Why a dose of rejection therapy is good for entrepreneurs
Scale-Up program strives to cultivate confident, bold leaders, writes Rick Spence.
Imagine a group of ambitious Canadian entrepreneurs — including a PhD in physics, a specialist in cybersecurity and a former Industry Canada policy officer — invading the streets of Vancouver, each armed only with a paper clip. Their challenge was to approach strangers in the street to try to trade that paper clip for an item of greater value. Then they were to trade those new items for something more valuable, and so on.
Their goal: to come back with the highest-value item in the group.
Their real mission: to become bolder, more rejection-proof sales leaders.
One participant returned with a rickety bicycle used as a prop in a store. Another brought back a street performer who entertained the whole team. But all the entrepreneurs won, because they learned that good things happen when you ask.
This dose of “rejection therapy” was one of many tools employed by the Waterloo, Ont.based Lazaridis Institute in the first year of an initiative aimed at developing fearless, growthoriented entrepreneurs. For my money, the Lazaridis Scale-Up program — named for benefactor Michael Lazaridis, a co-founder of BlackBerry — is one of Canada’s most significant business experiments.
At a time when so many resources are being thrown at startups, Scale-Up is pushing established entrepreneurs to become more confident, selfaware leaders.
The first cohort (seven firms from Ontario, two from Quebec, and one from Nova Scotia) began working together last fall, through monthly sessions across Canada, before finishing with a week in Silicon Valley. Two recent graduates describe what they learned from the program that could benefit entrepreneurs in other industries.
Find the right mentor. The founders of Waterloo, Ont.-based Dozr, a web service that helps companies share heavy equipment, have long searched for a mentor who knows online marketplaces. Scale-Up organizers tapped their networks to find “sherpas,” and paired Dozr with New York entrepreneur Samer Hamadeh, CEO of Zeel, which uses a network of U.S. massage therapists to provide massages on demand. “Samer came to our offices and we worked through all aspects of the business,” says CEO Kevin Forestell. Now, as Dozr moves toward raising a new equity round to pursue U.S. expansion, Hamadeh “is introducing us to the investors he’s worked with at the three companies he’s founded.”
Make decisions faster. Dozr’s team learned there’s an alternative to pondering and dithering. “If we were thinking of making some kinds of changes, Samer helped us make the decision,” says Dozr COO Erin Stephenson. Rather than feeling unnerved about moving faster, Stephenson felt relieved. “Fast decisions aren’t necessarily better than slow ones, but the impact of not making a decision is usually more negative than making a bad decision.”
Mind your culture. Preserve the culture that aligns and fuels your organization. “Your values have to be communicated, talked about and lived, to make sure it stays intact as you grow,” Stephenson says.
Don’t take your eyes off your product. Veteran product-management expert Kan Sandy, now a lecturer at UC Berkeley, delivered a master class at a Scale-Up session in Montreal. As a result, says Forestell, “We started having weekly meetings about our product. We’ve focused on improving the user experience, and that’s had a big impact in helping us grow 400 per cent over last year.”
Embrace process. You can’t manage your business by walking around. Everyone has to know what to do and how. “The need for processes came up with every topic we studied,” says Forestell. “Now, if we can’t get the right systems in place while generating an idea, we won’t move forward with it.”
Learn from colleagues in other industries. Jordan Kyriakidis of Halifax-based QRA Corp. says the participants had much to teach each other. QRA, which develops tools for managing technicalrequirements documents, advised other firms on dealing with big government contractors, while other participants offered expertise in sales or global operations.
Know your metrics. Kyriakidis, a former Dalhousie physics professor, “learned how to build my executive dashboard, so I know what’s going on, and can manage the company more effectively.”
Be a big-picture leader. “My best takeaway was the critical importance of leadership,” says Kyriakidis. “Every day I ask myself ‘Am I working on the right thing?’” It’s crucial, he says, to monitor the bigger trends that may be overtaking your industry and your customers. “Leaders have to think about highlevel things, and think about them sooner.”
In the past year, Kyriakidis says QTA has grown by 50 per cent in revenue and employees.
He says that growth track was set before Scale-Up, but he notes, “We’re building a machine. Our job is to make sure the machine holds together as we grow, and that the bolts don’t fall off — and that’s where the Lazaridis Institute has helped us.”