Join us for this episode of the Business Decisions Podcast as we learn about the new entrepreneurship thought acquisition accelerator, Regenerative Capital Group with Cordell Jacks, the CEO, Co-Founder and General Partner of RCG.

The group provides capital, support, and training for entrepreneurs to acquire and grow existing businesses, and to put regenerative principles at the core of those businesses.

In September 2023, they are recruiting their first cohort of six entrepreneurs. We discuss regenerative business principles, the ETA model, and what led to the creation of RCG. Cordell shares some of the current challenges, the support they are looking for as well as the vision for the future of this accelerator.

It's an inspiring vision and a great opportunity for any entrepreneur who is interested in working with them.

Links:

Caravel Law - ⁠https://caravellaw.com/⁠

Regenerative Capital Group - https://www.regenerativecapitalgroup.com/

RCG Application - https://www.regenerativecapitalgroup.com/ceo-application

Host - Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music - The Box Jellys

Join us for this episode of the Business Decisions Podcast as we dive into the world of legal innovation with Monica Goyal, Director of Legal Innovation at Caravel Law.

Discover how advancements in AI and technology are reshaping the legal landscape with generative AI tools like ChatGPT leading to game-changing platforms like Harvey and Spellbook. Explore the intersection of law and technology, understand the evolving roles of private practice lawyers and in-house counsel, and gain insights into the potential and challenges of AI in the legal field. Don't miss this engaging discussion about the future of law practice and how AI is revolutionizing legal innovation.

Links:

Caravel Law - https://caravellaw.com/

Monica Goyal - https://caravellaw.com/lawyers/monica-goyal/

Harvey - https://www.harvey.ai/

Spellbook - https://www.spellbook.legal/

Host - Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music - The Box Jellys

How Bianca Carreiro Turned Her Natural Hair Journey into a Successful Business.

What does it take to create a unique and effective product for natural hair? How do you overcome the hurdles of launching a physical product line in a competitive market? How do you foster a sense of belonging and trust among your customers and followers? These are some of the questions that Bianca Carreiro, Founder and CEO of bia (⁠⁠shopbia.ca⁠⁠), answers in this episode of the Business Decisions podcast. Bianca shares her story of how she transformed her personal hair journey into a thriving business that helps others take care of themselves and embrace their own natural hair journey. She also reveals how she manages to juggle self-care and entrepreneurship, and how she leverages the power of community to grow her brand. Tune in to this episode to learn from Bianca's experience and insights as an entrepreneur.

Links:

bia - shopbia.ca

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

Links:

Neil Seeman - https://www.neilseeman.com/

Accelerated Minds - https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/product/accelerated-minds/

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

On this first episode of Season 2 of the Business Decisions podcast, we're joined by Jon Shell of Social Capital Partners, a non-profit organization that aims to advance economic opportunity and social inclusion by designing and implementing systemic ideas to tackle social problems. He is also part of the Steering committee for the Canadian Employee Ownership Coalition. We discuss what Employee Ownership Trusts are and why Jon and many others believe they can offer a win-win-win solution for business owners, employees, and society at large. We also talk about the benefits and challenges of EOTs, as well as the need for education, awareness, and policy support. Jon shares some examples of successful EOTs in other countries, including Taylor Guitars where Jon was involved, and what Canada can learn from them. He also reveals what was just announced in the recent federal budget here in Canada and how/why it fell short of what his organization was hoping for. Finally, he explains how big he thinks the opportunity could be in Canada if we take the right approach with EOTs, and the main steps and considerations involved. If you are curious about EOTs and how they can transform our economy and start to close the wealth-gap that exists in Canada, this episode is for you.

Links:

Social Capital Partners - www.socialcapitalpartners.ca

Canadian Employee Ownership Coalition - employee-ownership.ca

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

On this episode of the Business Decisions podcast, we're joined by Michael Maleszyk of Cold Brew Club, a new subscription service that delivers cold brew coffee direct to your home or office, where it can be enjoyed either hot or cold. It's made from ethically sourced, organic coffee beans and arrives cold in a convenient pouch that sits nicely on a shelf in your fridge. They tell their story here: https://coldbrewclub.ca/pages/our-story

Mike outlines why and how he started this business and how much work has gone into developing their product. We also talk through the challenges of launching a new business in the middle of the Covid-19 situation. On the one hand, people are at home and looking for good coffee solutions, which has helped build their subscriber base quickly. One the other hand, the logistics involved in getting the product to people's homes suddenly becomes much more difficult, and fundraising for a new business has some unique challenges right now.

Ultimately they were able to launch successfully and it's an inspiring story of overcoming obstacles to bring a really high quality product to market.

Links:

Cold Brew Club - https://coldbrewclub.ca/

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

This episode of the Business Decisions podcast is the audio recording of a recent webinar, Canadian Legal Requirements for COVID-19 Business Continuity & Workplace Safety, that was hosted by Angela Johnson, the Founder and President of Medical Confidence.

