S03|05: Remi Schmaltz on Founding, Failing, and Figuring It Out

Remi  00:01

It's like figuring out how you can put something together and a relationship. I'm a connector. I like meeting people, understanding their business, and then figuring out how we can work together. So formalizing that into, like, an agreement where it's mutually beneficial is what I really enjoy doing.

Leah  00:24

Hello and welcome to Season Three of the Founder Mindset brought to you by ATB. I'm your host, Leah Sarich, and I'm delighted to be back for another season of talking to Founders about what it's really like to build a company from that first big idea. If you've listened to previous episodes, you know, I was a journalist for over 20 years, so I'm more curious about why anyone would ever want to become an entrepreneur, not so much about the business model, product, market fit and so on. I want to understand why entrepreneurs keep going, why they think they're the ones to solve a massive problem, why they want to make a real impact in the world. And if you're here. I bet you want to know why, too.

 Let's find out. Joining me today in studio is Remi Schmaltz, Founder and CEO of Brilliant Harvest, an AI-powered Help Desk for farm equipment dealers designed to delight their customers from purchase to repair. Remi, thank you so much for being here. 

Leah  01:16

Yeah, thanks for having me, Leah.

Leah  01:18

I really appreciate the drive in from Banff.

Remi  01:22

Yeah, no problem. It's a pretty easy one. Always nice to come to the city under nice weather and beautiful sky.

Leah  01:29

How wonderful. Yes. Well, as we do at the beginning of this podcast all the time, we kind of go back in time. So I am very curious about how you actually became an entrepreneur in the first place. I mean, you grew up on a farm, right?

Remi  01:41

Yeah, I grew up on a farm just outside of Calgary, near a Bicicer, like, 40 minutes from the Calgary airport. But farming was actually kind of a side hustle for our family. So at one point we would've had it… maybe a couple 1000 acres, which I know for many doesn't sound like a side hustle. And then, you know, maybe up to, like 100 head of cattle kind of thing, but also a side hustle. Our main family business was actually in the egg retail space, so providing crop inputs to farmers, so chemical seed, fertilizer, and agronomic services. And that was started initially by my grandfather. 

Leah  02:18

Okay, so you went from there? Did you work for that company then, or it was just sort of around you, and you kind of got this vibe of what it's like to be in AS business? 

Remi  02:25

You know, hindsight 20/20, is always an interesting thing, right? And thinking back through kind of growing up, I realized that I had, like, this kind of innate skill set to, like, talk to people and to do deals. And I think kind of one of my best like memories of that is, I think I was like, maybe 13, and my dad had bought us snowmobiles, like, one of these big snow years, and we got a snowmobile on the farm, and we wanted to, or I wanted to trade snowmobiles. And so I had called up this dealership in Calgary, and had, like, worked out a deal with this guy on the phone.

Leah  03:03

Really? At 13?

Remi  03:05

Yeah, well, he didn't know how old I was, though, right? So we showed up, my dad and I showed up, and, you know, I go find the guy, and yeah, and he's like, sorry, were you the guy on the phone? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, we had this deal. And blah, blah, blah. And he was like, Oh my God. You know, so, and this is hindsight I didn't really realize at the time, right? So this is kind of when I think about, you know, entrepreneurial, kinda-ness, business side of things. And this is kind of where hindsight I've realized that, you know, I've kind of worked through and always kind of done these things. Researching things and figuring things out. You know, even when I went to university, I went to University of Lethbridge, you know, business, major in marketing, but I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And I came out of university, my dad had been retired for, I don't know, five or more years, and we had inter-management in that AG retail business, which was called DynAgra, and, you know, it was clear that it needed a lot of help. It was struggling. And so my brother and I took over management of it, and just started, like, working on projects. And I was like, Man, these projects are fun. Like, we kind of figure out, like, there's a problem, whether it be the finance department—we had a whole bunch of receivables—we would find, like experts in a field as consultants. So we found, like, the guy from farm credit, who had retired and built their program, hired him as a consultant. And then what I would call, maybe it's not a nice way of putting it, is, I'd suck their brains of information, right? And we'd bring that in house, and this was kind of like, you know, the learning on the fly in the job, and just bringing in these experts as we needed them. And really, that's how we kind of really got rolling on a lot of business stuff, you know. And it's a great way of doing it, because, you know, university and stuff, or post-secondary, it's important. I’ve got kids going to post-secondary right now, but it's kind of foundational. And the stuff that's most relevant today, and like, what's happening, it has to be applied. You know, stuff's moving so fast. So that's really kind of, I guess, where I figured out that I liked business was just solving problems and implementing technology and kind of the process of it.

