Flagship Podcast

This week’s guest is Andy Mauro, CEO @ Automat.ai. Automat.ai is a conversational marketing platform that uses AI to allow companies to have personalized one-on-one messaging conversations with their customers to better understand them and help find the products and services they care about. The cofounders and team collectively have over 50 years experience and 17 patents in the fields of speech recognition, natural language understanding, virtual assistants and AI. Automat has received investments from Relay and Real Ventures, the Slackbot fund, USAA, Comcast Ventures and You & Mr Jones.

He’s obsessed with improving the state of the art and wants to help create a world where technology lets us have conversations that are impossible today.

We had a great conversation about conversational marketing and chatbots. We spoke about:

• His path to becoming an entrepreneur and founding Automat
• The current hype cycle around conversational marketing
• How he thinks about strategy for Automat
• The important question of market timing
• Where he sees the opportunities for growth and how the big platform players are not the only ones that will win.

Andy is a technical founder that can also simply explain his vision and where he wants to take this company. I learned a ton about conversational marketing, I hope that you enjoy the conversation.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we had the pleasure of speaking with Parisa Foster, President @ Play The Future. Parisa Foster is Co-Founder and President of Play The Future, a mobile prediction game and brand engagement platform, where she has blended her entrepreneurial drive and wide-ranging experience. A pioneer in the mobile space, Parisa started with business intelligence roles at Airborne Mobile, one of Canada’s first mobile startups. She then joined the first Mobile & API team at Yellow Pages Group, transformed digital at Just For Laughs, and worked as a consultant for a number of international clients. Before co-founding Play The Future, Parisa was the VP Marketing & Business Development at Budge, a leading mobile game studio.

On the episode, we spoke about:

• The origin story of the Play The Future and her co-founder Andy Nulman
• Parisa’s career path to becoming an entrepreneur
• Play The Future’s priorities and how they intend to grow
• Her focus on moving beyond being a mobile app
• The mobile industry and how it’s taken over the world

It was a real pleasure to speak with Parisa. She’s building an innovative company in the heart of Montreal. I hope that you enjoy the conversation

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Eric Brassard, CEO @ Propulse Analytics

Eric Brassard has over 25 years of deep and practical experience in predictive analytics applied to marketing. Working for large organizations such as, Rogers, Saks 5th Avenue, Avon and Bell Aliant, and taking on responsibilities for growing revenue very early in his career. Several years ago, he became a tech entrepreneur and founded Woozworld a virtual world for kids and, in less than 3 years, made it into one of the world’s largest with over 20 million users from over 80 countries, again by centering its strategy around data. More recently, Eric launched Propulse Analytics, an AI based predictive analytics company that allows e-commerce and brick and mortar retailers to systematically identify and serve their customers what they are looking for by uniquely analyzing their tastes as well as their multi-platform shopping behavior, leading to increases in both sales and repeat purchases.

On the show, we spoke about:

• Eric’s path from the corporate world to becoming an entrepreneur
• What is takes to succeed as a tech CEO
• His new startup Propulse Analytics that is looking to revolutionize the world of product recommendations.
• His growth plans for Propulse and how he plans to succeed
• What is happening in the retail sector and how multi-channel retailers can succeed in an increasingly ecommerce world

Eric is a seasoned pro and it was great to chat with someone who also has deep technical expertise. I hope that you enjoy the conversation.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Jeffrey Dungen, CEO @ Reely Active. Jeff is an engineer turned CEO. Jeff has leveraged his engineering skills and technological insights to create a novel sensor network platform. He secured an initial client and turned the prototype into a product. He then incorporated with two co-founders and successfully completed the FounderFuel accelerator in 2012.

We had great conversation about all things IOT and his startup.

• How the IOT has evolved over the past few years
• The hype cycle for IOT
• The largest opportunities according to Jeff (hint: Minority Report)
• Massive potential left to be realized
• The focus on tenacity and capital
• Relevant links to check out: Reely Active Blog, SillyActive, YouTube channel, Instagram

This was our first in person interview. I’d love your feedback on the format.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with David Dufresne, Partner @ 500 Startups

David is a senior executive, entrepreneur and investor, with CEO and VP-level experience and network in the venture capital, software, web and music industries. He’s passionate about innovation, entrepreneurs, business models, music, arts, and crazy ideas that might just work. Currently, he’s consulting and advising different startups, tech companies and funds.

We spoke about

• 500 startups’ global footprint
• Why entrepreneurs work with them (hint: it’s all about the network)
• What they look for in startups
• Why David chose to come back to Venture Capital?
• His productive work time
• What excites him the most about his work

We had a great conversation about 500 startups and his past life as a CEO in the music space. If you’re interested in the fast paced startup work, I hope that you enjoy the show!

