Jeffery:
Well, Jade, just like we do in this fashion, we just like to jump right in and, and just kind of keep going. Right. So, I want to thank you for joining us. Pretty excited to chat with you today because so much of what you guys are doing in in the Alberta space is really kind of how the rest of the world really needs to look at how to work with and engage with startups in that early community. And it really uh, sits home with us well, because these are the kinds of things that we’re working on, so maybe to start off, we can get you to give us a little bit more of a background from your beginnings, where you came from, what you’ve been up to, what you’re doing today, and then kind of looking at where you’re going and then if you can share one thing about you that nobody would know.

Jade:
Well, good question. And uh, and I really excited to be here, Jeffrey, thanks for having me. And um, I mean, you know, we connected via linkedin and I think you and I are both kind of social media networking, tycoon, typhoons. So, uh, I’m glad we were able to connect and, and, and I agree with you and I guess I always tell people I’m just a small town cool guy that kind of, uh, I don’t even know how I got here and my journeys all over the map. But Um, I was always in sales and I was always a really good sales rep and I had a chance to become an entrepreneur. 15 or so years ago with my partners. Um, we purchased the rights to Nathan’s famous hot dogs in Canada, grew up to a brand exited it.

And since then I’ve been helping small businesses grow scale and exit through a purpose before profit mode. That really focuses on companies scaling, growing exiting, but not focusing on how much they have to pay you. So we really believe in that purpose before profit. And um, and then again, it really hits close to home and I’ve seen too many people getting taken advantage of.

So that, that is something that we’re really passionate about and, and uh, and it is working here in the Alberta ecosystem and I guess the one thing hmm that people really don’t know about me is I swam escape from Alcatraz.

Jeffery:
Say that again?

Jade:
I swam escape from Alcatraz. Yeah, I jump in, jump in, swim around the island. Come on back. Didn’t get eaten by a great white. So I’m here to tell the story still.

Jeffery:
So you swam around the island, you didn’t actually swim to the mainland from there, did you?

Jade:
You, there’s two way to, uh, when you jump off at the island and then you swim back and the other one is where you go start and go around and then finish back on land. So.

Jeffery:
Okay so how did it? That sounds pretty exciting. I need to explore this. I haven’t been to the Alcatraz but my brother did go and found it pretty fascinating. I had no idea you could swim from Alcatraz I guess back to mainland. Is that the idea?

Jade:
Yeah. Yeah it was actually it was — like all good ideas, it started with a few whiskeys and uh we ended up having to lie through our teeth. I don’t condone about lying but we couldn’t find anybody. We needed a US Open water swimming association number and couldn’t find it. And then found a private club in San Fran.

And he said yeah yeah well as long as you pay your 150 bucks and just send me the last five races you swam in and I don’t know you know I’m at the lake, I swim in our lake and and I just picked five lakes in Saskatchewan and wrote open behind him and he accepted our application and away we went.

Jeffery:
That’s awesome. How long did it take?

Jade:
Well yeah, you thought it would take long. But literally it was like from the island to the that that time was 33 minutes. Like I just sat there and floated and took my time and relaxed and backstroke and it was pretty easy swim. They got away

Jeffery:
All the documentaries, they always made it out like this was the most worst swim in the world. The waves were huge, the sharks would get you. There’s no way anybody would ever try to escape and you’re like floating down lazy river with a beer on your stomach, getting to the other end and you’re like, I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Jade:
Yeah, they got away. There’s no doubt in my mind after watching that. I wasn’t swimming for my life either or freedom.

Jeffery:
And I feel like I’ve been totally taken on this whole thing. I’m like, I can’t believe they made it. These guys are amazing. Meanwhile 10 minutes swimming, it was only knee deep water.

Jade:
Yeah, we were yeah, we jumped off, you know, we’re we were done by breakfast time and sitting there and having breakfast in the bay and by 8 A. M.

Jeffery:
That’s amazing. Now I’ve got a good story to tell everybody that this is they were all making it up. Uh It was all the movies that just made you feel like it was crazy.

Jade:
Absolutely

Jeffery:
unbelievable. I feel like I honestly, I feel like I’ve been lying to my whole life. Geez. Oh good. Uh so I wanted to touch base a little bit, I guess on when you were, when you bought the hot dogs and you really built this brand up.

I really find that a lot of things that we do in our past really define what we do in our future and I’d love to learn a bit more about how Nathan’s one when you started this, what got you involved? How did you find out about Nathan’s and what got you in behind the brand? And then when you guys started to build this up, was there a few things that you guys had the hurdles that you had to get through in order to really make this brand stand out and then what were those learnings that you were able to take that and say, you know what, we did such a good job here and I love this, interacting with early stage in this whole space and it kind of just help perpetuate you into the rest of this networking and being part of this whole ecosystem.

Jade:
Yeah, I was always a great networker and you know obviously being in sales, I could I could talk and you know playing hockey and coaching at a high level and scouting and it was it was something that it was easy for me uh my christian since my partners there, they had the idea and they’re like, yeah, you know, we want you to come on and be part of this and we think you’re the perfect fit for it.

So it was a really good opportunity for me at the time. Um you know when I watch how startups grow now, uh we were totally you know let’s go. We thought we put together a really good business plan and away we went and we found out 38 days later it wasn’t that good and we pivoted it and redid it and hired brokers and started growing it that way. And you know before if we didn’t do that, who knows what would have happened? But it was really let’s go figure this out, let’s figure out the brand, let’s figure out the sales, let’s figure out the marketing, Facebook and Twitter were still there so it was hands on.

Um And you know trial by error and a lot of times especially dealing with CFIA. And the USDA because we were an importer at that time and it was a lot of uh a lot of lumps a lot of uh you know, people always say, oh, you don’t learn from the school of hard knocks, but man, there’s no other way, You know, she’s the best teacher around there and, and, and, and it’s really, you know, to kind of come full with, you know, we had the franchise of foodservice in the retail, right?

