Amreesh  00:01

Something that I share often with having these supports nearby, like I'm a dentist by my initial day job before I became a tech startup Founder at Precision Health, a platform we have in dentistry, but without having these supports and individuals like who I'm sitting here with today, you know I say often, I don't know if I would have taken the plunge.

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 01:05

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for being here. This is great. I love seeing all the faces that I recognize. Well, thank you so much for being here. It's a really exciting day, because we are wrapping up Season Two of the Founder Mindset. And what a season it's been. It's been an incredible season where we talk to Founders about the human experience of being an entrepreneur. You know, those super high highs and the crazy low lows and then the impact that they're making. So you guys are nodding your heads. You're like, I hear you. I hear what you're saying. So this is what we cover in the podcast, and what we also came to realize through the course of the season, is that it really takes a lot of support to get these Founders going and to make sure that those those incredible ventures that they're building are successful. So we thought for this final episode, why don't we talk to some of those innovation leaders that are the people that support these Founders as they grow their company. So why don't you join me in welcoming to the stage our panelists? So let's start with Terry Rock, CEO of Platform Calgary, Shelley Kuipers, Managing Partner of The 51. Amreesh Cana, Founder of Oraqueue, and Martin Toner, Managing Director, Institutional Equity Research, ATB Capital Markets. Okay, thank you all for being here. Let's start right off the top with telling me a little bit about the company that you represent, and really how you support Founders. And you know, Terry, I'll start with you, because really, you're the first stop for entrepreneurs. When they're like, hey, I've got an idea, and I like to do a business.

Terry  02:31

For a lot of people, we are the first stop. And we built this place to be a first stop to often say, when I give a tour, that the biggest thing we brought to Calgary was a front door for innovators to walk through and just immediately get supported with a community, with connections to capital, with connections to people are going to help them build their team and connections to customers. And so with over 600 tech companies now as members of Platform Calgary and 160 partner organizations in the ecosystem to help them. This is a really vibrant community that is there. And then we also have programs that really take people from idea through to just in the early stages of scale. They can find that here through our programs. I just want to point out that just over there is in another room, Calgary Catholic Immigration Services is offering a 10 week newcomer entrepreneur training program here at Platform. So that's the kind of thing that's happening all the time.

Leah  03:29

All the time. Thanks for that, Terry. Shelley, let's go to you next. Tell us a little bit about The 51 and how you support Founders.

Shelley  03:36

We are focused on activating capital so that we can invest in women led co led companies, and we assess that by taking a look at the ownership inside of that company. So, do women have a meaningful or equitable stake inside of the business? So that's how we define that. And we kind of help Founders in a bunch of different ways. So there's our capital, obviously, and then side by side our capital, we've got our LP community, which is quite a large community. We're close to, I think, 325, LPs across Canada on an individual check basis. We are 90% women's capital. So that means that we have this massive community of women that can really roll up their sleeves and work with the Founders as advisors, joining their board, and then the broader community. So if, if one of our Founders has an ask, we can go up to the community and say, this is what they need, and then we can tap into our broader community of more than 35,000 across Canada, which is great. And then, side by side the fund, we have our not for profit, which is called Movement 51 and we do programming like Terry, where we focus on developing women led Founder businesses and getting them investor ready. So everything from how do I do the math to my cap table to my pitch to my financial model, how do I really get prepared to go out and raise that capital. So we've got a whole bunch of different ways. Oh, and I think the other thing I will add is, in our community of 35,000 we say we have a bit of a built-in market. So all of the Founders that we invest in, they have the opportunity to distribute their products to our community. Our community kind of has like first access to products that our Founders are developing, which is really cool.

Leah  5:26

Which is super cool, yeah, thanks for that, Shelley.

Shelley  5:27

We’re trying to do too much.

Leah  05:27

Yeah, you guys are doing a lot, no question. And then Martin, let's go to you. ATB, tell us a little bit about how ATB thinks about supporting Founders.

Martin  05:34

Yeah, great. Thanks. And I'm in the Capital Markets Group. I'm an equity research analyst. I cover growth and innovation, which is mostly tech companies, all publicly traded companies. ATB is well known for supporting Founders, supporting entrepreneurs. I think the grassroots efforts that we have are a little more well known than some of the more sophisticated capital markets and financial market solutions that we provide. We've been lending to the tech sector for a long time, we've started lending to smaller, earlier stage companies more recently, and we've supported the crypto industry for a long time when some others didn't. There's a private equity arm, there's a venture arm, and yeah, and there's all the capital market solutions that we have that help slightly larger companies, especially as they're getting prepared to enter the public markets.

Leah  06:26

Absolutely. And you support funds like The 51’s funds too, which is really exciting. Yeah, cool, yeah. So Amreesh, tell me a little bit about what these supports mean to you as a Founder. How do they change what you do and how you even think about being a Founder?

Amreesh  06:41

Something that I share often with having these supports nearby, like I'm a dentist by my initial day job before I became a tech startup Founder at Precision Health, a platform we have in dentistry, but without having these supports and individuals like who I'm sitting here with today, you know, I say often, I don't know if I would have taken the plunge, right? And so one of my first journeys was through Alberta Catalyzer. At that time, it would have been, you know, early 2022 when we were still in a virtual only world at that point. But programs that you know are here, and many advisors and people that I've met here at through Platform that started to show someone like me that. Okay, hey, you know, you have an idea, you've, you have, you know, validated that there's a problem, you can create a solution. Now, how do you build a company out of this? How do you raise capital? How do you go pitch like, what do you need to do when it's a whole different world? So, yeah, I think all these supports, whether it be capital, whether it be mentorship, advisory, uh, venue like this, all this stuff is so important for Founders.

