Jeffery: Welcome to the Impact Investing, brought to you by the Supporters Fund from the city with the only castle in North America. Toronto, Canada. I’m your host, Jeffrey JP Portman. And let’s please welcome from the Hollywood of the North Vancouver, Canada, Keith Apple from Spring Impact Capital. Welcome, Keith. It’s a real pleasure having you join us today.

Keith: Great to be here with you, JP. Thanks for having me.

Jeffery: Well, I’m really excited about having you here today, Keith, because one, you have a vast background. You’ve been doing this a long time, but when you look back at your background just on where you’ve come from and that the kind of the stages throughout your career, it seems like you’ve just grown into where you’re meant to be. You start off as an analyst, and then you go all the way to where you are today, and it just almost feels like going through the bike business. Everything else you were just meant to be in impact investing since day one. It’s like, learn this, become this thing. Amazing.

Keith: Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, when, there’s a reason why they say hindsight is 2020, right? You know, like, yeah, I think there was never a plan to be here back when I was, you know, coming through university or undergrad. But you’re absolutely right there for me. Like the journey that I’ve been on always related to business. My dad was a serial entrepreneur, and so I was always exposed to entrepreneurship and early stage business and growth and capital. But at the end of the day, you know, it’s for me, it’s it’s been a process where, you know, you talked about my early analyst role, you know, it’s a it’s about, you know, looking at the information, looking at the numbers, problem solving, looking for opportunities. And, and and you know, it’s it’s thinking about almost like you know what is being Sherlock Holmes. But in the context of early stage business. Right. And so, you know, you’re looking at the clues and you’re saying, what does this tell me? What does this teach me? And therefore what is what are the next moves that, that that we have to make? And so, you know, I had the very good fortune of getting involved in entrepreneurship at a, at a very interesting time in, in the tech ecosystem, you know, late 90s, you know, watched the dotcom, you know, bubble burst, you know, watch the digital media craze start to take off in the mid to late 2000. and really watch the impact movement start to unfold. And, you know, for me, growing up at a time where people were capitalists by day, you know, 9 to 5 and then would be philanthropists from 5 to 9, really understanding that actually, if we decided to be impact 24 seven, that you can actually make money while making the world a better place. You’re you’re absolutely right. That’s how I ended up in this world. And so, you know, my first career was included that time, you know, with United Way campaigns that really gave me that first taste of like trying to make a difference in the world. And just that triggered a hunger that has never been satisfied. And so I continue to try and fuel that today with spring.

Jeffery: I love it. So I guess it’s the way we like to start it off. And you’ve you’ve dived right in, which I love. So you want to learn more about your background and kind of all the great things that you’ve done and through some of the different businesses, the iterations, the time you spent building the current venture, which has been over ten years, there’s so many cool things that you’ve done that have really kind of, accelerated yourself to getting into the funding side versus all of the other pieces that you’ve kind of layered into that. And while you’re kind of sharing those insights, maybe you can share one thing about you that nobody would know.

Keith: Yeah, for sure. I’d love to do that. so for me, I come from a background where, you know, my parents were both immigrants to Canada, so I’m a first generation Canadian. we, saw this process unfold where, you know, my parents and my dad were, were trying to, to create economic opportunity. And, and so that was a, you know, capitalism for good kind of mindset, right? Like, you know, creating opportunity, creating opportunities for their children and, and, but following a very traditional model. Right. Cap, as I said before, capitalist by day, philanthropist by night. And I always remember thinking. That there was a real opportunity for people to actually do more impact all day long. And when I left my undergrad, business degree and got into the business world, I was, you know, now looking back, I was clearly craving those moments of impact and those opportunities for impact. So, you know, I kicked off the first United Way campaign for Hyundai Canada. and, I was involved with a number of other initiatives, during that time. And at the time, it was probably enough for me, but it really was always point to me in that next, next direction. And so when I got into the tech world, the tech world was amazing for me intellectually, because, you know, I love to solve problems and I love to analyze situations, and I love to come up with the right solutions, seize the right opportunities, and get things back on the rails and move forward. And so there was a number of years there were where my intellectual curiosity was really piqued and satisfied. But the more I worked in tech, the more I realized there was a disconnect between what I was doing and and and what I actually what change I wanted to create in the world. And and it’s not a criticism per se, but the tech world is so often about creating the next Facebook or the next Instagram. the next Tesla, where, you know, they’re creating large organizations. But the, the, the impact starts to become dubious over time, right. And and so for me, when I got to the end of 2009, I just said, you know what? I’ve got to in order for me to do this, I have to take the red pill, right? Like I have to unplug and I have to find out what it is. And so I took a I took a year long sabbatical and, and I worked with some nonprofits and charities and, and co-ops, sometimes in light advisory roles. worked with the the cycling nonprofit called Hub in Vancouver, an amazing cycling advocacy organization, headquartered in Vancouver, for a year and and really helped, to find my voice and impact. And so for me, it really was that intersection, as I think it is for everybody. It’s like, what are my skills and experience? What is my why? Right. Like Simon Sinek, what is my why? How do I want to make the world a better place for what impact and then what is at the intersection of those two things? And and for me, what I knew is that it was early stage innovation and it was impact. And for me and particular, the impact is to be holistic about people and planet, with a very strong emphasis on gender equity. And and so that really was the driving force for me. And then I had a crossroads moment, which was do I create another tech company or do I actually try and create leverage effect. Right. And that for me was creating spring, because spring really was designed to support hundreds and hundreds of impact ventures. So instead of me trying to create one venture that creates the impact, why don’t we support hundreds upon hundreds that actually then scale impact globally? And and that’s how I came to be that spring. And that’s been the last ten years of my life.

Jeffery: I love it, it’s a great story and it’s a great journey. But before we unpack all of that one thing about you that nobody would know.

