David 00:01

My best friend from junior kindergarten, he went the software route, and has been a CTO in a bunch of construction tech, Big Pharma software companies, and had an incredible background doing that. And him and I have been best friends forever, and we always wanted to work together. So when I got on the bench here as CEO, I said, Rob, I think I found the one.

Leah 00:24

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 01:08

Joining me in studio today is David Lod, CEO of VEERUM, a platform that empowers teams with their visual operations capabilities, allowing companies around the world to manage their industrial assets in 3D. David, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

David 01:24

Thank you, Leah, thrilled to be here today. So.

Leah 01:26

Thank you. Well, let's start right at the beginning and talk a little bit about like VEERUM. Let's start there with what VEERUM is today, and then we'll go back a little bit in time. So let's start with what VEERUM Is today.

David 01:37

You described it spot on. This is about changing industrial operations for large facilities and assets. So these are traditionally oil and gas facilities. They could be utility, large manufacturing facilities as well, as you know, utility and mines as well. So what we saw was a very antiquated approach to working, providing operations and maintenance, project controls construction with all these large facilities. So what VEERUM has been able to do is create what I call a single pane of glass. So you just log into your one laptop and you can see your engineering models, your geospatial data, your document management, everything together, including your real-time, whether it's IoT or SCADA, information, all at your fingertips so that all of our clients can work visually and in 3D. So it's really about almost a gamification, or creating that Video Game instance of these large industrial assets.

Leah 02:34

Wow. And so, what does that do for these companies? Like, how does that help them? What's the benefit?

David 02:39

Well, if you go back in time and you think about, you know, having to change, let's say a pump, or look for, you know, a pressure safety valve, any of these things that would be, you know, found in these industrial facilities. There was really no visual way to understand where they were, what they were because you're looking off old, antiquated spreadsheets, right, or old schematics and stuff like that. So our clients are now using this to really drive productivity, improve safety, drastically reduce costs. So as an example, rather than having to do maintenance planning and go out to site and do field-based measurements, you can actually now do all this online. Your employees that you do want to keep safe and out of hazardous conditions, they don't actually have to enter into these high-risk scenarios to do this type of work. It can actually be done remotely, and all that information that was generally never trusted. Or it could be in seven or eight, you know, legacy systems. We brought it all together and put it into that three-dimensional model where you can, now, you know, walk through in that immersive experience and, you know, collaborate and work in that fashion, and that's really where the whole industry is headed. And we've spent basically the last 10 years almost educating the market of that potential. Right now, we're kind of at that cusp where we're getting pulled going, Yeah, it's time. We got to do this. You know, we've been fortunate. It's basically, you know, the advent of cloud computing and that being accepted with oil and gas and a lot of these major industries, as well as the commoditization of what I call data capture, meaning laser scan, satellite imagery, any of that those data sets, those primary data sets, that you need. So kind of those two things are crossing a path, and VEERUM is like, right at the end of capture on that. So.

Leah 04:21

Wow. So this is like, game-changing for these companies, literally, like, they're now able to see everything right in front of they don't have to be there. They don't have to have their employees there. This is incredible.

David 04:31

We get great quotes when we show clients like this is incredibly eye-opening. You know, we kind of saw this in, you know, an old Tom Cruise movie or something like that. It completely works. It's completely scalable; it's affordable. And the industry is all moving in this direction right now. So it is changing the way people work, whether it's maintenance, planning, operations, you know, capital construction, execution, because at the end of the day, it's the data on these facilities that is so valuable to clients, and they lose it at every turn, or they go recollect it, or they send people the site to figure out what's going on there. So we become a primary repository and visual engine for them to work differently.

Leah 05:12

That's cool. I love it. And how many employees do you have now?

David 05:15

Yeah, we're a little over 50 employees. And yeah, headquartered right here in Calgary.

Leah 05:21

Yes, love it. Love it. And who are your clients? These were, I mean, assuming big oil and gas companies.

David 05:27

Yeah, if you, you know, just look outside the door here and look at all the logos on the top of the big buildings. We've got most of those as clients today. We've got, you know, the largest oil and gas company in the world, some of the largest mining organizations. But we also have an ability to scale down and provide value for clients that might just have a small facility manufacturing, maybe even a single well pad. So we've got an opportunity to scale and provide value. You know, we're a software platform, and clients are able to leverage it both ways. So you know, ExxonMobil is a public client of ours as well. And, you know, it took us a long time to kind of get through there, but they're actually a leading organization. They're kind of leading the way for a lot of, you know, oil and gas up and upstream, midstream and downstream around how they're going to work visually out of reality first, and not off of legacy engineering models.

