’s saying is absolutely correct and it’s borne out. If you look at 2121, twenty 20/20/2022, there was a lot of money thrown in by. VC funds VC. Firms into startups without, in some cases doing a lot of diligence, and I think the number I saw this morning, if you discount for large investments into companies like open AI, it’s $88 billion in write downs that has happened over over the last year. So yes, overall. The the industry hasn’t performed that well and it’s it’s. Favoring the seller. Few and that’s why I think going into 2024, you’re going to see a lot more investor diligence, right, not only from investors themselves in, in the funds, but investors looking at who to invest into. So where you look at that from the startup perspective, it’s going to take longer. Before they get money put into. Because investors are going to hopefully be doing more diligence, I mean, I could speak for myself. One of the things. That we do. We actually start working with founders well before we’re ready to make an investment to understand who they are, what they’re doing, what they’re building, and can we help them? Can we help them be successful? We’re not one of those venture funds. Just put the money in and hope the company is going to be successful. I think the smarter investors are going to be working closely with the founders, whether it’s connecting them or their networks, providing them different expertise that they’re going to need along the way as their companies grow. But it’s going to take a lot more diligence from investors to to break that. Cycle, but it’s still probably will be those funds that are doing those sort of things that are going to be successful and from the startup perspective, it’s going to take time as I just said.

Hessie Jones

OK, so I assume that you’re the same way like you build relationships with founders earlier on, before you actually start investing, right? And I know this is this is one way to to minimize risk in the future because you you know that they have something there they you like their team. You’ve built your relationship with them overtime, but you you also say that and I want you to respond to that. But you also talked about the fact that 2023, despite it being a tough year for startups. Is that the fear induced by the overall decrease in in funding led to this natural selection process that you call entrepreneurial Darwinism? So can you expand on that?

Olga Cruz

Yes, of course, has its soul. First the dress. What the brand was saying 100%. We want to meet the founders even before they are starting to raise and develop that relationship. I think that even the process of building an investment memo, it’s a chance to see if you can trust this person to understand if you can work with them so. Definitely is a key part of the due diligence and the and how we build. Friendships and then back to your question about entrepreneurial Darwinism. So 2023 was certainly a year that impacted investor confidence. And I mean, you’ve probably seen that overall global funding decreased by 30%. Six year low, so definitely funders are paying way more conservative and valuations have been recalibrated. And I think that here what is really exciting now is that we get to see who are the founders that survive. So I don’t mean that it’s the law of the jungle and that everything can be justified, even going beyond business. Bit but what I’m trying to say is that it’s really exciting to see now who are the founders that survived based on the creativity they were. And and these are usually qualities that we see blended in the. For social entrepreneurs, because for them it’s about admission is not just something that they’re doing to get some money. For these founders, it’s about it’s part of their DNA. So you see that this. And you see how they’re actually building long term value and more sustainable business models. So I think that’s probably what we will see a bit more in 2024. In fact, I would say that January has been a month in which the founders that we’re meeting are actually not just providing the milestones and showing the traction, but also showing how they have been managing their cash flows, how. They’re going to reach break even, so those are some of the key differences that we’re seeing right now.

Hessie Jones

OK, thank you. And so Glenn, I’ve gone, I’ve gone gone on this panel because you you look at things a little bit differently from the founders perspective and so you you see how a lot of these outside forces are actually impacting companies internally within their teams. And within the organization so. What did 2023 look like for a lot of these founders and and you know, what do you see in terms of, you know, how how maybe some of them are fortunate than others? And did they behave differently and in in the last year or so?