Leah  05:13

Okay, but let's just, like, take a moment there. So you're this 13 year old kid. Now, I've got kids, so I know what a 13 year old boy looks like, I mean, I can't even imagine you just, like, rocking into this place going, Okay, man, we did this deal. Where did you get that confidence from? 

Remi  05:28

I have no idea. I didn't even know it was like a big thing to be honest. I was shocked that he was shocked, that he was perplexed by it, right? And so that's why it wasn't, like a conscious decision. I just did it.

Leah  05:42

You just did it. You just wanted a new snowmobile.

Remi  05:47

That's right. And I had to figure it out. And I think that, you know, with my parents, they, you know, when you take an initiative like that, to figure it out, it's hard to say no, is what I realized. Right? I try to tell my kids that they don't, maybe always listen, but I'm like, you know, if you really put energy and effort into something, and it makes logical sense, and you can justify it and have a conversation about it, it's really hard to say, no. And so I think that's what I realized, and just started doing that. 

Leah  06:12

I love this. Okay, so you've got the family business, and it's you and your brother. What is that like, actually, like working with your brother? Because sometimes working with family is awesome, and sometimes it's tricky.

Remi  06:22

Well, I worked with maybe, like 11 family members at one point yeah, in that, in that same business. So that business was owned by my dad, and then my uncles and their wife, and they all were, like, in the mix of it.

Leah  06:35

Whoa, what's that like? 

Remi  06:36

Yeah, it's tricky. It is a short, short version of it. It's tricky. It's also super rewarding. I mean, the relationship with my brother, you know, he I reported to him in DynAgra, and then in our next business, decisive farming, which we had spun out at DynAgra, he reported to me. And so he's my older brother, right? And we've got a very close relationship. We have, like, a lot of mutual respect. We we've, we've had conversations where we're both, you know, yelling red in the face, voice gone. And we're like, okay, let's just hang up. Yeah, come back. And then it's like, all right, what are you trying to say? And you're like, oh, yeah, we're saying the same thing. Of course, you know. And I think that the key piece for for me, and whether it be family or Co-Founder or, like, you know, senior leadership in your company, right? It's always around, like this alignment and having trust that you're trying to get to the same place. Right? That's so key and and so even though we would argue, I always knew that he wanted the same outcome as me, right? And we were headed in the same direction. It's a problem when you're like, you know, I'm trying to, you know, get to green, and you're trying to get to red. Like, then it's a significant problem. But I knew we were headed in the same direction. It was how we got there that was what we were working out, I'm a pretty like short, to the point, candid person, which can get me in trouble sometimes, especially with family. But, you know, I've always found it like that, healthy friction, you know, is so important to figure things out, right? Because you're solving problems. In a lot of cases, nobody's ever solved, right?

Leah  08:21

Especially as an entrepreneur, you're solving problems all the time, and so, yeah, things can get heated. I can see it happening. Do you think that maybe getting some of that practice in with family as you're learning this skill set was helpful or was a hindrance?

Remi  08:35

All practice and relationships are all different, right? Like, I mean, you know, my dad was still, you know, from a board level, involved in that business. He was a great, you know, mentor for me. I mean, no different than when you're a teenager, you're like, kind of pushing the boundaries, right? You're bouncing off this, and your parents are like, Ah, you can't do that, right? And then you go, try to go over here, right? And you kind of hone in eventually, right? You know, as an entrepreneur, you're like, generally, nobody's telling you no other than maybe the bank or whatever, right? Yeah, there's some constraints, but you're trying to figure out these problems and how you come to the solution. There's no real guidelines, right? So you're trying to navigate through that and I think that process is really important. And so I don't know the relationship with my brother, like, the yelling and, you know, arguments and stuff, and we don't do that. I mean, we don't work together anymore now, but I talked to him on my drive in this morning as an example, right? Like, we… we’re pretty close and, like, but it's different. You know, it's not how it's a different relationship to be able to yell at each other like… not everyone appreciates it.

Leah  09:45

Yeah, no, I don't think everybody would appreciate that. That's true, but that's great. That's amazing that you guys pulled this off. Okay, so do I have this right now, that Brilliant Harvest will now be your third company?

Remi  09:55

Yeah, I mean, if you include my early-stage venture fund, it would be fourth. Koan Capital.

Leah  10:01

We'll talk about that in a minute. You bet. You know, how do you go then, from building all of these companies to Brilliant Harvest?

Remi  10:09

So in the spring of ‘23 I had kind of stopped being operational. I was out of TELUS. I was helping another startup for a period of time, and so I was just doing some investment, some mentoring, but I didn't really have a day to day job. 

Leah  10:24

Maybe we should just clarify that your last company was acquired by TELUS.

