Jeff 00:01

Well, you spend your whole life developing these attributes to not leverage them for the rest of your life just seemed like such a waste. Fortunately for me, business happened to be a really good one for me to transfer these skills to–

Leah 00:14

Yeah, and harness all of that that you've learned.

Jeff 00:17

At least attempt to.

Leah 00:18

Yes. Yes, at least attempt it.

Leah 00:19

Hi, thanks for being here and welcome to Season Two of The Founder Mindset, brought to you by ATB. I'm Leah Sarich, your host, and I'm super excited to talk to more founders about the human experience of being an entrepreneur. In this podcast, we're digging into what it really feels like to build a company from nothing. I was a broadcaster for over 20 years. So I've interviewed thousands of people, but entrepreneurs, not that many. And yet, they have the best stories. They're solving big problems. And they're creating incredible impact. But it is hard work. So why would they do this? Let's find out.

Leah 01:06

Joining me in the studio today is Jeff Adamson, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Neo Financial, a financial technology company offering Canadians a new way to take control of the financial future with user-friendly banking technology and products. Jeff, thanks so much for being here today.

Jeff 01:23

It’s great to be here. I think you stuck that intro that was amazing.

Leah 01:26

You know, it goes back to legal. Yeah, exactly. It goes back to that 20 odd years in television. You know, this is what we do. So listen, thank you so much for being here. And just for those of us listening Saskies, right? We're both from Saskatchewan, so we've got a shorthand gone already. It's pretty great.

Jeff 01:41

I literally said today, you can take the boy or Saskatchewan but you can't take Saskatchewan out of the boy, right? And it was in reference to me buying someone to cheap lunch. Maybe it was a bit of an underhanded compliment in some ways, but.

Leah 01:53

I think it makes for really real people. That's what I really love about Saskies, for sure. So, let's go right back to the beginning, as we always do with this podcast, and we sort of talk about how you got into being an entrepreneur in the first place. So you're a Co-Founder of both Skip the Dishes and Neo Financial. But how did you first even come to the idea of being an entrepreneur? How did this all start?

Jeff 02:16

You know, a lot of people will always say, like, entrepreneurs are born, not made. And I didn't grow up, you know, the kid on the corner with the lemonade stand. I wasn't like, hustling on newspaper routes. I didn't have really a lot of entrepreneurs in the family. My parents both kind of had, like, government jobs or kind of the same job for 20 or 30 years. So for me, it was really around just kind of deciding, how do I want to have the biggest impact I can have? And I was an athlete for the majority of my life. I competed with the National wrestling team. I went to the University of Saskatchewan. That's what we have in common. And, you know, I was kind of just at the point in my career, and I was really fortunate that there were a lot of people at the same point in their careers where you work for some big companies, and you're asking yourself that question, of 20 years from now, am I going to look back and regret that I didn't take more risks more chances? And you start asking that question of, like, Am I really having as much of an impact as I can have? And for me and the other Co-Founders at Skip and at Neo, the motivation was never like, Hey, how can we make the most money? Or how can we get rich? We just wanted to put the prairies on the map. That was the thing that got us super excited. So, I mean, I went to university, I competed as a national team athlete for 10 or 15 years. Got to go all around the world. Got to see some incredible things. See how different cultures, different technology in different countries, how different countries operate. And then you come back, and you're kind of just like, Okay, what's next? And I had the amazing opportunity to go and represent Canada at the Pan Am Games. I was brought to the 2012 Olympic Games, and when I came back, I was kind of just like, full of this energy to do something. And then you go back to your day job, and you're like, oh, okay, you know, this is maybe not the same level of excitement. And then we just got chatting around like, well, how cool would it be if we could actually build a multi-billion dollar tech company right here at home, you know, in the prairies in Saskatoon, in Winnipeg, in Calgary, and that just seemed so cool and so exciting that everything else just kind of fell away.

Leah 04:31

Cool. I love that idea of putting prairies on the map. I love that. You've talked a lot about being an athlete and an elite athlete. I'm really curious about how being an elite-level athlete informs how you are as an entrepreneur.

Jeff 04:45

Yeah, it's a good question. Leah, because I definitely, even though I'm, like, not technically an athlete anymore, like I'm not competing, I still identify as one, which is kind of a weird. I don't know, dichotomy, because obviously, if I went tried to make the national now, I wouldn't have a hope of it, but I still hold on to so much of what I learned as an athlete. And by that I mean the characteristics or the character that you build from being an athlete. And I think it comes from it could be music, could be the arts, could be sciences, whatever it is, but it's really that process of setting a fairly lofty goal, and for me, I always wanted to be a national champion. I wanted to make the Olympic team, and then kind of going through all of the difficulties and challenges that are required to achieve that goal, and then working with all the people around you who support you in that endeavour. And it's such an adventure, you know, being an athlete or in again, it could be, it really could be anything, but it really focuses you, and it sets a standard for yourself and for the people around you. I don't know; I just can't get enough of it. I just, I love that, that mentality of just trying to always bring your A-game to kind of whatever you do. And as an athlete, especially if your ambition is to be a world-caliber athlete, you kind of have to be pretty realistic with yourself. If you're going to set that type of a goal, are you going to be willing to do what it takes to achieve it? So that kind of self-honesty that comes with being an athlete, and I just think so much of it transfers over to business, into other parts of life. And I just met a lot of people over the years that would transition away from being an athlete, and then almost would let go of a lot of the things that they learned. And I just thought, well, you spend your whole life developing these attributes to not leverage them for the rest of your life just seemed like such a waste. Fortunately for me, business happened to be a really good one for me to transfer these skills to.