Leah  07:42

It's huge. I just want to pick up on what you said there, Amreesh, you may not have done this. You may have not taken that leap to go from being a dentist and having your own business to being this entrepreneur and creating this whole company called OraQ. That's massive that you wouldn’t do this, because of these supports.

Amreesh  07:59

Yeah, exactly. I think you know you have to be immersed in an ecosystem like this, and then have the people around you that you know you can have conversations with and ask questions. And you know, I think we, we're very lucky and blessed here in Calgary that we have people that want to help and want to build this. And you know, for someone like me, and great, I could go talk to plenty dentists. But you know how many dentists have gone and done something like this, right? So I needed to get out of my little bubble and talk to other people. And, you know, there's a lot of familiar faces in the room here that have helped me at some stage along the way where, you know, I've said, Okay, here's where I'm at. Like, how do I do this next? Or what do I do? Or any advice you have feedback you can give, all of that, that, that when then would help me maybe go to the next step, right? So.

Leah  08:43

Absolutely, absolutely when we think about the Founders and the supports they have, not only are you important when it comes to supporting the Founders themselves, but you're also instrumental in supporting the ecosystem that needs to exist to create these companies and to make sure they continue to grow, and maybe even continue to stay here in Calgary and in Alberta. So maybe Terry, we'll start with you again. If you can talk a little bit about how important it is to nurture the ecosystem itself.

Terry  09:10

There is an ecosystem, whether you try to make it one or not. There is all of the things are going to be there in the regions where that's really well developed, typically that would mean, I think of it as turns of a flywheel, meaning multiple times people have built companies sold, and now they're reinvesting. And there's just this understanding about how capital flows and what a good idea is, and who a good Founder is, and the reputation kind of flows. This is all in the book, The Rainforest, Vic Wang's book talks about how Silicon Valley is like this, and there's not a lot of institutional support for their ecosystem. It just is it just they are the it is an ecosystem that works on its own. So when you're early stage, which Calgary still is, we've had tremendous growth, but the reality is like the density of the amount of resources that are here is smaller than other places. So it's essential that when an entrepreneur is building their business that there's as little friction as possible, as fast a connection as possible, to the next milestone that they have, or organization that’s going to help them, or person that's going to help them. That's why we built the National Bank Investor Hub. Is like, okay, there's not a ton of investors in Calgary, but imagine if, with in kind of one place, you could talk to as many investors as possible in as short a time as possible, and just figure out where you are and then get moving on. And so everything we've done is about that is focused on an ecosystem, we say, faster connections between talent, ideas and capital. That's an area that we could be the best in Canada. We could be the city where it's, we're the fastest at getting you where you need to go. And that takes collaboration and trust and all those things. And I think Calgary kind of has that, and so it's a natural advantage that we should double down on. And then what's in the ecosystem, capital, talent and customers and their talent breaks down into the Founders, the people who work in the companies, and then the mentorship and the advice that's around that. It's not that complicated, but all of that needs to flow quickly and be in abundance in your region.

Leah  11:27

Absolutely. Shelley, I want to ask you the same question. When you think about creating an ecosystem to support Founders, how do you think about that at The 51.

Shelley 11:35

You know, when I got my start in tech here in Calgary, that was eighty…

Terry  11:39

It was at Marac. We know that.

Shelley 11:41

Yeah, it was 89 at PSI and then I joined Marac in, 1990. So, 1990. That's how many decades it takes to build the ecosystem. And I think there are intangible characteristics that need to be in place for that to happen. So I think, number one, you have to have an economic environment that incentivizes capital to flow and for ideas to flow. Because I think ideas are capital too, right? It's like your it's your human intellectual capital, and it's your financial capital. So you have to have an environment where those things can flow. It can be very dynamic. And I think Alberta has always been that. We've always been entrepreneurs, regardless of the industry that we're in. Whether it was farming or energy. Now tech, and now tech is going into every industry. So I think that's kind of like part of it. I think time is one. I think that there's these intangible characteristics that need to be in place. And I think that that's something that Alberta really has to hold dearly and really fight for, is to make sure, you know, that we have the best tax environment that we set up, you know, capital incentives. And I know we keep asking for that over and over again, but I think we really have to, you know, foster this entrepreneurial community that we've built and keep building it. Think the other thing is that we've got an environment where anybody can approach anybody in the environment. The worst thing that can happen is somebody will go, No, I'm not going to help you. But I think everyone in Calgary and Alberta and Edmonton is extremely generous with their human capital. Financial capital is like, kind of like, another step. But if I look at the 51 we've got like, our C words too like, we say capital, capacity building, and community. So one of the things that we've done at The 51 from the start is we said you can be an investor today, or you could be one in 10 years, it doesn't matter. Come and join The 51 you can be a Founder today, or you can be an aspiring Founder. Come and join the community. So we've really tried to be, you know, community-led, knowing that this is a long tail development, it’s going to take another decade, another two decades, to really ultimately achieve the potential of women led companies receiving capital. So I think that's the other thing too. I would say, is like community. And I think, again, we're really strong at community. We're really strong at entrepreneurship. And I just think, you know, it's the best place to build a company.

Leah  14:13

Nice. I agree. Thanks, Shelley. Martin, I want to ask you about this too, because ATB has partnered with a lot of companies in Calgary and in Alberta. I'm thinking, of course, of Quickly, for example, which is one of the FinTech companies that we've also invested in at Thin Air Labs. Those partnerships are essential for getting these companies off the ground and for allowing them to do what they want to do. How critical is it to have these partnerships in the community, whether at this early stage or even later in the stages that you talk about?