Remi  10:28

That's right, yeah. So in 2019, TELUS acquired Decisive Farming. I spent a couple years there. Super successful exit. Good for the team and customers and investors. McGraw Capital was our lead investor in that. And, you know, went through a period of, kind of giving back, but also learning, right? And wanted to just try to understand, like, what, what else was going on, you know? And so it was, it was a really fun period of time, but it kind of, I'm a doer, you know, and I don't do well sitting idle. That's like, the worst thing I can be up to, is not doing something. It's tough. I try to do it often, now and then, you know, to stay in touch with myself. But I like to get stuff done. And so in the spring of ‘23, Mark Blackwell at Builders and I had been spitballing on some stuff, and he had thrown me some ideas for some companies, and I was just volunteering my time, kind of like, Oh yeah, I'll dig into this. And ran them to end. Wasn't a fit for my expertise of agriculture, right? And then I was in Idaho on a whitewater paddling trip. Father-son trip, I think there was maybe eight of us and down a pretty significant river, class five South Fork Salmon, pretty extensive, you know, something I've been working up to in my paddling career. Oddly enough, it wasn't the big rapids that got me. It was like a small, you know, you let your guard down scenario, right? And I took my main boat that I paddle is or, or is a 12-foot cataract. So it's like, kind of like a pontoon boat, no floor, so it's just open underneath you below your seat, and it's meant for white water. So my son, he kayaks, so the group was kind of half and half of what we call cats, short for cataract, and kayaks. My oarer, downstream oarer, hit a rock in the water and then shot up and smoked me right between the eyes. And I've never had a concussion. And you know, the funny thing about concussions, hindsight’s 20/20, is that nobody can diagnose you, right? Like, the only person who can diagnose you, you know, especially when you're on a multi-day river trip, is yourself, right? Unless someone knows you really, really, really, well, right? And you're acting funny. And, you know, certainly people, my group, were like, Hey, are you okay? They're following up with me and stuff. But nobody actually said the word concussion. I was okay, generally. I was able to continue. We were kind of through the big stuff. And then the next day I actually got another concussion. 

Leah  13:06

Another one, same trip. What happened? 

Remi  13:10

Well, so then the guard was really let down, and we hit the Main Salmon, which the South Fork flows into. And it's, you know, super hot in Idaho, and this is pretty chill, like, class three stuff, but we were on a floaty section, and I was joking around. I had… one of the other kids wanted to oar my boat. So I'm like, yeah, no problem. And then my son showed up, and I'm like, jumped on his kayak to, like, roll him over, and he reflexively swung back with his kayak paddle and chopped me in the side of the head. Then made a series of bad decisions. I mean, I've kayaked a little bit, but, you know, I don't have a roll. I decided to kayak this stretch of water, and had one big swim, and then was approaching kind of the biggest rapid in that stretch, and the group was mainly ahead of me. And one of my son's friends, Dane, who's like, a phenomenal kayaker, for some reason, he's like, 20 feet ahead of me, looks back, and he's like, I got you, Remi. And I was like, Oh my God, thank God. And, you know, he helped me out. We hit the right line through there, and it was all good. But it wasn't literally ‘til we went and had breakfast and ordered food. We all ate, and it was like, this old school diner, no… all pen and paper. And she comes by and is like, and what did you have? And I'm like, no idea what I… And I'm like, I have a concussion. 

Leah  14:38

You just knew right then and there. 

Remi  14:40

Yeah. So then, you know, it was kind of a few weeks of real downtime, no screens, no reading, and just trying to, you know, kind of work through it. And I was just thinking to myself, internally, quiet moments—of you know, what am I good at? What do I know, and where's the money? And like, where's the money? As in, where's the money related to a problem? You know, I know agriculture, I'm good at sales. And then a past customer of ours that was a farmer, a guy named Doug Heritage out of Manitoba, who's actually, frankly, a good friend of mine now, and he was just complaining about how painful it is at dealerships of the service he gets. And you know how expensive a lot of these employees are. It's hard to find good people, and you're in remote areas, and so you’ve got to pay them a fair bit of money. And you know, it was a real frustration, because, you know, a new John Deere Combine’s like $1.4 million. And so you unload, like, a lot of money, and then, you know, not always getting the service you expect or the timeliness of it, right? And so I'm like, Ah, there's got to be something here, right? And so I started digging into that and… 

Leah  15:44

And that was while you're recovering from the concussion, just to be clear?

Remi  15:49

This was my recovery of my concussion. So this is in July, early July. My birthday is July 7. It was July 5 when I had the second concussion. Oh, man. And by July 15, I had kind of validated the problem.

Leah  16:01

You're supposed to be resting. Just to be clear, 

Remi  16:04

I was. No screens, but I was just communicating. 

