Uber Canada's submission was co-written with Matthew Price GM of Uber Canada

Leaders need to model vulnerability to create safe space

COVID-19 and working from home tested our ability to connect, and this strain impacted us all and changed how teams work together. A business is nothing without its people and culture so we’ve needed to be more deliberate in finding ways to connect. For both of us, this means leading by example in sharing how we’re actually doing, thinking, and feeling, which helps create a safe space for our colleagues to do the same. We’ve also created a “space to share” in our team meetings to foster reflection on various topics in addition to circulating regular emails on our perspectives. With the support of our teams, we’ve set up virtual coffees and small group lunches, while encouraging more unstructured stand-ups and spontaneous Slack messages, to simulate the natural connections and conversation that happen in a lunchroom or at the watercooler. We’re also trying to celebrate the wins regardless of size while acknowledging the struggles and challenges. While it’s not the same as before, it is the new normal so we are constantly working to create more connections for our colleagues’ wellbeing, fulfillment, and productivity.

Lean into your mission and purpose to help make a difference

The past 12 months have been incredibly difficult, but they’ve also brought out the best in all of us. We’ve seen individuals and companies step up and offer much needed support and resources to their communities. At Uber, we’ve tried to play our small part. We knew that unless it was absolutely essential, riders should be staying safe at home. So we prioritized safety above all else, encouraging riders to only use Uber if necessary so that we could help Move What Matters. With our $6M+ commitment, we provided free rides, meals, and last-mile deliveries to frontline healthcare workers, seniors, and people in need. We also launched Uber Connect to provide a contactless way to send care packages and other items to stay connected with friends and loved ones while apart.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, we also wanted to continue to do our part to break down barriers of systemic bias and structural racism, commiting to become an anti-racist company. This included highlighting Black-owned restaurants on Uber Eats, providing Black-owned small business owners with vouchers to help with their recovery, and working with the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce on “The Black Pages”—when launched, this will be the first national digital directory for Black-owned small businesses from coast to coast to coast.

Leverage periods of change to build (back) better

We had ambitious plans for Canada in 2020 but the pandemic changed everything. Instead of waiting it out, we opted to use it as an opportunity to reset to help build (back) better.

For Uber Eats, we went from being an optional part of a restaurant’s business model to an absolute necessity. We had to pivot and adapt quickly to support an industry that was hard hit. So we reached out to restaurant owners to understand how we could adapt or update our platform to support them. With their feedback, we created ways for customers to donate directly to restaurants, enabled $0 delivery fees to help drive demand, launched contactless delivery to help eaters and delivery people continue to feel safe while supporting local restaurants, and built flexible solutions like 0% pickup and 7.5% online ordering. Many of these features were not on the roadmap, but were quickly prioritized. We’ve also worked with partners to provide $2M to directly support hospitality workers and restaurants via the Canadian Hospitality Workers Relief Fund and Eat Local Relief Grant programs.

For our rides business, safety has always been at the heart of what we do but with Covid-19 it took on a broader meaning and we had to quickly prioritize pandemic and hygiene safety. We started distributing PPE to drivers and delivery people across Canada, expanded our law enforcement portal to help public health authorities with contact tracing requests and offered financial assistance to drivers instructed to quarantine by a medical professional. We also decided in May to implement our “No Mask No Ride” policy to help drivers and riders keep each other safe. Beyond safety, we embraced our responsibility to play a role in tackling climate change. In September, we announced our commitment to become a zero-emissions platform by 2040 and 5 key actions to help drive a green recovery in the cities where we are available.

Sometimes a major component of your industry changes overnight. In real estate, that’s exactly what happened: a survey conducted by Properly showed that 78% of Ontarians are concerned about the health risks of in-person showings during COVID-19. Given these heightened health considerations, we had many customers asking us how they could stay safe while buying or selling a home. 

Fortunately, we had already launched the ability for clients to avoid in-person home showings. By unlocking equity in their current home, clients could easily move into their new home before prospective buyers ever stepped foot in their old one — a feature that took on added importance during the pandemic.

On the other hand, not all of our clients were ready to purchase their next property. To help those customers also stay safe, we launched a Skip The Showings package, which covers temporary accommodation, moving, and storage expenses, at no extra cost to the client. 

We’ve always worked hard to make the real estate process better — COVID taught us how to make it safer, too. 

The Covid-19 pandemic is often described as an accelerant of innovation and technology adoption, and nowhere is this more true than in healthcare. Over the last twelve months, telemedicine has been rapidly adopted, and is now a generally accepted (even preferred) form of care treatment. Getting here, however, was not simple. The onset of Covid-19 caused significant paralysis, panic and re-alignment - even in health tech.

At Swift, our mission is to ensure that patients who require wound care receive access to timely, high quality care - whenever and wherever they need it. Wound care is an underreported and often poorly understood area of healthcare delivery, yet 30-50% of all healthcare involves a wound, which consumes over 4 billion dollars of healthcare spend across Canada.

Resiliency is a critical factor to the success of any startup, and this resiliency tested our abilities and focus ways we didn’t expect.

Within startup culture, the “pivot” is often glorified and a company’s desire to fail fast is sometimes worn as a badge of honor. What is under-appreciated is the stress, confusion and burden that this places on the individuals impacted by this change. A windsock approach to strategy, where dramatic “pivots” are continuously made, is no strategy at all, and causes confusion and frustration from individuals who want to see their meaningful work have followthrough and impact.

Lesson: A deep breath in the form of careful deliberation, engagement and thoughtfulness will pay incredible dividends in long-term success.

Capitalize on Attention Oxygen

At Swift, we are lucky enough to have our technology used in many care settings, across thousands of facilities in the United States and Canada. What quickly became apparent during the pandemic, was that much of the “attention oxygen” was quickly sucked out of the system, as organizations prioritized PPE procurement, infection prevention protocols and Covid-19 testing.

This forced a change in our messaging, shifting from a discussion about quality and cost savings, to one about how to operationalize wound care delivery in a new, low-contact world through technology. Re-orienting our messaging allowed us to continue to be an important part of our clients’ operations, and accelerated our growth in different care segments.

To continue with the oxygen analogy, while Covid-19 shifted focus for many of our clients, it did create an opportunity to engage with peers in partner and channel organizations. Swift exists in a broader healthcare delivery ecosystem, and Covid-19 created a reshuffling of priorities and an opportunity to engage with organizations and individuals who were previously focused on near-term objectives.

Lesson: Focus on Core Messaging, Use Cases & Value. The world has changed, but value has not.

 Waves within Waves
I think of the pandemic as a series of waves, each contained within the broader context of the spread of the virus. At the outset of the pandemic, there was, understandably, a great deal of panic and distress. What did the pandemic mean for jobs? For families? For our safety? As the panic continued, we made sure to balance discussions of quarterly targets with discussions on mental health, personal well-being, and care for others. As we settle into the long haul of stay at home orders and lockdowns, there can now be a feeling of monotony where every day is the same.