Martin  14:40

Yeah, I think it's big, especially in an area like FinTech, where there's this sort of morass of regulatory and competitive moats to, for companies to need to try to get around. Yeah, it's key.

Leah  14:56

It is absolutely essential. So, Amreesh, when you hear about these ecosystem developments and supporters. Is there anything in the ecosystem that you think is super awesome, that you've loved so much, or is there something that you're actually looking for that you haven't even seen yet?

Amreesh  15:12

You know, I think one of the things that you know, Terry, again, said it was like how the ecosystem is kind of just, it's there, right? And like how it's going to be there in whatever capacity. And something interesting that you found when you compared it to, you know, the Valley, like, I've been down to San Francisco in the Bay Area, and you just feel this energy of, like, innovation excitement, like people are talking about it, they're doing something about it. And it's encouraging and motivating when you're a Founder, right? So I think what I see, sure, we're a smaller city in a smaller scale, but we still have that, like we still have events. We still have places you can come network places, you can connect with people. And you know, as you said, human capital, I think, is very generous in Alberta, because that's where we can have these conversations with with people that are willing to share their experiences or help you along the way. So to me, I think that's been something that I think really drives the energy. And then as a Founder, again, you need that energy to be motivated and keep motivated, because it's not easy what we’re doing, and you have a lot of ups and downs along the way. So when you can have that, when you're down, and be able to get boosted back up and know that somebody's there and they're maybe you're talking to somebody, and they've had a similar experience, or can can help you, you know, with a question or something. That's what gets us picked back up again and keeps us going.

Leah  16:31

Absolutely, we talk a lot about that at Thin Air Labs too, that sometimes it's just about taking one Founder and connecting them with another Founder that's just six months down the road from them, or even 18 months down the road, just to give them a little bit of that, oh, you know what I've seen this I know how to help you. Or even something like this podcast. You know, where people are listening to the podcast, other Founders are listening to the podcast, and they're like, I'm not alone in this. You know, other Founders are feeling this way.

Amreesh  16:56

As a Founder like, you go through these crazy ups and downs, as we call it, you know, sometimes you're just like, I don't want to see anybody, and I just want to, like, curl up and try to figure out how I'm going to deal with this, or where I'm going to go. And you know, I had a hard week last week, and I was with Ian from KPMG had invited me over to to an event that they were having with just a bunch of Founders. But it was exactly that. For me, I met another Founder there. And, you know, we've been talking about a lot of our journey, about, you know, I keep saying this in my company, like, what got us here won't get us there. Like we're evolving as a company. We're growing, but that means the team's evolving, and some people are going to change. Some people are going to come, some people are going to go. And it's hard sometimes, right? You care about the people, you care about what you're building. And then I met this other Founder was just, yeah, maybe, like, you know, six months a year ahead of where I was, and she was talking about, like, yeah, like, I went through this exact same thing, and all of a sudden I was like, whoa, okay, it's not just me. I'm not like, you know, it's not just me dealing with all of this. There's somebody else. And it gives you that boost, right? And so that's the thing, having this. And, you know, they say, like, you know, the last thing you should be doing, you should be doing, you know, I was reading something on another startup thing about like, is, don't curl up and shy away, you know, go to events like this and talk to some people. And you know, that's what keeps us all going and keeps the ecosystem churning.

Leah  18:13

Absolutely. Amreesh, I'm thinking of all the moments that I've had in the podcast studio with Founders, and when I just asked them, like, what was it like to go through what you've been through? And we talk about a specific moment, and people are getting emotional in there. It's a really intense moment for them, because it's so hard doing this work that you're doing. And Terry, I can see you nodding, and you're like, Yes, I understand this.

Terry  18:36

Well, I mean, I guess I would say I'm entrepreneurial, but I was saying, you know, we committed to buy this building, this project. A lot of money, four months before the pandemic. And there were many moments where it didn't. I was like, what? Why? Why exactly did we decide to do this? But no, and then, and then, you know, I just think about, in a given year here we will see over 500 Founders through just through programs. And then our membership is over 600 and you know, five years ago in Calgary, when we were really getting serious about this journey of building this, this, this initiative, the people we talked to, whether they were an investor or someone from industry or a Founder, one of the most common things they said was, I wish the ecosystem was more connected, so that I had a community where I could just go somewhere and that just was the validation we needed, because those serendipitous encounters where you're going to meet someone that has exactly what you need at exactly the right time, you can't, you know, precision engineer that like precision health. You can't precision engineer your social network, but you can tilt the odds so that it's more likely than you're going that you're going to get what you need when you need it. That's what Calgary is, and I think that that's we're seeing that now. At this place, but in other places in downtown Calgary as well. So yeah, it's, that's my biggest piece of advice always is, is don't do this alone, like you. It might feel lonely, but you don't need to do it alone.

Leah  20:14

Absolutely and Shelley for you at The 51 you've created an entire community of women Founders and their supporters and their investors. How essential is that to these women continuing to be Founders and continuing on that journey of building those companies?

Shelley 20:29

Yeah, and it goes back to the point that you just made. I think, you know, we talked about our limited partners, we talked about the broader community, but that pure community of Founders inside of our community, so our portfolio Founders, like, that's super important too, right? So having the peers and same on the alumni. Like we do the Founder programming and that alumni group, you know, they graduate from a cohort, and like, they're best friends for life, right? You know, they've got their Whatsapp group. And like, everything is being shared. And, like, sometimes we'll hear something about that's being shared, and we'll be like, Wow. You know, I don't want to get all DEI here on the panel, but I think what we're really trying to do is focus on an economic and a financial opportunity. So if we look at, you know, the percentage of capital that's being allocated and how we can grow that pie and invest in others and more and make that pie bigger. It's just a bigger upside financially for investors and for Founders. So, you know, we are investing where others aren't. We're investing in an asset class that's over performing and under invested in. But I think, like going back to your comment, like the community is, is everything. And you know, we've had pushback over the years about having a community, like we've made our business complicated because of that, because we have hundreds of LPs, but we're doubling down on it. We're going to stay the course.