Keith: Well, a lot of people know that I travel a lot for work, and for spring. And so there’s no surprise there. There’s always a running joke. Where in the world is Keith? but I think it’s safe to say that nobody knows that. I actually, ran through security and was chased by security. And since Salvador Airport, as I was, making a connecting flight and not sure if I’m allowed back in the country, but I’m not going to test it anytime soon. Haha. That’s awesome.

Jeffery: Yeah. I think, we both carry that same. Where in the world is, Carmen Sandiego?

Keith: That’s absolutely. Absolutely.

Jeffery: And the fact that you got to do that. I also have a couple of those funny stories and, but it’s, you know, I think when you do a lot of, spend a lot of time doing these things, you also know what your risk tolerance is on what things you know, you have to do in order to make X happen, and you’re willing to take that challenge. So I love that you did that. That’s brilliant.

Keith: Amazing, amazing. Thank you.

Jeffery: So to go back and unpack some of this founders side, like you’ve done a lot of great things that have kind of enabled you to keep moving forward in your learning. And you mentioned obviously on the business analyst side, on on understanding what your objectives were and then kind of how you move that forward. Where do you find today when you’re working with founders? Did you get a lot of that information from. So when you were doing the business analyst side and then jumping in as a founder, are there a couple of things that really stood out to you that you said, you know, in my next career or as I move forward, I need to make sure I share this info. Is there a couple of things like from operations, finances, whatever it might have been that really just honed in when you started to create scoring that you said, you know, if I’m going to make a difference, I got to make sure founders understand these three things.

Keith: it’s probably a few things that I would say. One is, first, cash is king, right? Early stage ventures. you know, running out of cash is is is the, you know, it’s both obvious and never obvious, especially to first time founders. And so I think that’s kind of point number one. Point number two is whenever entrepreneurs are looking at a situation, it’s almost never the cause. It’s almost always the symptom. So the first thing that I learned as a business analyst is you never assume that what you’re looking at is the problem or the opportunity you have to dig. Right. And what you and I, in fancy terms, would call a five whys framework. But at the end of the day, it’s, you know, you need to dig until you find out what the real problem is. You and I know the quintessential example, which is Uber, right? If if the founders of Uber had looked at the situation and say, I can’t find a cab, the obvious answer was buy a cab. Clearly they didn’t do that. They’re like, actually, what is the real problem? And let’s go solve the real problem. Right. And so that’s that I think is is the other key piece. The third thing is remember always that in a situation, whether you’re facing a problem or an opportunity, is that the opposite. The the response is always a combination of universal truth as well as context specific. So never assume that your situation is unique and special because there’s always industry business model, geographic stage elements that are universal truth. You can always learn from what other people have done. But on the on that. But then you have to layer the context on top of that. Don’t assume universal truth just applies rote. You have to actually then say, okay, now I need to put the lens on it, which is my lens. My company in March of 2024, April of 2024. In this particular context, in this geography, and I think those are the critical elements, because if you keep those elements in mind as an entrepreneur, you can face any opportunity or challenge and come out the other side thriving.

Jeffery: I like it. So those those three elements really kind of define that starting point as a founder. and I, like you can even tie in that y part as well as you mentioned, like, why am I here? Why am I doing this and why am I going to push this forward? So all of those elements fit in there. But the one that, I really like is that when you were talking about. Kind of learning from others or diving into the problem and then figuring out what the underlying problem really is.

Keith: Yeah.

Jeffery: I kind of wonder if your mind is so set into these biases or what. I can’t do. So you’re not seeing how far you can go. Does that mean that when, when you’re trying to dive into a problem that maybe the first approaches, is defining what you see as the problem, not putting all of the other pieces to it. Just saying, you know, I want to be able to get a cab. What? I want to get it as fast as I possibly can. How do I change the scenario and then go out and find out what everybody else in the world thinks about that question before you layer in what you think is the real solution, so that you kind of don’t put yourself into a bias position where you’re leading everybody to your answer because, yeah, what ends up happening is that you come back and say, oh, everybody’s got this problem. But the way that they read the context of it, they actually wrote it so that people would be validating it to them because they want it validated, because they want to move forward, but they haven’t actually determined what the real problem is or underlying problem is. To your point. So is there a way of helping the founder realize in this program or this analysis how to really solve this problem and get the real problem out of it and not drive their own bias into it?

Keith: Yeah, well, there’s a few things that I would say first, everybody starts with their own default context, right? There’s that classic, story where there’s two young fish swimming through the water, right. And they come upon an older fish, and the older fish says, hey, boys, how’s the water? And he swims away. And then the two young fish look at each other and they say, what’s water? Right. So most people can’t even articulate properly their own default context. You don’t even realize they’re in it. So the first reason why you have to share it is you need to find out if your, your, your default context is even relevant or rational. Right. Like that’s kind of point number one. Second is you’re wrong. Everybody’s wrong. Every entrepreneur is some percentage wrong when they look at a problem or they look at a situation. Right. And so what’s interesting with, Uber if we use an example is technically they were actually wrong. Like did people want a cab? Sure. But at the end of the day, what we all realize is that actually the world needed a completely different paradigm for last mile transportation, which is person takeout food, groceries, blenders like, you know, what a package is like. And so they weren’t 100% right. So you have to assume that you’re wrong. And then and therefore you now need to see the next part of that which is your baby is ugly. And I know this sounds kind of weird, but the reality is, is that when somebody comes up with an idea, the idea is you’re a baby. So every entrepreneur assumes that when they walk down the street, just like pushing a baby buggy, that somebody is going to look into the baby buggy and say, oh, is that your baby? Cute. And the reality is they won’t with a with a startup, they’re going to say, actually, I don’t need that. That’s ugly. And so most people won’t talk to other people because they’re afraid to hear their baby’s ugly. So you have to go into it immediately and say, the baby is ugly. I’m wrong. I don’t want to waste my time or money to find out where I’m wrong. I want to get it right. Talk to people upfront, right? That’s the key.