A perhaps obvious, but critical lesson that I learned is that during these “micro-waves” was that individuals and teams require different types of support, and the pandemic will affect people differently on both a day-to-day basis and long-term basis. At Swift, we emphasized over-communication from our leadership, a simplification in strategy, and an investment in peer-to-peer communication. Weekend reports became a critical part of our weekly routine - sharing updates and news from our families and weekend (socially distant) adventures.

Lesson: Prioritize compassion and communication, and remember that the pandemic is impacting everyone differently, at different times, and to different degrees.

Find Your Allies & Run up the Sidelines

As the pandemic took hold, we realized that one of the second-order consequences would be that wound care patients, accustomed to receiving their healthcare 2-3 times a week, would no longer be able or willing to see their providers. As a result, already vulnerable individuals were forced into situations where they could potentially expose themselves to the virus if they sought in-person care or risk their wounds worsening if they didn’t receive care - increasing their risk of amputation or death.

With the support of our partners, we mobilized a Telewound Care Coalition - a cross-industry group of technology companies, healthcare providers and wound care stakeholders - each with a role to play in care for patients living with wounds. It was a beautiful opportunity to build new alliances, deepen partnerships and deliver on behalf of our patients.**

During the initial stages of the pandemic, we were very deliberate in resourcing and focusing on our long-term strategy. We built partnerships and formed agreements with companies we knew would be important for Swift’s long term success.

Lesson: Find your natural allies, catalyze action, and prioritize helping those in most need.

 Run up the sidelines

Lesson: Covid forced a pause in delivery. Take the opportunity to re-engage, and build for life beyond the pandemic.

Build Resiliency - In Culture, in Individuals, in Business Lines

I touched on resiliency as an important success factor for entrepreneurs and small companies, and this is a good note to end on. In a small company, every molehill feels like a mountain, and every win starts with “what’s next”. The pandemic has tested our individual resiliency, and forced us to pay more attention to celebrating our victories, and bonding over our challenges.

At an organizational level, diversification across market segments, business lines and geographies will become even more critical. Foster this diversification, and build for an uncertain future.

Lesson: Resilience is the cornerstone of success. Build and nourish it - at both micro and macro levels.

Doing well and doing good doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

While this may seem challenging during a pandemic, the reality is that companies that are authentically and genuinely pursuing a purpose larger than profitability or growth are successfully weathering storms like financial crises and global pandemics.

For Lucky Iron Fish, what started this whole journey was finding an innovative and clinically-proven way to improve the health and wellness of an undernourished community. So, when we commercialized the concept, we knew it would be rooted in science but built on values like giving back, empowering the marginalized, and really weaving social impact into the fabric of our business model.

Today, we place a portion of each sale in our Impact Fund, which helps provide free Lucky Iron Fish/Leaf units as well as provide nutrition training opportunities to men & women in undernourished communities.

The challenges faced by everyone this past year were only magnified for communities who are marginalized or impoverished. Thanks to our Impact Fund model, we were able to engage with 13 community partners around the globe and impact the lives of 16,000 people.

We are a Certified B-Corporation - which means our business meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.

Take a bottom-up approach for company strategy.

The caveat here is, of course, that this only applies when the team is small enough. In our case, our team is less than 10 people.

In March 2020, we were in full execution mode to grow our institutional sales channel (i.e. CSR programs, non-government organizations, government-led programs, etc.). This was after a year’s worth of work on building a strategy and a pipeline. In fact, we had just finished hosting our event in Peru with 60+ stakeholders, and were in India for our next event when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.

The communities suffering from iron deficiency and other forms of malnourishment were also the ones that were most impacted by COVID-19. Over the next few weeks and months, it became clear that our institutional partners would need to focus their resources on the immediate needs that arose as a result of the pandemic.

Lesson 1

We were adamant, in the beginning of our company’s journey, to be a retail focused marketplace. There’s a distinct difference between ways in which people shop for food versus retail products. Our software is designed to be more sophisticated, to give shoppers a different way to experience what they’re buying, a departure from the quick and dirty, instant gratification focus with food.

However, during the pandemic we saw an increase not only in the number of retailers we were onboarding but also in the types of retailers who wanted to access to the platform. Indeed, as restaurants and local cafes reached out to us, we learned of new pain points felt by food retailers in the city and the ways in which they were being underserved. We truly contemplated whether expanding into food would distract from our primary focus and perhaps serve as a misstep. However, we initially sought to create a company that would give physical stores the solutions they need to excite their customers and evolve alongside technology and food now presented itself as a new avenue of brick and mortar that we could conquer. If food stores felt confined by high commissions on competitor apps and unsatisfactory technology, we would adjust our model to serve those stores and expand our mission. We pivoted to increase our own food capabilities and our technology given that, seeing how, now that we had committed to doing food, we would do food well, and in our way.

Lesson 2

We’ve learned the value of not only having the right team, but in entrenching the qualities of a valuable team member into the fabric of a growing one.

The scope of our company’s vision and our business asks all of us involved to bring our very best to the table.  A good startup has a lean team of people who do more than perform their role sufficiently well. We’ve had to pivot to address new challenges, and anticipate future ones during the pandemic.  Our own internal response to the new challenges has enabled the management team to see the ways in which each component and each mechanism of our larger machine are key in dictating our success. We saw how a faulty component reverberates into our broader machine. When we had examples of excellence and needed excellence in these times, the spotlight on underperformance shone more brightly as ever. When the value of a spot at our company grew and the interest in joining our company by some exceptional talent grew, we knew we had to make hard decisions to ensure the team are the very best of the best. We’ve learned what qualities we need and have have grown our team with those in mind..

Lesson 3

We faced an interesting dilemma during the pandemic. We knew we had a solution our retail customers wanted. We were in a position then where we could price our products with more flexibility. Part of our business model is a variable percentage off of transaction and an integration fee for stores signing up to the app. Covid-19 worsened and shone a greater light on the foundational issues endemic to physical retailers which our solution initially sought to target making our technology incredibly attractive and timely to a host of stores. Taking advantage of our position and thinking short term in terms of profitability with our cost structure would threaten not only to undermine the initial impetus for creating our company but also the integrity of the contracts and relationships we were forming with stores in the city. We elected to waive the integration fee for all stores joining the platform and both lowered and fixed our percentages for all stores. We elected to democratize the platform and create a pricing model that took into consideration the desperation retailers faced. It was a decision we fleshed out and made with foresight, shifting our focus on forging strong and strategic relationships.

In January 2020, I went to Asia to catch my breath after the most intense experience of my life. I had just spent three years revenue funding, scaling and eventually exiting my software company. As a former founder that had tasted the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, I was hungry and eager to build again. So I thought that exploring developing markets would be an incredible way to get exposure to new, massive problems that I could potentially solve.