Leah  21:53

I love it. I love it. What about you, Martin, when do you think of creating ecosystems and supports? What comes to mind?

Martin  22:00

Yeah, we have a slide that we share that compares the return of capital from two companies, Microsoft and Apple, to all of the venture capital that is raised in North America. And those two numbers are relatively similar, so to Shelley's point about under invested, like these ecosystems, and I mean, it goes all the way up to open AI, that includes all those big guys too, that have not yet gone public. The amount being invested is really when you compare it to those other two companies, it's a return of capital. It's a recycling of capital. And it's, you could easily see it be be larger. One of the things we see, and one of the things we see is just that capital has sort of found Canada. And even though the struggle of raising capital can be kind of like crazy tough for lots of lots of small companies, one thing we see is that, like capital has found Canada. And you know, it's in part because of some of the winners, like the Shopify of the world. And, you know, the venture capital industry in Canada is growing. But the capital that is coming here from other parts of the world is also, is also helping.

Leah  23:17

It’s helping for sure. Well, that leads us nicely. I mean, we are sort of in January here. He gives us an opportunity to sort of look ahead in terms of innovation and where sort of the money is going, where the interest is going, where the capital is going. Do you want to tackle that right off the gate there, Martin, where do you what are you sort of focusing on ATB in terms of innovation for 2025?

Martin  23:35

Yeah, sure. So 2024 was another year of large cap companies doing better than small cap companies. However, the market has broadened out in the sense that small caps have kind of recovered, and it's all amid a period of effectively enterprise IT spending, austerityp. Sending growth has been weak, because a lot of these Corps are concerned, because they saw inflation, they were worried about their profitability. And that all trickles down to the venture where 2024 we saw continued deterioration in the amount of capital that was raised by venture stage companies. It rebounded in q4 I think there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, in part created by a change of government in the US. That starts with stuff like crypto, but it also extends to sectors like FinTech, where regulatory hurdles were becoming significant, and there's a lot of enthusiasm that that's gonna, that's gonna kind of open the floodgates here, and we're gonna start to see those venture capital fund numbers start to start to turn around and start to go up again.

Leah  24:53

And I know one of the sectors you were also really excited about that we talked about earlier was AI.

Martin  24:57

Yeah. I mean, we have a focus on that in part because I cover four Bitcoin miners, and they're starting to rent their space out to companies that want data-center capacity for AI. And the interesting thing about that story, to me is just how economic, how economically intensive it is. You know, it involves power. It involves electrical equipment. The chips are massively expensive. You have to build these things. You have to approve these things. And so that's going to create a lot of economic activity. And it's, we can see it bending, just like economic growth in North America, in total, it's right now still a U.S. story. These companies that need to invest in data center capacity are very comfortable investing in the US, but there's no reason Canada and especially Alberta, can't participate.

Leah  25:55

Absolutely. Amreesh OraQ, huge AI component to it. Tell us a little bit about that.

Amreesh  26:01

What we're trying to do is redefine dentistry. We call it. We're the we're the only clinical AI solution dentistry today that standardizes a comprehensive patient assessment. What that means is everybody here sees a dentist, and they've probably got a story where one dentist told you one thing, another dentist told you something else, and you're always worried, is my dentist selling me something I don't need? So, that's the problem that we're tackling, because if we're not creating value behind our recommendations effectively to a patient, well they're not going to say yes to it, which means I got a chair empty in my dental practice, and we're not making money and our patients losing out on care. So how do we solve that problem from a precision health perspective, we do risk modeling, predictive analytics, and then also give patients back full transparency and ownership of their oral health data, so you can leave your office and with the in the palm of your hands with a risk and wellness profile, understand your treatment plan, all these types of things. So that's what we do as a company. What I'm really excited about with AI is, you know, really, the journey that we're on has been one that is, you know, deep in integrations and data, and try to pull in data from, you know, electronic medical record systems of in the dental space and all these things to get the right data. But the future ahead of us that we're really building is, is the whole power of like your digital dental twin, and you'll hear about this and in precision health and medicine, you know, your digital twin. How can we employ therapeutics, treatments to patients in a digital you know, Omniverse, as Nvidia calls it now, and be able to show you truly like the amount of times I got asked this question from a patient in my chair is that, hey, Doc, can I wait on that crown until my insurance turns over in six months, or whatever it is. But, you know, I don't know what's going to happen if you're going to go bite on something, you know, three days from now and break your tooth, right? But if I can help answer that question with data and analytics and really give you a, you know, that powerful answer to that question, I think that's pretty cool. And so where that goes, and where that goes with medical integration and really being a part of, like, the overall health picture. So that's what keeps me excited, and what we're really the journey ahead of us still, yeah.

Leah  28:08

That's exciting. Shelley, when you're looking at 2025 What are you really excited about in terms of sectors?

