CanInnovate

Speaker Bio:

GLENN O'FARRELL, ICD.D, is a digital-innovation-driving CEO in the Canadian media industry. Glenn doesn’t think inside or outside – he thinks without a box. Glenn uses the power of new technology, creative partnerships, and international reach to transform traditional media into relevant, influential, high-traffic global platforms. He instinctively embraces the power and value of diversity. He consistently challenges the status quo to improve and grow outcomes for stakeholders.

A native of St-Malachie, Québec, Glenn is a technology enthusiast, runner, amateur singer-songwriter and inveterate fan of the Montréal Canadiens. He studied economics, law, business and corporate governance at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Université Laval in Québec City, Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. and at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is a member of the Québec Bar, Canadian Bar Association and Institute of Corporate Directors. Glenn is a frequent keynote speaker, panelist and contributing thought leader on digital media in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and Europe.

In his current role as CEO of Groupe Média TFO, a public educational media enterprise located in Toronto, Glenn has led TFO’s transformation from a small-scale minority-language community broadcaster to one of the world’s leading digital providers of French language educational content – with an aggregate global audience of several hundred million across an array of innovative media platforms. Under his leadership, TFO developed and launched industry-leading, immersive virtual reality production studios to create new digital generations of educational content. In its dynamic new form, TFO has become an international educational content distributor/exporter. As well as leading TFO as its CEO, Glenn has also served as Executive Producer of films, television series, and award-winning educational digital content series.

Episode Overview:

Groupe Média TFO was originally a television channel. It was offering French-language educational programming across a whole spectrum of offerings from the very young to middle age to the older student population in a manner that was all about giving French language learners in Ontario an opportunity to have access to media content to help them in their learning journey.

About six years ago, Glenn and his team were tasked to basically turn it around from being a traditional classical analog media service into something that would very much embraced the digital opportunities.

Today, Groupe Media TFO launched itself into a new culture of being a digital media enterprise with all the educational content intact. They are helping promote content for the Francophones not just in Canada but across the globe where the French language is being used.

 

What You’ll learn in this episode:

• We would love to do more but we have limited means. Although we are getting developing access to new funding platforms and funding sources as we make our product available to new places, but we still have modest means, so we must make choices at the end of the day and where we try to make our choices is where we think we can have the most strategic impact on the journey.
• TFO and Industry, Custom Co-production formulations for Television and Internet, TV Broadcast, Internet Broadcast, Financing and distribution of content, acquisition, and development of content.
• There's no reason why anybody should stop dreaming about things that are important to us. learn from the things where you don't succeed. Learn from those failures.
• Canada has a great educational brand internationally. People look at Canada and say, these people have a strong credential.
• Learning in one of Canada's official languages and happens to be the minority language.
• Try to do a lot of reading early in the morning as a personal habit
• Keeping your eye open on as many of the breaking trends as you can.
• There have been studies across the world that have proven when children learn a second language or third language, no matter what it is, they are increasing their capabilities in a whole bunch of different ways.

 

Resources Mentioned

Book: Whiplash

Book: The Four by Scott Galloway

Book: The Master Switch by Tim Wu

Website: MIT Media Lab

Website: French Web

Website: World Economic Forum

Website: IDELLO

Website: Group Media TFO

Restaurant: La Buche Restaurant

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennofarrell/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlennOFarrell

 

Company Overview:

Groupe Média TFO is a must-see destination for audiences seeking innovative educational and cultural content in French. It offers stimulating experiences and recognized content, at the forefront of digital learning. Proud of his public heritage, he celebrates the French fact in Ontario and elsewhere.

Speaker Bios:

Sam Kawtharani spent Over 10 years in product development, strategy, and marketplace lending. Previous Head of Product at IOU Financial (Startup to IPO, TSX:IOU). Contributed to $500+ million in small business originations. Current Advisor at Lend Mart and Fundica. Member of the Product Beta Committee at Founders Beta. Holds a master’s degree in Quality Systems Engineering from Concordia University.

Derek Manuge was formally educated as a mathematician but have an active interest in a broad number of subjects, namely finance, statistics (machine learning), programming, physics, software engineering, automation, IoT, the blockchain, and other innovative technologies. He works as a quantitative consultant, where his focus is providing model development, model validation, and quantitative advisory services for financial institutions.