Then I received a random LinkedIn Inmail about an opportunity to launch Entrepreneur First (EF) in North America. I felt hesitant -  I was keen to build again and thought that joining an organization wasn’t for me. But, the more I learned about EF, the more I fell in love with the mission as a way to elevate the right people to move the needle on global issues.

What is EF? We are talent investors. We have a $140M USD fund that is backed by Greylock Partners, Google DeepMind, Reid Hoffman, and many more. We look for the world’s most ambitious talent, pay them to quit their jobs and then help them start companies. Here is a 2 minute explainer video if you’re curious to learn more.

Our model is predicated on the ability to bring 50+ exceptionally ambitious strangers together (in-person), and in three months, build a co-founder relationship. These ‘strangers’ quickly pair up and go on to spend the next 7-10 years of their lives together taking on new levels of financial, reputational and legal risk. Selecting a business partner is arguably more serious than selecting a spouse. The EF model has worked for the last 10 years producing over $3B in value. How the heck do you do this over zoom…

Fast forward six months, and EF Toronto had a strong launch, despite the logistical challenges of the pandemic. Since September 2020, eight high potential companies have received pre-seed funding of $100K continue to scale, and create new jobs in the Canadian ecosystem.

I’ve learned a lot so far on this journey. Three lessons stand out.

1. Strong Founders Have Exceptional Drive (Pandemic or Not)

Looking at the CEOs from the first cohort, one thing is clear: each one has an unstoppable drive to win. Even in a global lockdown, where almost all communication is virtual, the teams found a way to uncover big problems, validate them and start working with clients.

For instance, one team identified a potential problem in the Agriculture industry: many orchards struggle with disease because of a lack of early issue detection, resulting in lost profits, crops, and food waste. The CEO had grown up on a farm and the CTO had expertise in computer vision (with a recent PhD from MILA). Despite being strangers in strange times, this team found a way to break down walls to meet with clients, sign on pilot customers and ultimately receive funding for their business (in less than 5 months). In times of difficulty, strong entrepreneurs are wired to see problems as ripe for solving and they will hustle to do whatever it takes. It’s the desire to win that pushes people to create change and, from my observation, this quality has a direct correlation to a company’s success.

2. Building Relationships In-Person is Critical

Given the importance of building a strong co-founder relationship, we asked the cohort: do you want us to try and facilitate an in-person kick-off if we can do so safely? The response was overwhelmingly, yes.

Although it was incredibly challenging to coordinate a 70-person event in a global pandemic, the results were worth-it. The logistics involved two 300 person capacity ballrooms, a massive outdoor courtyard, and as much protective gear as you can imagine.

By the end of the first week of the program, almost everyone in the cohort had picked a co-founder to start working with. On the flip side, we observed that those who didn’t attend in-person had a harder time forming teams and building trusting relationships with their partner.

In our Berlin cohort, one pair of co-founders actually took the bubble notion a step further and moved in together! Although we can’t legally advocate for this, I believe they are onto something - it is way easier to sustain relationships remotely than to build them.

3. No Shortage of Capital for Great Businesses

Last year was record breaking for Venture Capital (check out VC in Charts). The shift to remote work has removed traditional geographic barriers. The result? More global engagements from investors than ever before.

In 2020, 81 EF companies raised rounds from the seed stage and beyond, up to Series C. It’s been our most successful year, despite the pandemic. Our portfolio raised $450M total in 2020 which is more than double the amount in 2019. Not only did our portfolio more than double, the enterprise value of our portfolio grew to $3B, an $800M increase.

Prior to the pandemic, we operated as an online life insurance broker. We provided advice, and helped customers compare quotes and apply through our platform. We would then pass them along to insurance companies that required over-the-phone interviews, in-person blood and urine tests, and physical paperwork. In other words, the process started digital but ended traditional. 

If there’s one thing Canadians wanted this past year, it was to be protected: nearly a quarter (24%) of Canadians who didn’t have life insurance prior to COVID either purchased it or considered purchasing it. And based on the 700% year-over-year growth we saw at PolicyMe, it’s clear that Canadians wanted an easy, safe, and digital way to get protected. 

To help meet these needs, we decided to pivot. Instead of passing customers off to an insurance provider, we provided the coverage ourselves. We could now service customers end-to-end, ensuring every touch point was frictionless, transparent, and — most importantly during COVID — virtual.

The lesson we learned? Stay true to your vision, but be nimble with your approach. 

ventureLAB operates a 50,000 square foot innovation hub that ~45 tenants call home — including Canada’s only hardware and semiconductor lab that officially launched in February 2020 at our second-to-last in-person event. When the pandemic hit, the newly opened lab sat empty.

When it became clear there was no obvious end point to the pandemic — and no immediate ‘return to normal’ — we saw an opportunity and a need to virtualize our Hardware Catalyst Initiative lab. Through specialized virtualization equipment, we will now be able to provide access to founders in rural and remote communities that we couldn’t reach before. And with no end to travel restrictions in sight, virtualizing the lab will give founders the opportunity to develop products in Canada rather than travelling to Silicon Valley, Taiwan or China, which are the traditional destinations to test semiconductor products. 

Uber Canada's submission was co-written with Lola Kassim, GM of Uber Eats Canada.

Leaders need to model vulnerability to create safe space

COVID-19 and working from home tested our ability to connect, and this strain impacted us all and changed how teams work together. A business is nothing without its people and culture so we’ve needed to be more deliberate in finding ways to connect. For both of us, this means leading by example in sharing how we’re actually doing, thinking, and feeling, which helps create a safe space for our colleagues to do the same. We’ve also created a “space to share” in our team meetings to foster reflection on various topics in addition to circulating regular emails on our perspectives. With the support of our teams, we’ve set up virtual coffees and small group lunches, while encouraging more unstructured stand-ups and spontaneous Slack messages, to simulate the natural connections and conversation that happen in a lunchroom or at the watercooler. We’re also trying to celebrate the wins regardless of size while acknowledging the struggles and challenges. While it’s not the same as before, it is the new normal so we are constantly working to create more connections for our colleagues’ wellbeing, fulfillment, and productivity.

Lean into your mission and purpose to help make a difference

The past 12 months have been incredibly difficult, but they’ve also brought out the best in all of us. We’ve seen individuals and companies step up and offer much needed support and resources to their communities. At Uber, we’ve tried to play our small part. We knew that unless it was absolutely essential, riders should be staying safe at home. So we prioritized safety above all else, encouraging riders to only use Uber if necessary so that we could help Move What Matters. With our $6M+ commitment, we provided free rides, meals, and last-mile deliveries to frontline healthcare workers, seniors, and people in need. We also launched Uber Connect to provide a contactless way to send care packages and other items to stay connected with friends and loved ones while apart.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, we also wanted to continue to do our part to break down barriers of systemic bias and structural racism, commiting to become an anti-racist company. This included highlighting Black-owned restaurants on Uber Eats, providing Black-owned small business owners with vouchers to help with their recovery, and working with the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce on “The Black Pages”—when launched, this will be the first national digital directory for Black-owned small businesses from coast to coast to coast.