Jeffery: I like that and the way you kind of break that up into my baby is ugly. It’s also, I’m guessing that there’s going to be some element of trust with the people that you’re talking to because there isn’t any there. So you’re always going to be on this playing field where it’s me against them, and you’re worried about what somebody thinks. So there’s a validation issue that’s always happening. You’re trying to validate your business, your model yourself in this context. So there’s there’s going to be a few elements that would be battled out to the side of this. But which is you getting over the fact that people are going to tell you what you need to hear. And, you know, you have to determine if this is valuable for you or not. Yeah. How do you project that out so that you can take the good to make the value to go forward. So taking Uber as an example, the problem they were trying to solve, they eventually were going to get to that. So you’re investing in the the jockey at the time. So you’re investing in the fact that that person is trying to solve a problem. They’re testing retesting and they’re building that business model up. But in five years they may end up at a completely different spot. But give up. And they continue to push that because they knew that there was something there. There was new, that there was opportunities. There’s other things in the market that may have brought that to context, that there could be something here, but they had to find that something here and let the market kind of laissez faire would drive them into that direction.

Keith: Yeah. Well, I think like as an impact investor, what I really value in founders is I value those founders who are relentless about understanding the problem to be solved. But hold their solution lightly. Right. And that’s really what you’re getting at and in and, you know, really saying, hey, like my goal here is not to validate my solution. My goal is to validate the problem or the opportunity. And then as I step into that, then I can start to shape the product roadmap that will get to create the right kind of solution set that then ultimately solves that problem. And we can see how that it’s unfolded. With so many incredible, you know, organizations in the past, that really have figured it out. So one example I like to give is a company out of Vietnam called Echo International and Echo International. they wanted to eliminate single use plastics. And so they’re starting point was with straws and cutlery. What they found out and what they found out though was the problem is real single use plastic. We know we all know single use plastic is a problem. So if that’s true what they did is they held the solution lightly. So instead of actually coming up with the same type of paper like straw, which anybody here listening has had to try to paper straws, like sometimes it works and sometimes it really doesn’t work because, you know, it doesn’t work with hot drinks and etc.. So what they’ve done is they’ve created an entire product line where they use different types of organic ingredients according to the use case. So they have a straw for Starbucks because it works with hot, they have a straw for the McDonald’s of the world because it works with cold. And they have cutlery that works with different types of food. So they use different types of ingredients like, paper, sugar cane and other things to achieve that. That is an example of a world class founder with a world class company, because they didn’t over fixate on the solution, they fixated on the problem. Right. And I think that that’s where you, you, you, you go. And as you touched on like, Marina, who is the founder? Incredible. founder. you know, she really was relentless about doing that. Grounded in her. Why? Right. So the why is that original compass? And then she she stays relentless on the problem, but held the solution lightly. And that’s why they’ve succeeded incredibly in the last couple of years.

Jeffery: So I love that. So there’s a there’s a fine line between how you’re solving the problem and where it lines up in that spectrum. And what I mean by that is that you could go in and solve the problem that there isn’t enough taxes. And how do I make or distribution? Or you could solve the problem by, as you mentioned, the last mile and solving that as the, as your kind of direction. And then there’s the one that says, well, I actually want to be more hyper focused than those, and I don’t want to be just as blanketed option. So I’m going to be more specific, and I’m going to make sure that the taxes or the the mode, mobile transportation or mode of transportation is structured to the environment, to the types of people that are in the area. If it’s construction workers, for business people, and then you start to hone in on those specifics, then you can start to change the outcome of their business and how you’re servicing it. And I think that kind of gives me this overarching thought of, you know, when the problem came out with Snapchat, people were kind of dismissed. They’re like, well, why do I need to stop people from why do I need something to disappear after I take a snap so that somebody else can have it? So they built the problem, even though the problem never existed because people never thought of it. They’re like, I don’t have a problem with this. I send texts every day. Why do I need it to disappear? And then because the problem, the resolving people started to relate to it, saying, wait a second, you know, maybe this is functional. Well, maybe I do need this. And it builds up in the course of time and streaming that eventually people started to decide that that was a real problem, that they were having, and that it kind of molded into their daily activities. And then it became a massive business. and it’s the same thing. Dropbox, all these other ones. We didn’t feel that this was really a problem that we’re having, but they were envisioning that there was a problem and that they needed to create that and build the people around it to start saying, hey, you need cloud. You need something that’s always there. You could put your files here, so why don’t you upload them? And then eventually it was, hey, you’re right, I do need this. And then all of a sudden it started to take off because I remember early conversations in businesses when you were trying to pitch this stuff through and people were fighting against, we don’t need this stuff. This doesn’t even make any sense. And today you can’t live without it. So yeah, sometimes you have to create that demand by creating a problem that we don’t foresee or because of the scale and magnitude maybe that drives us to that spot.