So you really learned how to play a lot of those games and, and how it works. And the Cisco and the GFS is in the safe way, Soby’s loblaws. So now when you’re playing in these ecosystems and you become an investor and you become a person that’s helping fellow entrepreneurs. You know, it’s, it’s a really good focus on scale and growth where someone like, well I should go to this accelerator and learn a bit more.

I should go into this. I’m like, get the hell out of here! Get out there, start selling, start learning, start figuring out what people want, what they don’t want. You can’t learn that by sitting in a classroom and listening to somebody tell you what their experiences was because their experience could be absolutely irrelevant to what you’re going to learn over the next year in your startup. So that’s probably what taught me the most and the knowledge I share the most is, is get out there, figure it out and uh, and learn from what what you’re figuring out and what you’re seeing in the market.

Jeffery:
And do you think, uh, there’s a lot of risk obviously associated with you guys jumping into this, you obviously we’re in a position where you guys could dive right in what got you into not building your own brand, but diving into a license model. Did it seem more appealing to you? Did you find that you know what, we could really work this and grow this significantly?

Did you do your market research, like all the normal startup things that you could go through or you guys are just like, you know what, I’ve eaten hot dogs, these are the best we’re going to take this to market, I don’t care what’s in front of us, we’re gonna bulldoze their way through.

Jade:
That was part of it. Um The other part is the Christiansens were very are serial entrepreneurs themselves in the food industry and hospitality industry, so they had a really good knowledge and background of what to do and basically an infrastructure set twere a lot of people didn’t have um when it comes to not only financing, but you know, the back end, you know, the back of the people house, they can say, oh yeah, you’re working on this while we’re gonna slide this on your desk for a little bit or whatever it may be.

But yeah, it was, we, we felt that there was room for a premium hot dog in Canada. There really wasn’t wonder, you know, you might have, you know, in the TO area there, you have the shopsies that were there, that people always talked about and, and you know, hot dog here there. But we figured we could really make a brand and obviously, Nathan’s was a huge brand. We have to do more explaining out in the west than we did in the east because you know, relative to New York Toronto Montreal and that understood and they spend a lot more time there. So once we people found out that we had Nathan’s in Canada, like MLSC was one of our first client.

So like we want it, like it’s, we want it, we want to brand it, we want to do it. And, and um, I tell people that they by far are the best company I have ever dealt with in my entire life, in any industry, anywhere. Our, our deal was done with them in 30 minutes. We were happy, they were happy. Um, we were making a little bit of money. We had branding that we wanted. Uh, and, and then they really, really helped us and work with us to grow our brand in Ontario.

And so it was, it was a little bit of both when it came down to, we thought there was some, there was a market there that we could have and we were right on that end of it and the other end was trying to figure out how it worked.

Jeffery:
And was the sports team side of it, I’m guessing that when you look at the brand that was your way to market. So you found your beachhead and MLSE is fantastic.

I’m a huge TFC fans in a season ticket holder for forever. It feels like even if we don’t get to go to the games right now. But at the end I do feel that they are really well coordinated. They really line things up nicely. They do a great job. So it was it sports that you kind of looked at? You’ve got sports parent? Yeah, I can see the word now. Oh my God, sports material all behind you. Is that is that really the driver that kind of took this home?

You said you know what? We’re going to gain market space. We’ve got to go after this beachhead and then let it trickle down a grocery and everywhere else. How did you approach that?

Jade:
Yeah, food service was our entry-level. And but again, we were we were a start up in a small business and we didn’t have infinite amount of money, we couldn’t cut a deal with, we’ll call them the two Alberta sports franchises that wanted us to lose a boatload of money on marketing were like, we can’t do that.

And we worked with the the ones that wanted to work with us and become a partner and and sell quality and we’ll do what we can. And that was the all of MLSC it was the Winnipeg Manitoba moose at the time, which turned into the Jets and the Vancouver Canucks and and a lot of the other little Vancouver Canadians, a baseball team, things like that. And and you know, we got into tons, we got into the K we got into Boston Pizza’s, we got tons of like Asia um, golf courses, you know, all over, all over Canada from coast to coast, we have representation. So it was a really, you know, a real grind. A lot of food service shows, a lot of tastings, a lot of, a lot of that and and once we figured out that, you know, the food broker was the way to go. We found the smaller independent food brokers that were hungrier kind of like us that you know, no pun intended but wanted to get out there and, and, and, and it really worked for us.

It it it was a really good plan and it was, this was still continuing to work when, when we exited.

Jeffery:
Awesome and was a lot of this. Did you guys focus on and this is the part I love about food services are getting into any sort of food product, is that when we make an investment in our food company, we’re all about brand. We want to make sure that brand is number one because brand can be, is going to be bigger than your sales will be at the beginning, but if you’re in this for the long haul, you can eventually get your sales up to match that size of brand that you create.

So being that you’ve got this great brand that was coming into Canada, how much would that help you leverage where you’re going?

Jade:
Oh, it was, it was a huge, huge, huge proponent of our success. I mean, they always used to tease the shit out of us in new york, saying that the, you know, the july 4th hot dog eating contest had higher ratings in the Stanley cup finals, right?

So, and we did leverage that, right? We had Canadian hot dog eating contest and here we actually were just about to set one up with TFC and marine smoke and they’re smoked a teen who was doing his and major league eating thing and we were, you know, we were starting to do that, you know, the hot dog is in the form of a little more risque that we could have fun with and the contest that we created and it’s funny that, you know, new york, they always considered that they were, you know, a big brand, but I had a twitter before they did, we Canada had a facebook page before they did, they were using some of the marketing materials, we were creating the, we had to create your own hot dog contest with chefs and we got like thousands of photos and put it into a big menu that we handed out at trade shows to show people how they can utilize what’s in their kitchen, like poutine dogs.

But you can’t put hot, you couldn’t put um french fries on them because they were just too soggy on a hot dog. But we think some chef figured out to put hickory sticks on them and, and it was, it was, we had a lot of fun with it and we really made it fun.