Leverage periods of change to build (back) better

We had ambitious plans for Canada in 2020 but the pandemic changed everything. Instead of waiting it out, we opted to use it as an opportunity to reset to help build (back) better.

For Uber Eats, we went from being an optional part of a restaurant’s business model to an absolute necessity. We had to pivot and adapt quickly to support an industry that was hard hit. So we reached out to restaurant owners to understand how we could adapt or update our platform to support them. With their feedback, we created ways for customers to donate directly to restaurants, enabled $0 delivery fees to help drive demand, launched contactless delivery to help eaters and delivery people continue to feel safe while supporting local restaurants, and built flexible solutions like 0% pickup and 7.5% online ordering. Many of these features were not on the roadmap, but were quickly prioritized. We’ve also worked with partners to provide $2M to directly support hospitality workers and restaurants via the Canadian Hospitality Workers Relief Fund and Eat Local Relief Grant programs.

For our rides business, safety has always been at the heart of what we do but with Covid-19 it took on a broader meaning and we had to quickly prioritize pandemic and hygiene safety. We started distributing PPE to drivers and delivery people across Canada, expanded our law enforcement portal to help public health authorities with contact tracing requests and offered financial assistance to drivers instructed to quarantine by a medical professional. We also decided in May to implement our “No Mask No Ride” policy to help drivers and riders keep each other safe. Beyond safety, we embraced our responsibility to play a role in tackling climate change. In September, we announced our commitment to become a zero-emissions platform by 2040 and 5 key actions to help drive a green recovery in the cities where we are available.

"I'm keeping a small spreadsheet mapping coronavirus cases and deaths... So far Corona has killed 170..."

It was January 30, 2020. My nervous system seemed to be buzzing. I’d been listening to a Wall Street commentator's podcast for a couple weeks and he was warning of global effects of a pandemic in progress in China. Even McDonalds and Starbucks there were temporarily closing doors.

Come February, it’s pretty much all I could talk to my business partners and family about. My wife Valerie pulled me aside, I seem to be a bit obsessed. I just didn't see a way to avoid a catastrophe. I had a looming sadness for the economic effects to come.

Look ahead and choose

My father and our business founder, now 77, was always the visionary and could sense things happening in the markets around and before us. In early 2020, his skills seemed to be channelled into into my nervous system and I spent too much time reading and analyzing to understand how our company and industry was going to deal with the problems emerging ahead.

In March, days before our provincial government announced business closures, we chose to lay off 80% of our team. This was an uncomfortable decision but one we knew we had to make for the health of our company. If we wanted one to come back to, we had to drastically lessen our expenses. And with CERB help unknown, we wanted to get our team to the front of any assistance lines rather than have them stuck in limbo if government assistance was overwhelmed. Thankfully, the government stepped in strong to help fast. But I'm proud we made quick, good decisions.

Store up for a rainy day

In late summer of 2015, we were 5 years into a 7-10 year management buyout. My father orchestrated a comfortable plan for our management team of 5 to buy him out of our office furniture dealership and manufacturing plant founded in 1983. But that summer, frustrated with our lack of progress, he came down hard. The best wisdom through those hard days of negotiation was to split our group - 2 to focus on buying the manufacturing division and 3 to focus on the dealership. This gave each of us a much clearer goal, lessened weekly management meetings, and gave us the kick in the pants we needed.Since then, my 2 partners and I in the office furniture dealership have talked about what we felt we needed in the bank as a cushion - a self-funded "line of credit". The business had always been self-funded under my Dad. He went into this business after a bankruptcy of his chain of general stores serving small communities in Ontario's tobacco belt. Cash being king, he found himself with none and a million dollar bank loan - lesson learned.These days, although I respect adventurous start ups securing funding while they burn money - and am even a member of our local Angel Funding chapter - I realize self-funded entrepreneurs are courageous and free to chart their own path without stakeholders breathing down their neck.Our conservative plan is having 6 months of expenses sitting in the bank waiting for the unknown Black Swan to sh*t in our lap. Modelled from Dave Ramsey's personal finance principles, it seemed very conservative in late 2019. Last February, it was a God-send miracle.

Have a hopeful perspective

In early March, my two partners and I sat in our CFO partner's office, anxiously conversing about what to do with pandemic closures being discussed. Speculation as to where office furniture sales would be were debated. Layoffs were on the table. Considerations of who we needed to keep the lights on and phones answered were batted about. All three of us were concerned and walking new territory. Sure we'd been through a recession or two before. But this wasn't going to be a slow fade. The impending brick wall was high and wide and we were fast approaching it.

Just then, my recently retired Dad popped his head in to say hello. For a few minutes, we shared our worries with our wise mentor. Without much sleep over weeks, I was on the edge of emotional.

Thoughtfully he put his hand on my arm, "We are going to be ok. We've been through worse... We'll get through this."

That thoughtful act was the moment of perspective I needed. And of course, he was right, proving we still need our older generation to remind us of their experiences, to have faith the sun will shine again and to have a realistic and hopeful perspective.

Covid-19 has been hard on everyone, from frontline workers to parents homeschooling their kids, and it has placed a unique set of challenges on entrepreneurs. As the Founder of Pawzy, a website that connects pet parents to pet health advice and services such as veterinarians and insurance, here are three lessons I’ve learned during the pandemic.

If something’s not working, let it go and quickly. 

The pandemic thrust us into a new environment and forced us to challenge our past assumptions and look at everything anew. While It’s tempting to rely on past performance and follow a proven formula, the danger of survivorship bias is never so prominent than in a period of extreme volatility. What may have worked in the past is not guaranteed to work in the “new normal” we are in, which is not normal at all.

Like family doctors, vet clinics faced the risk of human Covid-19 transmission among their staff and customers, and had to figure out how to provide an essential service while minimizing this risk. The typical healthcare delivery experience of accompanying your pet into a clinic and to an exam room posed unnecessary exposure. So, vets quickly evaluated new options such as telemedicine and curbside service to maintain patient outcomes.

Test new ideas and apply the lean startup methodology.