Keith: So I love what you’re sharing. I remember being at a conference back in 2007 where one of the co-founders of Rim, BlackBerry, was the keynote, and I remember him standing on stage holding up his is BlackBerry phone and saying he’s like, who in their right mind would ever want to watch a TV show on their phone? You know, and like 300 people in the room all laughed, right? And here we are today. The important part is you made a comment which I relate to, where you said Steve Jobs and Apple saw something with a smartphone and they’re like, people are going to want to use this as a consumption device, right? And and you’re like, they created the problem or they, they, they created the opportunity. And my comment is actually, I disagree. And the reason is because they are better at pattern recognition than we are. So you use Snapchat as an example. I’ll rewind back to 2002. I was with a tech startup and there was, a member of the executive team who was ranting in email about the CEO, and he was sending an email to a friend of his on the executive team, and he hit send. And then he realized he had accidentally he was so fixated on the CEO, he sent it to the CEO. So that’s a man in 2002 who really needed Snapchat, because the next day he was out of a job. Right? And so, so. But the point being, the founders of Snapchat, they were able to do the pattern recognition. They probably sent a video where they sent the text to somebody and they’re like, crap, I shouldn’t have sent that. And then they but then they realized they knew what somebody else who did it and they knew somebody else who did it. And they’re like, hold on a second. There’s a there there. Right. And so what Steve Jobs and the team at Apple saw was that, you know, with streaming technology, people love, you know, people used to watch four hours of TV network TV day. So if the if the if the technology allows it, people would stream anything anywhere like they saw the pattern. So so the important lesson here for founders. But I think it’s important for investors as well, is to say who’s doing the pattern recognition here. And and can they see a pattern and have the humility either as a founder or frankly, as an investor, to look at that and say, you know what? Yeah, they’re seeing a pattern here. Like, I need to take myself out of my default context and be like, you know what? There is a pattern there or there’s not. I think the bigger question that I have is you and I are talking about this is in that particular case, they were solving an intellectual challenge, right? Which is like, how do I make a text disappear? How do I make a video disappear? That’s an algorithmic problem to solve, right? So my question is somebody needs to ask the question why? Because there’s big problems to solve in the world. And if we could have gotten that kind of intellectual horsepower to work on, for example, decarbonization or, you know, solving racism or equitable access to capital or investing opportunities. Now, that’s the bigger question is how do we get people to take a step back and say, why am I even going to expend the energy on something? And is there any value to this? Right. And in 2024, I think that’s the big question for both founders and investors to ask.

Jeffery: I agree with you. And the where I’ll put this part of agreement to this is that if you look back to the information you were sharing in 2002 and where we were, say, as a society, the level of knowledge, background, challenging status quo, let’s say that at that time it was an A-plus. And it’s almost like TV decoration, like when you bought a TV in 2002 versus the TV today, the form has changed so significantly, right?

Keith: Yeah.

Jeffery: And then when you go back and look at it, you’re like, wow, that’s incredible. That I could watch this then and think that this was crisp and clean and what a TV show and I use, I think the movie was it was a oh man, I’m going to call it X, but it wasn’t that Z or something. And it was this, super scary when I was a kid, it was really scary. And, it was lizard people and they were yelling, And then I went and watched it five years ago, and I thought it was like someone put a play together and mash this in on a TV screen. And I was like, this is terrible. But as a kid I thought, this is incredible. So the change that’s occurred, I think, to your point earlier, is that in 2002, that change to where we are now, I think has just expedited at such a rapid speed that our brains think differently, that we interact differently, we communicate differently. And I think problems that we’re having or not having have escalated. So the whole part of what we want to challenge racism, I think, or any of those pieces, I think in 2002, we probably considered it. There was a lot of problems that were happening in the world that just got exemplified, that we were all aware of on the media, that have occurred. But they never went further than that. I think it’s because there was just lack of understanding, self-awareness and drive entrepreneurship, all of those. And above that, there was a small subset that could have challenged it. Fast forward 20 years. Now you’ve got way more people that have been recognized, opened up as entrepreneurs who have more capital in the market. You have more ideas, more people have graduating from engineers and other types of, degrees than ever before. So I think the capacity level is increased. So you’re going from this terrible Chrome micro, monitor to these new, liquid filled ones. And I think that that change has also brought the change to everything else that we look at. So how we would solve racism. Now, I think you probably have way more people that are faced with it and have the ability to say, I want to challenge this. I think I could do something here because the thought process has been media types that they see more out there, they want to be part of it. There’s ecosystems built to support it. So I think we’ve come such a long way that more of those challenges are happening today than maybe they could have been in 20 years past, or even 40 or 50 years past.

Keith: what is interesting, right. Because part of what you’re describing as well as a byproduct of us living in a and absolutely globally hyper connected, real time world. And so for founders, if they’re asking the question why like if they’re if they’re saying, hey, how do I want to make the world a better place? And I’ve spoken around the world every time I give a talk, I always start with the question, how many people in the room want to make the world a better place? Everybody raises their hands. Everybody implicitly wants to make the world a better place if we can. If we can start to work with entrepreneurs and say, hey, how can we help you to make the world a better place while making money? So not making money, then trying to make the world a better place, because that actually has proven not to work right, creating 100% wealth and then only giving away 10% means that 90% of our wealth is accelerating the problem, and only 10% is trying to stop it. So we need to shift the paradigm, right? And this is where impact investing comes in. And impact entrepreneurs come in. And we have so many examples like of companies that actually have created phenomenal good in the world and made a lot of money. Right. Whole foods, which was designed to help, you know, I’ve recently Americans then you know, North Americans and globally help people eat healthier. Sold for over $14 billion U.S doing good while making good in the world. Like it’s very doable. Right. And there’s many other examples of that. You know, Sun Edison is another great example in the in the alt energy space and so, so many more. So point is it’s like I think what we need to do is, is acknowledge that the current trends in, in tech is around, AI and it’s around, you know, blockchain and some of these deep technologies. And I think the next trend has to be ethics tech. And and I think it actually does require tech to do that. I think I think us as investors, we have an opportunity to choose. We invest in and we have an opportunity to support the change. And that’s actually the biggest reason why we started originally Impact investor training. It’s bring. That’s why we then launch the Impact Investor Network nationally in Canada in 2022, the Sprint Collective. And that’s why we launched Bring in Park Capital in 2023, is to actually show people that you can make choices where you can invest to make good while making money. And I think if we do that together, then actually then the 9010 becomes the 1090 and we actually move the dial and make the world a better place, like and so, so I think that’s the that’s the path we have to be on.