Leah 06:49

Yeah and harness all of that that you've learned.

Jeff 06:51

At least attempt to.

Leah 06:53

Yes. Yes, at least attempt it. I'm thinking of that because I've actually had conversations, you know, whether it was on the morning show or even in the community, with a lot of athletes that leave sport and then kind of fall off a cliff, like they really don't know what to do with themselves, and they almost don't even know how to be in the world because they are, they have, to your point, have developed these other attributes that aren't necessarily applicable in certain aspects of life. And I think there is something to this, that in entrepreneurship, it fits perfectly.

Jeff 07:23

It's a really difficult transition, I think, for a lot of athletes, and it's not talked about a lot, it probably should be spoken about more. But you basically go from having a singular focus in your life, and you're surrounded by everyone around you is high performance. Everyone has that same singular focus. You know, what to eat, how to train. It's very linear. Hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do A and B and C, and hopefully, I get D. Then you go into the world of your career, you're very adrift. There's so many different directions you could go. And you're also not surrounded by high-performance people; you're surrounded by people who have different priorities. Some people want to go golfing on Fridays, and some people want to go to a book club in the afternoon. And some people want to work part-time. Some are full-time, like, some people care about the mission, some people don't. And so then you're like, it's just a culture shock, right? For a lot of people. And so, for me, it was about finding another mission. And I was really fortunate that I was able to meet some friends from university who kind of shared something that I cared about a lot, and that was putting the prairies on the map. It was really building companies that would have a meaningful impact on the kind of fabric of Canada.

Leah 08:40

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Okay, so that brings us to really Neo and why we're here today. So tell me a little bit about Neo and what it was about Neo that attracted you to it, and to sort of take this sort of packet of attributes, if you will, and apply it to something like Neo.

Jeff 08:57

Well, one of the questions we got at Skip from investors. I wouldn't even call it a question. It's more of an objection, and that is, you know, the food delivery markets is not big enough. And, you know, it's not a venture scale company. And they actually pegged the entire addressable market for Skip at a billion dollars. By the time that we left, Skip was probably doing 3-4 billion. So it had not only exceeded the total market addressable market, but we had grown the entire market while we were there, and in the process, created 1000s of jobs and opportunities for people. When we left, we were looking at it. And I actually remember sitting down with my Co-Founder, Andrew, and he had actually left a year before I did it Skip. I was the last founder that stepped out. And I was kind of like, okay, Andrew, like, what do? What do you know guys in their late 20s, early 30s, do after they sell their companies? And he said something that just scared me to my bones, Leah.

Leah 10:00

What was it?

Jeff 10:02

He said, Jeff, most of the guys I talk to that sell their companies. They just get into commercial real estate.

Leah 10:11

So, how did that land with you? Not so good.

Jeff 10:14

And again, no offence to any commercial real estate guys out there.

Leah 10:16

Of course, yeah, they're doing great work, but for you–

Jeff 10:17

It just seems like you learn so much over the course of building a venture scale business that to not take those playbooks and those that relationship capital, that you've built, those connections to the investor community, all of it, and then to not then carry it forward into, you know, I think very much what James has done here. You know, creating that ecosystem, to me, seemed like a lost opportunity. And for me, if we even just zoom out a little bit more, Leah and we look at it and say, Okay, well, why do people live in the prairies in general? You know, we've got a lot to be really proud of we've got thriving agriculture, thriving oil and gas sector, great universities, but a lot of people leave the prairies because there aren't companies that are aligned with their own ambitions and values. They want to go and work on the cutting edge, and when you think about different advancements in the world. It's almost like a wave that comes, and you've had many different waves that have kind of swept over the whole globe. You've got Internet, mobile, cloud and AI now, right? These are like waves. And if you've ever been surfing, I'm a terrible surfer, by the way, but you know that you kind of have to kind of catch the wave. And then you have to swim really, really fast and then catch it. And if you don't, then the wave just kind of goes by you. And we've had many of these waves come through Canada, North America, the globe, and there's some cities that really catch the waves. Silicon Valley is a great example. New York, like, there's London, Seattle, Boston, there's just, there's massive companies being built in these new industries. And I guess the concern that I had was, if we think about why are people going to live here 100 years from now, what are the reasons why they would stay? And there's lots of incredible reasons, the quality of life, the people, the culture, all that. But you need to have companies that are aligned with the ambitions and values of the people here, or they're going to go. People are mobile, and capital is mobile. So, if we want to attract and retain the brilliant people that we produce in Canada. We absolutely have to have companies that are aligned with what those people also want to have an impact at a huge amount of scale. And if you see all of that happening in other cities, naturally, you're gonna go, and that happens, and it's happened for a long time. And I think even when you think about Calgary, where we are, what do people think about, when they think of Calgary, do they think of tech companies?