Glenn Nishimura

Yeah. What a year it was. I can definitely tell you from a people perspective, the general mood was was similar to how most of us feel just before we go to the dentist, and that’s to say fear and worry. I saw a lot of team anxiety last year. It was definitely higher than usual. Not surprising. Given the fact that we had, as you mentioned before, layoff news on an almost daily basis, not just one or two key executives, but 50 people, one day, 100 people the next day, 200 the day after that entire companies folding. So it left a lot of people wondering, Oh my God, am I next. When’s the hammer going to fall? If I do stay, am I going to take on more work? I don’t get paid enough. Maybe I should brush up my resume just in case, you know. So that leads, it leads to a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of people. And I think culturally it. It soured what was otherwise a fun and very enjoyable place to work. I think the only people who probably who weren’t worried at all were the senior engineers and working in AI. You know, we’ve seen our salaries jump about 12% just in the last three months alone. So they’re sitting pretty. But yes, Founders definitely had it roughest, especially first time founders who hadn’t gone through this kind of thing before. 1 client of mine in Europe, he was contemplating with his Co founders, a third round of layoffs last year. And another client of mine in Singapore, they were they were pretty much choking up when we were talking about who was potentially on the chopping block and how they were going to actually break the news and handle all of those layoffs. So yeah, it was. It was a year that was very stressful and I think it’s a year that a lot of startup founders. Would rather soon forget.

Hessie Jones

Yeah, I don’t know it. It seems to be rolling over this year and I I think the one thing that I I want to point out and I I just listening to the news and then just watching the stuff that’s happening on Wall Street.

It it seems like there’s the layoffs happen and then because of a bottom line thing, they did meet specific goals. And then what we end up seeing probably in the next. Few months is that there are going to be people that will be rehired and.

Glenn Nishimura

Yeah, that’s. That’s unfortunately the ebbs and flows of the way this industry works, you know, so you know, not, not surprisingly, the fortunate ones who actually fared a little bit better than others. They were probably among the smartest. Because they were the ones who didn’t massively or needlessly over hire during the boom time. So they didn’t have to lay off as many people or go through as many rounds of layoffs as. Other people, and if they did lay people off, they managed to get away with doing it only once, even if it was an exceptionally large number, they only had to do it once, you know? They followed the old adage we have of cut once cut deep. Because if you have repeated layoffs, and especially if they’re very close together, it’s usually a good indication that the initial cuts weren’t. Deep enough.

Hessie Jones

Right, right. And and that’s the unfortunate thing is everything’s tied to certain metrics. And if you don’t hit those metrics then you know a fallout happens. So Brian, let me let me ask you this. You yourself see that maybe this could be a pivotal pivotal maybe year for generative? AI, or AI in general, we’re starting to see parts of it after, after last year, making slides within, like across industries for productivity, for content management. And now it’s starting to. To make its way like across organizations, how do you think in General AI will play out?

Bryan Duarte

In general. For one thing, it’s become a general buzzword. So everyone, everyone is following AI. Almost every single tech company I talked to has AI involved, so you part of it’s going to be. If I look at the investor perspective or even the consumer perspective. Doing a deep dive into truly what is AI for that particular company? Is it just some simple machine learning where they’re able to analyze a large data set or is there more depth to it? What is the data sets? What’s the model? So there’s a lot of components to AI, but it is definitely something that’s. Even when it is exploiting, I mean you’ve got companies out there that are using it for reasons to either lay off or not hire. Certain people, and we know that it can make better decisions you look at, say, doctors for example and the amount of times that they’re wrong, you know, but yet they don’t have exposure and individual doctor doesn’t have exposure to the latest techniques happening all the way around the world from in the space-time sustainability and clean tech. What’s the latest? What’s going on? So being able to use AI to analyze what’s happening in the different areas to be able to do predictions off of that analysis to fill in the gap? It’s going to be a crucial component and so the successful companies this year are going to be those that are able to exploit an AI’s capabilities, but also combine it with their own own own knowledge and their own way of putting it. Because I know you may have mentioned that, you know, general intelligence. You know or general is is on its way. I think that’s a long way away. I don’t see that as coming anytime soon. However, being able to be creative and that’s what we as human beings are good at. So being able to take that creativity and utilize the tools AI to me is just another tool. It’s no different than you know, when the Internet came to our capabilities. How can you use it? Those that can utilize use it, utilize it and make the best. Utilize are going to be doing the best, so definitely a key thing and understanding how to use it is going to be critical.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. So Olga, when we talk about, you know how perspective ventures make themselves a little bit more visible to investors, you talked about the importance of alignment. So what does what does this mean for you?