Leah 06:17

Wow. So exciting. I love this story, but what I really love is how you came in to this company. So that's what I want to dig into. Of course, we're talking about venture building in this podcast, so I really want to dig into that. So normally, we talk to the Founders of the company who created it from the beginning. But in your case, it was the Founders that brought you in and said, basically, save us. Help us fix this. Tell me, walk me through how you were brought into this organization.

David 06:44

Yeah, yeah. So absolutely, not the Founder, but I kind of say, you know, I found her, right?

Leah 06:51

I found her. Yeah, exactly.

David 06:54

Yeah. So, VEERUM had started basically about three years before I took over as CEO, and it had, you know, three primary Founders of the organization, and they were able to raise some seed money and get the business going, but it was certainly struggling, both in what I call strategic execution and trying to do probably too many things with limited amount of capital, right? So, they were into robotics. They were into, you know, providing almost internet in a box for these remote field sites. And then also they had this software application that they were generating. And that's really where the, you know, the Genesis, or the idea was in these other areas where almost to support the software requirements, right? Because the industry kind of wasn't ready there. And it's kind of comical when you take a step back and look at what they were trying to do earlier, it was, we're into robotics, so they're taking on Boston Dynamics, internet in a box. we're taking on SpaceX, and then we have a software platform, right? So it's, you need a lot of capital to take on, you know, Boston Dynamics, SpaceX, and have an incredible software platform. So, you know, they took that institutional venture capital money in a seed payment. So, of course, you establish a board, right? And you know, the board recognized too, there were some challenges. And you know, a lot of, you know, startup scale-up. So can appreciate this. You know, you bring in money, you hire up. And you know, revenue can solve all things, but if revenue dries up, you've got a new challenge on your hands. So, you know, we weren't getting the, you know, the client traction that was originally intended. So, you know, the board had approached me, and I had to meet with the previous CEO and Co-Founder and say, Listen, we can turn this around. It really came down to probably five or six months of capital left in the business. Significant burn rate in revenue went down to zero. This was going to need to be a hyper-focus on the software, which I knew had great opportunity. And the original Genesis that came from the Founders was construction progress monitoring in that visual way that I've been describing earlier. And they had some early traction with that, and it had a ton of opportunity, but you need great software, a great team, and the market needs to be ready to kind of consume it, right? So there were some early adopters, but it wasn't quite there yet. So we had to restrategize, get rid of the, you know, the robotics, you know, the internet in the box, really focus on basically rebuilding that software. And so the interesting part for me was, you know, the board had approached me and, you know, kind of shortlisted and got down to, we'd like you to take this on. And you also need to convince the CEO, who's now moving out of the business, who will still have equity in but won't be in an operational capacity. Another Founder, no equity left in the business and won't be operating in a third that's staying in and has equity. And it's kind of like, here's the final swing at the bat. Do you want to take a run at this? So there was this whole cultural thing, and almost a little bit, you know, it's kind of awkward, right? It's like, sure, I know this was your baby, but you're out–

Leah 10:08

No kidding.

David 10:09

Can I hold her and see if I can, you know, get her to year one at this stage, right after post-funding and but they were all supportive. The board was great through that transition. It was kind of open kimono. And it was, do you want to try to do this? And so I said, Sure.

Leah 10:26

Okay. But now, why would you say yes to that? I mean, like, when I think of this, I think of like, this company in a really desperate state, and you're like, I'll give it a go. Like that kind of seems wild to me. Why would you take that on? Yeah, it's, I don't know, maybe