Jeffery: I like that, and I love the, obviously the name of the ethics tech. I think that we need to put that into everything we do, not just in the tech space, but put ethics behind everything. And it’s unfortunate that businesses take in this context that, you’re a successful business person when you’re doing nefarious ripping people off or whatever else. They’re like, oh, he’s just a businessman. So I think that there has to be a shift on that. And I think impact can bring that. But ethics is a is a big one. And you, you, mentioned the partner or sorry, the, pattern recognition. And, reminds me of a previous podcast and we were talking about this is that investors become, pattern recognition experts, and it’s either good or bad. And the reason that that works out that way is because they’re recognizing the pattern and saying, oh, no, I invested in a company like this. It didn’t work. So this couldn’t possibly work here. And what you’re trying to do. So they’re pattern recognition almost closes them off, whereas others can recognize a pattern to your point where, wait a second, this is where we are today. This is the baseline of what Bitcoin can do. But what can it do in ten years from now? What can it get elevated to? And I think that’s where I also realized is this like the color of chrome to, liquid cooled televisions, is that once you’ve got something into the market and you can wrap your mind around that today in 2024, I think we’re all more mature. But we’ve looked at things different. I think that we can now start to place where this is going to be in 20 years. Where is the world going to take this tech? Where is it going to shift and change? Who’s the incumbent that’s going to run it today, but who’s going to come in and change this whole thing around? And that’s what every business fear is, right? Apple sitting there at the top saying, is somebody going to come in and revolutionize the iPhone? And you’re seeing that with Google. You have a business that’s been dominating for years, and now they’re finding incumbents that are coming in like perplexity, where you can just start asking questions into the Google, into perplexity, and you’re getting answers back with no ads and no, crazy, 8 million other things that don’t have anything relevant to it. So you’re starting to get competitors that are coming in because now people are starting to see, hey, there’s something here. You’ve created a space that the space is ripe for change, and it’s 25 years. It’s been 20 years. We could change this. I think the capacity is now there. When someone pitched me ten years ago against competing against Google, probably wouldn’t even be heard of. But now that you’ve got AI enabling it, now you’ve got way more ability to keep changing and growing, which is the same idea of climate tech and all of the and agritech and now starting to be able to be looked at their baseline and say, wait a second, there’s way more here we can do. There’s so much more we can elevate this game to. So I think to all of the things you’re sharing, it’s pretty significant on how globally that we’re building. But we’re we’re growing together, through mind and matter change and that there’s so many more opportunities in things that have been stable, businesses that are now being ripe for change. And I think to your point on impact, there’s a whole whole game there that can really be changed.

Keith: Yeah, I agree, you know, it’s so funny. I still remember the first time somebody showed me Google back in the day saying, you got to try this, you know, search engine. I was like, I’ll just use AltaVista with. So I totally remember exactly the point. Every sector has an innovation life cycle. Right. And and so part of the process for us as investors is to think about when we’re looking at an opportunity is, is to, to remain open minded because the we might be at that tipping point in the innovation life cycle of that particular sector. And, and whether that’s in, you know, accounting tech or it’s search engines or it’s, you know, in the future, of course, it’ll be, you know, generative AI and, you know, so we’re always having to look at that and, and example that I like to talk about is a company out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, called Open Ocean Robotics. And it’s in the ocean data space. And and this is an example where historically data has always been about land data and ocean data has been untapped, but they’re actually coming into it kind of like at this second gen where originally people were doing it off of ships and satellites, and suddenly people realize that actually you can collect data anywhere in the ocean using unmanned surface vehicles, unmanned submarine vehicles, and you can connect it to the SAT data, to the to the manned vessels, etc.. And and so they’re kind of they’re they have foreseen the, the disruption life cycle. And so, so what’s important, interestingly enough, is that for us as investors, we not only need to be pattern recognition experts, but we actually need to do it in the context of the disruption life cycle and understand that that sometimes will trump the patterns and and you can hear it. In order to do pattern recognition well, you have to have the ability to know that there’s always a combination of universal truth, pattern recognition and contextual factors. And we have to be open minded about where the tipping point is. And, and I think if we have the humility to do that, I think we can make great investment decisions and support the right founders at the right time to change the world.

Jeffery: I love it. That’s well said. I think we could snip at that part and blast it everywhere because it bang on. I think that there’s so many layers that do cross each other, and we have to be able to utilize all of those, from the pattern to, the humility, the life cycles. There’s so many pieces that we have to be a little bit more open to learning and observing that could help us in our investing. to take a step.

Keith: Back.

Jeffery: I’m wondering if you could share a little bit about and what this means to you, but because you’re from the venture studio world, if you could describe or give us a, a bit of a background on what a venture studio is versus an accelerator versus an incubator, Techstars, all of these platforms that are out there and where you see the value that’s being offered inside of these, and how founders and why founders should look at these as being their first inlet into the entrepreneur world. If you still believe that.

Keith: Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking. We’re in a world in 2024 where the benefit for founders today is that they’re segmentation. So Y Combinator really launched the modern startup movement with their launch of their accelerator back in 2005. And that is a specific segment. So, so I think Y Combinator is amazing for technology centric founders who have developed their idea. They’ve got a ton of hustle. They’re looking for people to wrap the business wisdom and acumen and network around them and help them scale to their next round. That’s one segment of the entrepreneur market. Venture studio is this amazing place where I would argue that starting in 2016, we start to see this tipping point where the vast majority of tech founders actually are non-tech. And so from 2016 to 2019, I would say they were just in the desert. They would have to go to events, try meet a tech founder without any empowerment whatsoever, try and decide if this person is going to be a co-founder, give them a chunk of equity. And and so now Venture Studios really solve that problem because you can actually bolt on incredible talent around an amazing co-founding team. And and now even they’re segmentation within that. So now there’s venture studios like Ministry of Programing out of Bosnia, which is 100% tech from CTO to Q&A. Right. Then you have an organization like, Highline Beta out of Toronto in your backyard. They can actually wrap an entire team around it, you know, business side and tech side. And, and they can bring corporates in as a part of the process. And so, so my encouragement, I think, to founders is in this modern world, know what you need and then target the program. It could be an incubator. It could be an accelerator. It could be a venture studio, or actually those pieces are in place. You just need an investment readiness program to actually just prepare you for capital, because raising capital is not rocket science. You don’t need an engineering degree to raise capital, but there’s terms and terminology and negotiation that actually will make or break your company. Right. It’s you and I know as Canadians. Right. We talk about rrsps right. Retirement planning. And everybody says the first, first decade of retirement planning is the most important because of compounding interest. It is the exact same reason capital. The first round is the most important because the terms and conditions you agree to will have a cascading effect on all subsequent rounds how much you own, how much you control, who has the board, what do you give on exit? Like all of it set on the first round. So? So if a company is in great shape and they’re doing well, get investment ready so that you actually are empowered to know what you’re doing going into it. it’s one of the things that we’d love to do at spring.