Leah 13:08

Oil and gas? Yeah, which is great.

13:10

Which is okay because Calgary is a world leader in oil and gas, yeah, I think that's excellent, yeah. But for the people who also care about other things, I don't want those people to have to go to Silicon Valley. So banking was this interesting problem where it was a massive market. We're talking about half a trillion dollars in market cap, just in the top five companies in Canada. 200 billion in revenue produced by these companies domestically every single year, that's USD, so a massive market, massive amount of revenue and profit being produced, and yet the experiences that we have are not really in line with these world-class companies. Like no one is waking up and being like, I'm so pumped I get to my bank branch too. And like, these are massive consumer brands, like, we literally have the TD free fare zone just outside the door here. There's like, a TD logo, like, on my front lawn somehow. So they like sponsoring a patch of grass, like, they're all over the place. But the experiences that they're providing Canadians are really not world-class, and you see that in the fact that Canada is in the bottom five of the developed world in digital banking, yet we're in the top five in smartphone penetration and internet usage. So, you have this massive gap between expectations and reality. And I was just on BNN last week. And one of the things that I said was, if you talk to people who come to Canada, they will tell you, Leah, wonderful country, amazing people. Medieval banking system. So it was a big problem, a big industry, where I felt like there was an opportunity to really bring more change and cost. Competition to the sector, and in the process, create a massive business that could create these opportunities for people to call the prairies home for hundreds of years to come.

Leah 15:11

Right, that’s exciting. I like the way you think about that. The other thing, of course, that comes to mind, though, is that, you know, Canadians arguably, can be somewhat risk averse, and you know, they might like the idea of a Neo, but maybe they're afraid to make that move. That's a pretty big obstacle to get your head around. How do you guys think about it?

Jeff 15:32

I think if you look at how technology has enabled trust to form, you'll see that it would have been unthinkable 20 years ago for someone to get into a car with a complete stranger from an app and just drive away. Or stay in a stranger's house. Like Airbnb. So technology has the opportunity to help solve for trust, and so Neo is really part of what we see as a larger global trend where consumers are increasingly turning towards technology companies to add more value and convenience to their everyday lives, and it becomes a lot more self-evident once you start seeing that evolution occur. So whether it's transportation and Uber, videos, Netflix, YouTube, Spotify like this is what's happening now. It's already happened in nearly every major economy globally, where you see major technology companies are now the bank of choice for hundreds of millions of people, Canada is just late to the party. And again, we can remain a, you know, risk-averse culture, but it's hard to turn away value and convenience, especially once you realize that it actually is just as safe as any other options. In fact, in many ways more safe, because Neo uses a lot more modern technology that is a lot more, I say, robust and stable than what you see from kind of more traditional kind of racks and servers.

Leah 16:59

Yeah. fascinating. I love it. One of the questions that I ask everybody that sits in this chair is, think about a moment when you were building your company, and things just really went off the rails. You really weren't sure how you were going to figure this big challenge out. Is there one moment that you can think of that comes to mind in particular where you're like, I don't know if this is going to work. I don't even know how we're going to how we're gonna get through this. Can you tell us that story?

Jeff 17:25

I'll do two quick ones. One is when COVID hit, and we were less than a year old as a company. And, yeah, you have all this uncertainty. You've got VCs telling you one thing: you've got your kind of pure CEOs and Founders that you talk to, and it's really hard to triangulate what the right decision to do is. And we were getting a lot of pressure to really just kind of like, lay everyone off and batten down the hatches and or to kind of furlough people, where you like, lay them off and then you hire them back later, because then the government was going to step in and cover part of their wages, I think. We made the, what I believe was the right choice, but the difficult one to say, hey, we're not actually going to furlough any people. I really hope I'm getting that word right, but we weren't gonna lay any people off, and we're gonna keep people employed full-time, and we're going to power through it, and obviously, like that makes things a lot more difficult because you're spending more money, you're having to adjust your strategy. And honestly, our team just really powered through it. They really stayed united. We worked through all the difficult decisions that you needed to and it actually ties into the second one, which was when we kind of landed our first large enterprise partnerships with Hudson's Bay. So they have a decades-old credit card program with tons and tons of clients, tons of loyalty to that program. And at the time, we had like 1000 customers at Neo, so it was very early in the business, like we had just friends and family, essentially, and then we won this partnership with Hudson's Bay, and it basically meant that we were gonna go from, like, 1000s to hundreds of 1000s of clients, pretty much overnight, and we only had maybe 30 people in the company. So it was like, literally, I remember it was Easter weekend where we were onboarding all these customers, and like, we're just seeing like, a tsunami of demand hitting us. Like, literally, though, every single person, Leah, just like, jumped on the phones. We were, like, taking customer service calls and some of the clients, you've got young people, you've got old people. I was resetting passwords for people. I don't know if you know how hard it is to come up with a, like, a 12-digit password, upper, lowercase special characters for, like, a 50-60, year old.