And another big differentiator for us was even if you were MLSE or if you were jade’s mom and pop shop here in Calgary. We were, we were honest with you right from the get go. I would say, okay, you know what you want, you want us to give you a sandwich sign? Okay, well that sandwich sign is going to cost us, You know, $500 to make, we’ll get it for you, but it’s gonna take me three years to make money off you.

So if you sign a three year deal with us, we’ll give you that Sandwich Board. But you know, we we we just can’t give it to you and have you walk away in the year and here, here’s our profit. And I would show people and they would appreciate the honesty and they don’t think that you’re ripping you off and you’re giving them something that they want and you’re like, I just want to make a little money off you and it might take us a year and a half and, you know, in three years, let’s look at if you want to continue it away you go. So it was kind of my small-town mentality of way of selling in that relationship building and, and making sure that people believe you’re not fleecing them.

Jeffery:
I think that’s the fear all the time, right, That you’re coming in, you’re a big brand, you’re just there to make money, You don’t care about the small guy or anything else, but you’re coming in from the small guy approach, working with the small guy trying to help them make money, yep. So —

Jade:
Absolutely.

Jeffery:
When you were doing that, and again, I love the idea behind it. How did you structure the licensing model versus the sales? And did you go back to these small SMEs and say, hey, look, we can help you increase your foot traffic or increase your volume of sales because of this brand. And people are gonna love this was their little types of metrics that got them excited about what you guys were offering.

Jade:
It took us a while to get those metrics. Um You know they had him in the States but they really just weren’t relevant to Canada. We’re not a hot dog culture like that. I mean Montreal is has a really good hot dog culture. Um, Winnipeg surprisingly has an unbelievable hot dog culture. Um But I mean other than that you know we leave a hot dog at a ballgame a hockey game. You know something like that.

We’re you know we’re not the we’re not like the state. So a lot of the stuff that they had we just couldn’t use. So it took us a while to come up with our own metrics. And a lot of the most people didn’t have them on menus like bars and restaurants and kegs and and B. P. S. And things like that. So there was a lot of uh we were breaking a lot of grounds into very large chains that just didn’t think of ever putting up a hot dog on their on their menu.

Jeffery:
Mm And now I think Costco is pretty big on that. Right. They have they always have this real affordable hot dog and they push it like crazy. And I think they I don’t know what the number is but they keep the numbers and tell everybody how many they sell and it’s phenomenally huge.

Jade:
Yeah they’re I mean they’re not even um they could probably just be a hot dog company just like the mouth that they sell is just batshit crazy.

It’s good. I mean I still go for I like hot dogs. I always have, I always will. Nathan’s are my favorite but the Costco dog is kind of a hybrid between a hebrew national and Nathan’s and and and it’s just a good dog and for a buck 50 with a, with a pop, how can you go wrong?

Jeffery:
Exactly. My father tells me that great. He does it all the time. It’s interesting you say that because, and I’m just trying to think in my head when I’ve been traveling, there was one country where everywhere I went, they had hot dogs, hot dogs in all different fashions, like cheese on them everything and it was every street.

And I can’t think. I’m trying to remember if it was Egypt or it was uh, another Oh Man Peru and it wasn’t through, but it was just, and everywhere I went, it was hot dogs. But then in other countries you don’t see them. So to me, it seems like there’s such a massive opportunity in this space and I like that you guys were able to take a brand, blow it up and get it into everybody’s hands without them realizing that hey, we don’t even have a branded hot dog and we don’t have something that will really drive sales and boom, come in, drop Nathan’s in and it just crushes it in all these spaces.

But that’s that entrepreneurial mindset where you’re just thinking opportunity, there’s opportunity, people are gonna love this and it kind of brings me back to this Red Bull when Red Bull started to take the world over.

I remember sitting with my buddy and he’s like, we should be the distributor in Canada this back in 2003 and I’m like. you know what, this is a great idea, I work at Loblaws we do all this other stuff. So I started investigating and it hadn’t been picked up yet and they wanted, they would only take people that had supply chain expertise or that they were running supply chain uh, so that they knew that the product would get into the Canadian market and then just land and expand.

So when you were going for your licensing, was that something and you had mentioned the other entrepreneurs that were really a big part of this, did you already have that infrastructure set up so that you could just land and expand? Or was it, you know what, I’m gonna need at least six months, but I know we can make this work and you owned it for Canada and they were excited to get behind it.

Jade:
Yeah, it was, you know, we, we presented obviously they wanted to make sure right Nathan’s is protective of their brand and their image as is anybody like Red Bull or or whoever it is. So, you know, we have to go through our vetting and, and make sure that, you know, they believed that we could do what we said we were going to do and what we presented.

So yeah, that, that went through it. Um, you know, I mean, like I said, 30 you know, within kind of, you know, a couple of months, we have to pivot everything and, and, and, and change our, our train of thought and, and we really thought we did our homework where we probably should have done a little more due diligence, um, uh, maybe that lends towards my angel investing right now, a little more, little more thorough on that end, but you’re just like, but we’re also smart enough to realize that shit, this isn’t working, let’s uh, let’s move forward, let’s find these brokers, let’s talk to them, let’s let’s make sure that we get them involved and, and and away we went.

So they’re, they’re, like I said, it was there was there was a good uh, learning curve, but, you know, we were smart enough, you know, knock on wood that it did work.

Jeffery:
So, so how did you, and again, all this is great because startups go through all of the same things that you are there debating should I license the product, should I make my own?

How do I operate this? We’ve got CPG companies that are trying to figure out how they’re going to actually go out of building it in their kitchen and moving it into a larger facility. So there’s probably a million questions, you can deep dive into how you guys process this. Did you have to get warehousing? Did you have to do inventory? How did you expand all these things? But I think really have the bigger question of all of this is how did you, how did you get yourself to mitigate the risk?

So you would just jump in and go at it. So kind of like we’re there elements that you have to push out and say, don’t worry about those. Let’s just move forward just to kind of help that mindset of an entrepreneur feel a little bit more comfortable that hey, you know what, it’s gonna be tough. But these are the things you got to look at.