 

Episode Overview:

Sam Kawtharani and Derek Manuge build Corl with the strong sense of making it easy for companies to access fast, fairly priced, and entrepreneur-friendly growth capital while providing investors with greater peace of mind. They have launched the idea as a Hassle-free and without giving up equity. By merging a previously under-utilized and innovative investment structure with the strength of blockchain, they are proud to provide founder friendly growth capital to help entrepreneurs and investors reach their strategic and financial objectives.

Sam and Derek’s contrasting backgrounds molds a fluid partnership that allows them to incorporate their expertise better than most partners we have ever seen. They work so well, and they embraced their differences with the respect that only they both possessed. It’s awesome and magnetic. Their energy and enthusiasm further prove to us why Corl is what it is today.

Enjoy listening and be amazed at how these two worked wonders on Crowdfunding by tapping into the world of the blockchain.

What you will learn in this episode:

• There is a lot of things going on in Canada, go out there and network
• Pivot is what's going to push your product forward.
• How a government can potentially tax at source using the blockchain technology.
• There is a worldwide business model for credit and banking that we take for granted.
• How to make the most out of the blockchain model.
• Highlighting Steve Jobs’ Philosophy – Build it, they’ll come.
• Understand the gap in the market.
• How work-life balance and meditation can help you focus.
• People are criticizing your product, or your idea doesn't mean they're few or your product is bad.

Resources Mentioned:

Productivity tool: Slack

Influences: Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs

Programs: Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP)

Book: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

Hotspots: City of Montreal

Hotspots: City of Toronto

Website: www.corl.io

Twitter: @getcorl

Email: [email protected]

 

Company Overview:

Corl’s philosophy is simple, entrepreneurs should have access to the capital they need to successfully grow their businesses at their own pace. We like to consider ourselves as your long-term partner. We establish a relationship with your business. That’s why we call it Capital-as-a-Service; making capital available to companies as and when they need it. At Corl we know that when the interests of entrepreneurs and investors are aligned, that’s when true growth begins.

 

Speaker Bio:

Bobby McDonald is born and raised in Stouffville, Ontario. He spent four years studying at McGill University, worked in finance and software sales before starting Parlay full time in early 2017.

Episode Overview:

Parlay is an education technology tool with a simple goal. It is to reintroduce discussions into the classroom in a modern 21st century way. This helps teachers encourage students to have meaningful, measurable and inclusive discussions.

Parlay was conceptualized when Bobby and a close friend were looking around. Bobby was studying business, his friend was studying politics, and they ask themselves why we are not having conversations about the events and ideas that are shaping our world in the world of business and politics. It's not like they were studying theoretical physics or anything. These were things that had real tangible, real-world consequences and real-world events and ideas that they could draw upon and there was none of that in the classroom and the existing discussions that did happen in the classroom were on old cumbersome discussion thread style forums that the students were not engaging and none of them really enjoyed it.

So, there was a clear lack of discussion in the classroom and there's a lack of connectivity to the real world. There's a lot of students who ask themselves, why am I learning this? And they had been doing that pretty much throughout all our education. So, from those two simple and common problems. The original idea for parlay was born. It's taken many different twists and turns.

Bobby also talks about the Increasing polarization and Increase in technology specifically social media which makes everyone more isolated which is termed, Eco chamber.

The government would be wise to create a program that connects aspiring and tech entrepreneurs with teachers, students and classroom. Sit those two together to investigate their ideas. Canada can be a huge hotbed for educational technology.

Teaching the young generation to actively seek out different opinions can make them be thoughtful and humble contributors to our society.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Teaching the young generation to actively seek out different opinions can make them be thoughtful and humble contributors to our society.
• How his habit of no electronics past 10 pm has helped him focus. He doesn’t want to be stuck on the screen before bed.
• Find a way to inexpensively have as many people as possible experience what your product will do before you ever spend money on the line of code.
• At some point, you’re just going to have to pull the trigger. It’s never going to be comfortable but follow your gut.
• Follow your gut, pull the trigger and never look back.
• Start interviewing your customers or potential customers
• Don’t spend money until you absolutely have to.
• If you can meet with triumph and disaster, treat those impostors just the same
• Confidence is important, but honesty goes a long long way.
• Never underestimate the power of honesty.
• Doing some mockups, some hi-fidelity mockup walkthroughs to start your business.