Leah 19:47

Oh, yeah, I know.

Jeff 19:49

It's an impossible question.

Leah 19:50

Yes, it's me. I get it.

Jeff 19:52

And honestly, everyone just rallied behind it. And I think that's one of the things that is really special about Neo is just there really isn't any challenge too big that scares our team away. Like in fact, I think the bigger and more audacious the goal, the more excited our team gets. And that's just such a great quality to have in a team.

Leah 20:12

No kidding, okay, but I need to dig into that a little bit. Okay, so let's think that through. So all of a sudden, as you said, you get this tsunami of requests coming in. How do you even get your head around that? Like, how are people not freaking out and losing their minds and going, Oh, we can't do this. Oh, my God. How are they not doing that?

Jeff 20:29

I think it's partially because, and this is a bit of a misconception in building a company. Is that many people think that the hard part is, like figuring out, how do you even get product market fit at all. And that is really, really painful, difficult and hopeless at times. But it's also very, very painful and difficult and sometimes hopeless when you have runaway demand. And so I think one of the things that we try to do is we try not to make it so that there's like, high intensity, low intensity. We try to make sure that the intensity is fairly consistent, so that even when we're not like facing a tsunami of demand, we're still working just as hard on a different problem to solve. And so when something like that comes up, it just it's really more of just a shift of priorities over to something different. So, the level of difficulty really doesn't change. It may be more acute in one area or another, but it really means that we just have a team that is used to tackling things like that. And I think that the reason why I talk about like hopping on the phones is obviously our customer service team would have been overwhelmed, and if we all just sat there and watched them get completely swamped, that would never really been a team way to approach the problem. And so one of the values that we have is around teamwork. And so that's why, where we can pitch in and help out, we absolutely do. And I think that's just one example of what I saw that another team that was, you know, struggling, and it goes other way too, if the shoe were on the other foot, they would be helping us out on another part of the company. And that flexibility, I think, is really important to maintain that ability to take on big challenges.

Leah 22:04

No kidding. I also got asked, though, as one of the Co-Founders, and you're in that situation, I mean, what does that actually feel like to you to realize that this is happening and it's going to get really intense, really fast, what does it feel like?

Jeff 22:20

I can’t speak for anyone, but for myself, it's exciting. It's super because this is what you train for. This is why you're here. It's to work on big problems. It's to rise to the challenge. It's to see your team the best come out of them. And I really think that you need that in order to bring up the very best in people, is you need something coming that is a big, big challenge that you can overcome if you work together. And when you just see people like people still talk about this. They still talk about, oh my god, we only had like three months do the whole thing. We there's no one said we could do it, and we all buckled down. We got it done and there's, there's like a dozen examples of that. We actually are, another example is we're actually a self processor, so we're actually vertically integrated. We're the only ones, perhaps, in North America, that do this. It basically means that we process all the payments that occur on our credit cards. We switched over to our own in-house processor overnight to over a million customers without getting a single phone call. The calibre of the engineering and product that is needed to pull something like that off is absolutely astounding. And you had, we've got photos of, like, people who had, like, literally spent the night at the office to pull this off. And again, people look back on it with fondness, even though at the time, it was so painful and difficult, after you get through it, and you get on the other side, and you're like, holy crap, we're actually capable of so much more than perhaps we thought, and then you can just raise the bar again, right, and go after even bigger challenges. So that's the exciting part of it.

Leah 23:59

It almost becomes a point of pride, like we did this, like we did it.

Jeff 24:04

Absolutely, yes. So we get really fired up about doing things like that, where you the stakes are a lot higher, the opportunity to have an impact is absolutely massive. When you're dealing with millions of customers, when you're dealing with billions of dollars, the trust that people have put in you, and it's such a big industry, it's such an interesting problem set to solve. It just brings out a lot of that excitement when you actually do overcome something that's really difficult.

Leah 24:33

No kidding. That said, what you're describing, right there, is making me go, Holy God, I can cover my head. It sounds terrifying.

Jeff 24:40

But that's why you're in the game, though, right? That's that's why we're doing it. Is because we want to be able to build the most beautiful software. We want people to use it and be impressed. We want to be able to build a better financial future for Canadians. We want to create more transparency in financial services and make it more accessible to people, easy to understand, and when you see that happening in real-time in front of you, it's just, it's really rewarding, because you know that you're having and like, even I'll get messages from customers where they're like, Hey, I just want to thank you. I, you know, I was able to use Neo, I was able to build my credit score, or I was able to access credit that I previously had never where I've saved so much money through all the cash back rewards that we gave people, and that actually just makes it so much more meaningful when you see that those problems are being solved.

Leah 25:30

What does it feel like to hear those comments from your clients?

