This special episode is the third of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures.

This talk was presented by Calla Lee (https://www.linkedin.com/in/callalee) and is titled "Tinder"

*Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned Futurist, speaker, researcher, and author Nikolas Badminton. (https://nikolasbadminton.com/)

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:27

Welcome back to this the 27th episode of the start well podcast. As always, I'm your host start Will's founder and CEO Qasim Virjee. And for this special episode, we've got the third talk that was presented a dark futures y, y, z in our event space on King Street West in downtown Toronto. This talk is about Tinder, and it was presented by calla Lee.

Calla Lee 0:57

Hi, everyone, this is good. Alright, so Tinder, it's a pretty loaded topic. And I'm gonna say whether you've actually used it or not, it's kind of undeniable that Tinder has actually changed the way that we actually meet people and the way we date and how we interact with each other even. So when Tinder first launched, it launched with an algorithm that was actually called the ELO rating system. So if you've never used Tinder, it basically means that if you, it serves you up a stream of people. And if you like them, you swipe right. And if you don't, and if you don't like them, you swipe left to Nope. And then basically, if two people swipe right on each other, it's a match. And it's really that simple. But it's actually underneath that stream of people that get where it gets really interesting and complex. So this ELO rating system, it's actually the same system that they use to rank chess players with. So basically, so what you see in that stream of people are a collection of people who have all received a similar number of swipe rights as you have. So the kind of cluster you and what they call groups of that are based around your desirability score. So that was our first algorithm. And their second algorithm actually launched earlier this year. So they basically said that, now that they have enough sufficient data, they can actually start writing their own algorithm. So their new one will adjust the potential matches you see, each and every time your profile is liked, or note. And any changes to that order of your potential matches are reflected within 24 hours or so. So what does this basically tell us? It basically tells us that within 24 hours, like, it'll basically keep turning, and it'll keep collecting data on you. So Tinder cubed, what we're actually looking for is, will one day Tinder be able to actually tell us if, based on two dimensional experiences, so all the things that make us look really great on paper? Will those actually translate into three dimensional, long lasting human interactions?

Calla Lee 3:16

So we actually have all the things that we need today to actually say, Yeah, Tinder can do that. And there's actually four things, I'm going to walk you through those right now. So the first one is actually big data. It's kind of everywhere. And it's this invisible layer that just captures everything that we do. So whether it's how long you what words, you search for it, the places you go, the people you meet, how long you spend taking selfies, how long what you purchase, and how frequently you purchase them, you name it, we actually track that. So one of the best examples that I know is actually the time that target was actually able to figure out that a teenage girl was pregnant before her father did. And the way they did that is they took they took a look at the data and they said, What do expectant mothers purchase and they were actually able to figure that out. So once you figure that out, then you're basically at a

This special episode is the second of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures.

This talk was presented by Oksana Andreiuk (https://canadianbiohacker.com/) and is titled "You're already a cyborg and it's about to get weirder."

*Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned Futurist, speaker, researcher, and author Nikolas Badminton. (https://nikolasbadminton.com/)

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:18

Welcome back to this the 26th episode of the stairwell podcast. As always, I'm your host, Qasim Virjee, the CEO and founder of start well, and this episode is special. We have the second talk that was presented at dark futures y, y, z as part of a miniseries that we're broadcasting over the internet on iTunes and Spotify. I hope you enjoy it. It's a talk by Oksana and Dre, who has graced our stage at start well before talking about biohacking. This time, her title talk is you are already a cyborg, and it's about to get weirder.