 

Resources Mentioned:

Wireframing Tool: Balsamiq

Customer Messaging Tool: Intercom

Entrepreneurship Programs: OCE Smart Start Program

This is Water Commencement Speech – Kenyon College Class of 2005 by David Foster Wallace

Poem: If by Victorian Stoic Poet named Rudyard Kipling

Startup Launch Program -  Founders Institute

Startup Community: DMZ Startup Community

Hotspot: City of Montreal

Twitter: @parlayideas

Facebook: @parlayideas

Email: [email protected]

 

Company Overview:

Parlay is for any teacher that wants students to engage in substantive conversations. Typically, this starts in Middle School and continues right through to the end of one’s education. Sometimes Literature teachers use Parlay RoundTables to discuss books. Sometimes Science teachers use Parlay to discuss the morality of gene augmentation. Sometimes Politics teachers use Parlay to host mock debates. Sometimes History teachers use Parlay to peer review theses. Wherever students can learn through discussion, Parlay can be found.

 

 

 

 

Speaker Bio:

Laila Paszti is an attorney in GTC’s Mergers & Acquisitions, Business & Technology Transactions and Privacy groups. She focuses on mergers and acquisitions, licensing and other technology-related transactions, with an emphasis on software code audits and big data platform diligence. She also advises clients on privacy and security compliance  and cross-border transfers of data. Prior to joining GTC, Laila was a member of the IP, Technology, Food & Drug Regulatory, and Payment & Cards practice groups at Torys LLP. Before law school, she held positions as a software applications engineer at ExxonMobil and Capstone Technology where she designed and implemented machine learning (AI) software solutions to optimize industrial processes. Laila holds a B.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto, a M.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a J.D. from the University of Toronto, where she was a law review editor. She is admitted to practice in New York and Ontario (Canada).  Laila is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (Canada) (CIPP/C).

Episode Overview:

Laila shares her expertise in helping us understand the very principles of blockchain on how it will transform our lives and how it's going to do this. It will also change the way we interact with the database and the way we do business. It is a shared database with entries that cryptographically linked and that gives it one of its core powers that it's immutable, it doesn't change.

She also talks about the importance of privacy, security, and how blockchain can help with the anti-money laundering legislation. Utilizing open source software

She reminds us that blockchain is a code. Eventually, you want to either sell that code and obtain more money so you can grow your business. People are going to look at your asset and wanting to know how much it's valued and if you have the wrong type of open source code, which requires you to maybe distribute part of your software for free, that's not going to make your investors very happy.

What you will learn in this episode:

• When everything becomes so complex and constantly changing, remind yourself, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
• Planning your day the night before, so when you get up in the morning you hit the ground running!
• Get comfortable with math because it’s the middleman in the system.
• Look at patent strategy. patents are very neat way to secure your investment in your technology. This is my technology. You're not allowed to use it without a license. And you know, ultimately that helps you get a better price or get better investment.
• Internet took us parkway and I think the blockchain will take us the rest of the way.
• Bitcoin is skyrocketing, but we need to be talking about issues like the self-sovereign identity that the 2 Billion unbanked people in the world and how we can open up new markets to include these people in the economy.
• You have to multitask because there's only so many hours in the day, but you have to keep up with the pace of technology.

 

Resources Mentioned:

Productivity Tool: Excel

Productivity Tool: Slack

Productivity Tool: Trello

Book: Building Blockchain Projects

Hotspots: French River

Website: GTC Law Group

LinkedIn: Laila Paszti

Email: [email protected];

 

Company Overview:

GTC was founded in 2002 on the belief that the traditional law firm model should be redefined in order to attract the most innovative legal minds and truly partner with clients. We created a distinctly different firm, organized to be as efficient and nimble as the growth enterprises we serve.

 

Speaker Bio:

Alain Goubau who is the Co founder and COO and CFO of Farmlead an online grain marketplace were farmers and grain buyers can buy and sell any type of green. Alain, also has extensive project management and operations experience as a field engineer throughout Europe and Asia and as a co-founder at Alta Arrows, energy's a telecom infrastructure startup based in Boston. He's also previously worked with Mckinsey and company in the agribusiness team and of course, Alain, who was also raised on a farm in eastern Ontario.

Episode Overview:

Farmlead makes the grain trade easier than the way it, traditionally, was. It is a business to business marketplace where buyers and sellers can list what they're either looking to buy or sell, negotiate with each other, come to terms and then manage transactions. Offering innovative procedures to make grain trade as efficient and easy as possible, Farmlead makes a lot of sense because it is a tool that would help sellers connect with the potential buyers for the grain they’re trying to sell.