Speaker 4  28:13

Health, for sure. So again, you know, we're trying to invest in things that we believe. You know, we say we want to invest in the world we want to live in, and so we use that to kind of guide our decisions. So health is a key area. We have made several new investments in health, in particular women's health, which is really exciting. I can't wait for them to be announced, which is great. And then, you know, work, like, what is the future of work, especially in the context of, you know, women, what do, how do women want to work? Right? So, there's talent marketplaces, there's the future of work, there's enterprise platforms that support different models of work. We're really interested in that, you know, clean tech and sustainability, that continues to be an area. And then, like, my kind of, like, favorite area that I hope we start incorporating more in our next fund is the whole area of wealth. So, you know, women are standing, you know, on kind of the precipice of a massive wealth transfer. And so what do our financial services need to look like with this new, you know, this new customer really driving the decisions, whether it's my consumer spending or it's my, you know, my banking services, or it's my wealth like, what do I want that to look like? And so when we look at the advance of this new customer being, you know, women in charge of all of this wealth and this capital and this influence, you know, what do we want from our financial services and our financial system? So that's like the other area that I think is really interesting. And then I think all of that needs to be underpinned by AI so, you know, when we're looking at companies, there needs to be an AI strategy, like everywhere. It needs to be pervasive.

Leah  29:56

That is super exciting. I can see why you're really excited. About that.

Shelley  29:59

Yeah, I'm always excited.

Leah  30:02

And Jerry, when you're thinking about 2025, and sectors of growth, and what you're focusing on a platform, what are you thinking of?

Terry 30:09

Well, we're sector agnostic. As an organization. We've, our 100% focus is, what are our entrepreneurs trying to do, and how can we help them get there? With that? Said there's some interesting things about Calgary that I think we under appreciate. So I'll just talk about a couple of those. In the construction tech, property tech space, there's some really interesting things emerging around robotics, coming in, getting involved in, and AI that we've done now two years in a row, a prop tech showcase, and that has actually led to us opening our eyes into other opportunities there might be. And then you look at what's happening at SAIT with their Housing Manufacturing Innovation Lab that they have, and that, I think OCIF is one of your sponsors, they invested in and and you look at, okay, we have some of the most sophisticated robotics for additive manufacturing happening and being explored, how it can be used at SAIT, and how can that be applied to the to construction and housing supply. You know, Calgary has a Chief Housing Officer now to try to get more housing. So there's something there that I think is really intriguing for our city to go on. And as we talk to the industry, there does seem to be a lot of factors that point to this. Is an area that Calgary actually could emerge as a is stronger than than other places for a lot of different reasons. I'm excited about what happened at Bull Valley College last year when they opened their new eSports arena, and they're all of their eSports production programming. So we had a during innovation week. We had a we did. We partnered with them. They had a game night here, there was 20 some studios that were exhibiting, and like 400 people were here looking at, looking at the eSports and e-entertainment world. And again, like I didn't, I don't think we had that on Calgary's bingo card is like a thing that we were going to excel at, but we are, and there are people being trained to produce eSports over at Bull… if you haven't seen this place, it's, it's mind blowing. So you start to add up some of these things that aren't just like the things that we're we're known for, and go like, how is that happening? Well, some of it is that the people power behind our energy industry. They're really smart and they're really interesting people, and they have interests outside and so you'll find people like, we have this really interesting if you go on Kickstarter and search Calgary, you will see a whole bunch of people building games and stuff out of Calgary. Calgary has this whole nascent thing. A lot of those people work in the energy industry, and this is their fun thing. And so I don't know, but there's something there that I think is really interesting that's emerging, and some of these things that aren't necessarily center ice, but on the other hand, the basics that we have in place, the fundamentals that we have in place to make our province one of the places for AI data centers, and the strategy that our government is going after with that, I think that's pretty exciting. We have gone from kind of off the map, from the major tech companies to now they're really paying attention to our city. That's one use, but they're looking at us differently. We're on the map, on the global tech scene, in a way that we haven't been before. And I just think that that just opens up new horizons that we haven't really explored. So I feel like 2025, is like a year where it kind of, you know, we consolidate the gains that we've had over the past little while. We're still even though venture in Canada was slow, it continued strong in Alberta. So that's just the story is that we've, we've built from this strong and mighty base, we continue to go 2025. Is it's a new ball game. I think we got new opportunities on the horizon. With all this stuff coming together. Okay, I can throw one more, one more thing out there, because I'm so focused on on Founders, is like the the tool sets that are available now for really smart people to build businesses with small teams, that capital efficiency and the just the massive productivity you could get from a small team, that's also super exciting, and that's something that that we'll be watching here as we look at new ways we can help those people we're trying to figure out, like at the front end, sometimes you can, you might be able to compress the front end a bit by having really capital efficient small teams that are just really equipped with amazing tools to build faster and iterate faster, and not sure how that rolls into programs or anything like that, but it's definitely worth paying attention to

Leah  34:50

For sure, absolutely. Thank you for that, Terry.

Leah  34:53

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Leah  35:17

The one thing I want to talk about as we as we start moving towards the end of this conversation is impact. At Thin Air Labs, we get really passionate about supporting Founders that are creating meaningful human impact. And that's something that we always look for, whether it's, you know, whether we're investing them or supporting them with our professional services. So I wanted to put this to you, Shelley, I'm going to start with you. It's like, front and center on your website, making an impact. We want to make an impact. At the 51 how do you think of impact?

Shelley  35:46

So there's the investing impact matrix out there, like BDC has one. We're really trying to look at it a little bit differently in the way that we're starting with the cap table. So we're looking at, how can we drive impact through the cap table? So the Founder and the Founders are on the cap table. They're typically, from our perspective, underrepresented Founders, so they have a meaningful stake in a company, and then we are bringing, you know, largely women's capital onto the cap table. Again, that's largely underrepresented in venture and so for us, creating this net new value, or this net new wealth on the cap table that wasn't created before, that's kind of a key metric for us. It's like, you know, you look at Bobby Racette at Virtual Gurus, and it's this, you know, you see the opportunity for her, like she's created this value on the cap table for herself. You know, when nobody would take a bet on her, and now she's going into her series B process, it's like, really inspiring, right?