Leah  16:06

Okay, so you’re just talking to people… 

Leah  16:09

I was writing down ideas, talking to people, and then.

Leah  16:11

This is not what people normally do when they're recovering. I'm just saying. 

Remi  16:14

What the doctor told me was I can do… as long as it doesn't hurt. Okay? So the idea of, you know, concussions, being in a dark room for a long period, that's an old school thing, right? So I started playing pickleball, other kind of, like, low injury sports, of like, hand-eye coordination, okay? And got back playing tennis, too. And then I started working on this, and valid… by the end of July, had validated both with, like, farmers, with dealer experts, people in the equipment industry. And then Mark at Builders was like, yeah, like, let's do it. Great. Let's do it. I'll write the first check. 

Leah  16:50

Wow, that's exciting. 

Remi  16:52

So we incorporated August 1, so we're just coming up on our two year anniversary. Well,

Leah  16:54

Well, that's exciting. Congratulations. 

Remi  16:55

Thank you. 

Leah  16:56

Okay, let's dig into a little bit about what Brilliant Harvest is. So tell me exactly what it is and what you guys do.

Remi  17:04

So Brilliant Harvest is an AI customer experience platform for equipment dealers. So we build out a dealer branded solution. It's for their team at the dealership, but also their customers. And so we ingest all of the different manuals. So a dealership will typically be selling 40, maybe up to 100 different brands of equipment that they would sell and support. So you can imagine, as an employee there, like, I mean, it's pretty tough to stay up on everything, right? And then we also connect to their business systems, so we get all of the work order history of, you know, the repairs the technicians done and how they solved it, what parts they used, all the customer purchase history and inventory. And then we also process conversational data. So think about like a call center or like a group chat. You could have like a precision support group that you know is sharing best practices on things, right? So we process all that, and we build out a dealer's proprietary knowledge base. And so each of our customers is building their own knowledge base that's specific to them, and this is really their asset. You know, the reality in these markets where you have like manufacturer, dealer, and customer is that the manufacturer always is trying to take shortcuts and be as direct as possible. It's just the nature of it. And I view, for the dealer to stay relevant, they have to maintain their IP, their knowledge, their know-how in that market. And so we're not about disrupting the ecosystem. We're actually about reinforcing the ecosystem. And we have agreements with manufacturers around use of their materials, and so that, you know, we're all above board on that type of stuff. And then the dealer is our main customer, and then the dealer also provides it to their customer, who are often farmers or on the construction side of the world.

Leah  18:48

So helping you understand, then what this means for say, the farmer who's out in the field, you know, harvesting, and all of a sudden something goes wrong.

Remi  18:55

So 30 to 50% of the inbound questions from a farmer to a dealer are repeat or easily answerable. Oh, so could you imagine you spent 1.4 million just on your combine Okay, okay, plus you've got probably another $4 million worth of equipment, and you have a question on how to use something. And I mean, a combine manual is up to 12,000 pages. Wow, so you're not looking in there, right? So you then try to call the person who sold the two, or someone else you know there, but they're busy because everyone's trying to go at the same time, during, you know, planting or during harvest, right? And so you can't get a hold of them. So something that should be really easy to answer, and should be really quick, you're waiting. And so then maybe you finally get a hold of them, and then they call you back, and they don't get ahold of you because you're busy. Or you finally get a hold of them, they're like, Well, I don't know. I got to look it up. So now the employee at the dealership is spending a bunch of time searching for information. And even if you walk in a dealership today and be like, Hey, this is what I'm trying to do, that employee has to look often in like six different systems to find the answer to the question. And so we pull all that together into one spot, enable for the dealer team to find it faster, but also for the customer to self-serve. And the dealer decides how much of that knowledge they want to share with the customer. Because some of it’s proprietary to the dealership, and some they're fine to, you know, provide directly to their customer.

Leah  20:23

Wow, that's a huge solve. I can see that being very impactful for that farmer that's out in the field and it's like harvest time. We got to get this done before it rains, say the next day. Oh, I love this amazing. Okay, so how many employees do you even have these days?

Remi  20:36

So we're… team is 16 full-time. We’ve got three, three summer interns. Mainly based in Calgary, two team members in the US.

Leah  20:47

Okay, that's very exciting. And how much traction do you have? Like, can you talk a little bit about that?

Remi  20:52

Absolutely. Yeah. So we've got five customers today that represent over 200 equipment dealer locations and about over 4 billion in annual sales. And so we've been, yeah, super successful in finding dealers that really get what we're doing and relate to the problem. And so, you know, we have a pretty healthy pipeline of other dealers that want to work with us, that we're, you know, figuring out deals. But I'm a bit of an under-promise over-deliver kind of person, and so we're kind of now at the stage where we're gradually, kind of rolling out in phases. And so really focused on execution with those dealers, and making sure that, you know, it's deployed right, it gets right, it's adopted correctly. And that cycle of feedback, which is, which is a lot of fun. 