Jeffery: I love that, and you kind of broke it down to looking for what’s the best fit for you and for your business, and where you want to be and who you want to be supported by. Is there when it comes to you. And you talked about investment ready, which I think is golden. There is, a misunderstanding of when, where and how I should be raising funds where I slot in. do you find that there is it’s better to go after people that have a set focus.

Keith: Meaning.

Jeffery: If it’s an accelerator, that they have a set focus in your area under CPG or under tech versus the one that’s overarching, encompassing that helps you with everything. Is there a value on both sides? Because I know that there’s, you know, we all want to do less and hope that someone can solve every other problem, or is that just too convoluted? And you’re not going to get the real outcome that you’re looking for and go after the ones that are more focused in your area and your space.

Keith: It’s a great question. again, you need to know your goals, right? If you if you want maximum brand value and you want to raise maximum capital, you’re going to see Techstars, right? You’re going to those organizations, period. Because they can have agnostic programs, but they’ve got an incredibly deep investor network. you can raise a lot of money coming out of it, and then you have the brand value. some people actually, and especially when you and I think about certain sectors of clean tech and health tech where there’s like hardware components, there’s IP, there’s regulatory requirements. You definitely want to go after specialist program. You want the subject matter experts, you want the industry expertise, industry connections. Because that will that will make your company far more than a little bit of brand value and some extra capital. Right. So so I do think that’s really important. But the important part is, is you don’t just spray and pray, you don’t just go after everybody. You have to say, why am I doing this? And then when I do that, then what’s going to happen is I’m going to win out the other end, right? So it’s kind of like if you were looking at an MBA, if you want to take an MBA to go work at McKinsey, you’re going to go to Western, you’re going to go to Harvard, right? But if you want to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to go to Cal Berkeley or you’re going to go to Calgary, right? So know know what you’re doing and go into it. Don’t go in blind. Never say never is the fastest way to bankruptcy. Right.

Jeffery: That’s a that’s a good point now. And you mentioned this just kind of really quickly. you have obviously broad strokes across Canada. You have a lot of people coming in that are entrepreneurial, starting businesses. You have programs that candidates open up to bring, startups, startup visa, those types of programs. And because you operate on a global scale, do you find that Canada fits in on in the top ten areas for companies that want to travel into a country to operate and work, or do you find that there are other programs in the world that are more functional that could really help a company start off before migrating to Canada? Where do you see kind of that whole visa program? Because obviously for Portugal, Spain, Chile, you name it, there are so many programs that are operating in the world. is there does Canada fit in that top ten, in your view from what you’ve experienced?

Keith: Yeah, it’s a great question. So you and I would potentially layer in some things like what is the industry that they’re in. What is a problem they’re trying to solve. It might be for example, it might be a European only problem. And therefore why come to Canada? You know, but setting that aside and having a spring actually over the last ten years has worked in 65 communities around the world. We’ve worked on every continent except for Australia. And so so my comment is if, if, if you think about the startup visa program, there’s two ways to view it. So first is I personally believe that Canada is the best place for an entrepreneur for a couple of reasons. One is that as a human, Canada is clean. It’s safe. Pound for pound. It’s actually pretty affordable. I know we as Canadians have a lot of reason to complain, but nevertheless, if you look at, you know, global entrepreneurs, it’s actually reasonably affordable. It’s clean, it’s safe. We have phenomenal government support programs. We are on the doorstep of the largest capitalist market in the world, which is the US and East. Get there. and we’re an incredibly multicultural society. So if you move to our country, chances are you’re going to, on average, feel more welcome than in other countries. That’s just, you know, that’s just the reality. So so those are like some of the key elements. But flip it around. Immigration is the is how Canada becomes the global leader in innovation and in sustainable business. Right. Because we the at the end of the day, if you want to be world class, you need to take the best of what you have to the world, and you need to bring the best of the world to what you have. Right? And so if we want to be relevant going forward, immigration is core to how we’re going to do that. Now. Can we help the government figure out things like housing? Yeah, of course, you know, and I think there’s clear solutions for that. but I think we have to recognize the impacts that immigrants can have and continue to have an incredibly positive ways on this society. I am proud to say that both my parents were immigrants. my wife actually immigrated to Canada herself. I have seen that we are like the spring team, which is 40 people. 16 of my team members were born in other countries where they speak 30 languages. Spring is world class because of that, right? And so I live it every single day. I can’t encourage Canadians enough to embrace that. And sort of this happens to be just one of the challenge channels to do that.

Jeffery: I love it very well shared. And I and I think that there’s, a lot of value, obviously, that you’re creating over time and that you have created. So, I’m excited and glad that we got to dive into all this is pretty cool. But we are going to switch segments now and we’re going to jump into the 62nd spot. Okay. Second rant. So the way this works is you have 60s to rant about anything that drives you crazy, and I will try my best to rebuttal against it and then you can finalize it. I’ll put the I’ll give you the go ahead over the 62nd clock. Nobody’s ever come in at 60s, so I leave that to you. I will flash five five with the last five seconds, but just keep going until you get your idea out and we’re ready to roll.