Leah 36:51

Absolutely.

Shelley 36:53

And then we know that there will be the impact from that net new value. So the Founders will go and they will turn around, and they will invest in the next Founder, right? Those team members, like their lives have changed, right? If the company is successful, so what are they going to do with their capital? And then those investors again, those investors are more likely to turn around and take another chance on another Founder, invest in another company, so that knock on effect and that flywheel of this net new value creation, and then the impact that they will drive through their new capital and their new wealth is really exciting to us.

Leah  37:28

Sure is. Amreesh, when you're thinking about impact and creating impact, how do you think of it?

Amreesh  37:33

Firstly, of course, impact through the innovation and the company that we drive like, how do we better our patients health? Really drive impact through oral health, specifically and where, where I specialize, right as a dentist. I think you know what at one point, if we talked 10 years ago, before I got into this whole world, I always thought that, you know, the more patients I could see, the more patients I could treat. That's how I was going to make an impact. So did I want to own multiple practices? What did I want to do? Right? But now the thought that, hey, we could be anywhere in the world one day, and there could be a dental practice that has OraQ, and the impact that that's driving on a global scale, and that's powerful, so that, I think, first and foremost, we want to do that. And I think, you know, community is so important, and being able to give back in whatever way. You know, I think, is something too that I think, How can I contribute back to this ecosystem, to keep the flywheel going and help if I'm a Founder that's six months ahead than somebody else, how can I lend a lend an ear or a piece of advice, and one day when we become a big company and sell and exit, and how can I invest and come back to other Founders and support the ecosystem in that way as well, too.

Leah  38:47

I love hearing that. Amreesh, thanks for that. What are your thoughts on this? Martin, ATB and impact?

Martin  38:51

Yeah, specific to banking, I think banking in the space done well, there's a bit of a give before you get type of approach. And for a bank like ATB, I think that is all the grassroots programs that they have, entrepreneur centres, organizing events, speakers, and even though you know those actions might not create profit tomorrow, but you're helping to build companies the future that you're going to be able to get help sustain your banking business over time. We try to live that in the Capital Markets Group. And you know, job number one, for me, is covering publicly traded companies well. But I think of job number two is just helping helping startups, helping companies, regardless of where they are in their journey.

Leah  39:41

Absolutely and even sponsoring podcasts. Thank you very much. Yeah, for sure. All right, as we close our conversation, I on the podcast, I always ask, as we start to wrap things up, if you're going to write a story for your company or for yourself as a Founder or as an investor or as an ecosystem supporter. How would you want that story to go? So Terry, why don't we start with you.

Terry  40:07

Once upon a time, that you know, really, when we think about our mission is to is to make our vision is that Calgary is the best place for anyone to start and grow a tech company, and we want to see 1000 companies over five employees, that average, you know, 30 employees over, over time, hit the ground here. And that story is going to be one of people like Amreesh, walking through the door, reaching out, you know, being referred in, and taking those first steps, but at scale like I believe we have the opportunity here as a city to you know, I think about this, here's the here's the end of the story: You're at the Calgary Folk Fest in 2030 and every stage is sponsored by a tech company, because it's so ingrained into our community that there's just this feeling that we need to be in all these interesting places. People, we've already we've already got at least one tarp at this in the in the Calgary Stampede, in the chuckwagon races. I think it's things like that that are going to be the real turning point that's traditionally been banks and oil and gas companies that have done that kind of a thing. Our city at the core in the future is going to have tech companies and people who are building companies kind of just embedded in its DNA. And that's the journey that we're on right now. And we hope that those many of those first steps happen right here.

Leah  41:41

Love it. Shelley, when you think of The 51, how does the story go?

Shelley   41:46

I was actually thinking over the holidays. I was like, what if The 51 had a chuck wagon?

Terry 41:53

Chuck wagon’s been done.

Speaker 4  41:55

And I was and, yeah, okay, I didn't know that. Okay. I'm not saying that, but I was like, that could be really cool. We could have a really interesting, unique experience. But our end of the story, it's not the end, but is that we want to activate 2.5 billion in women led capital by 2030 and we've gone through a process to do that formula and that calculation. We've done the math on, you know, what the incremental, you know, 1% of women's VC capital does to the economy. So we're mapping out, like this economic case, of what's possible, but we are explicitly inviting, you know, women to get involved in this asset class and to write a check and to become Founders and to build the future that we want to live in. So we are gunning for that 2.5 billion. That's our goal. I might be dead. I don't know. No, absolutely not. No, it's going to happen by 2030.

Leah  42:58

I love it. 2030 here we go! Martin, when you're thinking about ATB, and the story for ATB and the continued efforts, either in venture and the capital markets, what are you thinking about?

Martin  43:06

Yeah, I think we need to offer solutions up and down the stack, from grassroots level all the way to IPO. Support this ecosystem, you know, with whatever they need. For me, personally, my franchise, I think that Canadian public market investors need to sharpen their pencil on tech. I think US investors need to discover Canada as a source for good publicly traded technology companies and the companies themselves need some help too. So that's kind of our mission every day.

Leah  43:41

I love it. Amreesh, we have to end on you, because you're our Founder, and it's called The Founder Mindset. Let's first talk about how you see the story going for OraQ, and then I want to talk about you personally.