Oksana Andreiuk 1:00

Thanks, everyone. So I'm so excited to be talking to you today. First one up to tell you about the fact that hey, you're a cyborg, and it's about to get weirder a little bit about myself and my background is in genetics and biotechnology. I also founded the first and largest biohacking longevity group in Toronto. So if you're interested in more talks like this, check out the group or follow me on instagram Canadian bio hacker where I share my personal biohacking tips, my learnings and product reviews. So without further ado, are we ready to hear about the super convergence of technologies? Yes, we're gonna talk about what's gonna happen when genetic biotechnology and AI collide. So some of you will think, you know, some of these things are so far out there, it's not gonna happen within my generation. I don't need to worry about this. But truth be told science fiction 15 years ago is possible today with products like stem cells, growing livers in pigs, and pacemakers. Simple enough. 15 years ago, that was a wild idea. Just this year earlier, a human got electrodes implanted in his brain along with a few other people in the clinical trial to test how we can reduce the effects of Parkinson's disease. So there are going to be humans walking around with electrodes in their brain soon. Again, this is Toronto's very own Rob Spence, who is a documentary filmmaker. This is from 2011. This is a while ago, almost 10 years ago, we had a person actually implanted bionic camera eyeball, into his eye, or in place of his eye. And earlier this year, again, another man who was blind actually got a real bionic eye that's connected to his brain that allowed him to see the world. What's next, scientists are working on injecting US soldiers to allow them to have night vision. Now we're getting really bionic, because this is going beyond the what's normal for humans to have right. Now, those are all medical, clinical procedures, they seem a little while they're more on the medical side. What can we do as consumers though? Are there any products out there? Yes, we're starting to see more and more consumer products hitting the market that allow us to surpass our natural human capabilities, products like Halo, neuro sport. So this is a tool in the fitness realm of things. So if you're into fitness, you might be interested in something like this. So this device actually puts an electrical current into your brain into the areas that have to do with muscle memory, that allow you to train more effectively. So if it conjures up memories of, you know, 60s, scary neuro psychology experiments of electro shocking people and patients, well, now there are products on the market that allow you to do this to yourself, but safely. So you may be thinking, you know, those are a

This special episode is the first of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures.

This talk was presented by Geoff Snack, a strategist at the Toronto design and experience agency JAM3, and is titled "New materiality Things that don't exist"

*Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned Futurist, speaker, researcher, and author Nikolas Badminton. (https://nikolasbadminton.com/)

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:11

Welcome back to this the 25th episode of the start well podcast. As always, I am your host Qasim Virjee, the founder and CEO of start well. And for the next five episodes, we've got something very special. They comprise the talks that were presented live in our event space on King Street in downtown Toronto as part of a series that roams the world and happens annually hosted by a chap named Nicholas badminton. Nicholas is a member of start well, and he's a globally renowned futurist advisor and author who works with everyone from trillion dollar companies to investment funds, progressive governments, and an organization's in between to shift their mindsets from what is to what if he essentially develops foresight for his clients. And the outputs of that are things like increased revenue, reduced risk, and global impact. So very interesting guy who's brought very interesting speakers to our stage. And for this, the first episode that we're broadcasting of dark futures Y, Y, Z recorded on November 28 2019, we've got a talk by Jeff snack, and the title is new materiality, things that don't exist.

Geoff Snack 1:36

Everybody, yeah, is this good? Awesome. Um, so many good talks earlier, everybody's so smart. Um, so this is a deck for talking about the future of things. My name is Jeff. So I do strategy UX. I also work in education. And I'm also like, just a pretty enthusiastic guy. I love stuff, like I love. I like buying stuff. And I like collecting. So that's the thing I do. And then in addition to that, I fund that habit by working at digital and experience agency called jam three jam threes in the building today. Whoo. That's true. And then I also teach at OCAD. I teach a fourth year illustration course in digital media, so I teach them how to use the internet, for better or worse. And I'm also doing a little bit of work for OCAD small business incubator called CO. So that's me. Um, do you guys remember this billboard campaign by the musical artist, Kanye West? No, um, this was a tweet that Kanye did. And he kind of mocked up this billboard campaign, the billboard like doesn't actually exist. And the album itself doesn't really exist in this form. Then this tweet was kind of put out to eventually Jandi became Jesus's King, sort of, as we all know, with Kanye West, and like the future of albums like he has been changing the tracklist of his albums, and iterating on them, because they all exist digitally. This blue vinyl release does not exist yet. Um, this sucks. But this is a political straw. So the Trump campaign is actually charging $15 for these straws as kind of like they're called trigger straws. Because that's what people sometimes spend their time doing. But the point of this is that this straw is not made for drinking at all, like this is a political straw. And it's more gestural than it is for actually consuming, consuming your beverage or also consuming things like you are buying this as a gesture. And that sucks. Come at me, it's probably not gonna go to market, at least not the way it looks right now. And then there's fortnight. I don't know a lot about fortnight, but I know you can buy like digital uniforms and stuff in there. And it's like, made 3.3 billion I think last year. So anyways, like, none of these things actually exist in the real world as we see them, like even that trumps s

In this studio session we sit down with Matt Cohen, the Managing Partner of Ripple Ventures which is a Toronto based early stage venture fund focused on B2B software.