During the webinar, Dan Black of Caravel Law addresses how you can limit your risks as an employer as you re-open your business. What precautions should you take to protect your employees and customers? How can you use a tool like the My Health MaP’s Return To Workplace application from Medical Confidence to screen your employees and keep all of your employees and your workplace as safe as possible? 

Gillian Grossman walks through how the app works and the steps involved in screening your employees and handling employees with symptoms.

During the Q&A Dan addresses whether it is a breach of privacy to ask your employees if they have tested positive for Covid-19. Can an employee refuse to answer health-related questions? How do you handle an employee who requires accommodation because of potential medical issues? 

We hope you find the content helpful and appreciate our client, Medical Confidence allowing us to share it with you here.

You can watch the full webinar on the Medical Confidence website. Canadian Legal Requirements for COVID-19 Business Continuity & Workplace Safety

It's important to note that Dan Black is sharing his thoughts on general topics and questions and not anyone's specific business or legal situation. Nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered legal advice.

Links:

Webinar: https://medicalconfidence.com/webinar/canadian-legal-requirements-for-covid-19-business-continuity-workplace-safety/

Medical Confidence: https://medicalconfidence.com/

Caravel Law: https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

On this episode of the Business Decisions podcast, we're joined by Matt McQuillen, CEO & Co-Founder of Xello. Xello is an online program that helps students prepare and build a plan for life after school. It's been helping school boards and families for over 20 years and as Matt shares with us on the podcast, some of their current employees once used the platform as students.

Matt takes us through some of their history, including the process of re-naming the company and the origin of the name, Xello. We explore some of the challenges of connecting Xello directly to results, when the company's mission relates to helping students and exposing them to potential careers that they might not have considered before. You'll hear how passionate Matt and his team are about making a difference in the lives of these students and how that drives all of their decision-making as a company.

We recorded this episode in the middle of the Covid-19 situation, shortly after Xello announced that the Canadian Business Growth Fund had made a minority equity investment in the company, which was the first outside investment in the company's history. Matt spoke at a TechTO event in 2019 about the importance of bootstrapping to his company's success. We talk about how they made the decision to work with CBGF as well as what it was like to close a deal like this in the middle of a period of social isolation. 

Xello is a great Canadian success story and they have even bigger plans for the future. 

Links:

Xello - https://xello.world/en/

Matt McQuillen at TechTO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8twzSc0R2o

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

On this episode of the Business Decisions podcast, we're joined by Greg Ramsay, a corporate and commercial lawyer with Caravel Law, based in Calgary, Alberta.

During this episode, we discuss some of the current challenges that businesses are faced with, if business as usual is just not an option yet. We also get into why are some business are electing to remain closed, or to continue in a restricted manner right now, even if they do have the option to re-open.

Greg shares how some of the companies that he works with are using this time to become more innovative, and how others are thinking through contract negotiations as a way to reduce cost and lengthen their runways.

For companies that will need additional resources to survive and succeed, we cover some of the financing options that these companies are considering. How are banks evaluating businesses right now? How is the current situation affecting the terms applied to any loans? What happened to financing deals that were underway when Covid-19 arrived? We get into all of these questions during this episode.

It's important to note that Greg Ramsay is sharing his thoughts on general topics and questions and not anyone's specific business or legal situation. Nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered legal advice.

Links:

Government of Canada Covid-19 support - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Greg Ramsay - https://www.caravellaw.com/lawyers/greg-ramsay/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys

For this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Max Tremaine, Co-Founder and CEO of Sherpa. Sherpa helps people travel freely around the world by making it easy for people to identify and understand visa requirements, and providing a user-friendly, personalized eVisa experience. They have been around since 2015 and have quickly established themselves as a trusted partner for travelers, travel agents and airlines. Now they find themselves dealing with an almost complete shut down of the travel industry and I wanted to speak with Max to hear how he and his team were dealing with this huge shock to their business.

During this episode we hear how Max has approached the current situation and tried to see opportunities instead of just challenges. He describes how they have focused on speaking with their business partners, solving problems, and finding ways to help. There have been a number of articles recently about how travel might change going forward, so we also talk through how he's approaching planning for a wide range of potential outcomes. You'll hear how valuable it has been for Max to have experienced leaders as investors and advisors who have dealt with similar situations in the past. Max is a show host and active member of the TechTO community and that's been helpful during these tough times as well.

His thoughtful approach to building his business, growing his team and selecting his partners has really paid off now that he finds himself dealing with these challenges and planning for an uncertain future.

Links:

Sherpa - https://www.joinsherpa.com/

Max Tremaine - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxtremaine/

Caravel Law - https://www.caravellaw.com/

Host: Stuart Wood, Caravel Law

Theme Music: The Box Jellys