From high school idler to millionaire race car driver
Marc Lafleur grew up without a car, without a purpose, and without much thought of what would come next.
Then came a love for football, entrance into the University of Waterloo, two failed business startups, and the eventual sale of his company, truLocal, for over $16 million in 2020.
Now, the boy who grew up without a car in Cornwall, Ont. is moving up the ranks of the professional race car driving world, has become a published author, and is hoping to show a generation of kids that they don’t have to fit into anyone else’s mould to find success in their lives.
“I think one of the reasons I love talking about my story is that so many people have preconceived notions about how I got here,” said Lafleur, the main speaker at Thursday’s Driving Your Future event at Mercedes-Benz Kitchener Waterloo. “A lot of people have a fasttrack, and that just wasn’t me. I had to work, I had to fail, and it all really started with this story of a kid who didn’t fit into anyone’s mould, and so I had to make one.”
Growing up, Lafleur didn’t have much. School was never his thing, and before finding football, he spent his first two years of high school struggling not to fail out.
He’s honest that his success in football didn’t necessarily translate to a new-found love for the classroom, but he understood that to get to the next level, it would require more dedication to his grades.
It worked, and football led him to Waterloo, where he would eventually graduate with a health studies degree in 2014.
Even at university, Lafleur wasn’t the prototypical student, remembering his time as a series of falling in-and-out of academic probation, but always finding a way to get good enough grades to continue passing.
“You know when I look back on it now, I realize I really just didn’t fit into the idea of what people wanted me to do,” he said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Even when I got to university, I was that guy who would get 60s, and then fall into academic probation, and then grind and get myself out, and then fall back into probation. It was just a cycle, but I knew what I had to do.”
He began delving into the tech world, with a pair of unsuccessful startups, before taking his understanding of door-to-door sales and giving it an online rebrand for his company, truLocal, an online marketplace connecting customers with farmers to deliver meat products to their doorsteps.
He led a successful pitch on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, securing a deal with tech mogul Michelle Romanow, and eventually sold the company for over $16 million in 2020.
“I sold the company, and I never had a car growing up, which probably fuelled my obsession with super cars. When you come from nothing, there’s nothing more exciting than this imagination of driving down the street in a supercar. So, I always told myself that the first thing I’m doing if I ever come into money is buying a car.”
That slowly changed from looking to buy a car to wondering if he could drive it at a high level.
“So, the dream quickly changed from owning a car to racing cars.”
He spent the summer going to the track and learning how to drive, and then entered a semi-professional regional race circuit. It took some adjusting, and he finished most of the early races at the back of the pack before things suddenly started to click.
In his first season in the CASC Pirelli Sprint Championship in 2022, he had 11 podium finishes, won eight races, finished first overall, and was named rookie driver of the year. “Now, I’m an underdog in a different type of way. I’m very much looked down upon because I’ve bought my way into racing. It’s a label that is going to follow me, so I have a lot that I need to prove, and I’m always going to have to prove. For me, I do love when I’m counted put, and I think I can strive in this environment where I have to prove myself again.”
Growing up in Cornwall, Lafleur was part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and his opportunity to speak to the local chapter on Thursday as a partner with Mercedes-Benz is a real full-circle moment for him.
For the kids, it was an opportunity to see the power of thinking bigger.
“Hearing the stories of other people succeeding who come from similar backgrounds can be incredibly inspiring,” said David Awosoga, the co-chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada’s National Youth and Mentorship Advisory Council, and the MC on Thursday. “Anyone who has potential can come out of these things and overcome adversity, so I think hearing the story of someone who has done that in the past, can give them to courage to move forward and drive their own futures.”
Lafleur believes it’s important for kids to see there is a way to make it without the fast-track, and you can be someone that everyone has counted out and still find your way to success, no matter how you choose to define it. “I’ve been a broke kid for a lot longer than I’ve been successful. I was an overweight kid who was scared to take his shirt off for longer than I’ve been successful. So, my hope is that people can see my story and see themselves in that and think: ‘if this guy can do it, why can’t I do it?”
Marc Lafleur went from nearly failing out of high school to selling a company for $16 million and quickly ascending the race car ranks