Ripple takes a hands-on approach to enabling the success of the companies which they invest in and Matt explains not only why its important to him but also how Ripple has created a platform that helps their portfolio through providing space, access to health benefits, unique networking and educational experiences and more.

Matt also introduces the Ripple Fellowship - a program they've developed to educate the next generation of venture capitalists and startup founders alike.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:04

I'm Qasim, the founder of start welling for this, the 24th episode of our podcast, we're in studio with Matt Cohen, one of the co founders of ripple ventures. So why ripple ventures? Yeah, so

Matt Cohen 0:17

I, I started ripple ventures really just on my own. After I made my first angel investment in 2012, and a company called turnstile, which I helped start with a couple friends, which was really just my first experience in the early stage tech startup scene. And what I saw through that experience was that a small amount of capital large for me, but a small amount of capital in the grand scheme of things, had such profound impacts on people's lives, the people that ended up working there, the people that ended up moving to San Francisco after the company got acquired by Yelp, and watching the ripples of that first investment spread throughout so many people's lives. And the impact it had was quite profound on me, and I just had this thing about the ripple effect, the ripple effect, always coming back in my mind. And so I decided that if I was ever going to start a fund, I wanted to have it called ripple. And I will say, Yeah, I did just acquire ripple ventures.com, the domain name and for some reason that feels really

Qasim Virjee 1:15

who had that, who was was it a squatter? It fell by from an auction.

Matt Cohen 1:19

Yeah, bought it through an auction actually didn't even know was for sale, one of our portfolio companies sent me a message like, hey, ripple, calm or ripple, ventures.com is available, you should buy it, oh my god, it's gonna cost me like hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And it was definitely not it was quite cheap. And we just put a bid in and we bought it. So now we own.com and.ca. And it feels like it's come full circle.

Qasim Virjee 1:39

Fantastic. Wow, we're done the podcast that's over. So no, I like that idea of kind of thinking larger than just the capital injection being the focus and ROI, you know, as a fund operator, I think, well, I guess let's, let's jump into that. I won't preload this, I'll just say, you know, life as an operator of a fund, a fund that, yes, has ventures in it, you know, as a quote unquote, VC fund, but it's very personal, from what I understand. Sure. Tell us a little bit about the personality of your fund, and how it extends into the relationships that you've forged with the investi companies. Sure.

Matt Cohen 2:14

So when I started the fund in early 2018, I had the idea that I didn't want to just invest in companies like an angel, I wanted to work alongside my company's because I thought that that was the best way for me to learn how to become a better investor and operator, but also give my companies the best chances of success. And so in order to execute on that, I actually partnered up with my partner now, who is Michael Garbe, who is also a former operator himself had run his own tech business for almost 20 years, he had about 100 employees, 50 million sales exited it to a US public company. So he had been through the operator experience as well. And I felt that at the early stage VC w

A frank discussion between Business of Cannabis' Jay Rosenthal and Tricia Lackey, Superette's Director of Brand Experience, relating issues being faced by retailers of Cannabis in Ontario.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:07