Amreesh  43:53

For OraQ, I think, as I shared before, for me to be able to say, look out into an audience like this and have many, if not all of you, one day being like, I know this. I got my I got my work. You well, this profile in the palm of my hands, right? Like that would be super cool. And really know that it's something that drove you to better your health, make a better decision, and trust your dentist around what they were doing. So I think, you know, that's really the mission that we're on, and to be able to do that anywhere around the world,

Leah  44:21

amazing. And when you think about you, you're the Founder of this company, you get to write your own story. What does it look like?

Amreesh  44:28

When you asked me this down at the downstairs before we started, I was like, Okay, start thinking about this kid. But you know, when I look like, take a moment to kind of look back before I go forward. You know, I want to say in like, 2018ish, there was something that I had, like an itch that I said, I don't know what it is, but there was something different that I had to do and something that I had to figure out, right? And I love practicing and going to practices, and was doing great there. There was no reason for me to shift or change, but there was something that I felt like I needed to do more, and through some help from mentors, advisors, business coaches, things like that, you know, I really kind of honed in on my personal values at the time, which was inspire, influence, educate, and I wanted to do something to make an impact in the world of dentistry, but I didn't know what it was. And so fast forward. Now, I had no idea that this is what it was going to be. But it started with an idea. It started with an ecosystem supports all these things that fostered to where I am today. Great people on my team that have all come bring this, you know, vision to reality. My Co-Founders, all these people, right? Going forward. I mean, I think the like something as a Founder is that people take a chance on you, right? And whether that like, I'll never forget, like, the first cheque that I got, and, you know, pretty much driving home crying in the car, do what I got, like the cheque. So for me to be able to go back to people like that and, like, shake their hand and give them a cheque back and then say, hey, then we gotta, you know, support and go back to somebody else. Like, that's what I want my story to be in the future, because I think without them, like, again, I couldn't do this. I couldn't be parts of systems. I couldn't hire other people, build technologies, all these things too. So that's the the future of my story.

Leah  46:15

I look forward to it. Amreesh, thank you so much. And thank you so much to all these incredible panelists out here today. Thank you for being here.

Amreesh  46:23

Thank you very much.

Leah  46:29

We do have a couple of minutes for some Q & A. Oh, Jenny's got the cube. Woo. This is Jenny Funding Catalyst Sales. We love you. She's got the cube. So we've got the ability here to take a couple of questions. So does anybody have a question for anybody on the panel here who's got a question? Oh, yeah. Okay, Matt, yeah.

Matt  46:48

Ooh, this is fun. I like this a lot. Matt, I work for a startup here in Calgary called earlo. My question is for those of us who are in the tech ecosystem, but not ourselves, the front door of the tech ecosystem or a fund or providing support through ATB and others. What's one thing we can do to help support Founders and the tech ecosystem here in Calgary and Alberta as we continue to grow it?

Leah  47:10

That's a great question. Thanks, Matt, who wants to take that one first? Terry, you want to go?

Terry  47:14

Well, I mean, I think the starting point is that question. You asked the question, how can I help? And, you know, when we look at the lessons from the rain the rainforest, which is actually the rainforest tree, is down there, so all of the sort of principles from the rainforest are there. And that notion of free help or give first, or, you know, just, just connect people, like a lot of we think about generous connection. Like, just, just connect, like, don't gatekeep, don't, you know, just make sure that people get connected as fast as possible, and kind of let it sort out, you know, that there's, there's ways to do that, but that that's always my if you're, if you go to things and connect people generously, that's the starting point, any lessons that you can share and things like that are also super helpful. Sharing not how you want people to see you, but sharing what is actually going on, I think is part of it, too.

Leah  48:12

Wonderful. Shelley, I bet you've got some ideas on how people can help, particularly women Founders and underrepresented Founders.

Speaker 4  48:19

I love Terry's response like that. You know, being generous with your time, I think, is just a, so, it's like a huge gift. And like I said earlier, that human capital, not financial capital, you know, are on equal weighting. I think the other thing that you can do as Founders is drive, is force the community, force, it might not be the right word, but drive the ecosystem to be a little bit more transparent and accountable. So, you know, sometimes funds don't have a great reputation. Why is that right? They don't take a cold call, they don't take a cold email, whatever it is, I think, be champions of change, for where the ecosystem can go and, like, really sponsor and drive that change. I think is an extraordinary opportunity for Founders, because we're all here because of you. And so if you want to see things done differently, then, you know, make it known. And I think none of us should be afraid for afraid of, like, raising a question, or saying it can be better, or, you know, critiquing something, or why is that happening? Like, just be champions of positive change.

Leah  49:33

I love that. Anybody else want to weigh in on that one?

Amreesh  49:36

I want to throw one more thing out.

Leah 49:38

Yeah, sure.

Amreeh  49:40

Build a great company.

Leah 49:41

Yeah, right. I think Amreesh is on it build a great company. Do we have any other questions from the audience, customer acquisition, who wants to take it?

Shelley  49:48

Well, you go where the customers are. As a Founder, you have to do that. So if you're getting better commercial adoption in a specific market, you have to go for it. But I mean, I would love to see more customers in Canada, specifically, you know, those that you could be selling to, you know, become stakeholders in funds like venture funds, become LPs, even if it's a small check, and then have some skin in the game around the commercialization and the output of those funds and what companies are creating. But yeah, I mean, as a Founder, you got to look after your business, and you got to go where the business is. And then I think, you know, I think extending explicit invitations to corporates and enterprises across Canada to invest in this asset class and have that skin in the game for commercialization is super important. So yeah.

Leah  50:39

Thanks, Shelley. And Amreesh, I’m a little bit curious about how you think about how you think about customer acquisition.