Keith: 62nd. rant. recently there was an article that talked about how Coca Cola and Pepsi are buying sugar from India. And in order to sustain the level of production required, the industry is mandating that women get hysterectomies so they cannot have children, so they actually remain in the fields longer. They have to pay for it themselves. And, and they can never pay off those loans, but based on what they are paid, my rent is people. We need to stop investing in companies that hurt women and girls, period. That is that it’s too easy for us to look at the profit margin of a company in the last quarter and say, that’s a good investment. We need to ask ourselves the question, is this a good investment? Not a financial investment? Stop investing in companies that hurt women and girls.

Jeffery: All right. If you’ve come in below time. So this is incredible. All right. So I’m going to support I’m going to fight against this only because I have to I totally 100% agree and support this. So my brain goes to the fact that governments and businesses are heavily influenced by the power of big business, because they are able to prove and show that they create jobs and they create value, and they create ecosystem value. How do we shift that? Because 97% of a country and population is driven by small business. How do we stop having governments and everybody else feed out of this big wallet and these big companies and put a bigger voice to the entrepreneurial side into the startup space so that they don’t carry the weight. So they can’t do these types of measures and controls, because that’s what’s affecting everybody, because decision makers will end up pushing and agreeing to this, mandate that you just talked about, not because it’s the right thing for the world, but because it’s putting money into someone else’s pocket, which is all completely wrong. So how how do you shift that? I guess I was going to try and counter your fight, but I can’t do it because I totally agree with you. It’s B.S. so how do you get governments to get off this process and stop looking at big business as the only way to prove what they’re doing in government, and flip that around so that small business has more say at the table, and that you have more representative pushing back so that these things never get pushed through governments.

Keith: Money moves the planet. And the way that we shift is that instead of investing in the companies that do it, we invest in the companies that do good. Right. And and when we when we take our dollars, which, by the way, we can do as consumers as well as investors, when we invest in the companies that do good, that money is no longer being directed at the businesses that are or are not doing good. It will force them to change. So instead of investing in a Coca-Cola, you invest in the cheese, which is a healthy snack company, right? and instead of investing in, somebody who is perpetuating, say, the coal industry, that they are investing in something like Open Ocean Robotics, which is a solar powered, drone boat company that is protecting the world’s oceans. There are phenomenal investments out there. But what we in the impact investing world need to do is we need to tell the stories of all the great companies that people can invest in. Then when they redirect, it will force the change. So to your point, I don’t want to say stop investing in because human nature is people don’t like to respond to the negative. So what I want to say is invest in Julianne Gibson Open Ocean Robotics, invest in Sarah Goodman and Chewy’s right. And invest in these opportunities. Look at Tara Bosch and smart tweets. She created a healthy, candy company for kids. She sold it for $360 million. Imagine the ROI for the investors on that deal. There are thousands of deals like that in the world that are doing good every day. If we invest there, we’re not investing over there. They will have to change.

Jeffery: I love it and fingers crossed. And and hope that that’s that is, that more people get that message and they understand that there’s ways to create change and create changes in your pocket. And it’s diverting where you’re buying, it’s diverting where you’re where you’re investing. And hopefully people understand that. And the only question I would have is, outside of that is, was Coca-Cola ever a good business? Did they start off as entrepreneurs back in the 1900s, and were they doing good for the world, chasing corruption that created this problem over time, which was greed? So, was this or was this was Coke always a good player in the market or any of these big businesses? Were they good people beforehand? So it makes me question like this time in capitalism taint you because, and you need to get out of your business before that happens. So I’m just curious if, your opinion on that.

Keith: It’s a good question. We need we need an evolved, version of capitalism. Right. What we have proven in the 20th century and early 21st century is the current version of capitalism is out of date. It has reached the end of its innovation life cycle, right? Capitalism is no different than than accounting tech. Everything has an innovation life cycle and it is time to disrupt this capitalism innovation life cycle. You know, previously it was anarchy, then we had monarchy, then we had basic socialist, you know, kind of, republic society. Now we have hardcore capitalism, and each one is built on the other one. And we need to build the new because this one is not working. Amen.

Jeffery: And it’s, well said. And you’re right, it’s a tough one to to envision how you can change the mindset of capitalistic markets. But to me, capitalistic is becoming communist. The way that they’re operating and the way that they’re functioning is that they’re going in the wrong direction, and they’re not going to the direction of how can I better the planet? How can I, you know, I think there’s some elements that are, you know, I know I’ve seen been watching all this stuff that people will beat up on because they’re just they’re doing something, but they’re not really. Yeah. And maybe they need to learn the impact from the, the younger generation businesses because they’re the ones that are creating a true. Yeah.

Keith: Well in capitalism and communism are just words from the old paradigm. Right. So what we’re seeing with greenwashing is we’re seeing, like what I will call the birth pangs, these like early attempts to actually move into the to to the next gen of of of the economy. And it’s going to be a better economy. It’s going to be a generative economy, regenerative economy. Right. We use generative AI. We need a generative and regenerative economy. That’s going to be the future. Right. And interestingly enough, the entrepreneurs and investors who understand that, who predict this shift in the innovation life cycle of the economy, they’re the ones who are going to win economically, like even the raging capitalists should want to do this. Right. And so so that’s the the irony. But again, we have to show them what’s possible so that instead of telling them they can’t do the other stuff, that they invest in the best in climate tech, the investor, but they invest in the best of the future of health. They invest in the best of sustainable agriculture. That’s how we’ll we’ll transition right?

Jeffery: I love it, no. Well said. All right. We’re going to switch into our our next segment which is the rapid fire questions. So we’ll start this off by pick one or the other that best suits you as the investor. So founder a co-founder.

Keith: Yeah. good question. I love two founders. 2 to 3 founders always. Yeah. it is the classic, either get hit by a bus or win a lottery and move to Fiji. love to invest in co-founders.

Jeffery: I love that unicorn. Or for your ten exit.

Keith: Oh, I played the odds, so it’s definitely the latter. unicorns are fun and they’re sexy. But the reality is that you build great business off the for exercise.

Jeffery: Love it tech or CPG.