David 10:39

Yeah, it’s, I don’t know, maybe have some defect in the brain or something like that, but no, I really enjoy a challenge. And every role I've had in my career, I've never wanted to take on, you know, a position where the previous individual who was there, it was gold and it's running smoothly. Everything is great. I've been more of a this is a disaster. Can we fix this, make it better, and then move on to the next challenge? So I've always liked that, and I've worked at big companies. So I started my career at IBM. I worked for Sean Rogers, right, similar to U of Rogers, with large telecom cables, but I also had time with smaller, struggling businesses, which pivot data centers was at the time that I participated with them, running Sales and Marketing for them. So when VEERUM came around, I kind of saw it as okay. One. I get the problem that they can potentially solve. I get the software and the technology. I get how critical these facilities are, and I get enterprise B-to-B sales overall. So this thing has a shot. Now. It's all about timing, right? Is the market timing right there? And can we resell a new story to bring in more capital? So it looked like an exciting opportunity, and I've always had either, you know, VP, General Manager, and I've owned PNL, and had exposure to running a sales organization or operations, but I never had the ultimate called the CEO title. And I thought, what better way to do it, right? Like, let's take on something that is challenged very much so at this point in time. Let's see where we can take it. And yeah, here we are today. So it's been big ups, bigs, downs. And, yeah, we were having so much fun.

Leah 12:23

Yeah, okay, well, we need to dig into, like, how you actually did that, because it's a lot more than what you've just said. It's also about, like, the people. You know, an organization is about people as well, right? Not just the product and the market and all of that, but it's about the people. So tell me how you actually came into an organization when I'm sure people were fighting all the time and not working with each other, and it just wasn't working. How did you come in there and fix that?

David 12:48

Yeah, it was something that I told Scott, who is one of the Co-Founders and still working in our business right now as well. I said, if I can do anything that'll improve this business, it'll be changing the culture, and we'll make this a, you know, a great place to work, and people will want to be here, and they'll be very loyal and excited to be part of the story. And he gravitated to that, and he said that's certainly missing where we're at right now, because we had a development organization, software side that was not getting along with product, that was not getting along with sales, that, you know, marketing and everything else. It was very toxic, right, when we looked at it so, and I think it was just because, you know, forced growing, not having enough focus previously. And then, you know, exiting the original sort of Founders out to, you know, there's a lot of loyalty to individuals in an organization. And then there's, you know, you get into things where some people were promised maybe equity and other stuff that never materialized. So you get into a position of, okay, I've inherited this. Now, how do we make this better? Now, VEERUM previously, when it had its seed funding, was a little over 30 people, and it had to get trimmed down to about, you know, 15, and I had to bring it down. I think we were at about eight, eight or nine, and then the software needed to be refactored as well. So we're in a market where it's tough to get software developers, and so I said one of my key critical hires here that I'm going to need is I need a CTO, and difficult to come by now, if you can find a CTO that can get right into the code, understand the business challenges that can lead a team that can talk at an investor and board level, you've got a unicorn. So happened to be that my best friend from junior kindergarten, so that's sort of been, you know, 40 years ago, he went the software route and has been a CTO in a bunch of, you know, construction tech, Big Pharma, software companies, and had an incredible background doing that. And him and I have been best friends forever, and we always wanted to work together. So when I got that on the bench here as CEO, I said, Rob, I think I found the one, and I need a CTO. And of course, you know, I put them through the wringer and made them interview him and go through with other candidates. But he was the guy we needed because he had been through the, you know, near bankruptcy, grow it, you know, execute it, sell it, stages. So he's so he's had that. It's when I brought him in the trust for him, and I was already there, right? And that's a big piece of it. And then it was about hiring the right people and building out the right team, and, you know, celebrating the wins that we had and the momentum along the way. So we went from, you know, nine to over 50 people now, and we have a third-party HR firm that we work with, as most, you know, scale-ups do. And you know, they kind of did a test on, you know, engagement and effectiveness, basically, when I had taken over the helm, and we were, you know, maybe at two or three out of 10, like we were, we were in big trouble. It's just because it was, you know, a challenging time. But, you know, in the last three years, we've been awarded Great Place to Work in Canada. It's not like we hit that minimum threshold of 65% we've gotten 98-94/93%, so.

Leah 16:01

That's incredible.

David 16:03

That's a big turnaround, and it all comes down to having the right leadership team, transparency with all your employees, right? Everyone's adults here, and making them understand what we're doing, that we're making meaningful impact and creating a really awesome culture and environment.

Leah 16:20

Wow, clearly, that's what I've heard over and over again.

David 16:023

And we're having fun–

Leah 16:24

–And you're having fun, right? You want to have fun when you're doing your work, for sure. But I want to dig into even more about how did this feel to you as this guy coming in and doing this incredibly hard work, you know when you're reducing the company first and then building it back up. How does that feel to you? Like, how do you process that emotionally even?