Olga Cruz

So as he when everything is going right, usually there is, there is very little friction between the cofounders. The relationship between the founders and the investors or the syndicate as a whole. But in the. Area of entrepreneurship. That’s not always the case, and they’re going to be ups and downs. And then when things start becoming a bit more challenging, that’s when you realize the need of having people. That are truly aligned with your goals with your long term vision. So at that point, you really want people by your side that agree with your values and that actually care about you. So, you know, founders need to truly understand what the strategy of their investors, what are their expected. Patients. If, for example, they’re expecting an exit in a couple of years and they just want to prioritize short term. Gains or if they can be more flexible because of that commitment to that long term goal. Also I think that sometimes founders don’t realize that they might get pushed in a certain direction. They might have to compromise some things that. Really matter to them, that’s just because that’s what investors want. So from the beginning, knowing how you’re gonna build a cup table and who you’re going to bring in is definitely key for the success of any venture. And the same thing applies within the same. Great. So one of the things that I have certainly learned over my career has been that bringing other investors that are also aligned to participate in the early stages of the venture. Definitely the risks, the investment, and one way you’re a little bit more. Yeah, you know that you have other people that can contribute with with following investments, but at the same time to what Brian was saying, if you know that they’re going to support the founders in different ways, they’re going to also introduce them to other people in their network. Then you can definitely. Expect better returns and better performance when you are bringing other people into the table that can contribute and that have that same vision. So that’s that’s one thing and then you were asking how to make the founders a bit more visible. I think that that’s when accelerators such as altitude play a key role. I actually participate in over the summer over several workshops and. Yeah, several cohorts that are supporting entrepreneurs. So that’s a key way how we can get to learn a little bit more about them. Usually it’s even better when you get to meet them through a process in which you are just like supporting them with their strategy with their your teams for example, and you get to know and build that relationship, you get to know them. Better and yeah, definitely later when they start racing then you can even accelerate the process and you have already learned a lot about them. And yeah that’s that’s one of the key things that.

Hessie Jones

I want to turn to to Glenn on this one, because Olga, you talked about, you know, ways that they can. Be more visible to investors and maybe things that they need to learn or or need to improve on. For programs, let’s say for accelerators, there’s so many of them out there, and we’ve actually noticed that we even within the accelerators. Case there is, there is a softening in the market in terms of the number of companies that are that are actually applying there are there are accelerators that are saying that we we’re not seeing the number of startups coming in for help like we used to. Do you see this as something? Off the list this year, the number of of they start up boundaries that might become a little bit more insular in 2024.

Glenn Nishimura

I I think that’s likely to continue. Yes, I think this is going to be a a year of conservatism still despite the fact that everyone is hoping for a better and brighter back half of this year. I think a lot of my startup founder clients, they’re hunkering down, they’re playing it, they’re playing it safe right now, so. I think this is still a good time to still get in touch with accelerators then and and have them help you, but I think a lot of them are still kind of taking a cautious optimism sort of perspective on on this year, but. I’m encouraging startup founders to just reach out and talk to people for for this year and see how they can maintain that momentum and still stay agile without necessarily going gangbusters and then finding themselves in trouble again.

Hessie Jones

Right. OK. Thank you, Brian. So clean tech is, is is actually growing a lot I think probably because we have so many problems we need to solve and we have to solve them pretty fast, right? Otherwise Mother Nature’s going to have to get us. But what do you think is in store for this sector? In 2024, especially with the potential softening in the investment.