Leah  21:41

Oh, that's amazing. 

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Okay, but as we all know, in the evolution of a company in the build, there's always something that goes bonkers. So I think in… I asked you this at our prep call, is there a story that comes to mind when you're thinking about like, this pivotal sort of do-or-die moment or go or no-go moment that you can share?

Remi  22:22

You know, this being my third, like, operating company, I've been able to, like, minimize a lot of those, and I'm probably less, like, likely to feel like they're death moments.

Remi  22:34

 Right, right? Yeah, yeah. 

Remi  22:35

You kind of like, get acclimatized to the environment to some degree. And so yeah, I would say, like, my threshold of, like, risk and, you know, what's a big deal is, is probably different than most people, right? But early on, we were focused around, you know, figuring out what's the right technology, right? So, you know, AI is big buzzword. I think everyone's talking about it. Very few are actually doing it well, and implementing it in a way that's, you know, profitable and sustainable, as an actual business. And so trying to figure out, like, how do we implement AI? And this isn't a linear thing either, because AI is moving, right? This isn't like, what do I do with a four cylinder combustion engine that looks like this, you know? And it's static, yeah. I mean, this is like, a rapidly moving object, right? That's like, super sophisticated, and what it is today won't be what it is tomorrow. And so you're constantly evaluating how you implement it and how you do it, right? And so I think for me, the big moment was like, not over-relying on AI. I think that a really simple example is you can over-complicate things with AI. You know, I mean, humans are pretty smart. And so like, let's not make things more complicated than it needs to be. Like, if, if someone has a question, or if you're in a piece of software, I mean, you could just give them a button or two buttons for them to pick from, and they'll get it right, you know, almost 100% of the time as a human. It could be something complicated for AI to actually figure out the intent of what the human is looking to do. And so it's kind of this line of, like, Where does software and like, really good user interface fit, and where does AI fit in that kind of journey? And I think that's been probably one of our biggest learning curves. Like, it'd be really if we get that wrong, I mean, that's like a massive impact, right? So when I don't think it's like an outright failure to your question, or, like, where we almost died as a company, but you could end up down a very wrong path that would set you back a long ways by doing that the wrong way.

Leah  24:50

Right. So help me understand how you came to a point where you could strategically understand the use of AI and not get too freaked out by it. And how did you get to that sort of place of understanding?

Remi  25:02

Well, I would say that's about the team. And I'm not a software engineer by trade, right? And so my focus is always about, how do we apply technology into a practical business environment and have it build a business. That's what I'm good at. So I rely on, you know, the team to be able to, like, Okay, what's the boundaries, right? And I'm like, you know, can it do this? You know, in a reliable way, because we're talking about farm equipment, right? So if you do something and it's not reliable, and then someone gets their arm cut off. I mean, this is big, big, heavy equipment, and it's serious, right? So it has to be really, really reliable, and it's not something that you can just be throwing out there to the general consumer in a way where you're going to do a bunch of testing and, oh, somebody you know got the wrong whatever, yeah, and the impact doesn't really matter. This is… super matters. 

Leah  26:00

High stakes 

Remi  26:02

High stakes. That's right. And so, you know, we're on the conservative side of making sure that it is highly reliable, in what we do deploy to production. And so we've been super lucky. I mean, we've… of our team, five of us have worked together in my previous company. So in terms of, like, communication and history and just understanding how we operate, that's huge, right? There's a lot of trust there. And then, you know, we've been able to bring on, like, our lead AI developer is Michael Adam, who's just. I mean, he's written a book, I think it's his 13th book, and this one's on how to deploy AI agents. And so literally. Yeah. And we found this guy in Calgary, of all places, right? So super cool. And it's been amazing to have him on our team, and really him as, like, a mentor of, you know, everyone else on our team. And so we've been able to build up that knowledge. You throw some, like, summer interns there that got, like, some amazing hustle, and it's great.

Leah  27:02

You've got a huge grin on your face. I could tell you love this kind of stuff.