Jade:
Yeah, we kind of, we had, we had a little bit of fun set away for, you know, to make sure that if there were any road bumps or it did take longer that we didn’t have to kind of say, oh no, oh no, right, that type of thing. So, so we were, we were lucky enough that way. Where, you know, we had a little bit of a runway to make sure that we just didn’t panic and fold the tent sort of say, there, you know, it is a food industry as a penny industry.

And um, once we really got in there and we realized that we can’t be with Versicle, we gotta find again, I mean, another little independent has refrigeration. Um, we found out quickly that Cisco and GFS will pick up the product. So for instead of us sending it over for a dollar a box, they’ll pick it up for 30 cents a box. And you’re like, oh my goodness. Like that’s a lot. That’s a huge amount of savings when it comes. And, and so again, there was a lot of things that we didn’t, we thought, we knew, we didn’t know we found out in a hurry. And uh, and, and, and created a very, a very effective business on for, for frozen product when you have to move it right, when it got into retail and loblaws and listing fees and that’s a whole new world. We don’t have to go there, but it even came down when the franchise side of it too, right, Opening up our first restaurant, second restaurant, third restaurant and then we were going to be coming into Ontario and Quebec.

But yeah, it was, I mean, as I said, it was a lot of learning curves, a lot of, uh, a lot of concessions, a lot of partnerships, a lot of, yeah, I’ll scratch mind you, scratch yours and uh, let’s both make money at this. Let’s have some fun with it. We’ll do whatever you want, whatever you need. Let’s, uh, let’s go. And you know, I always tried to, you know, there was one number for Nathan’s in Canada and this, it’s still it.

And probably even even a couple of years ago, I think I got my last Nathan’s call. It’s been a while, but it was, I was like, yeah, you want something, you phone me. You know, you know, just the brokers or is not feeling the brokers first. I’d be like, uh, you know, like, you know from the brokers, but you know, like brokers, you fool me, everybody for me, let’s let’s go, We want to make this happen. I don’t want to, I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want to be the roadblock. I don’t want the broker to be the roadblock.

Let’s, let’s get this done. You wanna deal? Let’s figure it out.

Jeffery:
I love it. I guess as an entrepreneur, you see a lot of yourself in other entrepreneurs when they have that drive just to keep going and they don’t want to be the roadblock. They want to be the accelerator, the gas every time, Right?

Jade:
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s uh and again, that’s the best thing about, you know, doing what I do now is I’ve been there, I’ve done that.

You know, you struggled, you’re worried, you sweated you, you know, spend endless hours away from your family and kids and you know, you always sit there. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? And, and you know, it wasn’t our case. But yeah, it’s, I always sit there and I’m like, you know, you can’t pull, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I’ve been there, right. I’ve seen it. I’ve, I’ve sat there across from you know, million dollars of deals and I sat there across $100 deal like I didn’t care I was there.

Jeffery:
Yeah, I like it. I love it. So now we’re kind of fast forward and you’re taking all this great experience operation side of it, how you guys raised and built this company up now when you’re looking at startups that are coming in and you talked about the investor side and then going into your purpose driven, what triggered you to go into more purpose driven versus focusing on that next big company or that next big startup they want to jump into

Jade:
Yeah. You know, I was going to take some time off and, and then it was, I had a few start again, like I said before, I never played in that world of accelerators and things.

It was like, you know, heads down, let’s go. And, and then I had a few reach out saying, you know what, you’ve kind of, you know, Nathan’s was three different sides of, you know, three separate businesses and they’re like, you’ve kind of done this on three different areas, like we could use your help and I’m like, yeah, I’m in, So I really got in there and what I found is I’ve always worked for family run companies. So it’s that, you know, all decisions and Nathan’s were almost made over 140 words or less, I guess it’s 280 or whatever text was at that time, like there was a limit and and I like that, right? I was like, there was that trust between me and my partners that you know what if Jay says that we should do this. I know they’ve done he’s done his homework and it’s good to go, we’re just, you know, bouncing making sure everybody’s on the same page, right?

So I really do think that that’s, you know, that found that that smaller, smaller community type thing, and having people there and, and understanding and making sure these, you know, the current entrepreneurs are like, no, no, no, that’s an excuse. I don’t like excuses, you know, get out there banging on doors. You haven’t made enough calls, you know, why aren’t you making calls? Why are people saying no? Like, you know, I I don’t like taking excuses. I I never have and I never will.

Jeffery:
So, the you mentioned a good point in there and you mentioned community, how much of community do you that you take from what you’ve built in the previous companies, you now put into your startups into what you’re doing a big emphasis, does it follow along with the branding side? Are you really strong in those two areas and really make sure that the startups understand what they’re doing in those two spaces?

Jade:
Yeah, it’s you know, I always I hate using the term of Jack of all trades, but when you’re when you’re kind of running in a national company and you’re trying to build it over, you know four time zones in Canada, you really becoming become knowledgeable in a lot of different areas and when you’re a small team and you have to learn logistics, you have to learn packaging, you have to learn sales, you have to learn marketing, you have to earn your people skills, you know anything along those lines, you have a lot to share, a knowledge to share and that’s Kind of where the peer guidance came in and you’re sitting there going, man, I’m seeing you know, a company, a marketing company come in and offer this startup in $80,000 fee, whereas like what the hell? Like, you don’t have 80 grand like that, that’s not worth 80 you know, here, let’s find somebody to do it for you.

Let’s let’s that’s 70 grand that we saved you is gonna go a long way to making your company successful, because in the beginning people say that, you know, everyone says people is your number one resource in your capital. It’s not, it’s money. I mean, you need to have the money to scale, to grow, to get to hire more people that will be the heartbeat of your company eventually. But wasting money on shitty things to start can really be devastating. And and I saw too many stories of, Like I said, anywhere between $5,000 and $80,000 that really bothered me and people just didn’t know when they had no one to turn to and I wanted to be that person and say, hey, no, come here. I know somebody. Or if I don’t know somebody, Jeff might know, you might know somebody. And we’ll put you in the right hands where someone will get you that knowledge for, you know, maybe you have to pay for it, but maybe you don’t have to.