Jeff 25:33

Honestly, it's like two things. Leah, first is seeing your team really level up right in front of your eyes is super rewarding because you're just you're like, hey, I remember when this person came in, and maybe it's the first tech company they ever worked at, or maybe they came from a really successful tech company at a later stage, and now they're going earlier stage, so everyone's kind of solving a different problem in their own careers, and seeing them completely evolve as a teammate is incredible. And then also just seeing, like, when you're getting a product out to market in the very early days, like you're just, you're like, Oh my God, please don't look at the reviews, because, you know, you're just, the product is kind of half baked sometimes. Which is really difficult in financial services. I'm sure absolutely need to be 100% secure and stable. But when you see that positive feedback come in and people are like, this is, hands down, the best banking experience I've ever seen, it just really makes it feel like all the hard work that you're doing is really worth it, and it's nice to have those moments, because so often, as a leader, you're just dealing with the biggest problems. It's the distillation of the hardest things in the company and seeing that feedback come through. And again, a lot of times you're dealing with negative feedback too, but it really kind of it just warms your heart.

Leah 26:52

The Founder Mindset is brought to you by ATB Financial. In the fast-paced world of tech, your banking needs evolve as quickly as your industry. Whether you're just starting out or aiming to reach new heights, ATB Financial is dedicated to supporting tech companies every step of the way. Partner with ATB Financial for a banking solution that grows with your business.

Leah 27:15

It's a recurring theme that I hear on this podcast that Founders are often reminded to celebrate the little wins and the small wins, and they remind themselves that we have to celebrate these wins, because this is what keeps us going, and it also is what keeps our eye on that impact that we talked about at the very beginning.

Jeff 27:34

Yeah, it's definitely something that I need to be reminded of doing, and because you're just so always focused on the future, but taking those moments and especially giving recognition to the team that does a lot of the work along the way.

Leah 27:47

Yeah, I actually wanted to dig into that a little bit. You talked many times about the team and how, you know, resilient they've been, how well they've worked together to rise to some of these particular challenges. How do you create that team, like, how do you think about building a team that works together like that on these big, scary problems?

Jeff 28:03

I think it's first really alignment on the mission. And so what we look for is who is really aligned at building a massive consumer business in the prairies, you know, and who is aligned in helping us build a better financial future for Canadians, like who thinks that that problem is really worth solving? Because if someone says, You know what? Like, I could be working for Google. I could be working for Goldman Sachs, and that's just as good to me as working at a local startup. Probably not going to be as aligned with what we need. And honestly, like when you're solving difficult problems, you need to draw on something that is going to get you fired up to get after it. And so I think it's that first, that alignment, and it can be, it could be a bit different for different people, but I think that North Star of saying, hey, if we can succeed in building a $50 billion business, you know, headquartered in Calgary, with offices in Toronto and Winnipeg, maybe Vancouver, Montreal, someday, you know, who's going to get really excited about that happening, and then the second is, who understands really what it's going to take to do that, and is willing to sign up for it, willingly takes on that level of ambition and understands that it's not going to be smooth sailing the whole time. It's going to be really, really difficult. So those are really the kind of attributes. But then you're looking at, okay, then of course, there's the skills you're going to need this specialization, especially in what we're doing, where you've got, like we're drawing talent from around the globe, like our Chief Credit Risk Officers from NEWBANK, the largest digital bank in the world. He was a Chief Risk Officer in Mexico. We've got executives that went through the whole ING, Tangerine, Scotia Bank experience. Built one of the biggest digital banks in Canada. We've got executives from Colombia who scaled like the largest food delivery business in Colombia to billions in revenue, and he's relocated to Calgary to join us in this mission. And so, to me, it's you're finding these skills. You're kind of like putting the pieces together, but the thing that has to really bring this together is that mission of building this important business, creating these new opportunities for people, I think those are the important pieces, for sure.

Leah 30:31

For sure. I can see you get jazzed when you talk about this team-building concept. I think you really like it. But I also I'm really curious about what do you love, specifically about working in startups, like we've talked a little bit about the challenges, we've talked a little bit about the wins, but it is a very unique experience to work in a startup. What do you really love about it? And what do you love about being a Founder, specifically?

Jeff 30:54

Not put a lot of thought into what do I like about being a Founder, because it's so focused on the problem that you're trying to solve. And that is kind of like back to the mission of building this very, very important business, building an ecosystem in the prairies. I think is essential to the future of the prairies. I think it's also essential in the future of creating competition in banking. Those are the things that get me really, excited. What role I play in that, to me, matters very little. There's some things I really suck at, and there's some things I'm really good at, and hopefully, I spend more of my time doing things I'm good at. But to me, I'm not really all that attached to the specific thing that I'm working on at that moment. It's really more around. Am I moving this closer to that goal, or am I moving this further away, or who do I need to be working with to advance Neo towards our goal? And so it's, I mean, specifically about working in startups. I mean, I think it's fairly common, and you get to get to choose the team that you work with on it. A lot of people will join a big company, and you're just inheriting decades of legacy, whatever, could be, legacy technology process, and then your ability to have an impact is very limited. And I think a lot of people, you know, value, you know, stability, and they value predictability, which I think is totally fine, but I think there's a trade-off. I think that comes with working at big companies that are a lot more predictable and stable; the trade-off is that ability to really have an impact. And I think at startups, that is the one thing that we can offer. And by we, I mean all startups, is that ability to really have a meaningful impact. And I think ultimately that when you look back 20-30, years from now, I think that's the question that people often ask is, did I have an impact?