Welcome back to this the 23rd episode of the start well podcast recorded live on November 21 2019. In our events based in downtown Toronto, this live conversation focused on retailing cannabis in Ontario. This is the the second installment of start well speaker series that is focused on the emerging cannabis economy here in Canada, and one of many such sessions, where we try to raise stage to diverse and authentic entrepreneurial experiences. For those of you who are unfamiliar with start well, this campus is spread between three buildings. Here in downtown Toronto is King West neighborhood, combining Office meeting and event space. Our members who we call our community come together for happier work days filled with opportunity and serendipity. If you're here as a guest tonight and not a regular member start well. Or if you're listening to a recording of this talk, I encourage you to look through start with CO that's our website and come back shedule a tour and you can enjoy a cappuccino in our complimentary espresso bar, which you may have seen in the adjacent building at the main front entrance and tour this lovely place where we think you could do your life's work with a team that you love. Okay, so let's learn a little bit about these two wonderful people that are on our little stage here tonight. For retailing cannabis in Ontario, of course, we've got names on the screen that are rotating. And most of you are familiar after our lengthy networking session before this. So the fine gentlemen in black, wearing confusing logos, don't be confused. He's not an employee of super Ed. He's a fan. Now yet, this is all a ruse. So Jay Rosenthal is at a 20 year career at the intersection of media business, politics and policy, especially as it relates to heavily regulated industries. He's the co founder and president of the business of cannabis, Canada's authoritative source for news and analysis on the cannabis industry. And I must mention that, you know, business of cannabis is headquartered here at start wells downtown location and King West and record this audio visual content in our professional studio, which is here on site, audio visual, he's live and direct and multiple ways. So find out more information about Jay, you know, from business of cannabis.ca. And our guest tonight is Tricia lackey. And Trisha is the Director of Brand experience at Superette. So for those who don't know about it Superette is a Toronto Ontario based We're based here in the city of Toronto, early stage venture that's making cannabis retail friendly. I think that's kind of an interesting, I don't know, you'll talk more about this. But Superette as I understand it aims to make you know, cannabis simple and safe. So trying to simplify the experience of the product, while keeping it fun, because they believe it should be simple, safe and fun. And what's interesting to me also we'll hear more about this, I'm sure is Superette has looked into stategic retail environments for inspiration that has brought to life an eclectic playful approach to selling cannabis. So they're really great guests for this topic, because of, we think the approach that they've used in crafting their stores and the retail experience and, you know, utilizing the aesthetics of a mid century kind of corner store experience, which should be familiar for the people coming in. And I'm sure that Tr

This brief 20 minute talk touches on the magic that happens when people come together. David introduces the role of 'collaboration artist' and more...

BizBash is North America’s #1 source of ideas, news, and resources for event and meeting professionals. Each month nearly 225,000 unique users look to BizBash for venue discovery, event style, technology, and tools for their next event. Thousands of event professionals attend our in-person events in major cities in the United States and Canada and listen to our podcast GatherGeeks monthly.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:24

Welcome back to this the 22nd episode of the start while podcast, this time around on back in the studio for a lovely little chat with my new friend David Adler.

David Adler 0:36

So my name is David Adler, I'm the CEO of a company called bizbash. We're immediate company for the event industry in North America, we're probably the largest media company with magazines, websites, trade shows, for people that organize events all over the place. And it's where they get ideas and inspiration so that their events become better. Because events are the new town squares in the world, in my opinion, right? And that's kind of what you're doing here as well. This type of facility. Yeah, well, are creating this sort of working events.

Qasim Virjee 1:10

Well, that's the thing. I mean, we call internally amongst our team, very agile team of four or five people. We look at every single quote unquote, meeting as an event, you know, people coming together is really if the festivity of meeting is what defines an event, or some sort of even output of the interaction, then that happens constantly here at Campus. Yeah,

David Adler 1:31

well, you're gonna love this comment, because you're so speaking my language, because I believe event organizers. And people that bring people together are collaboration artists, more than they are just event organizers or business people or entrepreneurs, you really are a collaboration artist in the in the best sense of the world. And it's, it's where these ideas come to life. Because I also believe that in events when you don't judge an event anymore by how many people attend, but it's about how many conversations are curated, right? And it's all about the social physics of how ideas flow. Yeah. And you what you've done here is you've created sort of the social physics that allow people interact in an organic way, that creates an amazing amount of positive outcomes. The most powerful word in English language is the word let's Yeah, because whenever people get together, they say, Let's go to lunch. Let's go to dinner. Let's hook up let's start a revolution. What about this idea between different groups that never knew they would ever meet each other? Yeah. And it's this, it's the social physics of how people how ideas spread?

