Flagship Podcast

On this week’s show, we spoke with Etienne Plourde, Co-Founder & CEO @ WeCook

After 6 years of experience in advertising and cold calling management, Etienne launched Nutrition Fit Plus in 2013. It was the first major player in the healthy prepared meals industry in Canada. They have developed a profitable business exceeding 9 figures over the years with an innovative and targeted advertising strategy. In December 2019, they drastically accelerated the growth of the company by renaming it WeCook. In the following 24 months, WeCook grew from 60 employees to 700 to keep up with the increase in revenue of more than 900%.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• Changing consumer habits when it comes to nutrition
• Building a prepared meal company over 10 years
• Scaling customer acquisition and operations
• Delivering 4M meals last year 
• Focusing on organic growth before raising money 
• His vision of being the Canadian leader in the market

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Raphael Steinman, Co-CEO & Founder @ Maxa 

Raphael has spent the last 20 years building 3 enterprise data software companies serving medium to large organizations across North America. He is the Co-CEO and founder of Maxa, a SaaS AI data automation layer that enables businesses to get more answers and better BI from their ERP and core data systems - at warp speed.

He also advises business leaders and entrepreneurs about harnessing data to stimulate and develop a companies’ full potential.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• The state of ERPs today
• Building the next generation ERP and system of record 
• Solving a massive pain point for businesses
• How they built a conceptual language to create predictive analytics 
• The big vision of building a platform and automating manpower 

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Marc-André Campagna, CEO & Co-Founder @ Oxio. Marc-André Campagna is from Baie-Comeau, Quebec and iis the CEO and co-founder of oxio. After helping his parents move and set up their internet, it sparked his interest in developing a more affordable internet provider that put Canadians’ needs first. This led him to drop out of Law School at Laval University to start Oxio along with his friend Francis Careau.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• The state of the telco oligopoly in Canada 
• How the lack of competition is reflected in the market
• Founding Oxio and his bold vision 
• Raising his Series A from Xavier Neel, Founder of Free and Kima Ventures
• Expanding beyond Canada and using software to develop a new business model 
• Building a culture of radical transparency

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Danny Angers, Co-Founder & EVP, Chief Growth Officer @ Vosker. 

Danny is the Chief Growth Officer and a Co-founder and board member of VOSKER. An experienced business developer, his corporate development and interpersonal skills has led to significant growth opportunities across various technological sector.

Pulling knowledge and strength from over ten years of experience as a specialist business developer and go-to-market strategist, Danny’s truest passion and values lies in pursuing bold ideas whilst supporting and leading disruptive technologies throughout the globe.

On this week’s show, we spoke with Nadia Ladak, Co-Founder @ Marlow.

Nadia Ladak is passionate about contributing to the start-up ecosystem and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. She is the founder of Marlow, a menstrual health brand that has created the first-ever lubricated tampon delivered through a direct-to-consumer subscription model. Beyond the product, the team is taking a community-driven approach to reduce the stigma around menstrual health through education and conversations. The brand has been featured in a variety of publications including Global News, Betakit, Canadian Living, The Kit, FemTech Insider, Vancouver Sun, and more. Nadia led the team's fundraising strategy and raised a $500,000 pre-seed round and obtained $100,000 in non-dilutive grants. She is a Canadian delegate at the upcoming G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance summit where she will contribute to international policy regarding entrepreneurship and is also the Ontario representative on the Startup Canada Women Advocacy Network where she participates in government roundtables to advocate for female founders. Prior to Marlow, Nadia worked at KPMG in management consulting and at TELUS Digital in digital strategy. She graduated from the Ivey Business School as an Ivey Scholar (top 10% of her class) and was recently recognized as one of Canada's Top 30 under 30 leaders by Bay Street Bull. Nadia is committed to giving back to her community through her role as a fundraising catalyst at Holland Bloorview Children's Hospital and as a mentor for the Junior Achievement Company Program where she provides weekly coaching to high school students as they operate their own small businesses.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• Overcoming the stigma of women’s health
• Building new distribution models
• How they innovated in their product
• Innovating with TikTok as a marketing channel 
• Giving advice to young entrepreneurs

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Alex Shee, Vice-President Corporate Development & Strategy @ Sama.