Remi  27:06

Yeah, it's, you know, it's a lot of fun, right? Like, I like, you know, to create things, yeah? Creating… creating something out of nothing, really, and seeing it build. And I always think about it. The difference between startups and corporations, like large corporations, is it has to be a symbiotic relationship, right? Between the people in the company and the corporation as an entity, or the company as an entity, right? And too often, I'm not saying everyone's like this in large corporations, but it's about their career. It's both their advancement. It's about them. And that's how startups fail, right? That's like, full stop. That's how they fail. And so, you know, our culture that we really strive for is like, it's like that gut feeling, and you walk in the room of the team that's who's around you, and are you having fun with them, right? And how do we fail fast, and how do we learn from it? Nobody's ever been fired for making a mistake in the businesses I've been involved in. They've been fired when they've made the mistake multiple times. So we're not learning from it, or they hid it, or whatever, right? And so we're going to make mistakes. We're in territory that no one's ever done. And so if we aren't making mistakes, actually, we aren't trying hard enough is the opposite side of it, right? So, you know, mistakes are expected, and we’re having them occur, but we got to, like, talk about them openly, right? And learn from them and then move forward. 

Leah  28:28

That's right, yeah, so exciting. So clearly, though being an entrepreneur is not a nine to five job, as we've just discussed, how does it actually affect your day to day life, like your relationships, the people you interact with, your family?

Remi  28:43

There's always trade off, right? In, you know, my last two in my previous two companies that I had sold, like DynAgra and Decisive, work-life balance was definitely not great. I was there's a lot, a lot of family and self-sacrifice. And including, you know, my wife made a lot of sacrifices, of things on her side, right? And so, you know, this time around, I'm definitely trying to be more methodical about it. And so for me, things like, I do yoga kind of three or four times a week. I have that in my routine. Try to have a morning and evening, like, brief 10-15 minute, like meditation session. Nothing like super sophisticated like… but just quiet thought time. And then, you know, just trying to prioritize things with the family. My kids are, you know, they're getting old now, 16, 18, 20. So, you know, you start to realize that opportunities to do things with them is limited. And so, you know, like this year, my son and I, who's at a university, University of Victoria, we did a trip down the Grand Canyon. And so we were 16 days on the river together with, you know, six other friends, like father-son and one wife combo. But like all everyone, we have done lots of trips together, so it was just like, easy, no drama. And wow, what an amazing experience, you know. And I just look at those opportunities as becoming more and more limited the older your kids get, because priorities change, right? So I'm, I'm really trying to be conscious of that. My biggest learning was back in 2017, I would say, I fully burnt out. So we'd raised and Decisive Farming raised around 6 million and with McCraw Capital, and, yeah, in the fall of 2016 and then I was on a pretty bad trajectory at that point. But I remember, it was like, July of 2017, my brother Dash was like, You got to get out of here. I'm like, Oh, why? What's going on? He's like, man, you're burnt out. And he's like, take two weeks off and, like, you know, disappear for a while. And I was like, oh, okay, you know. And so I didn't even know the hole that I had dug. You don't realize that every time that you know, you push things harder and harder, right? You think, oh, I'm accelerating, right? Moving things faster. But this is like technology debt. It's the same thing. You have, you know, physical and mental human debt that you're accumulating there, right? And if you don't address it, it's going to catch up with you at some point. I get maybe Elon Musk thinks that he can do it forever, and who knows what else is motivating him, right? But, like normal human beings, there's a deficit that occurs there, right? And if you don't take care of it and take care of yourself, you know, the organism symbiotic relationship dies, right? Like you're one piece of it, right? So you gotta take care of the company. But if you don't take care of yourself, I mean, it'll fail at some point.

Leah  31:49

Sounds like though you had, you know well, your brother, in this case, say, dude, like, you got to address this, which is really great. You must be sort of thankful that he raised this flag for you, saying, Hey, pay attention.

Remi  32:02

Yeah, for sure. For sure, I mean, and I think it was, you know, it's part of, like, growing up and maturing, and like, working smart, not hard, necessarily. But yeah, no, it was, it was huge and, but to be honest, it probably took me two years to, like, get my energy back. And then, you know, by that time, I kind of got it back, then we went through an acquisition process with TELUS. And it, you know, sucked the life out of me again, because that was like a 10-month process. And then I was really out of commission for a while. And it, again, it took a long time to kind of gain that energy and excitement. You know, the energy excitement you feel for me in this room, right? Like that energy. You know, when you lose that, it's not as much fun.

Leah  32:52

No, it's definitely not. But to your point, as you get a little bit more mature, you've… This is not your first time around anymore. You're more aware of that. And perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but what I'm seeing you do is be very protective and methodical about the things that you need to do to stay well.

Remi  33:08

Yep, that's right. There's always a reason to sacrifice it, of course, but you're not actually getting as far ahead that you think. 

Remi  33:15 

Absolutely. 

Leah  33:17

So we've talked about some of the challenges, but I'm also really curious about, like, what is it that you truly love about being an entrepreneur?