David 16:46

I certainly have to give a shout-out to my wife for being highly supportive through that. Lots of long hours and support. We had a lot of we had young, young, young children at the time too. Every day you get, like, a little glimmer of hope or something shiny, and you're like, Okay, listen, like I had a good call with a client. There's possibility here, but then you get, you know, just some bizarre, terrible, down trough, right? Like, could be anything. I remember when one point, I got sued, right? Yeah, so that was a low one, too–

Leah 17:16

I bet.

David 17:18

So, how do you deal with that? Right? Now, I'm trying to raise capital, and now I've got to throw into my due diligence piece here. I got an active potential lawsuit, right? So was it was unfounded. It was a competitor. We beat them in an account, and they thought that we stole some other code, which absolutely wasn't the case. But as you're going through these emotional piece, I remember our lawyer at the time. He said, Well, I got some good news for you. And I said, What's that? He goes, you haven't made it till you've been sued. So we're on the right path.

Leah 17:45

We’re on the right path. Something's going well.

David 17:48

Yeah, and you kind of just have to look for those little rays of light and keep moving a little bit forward. And you can have a big milestone to achieve. But every day, are we going in the right direction, right? And can you keep that drive and passion in the company and get that buy-in to pull it off? And, yeah, we've assembled an incredible team, and I think, you know, even today, we have a wins channel in our chat, where it could be a client win. It could be we cracked something in software development. It could be someone got their Canadian citizenship. It could be whatever. We have everyone posted in there. And if it's like the good news channel that you get to go and say, look at all the great things that we're pulling off together here, right? And it just kind of feeds the engine, so it gets you through those hard times.

Leah 18:31

Sure it does. Sure it does, as the guy, though, leading the ship, I'm curious about how you negotiate those moments when you do get the call from the lawyer or that kind of thing, and then you two seconds later have to turn around and be like, Hey, we're gonna raise some money, or hey, look at all the wins in this channel. You know, I know that you've got a lot on your plate when that's happening. How do you make those turns, even in an emotional context?

David 18:57

Yeah, well, I think a lot of people say, you never look phased. You're unfazed. So I go from like, Hey, this is the happiest day of my life, and I think that has to do with my Finnish heritage. I think we're just kind of, you know, even keel, but you can't dwell on bad news, and you can celebrate the wins, but you can't be satisfied with them. You got to keep going, right? So I kind of look at these as just instances in time. So that's kind of how I think my brain is hardwired to work, right? So it's like, you know, we want a big contract. That's great. Kay, what is next? How do we make this better? And yeah, bad news or challenging news comes in daily, as you're, you know, leading an organization. It could be operations, finance, sales, something like, nothing better than $0 oil and a global pandemic within 30 days of each other, when that's my primary market we're trying to raise capital. I go, Well, we're in big trouble now, but there's got to be a silver lining in here, right? And our head of sales. Trevor. He's got a saying that he brings forth. He even has a tattoo on his arm called Wéijī, and it's basically crisis and opportunity, right? It's an understanding of there is opportunity and all the chaos.

Leah 20:12

That's so cool. I mean, I always ask everybody about one pivotal moment. I have a feeling you may have just mentioned it was there a pivotal moment when you knew, like, okay, yes, this is a bit of a gong show from the beginning, but was there one moment when you're like, I don't know if we're gonna make this work. Was it related to the pandemic? I'm just curious.

David 20:30

Yeah, that's a good one, because it was in our early days. So I'd only been CEO, I think we're probably less than a year and a half, little over a year, we sign a lease we move out of what was the GE Accelerator Center at the time, or, like, we need to grow up, get our own space right, and put our flag here. So, we get our lease. We move in November, and then, you know, March, bang, you've got, you get a pandemic. And I remember bringing the team, which is only like 13-14, people at the time, and said, Listen, pack up your stuff like you might not be back for two weeks. Because we all know what's going to happen here, right?

Leah 21:08

I remember that two-week window.

David 21:12

Yeah, three years later, go blow the dust off your desk. But you know, we were going to need to raise capital probably within, you know, 9-10, months of sort of pandemic hits. So that's a challenge. And then oil goes to $0 in fact, like negative $7 one day. Remember that? So at the time, I think 95% of the companies working with us were were oil and gas. So I'm like, they fundamentally aren't worth anything on paper, right this second. How are we going to get them to buy this new, exciting technology and change the way people work? And, you know, we kind of strategize and talk with the board. I said, we've got an opportunity here. It's either we're going to turtle and preserve cash and just see what this looks like, whether the oil corrects over time, or this pandemic blows over. Or we lean in now and we, you know, we hire, and we accelerate, and we hope people figure out how to work on Zoom, and we get these demos going, and we decided to push in.