Jeffery:
I like that. And I think that just in itself is really helpful for a start up because you’re right, a lot of the time, if you haven’t done it before, your brain isn’t going to um, Oh, I shouldn’t spend this money, your brain is going to, well, this is going to bring me to that next level and I need to be quick. So if I spend that 80,000, it’s really going to help me get there. And then they realize two months in that $80,000 spend didn’t actually move the needle whatsoever. It benefited their bottom line, but it didn’t really help your startup moved that needle and make any further sales.

Jade:
No, I mean it’s and and and and I almost wanted to, you know, I sat there and watched people come to tears across the coffee table and I was coming to tears because I get it.

I understand it. It’s personal. It hurts. We don’t have that kind of money at that stage of your business and to make an investment on trust and and you didn’t have somebody that you can bounce an idea off or maybe it was just your wife or your friends that are probably gonna say Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Well, I know they’re the experts. They should, they should know and and well, no, they shouldn’t.

Like I mean you, you know, you have to do your homework, reach out, talk to people, you know, phone somebody, phone a mentor, have a mentor. Um, I don’t know, put something on facebook and linkedin, you know, get some feedback from people like, you know, there really wasn’t even linkedin back then. Right. So we were, I was lucky enough to have a good group of people that I knew and my mentor is still my mentor and and and to rely on things and the Christiansens were a fantastic family and fantastic business people. So I had that and and if I didn’t have it, they definitely had it. So there was that network that we could rely on to make sure that we were doing the right things

Jeffery:
and I love that speaking the network asked questions, drop things out there. Someone’s going to answer the question, especially if your gut tells you doesn’t work and it doesn’t make sense. It probably doesn’t. I think a lot of the times were too afraid to ask to share that I remember. And this is what started me in my first company in the software side is I was asked to come in and do a review of a platform that was built and they gave me access to this, I don’t remember.

It was was it certainly wasn’t Dropbox, whatever it was. And I remember going through all of this material. And then I go through the financials to find out and what they had spent. And they asked me to come back with a summary of what we had they had built over the year and a half.

And when I went through this, it was the most upsetting thing I had ever had to do when I started my company, which was go through and realized that this person was trying to build something that everybody turned to be so complicated. But the end was not so complicated. If someone would have taken the time just to align it up properly and they could have already had a final product, but $300 400,000, later, it was just people screwing the person to get their dollar out to survive.

But the output, I wrote it down in 2.5 pages and it was the worst feeling I ever had to go back to that owner in a meeting and say, this is what you’ve got. And they started crying and I was like, it was the most disappointing thing ever had and I was like, I’ll never let this happen again. This is ridiculous that you’ve been robbed by all of these people who said they knew what they were doing and they just wanted to get paid, they didn’t care about the outcome. So it follows along to the same principle of where you’re going at is that so many people get taken advantage of when they don’t understand what they’re doing, but their passion is there to build something great and we want to, in your case, you want to, or the group of entrepreneurs that do this is that they want to actually help those that have that passion and help them educate and learn through that process so
that they can get there and get their own learning and in hopes they’ll go and give that back as well when they get to that next stage and next level of their business.

Jade:
I couldn’t agree more. I mean that is so true, right to pay it forward mentality and and you know, I always, you know, one of the most things I’m proud about with pure guidance is that we waived all the fees for all of our clients during Covid and are still waving them. And I mean, I think that goes to show that we, we really believe, right? I mean, and I had a point in my life where, you know, like that make a difference from, you know, and, and the other four are current entrepreneurs and have their own businesses. So it was a very easy decision when you have to, you know, send out that email or make that phone call and have the zoom with somebody and say, hey, don’t worry about it.

You know, put the food on your plate, pay your bills, pay your mortgage is nothing’s changing. We’re going to do the business as is and when the time comes and you’re back and we’re pulling in some revenue, we’ll start back up again. But until then let’s uh, you know, let’s do what we can to stay alive and, and make sure that we have a business to come back to and well now we’re over a year.

Jeffery:
I love it, awesome. Good people that should have a banner if I knew how to do that while we’re talking flashing lights and stuff.

But no, that’s brilliant. It’s awesome, awesome when you’re doing Jade. So now now you guys are getting into the more of the support side of it and you mentioned earlier about the accelerator incubator side, like just get at it, Just get out there and build.

So what’s your philosophy now? Around acceleration incubators. Are you more um, more balanced than saying that, hey, you know what, these things can really help you at that early stage, there is some education you can get from it, there is some value that’s there, don’t spend your entire 3 4 years in there, but if you’ve never done it is get in there and learn it and move on. Is there something you’ve taken from that and you can push to your to your startups?

Jade:
Yeah, I I’ve, I guess I’ve kind of come around a little bit um you know, there’s a couple good ones in here. I really do like the junction program that platform puts on, I I want to say it’s kind of like a business one a one course, especially if you’ve never been an entrepreneur before, they can touch on everything, you know, accounting and sales and marketing and networking and, and, and, and, and all that stuff and I do like the fact that every single um I can’t remember that they associate or, or a teacher there, it is an entrepreneur has been an entrepreneur or you know, is currently an entrepreneur and the connections that you can make from from that one is excellent and they’ve got a great alumni, they work with Startup Calgary and things along those lines.

So I always say it’s good to get into one. Learn a little bit. That one doesn’t take up too much time, you know, four days a week for six weeks, only half days. And then away you go and you know, we’ve worked with them before and they forwarded companies and said, hey, go talk to Jade or whatever it may be. So I really do and I have, but I don’t understand if someone’s gonna go from there to another accelerator to another incubator to something like that. I was like, oh man, you, you can’t, you can’t do that. You have to find out if your product, if anybody even want your product. And I find that some people get in this vicious cycle and and I don’t know if it’s because they’re scared, they don’t know how to sell.