Remi  33:24

I'm a deal junkie, ultimately, right? Yeah, and what I mean by that is, it's like figuring out how you can put something together and a relationship. I'm a connector. I like meeting people, understanding their business, and then figure out how we can work together. So formalizing that into like an agreement where it's mutually beneficial is what I really enjoy doing. It's like creating other symbiotic relationships, right? Obviously, ideally with financial benefit, you know, but not always. Sometimes it's just good alignment, right? So I have a lot of fun doing that, you know. And I think alongside that, you know, it's working with the team, working with good people. I always say, you know, like, life's too short to work with assholes, kind of, right? And, yeah, you know. And I have fired people quickly at times when… not for making mistakes, but because it was clear that they didn't fit culturally with their team. And I'm always surprised after I do let someone go, which is never easy. I don't want to sound cold, right? But I don't take hiring or firing like lightly, but when it's clear they're not a fit, I'm always surprised how, you know, the rest of the team comes back and is like, thank you for doing that, you know? Where you realize that the impact that's occurring on other people is is huge, right? And if, if you don't do that, you're actually, yeah, it can rip your your company apart in ways, right? So I don't love that. Part of the business that's hard, that part's hard, but yeah, like the creation and excitement of things definitely is, is a lot of fun.

Leah  35:11

And clearly you love it a lot because you like mentoring entrepreneurs. You work with CDL, Creative Destruction Labs.

Remi  35:18

So I've done mentorship with Creative Instruction Labs and Thrive. Yeah, a few other organizations I’ve been involved in and focused a little more narrow now, I've kind of got between kind of existing portfolio and Koan Capital and then in some other just personal relationships where I'm supporting people, so less bandwidth on that side right now. You can learn a lot, right? Like, even as a seasoned entrepreneur, there's just so much to learn from other seasoned entrepreneurs, or up and coming ones, right, how they view things, how they're tackling problems, right, even if they're not in the same market, right? So there's so much to learn in that journey, and that's part of what I love, too, is just seeing other people be successful, right, as well? And them figuring out their problems and being an enabler in that and connecting like people that you know can build those synergies.

Leah  36:14

Absolutely. I mean, that leads us nicely to the investment side, right? So you're also an investor. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Remi  36:20

Yeah. Yeah. So I started Coin Capital in, I guess would have been ‘23? ‘22. ‘22. and really just out of I was doing some angel investing, and I had other investors who wanted to invest alongside me, and so ended up formalizing that in and in seven weeks, built, I think I don't know if there's other rolling funds in Canada, but they're more common in the US, but built this rolling fund structure so we can take. 

Remi  36:48

In seven weeks? 

Remi  36:50

In seven weeks, and raised the capital. So it’s apout a $5 million fund. No institutional capital, family offices, high-net-worth individuals. I'm the sole GP. I've got a CFO that supports me. But so we've invested in about 16 deals, wow, primarily in Canada, some in the US. All in AgTech, maybe a little bit into food tech, and really, just early stage, right? So sometimes the first check, you know, we're up into, you know, other rounds. We just had a company that probably see in the next week that's, you know, raised 40 million that we were early investor in. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's exciting. I mean, they're not all wins. We've also got some failures along those paths, right? But that's, you know, par for the course. But it's a great way to get further involved. You know, it's like mentorship is, you know, one level, and then if you invest some money, you're in even further, right? And so trying to stay engaged with those companies and those entrepreneurs in their journey. Because one of the most valuable things I had in decisive farming, was our independent board member. And you know that… And I didn't even know, it wasn't even a methodical thing, but most valuable person for me. Because as an entrepreneur, as the CEO, it's lonely at the top. Like you have a board, but almost all these boards are made up of investors, right? So like, yeah, you can kind of have candid conversations, but you aren't necessarily telling them your deepest, darkest secrets and fears of, you know, what's going on for you as a person. And so having an independent board member that you know is a been-there, done-there, entrepreneur that has been run, you know, run the gauntlet. Can relate to what's happening. And just gets it, because they're like, how's it going, man? You know. And like, you get when someone asks you that that's that's been there and done that, and they ask, how's it going, you can relate to what it's about. It's like, how are you doing? You know. Like, are you doing okay with this? Right? And, and, because it's hard to have those discussions you want to take the luggage home to your family, right? Because that's typically stressful. So it's hard to find a place to go with it.  So I highly recommend that individual for me was a guy named Carl Stillner from Seattle, not even in agriculture. And so he's the independent on my board again at Brilliant Harvest

Leah  39:24

Keep them close. How important was that to you to have that person just say, Hey, man, how are you doing? Like you?