 

FarmLead brings together thousands of grain sellers and credit-checked buyers, online. Watchlists allow you to immediately receive notifications when a grain you are looking to buy or sell gets listed. This creates more opportunity for your offer. It puts you ahead of your usual market whether you are selling or buying. This mobile app offers to provide exclusive market research, price visibility, grain testing, reduced brokerage fees and risks at the tip of your fingers. This app marketplace can save you time, money and energy.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Making sure you stay close to your customers is very important.
• Discovery is part of the equation. Not always knowing what lies ahead or what to do is part of the equation
• Learning to really have the discipline or be able to realize faster that you're in one of those situations and pull yourself back when you're tempted to either hire someone that isn't exactly right or to make excuses for someone that just isn't fitting for whatever reason
• Doing things that don't scale when you're trying to change the way an industry approaches things.
• Eat your own dog food, which has we stopped the entire company for a full hour for once a month and everyone gets on our mobile apps are the web version of our application and tries to buy and sell Grit.
• Alain mentioned one of Bill Gates’ quote “Customers that don't like your product or that aren't happy are the ones that learned, that teaches you the most about your product.”

Resources Mentioned:

Book: 7 habits of highly effective people

Facebook: FarmLead

Twitter: @thegoubs

Twitter: @FarmLead

LinkedIn: Alain Goubau

Website: FarmLead

Delight: Maples and making Maple Syrup on his hometown of Ontario.

Overview of the Company:

FarmLead aims to facilitate greater equality, efficiency and transparency in grain marketing. Our online grain marketplace allows farmers to find more buyers and identify the best possible deal, while grain buyers easily access and identify the grain for sale in their desired location.

Bio:

Steven Looi is a serial entrepreneur with experience in IT, urban agriculture, and retail. A flexible and adaptable operator with extensive industry network and product expertise. He has a track record of deploying his creativity and innovation in disruptive industries. Steven has created new companies in both Canada and China, ranging from a video game, art outsourcing, to soil-less food production, to pharmacy patient management systems. He has worked security for a hip-hop group, The Roots, received a Parliamentary Award for his urban farm, and is a Provincial shot-put champion. Outside the office, Steven’s interests include technology, web culture, sustainable agriculture, personal growth, and development. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Manitoba, and an MBA from Schulich School of Business.

Episode Overview:

As North America continues to expand into additional legal medical and adult-use cannabis jurisdictions, there is a huge gap between growing demand and limited supply, estimated in the billions of dollars. This opportunity is very bright for Canada as a Global Leader in Growing Cannabis.

In this episode, Steven Looi sheds light on what is going on in Canada’s Cannabis Industry and its importance in the global market. He shares the coming legislation processes and the excitement of having pot delivered right in front of your doorstep. It’s a crazy idea but with the government’s support and the right companies, we are heading in that direction.

Cannabis has a lot of applications and uses. It can help with anxiety, mental health, PTSD & Brain Conditions, Pain Management & relief, cancer and diseases, and many more. There are lots of innovations, software applications, and services as well as a booming economic sector that comes along with it. Companies are tapping into the potential of Cannabis and Canada is a world leader in terms of distribution and other technological breakthroughs.

What you will learn in the episode:

• Opportunities for Cannabis after legislation in Canada
• How the current regulation works in Canada regarding recreational pot
• The difference between the regulation of Pot in Canada and in the US.
• What innovations are made with pot now that pharmaceuticals are involved
• How the black market plays a key role in working out the right market structure
• How to eliminate the black market’s role in the industry
• How government plays a huge role in distribution and legislation
• How Canada plays an important role in the global market
• What “Cottaging” in Canada means
• What programs are being offered by the government of Canada to help startups
• Showing Determination and tenacity - It’s the guy that’s still standing wins
• Guarding against burn out and making sure you have balance because it’s a marathon, not a sprint
• Talking to everybody when you can and learning as much as you can.
• Taking advantage of the free software that’s out there.

Tools:

• Headspace – meditation app
• Google Suite
• Slack
• Gimp - as an alternative to Photoshop
• Sleep Apps
• Book: The Ecology of Commerce – Paul Hawken
• Restaurant: The Golden Court Abalone Restaurant – Ontario
• Restaurant: Tulip Steakhouse
• Instagram: @bakingwithsteve
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: http://whitesheepcorp.com/

Company Overview:

White Sheep is operating both medical and adult-use cannabis companies in multiple jurisdictions and investing in a wide range of industry leaders that support the cultivation, processing, and consumption of the highest quality cannabis products.