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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This week’s guest is Frederic Guarino, founder @ VR Valley. This episode is a trial of something I’m calling the Debate Series. Fred and I decided to openly debate a few subjects notably the monopoly of the larger tech firms as well as the future of VR.

Frédéric is the co-founder of Montréal’s VR Valley Network, an inter-industry professional group whose mission is to develop business opportunities between large corporations and startups in the VR space, with a current focus on healthcare and life sciences. He is the co-organizer with MUTEK of Montréal’s VR Salons. Frédéric is also a VR strategist for brands and large corporations and a startup advisor/mentor, affiliated with the CFC’s IDEABOOST accelerator. Frédéric writes for the Canada Media Fund’s Trends blog, the HuffingtonPost and is the editor of the Mediaquake.co blog. 

Here’s what we spoke about

• GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) and the trust bust era
• Facebook and Snapchat battle
• The potential of VR – AR
• Live stream medical operations – Medical Realities
• D-Box Technologies
• Vrvana’s work with single headsets in VR
• Fred’s VrValley project
• Mediaquake.co – Fred’s media news site on Medium

I had fun chatting with Fred, he’s super smart in so many areas. What did you think of the format? Would you want to see more of these types of conversations?

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Jeremi Lavoie, managing director at Car2Go

Montreal.

Jérémi has been managing director at car2go since the establishment of the company in Montreal in May 2013. He began his career as a lawyer in the Attorney General's office in Quebec and then worked in the wind industry. Driven by innovation and urban changes, he continued his studies in order to obtain his MBA at HEC Montréal to finally work on the development of the practical and modern car-sharing service on the island. With ever more impressive technological developments, car2go is a pillar of environmentally friendly urban development.

On the show, we spoke about:

• The improvements car2go is making to its fleet
• Measuring the economic impact of car2go
• The notion of competition and battling the status quo
• Why Jérémi left the legal world to jump into the tech space
• Self-driving cars (of course)

If you are interested in the future of transportation, I highly recommend listening to this conversation with Jeremi.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with JF Marcoux , Managing Partner @ White Star Capital. Jean-Francois has 20 years of experience in managing start-ups and investment projects. He was the co-founder of Ludia which was acquired in late 2010 by Fremantle Media, a leading global TV producer. Prior to co-founding Ludia, JF held senior positions in mergers and acquisitions, financing and venture capital.

We spoke about

• WhiteStar’s global approach and how they help their portfolio
• Why not focusing on Silicon Valley makes sense
• JF’s insistence on focusing on fewer opportunities but going deep
• They were an early investor in Dollar Shave Club #InstantCredility
• Their Medium blog
• Companies in their portfolio worth checking out Freshly, KeyMe, Mnubo

White Star Capital flies a bit below the radar but they have a darn impressive track record. I really enjoyed this conversation and learned a lot from a great investor.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Alexandre Pelletier, CEO @ Perkuto. Alex is a successful entrepreneur with over 15 years experience in technology start-ups and marketing. He’s led teams, playing major roles in inbound marketing, lead management and product management. Alex is a PNR client and someone I consider a friend.

We have a great convo about:

• The marketing automation space and how it’s evolving.
• How Perkuto has managed to get clients from outside of Quebec
• The future of the marketing automation space
• Why AI will play a big rol in marketing
• His most productive times of the week

Alex is a consummate professional working at a high growth company. If you are interested in the marketing space, please listen to the conversation.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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On this week’s episode, we spoke with Claude Theoret, CEO @ Nexalogy. Claude founded Nexalogy in 2006 with the goal of bringing social discovery to everyone.

Before Nexalogy Claude did his postdoctoral work at the Collège de France with the HESS collaboration, where he co-published two papers in Nature and one in Science. After a second postdoctoral fellowship, he was professor of physics and statistics at the American University in Paris.

Nexalogy’s software filters through the clutter of social media environments to identify and analyze the key actors, themes, and ideas that are most important to a user’s online activities. This approach provides valuable strategic intelligence about the opinions, trends, stakeholders, and the other actors affecting a company’s brand.

On the show, we spoke about:

• How Claude went from being a renowned astrophysicist to a tech entrepreneur
• Nexalogy’s ambitions and growth
• Open vs. closed data in social media platforms
• His unique presentation style on Slideshare based on chalk
• The Nexalogy insights blog
• What Claude keeps his eye on in the social media space; hint it’s called machine learning.
• His most productive time of the week on Sunday evenings

Not too many people can claim to be astrophysicists; Claude is indeed a super smart guy. I learned a ton from talking to him. I hope that you do as well.

Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at [email protected]

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