Leah 22:15

How did you come to that decision?

David 22:18

You know, we had some early indications with some clients that they were going to explore this. And I think, you know, the first kind of two weeks of all of this, everybody, they couldn't get a hold of anybody. But also, we had a Zoom call, which is again relatively new, with a large pipeline company in town here that we had been talking to previously. And a sales cycle was for us, usually, like, 12 months to get one of these big guys to potentially move. So we had met with them earlier, and we, you know, we had some other calls, but then we had this Zoom call, and there must have been like 30 or 40 people from this company on–

Leah 22:53

On this call?

David 22:55

Yeah, and I was going, what is this, right? And it seemed like everyone is gravitating to, okay? You know, we got to be on Zoom meetings to be present in the organization, but we're providing this opportunity for clients to work remotely and monitor assets remotely. So now I've got this major challenge with people can't go to site, right? So can they accelerate the deployment with VEERUM at the time, which was great, and we got to find a way to take OPEX cost out of our cost model, now, right? Because now, you know, oil is suppressed here, but the only way you're really going to relinquish any cost of the businesses with the adoption of technology the right way and our other avenue, and we leaned on this really hard, was we can actually create these digital twins for clients in under 48 hours. So this is not a six month deployment, multi-millions of dollars, big lift. Second I have access to your engineering or reality scan models you're now working in your environment. We can do integrations with, you know, SAP maximum, all the other systems as well. So when I saw that, I said, Something's going to happen here. Right now, these clients are going to make decisions faster than they ever have, because they either have no choice, and there's a bigger group around saying, I want to be a part of this as well, right? Because they're like, Oh, this is the future, right? It's we're forced to change. So we signed a bunch of deals really quickly in that first sort of 60 days of those challenges. And the board agreed, said, Okay, let's lean in. And we did, and we were able to raise money through the pandemic. We doubled our business and client count, which wasn't that big at the time. It's still great over that, you know, first sort of 90 days of that impact. So it was a pivotal moment where, I think a lot of other companies, they didn't have that client, you know, the client touched that understanding of client pain points and requirements. You know, if we were earlier and our software wasn't quite there, we would have turtled to preserve cash, and that would have probably been end of the road, really. Because it’s a tough story. So our story was one of growth through two challenging headwinds that were not in our control.

Leah 25:05

That's incredible. Do you take a moment to process that? Like I'm just sitting here–

David 25:10

Only when I recounted back to you, and I'm like, geez, we're crazy. I used to have a great head of hair back then, too, but that's gone. So that's probably part of it.

Leah 25:19

That's amazing.

Leah 25:21

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 25:46

It is remarkable, though, that you were able to do this at that time when so many companies, yeah, to your point, had to turtle or fold altogether. Once you started seeing some of those wins, how did you communicate that to the team, help them understand that, yes, we are going in the right direction, and we're on to something, and this is really working.

David 26:05

You know, the traditional the all teams meeting. So we'd have our Zoom calls, we'd have updates, but like when the pandemic hit, as an example, we we had regular touch points with individuals on teams, and we would alternate. So I'd have my schedule of here, it's the seven employees I'm talking to this week, and then it would alternate, and, you know, Trevor Rob or Chris or whoever would also take, take those calls. We kept that regular human touch when we couldn't do it in the office anymore, and I think that was important to to communicate that we're doing okay. We also looked through that period, even though we were kind of growing and cash gets tight. We, you know, as a team. We, you know, furloughed to a certain extent, and kind of reduce some of the payroll, which is, which is painful and a hard decision and discussion to have, right? So, we did that, but we were able to pull the business out of those challenging times, get more capital in the business, which was really exciting. I love sharing this. And the board was an agreement that we actually repaid all the furloughed amounts through that.

Leah 27:05

Really? That's huge.

David 27:07

Yeah, and so, like, that's a, you know, there's a money component to that, but that's a cultural kind of Capstone that you get to play. And then people get it, like, okay, the board, the leadership, everyone's all in on this. And when we can do it, we'll do it right, right, fairly.

Leah 27:23

I can see you getting emotional about that. That was really meaningful to you.