Keith: Oh, Partizan CPG minus in tech. Yeah.

Jeffery: I never heard it that way, but I like it. NFT or web 3.0.

Keith: Web 3.0 I blockchain. Yeah.

Jeffery: First time founders. Second and third time founder.

Keith: Hardest with first time. Minus with, second. Third time.

Jeffery: First money in series A.

Keith: I love it. I’m all about the early.

Jeffery: Okay angel or VC.

Keith: Or good one. VCs who have been angels. I’m cheating.

Jeffery: Okay. Board. Cedar observer.

Keith: Observer.

Jeffery: Safe for convertible note.

Keith: Same. They’re the same. That’s the myth.

Jeffery: All right. Leader. Follow.

Keith: Lead set the market.

Jeffery: Favorite part of investing?

Keith: Supporting the, founders post around.

Jeffery: Number of companies invested per year.

Keith: 12

Jeffery: nice verticals to focus.

Keith: trick answer. clean tech, health tech, gender, Bipoc. Okay.

Jeffery: Two qualities for a startup to stand out to you.

Keith: Pattern recognition, hustle and adaptability. Okay.

Jeffery: What piece of advice do you give founders? Nine out of ten times?

Keith: Take your to do list and tip it on its side. Everybody looks at their to do list vertically. It implies everything’s due today. It makes their head explode. Tip it on. It’s like if everything a deadline and a priority.

Jeffery: I love it. What tech will define the world in the next five years? I who is your hero mentor and why?

Keith: Oh my God, that’s such a good question. I have so many heroes and mentors. Wow. Joel Solomon, who for me is the godfather of impact investing in Canada.

Jeffery: I love it. What was your worst investment? You don’t have to say names.

Keith: yeah. worst investment was making a decision and completing it in the first meeting and not sleeping on it.

Jeffery: And what did you learn from that?

Keith: Sleep on it.

Jeffery: There. And your favorite investment.

Keith: favorite investment? in a hyper coachable founder who has to and continues to amaze me on a daily basis. Perfect.

Jeffery: Okay. We’re going to go into the personal side now.

Keith: Yep.

Jeffery: First brand that pops in your mind.

Keith: A VC.

Jeffery: Okay, most famous person that pops in your mind.

Keith: Gandhi.

Jeffery: Book or movie.

Keith: Book.

Jeffery: Batman or Robin?

Keith: Always Batman.

Jeffery: Fortune cookie or birthday cake?

Keith: Birthday cake. Chocolate.

Jeffery: Five minutes of Bezos or Oprah.

Keith: Oh, I get do I have to pick? I’ll take Bezos.

Jeffery: Okay. Mountain or beach?

Keith: Mountain

Jeffery: bike or run

Keith: bike.

Jeffery: Big Mac or chicken McNuggets.

Keith: McNuggets

Jeffery: trophy your money.

Keith: money. Because I can give it away.

Jeffery: Beer, wine.

Keith: Cocktail.

Jeffery: Okay, Ted, talk or book reading?

Keith: Book

Jeffery: TikTok or Instagram?

Keith: InstaGram.

Jeffery: Facebook or LinkedIn?

Keith: LinkedIn.

Jeffery: Favorite movie? And what character would you play?

Keith: Good question. Shawshank character played by Morgan Freeman.

Jeffery: You know, it’s crazy.

Keith: Yeah

Jeffery: I would say that. And I’m going to go back at that exact stat, but we’re probably sitting at about 70% of all investors pick Shawshank as their favorite movie. I don’t know if everybody’s talking about it, but everybody picks that. Also, nobody picks Batman over Superman, even though I said Batman and Robin. I think the reason is most investors that come into it have a high empathy for founders to solve problems. And they don’t. They know that they don’t have superpowers because they’re not Superman, but they also realize that they’re the underdog working their ass off to get to where they need to be. And I think that and solve problems. So I, you know, I building analysis around this, but I still think it’s incredible. So nicely set. Share.

Keith: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah yeah it’s hard. It my favorite book, a man called UVA, Frederick Bachman. Ooh. Okay.

Jeffery: favorite sports team?

Keith: Boston Red Sox.

Jeffery: Nice. It’s my brother’s favorite team. All right, we’re almost there. What is your superpower?

Keith: pattern recognition.

Jeffery: I love it. I think you’re also very good at taking something and disseminating that out to everybody and getting everybody more familiarized with it.

Keith: Appreciate it.

Jeffery: A leader.

Keith: Thank you. Appreciate that.

Jeffery: Well, I’m going to say that it’s been awesome to have you on the show. We appreciate all of your time, all of your sharing. I have a ton of notes. And man, fantastic. Love what you’re doing. You’ve come such a great journey, and I’m so glad that you’re able to share that with us and the way we like to end our show is that we want to give you the last word. So anything you would like to say to the investors, to the startups, to business alike, we turn it over to you to share. And please also let everybody know how they can get Ahold of you.

Keith: Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time. It’s been incredible to actually share this time with you, JP. you know, my my wrap up is to to say to everybody, founder and funder that now is it’s time for purpose and profit. We can all make money while making the world a better place. And it’s it’s why we started Spring Impact Capital. It’s why we started the Spring Collective. it’s why we support the entrepreneurs that we support. let’s lean in. Let’s let’s always ask the question, why are we doing this? Let’s do it together. It will take a village to to change this economy, to change the world for the better, to support incredible, innovative founders that are changing the world. And, and I’d love to share that journey with all of you, Keith at Spring Daddies or Keith. Simple on LinkedIn. Fun fact everybody, there’s only two Keith symbols in the world. The other one is my dad. He’s an amazing guy. Feel free to connect with him as well on LinkedIn. But I am the Vancouver Keith.

Jeffery: I love it. That’s awesome I like uniqueness awesome. Thank you very much Keith.

Keith: Appreciate your time, JP. Really, looking forward to continuing to share the journey with you. Likewise. Awesome.