They, you know, I always use a term of wantrepreneur. Like, you know, so many people want to be an entrepreneur, but they just don’t know how to and they can’t and and they think that they can play in the ecosystem and do what they can.

But I’m uh, you know, I’m a heads down. Let’s go, I mean if your company is gonna work, it’s gonna work and we’re gonna know right away and if it’s not well, let’s kind of move onto the next thing.

Jeffery:
Pivot. Let’s figure out how to help them pivot, right? Yeah, I like that when when we talk, I I always like to okay, I guess you’re coming from try this, just go and push that right now and then let’s talk again and see if you get any traction, because at the end of day time is money and if you’re gonna spend the next six months doing this, you’re just burning time and time isn’t going to benefit anybody.

So let’s just tweak something. Because if it’s I think I heard this long time ago, this great quote that the best entrepreneurs are always blowing their own shit up because they’re always fixing it, they always got to change it again. Now let’s do this again. I don’t know if it’s boredom, but they’re always breaking it, Breaking it, Breaking it. And I think that that makes a lot of sense because you’re always trying to figure out how to edge it one step further and status quo isn’t edging it forward. So how do I keep breaking something to make sure that it gets to that next stage?

Jade:
Oh yeah, I love it, blow it up, here we go, next.

Jeffery:
Exactly works for me. I think it’s one of those things, you just wake up one more and you’re like something’s not right and then boom just start blowing things up and then you get back to the grind again and it just feels more comfortable after you do that and get it aligned and moving it forward again right?

Jade:
Absolutely couldn’t agree more. Well we’re gonna kind of transition a little bit because I think there’s been a there’s a lot of learning and I really do strongly believe that a lot of the time if you take what your core subset is, the things that you built on and then you start to drive that further, taking your Nathan’s experience all the way through.

It just shows that what you accomplish there, that you can keep driving that forward and people are going to learn from that experience. And so I appreciate you sharing that and there’s kind of this one story and I always like to hear from and you work with a lot of startups now and work in this space quite a bit and you’re making a lot of investments are doing all these great things. Is there one story that really just pops out of your mind and you’re like, this is what it takes to be an entrepreneur is working with this founder and she did x,, it just blew it up and that was what excited you about why you do what you do every day.

Jade:
Oh man, that’s a, that’s a tough question. Um, I mean there’s so that’s, I guess that’s one thing I like about the entrepreneurial world, right? It’s, people are passionate, people care, it’s their idea, it’s their baby, it’s there, you know, they want to make it work and and 95 99% of them are always like, I need help, I’m listening, I’m open to ideas and and the one, I guess the one kind of story, it’s not even a, it’s not even really a um a success story or it, it was almost that aha moment where it was like one of the, I think the second or third company we were, I was working with and that was coming in and I’m sitting down and and you know, kind of we’re going over things and I’m like, wow, we don’t really know how to scale what we’re doing, we don’t know what we need to sell, how we need to sell, but you know, we’ve been doing pretty good and I was like, okay, that’s great.

So you’ve been going here, you’ve been going there and you know, pitching in and doing well. I was like, yeah, and you, you got some revenue.

And I was like, well how many you have to sell the break even? And they’re like, I don’t know. I’m like, what do you mean? You don’t know like what’s your number? Like you have to, you guys are low income, you know, you don’t have a whole lot of overhead and things along those lines. They’re doing a lot of great things. Like it was awesome. And I was just like, what do you mean? You don’t know? It was, it was just there was dead silence and I said, well let’s just figure it out.

Just like literally in five minutes we kind of did some math and we figured we had, you had to sell you know 10 months to break even and all of a sudden they’re my mindset just changed. It was an instant. I only need to sell 10 a month. And you know they were all they were all worried about the big picture, right? The scent like how are we gonna do this and where are we going to go money we’re gonna spend, we gotta fly, what are we gonna do? And I was like to put our budget down, let’s look what we have to sell per month. And then that number came out to like 10 it like it was like Oh we can do that.

And it was it was totally different and it was and that’s why I always tell people like when you got to know your numbers, know what you know what you’re doing. You don’t have to look at them all the time, but you just have to know him right? You review monthly and things like that, but just just know and and relax because a lot of times people are panicking over things that they shouldn’t be panning about panicking about when math, you know, I don’t want to use the word math is simple because someone will use it and then I’ll start getting teased on linked in, but it’s just bring it down to your simple base and, and, and don’t worry about a lot of the big things just yet.

And, and that’s probably one of the best stories I have when it comes to keeping it simple.

Jeffery:
I agree. Yeah. I’m sure blew them out of the water when they realized the stress reduced from that point on where now they can start to look at, how can I plan, How do I get to 15, how do I get to 30?

How do I get to 50? And then with that extra cost, it’s gonna occur along the way. It’s uh there was a gentleman that I’ve worked with for many years as an entrepreneur and uh he works at Schulich now and run shoe lick. And I remember one of the things that he had said was that if you could take out the finance around a company, the stress of it, how fast and big do you think that company could grow and if you know the entrepreneur and what they’re doing?

And it always just sat in the back of my mind because I always thought of that and I thought, you know what if you could take that stress out, how aggressive would you really be if you could go at that market and just drive it because you have that passion, you know, exactly what people want in your product and how you’re going to get it to them.

But it’s that financial side that just puts everybody on the constraints and holds them back because they don’t realize how what the cost is or how to manage their accounting or how to manage their finances. So it slows the whole process down.

Jade:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, people get so wrapped up in numbers and and and the fear of uh you know, of, of of everything that comes with running a business and and sometimes you’re just just, you know, as simple as you can, baby steps, one success story at a time.

You know, don’t worry about what’s going to happen in five months, worry about what’s going to happen this week and and just take it step by step and and and and again, I mean, I’m a big fan of just saying, you know, I’d ask for help. Ask asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s a phrase I use all the time, not only in business, but in all the mental mental wellness and mental health stuff that we’re doing out there because you know, people are scared and they think that, oh man and people I should know everything.