David 27:25

Yeah, it was, yeah, because we, you know, we, and I think I told you this previously, when we were a company of 30 people, we spoke 18 different languages, like, very diverse. So we have a lot of new Canadians, right? And lot of young families and all that. So, you know, every dollar counts, right? And it's just like, how can we get through this together? Like, are we better to, you know, do you take 30% of your your head count away, or can you get through this tough point together, and then that team bonds, right? And make it happen, because all you're going to do is going to have to go rehire that again. But can you get through this with that same horsepower and that dedication? And everybody realized it was happening in the market, and it wasn't. It was something we had to do. It a necessity, but we did it all together.

Leah 28:15

You've mentioned the word together a few times. It's really important to you, isn't it, to have that culture of trust where you work together to tackle these huge problems.

David 28:24

Oh yeah, you have to have a high trust team. That's the only way that you're going to, you know, move forward. You have to be able to collaborate openly. I'm not going to be able to do and I'm not the smartest person by any means in my organization. Right? My job is around securing the capital for the business to grow and putting the right people in the right chairs right and then trusting them to put the next right people in the chairs on their organizations and teams so that we can move forward. One of the things we developed, which was our five values that spell out the word S.O.L.I.D so that means Supportive, Optimistic, Listening, Innovative and Dedicated, but that means to our clients, to our team, our company, as well as to our community. And so when Rob's organization is hiring a new software developer, all I have to ask is, you know, are they solid? And if I get the thumbs up, then full steam ahead, yeah.

Leah 29:16

So, you have those values. You live by them. You hire by them. You grow by them.

David 29:20

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. You got to make those visual, right? We sell visual operators and everything you got to see in front of you, got to understand it. It's got to be consistent. We need to perform in that matter, right?

Leah 29:31

Yeah, that's incredible. You take this venture building this company, very personally, don't you?

David 29:36

Yeah, I very much, even though I didn't found it, you know, the Genesis came from Ahmed, Scott and Steve, and they got it going. Yeah, this is very important to me. And, you know, I know everyone in the company, everyone, when they start with us, I spend time with them, to meet them. Oh, you know what brought them to VEERUM and what did they do in their past? What are their interests? We've created an awesome community within VEERUM, you know, high achieving and all of that. And it is important to me.

Leah 30:07

I can tell. I can tell. I also know that when you take something very personally and it's your work, it can sometimes be hard to look after yourself. You know, remember that I can take a break from this. I can step away from this for a minute, I can do what I need to do to recharge or stay well, how do you do that for yourself?

David 30:23

Yeah, I think I'd be guilty of maybe not doing it enough, but some of the sort of the steps I've taken, so certainly you have to be able to kind of disconnect, right? And a big move we made for our family as well as we moved up to Canmore a year ago full-time, which we put the kids in school out there, which is great. And it is an absolute mindset shift to be driving into the mountains after your end of day at work and then disconnecting that way. So I think that's been very helpful, you know, try to do more hiking and physical activity. And then, even for myself, driving in in the morning and having that hour of kind of silence from, you know, six to seven put on a podcast of something, you know, I'd like to learn about, so I'll have to listen to more of your podcast.

Leah 31:04

Yes, please do this.

David 31:07

But those are good. It's just kind of letting your brain think about, you know, working on the business versus in the business, and then, you know, on yourself. And you know, at the end of the day, don't take yourself too seriously. I think we do that. But, yeah, I'm certainly guilty of when you're getting down to, we need to raise money, and we're getting down to final, you know, final dollars in the account, I don't think of 50 employees. I think of, you know, the 300 people that they're directly supporting, whether it's kids and parents or otherwise. So, you know, term heavy weighs the crown, is certainly there, and it's but it's important, and I reach out to our very supportive board members, you know, other call it advisors and colleagues I've, you know, met throughout my career, and try to talk through some of that stuff and with my wife, of course, so you can't carry it all yourself. I've certainly been guilty of that. I'm trying to get better at it.

Leah 32:04

Right, right? I hear that a lot in that space. I'm trying to get better at this, trying to really access–

David 32:09

If only I had time to get better.

Leah 32:11

Exactly. But I, you know, I hear it, especially from some of even the younger founders that I speak to on this podcast. They're very intentional about looking for that support, using that support, making sure that they sort of maintain those relationships, to keep them personally going.