Leah 32:40

Yeah. I love that. I've heard you say before, when it comes to risk, that it's not that risky to start a startup, and we need more people to take that leap. Is that really what you think? Because I think starting a startup sounds really risky, but tell me your thoughts on that.

Jeff 32:56

Yeah, I was having this debate actually with a professor at the University of Toronto, School of Business, Rotman, I think it's called, and we're trying to understand, like, what is it? What is the root cause of how Canadians view risk? How far can you trace it back? Why do we view risk so differently than our counterparts in the US? In the US, if you build something and fail, and you start something again, that's a comeback story. In Canada, if you build something and fail, you're a failure. So there's something that's different, you know, you can, I think you can trace it back all the way to how Canada formed as a country. You know, the US was a revolution. Here, we kind of were like, Hey, let's figure out if we can work this out. Still dealing with it today. If we want Canada to really have a seat at the table globally, I think we need more people to be participants in this new age than observers. And whatever you participate in anything, there's an element of risk that's involved. But the risk is not necessarily what people believe. I think they often will feel that the risk is okay. The startup doesn't work out. But the thing that makes someone valuable, and usually they think of it in financial risk, or maybe they think about it reputational risk, but the person who goes after it, who has a mission and a belief and rolls the dice, that is an incredibly valuable person. That is a person who's employable 10 out of 10 times. They will never be want for money. They can go and make money. That's the easiest thing in the world. But the person who stays secure in a job where it's limited their learning, where they will look very similar to the millions of other people who also have that same background and haven't taken the risks that, to me, is risky. Because that cushy, stable job that big company, maybe they're gonna have layoffs. Maybe you get caught in that layoff. Now you're out looking for a job, and I've met so many talented people who got caught in a big layoff. There's been lots of them over the last couple of years, and unfortunately, their experience looks a lot like everyone else's. First is the people who actually went out and actually tried to do something they they were forced to learn all the skills because they didn't have someone to do it for them. That's startups force you to do that. And you could almost say, accidentally, by people doing this, we can create 1000s of unicorn companies in Canada just with getting more people off the sidelines and redefining risk and risk tolerance in Canada, and so it's something that I talk about a lot, because honestly, sometimes the biggest risk is just not taking enough of them.

Leah 35:50

I love that. I love that. Okay, we've talked a lot about building the business. I want to talk a little bit more about what it's actually like to be an Entrepreneur and what that looks like in your life, like how? I mean, building business like Neo, it takes a lot of time, a lot of focus, a lot of effort. What's it like to do that work, and how does it affect your personal life?

Jeff 36:09

You definitely need to have a lot of support. And I'm super lucky that I have an amazing, beautiful wife who is incredibly patient and supportive. And she's been with me from the early Skip days to founding Neo. We've got two little boys at home as well, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, David and Laban, and they are just like the coolest kids ever. And I just have such a blast with them. So, it does come with the need to have support. And I think I'm a big believer in building relationship capital and investing in relationships. I think there's the only way you get anything done, and it's also just incredibly rewarding, too. And I think it definitely makes you more picky with how you like, where you make those investments of your own time and in what relationships. And because you can't be just spreading yourselves and spending time with just everybody. So especially now that I have kids, like, I'm a lot like, people are not seeing me out all the time, and I'm not like catching up with folks every single night, because I have to spend that time with my family or with those close friends that have been so critical for me along the way, but it definitely comes to sacrifice. There's no question. I'm going to New York tomorrow, and, you know, I'm almost missed Halloween, you know, I've got to, like, make it back in time for that. And there's been things I have missed because I've been away. But at the same time I see people who work for big companies, and they're on the road all the time anyway, so honestly, like, the trade-off does not seem to be that crazy. Just because I don't know, I feel like I'm kind of okay with I just know that no matter what I'm gonna do, there's gonna be a sacrifice. And so I'd rather be maybe a bit more in control of that sacrifice than, you know, to have a job where it's like, okay, you need to travel five days a week every week because you're, I don't know, a consultant. But I think even the early Skip days. Like we actually, like all the Co-Founders, like, we actually lived together. We had employees living with us, like, in like a 13-bedroom kind of house that we all shared. A lot of people would look at that and say, Oh my God, that's like a complete nightmare. And I totally get it. That totally makes sense, yeah. But like, for us, like, that wasn't really that much of a sacrifice, kind of okay with that standard of of living, because we were focused on the mission at the time. So I think it depends on kind of, like, what are, what is your standard? And that will define kind of, do you feel you're really making a sacrifice, or you just feel like this is kind of what you signed up for?

Leah 38:44

Right. And that notion of support, and I've heard in the in this same position, it's the right kind of support that you need, someone that really gets what this kind of work is all about.