 

Speaker Bio:

We are really honored today to have Dr. Chris Mckillop. She really knows her stuff and as a pioneer in her field. She earned her degree in artificial intelligence in the 1990's. She have an MSc in human centered computer systems, a PhD in educational technology and she, of course, have researched and published tons of articles on emotional dimensions of learning. She has a long record of pioneering technological innovations to improve learning. Chris is really passionate about artificial intelligence, empathy and how it can help improve people's lives. She incorporated her first company Turalt when she was 50 and is proud to be an older woman in tech advancing A.I. for the good.

Episode Overview:

Dr. McKillop explains to us what Turalt means. Turalt stands for, hero of ours, Alan Turing. “TUR” is Turing, “AL” stands for Alan then tweak the “T” on the end because Alt is very computerish and he basically gave us the foundations of artificial intelligence. Most people know about Alan Turing is from the imitation game and of people who understand what the Turing Test is. An interesting thing about the turing test is really all about what qualities of text-based communication would show, but you're actually speaking to a human being rather than a machine and that is empathy.

A good way of describing email personality is looking at how you approach your natural tendencies and how you approach writing emails and how you perceive the tone of other people's emails. So this gives you some fundamental understanding into what your email skills are and what you are doing. What we've also done is we have a plug-in that sits within your email system and that will give you real time feedback on your email. So it will show you how assertive you're being, how empathic you're being, and will look at the tone of it, clarity of it, how long it is. All those elements that we know from our own research and from the scientific research that has actually gone on before cause miscommunication and we can make predictions about what markers are going to potentially cause miscommunication. So that is like a real time as you're typing out your email to help you and help you get the clarity of your message across and to help you get the correct tone across to minimize that communication breakdown.

Part of the frustration about the communication in the workplace is Email. Email is certainly a big problem. We are getting so much email. We're spending about a quarter of our day on email communication and although companies abroad in other channels like slack, this email use is actually still growing three percent a year now. It is assured that more adoption of millennials and younger generations who are going away from email will at some point start reducing.

Communication is really problematic. Based on statistics, we are spending a quarter of our day on email communication. 64% of employees have actually sent or received an email causing anger or resentment. It's a real problem and so much time is being lost. 300 Billion is lost annually in lost productivity from email alone. Now, some of that, we are getting a lot of spam. We've got to filter all our email, but a lot of that is the miscommunication and if we were much clearer in our communication and the tone was being perceived and if the message being preceded is correct then that is all going to be reduced.

What you’ll learn in his episode:

• How Chris ended up in Canada from West Coast of Scotland.
• How Chris and her co-founder turned their communication frustrations into a business.
• How Turalt was launched
• Billions of dollars are being lost due to miscommunications.
• Turalt analyzes your email personality without looking at your emails.
• How Turalt developed their Email Psychometric
• Minimizing communication breakdowns from emails
• Why sensitivity and awareness of the mental state is important in the workplace.
• Workplace stress can impact on workplace mental health issues.
• Mistrust can impact other people the negative kind of way.
• How empathy must be present at the heart of every communication
• How Chris manages to get over her impostor syndrome
• Having an obsessive post it notes habit can make one productive.
• How to take time to switch off  

 

Quotes:

• When people have been very successful they forget the little things and how they overcome those little things.
• Talk to people at all stages
• Look at the big picture
• Do something that you are passionate about.
• People. Empathy. Communication
• Life is too short. Don’t be afraid and go for it.

Productivity Tool:

• Sticky Notes
• To do list
• Pocket - https://getpocket.com/explore/productivity
• Slack - https://slack.com/
• Book: Barking up the wrong tree – Eric Barker
• Restaurant – Fresh https://freshrestaurants.ca/
• Email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @atscmc
• Twitter: @Turalt

Overview of the Company:

Turalt believes empathy is at the heart of our communication, and that technology can help us be more effective in increasing our empathy and emotional intelligence in the digital world. Our mission is to use our ‘technology of empathy’ to help humans be more human online. Our passion is to make the world a more empathic place.

 

 

Zac Young is a Co-Founder and COO of H2nanO, providing next generation water treatment solutions for hard-to-treat contaminants. He is a Loran Scholar, former team member of nanotechnology start-ups Nicoya Life sciences and Alchemy, and Nanotechnology Engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo.