While none of us would choose to go through a global pandemic, there is a certain kind of freedom presented when you have to throw everything out the window and start over. It’s a good time to research and test new ideas. At Pawzy, we investigated new pet health delivery mediums such as telemedicine and mobile vets. We also set up pages to test the affiliate (referral) opportunities for different petcare segments such as vet connections, insurance comparisons and dog and cat subscription boxes. While our Vet Finder boasts proprietary information and technology, allowing pet parents to search and filter vets and book online, mobile or clinic appointments, we are driving more referrals right now to pet subscription boxes through a simple blog post. Although we stripped down the Vet Finder from its most robust form to an MVP, I do wonder if it could have been launched more leanly and quickly. My hope is that in 3-6 months we are driving more referrals to vets than pet subscription boxes (which would be supported by a higher Google search volume), but I’m glad we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket. We continue to add new product tests to the mix, and we will allocate resources accordingly to those that prove the most successful.

It’s ok to not be your best self when the world around you is in chaos.

Covid-19 has taken a toll on our collective mental health and many are feeling isolated and alone. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and solo founders like me. It may be cliched and presumptuous, but it’s lonely at the top. In a pre-Covid world, decisions that were made alone but in the company of others are now made alone and in no company. Your coworkers and collaborators are lonely too, and it’s your role as the boss to have empathy, motivate and bring everyone together (albeit remotely) around common goals. Add on the complexities and challenges you or your coworkers may be experiencing right now from Covid-19 outbreaks, parenting in quarantine, or witnessing racial tensions come to blows around the world, and it is simply unfair to expect anyone to show up to work as their best self. Furthermore, it’s important to encourage others and allow yourself to indulge in activities that support mental well-being.

Empowering people to earn money from home has never been more important

The pandemic shifted us to a digital by default way of life and people quickly needed to find a way to earn money while being stuck at home. For many, the answer was to pick up a side hustle to close the income gap and cover basic expenses.

Since March 2020, our platform has attracted 1,000 new micro influencers each week, as everyday people began collaborating with brands to promote their products and access new income streams.

The flexibility of being a creator -- work from anywhere, on your own time, with brands that you identify with -- coupled with the significant digital investments made by brands since the pandemic, has created a perfect storm that’s led to a whole new way for people to earn money and work with the brands they love.

As physical storefronts close, digital storefronts open

The accelerated digitization brought on by the pandemic is a big reason why the influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to 13.8B in 2021, up from 9.7B the year prior. Now more than ever, brands have less in-person visibility with their customers and they’ve never been more dependent on digital platforms.

This is why collaborating with micro influencers (creators) has become a critical component of a brand’s digital marketing strategy, as it offers a fast and cost-effective way to build brand trust, attract new customers, and ultimately, convert sales. Every time a brand collaborates with a creator, they’re accessing numerous digital storefronts where they can showcase their product in new ways, to new customers.

So as the pandemic forces brands to turn their attention away from physical storefronts and invest in a network of digital ones, they’re creating brand new retail channels that will drive e-commerce sales and allow them to participate in the rapidly growing digital economy.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, The GIST felt it pretty intensely thanks to sports being the major signal that the world as we knew it was coming to a halt. On March 11th, 2020 the NBA cancelled a Jazz-Thunder game before tip-off and proceeded to suspend the 2019-20 season until further notice. As many leagues followed suit, we watched as the main topic of our content evaporated, and we didn’t know when it would be coming back.

The pandemic was certainly a risk we didn’t identify when we were coming up with our business plan for The GIST in our early days, but it’s one we had to contend with and navigate in order to keep our startup alive and thriving. Here are the lessons we learned from pivoting in a pandemic.

 

The first step we took was to identify the problems presented by sports taking an indefinite hiatus. It meant that our usual sports news, which typically covered major sports leagues and events at both national and regional levels, would either need to pivot, or halt entirely. We felt that GIST content could still very much be of value to our readers trying to follow the impact of COVID-19 on the sports world, and we also felt that the situation presented an opportunity to try out new and different content with our audience. So we made the decision to continue sending out our twice-weekly newsletter. Given that this content was applicable to a wider, North American audience, and that local sports were not relevant during this time, we also made the decision to cut our regional newsletter content, allowing us to streamline our operations and save costs during an uncertain time.

Right after the sports world shut down, we called a creative meeting with our content team to brainstorm ideas for new content we could create for our audience while sports were MIA. We decided that in addition to our updates on COVID’s impact on sports, we’d use the new space in our newsletter to highlight female athletes and evergreen women in sports content, focusing on everything from the history of women in baseball to memorable March Madness moments. We also made the decision to lean into fun athlete content, viral athletic content, GIST team content and more on socials, as well as launch our GIST TikTok account. 

Much of the innovative content ideated as a result of the pandemic continues to be present in our content today. Our recently added third weekly newsletter day - our Sunday deep dives - was in part inspired from the evergreen content we created early in the pandemic and the positive response we received from our GISTers.

As a startup, cash is king. You can only stick around for as long as you have cash in the bank. That’s why we were very mindful of our cash levels, how many months of runway we had in different timelines and scenarios, and what areas we could reduce costs in to weather the storm. Thanks to many brands scaling back marketing spend in the face of economic uncertainty, we forecasted that our revenue would take a hit, and cut back spend accordingly. We were able to reduce content costs by producing only one North American-wide newsletter instead of national and regional content. Unfortunately we had to delay the start of a number of contracts and new hires. We scaled back our paid marketing spend and focused our efforts instead on retaining and engaging our existing subscriber base. And we made sure to tap into all of the government relief we were eligible for.

Once we had our gameplan, we communicated it in an honest, clear and timely fashion to all of our employees and investors. We made sure to be transparent about the negative impact and risks presented by the pandemic but optimistic in our plans for mitigating them and clear about what exactly was happening. This allowed us to build trust with our investors and ensure that our team was aligned and bought into the new plan and knew what they should be doing to help us continue hitting our company goals.

Even after sports came back and our regular content could resume, the lasting impact of the pandemic on The GIST has been our remote workforce. In 2020 and early 2021 we’ve experienced rapid growth in our team.  Our full-time team increased from four to eight and we hired several part-time employees and interns over the last year too. In a way, the forced remote operations has been an advantage as it’s allowed us to hire from anywhere in the world instead of only Toronto, allowing us to increase the diversity of our voices and perspectives and to tap into local sports knowledge. 

That said, it’s been really important for us to find ways for our company culture to come through remotely. A few examples of how we accomplish that are:

Exploring this remote culture is really important for us, given the competitive advantage a remote workforce can provide The GIST and how employees value the flexibility of virtual work. After the experience of the last year, a hybrid remote/in-office model is definitely something we’re open to, which may not have happened if it weren’t for the pandemic.

Overall, the pandemic presented The GIST with many significant challenges, but learning how to pivot and adapt to a new reality made us a stronger company overall. We’re really grateful, and proud too, of our team, our community and supporters, for helping us navigate a difficult time, and we are very excited about what The GIST will look like on the other side of the pandemic.