Jeff 38:56

That's a good point. I mean, tons of people will not get it. Yeah, I'd say most, actually, and–

Leah 39:02

It’s one of the reasons why I like doing this podcast. I hope other people listen to it outside of these ecosystems, right? This is what it really looks like.

Jeff 39:09

Yeah, and it's definitely not glamorous. I think especially like dealing with some of like, the hopelessness that you have at times where you basically kind of feel completely hopeless. And other times where you feel over the moon, like you just literally those swings where it almost feels like you're going to multiple funerals and weddings in the same day, or like coming in and feeling a pit in your stomach and then leaving that same day over, like completely exhilarated. So it definitely is like having people around you that will understand kind of a little bit of what you're going through. And I was super lucky that I had two supportive parents that believed in me and that never ever said that you can't do it. And I definitely don't think I could have done it without them, without my wife, those have been two or three critical people in my life.

Leah 40:05

Absolutely, you talked about that hopelessness, and that has been articulated many times. You know, with founders that have been sitting in that chair, they talk about this despondency, this hopelessness that sometimes comes, and you sort of feel isolated, and you weigh down. And I'm curious for you: when you hit those spots, how do you move through that and come out on the other side?

Jeff 40:26

That comes back to that support so, and I think we're super lucky that. So the team at Neo, you know, I've got Chris Samara as a Co-Founder, Andrew Chow, Chris Reed, we got an amazing leadership team of people who are just so fearless and the resolve that they show on a daily basis, because like, I'm not going through all this stuff by myself, right? I'm going through it with a team of people who's got my back and I've got their back. And there's something that happens between people when you go through difficulty together, and you come out on the other side in one piece; there's something special there. And I think that I've had that happen enough times so that when you have those moments of despair, it's basically a call to greatness for everyone to step up and work together to get through it, and it just brings us all closer together. So, I mean, we're just, I don't know if every team is like this. I can only share kind of what my own experience has been. But, like, Skip, I mean, we built one of the largest consumer tech companies in Canada. Neo is well on its way. It's the fastest-growing company in Canada now. And you know, we seem to attract people who really have one another's backs when things do get difficult.

Leah 41:52

That's something to be proud of, for sure. Yeah, um, you've spoken about how Neo is a family outside of work, a lot of you guys have young kids. You're all doing this together. And then you've also spoken about how, when you're in the office, though, you operate more like a sports team. Can you talk to me a little bit about that difference?

Jeff 42:08

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, I would never want to treat my family the way I would manage a sports team or be on a sports team, because there's, like, strict expectations, there's high standards. There's, like, all these things that you place on people who you're going to depend on. So if you know that in order to do something, you're going to need, you know these people to do X, Y and Z, and you're going to have to do that for them too. It's just a totally different relationship. And you do often hear where people will compare their work, you know, to a family, and to me, it's just a totally different type of relationship, where you're definitely there for each other, but it's a conditional relationship. Whereas the family, I think, should be about unconditional love and support, and you're there for them no matter what. And that's different with us, with a high-performance sports team, you're there, you're trying to build the best championship team that you can that can achieve the mission, and that means that there is an expectation that you have on each other, and you want to bring out the best in each other every single day. And you're helping one another; you're taking criticism, you're giving criticism, you're getting feedback, you know, you're pushing one another along. If I did that to a family member, they'd be like, just stop. I'm your brother, yeah. Like, I'm your, I'm your sister's cousin. Like, that's just totally different, let alone wife definitely not have, especially if you met my wife. So I think that for us, it's really about, how do we just, how do we bring the best versions of ourselves every single day, and how do we show up for one another in a way that is going to really advance us towards the mission and again, that comes with conditions, that comes with Hey, like, if I'm showing up and bringing my B game every day, I want someone to call me out on it, because I owe it to them to be good, because they're bringing their A-game every day.

Leah 44:06

I love it. We've talked a lot about support, but how do you stay well working in this fast-paced environment outside of the support systems that you have?

Jeff 44:17

I am super dependent on, like, staying healthy, and as an athlete like you obviously, like, have to stay mentally and physically sharp. And so I've just seen it happen where you you kind of let something slip, and that could be like, you're not taking your mental training seriously. You're not working on, like, your cardio, you're not working on your strength or speed, and then your game just falls apart. And so I think when it comes to how are you going to bring your best, wherever you are like you have to be able to be making sure that the mental side, making sure that the physical side, making sure that the spiritual side, all those things are getting taken care of. It's kind of a bit of a three-legged stool, and that if something in my personal life is falling apart, that's probably going to bleed into how I show up at work, or if my health is deteriorating, that's probably going to affect how I'm showing up for my family or my teammates at the office. So for me, like, I mean, I set up my whole life so that I can have that balance. And I don't mean a balance in terms of, like, you know, work life balance that's right around. I chose to live in a place where I can run to work every day. And when I had kids, I didn't have enough time to go to the gym every day to dedicate an hour-long workout. So, instead, I'm just going to spend 30 minutes jogging to the office in the morning. I'm going to spend 30 minutes jogging home in the afternoon. That's my exercise. And maybe I can throw in some push-ups. So, it's more around, like, setting up a lifestyle that accommodates making sure that my cup is getting full in the areas that it needs to, and it's certainly difficult, like, I see a lot of people going off the rails on this piece and I've been fortunate that I've had people be able to come and say, like, hey, like, they're not afraid to give me that feedback on like, hey, like, are you making sure you're taking care of this or that? And it's good to have that open relationship where you can make sure that you're getting the feedback that you need because it's very easy to lose sight of, Hey, are you taking care of all those things?