Bryan Duarte

I mean there there’s a couple of aspects of that. The the good news for the clean tech sector is that governments still continue to put money towards them, you know, here in here in Canada, we’ve got, we’ve got different things. Hopefully the whole SDTC debacle. That’s all sorted out soon, and because that was a great source of funding for clean tech sustainability. Companies. However, there’s other initiatives that are out there. There’s a lot of different initiatives in the US and a lot of different foundations. So when you start talking about what else is available going out for foundation. So what I advise clean tech companies is put a plan in place, put a plan in place of where you want to go. And look towards what you’re solving. And where there may be a match, one of the best companies that we have, they’ve already mapped out well five years into the future, OK, we know we need VC type funding to cover off our operational costs. But because of the space we’re involved in, it’s going to take massive project costs to meet them. So what foundations? Institutions can can back them, so start mapping out of a plan and go looking what grants may be available to see there. So that is an exercise onto itself. And again, going back to what you’re Glenn was saying. Bringing in and it’s not, you know, yes, be conservative of what you’re doing, but do not ignore accelerators. Look to see what accelerators could be aligned that can help you with that mission. And I would say a lot of accelerators, there’s a lot of similar content. So really look and spend some time digging in when you’re looking at the seller who the people are in there. That can help you with that and and connect you to whether these grants and so on. Another big untapped area for clean tech. Is corporate funding a lot of corporations are looking to either decarbonize what they’re doing or to beef up their environmental initiatives. And So what corporations may align with what you’re doing, and that may be the source of funding, may be a source of customers. The best problem to solve is a problem that somebody already has. I mean, we know in this industry you’re either solving for product. Market fit you’re solving for team or you’re solving for scale and I for me, when I look at companies in the clean tech space, I want to make sure the team is the right to. So that’s the same thing that Olga was talking about. We were talking about before. There’s the teams, the values aligned or they have the right mentality. Framework. Are they coachable? So great that one’s in place, so that’s a definite thing for any type of company, including clean tech. Companies making sure that and now when you look at product market fit, if they’re looking at corporations and seeing what are corporations problems, what are the things out there that we can solve or how does that align with something. And our solution they can be a great source of funding as well as a great source for customers. So then the only thing you should be solving. Or is how to scale up and how do we reach the sizes that are needed to make that big impact that they’re looking for in the clean tech space? So a huge opportunity. To me it’s the. It’s a great space to be in and so much is going to be changing and coming and will be changing rapidly because yeah, mother nature’s not going to sit back and say, oh, that’s OK, we won’t worry about forest fires this year or floods or, you know, massive environmental disruption. And we we’ve caused it and it’s going to come at a faster pace so. Getting to those solutions quicker is what we need, OK?

Hessie Jones

Thank you, Olga. What do you think like what do you are there other opportunities within the clean tech space for founders this year?

Olga Cruz

Fascinating space and definitely we’re hoping that will come back, but you can already see that there are many older foundations that have committed to use their capital for clean tech. And I would say that maybe something that is improving is that before we would see more capital for like serious. The investments and I think that that’s changing a little bit and now it’s a bit more available for early stage founders. So it’s it’s definitely a great time for founders to start building in this space. It’s urgent. It’s where also more capital is coming in. We’re also seeing the well 2024 is going to be the first year in which the Social Finance Fund that is backed by the Government of Canada will start reaching the entrepreneurs as the fund the fund managers have started deploying their capital. So definitely it’s a space that it’s picking up. I was reading this morning the CDC report of 2023 and one of the things that they mentioned. Was that the top performing companies were actually the companies that were in the fintech space and space related to sustainability. So yeah, it’s a it’s a good place to be investing in.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. So, Glenn, I’m just going to touch on something that you said in an article you said with cheap money and high valuations, came the boundless optimism that the good times would never end. So what are the implications of this and the lessons that like boundaries this year can take with them?

