The Startup Different Podcast

Last week we spoke to Flowstate Coaching and Consulting, and Life By Design Lab Founder Rishi Behari. It was an awesome conversation about flow, going from what it is, to how to make it happen to the science behind it.

Today Chris and I deep dive into flow and cover some of the biggest data backed learnings from our conversation with Rishi. We also figure out our flow profiles and the answers might surprise you. Let’s get into flow - this is Startup Different.

Today on the program we have Flowstate Coaching and Consulting and Life By Design Lab Founder Rishi Behari. Rishi started these businesses in order to help others find joy and purpose in their lives and work. His coaching philosophy leverages powerful insights from cutting-edge neuroscience research to empower organizations and individuals alike to perform at their peak, while falling in love with the process on the way. Welcome to Startup Different.

Last week we spoke to Brooke Finlay about her business, Navio, and how it’s helping people get through the “gong-show” of immigration bureaucracy. While her business was definitely impressive and disruptive, it was her passion for impact and helping people that really impressed Chris and I. It’s truly a different startup.

This week, Chris and I go deep on impact, bureaucracy, and disruption - and on the data behind it all. Let’s get it. It’s Startup Different.

Brooke Finlay is an innovator, change maker and purpose- driven entrepreneur. She's a Canadian immigration expert and founder of Navio.

At Navio, they unlocking infinite possibilities of human potential to co-create a better world by making immigration legal services more affordable, transparent, and trustworthy.

Last week we spoke to Co-Founder and CEO Meti Basiri of ApplyBoard, a genuine unicorn. It was pretty cool - not gonna lie. And you know it was a live episode because I even got a little star-struck. What does one say to a paper billionaire?

For our show today, Chris and I deep dive into some of the biggest points made by Meti. Are 25% of all unicorns founded by immigrants? Is dealing with work colleagues the same if they also happen to be your brother? How common are unicorns anyway? All this and more on today’s episode of Startup Different.

For our first episode of Season 4 we met a unicorn. We weren't trippin', but there was a collision involved - the Collision Conference held in Toronto Canada this year. We interviewed ApplyBoard CEO Meti Basiri live at the show. 

Meti founded ApplyBoard with his two other brothers. After facing many challenges and obstacles on their own study abroad journeys, the Basiri brothers saw an opportunity to break down barriers and democratize education. Together they created ApplyBoard to make their dream to educate the world a reality. Now ApplyBoard is estimated to be worth over $4Billion. 

And we're off! It's season 4 of Startup Different.

In our fourth episode of the Big Data for Small Companies series, and the finale of season 3, Tom McDonell of HazTrack Inc. is here. Tom is the CEO at HazTrack Inc., an industrial IoT startup based in Calgary and Saskatoon. HazTrack helps Oil and Gas and Waste Management companies run their operations more efficiently with best-in-class hardware and software. He's here today and we're looking forward to going deep on data.

Everyone knows that business decisions are best informed by good data. But, when you're a small startup, good data is hard to come by, especially if your market is in its early stages of development. Enter the data brokers! You can just buy data about your market, and you'll be on your way to startup success... Because I'm sure all the data you buy will be super-accurate, right? Let's fire up the spreadsheets and talk about how buying data can help and hurt your startup!

Picture this: It's 9:45am on a Monday morning. You're gathered with your senior team, including your co-founder. You’ve got a big decision ahead of you and unfortunately you and your co-founder are at odds as to the best path forward. What do you do? 

Because you're a different leader, you lead your company by consensus, meaning that you need to convince your co-founder. No strong-arming, no voting and no name-calling; instead, you need to find and utilize data effectively to help show them the light. On today's episode, we go at how Chris and I would break our deadlocks by introducing data.

In the early days of many businesses, including ours, data is at a premium. You want to take a data-driven approach to decision making, but because of frankly low system usage, or a product that may not have a ton of data you're at a loss as to how to "find" data.

But data is important. Having a healthy feedback loop with material data sets is crucial to your success. In episode 9 of season 3, and the first episode of our "Big Data for Small Companies" series, we tackle how to find data and build feedback loops for your nascent product.