I’m like, man, you don’t know, I don’t know everything I know. Far from everything, I still ask for help, I still talk to my mentor and my mentor is now more of a friend over the last 25 ish or so years, like, I mean, I love it when he phones me, I’ll phone him up and I’ll say something like that, he goes, Jade you’re an idiot, like, why are you even asking me that? I was like, you know, God, God, right? It’s like, I just need, I need someone to tell, tell it like it is right in the way you go, so

Jeffery:
agree bouncing ideas is huge,

Jade:
absolutely

Jeffery:
I was sharing the other day a story. And the story was, if you have a problem, take the three smartest people, you know, and go ask them the problem.

And even if you haven’t talked to that person in three years, go asking the problem because you’re going to get a perspective that you didn’t expect, you’ll get and then your next problem find three other people that are just as smart that you think can solve that problem and keep going to three new people each time. Because what that will do is you’ll start to define what those three people are all about. And then as your problems start to escalate, you’re gonna remember who helped you and solve one of those problems that you really thought brought a lot to the table.

And you’ll start to refine those people down as you keep growing all your problems and keep growing all these different mentors and coaches that they don’t know they’re doing this and then you’re gonna start to round them down and you’re going to find 3-5 great people that are going to really understand your business and understand your modeling and that’s gonna help you grow quicker and faster.

Jade:
Absolutely bang on.

Jeffery:
Just find five new friends working on Linkedin, there’s lots of people on linkedin, you can ask random questions, they will certainly love to answer them. So I don’t know if you don’t ask away —

Jade:
I get random questions asked all the time. I always answer. I love it. I kind of wear it as a badge of honor if someone wants, uh, you know, wants my opinion.

Jeffery:
I love it. All right. We’re going to transition into the rapid fire questions segment.

Jade:
All right.

Jeffery:
Okay. How did you get started in investing in startups?

Jade:
Just a fluke and fun.

Jeffery:
All right. Well, for that another time. I like that. What’s your favorite part of investing?

Jade:
The people.

Jeffery:
Okay. How many companies do you invest in per year?

Jade:
Uh, it’s usually between five and eight.

Jeffery:
I love it. You’re above average. Beautiful.

Jade:
Any verticals you like to focus on?

Jeffery:
I hate to say it, but I get passionate about food companies, but I dont invest as many as I probably should. Maybe it’s very reason. Uh, but you know, I, when it comes to verticals, there seems to be a lot more tech companies, um, you know, as we kind of be evolving that way in Alberta because I pretty much only invest in Alberta companies.

Jeffery:
Okay, awesome. On the due diligence side, are there any things that you look for before making a commitment?

Jade:
Yeah, I’m a big fan of, um, of having company scale the company on our investment, not build it. So we really like MRRS. Are probably one of our top metrics.

Jeffery:
Okay, timelines for investment?

Jade:
I guess, to get to get a deal cut at, to be at the front end. It’s usually somewhere between one and three or so months and I guess going to be a 7 to 10 year relationship.

Jeffery:
I love that answer. I never hear that. But yeah, you’re right. You talk about having, uh, being part of, uh, community and then throwing in that, hey, we’re in this for the long haul, right?

We’re gonna be talking in 7 to 10 years. I’m not putting this money in if we’re not. So,

Jade:
yeah. And if you just want my money, you’re not getting uh, you’re not getting anything from us.

Jeffery:
I like it. Uh and then follow on investments. Is that part of the strategy as well?

Jade:
Um, You know what, lucky enough, it hasn’t been on, on all of our, all of our investments. They’ve been, they’ve been picked up by, by, you know, VC lead funding and we’ve been kind of, you know, shunned, but I don’t care.

That’s that’s why you’re here, right? So exactly, yeah. If you, if someone else is gonna, you know, throwing a little bit, we always ask, right, we put it in the contract, but uh, you’re not gonna hold back on something by saying, yeah, we want in. And the company said no, you’re not. You’re like, yeah, okay. You know, you’re, go on, well, we’ll get our money out of this.

So, well, we will be happy.

Jeffery:
I like it. That’s awesome. Okay. Anything else you look for in factors of investing? Is it um, team CEO product or anything like that? That really stands out that makes you jump to

Jade:
Yeah, no, it’s uh, I mean, there’s there are a lot of factors as you know, but I mean, honestly, I really have to believe in the person, the people in the company like that is a big, big part of it. If I don’t think that they’re coachable or they don’t want my, you know, they don’t want, they just want the cake and they don’t want what comes with it. I mean, we’re here and I mean if they think that they know everything and we can’t help them, well why would our money want to, why would we want our money to help you? Like it just, I need to believe in the people

Jeffery:
Like it. Any preferred terms like pref shares, common shares, equity.

Jade:
Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I mean obviously, you know, I just go straight to equity to make it simple. Um, we’ve done a few commons, no preferred yet. It seems the, everybody seems to be putting, you know, everybody right now.

I don’t know if it’s the same in Toronto in that area. Everybody wants a safe right now, which we kind of say, well no, will probably switch that to a convertible at the, at the least.

Jeffery:
But yeah, it’s pretty common. Safes are pretty big and we share that. Most don’t like to invest in them. But if you put a cap on it and ensure that there’s a balance there then totally that makes sense then they’ll be interest. But it’s pretty one sided. So it’s tough to jump on those but they’re cheap. It’s early then why not? But cap it.

Jade:
Yeah.

Jeffery:
Do you take board seats?

Jeffery:
Um God… board seats you can get me going. Um I haven’t um we’ve kind of set up I’ve been at a you know moved into kind of an advisor type thing on their on their things. Some of them have been early up and don’t have boards. Some of them have actually helped set up their boards for them.

But yeah I mean sometimes boards really pissed me off so—

Jeffery:
Well we have to explore that in the next conversation as well. I haven’t heard that one yet but I’m sure I can understand why they do but either way interesting.

Jade:
Yeah not all of them. Just some of them.

Jeffery:
Well, I can imagine, I can imagine, I can imagine. All right, well we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna jump into some personalized questions. So first question favorite sports team

Jade:
Oh Saskatchewan Roughriders Score Riders.