Glenn Nishimura

I think in some cases the the biggest implication and arguably the most dangerous is simply the development of hubris. You know when you have easy access to capital and all of your friends and your family. Are are, you know. Saying that your company is worth some insane and unrealistic valuation, it’s very easy to start believing that you’re invincible, and that can start creating some very serious blind spots. So in terms of lessons, what I’m encouraging my founder clients to do this year are three things on the people. Point #1 don’t just work on your PMF, as Brian was saying. Work on your PCF, your people and culture fit because this is going to be foundational. To your growth, absolutely. #2 take care of your existing team. You know, especially if you’ve laid people off recently, you will find that morale is extremely fragile right now. So you have to stabilize and control any bleeding before you completely hemorrhage out. And if you’ve never done a stay interview before in your life, now is a great time to start. And once things do start to improve and we’re starting to get a sense of that right now. Don’t stop. Don’t stop caring. Don’t stop investing in your people because ideally you should be checking on the pulse of your people and how your culture is doing as frequently and as intently as you would your financials. I would love to see it have that same degree of emphasis and. Focus and 3rd don’t stop recruiting. You know, you don’t necessarily have to hire right now, but you have to keep looking. You have to keep talking to people. It’s absolutely imperative that you keep that talent pipeline full at all times because the worst time to start looking for people is when the economy turns around and everyone is fishing from the same. Pond as you. Are you know that’s way too late? You have to get your hooks in early.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. That’s actually a good segue into the. The next question because Olga had this this interesting quote about it being more important than ever to bring our humanity to work. And so this is what you said. Like you said, whether you call it stakeholder capitalism, conscious capitalism. Or some variation. This approach simply flows from bringing our whole selves to work, and organizations make better decisions when they make full full that they make room. Sorry for the full scope of people’s values, concerns and capacities. Can you expand a little bit on that? I want each of you to to kind of. Respond to what this means to you. Olga first.

Olga Cruz

So we’re often thought that we need to park or he wanted to work to our humanity. The door to the business but. What we’re hoping we can see this year is more people, more investors, more founders, bringing that humanity to work. You know, we have seen that individuals, businesses, society is where way more resilient that we thrive when we can operate from that place. From that place of, just like being kind, thinking about the people that is around us, that is working with us and expanding our sense of belongingness. You know when you do that, that’s when you’re actually empowered. When you’re taking more responsibility and on one hand it brings fulfilling. Sense to life, but at the same time, if you want to see it just from like a very rational perspective, it actually improves long term value as you’re improving all of your environmental, social and governance aspects. So regardless if you have an impact focus or. Not you still want to have at least a minimum threshold of these practices, and they’re very easy ways. How you can check on how you’re doing. One tool that I highly recommend is ESV. We see. So it’s a very simple assessment to just like check on how are you doing what’s happening with your team. Are you actually prioritizing their well-being? How is the diversity of the team? What’s happening with the oversight of the company? So it’s? Definitely something that just can’t be. Forgotten. And it’s something that is definitely gonna help us in this year to thrive US society.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. That’s very well said, Bryan. What do you think?

Bryan Duarte

I mean, what all they said was great. I mean it it it’s so key and so important I tell people all the time solving the climate crisis is not really a technological challenge. I mean, we have technological things to develop, but it’s a people. Knowledge. It’s about culture changing behavior. So all that starts inside of a company. You know, if you’re bringing your humanity, as Ola said, if you’re bringing yourself to work and you’re looking, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about why you’re solving this problem that will come across in how you solve the problem? So it it’s a, it’s a very critical component for me. You know, we go back to talking about values. One of the values that’s important to me. Is it is love and people, it’s not love in the romantic sense. You know, if you have love for the people you work with, if you have love for your customers, if you have love for the planet, you’re gonna make better decisions than if you are just chasing a dollar. So and and again in to me where we’re looking at having this big impact. Have an impact on the climate. All that has to come into play. Otherwise, if it’s just about the dollar or if you’re in a company about the next fundraise and not where the company is going for the. Future or or. Or the that big mission that you started off with? You’re you’re bound to fail in the end. You you may get a payoff as an individual, but why? You set out to do it will not carry forward if you don’t pay attention to all those humanity aspects of it. I mean all the couldn’t. Have said it better.