Amreesh  50:44

I mean, it's definitely an interesting question, because, yes, we have to go where the customers go. But looking at it's tricky sometimes, because as like a proud Calgarian and Canadian Founder, like I want to build and stay here, and I want to do these things here at the same point, we know the huge market to the south of us is definitely something that we need to continue to tap into and continue to grow there. So how do you balance those things? But the market, like, you know, back to kind of, I think the ecosystem and community piece too. It's, it's so different, because at times, like, you go to other you know, if I go to an American city and talk to American customers and dentists that are maybe close to an innovation area like, I mean, they want to adopt, they want to try things, the percentage of early adopters, by just sheer size of the market alone, is different than even going to our larger innovation centers like Toronto or Vancouver or something, right? It's not the same feel still. So, you know, you want to build and you want to grow here, but then at the same time, you have to go where the market is, because you don't have a lot of time as an early stage startup like you got to get to success to get to that next step. So I'd say, I don't have an exact answer. I'm still figuring it out, but, you know, I think balancing it is what the approach that I'm trying to take at the same time we got to do what we have to do is best for the company, right? Absolutely.

Leah  52:07

Terry, you've got…

Terry 52:08

Yeah, two or three quick things. So the first thing is, we did a whole podcast during the pandemic of Calgary based companies that have never made one sale in Calgary. It was very interesting. Some very big ones that like, CoolIt, no Calgary customers at all. Great Calgary company, livestock water recycling, selling all over the world, not in Calgary. Even with that, maybe she, I think she actually… I had talked to her, she has a local customer now. So the first thing is, it maybe doesn't matter. So if we have a great if we're a great place to build a company, it doesn't mean necessarily that customers need to be here. And so great Founders will do that. The second thing is, what are we doing? Specifically, our proptech showcase is a good example of something we're using as a prototype to bring industry together in a curated way, with Founders based on vertical themes. And so we're going to be reaching out to the community and talking about pulling that together this year, multiple times beyond just prop tech. And then the second one is we will be in the sometime near future, launching a membership offering for industry. So that is something that we we've only now tech companies can be members here, but we want to, we want to basically triple the size of this community over the next year and a half. And so that means that if industry wants a simple way to just meet the people and be there, we're going to try to create that here. So that's one.

Leah 53:29

I love it, Martin.

Martin 53:30

I like the cool it example. And hopefully, just because Alberta is a natural place to do AI, right? Yeah, you would think that that's going to change in a big way, right?

Terry  53:42

Yeah. I think, they're just going to open the windows here, though, aren't they? To cool everything.

Martin  53:47

That doesn't hurt, right? But there's a lot of humongous data centers in Texas, yeah? So it's not the be all, end all, yeah, but really, like, cheap and abundant power is the key, right? Yeah, that's the key behind this whole, like, massive economic, societal transformation, that's like, just starting right now. It's amazing, that Cool-IT is a global leader and born right here.

Leah  54:12

Super exciting. I would also say that, tell your story, make sure your customers know about you. I'm a storyteller by nature, and so we've created podcasts. We do videos, tell your story, make sure people know you exist, and the ecosystem needs to know you exist. And then we all work together, and then we can champion these stories, and then we can champion these companies. And of course, we can champion these Founders.

Audience Member  54:33

Thanks a lot for this session regarding telling your story and also about ecosystem. There is one thing that suddenly came to my mind, which I would like to share with all of you. There is a fantastic lecture by Steve Blank on The Secret History of Silicon Valley. This lecture has been given at the Computer History Museum in the Bay Area, and this is a very, very fascinating lecture for, I know it is roughly more than an hour, very, very well researched on the origins of the Silicon Valley, going back to World War Two, okay? And then talking about the rise of Stanford University, and what one particular Dean actually did in order to create that ecosystem. And then about the other father of the Silicon Valley, namely Shockley and the string of companies that got created as a result of Shockley. So in some sense, this lecture really talks about the contributions of this extraordinary dean of Stanford University. I think his name was Termin okay. And also Shockley and their impacts, I would recommend that everyone please watch this video. Please do a search on for Steve Blank and Secret History of Silicon Valley. You'll get the video.

Leah  55:55

We got it. Good tip right there. And also, while you're at it, check out The Founder Mindset and tell all your friends. Thank you so much to everyone that brings us to our time. Thank you so much for being here, everybody. And thanks again to our panelists. I've got a few thank yous I just want to get out there. Thank you to ATB, our presenting sponsor for season two. We couldn't have done it without you, and they are in charge of all of this. They've even helped us get it videoed. So thank you very much to ATB. Also to Sandstone Asset Management and to the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund. Our sponsors are critical to getting this podcast off the ground. So, thank you to all of you. Also, thank you to Astronomic Audio. This is our production partner. They're based in Edmonton. If you're thinking about doing a podcast, you gotta get in touch with these guys. Talk to me. I'll get you hooked up with Astronomic Audio. They're incredible. Also, thank you to Maven Media, Adam there in the corner, who is putting this together for us on video. Our event planner today, Aubrey Celiere, thank you so much, Aubrey, for getting this off the ground Platform Calgary, for hosting us. And, of course, my incredible team at Thin Air Labs. You guys, thank you so much for everything you do. And finally, thank you to our live audience here, and a huge thanks to our podcast listeners for joining us all season. Thank you for your curiosity and your passion for innovation and building what's next. Please join us into the West Hall for some food. Thanks to our local food Ubuntu Eats, they've got some great little nibbles for us so we can go and indulge. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming out.

Leah  57:22

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    

Innovation is what drives our economy forward. The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund is investing in opportunities that will accelerate innovation and build a diversified and resilient economy. Explore how OCIF is funding Calgary's future at opportunitycalgary.com

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