Jeffery:
Alright, alright. I was an article’s fan for the longest time that I can remember. And then I started working in Hamilton and I started going to the ti-cats games and those fans are there like just like rough riders. They are so dedicated to the team. That found that Argos fans just weren’t the same way. And I started to find myself changing over to Hamilton and saying I actually like this team better because the energy and drive that the people come to the stadium, the new Tim Hortons one is unbelievable. So I can understand the pasion you have for the team because when the community gets around something and there, when that team is driven and they’re doing well or even when they’re not doing well, people are still so tied into them. It’s unbelievable.

Jade:
Oh, there’s a lot of pain being a rider fan, right? Four great Cups in 105 years.Like we’ve got, you know, once we might get to in a lifetime if you’re lucky.

Jeffery:
That those numbers don’t sound is promising but good to be a fan though.

Jade:
Absolutely.

Jeffery:
Your favorite movie and which character would you play in the movie?

Jade:
Oh my God. Oh man. I mean I worked in the movie industry for eight years, so I am a movie buff. I love, oh man, that’s tough.

Like uh I mean I’m a big, big comedian. And I love comedy. So I would probably have to say I’m not going to go with Dumb and Dumber, I’m gonna go with the Big Lebowski and I’ll be, I’ll be the dude.

Jeffery:
I like it. If I was to take all the interviews I’ve done and just write down like there’s like maybe a handful of movies that most of the investor community has picked on compared to the rest like this, don’t get me wrong, they’re spread out. Big Lebowski is up there for sure is up there.

Jade:
Gosh it has to be

Jeffery:
(inaudible) up there. They’ve had more than one vote. How’s that?

Jade:
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I mean, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you can pick pulp fiction. I, I would probably be, you know, Reg Dunlop and slap shot. I would, you know, you’re just like, you can just keep going right,

Jeffery:
All great movies, all great movies. Um, and the last one is, what is your superpower?

Jade:
Listening. Oh, and it’s as simple as that. I mean, I have, you know, I wasn’t good at it. I learned to be good at it and I learned the power of listening can, can lead to a lot more success and make you a much better person, investor and entrepreneur. And I start with person for a reason. I mean it’s something that, you know, I, I truly, truly believe in. So whether you have to be a good person to start off with anything.

Jeffery:
I love it to add on to that. I would say listen twice, speak once.

Jade:
Yeah. And I like spiking right? You put a few whiskeys in me, I’m going to go. But I mean it comes down to, you know, business media, it’s a whole new world, right? When you’re telling stories, I got lots of good stories

Jeffery:
while you can share them. We got time. I love it. Well Jade, it’s been, it’s been awesome to chat with you. Um, lots of learnings there. I think we learned lots. And as I always do, even though I say I was gonna do digital, I can still take notes because at the end I can’t do a monologue after. If I don’t write everything down,

Jade:
there is my, there’s, there’s my investor book right there. It’s still, I’m still still that way too.

Jeffery:
Yeah, it’s, I try not to, but I was, I was doing them and typing them, but the noise is too loud and so I do write them down, but I do want to thank you again for all of your time. I think the audience is gonna learn a lot from this and we’re gonna get you back on the show again because you do have a lot of insights and I want to learn these stories because the stories are the ones that really get me excited because I love sharing stories. But the way we like to kind of end things is we like to give you the last word. So anything that you want to share to investors or to start ups, I turn it over to you. But again, thank you very much for all your time today and sharing.

Jade:
Well, I appreciate it, jp it’s it’s something that, you know, I love, I love sharing my stories, I love talking, I’m passionate about the ecosystem and, and I guess the, you know, the one piece of it, the last piece of advice will end it on is I always tell people, if you ask for, if you ask for money, you’ll get advice. If you ask for advice, you may get funding. So I always say come at it at a different level, right?

Think about it differently. Think differently. Think outside the office, um, and, you know, try and build that relationship before you’re going to go out there and ask for funding.

Jeffery:
I love it. And if people want to get a hold of you, I’ve washed a bunch of your interviews, they’re fantastic. I love how you work with the startups and chat with them and talk them through and get them to pull out some of that great advice and great insights that they’re living through. How can people get hold of you?

Jade:
Oh yeah, I mean, you can go to peerguidance.ca, you know, Jade Alberts on linkedin, I’m there all the time. My email is [email protected], my cell phones all over the map. You can google me, you’ll find lots of sports stories and hot dog eating stories, and, and uh you know, sports interviews and things like that.

But yeah, I mean I’m, I’m there in an agile to me, you know, I know I play in Alberta a lot and that was just because I wanted to be around family and I was tired of traveling, but I mean I’m, I’m open to talking to anybody. I’m hosting an event here out of the phoenix here next month. We’re actually this month and 15 days, you know, talking about the future of work and how that is. So I’m always, I’m always around, I’m always, I always love to talk to your stories and try and share my knowledge.

Jeffery:
I love it while you’re a good man, I love what you’re doing, keep it up and uh, we’re gonna be in touch is we’re going to learn more and see how we can keep working together.

Jade:
I love it. I enjoyed it. Have a great day sir, I appreciate your time.

Jeffery:
Likewise you too. Bye bye. Awesome. Well what can I say? I think uh Canada the world producing a lot of amazing people in this entrepreneurial space and I just love everything that he’s been up to and what they’ve been doing and you know, it’s, it’s phenomenal, but you know, from taking a brand and just blasting it out there and getting in front of the right people and growing that, you know, even he came all the way around to being able to work with accelerators and change that whole mindset.

So you know, there’s a lot of value out there, you just have to go look for it. And I like that he talked about, you know, being a strong operator talking to and building community and getting mentors, really important. It helped him through a lot of that thick and thin. And I think a lot of these great insights were worth hearing about again and all the new stuff that they’re doing just fantastic. So in saying that check jade was awesome. I hope you guys enjoyed the conversation, feel free to share, like post all that great stuff and look forward to talking to you guys again soon, enjoy the day.