What did you learn in 2017?
These seven entrepreneurs share some new wisdom
Entrepreneurship is a process of endless learning. To surface a few of the lessons 2017 dealt out, I asked some entrepreneurs I covered in the first half of last year to share their best learnings. Here are seven lessons to ponder as you tackle your own new year.
Listen to your instincts: In Sackville, N.B., David Hunter, founder of Blugenics Innovations, is building a business around a plankton-based health product called Karen. In 2017 the company updated its packaging and added Shoppers Drug Mart to its retailer list. But Hunter says Blugenics was hurt by one hiring mistake. “We hired a marketing director who did not fit into the team at all. It created employee friction, we lost four months, and it took three months to unravel the damage.”
What did he learn? When Hunter made the hire, he says, “I had a birdie chirping in my head that it might not work out. Now I know what that sounds like, so I am going to listen to that bird in future.”
Understand customers’ distractions: Based in Pickering, Ont., ZoneTV is a content creator and aggregator whose custom programming helps cable providers retain customers being lured away by YouTube and other streaming sources. In October, ZoneTV rolled out a new wave of cloud-based “Dynamic Channels” covering topics such as sports, fitness, fashion and food.
The trouble was, says founder Doug Edwards, Zone’s cable clients weren’t ready to get behind the technology. “We learned that you need to understand what other market pressures and priorities your customers may be facing, and work with that challenge to demonstrate your value proposition to get to the top of their priority list.”
When reaching out, don’t hold back: Toronto entrepreneur Dan McCann is commercializing an interactive digital tabletop, targeted to restaurants and food courts, developed by his partners at Ukraine-based Kodisoft. In 2017, McCann helped arrange the company’s first capital raise, and signed deals for its first “smart table” installations in Canada (including a 20-table restaurant opening in Waterloo in March).
McCann is bursting with pride that Microsoft named Kodisoft an official Internet of Things partner, and also purchased a table for its Seattle HQ. The tables use a Windows operating system, but McCann had been wary of getting close to Microsoft because it once developed a similar product. But after meeting Microsoft executives last year, he decided to pursue a relationship. “Be totally forthright with potential competition, even when you’re not sure how they may react to your vision,” says McCann. “It was really exciting to get such global recognition, and the trickleon effects have had major impacts on our sales and marketing.”
Confront service gaps head-on: Hyr.work is a Toronto-based platform that connects needy employers find contingent labour. In other words, it helps hourly employees find side hustles with retailers, restaurants and other companies that need help on short notice. Launched last February, the platform is now operating in Toronto and New York, and Hyr just closed a seed-financing round.
While Hyr aims to solve the headache of employees who don’t show up, even its own community had absentee issues. “Our biggest disappointment was the lack of accountability of a small percentage of our workers,” says cofounder Erika Mozes. She says the company has dedicated “serious learning” to finding new ways to motivate its part-time workforce. “Understanding your customer is the most important things you can do as a business. Getting into the mindset of our workers has been paramount in understanding how to reinforce good behaviour instead of simply penalizing bad.”
Make tech your differentiator: The biggest 2017 winner in this group was Integra Gold, a Vancouver mining junior that used crowd-sharing and artificial intelligence to re-evaluate gold deposits around two shuttered mines in Val d’Or, Que., that Integra had bought for $7 million. Hoping to promote innovation in the mining industry, Integra even co-sponsored a global innovation competition last March called #DisruptMining.
Integra rekindled so much excitement at Val d’Or that the company was snapped up in May by Vancouver gold producer Eldorado Gold for a shiny $590 million. (Most of Integra’s executives promptly moved down the street to launch a new junior, Integra Resources, which is now reassessing a gold property in Idaho.) “Being openminded on data was a big part of the success of Integra Gold,” says former IG chair George Salamis, now CEO of Integra Resources. “The mining industry was very set in its ways, and we dared to do something different.”
Nothing is done till it’s done:
Science teacher Chris Prendergast had a great year, too. He appeared on Dragons’ Den to promote his invention, the JamStack, a wireless amplifier that works with your mobile phone to replace the external speakers, pedals and cables that musicians generally have to lug around. Better still, he turned down a deal with the Dragons in favour of a private financing.
But it didn’t come without drama. Prendergast says he was disappointed that a potential investor “changed his terms” at the last minute: “I learned that nothing is done in business until it’s done.” But he says he ended up with a better deal that will enable him to launch his product properly this year.
Just make things happen:
Norm Bradley is a retired engineer in Vancouver who is promoting better beachcombing with his design for a sandal into which people with foot problems can slip their orthopedic inserts. Last month he received his first shipment of sandals from a Mexican factory, and can’t wait to get them into specialty stores for testing.
Still, his original hope was to sell his design patent, and save himself the chore of business-building. He’s received a few offers, but says they didn’t fully value the business’s potential. Final lesson: “Things only work out if you make them work out.”