Neer Sharma is a C-Suite Executive with extensive experience in high-tech and multifaceted environments.  He is a leader in strategic initiatives to effectively translate corporate vision into successful execution while reducing costs and driving the bottom line.  Neeraj is an adaptable leader able to foster and contribute to all core disciplines across any organization. He is a coach and mentor who develops and motivates teams to peak performance, resulting in employee satisfaction while achieving business goals.  

I never thought that remote work could work, let alone be the future for our company.   Like many executives, I was worried about the loss of productivity.  I was skeptical of being able to get work done when you were working from home. However, near the end of 2020, I was convinced; so much so that I decided to extend our team’s work-from-home mandate into 2022.

 

That ‘aha moment’ came when reviewing our financials.  During the past year, we put processes into play to support our employees while at the same time, building enhancements to our product, resulting in our strongest quarterly revenue growth to date.  That’s when I knew that remote working was truly a viable option for us. So, why spend money on an office? Instead, let’s keep doing what we’re doing from home since it’s working so well.

 

Over the past twelve months, we have built a level of trust between the leadership team and employees that has allowed us to transition into a remote-first company.  We’ve learned how much our employees care about the company and more importantly, our clients. Sprout’s team not only survived, but thrived in the remote work environment. 

 

 

LESSON TWO: Keep the company focused. Don’t let challenges define the company’s actions or success.

Like many companies, our early 2020 sales funnel ground to a halt with the uncertainty around COVID-19.  A wounded sales funnel is challenging, but we saw an opportunity to review everything we did (how, why and what) and went deep into strengthening Sprout’s vision. 

When can you as an entire organization actually get the time to look at your product, processes and strategy with this level of detail while the day-to-day grind has everyone maxed out? The answer is never, unless you have a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic hit the world.  By using this challenging time as an opportunity to focus on processes and strategy, Sprout revamped its entire UI/UX, revised client processes, and further expanded its product offerings into the Open Health space with our APIs.  This allowed us to connect to new and existing technology solutions.  We have never been stronger as a company, which is an amazing statement considering the impact of the pandemic on businesses globally over the past year.

 

Setting your company up for success with the right organizational structure is key and allows you to have guardrails in place. In order to engineer a successful remote workforce, our leadership team met every morning during the first months of the lockdown to strategize how to make remote work successful for Sprout.  We understood that keeping the connections our employees felt with the company would require a two-prong approach.  First, we needed processes in place to maintain company-wide, team-based, and cross-functional touchpoints. With remote work it is too easy to slip into silos, only connecting with a limited number of people on one specific team.  When this happens you lose both the creativity and the vision of company-wide strategies and objectives that are essential for driving your business forward. 

In 2019, Minetell started to gain traction in the mining sector with our enterprise risk management technology that measures Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risk exposure and control performance. We were close to signing our first flagships client. As we wrapped up the year and looked ahead, we were forecasting 2020 to be a breakout year for us. We were excited about our future. In March 2020, that excitement was replaced with uncertainty. COVID-19 had monopolized peoples’ bandwidths, horizons, and (critically) budgets. That impacted our ability to sell to major organizations as ‘discretionary spending’ screeched to a halt.

When economies began shutting down to contain the spread of the coronavirus, we looked beyond ‘flattening the curve’ and saw the longer road ahead. Our team gathered for a virtual call mid-March 2020 to discuss what we can do. As we batted around ideas, something suddenly became clear to us – we could adapt our enterprise risk management platform to focus on COVID-19. By early April, we launched modules for Employee Health Screening and Workplace Control Monitoring – both of which were critical to managing COVID-19. We were able to convert some of our existing enterprise risk management clients into early adopters of our COVID-19 platform, as well as sign on other organizations. By June, we had grown from one client to five. Or more impressively, increased our client base by 500%. While most of our clients are in the mineral resources sector, we expanded into manufacturing and are now able to service medium and large sized companies across the Goods Producing sectors.

Pivoting your business at any time is challenging. Doing it during a pandemic increases the risk and pressure. We wish we could say it was a smooth transition, but that would not be entirely honest. It was at times very difficult, but also extremely rewarding. Looking back there are three things that stand out to us in getting us to where we are today.

Let Your Purpose Guide You

Minetell was founded with the vision of creating and sustaining value for our partners and their stakeholders by eliminating exposure to unacceptable risks. Our purpose is be the vehicle to measure and communicate risk and performance information within and between organizations. These are deeply rooted in everything we do, and we leaned on our vision, mission and purpose to guide us throughout the pandemic. Simply put, our company didn’t change, just our focus. For us, COVID-19 represents another risk that needs to be managed. We approached this like we would any other ESG risk. What risk does the hazard present? What controls do our clients need to put in place that would prevent the introduction and spread of the virus into their workplaces? How well are those controls working right now? How will the context change and how does that impact our clients? The last question drove the development of our third module, Workplace Health Management. This module brings together all the necessary information decision makers need (e.g. vaccines, testing, case management etc.) to help the answer the ultimate question, ‘do we have healthy people entering healthy workplaces?’

Leveraging Diversity

During a press conference about COVID-19, the World Health Organization’s Dr. Michael Ryan said “Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection ... The greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralyzed by the fear of failure.” This is something we internalized as a team. When we decided to focus on tackling COVID-19, there were many things we did not know about the virus or how it behaved. What we did know for sure was that we had to act quick to help our clients. We are fortunate to have an extensive network of experts that we could reach out to for advice and support. We consulted with people in operations, health and safety and human resources, as well as experts in legal, data privacy and government to help us understand the realities businesses are facing each day in managing COVID-19. These conversations provided us with the information we needed to create a solution that not only meets the needs but also helped us make sure it is scalable and flexible. Our team of advisors are an important part of our company and their help continues to be invaluable as we navigate through the challenges COVID-19 presents.

Building the Capacity to Fail Safely

At Minetell we attempt to measure and communicate what’s happening with regards to risk and performance. Understanding what’s happening in an organization is critical to knowing what moves to make next. Minetell is set up to let leaders see what their frontlines see. We realize that no company is perfect – no complex system can be. Resilient companies know this and have built in the capacity to fail safely. This means that when something does not go according to plan, the entire system does not shut down. The way these companies do this - and what Minetell enhances - is the capacity to:

Listen – Detecting areas of concern by engaging with frontline personnel

Intervene – Knowing what the problems are, where those problems are occurring and why

Inform – Sharing this information back to employees, decision makers and external stakeholders

COVID-19 has scrapped the psychological contract that employers and employees have understood for decades that health people are entering a healthy workplace. In order for businesses to confidently reopen and remain open safely, technologies like Minetell are going to be critical to businesses, their employees and customers because of the information we can provide.

Focused on the future

There’s a lot of work left to do. At Minetell we feel we are well positioned to help companies change the way they manage risk across their business. Not just for COVID-19 but all ESG risks. This pandemic has changed the expectations of stakeholders. Employees and customers are demanding more transparency. Investors and insurers want demonstrable assurance that risks are being managed. Likewise, governments and shareholders want to see that the companies they partner with are resilient and can withstand the next shock.