Alex is an executive at Sama that leads Corporate Development and Strategy. He is working on building an AI business ecosystem around Sama's platform. His role encompasses Partnerships, Corporate Development and Go-To-Market strategy. He was previously the Head of Partnerships and Corporate Development at Element AI (exited to ServiceNow | NYSE: NOW) where he opened and grew the business in Asia, signed major strategic partnerships and led the team that raised Element AI's C$200M Series B. He was also the host of Element AI's #1 rated podcast "The AI Element" which explores the biggest issues and toughest questions in artificial intelligence. He was also recently selected as one of top 250 upcoming leaders in Canada by the Governor General of Canada (equivalent of Presidential Award), one of the top 4 business development and sales leaders in tech by Floodgates in their Annual Anchor List and 2021 "Power Player" by The Peak.

We spoke about:

• Sama’s mission and their double bottom line
• How their model allows them to peak into the future of AI 
• Creating access to the digital economy for people in difficult situations
• Being a high growth startup and using technology as a force for good
• Alex’s personal journey from Element AI to Sama

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Bradley Smith, CEO & Founder @ Haleo Health.

HALEO is a healthcare provider with a mission to improve health and performance by increasing access to quality care for poor sleep. Our virtual specialty care clinic provides professional, clinically proven solutions for sleep disorders and is accessible through a mobile app. Our services help organizations increase productivity, safety and retention by helping their employees sleep better. Our vision is to provide significantly improved quality of care and clinical outcomes for millions of people worldwide experiencing sleep disorders. We are achieving this by developing novel, clinically proven personalized treatment protocols administered by healthcare professionals, supported by AI and delivered cost-effectively and at scale using a virtual care model.

We spoke about: 

• The state of sleep today 
• How their virtual care model improves patient outcomes 
• Innovating on their business model to become mobile
• Building a subscription model 
• Raising a round and their growth ambitions

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Jason Dominique, Co-Founder & CEO @ Embr

Known for his relentless determination and contagious passion for innovation at a global scale, Jason spent the better part of the last decade in the Montreal Startup Ecosystem helping advance its international reach. As a seasoned entrepreneur and innovation leader, Jason is currently focussed on building Embr, a Web3-enabled startup that empowers innovators with the tools and know-how to ignite the future of economic opportunity.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• The state of crypto today 
• Immutability, ownership and trustless benefits of blockchains
• Building a startup despite the extreme volatility of the space
• Going from ideation to launch with a crypto project 
• His vision for Embr and building the application layer for decentralized projects

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Annick Charbonneau, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Accelia Capital.

A serial tech entrepreneur, Annick Charbonneau has founded and managed two tech companies over the past decade. A fervent promoter of the presence of women in entrepreneurship, in 2021 she launched Accelia Capital, a venture capital fund whose mission is to invest in innovative companies, owned or led by women. At over $50M, it is one of the most important venture capital funds to propel female entrepreneurship in North America. Accelia Capital invests in Quebec or Canadian start-ups and other early stage companies.

A graduate in International Business from Pepperdine University in California, Annick also holds a certificate in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy from MIT Sloan School of Management. She is a passionate traveler and enjoys skiing, cycling, and running.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• Empowering the next generation of female entrepreneurs
• Having 20 successful women as LPs
• Accelia Capital’s investment thesis 
• Getting more women as GPs in venture capital

Annick is well on her way to building a world-class venture capital firm and she shared some great insights.

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On this week’s show, we spoke with Martin Gourdeau, President & General Manager @ Gsoft.

Martin is a strategy and technology executive with over 18 years experience building high performance teams within a wide range of industries. Before joining GSoft, Martin co-founded PNR, a boutique management consulting firm specialized in corporate strategy and M&A. The firm experienced 100% YoY growth it's first four years of operation, and successfully brought to market a proprietary strategic planning methodology and platform. Prior to PNR, Martin was VP Operations at Global Eagle Entertainment, the world leader in in-flight entertainment. In his role Martin led a significant restructuring and post-M&A initiative to optimize resources, lower attrition and significantly improve bottom line results. Previously, Martin took the lead as head of operations at nventive: a mobile applications agency working with marquee clients such as Expedia, Yelp and Bloomberg. During his tenure, the company grew from 15 to 100+ employees in 18 months. In 2004, he joined Electronic Arts in a technology role, and eventually transitioned to Director of Operations for the new world class game development studio. The studio scaled from 30 employees to more than 800 over a span of 7 years. Before EA, Martin began his professional journey as an IT consultant in the special effects and super-computing space.

On the show, we spoke about: 

• Remove friction from the employee experience
• How the pandemic accelerated their business
• Focusing on product and having a product led growth strategy 
• State of the markets and macroeconomic headwinds 

Martin is a seasoned executive with a tremendous amount of experience and insights on building world-class products

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