Globally and even here in Canada water is becoming more and more stressed resource and we need to become better stewards of managing both its quality as well as its supply.

"Figure out what your company really stands for and stands to do"

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How H2NanO is using sunlight to create purified water
• The importance of trying to hone in on what is the immediate thing to solve
• Why engaging customers early is key to success in a business
• Getting your Bill Gates cup of clean water moment
• How to focus on what really matters during the start of the day

"Don’t bite more than what you can chew"

Resources Mentioned:

• Tools: www.slack.com
• Books: The hard thing about hard things – Ben Horowitz
• Books: Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
• Podcast: 99 Percent Invisible
• Website: www.h2nano.ca
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/H2nanO
• Article: Researchers find new, inexpensive way to clean water from oil sands production
• Article: Researchers developing nanoparticles to purify water
• Article: CTV Kitchener: Nanotechnology
• Article: Bloomberg 2018 Global Innovation Index Study  

Key Habits

Find time in the morning to sit down and think about what it is I’m working that day, that week and that month.

Get back on track where you can have days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months pretty quickly if you’re not diligent about filtering out what is the need to get done versus the not necessary components.

Favorite Hotspots:  Kitchener Waterloo, Canada

Share the podcast with your friends & family.  And of course,  please leave a review and nominate a Canadian Innovator. You can also join our CanInnovate Facebook page!

Best Always,

Sapna

 

 

Rona Birenbaum, co-founder of Viviplan and the winner for the 2017 DMZ BMO FinTech Accelerator. She is also the founder of Caring for Clients, one of Canada’s first fee for service financial planning firms. She is also recognized as a wealth professional woman of influence in 2017. A financial columnist for the Medico Post.

Viviplan offers technology to help speed up the financial planning for every stage in life, from early career to early mid-life to pre-retirement, retirement and other goals.  Can turn those dreams, hopes and visions, into reality.  All you need is a little planning to achieve your life goals!

What you will learn in this episode:

• You are the reflection of who you surround yourself with
• How slow & steady wins the race
• Conservative estimations in your business & life matters
• Financial reflections are important at every stage of our lives from early career, early mid-life, pre-retirement and retirement
• Design your future
• Vision boards can become financial reality

Tools and Media Mentioned:

• Podcast: Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale
• Podcast: Gary Vaynerchuck
• Podcast: Philosophize This
• Recommended Sites: Harvard Business Review
• Tools: Slack
• Tools: Trello
• Productivity Tool: Pomodoro Technique
• Restaurant: Carisma Restaurant
• Email: [email protected]

Viviplan is a business built to serve a very particular need. To deliver affordable, high-quality and trustworthy financial planning for Canadians by Canadians.

Share the podcast with your friends & family. You can also hear the CanInnovate podcast on iTunes, GooglePlay, Stitcher, SoundCloud, TuneIn Radio, Podbean, YouTube and Spotify

And of course,  please leave a review and nominate a Canadian Innovator. You can also join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/CanInnovateh/

Email us at: [email protected]

Beth Deshpande is the CEO of Soma Detect. She is a scientist turned entrepreneur who is providing dairy farmers with information that they need in order to produce the best milk.

 

She is from New Brunswick which have a great startup communities. It is very interesting how she end up becoming the CEO of one of the promising startups in agriculture when she didn’t grew in a farm and knew nothing about agriculture. She also mentioned that her father played an important role in the creation of the company and how her conversations with dairy farmers led her to find ways to improve their industry.

 

She also has insights on how entrepreneurship is not a sprint but a marathon. Startups are Calculus not statistics. There are lots of things she shed light on being an entrepreneur and making your own decisions to further what drives your business.

 

Find out on this episode - Ep13: SomaDetect is Innovation that makes the impossible possible.

 

What you’ll learn in this episode is:

 

• Entrepreneurship is a marathon not a sprint.
• Startups are calculus not statistics
• When you are startup, it really doesn’t matter what the average is. It’s about your own decisions and your own numbers. That’s what drives your business.
• The precise amount of number is so much important than the average.
• There is a better milk in every cow at every milking.

 

Resources Mentioned:

 

• Book: How F*cked Up Is Your Management?: An uncomfortable conversation about modern leadership by Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale
• Trello - www.trello.com
• Slack - www.slack.com
• Restaurant - Chess Piece Patisserie, City of Fredericton, @chesspiececafe
• Twitter: @SomaDetect
• Website: www.somadetect.com