Qasim Virjee 2:40

Absolutely. I totally concur. I think it's something that, of course, in the media landscape of today. And you know, the pop media landscape of today, where people are feeling kind of like society's more stratified than ever, despite them being more interconnected with technology. I think these places exist to help remind people that they can come together, and they don't need to come together to fight anything, necessarily. They need to come together to be together to discover what that means a lot of the time. And it's kind of funny for us, because we're also one part of our business, of course, is being an event venue. And for the first year and a half of that business line. You know, I was like, Well, what does this mean? You know, I've worked I've been a DJ that's performed all over the world and a video jockey that's performed for like, you know, events at you. You live in New York. Yeah. So, you know, the Tibetan mu

This time around we're publishing a live-recorded panel discussion moderated by local cannabis accelerator program Leaf Forward as part of our new monthly Cannabinoid Futures speaker series.  This inaugural edition of our series brought Vanmala Subramaniam (National Post), Matt Lamers (Marijuana Business Daily) and Jay Rosenthal (Business of Cannabis) together on the mic.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:00

Going from station to station shaking from Genesis to Revelations Welcome back to this the 21st episode of the start well podcast. As always, I'm your host Qasim Virjee. Start well CEO and founder. And for this session, we're going to take a listen to a panel discussion that kicked off our inaugural episode of cannabinoid futures, which is a speaker series that we host once a month in our event space on King Street. This time around, we had members of leaf forward in fact, the founding members of leaf forward which is a local accelerator program for cannabis, hosting and moderating a panel that included Vimala Subramanyam, from the National Post, Matt Lamers. From Marijuana Business Daily, Jay Rosenthal from business of cannabis. And of course, we fielded questions from the audience at the end. It's an engaging listen, and the topic was about the media landscape and how it relates to cannabis. I hope you enjoy it and would like to point you to our website at struggle.co/programmingtofindoutwhenthenexteventthatyoucanattendisandofcourserecommendyoucontinuelisteningtoourpodcastas We'll be republishing live recordings like this in the future.

[Moderator] 1:42

Great. Well, thanks so much Qasim for hosting us. This is a beautiful venue very happy to be here. It's our first time hosting an event here and I hope that we'll be hosting many more in the future. And thank you so much to our panelists. It's I think we're gonna have a great conversation tonight. So I guess just will Jay is getting set up there would love for kind of usually you just to give a background of who you are, how you got in the industry and what you do. We can start with even Belen.

Vanmala Subramaniam 2:09

I'm having a cold so if I'm yelling, it's because I can't hear anyway. So I started reporting on cannabis when I was at VICE. So I joined vice somewhere mid 2016. And I came in as to report on personal finance economics. But vise did a lot of reporting on cannabis. They didn't do the business side of it. So I started doing that. I did that for about two years plus, and then I was hired by the Financial Post to be the designated cannabis beat reporter and that was a little bit before legalization, and that's when everything really took off. So yeah, that's that's kind of my background. I've been in journalism for about 10 years. So was doing non cannabis stuff before that.

[Moderator] 2:53

Awesome, Matt.

Matt Lamers 2:54

Thanks for having me. I work for marijuana business daily. I report mostly on Canada, every market except the United States. Marijuana Business Daily focuses on news for businesses, which is a little bit different from like a mainstream, mainstream outlet. And I've been there since about mid 2017. I was actually a journalist in a different country. And I was looking for a reason to come back to Canada and then I was lucky enough to have this opportunity open up Canada was legalizing cannabis at the exact right time for me anyways, for my job prospects.

[Moderator] 3:26

Which country were you in?

Matt Lamers 3:27

I was on Grand Cayman. Very cool newspaper there,

[Moderator] 3:31

cool. J

Jay Rosenthal 3:32

making making the reverse move from the Grand Cayman to Ontario. So I'm Jay, introduce myself already. I've seen famous people do this. So we started business o

TheAppLabb, founded in Toronto in 2007, is a striking example of how digital services agencies need to stay on top of constantly accelerating technological innovation to not only remain relevant but grow.  In this session we sit down with its founder, Kundan Joshi.

*Learn more about Kundan's company here: https://theapplabb.com/

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:15

All right back once again, for this time 20th edition of The Star Wars Podcast. I'm Qasim Virjee. The CEO and founder of start well here on King Street in our lovely, infamous or famous depends on who you know, studio. And this time around, I am sitting with my friend kundun, who is the founder of the App Lab. You might know the App Lab for being one of Toronto's Premier, mobile app development firms, they do a lot more, I think we're gonna dig into that in a second. It's not just about mobile phones anymore. They do a lot more than just the apps that maybe when you founded the company, people were using. So welcome to the studio credit. It's a pleasure to have you here.