I was living in Vancouver and running my marketing company LeClair Media.  For various reasons I had decided to move back to Saskatchewan around the beginning of the pandemic.   I recognized quite quickly in advance that the businesses struggling during the pandemic were the businesses that normally would need marketing services.  Immediately from that point on I knew for at least a year or more the business environment would be vastly different.

Perhaps in feeling the pressure of the pandemic scenario and extra time spent inside was reason to look for additional opportunities.  For many years working at a marketing agency and with my marketing company I’ve always felt like the one to be helping other businesses.  If I was trusted amongst many other business owners, I thought why market myself by starting my own brand.

After considerable research, I decided upon coffee.  Coffee is a massive market and relatable to nearly everyone.  I realized there were some new concepts in the industry that were not being done.  After many coffee infused ideation sessions I came up with my new brand LeClair Organics and three new products.

We offer Liberica Coffee, Racemosa Coffee and a coffee berry tea (cascara tea).  My Liberica Coffee(coffea liberica),the third species of coffee is now available to Canada.  Coffee is made up of approximately 75% Arabica(coffea arabica) and 25% Robusta(coffea canephora).  We are Liberica, a fraction of the last 1 percent of coffee, a completely unique plant species.  Liberica is a large tree with leaves the size of an 8 ½ by 11 inch sheet of paper, may grow to 15 meters tall and has berries the size of a small apricot.  The beans themselves are a signature teardrop shape and approximately 1/3 larger than an Arabica.  On the other hand Arabica is a small bush growing usually not much taller than a person.  As well we have Racemosa coffee (coffea racemosa).  Also a unique plant species, technically the rarest species of coffee in production growing only in a 150 square KM radius.

Equally as exciting is our upcycled coffee berry tea. The berry is usually still removed from the bean and discarded in coffee production.  However the berry itself is as valuable as the bean in dry weight.  Therefore a major upcycle opportunity and revenue increase potential for farmers.  Many may drink coffee every day yet don’t realize that the beans come from a consumable vibrant red berry.

5 Pandemic Business Pivot Tips

I’ve come up with five topics regarding how to pivot in business, all of which quite relatable to my personal experience.

I’d like to think rather we should always have the pivot mindset of quick adaptability.  Consider that there are already plenty of natural disasters, market changes, new technologies, or new business competition which can change the business landscape in an instant.  These scenarios are equally as real, but perhaps simply not as widespread as the pandemic.  We know these scenarios are going to happen, it is a question of “when”, not “if” and therefore how may we plan or adapt for such occurrences in business terms.

Business pivots, innovation and new businesses are currently arising at an unprecedented rate.  To highlight the positive there are many inspiring and innovative business pivot stories.  What if we placed such urgency towards adaptation under normal circumstances or “business as usual”.  Realize this pandemic is not a not a limiting factor in taking action!

Strengthen And Leverage Your Core Competencies

Review the core competencies of the company or yourself as an individual.  Your core competencies and values are your greatest strengths that are not easily replicated.  The way in which you apply them are very flexible to change.  Examples of core competencies may be skills or client relationships.  For example, with myself I started a new brand leveraging my competitive edge of marketing experience.

Realize that products, services and markets always change and industries can become obsolete.  Technology and patents will always be replaced, copied and reverse engineered.   Duly noted, pandemics can be a contributing factor of change as well.  A focus on products, services and technologies may not be sustainable in a rapid changing environment.  Rather focus on core competencies, the mindset of continuous innovation/speed of adaptability, strengthening human talents and long term client relationships.

Leveraging the core competency of skills or human talent is a major opportunity.  For myself specifically, my core strengths revolved around marketing.  I looked beyond the current status of my marketing services offerings and thought how best to utilize these skills moving forward in an abrupt market change.  Leveraging skills in food photography and lifestyle photography and working previously with CPG brands guided me more specifically into the direction of the coffee and consumer product avenue.    This also lead into expanding upon equipment in regards to photography and video production.  Of course with less in person social interaction, the trend is to move towards digital and video interaction

Your relationships and existing clients whom have strong brand loyalty are another major core competency. Markets, products and services will change, but long term relationships remain through continual trust and loyalty.  Leveraging your client list or key accounts to test new revenue models or products is always a great way to begin.  These are people whom likely would trust the quality of any new product or service you may introduce to them.  I’ve definitely tried new creative avenues and confidence boosting opportunities with friends and family business owners before moving to others.

Survival Mode & Bootstrapping

In many cases the pandemic would mean the make or break of businesses on a month to month basis.  Therefore forcing established businesses to go back into the intense startup company mentality or a pandemic survival mode.

The bootstrap mindset is common amongst startup companies.  I really think this mindset has valuable lessons for all sizes of business and industries.  Essentially bootstrapping means starting from the ground up, relying on “sweat equity” and limited current resources for organic growth.  It can be easy to become complacent when you have the optimal resources at your disposal.  The bootstrap mindset brings the advantage of resourceful and economical thinking.   Here are a few examples that are valuable to anyone with even little to no resources:

Various forms of capital and long term growth investing

A basic investment strategy is to consider long term positive growth versus short term negative fluctuations.  Over the course of many years, the pandemic will be considered a fluctuation of the market and we will get back to business as usual.

There are many strategies to mitigate short term fluctuations in the market.  If you look at any investment portfolio strategy they will utilize many techniques to "diversify your portfolio" and ensure long term growth.

The pandemic is hitting many quite hard financially and many businesses closing.  What I am suggesting is to diversify your portfolio by consider other forms of capital outside of your financial capital.  Other forms of capital include intellectual capital, social capital or human capital.

Intellectual Capital:

The best investment is usually to Invest in yourself, your knowledge your skills.  Many looked into Netflix series when there were lockdowns, meanwhile I decided that this is the time for change and make something happen.  It was actually the ideal scenario to remove distractions and essentially have complete focus.  As mentioned, the businesses that are clients were the ones struggling.  The financial capital was going to change per pandemic conditions, but the marketing skillset that I have is applicable to all industries.  So of course, leveraging my skills as a marketer to my own brand was a key point to pivot.

The restaurant industry has been hit very hard in particular.  Mastery of skills will remain regardless of the financial capital at risk.  An executive chef and restaurant owner have the same abilities and components to re-open and adapt their restaurants regardless of the pandemic outcome.

Social Capital:

Social capital is a tangible resource which may be in forms such as social media, current customer/client base, brand loyalty, personal relationships, partnerships, or other resources regarding social relationships.  As a marketer there are countless examples of how to use social capital in social media.  Examples may include “influencers” or industry experts whom are people of influence.  The power of ones personal brand and following are known directly to bring ROI from a marketing perspective.  On the largest scale we even see celebrity status “social capital” making strides in the business world.  Examples include Ryan Reynolds and Aviation Gin Selling for $610 million as well as George Clooney selling Casamigos for nearly $1 billion.