Glenn Nishimura

Yeah. Kudos to to Olga as well. I think she captured this perfectly because I’m really happy we’re talking about this essay, because this really is the backbone of the kind of culture that I want every startup to have. You know this level of vulnerability, empathy, open communication. This is what attracts the brightest minds to join your company over another company, right? It has nothing to do with gobs of equity or getting company T-shirts or unlimited cans of Red Bull. You know, this is really what attracts the brightest minds and. At particularly in this type of environment and atmosphere, it’s also what keeps those brightest minds from jumping ship when the going gets tough, it’s what keeps them in the game. But that said, you know, creating an environment like this is not easy. It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of focus. And I think a lot of startup founders. Just assume that it’s going to happen organically. It’s just going to happen by default. It’s going to happen overnight. I’ll just cross my fingers it. It can’t be. It doesn’t work that way. It has to be part of a deliberate plan that the entire company is committed to. And as I tell my startup founders, it has to be embedded in every practice and system that you have, particularly as it evolves around people. So stop hiring people based on experience and skills. Stop assuming that someone with 10 years of experience must be twice as fast, twice as smart, twice as skilled as someone with five years of experience. It doesn’t work that way. This is what we should be leading with. This is the kind of foot that we should be leading all of our hiring and interview questions and then everything else is just a nice add-on because if you don’t have this, you don’t have.

Hessie Jones

Thank you that that was amazing from all of you. I feel like we’ve covered so much. I’m going to ask one last question, but I I don’t know if there’s any more add to this. I’m going to ask it anyway. So from all your perspective, what should startups do this year differently? Given the economic outlook, and if you do have advice to to aspiring new founders, what would that be? So I’ll start with Olga.

Olga Cruz

So Brian was saying earlier that you feel the startups are solving for the same issues. So when we go through the lists of the the hundreds of companies that we have evaluated in the previous years and we see the reasons why we have passed, usually it comes to the same. One scale, so there are many. There are many advantages of building companies in Canada, but also even if you just think about the size of the population, that also results in sometimes limitations. To scale so one of the things that we usually encourage founders to do is to think beyond the Canadian borders and think when it’s possible. To, you know, like venture into the US to think about North America as a whole and to like from the very beginning, think how can they be, how can they build defensibility? Let’s one then the second one would be usually product market fit and I mean one, we know that resources might be limiting right now, but that’s when you have to be very resourceful about how you’re going to prove that traction. How you’re going to demonstrate that there is an appetite for your product, for your service and some of these things that I usually recommend is building wait lists, creating distribution agreements. Even like just making sure that you’re speaking to your customers, that you’re like Co developing the products and services with them, that’s already something that demonstrates that you are on the right way. So that’s something else. And then finally, back to your question. But what would we recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs? I would say that again. You know, like there has never been a better time to build a company that. That is mission driven. I would say that overall when it’s it’s urgent, we know that summer will come soon and we don’t want to see this forest fires. There are many challenges that we have right now. So there are many problems to solve. There but also. There is an increasing appetite from investors and yeah, we we definitely want to see the ecosystem growing and we have many advisors around willing to support these entrepreneurs. So certainly I would say take 2024 as a call to action and start building also from your heart on what are the things that can improve people’s lives that can truly improve environment.

Hessie Jones

Thank you and Bryan.