Kundan Joshi 0:59

Well, thanks for having me. It's very excited to be part of two part of your podcast.

Qasim Virjee 1:03

Yeah. So let's jump in. Tell us a little bit about the App Lab. Let our listeners know what you guys do. And maybe we could start from the beginning. The company was founded back in

Kundan Joshi 1:13

2007. So 11 years now. Okay. Yeah, almost 12 years, actually.

Qasim Virjee 1:19

And the early days, what was it founded to do?

Kundan Joshi 1:22

Early days, it was a digital agency. So as founded to do to build websites to build software, to do social media marketing, so a bunch of different things. And then the iPhone came up, and we realized, hey, we need to be in the app business. So our claim to fame is that we've in the last 12 years to build more than 500 apps. That's our bread and butter. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, totally. For a wide range of clients. So you have the fortune 500. Like the Unilever's and the Samsung's and the Dells of the world, you have the mature like the Technion, and the park and flies and the depths of the world. And then we work with startups and scale up so you guys

Qasim Virjee 2:03

built this up? Read it. Yes, it's the Toronto Film Festival for our listeners, Toronto International Film

Kundan Joshi 2:08

International Film Festival. So So yeah, so the whole range, where yeah, we will build apps. And that's what we've been doing. But as you said, we've been, we've been evolving as the nature of the businesses. I mean, we didn't start our company as an app development company, we started our company as enablers of better human experiences, through technology through cutting edge technology in a way that we can obviously create great businesses or successful businesses. So app was the a great format to enable that apps, successful apps must have great experiences. And as a result, they do have an impact on creating better experiences. But there's a lot more than that. So. So today, we'll be creating great experiences through apps, we'll be creating great experiences through chatbots, we'll be creating great experiences through augmented reality and virtual reality and Internet of Things, and so on and so forth. But our primary models are building custom apps for our clients, and using our platforms or app accelerators to help them build apps faster. So those are primary models.

Qasim Virjee 3:19

I remember years ago, you're telling me about the concept of in the beginning, it felt like it was kind of like a white label. precursor to the end customer facing app, right thing that you're getting maybe as a development firm, you guys are getting a lot of leads for a particular type of app. So you built something that almost anyone could use to speed up your development time, right? And then from there, it's become something more

This time around we're in the studio with StartWell member company Emergence Labs - a business technology consulting form and Salesforce implementation partner focused on helping small to medium sized businesses adopt new technologies that can help them database and better use their information.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:31

All right back once again for this the 19th episode of the stairwell Podcast. I'm Qasim, the founder and CEO of start well here in the studio once again, on King Street in downtown Toronto. This time, I'm joined by a new member company here, whose name is emergence labs. I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. And we'll jump into what you do. And, and the magic word that's become a drinking game. On the second floor of start will

Mack Allen 1:03

love it. So I'm Mack Allen, I'm the managing partner here at emergence labs. We are a Salesforce implementation partner. But really just a technology consulting and business process consulting firm. The visions that we're going to help small businesses and small to mid sized firms find their way into technology in a more accessible fashion. Everybody's finding that it's 5060 100 grand to get your foot in the door. We believe otherwise. And technology's really helped us a lot helped me a lot and where I've come from in my career, and putting emergence labs together to try and help companies navigate that tumultuous territory has been real fun and keeps me coming into the office every day.

Mitch McCabe 1:45

Yeah, my name is Mitch McCabe. And I'm also a partner here at mergence labs, and joined Mac probably around September, October 18. Last year, shortly after we started the company, and we actually went to university together. So we kind of go way back and Ghana asked me to join the team and I came from a background of financial operations. I worked at an accounting firm for four years, I had my Chartered Accountants license, so I started kind of helping with the books, and then it turned into something more and yeah, I've been learning the ropes of Salesforce, and me and Mac and our two other guys, Myles and Matt, been trying to, you know, make it happen out there.