Leah 46:23

Right. And being so mindful of it all?

Jeff 46:27

Yeah, you just get so focused on one thing, and all of a sudden, next thing, you know, you're like, Oh my God. Like, I haven't taken care of my relationships, or I haven't taken care of, you know, my health or something. It can go off. But, you know, the people who have been, I've been lucky that have been around high-performance people my whole life, and you just watch how the habits that they build, and they just set up their life for kind of around excellence and set up the relationships around them as well, and they're able to make sure that they can continue to perform.

Leah 46:58

Love it. Love it. All right, we talked a little bit about this at the beginning of our conversation. But I'd love to sort of think about this towards the end. At Thin Air Labs, we often talk about creating meaningful human impact. I've heard you speak about impact. When you think of creating an impact here in Calgary and Alberta, what do you think of?

Jeff 47:19

I think ultimately, it's always about who is your end customer. What value are you creating for your end customer? Like that honestly has to be what's driving, I think, any businesses, how are you creating value, convenience? Why are they choosing you? And then everything is a bit but a bit of a byproduct of that. If you're not taking care of your team, if you're not investing the right things, ultimately that it will deteriorate at the customer side, and then if it deteriorates there, then you can't, you don't have the right to do anything else. So for us, it's really about first and foremost customer. What are we doing for the customer? Then it's going to be okay, well, then, what are we doing for the people who are working for the customer, the engineering, the product, the customer experience. How are we making sure that those opportunities, that people in those roles, are supported in the way that they need to in order to do their best work? So I think that's ultimately how we think about it. And then the job creation comes after all those things.

Leah 48:20

Yeah, wonderful. Okay, as we start to think about wrapping up this conversation, I'm curious about you're the Co-Founder of Neo. You're writing the story for this company. How do you hope the story for Neo goes?

Jeff 48:32

if I think through a kind of longer-term this is, this is years out. What I hope for is that when someone uses Neo that it is indisputably the best place for people to be putting their money in terms of the way that they manage their money, the design of the software, the experience, the transparency, the time it saves people and the value it creates for them. I want to make managing money as smooth as water, and I want that to be accessible to every single Canadian. And if we can achieve that, that's a 50 to $100 billion business right there. That's just one business that, let alone the ecosystem of companies that can be created around this, a thriving ecosystem of startups, tech companies in all sorts of different industries. Once you can solve banking, it can increase the sharing of ideas, the movement of money, liquidity for people, moving money from people who have it to people who need it. It really is the best anchor for our startup ecosystem, and so that's really what I want the story to be, and starting on the consumer and then who knows what will where it will go, but ultimately, it is creating that ecosystem.

Leah 49:59

Mm. Hmm, wonderful. And when you think of yourself as a Founder and Co-Founder, how do you hope your own personal story goes?

Jeff 50:08

Well, as soon as you ask that, Leah, like the first things that come to mind are my boys and my wife. And I think, first and foremost, I want to be there for them. I want to be there for seeing my kids do many of their firsts, and I know that I won't be able to see all of them, but I want to be there for the big ones. I think this year will be kind of the first Halloween that my son really like, kind of participates actively in. So I'm looking forward to being there for that. And ultimately, it's playing some part of having a meaningful impact in my community. I really I've had the opportunity my whole life to leave the prairies and kind of never come back. Whether that was an athlete, people always said, like, Hey, you got to go train in Toronto, you got to go to Iowa, or you got to go to Colorado, or go overseas Japan or Russia. And I always made the active decision to stay and call the prairies home. So whatever I'm doing that's going to be the guiding principle is really kind of around family centric, and then prairies, whatever impact I can have.

Leah 51:10

Wonderful. Jeff, thank you for this conversation.

Jeff 51:13

Thanks for having me. This is great.

Leah 51:22

As the lead investor in Thin Air Labs - Fund One, Sandstone Asset Management believes in building the comments through innovative Founders who are creating meaningful, positive impact, both locally and globally. Sandstone is doing just that by backing the next generation of emerging entrepreneurs. Picture this: a founder start-up goes from idea to international impact supported by strategic investors who believed in their vision. That's the power of Sandstone's approach. Sandstone doesn't just manage wealth, they cultivate it, supporting founders at all stages. Visit sandstoneam.com to learn how sandstone builds legacies that last.

Leah 52:04

The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund finds, fuels, and fosters opportunities in sectors like aerospace, agribusiness and tech, creating a resilient and diverse economy, attracting world-class talent, and solidifying Calgary as a launch pad for innovators. Discover more at

www.opportunitycalgary.com

‍