Remi  39:31

Yeah, it's huge. It's huge because I think it's realization that, I mean too often the board conversations or investor conversations, I mean, it's about the business. It's about how that's all going. How's the team going, you know? And often, it's not about like the person at the top, who's, you know, trying to make it all happen, right? And so I think just connecting on a human level is huge. There's a really, really good write up. It's a couple years old now, but ShawnAbbott from Inovia, who's written about, you know, building effective boards. Super relevant. Any entrepreneur, I just highly recommend you read that and put the principles to practice. I say it all the time, and even I say it to companies, and nobody gets it, really gets it, until they hire an independent board member, and they're like, Oh, I get what you're saying. I should have done this a year ago. And I'm like, Yeah, I know. I was telling you, but you weren't listening, right? So, you know, people have to work it out themselves.

Leah  40:31

What's the big takeaway from that article that you want people to understand?

Remi  40:36

In particular, having an effective board isn't about having a whole bunch of people. It's about keeping it tight, having the right people on the board, being able to call that out, right? Whether it be an investor that wants a board seat, they shouldn't necessarily have the board seat. If they're not adding value, you know? They can be an observer and put the right person in the seat that does add value, you know?  And that's something that you know Shawntalks about. And I, you know, for me, too, I and it's the timing of this too, you know, of what's needed in the business, but it evolves, right? And so I think just having that conscious conversation about, like, Okay, this worked when we were a seed stage company, and, you know, Joe and Pete were doing a great job, but we're now at this phase, and we’ve got to refresh this. And you know, just because you're an investor, yeah, we'll have you an observer, we can help agree on who should be at the table, but like, let's have the right people. That's what's going to drive success, because most investors haven't been operators in businesses, right? And their ability to help is limited. And so I think it's like, the right people in the room is so important. It's easy to say and hard to do, though, trust me, because most investors, you're like, I want a board seat.

Leah  41:52

Fair enough. Fair enough. What's really important to us at Thin Air, and I think this might be very important to you as well, is impact. I'd love to know how you think about creating positive impact in the world, whether it's personally or through your companies or your investing or your mentorship. How do you think about impact?

Remi  42:08

So, I mean, I'm not, I'm not a political person, and I don't do maybe that well with, like, what would be like, typical volunteering, you know, like, for the Red Cross or for, like, that's not really my thing, either. And so, you know, for me, it's like, how do you give back? And I think that, you know, the world becomes a better place when we have more entrepreneurs creating and solving problems, like creating solutions to solve real problems, right? So, you know, entrepreneurs that have actually really identified a problem and have figured out a way to solve it, I mean, those are things that excite me. And not only that, they have an impact, right? And they create, you know, if you think in… there's lots of good examples where small startups have become bigger, they get acquired, and then all of a sudden, you've got someone's head off… a large corporate head office in that city, you know? And then there's spin outs, right? So it's like, there's people who worked in that startup that left the big corporate because that happens. But then they went and started another company, and 10 companies got spun up out of one company. And those are, like, ecosystem builders, right? And facilitation of that is, is something that I'm passionate about. Try to support, and do you know the best I can and with as much bandwidth as I can, but yeah, to me, I think that that's how we can impact. I mean, I'm also a big advocate of rivers in general, and like, protecting our waterways, and like, especially, you know, salmon-bearing rivers and so, you know, try to support those types of organizations as well, because I spend a lot of my time personally and my family's time on rivers, and know how beautiful and amazing they are and the impact that they have in our world, just, you know, environmentally. So those would probably be the two main things.

Leah  44:11

Cool. As we wrap up this conversation, I ask everybody the same question, you are the Founder of Brilliant Harvest. You're writing the story for this company. How do you hope it goes?

Remi  44:21

You know, I think I've spent, well, quite a few years looking at and figuring out what is a truly massively scalable business in AgTech. And there actually aren't that many. It's actually really hard to do, because agriculture has just often is rooted with, you know, an asset, or physically the ground in some way or whatever. So it's actually really hard to have, like, a pure software, pure tech in agriculture and make it highly scalable. And so, you know, the opportunity that we have in front of Brilliant Harvest is huge. And so I want to, I want to build a big business and, and I think that opportunity is here to have, really, one of the actual first, you know, billion dollar AgTech companies in the market, and have it in Canada. You know, along the way, I mean, we'll see where it goes. But it's aligning objectives of like, how do you, how do you make sure you take care of the team, customers, investors, and have those alignment, right? And so, but yeah, that's the outcome I'm working on.

Leah  45:35

You’re working for. I love it. And then, as a Founder, how do you hope your own personal story goes?

Remi  45:36

For me, you know, family is important and adventure is important. So lots of family adventures. 

Leah  45:37

Sounds like fun. No more concussions, though.

Remi  45:38

I'm trying my best. Yeah, so far so good. 

Leah  45:40

Remi, thank you for this conversation. 

Remi  45:42

Yeah, lots of fun. Thanks. Leah.

Leah  46:00

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