Qasim Virjee 2:25

For listeners that might not have caught those two things. So the magic word is Salesforce. Yeah, that's the magic word. We'll talk more about that. But also that all of you, your name, start with him. That was something I picked up on right away when we first met. But that was just a coincidence. Or

Mack Allen 2:43

it matters. Coincidence. And it's embarrassing.

Mitch McCabe 2:48

It is when you sometimes tell clients like yeah, you're on the phone with Mac, Mitch and Matt. People are like, are you serious?

Mack Allen 2:57

Oh, seriously, we can't have all four of us were to visit a client office, which doesn't happen. But if we did, it would be a joke to introduce four people in a row with with M names like no one's getting that. That's good. We're gonna hire another m soon, I hope. Five, five, just keep the keep the trend.

Qasim Virjee 3:16

What? Okay, so let's talk about the company emergence labs. First off the name, what's emerging with the idea,

Mack Allen 3:23

emerging properties or like properties that are that emerged from? You know, I guess I'll back up the whole statement is the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah. So you might have like, a human body, for example, has all these cells firing around atoms, whatever it might be. And out of all of those seemingly inanimate nonliving objects come consciousness and us being this living being and you see emerging properties, their properties that arise from the greater of its parts. So we like to think that with companies, we kind of help them make the most we make the sum greater than its parts.

Qasim Virjee 4:01

So your means we've

MotivBase has created the world's only Artificial Intelligence powered Anthropologist that can predict trends that will shape consumer behaviour. In this episode we sit down with cofounder Ujwal Arkalgud and learn about the early foundation stages of this successful yet boot-strapped venture as well as how context informs trends in unique ways online.

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:23

All right, welcome back to another episode of the start, well podcast, I am your host with the most or something, the only host on this podcast. So I do have the most it's Qasim Virjee. Back again the CEO and founder of start well, for those of you just tuning in for the first time, this is the 18th episode. So do go to iTunes or wherever you're listening to this on and and scroll back through all of our episodes, It's tons of fun listening with entrepreneurs, and creatives alike, based mainly in Toronto circulating either in or around, start well, which is a wonderful incubator accelerator co working space, mashup spread between two heritage buildings come visit us, if you get the chance, drop it for a cappuccino, we've got a complimentary Cafe, and we're right on King Street West in downtown Toronto. So for this time around, I'm going to have a very interesting conversation, I'm quite sure, because I know the man in front of me, and we always do His names as well. And he's gonna tell us about his company, which is called motive base. There we go. It sounds like a hip hop group from the 90s. I love that name. Well,

Ujwal Arkalgud 1:34

for a long time, we jokingly would tell people that we spoke to that. It's got the hipster spelling, there's no E in motive, pretty cool. But it was because there was no domain there's no domain, as usual. So yeah, thanks for having me. I'm basically a cultural anthropologist. It started this company three and a half years ago, along with my business partner, Jason. And we have built basically what we call an AI anthropologist, we use a machine in order to study consumer culture and help our clients, which ranges from Fortune 500, to two really interesting, well funded startups that can afford us to basically identify track demand spaces so that they can make the right research development bets, innovation bets at the right time.

Qasim Virjee 2:26

So walk me through that, because there's a lot there for me to digest. I'm sure our listeners also are kind of unpacking that right now. Maybe the best way to unpack that is you said an AI anthropologist. So I guess the first side of it is telling me about anthropology, your understanding of it as its applique applied to the problem that your solution solves. Yeah. And then maybe we could talk about like, how it does it or a couple of case studies, what the client experience kind of is.

Ujwal Arkalgud 2:52

Yeah, the type of anthropology obviously, that I'm referring to is cultural anthropology. So the study of, of sort of modes, rituals, habits of groups of consumers, groups of people, obviously, we're focused on consumer culture in particular. But really, what we've done is built a machine that can do a form of research that, at least nowadays is very, is a very popular form of research for innovation purposes, which is ethnography. So what we've really done is built a technology that can conduct an ethnography, so a machine that can do that, by examining the natural conversations that people have language processing, language processing, and I should qualify for listeners who may not know what ethnography is, really, it is the art and science of observing people in their natural setting, in order to understand three really important things, cultural, economic, and social practices. So in essence, understanding not just what people say, but how they say it, and then why they say those things. And the why part really is about unders