A business with an exceptional long history may be at a loss or even out of business during the pandemic.  However the client base, social media and relationships can remain loyal to your overall purpose and vision.  Leveraging the social capital is therefore vital in possible pivot opportunities or a reset when the market gets back to normal.  As well, consider that during the down times of the pandemic there may be less financial transactions, however this does not limit the promotion and relationships you may build during that time.  Investing in social capital during down times will ideally bring clients and revenue in the longer term.

Feeling Uncomfortable

The pandemic can easily create an uncomfortable feeling due to uncertainty and helplessness of the uncontrollable external scenario.  In overcoming pandemic business challenges or regarding pivoting towards a new avenue of business, similar uncomfortable feelings arise.  Arguably, feeling uncomfortable on a regular basis is an inevitable part of entrepreneurship during “business as usual” times.  In order to grow and pivot to new scenarios, you need to continually push beyond current boundaries and thought processes.  Seeking utmost quality is important, however a perfectionist mindset can actually be detrimental, leading towards safe choices and comfortable decisions.  It is a form of confidence to move forward with imperfections, risks and unknowns which make you feel uncomfortable.  Identify there is always room for growth and recognize it’s ok to feel overwhelmed.

Problem is Opportunity in Business

“Problem is opportunity” seems like a simple concept but it can be very easy to be influenced by the negative aspects of the scenario.  I would also argue that even the biggest of problems can be the biggest of opportunity.  So in relation to the current state of pandemic, I think this mindset is very important to have.

For example, despite market downturn in many areas, some industries are actually growing.  It appears that for myself the trend in ecommerce purchases has become a major positive factor!  Another example from myself is the coffee berry product story.  The coffee berry in dry weight, can be as valuable as the bean itself!  Yet currently the berry is being discarded as garbage and simply accumulated into piles.  It doesn’t compose easily as the small amount of caffeine is actually kills any beneficial decomposing creatures.  With relatively minor adjustments in current processing methods we create a flavourful tea while also creating market demand in Canada. Despite the popularity of coffee beans, the berry is a very underdeveloped market across Canada.  The long term vision is to devise a proven return on investment per acre and percentage revenue increase per acre. Therefore proving scalable transformative change with real data.  Coffee production provides jobs for 125 million people. Coffee is grown on 12.5 million farms worldwide, of which 67–80 percent are smallholder farms. There is large potential, however we are glad to see immediate benefits on the small scale as we grow.  So overall, what was previously thought of as problematic garbage, actually has potential for widespread positive change with ongoing traction.

The lowest of the lows may provide an intense changes of perspectives.  It may just be the extra push towards a direction in which you would not otherwise chosen. Focusing on the problems and negatives will easily run you down.  I've often heard "fail fast and fail forward".   You are never really failing, it is all opportunity for learning.  Whatever happened, it happened for a specific reason.  Identify what is not working and move on.  And in business, usually speed does matter.  In regards to the pandemic a heightened sense of uncertainty and negativity is bound to arrive more frequently.

Concluding

I conclusion I’d like to think there are many positives amongst the recent pandemic adversity.  Numerically 97.9 percent (Per 2017 Stats Canada) of registered Canadian businesses are small businesses of 1-99 employees. Local businesses adapting to adversity successfully therefore has immediately and immense effect on surrounding communities.  Entrepreneurs and small businesses are exceptional important as leaders for change in their respective industries.

As well in noticing the exceptionally fast acting adaptation and successes amongst adversity, perhaps these are actually flexible strategies we should look to maintain during our “business as usual” times.

Iteration = Best Friend
During this unprecedented time, we get a free pass to take risks and try things. I learned to get really comfortable with constant iteration and the amazing learning that comes from trying things, failing and then trying again.

Get Help
Outsourcing, upskilling have been very important but I don’t just mean business help when I say get help. What I really mean is – get help, in all its forms. As a mother of two, I realized early on that I was not going to be able to reinvent my business without creating a system of support at home and creating a real plan to maintain my own wellbeing. Acknowledging that this is hard and we cant do it alone is important.

Make Space for Creativity
You cannot pivot a business without creativity and creativity cant be forced. Creativity is something that requires space, freedom, and time. Sometimes the best ideas come when you walk away from the task at hand. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been giving myself more permission to do things differently…taking nature walks, unplugging from social media and mediation have been key.

Since I began working on PAUME, I have raised money, hired and worked completely in a virtual capacity. I have yet to have an in person meeting with anyone on my team! While it's not ideal from an interpersonal perspective, it hasn't held us back. It's also allowed us to keep overhead costs, like rent, down, and open up my mind to hiring people outside of my immediate area. It's broadened my sights in general, and I will likely continue to operate the business this way in the future.

Hurry up and wait.

One of the biggest lessons I learned out of the gate was to expect  that there will be major delays in shipping, and supply chains in general. Everything is a bit upside down, and I learned to pad all my timelines and set realistic expectations of product launches. I learned the hard way in the very early days, so I had to quickly reset my plans and accept that these things are mostly out of our control.

It's not as simple as running Facebook ads.

Building a brand is a long, sometimes painful, process that requires a multi-channel strategy. Gone are the days of selling products exclusively through facebook ads. The pandemic has turned ALL businesses to social media marketing, and it's become extremely crowded and noisy. To stand out, you need to get creative and look to other ways to get noticed. Facebook ads in our first few months weren't working, so we had to look to other ways to brand build - whether it be through influencer marketing, PR, brand partnerships, subscription boxes and wholesale.

Embrace wholesale.

In a previous life, I managed the wholesale channel for a D2C brand, and it kept us afloat for the first few years. As we grew and we figured out how to scale our direct business, we eventually phased it out. The truth is, unless you have massive budgets to spend on digital marketing strategies, wholesale will likely be the ticket to introducing your brand to the world. It builds legitimacy, helps with cash flow and moves higher volumes of units. I have certainly had to shift my focus to wholesale, and I see such great value in it. And despite the misconception, the margins are actually higher, because in the early days, you spend so much to get an individual customer to purchase your product on your website, so your wholesale margins can help to fund your D2C strategy.

Take the call and be open minded.

When I launched PAUME, I made a promise to myself that I would respond to as many inbounds as I could. Each day, I must get 10 emails of people trying to sell me something or partner. Most likely, 8 out of 10 aren't a great fit, but I try my best to take as many calls as I can. Some of the best leads and partnerships have come out of these cold calls/emails, and while your instinct may be to just ignore these inbounds, sometimes they can lead to great things. Of course, it's up to you to wade through the spam, but sometimes there can be a gem in there!