Bryan Duarte

Yes, there’s a a couple of things that I say startups should do in 2024. To me, one of them is diversify your team. You know, we we’re supporting underrepresented founders in the climate, tech, clean tech space and it’s not. Just because those are the ones that have been passed over haven’t got the investment, but we also see they tend to be more resilient if you’re not founder from anyone under underrepresented groups, you usually have to do more with less. So going into 2024, you know, or coming even going through 2023, those founders are the ones that I saw. You helped to stretch out the capital that was given for that. I think Glenn had said, you know, it’s not about going and looking what’s the next big capital raise, right? It’s how can you work with what you’ve had, make that stretch longer. So if you know, if you’re a small team, OK, maybe going and getting another team member is not necessarily the easiest, but you can diversify by looking at who do you reach out to as advisors. Who do you bring in and in the team that way? Because if they all either went to the same schools that you did or or or look like you did, they aren’t going to have one sort of perspective. So the more you can diversify your perspective and diversify your. Thought to me that that is one thing you should be looking at going into 2024. The other thing for aspiring founders is I love what Olga said leading from your heart and leading to solve a big problem that you’re passionate about or or passionate future, but also go and talk to customers. About it, before you build anything, I still remember one of the entrepreneurs I was mentoring her before. She had this great idea and what she wanted to do, but I just kept encouraging go out, talk to people, go talk to the potential customers for this product and relies as much as what she thought thought she was solving. It’s great there wasn’t a demand for it out there, so she pivoted and changed into something where there’s the demand. So even before you build anything as an aspiring founder, make sure you first talk to customers or potential customers and it’s easier than you think and see are people really willing to get this by it, you know, and it’s a. And it’s a bit of a challenge when you’re looking to disrupt something or disrupt an industry, but getting that good understanding before you go out and put a lot of time and effort into building something is key. And again, you know, speaking to, you know, accelerators like altitude can be really great and helping you get that.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. I like what you said thought about the the diversity angle because as you know, I’m sure you all know that there is a war on DEI right now, especially in big tech because. From their perspective, it’s the thing that’s slowing down progress and if they have to get, you know, representation and different perspectives. People, the people that normally make the decisions, it just frustrates them to to all hell. So let’s keep pushing for diversity in not in teams and as well as perspectives. OK. Finally, Glenn, what do? You think?

Glenn Nishimura

Agree totally. What everybody is saying. Thank you very much like groupthink is, is very dangerous, particularly for a growing startup. Yeah. First of all, I think when the economy and and all of its associated parts starts to improve, I would tell start up founders to not. Step on the gas and start hiring like crazy to make up for lost time. I believe it’s a misnomer that growth and success and the size of your team have a proportional relationship. They don’t. Small teams can accomplish some very big things and yet we are conditioned. Many startup founders are conditioned to think the larger the better. As you all know, a lot of startups bulked up over the last few years. They thought that they could execute better and execute faster if they had more people. But a lot of them were in for a nasty surprise when they realized that it was exactly the opposite. That these larger teams actually added friction, they actually added complexity, and the Founders realized that they didn’t have the leadership skills or the structure or the systems or the people and communication strategies that are necessary to underpin all of that growth. So and my last piece of advice for startup founders, regardless of whether it’s one person or two people or even an independent contract. Doctor, if you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to lay people off this year, and as we’ve been saying throughout this show for the you know, we’re two months in and we’re still seeing it continue. I would only ask that you please do it compassionately. I can. I can tell you horror stories of of some very impersonal and cold ways that people were laid off last year. And that’s not the way we should be doing it. That’s not the way we should be developing our our company brands and it’s not the way that we should be doing things as as human beings. So if you do have to lay people off, please do it respectfully. Please do it compassionately and also don’t just consider you know how much somebody earns or what their job performance is like or what their job title is when you’re deciding who to let go. Right. Think very carefully about each individual’s future potential. Think about who lives your vision and your values, and who actually contributes to the type of culture that you ultimately want to build. Because when all of this negativity and all of this economic downside begins to improve and we’re starting to see signs of that already. You need to have the very best people. Standing with you in order to rebuild.

Hessie Jones

Thank you. That on on that beautiful closing note. Thank you, Glenn. That’s all we have time for today. So I thank Brian, Glenn and Olga for joining us. If you want more details on on this topic, we actually wrote a beautiful article about is 2024. The Year of Investor Restraint. And startup resilience. It’s on our website, altitudeaccelerator.ca. I invite you to check it out. Also in in our audience. If you have any topics that you want us to cover, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us by e-mail communications@altitudeaccelerator.ca. Thank you again for joining us. And in the meantime, have fun. And stay safe.