David 32:27

Yeah, I think with, probably, with younger founders and, you know, CEOs of these organizations, I think, you know, mental health and all of that has sort of been right there when they kind of got through university, and it's sort of in front center, certainly, generally more accepted and supported, you know, if you go into sort of my generation, you know. So I was born in the 70s, late 70s, right? And we were raised on, you know, hose water and neglect, right?

Leah 32:52

Oh, yeah, totally. We were feral out there.

David 32:56

That's right. So it's, you know, I think it's great that those tools and supports are there, and it's just about, you know, everyone kind of figuring out how to leverage them. I think, going forward, right?

Leah 33:08

For sure, for sure, how to use them, for sure. Um, we've talked a lot about the challenges of this work. What do you love about this work?

David 33:14

I love now at the stage we're at where I hear an update like from a client saying, you know, I just worked with, you know, Amy or Megan or Blaine or whoever, for that matter, Anderson, and they give this, you know, don't let them know, but they did an exceptional job on this, right? I love to get these, you know, kind of most backdoor compliments to the to the organization, and getting direct feedback from that or even just, you know, in the halls or on a Zoom call, hearing about something that the team did, and it could have been weeks ago, and I'm just like, oh my god, they went above and beyond to do this, and nobody kind of raised a flag, like, hey, you know, we we worked longer, we did something. I'm just proud of how much everyone's supporting each other, I think that's, yeah, that's that really lifts me up, right? I'm just amazed. And I'm just amazed at how creative all of our employees and team are. Like, I'm like, I would have never thought of that. That's amazing.

Leah 34:15

It's nice to be surprised like that.

David 34:17

Yeah, those are the pleasant surprises, for sure.

Leah 34:20

That's so exciting. At Thin Air Labs, we often talk about creating meaningful impact, and for us, we even have it built into our investment thesis. It's really important to us to create meaningful human impact. When you think of impact, I know you have, how do you think about it for VEERUM?

David 34:34

So, in two channels. So one, you know, the solution that we've created our technology, is it having a meaningful impact outside of just dollars and cents? And it does because we have one client in town here. They saved over; I think it was 23,000 hours of field exposure, meaning people on site in dangerous conditions, and meaningful to me, is, you know, if someone gets to go home to their family where that might not have been the option before, that's incredible, or if we potentially been involved in, you know, saving lives and reducing that risk in these very, you know, challenging environments around the world, right, like we're talking all over the world, that's very meaningful, and our team gravitates that, and they can see that impact that we're that we're having out there working safely. And then, you know, with our community too, it's just we're making an impact with the individual lives of our employees, right? And they're working on some of this really cutting edge technology, which will advance their career opportunities and their families, and then, you know, as we support, we're trying to do more, you know, volunteering, team, building that type of stuff in the community. So those are impactful. And I think those are the things that you'll end up remembering when it's all said and done, right?

Leah 35:49

Yeah, that's incredible. It's amazing when you can see that direct line, you know, the work that you're doing; you can see it directly going to that person, to your point, who's coming home tonight, who maybe not. Who maybe wasn't able to or wouldn't have that's incredible. I see you sit up and raise those shoulders, good for you. All right, well, as we start to close this conversation, I ask everybody the same two questions, you're the CEO, you're writing the story for VEERUM. How do you hope the story goes?

David 36:20

Well, I'm cautiously confident, and I really hope the story goes that we've created a lasting technology that will be, you know, future generations, right? And that could be, that could be done with, you know, other strategic groups that are going to take it forward to the next level. There's lots of opportunity there. So that's where it needs to go, right? And we'll get it there.

Leah 36:45

You will, for sure. And as the CEO, you're writing your own story, how do you see your story going?

David 36:52

One I'd like certainly to be remembered as, Wow, they pulled off, you know, this miracle, the odds of starting, you know, a software company, you know, getting it to where it was, turning it around. You know, it's less than half a percent. It's really the odds when you look at it, right? But I'd like to be remembered as somebody that was fair, that did always the right thing, that, you know, rolled up his sleeves to help when it was needed, and to be held in and get accord that way. That's how I'd rather be remembered.

Leah 37:26

David, thank you for this conversation.

Leah 37:27

Well, thank you very much, Leah. I’m happy to be here. And a great platform, too. I got the face for radio, so this worked out really well.

Leah 37:44

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 38:29

Calgary is a city of innovative companies, ideas, and talent. The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund is investing in Calgary's future by finding, fueling, and fostering innovation to build a diverse and resilient economy. Find out more at

‍