Made At McGill

On today’s show, our guest is Charlie Feng, co-founder at Clearbanc, a venture capital firm led by Michele Romanow of Dragon’s Den fame. Clearbanc is the biggest ecommerce investor in the world. In 2019, they had the goal of “backing 2,000 businesses with $1 billion in non-dilutive capital by the end of the year.” And as you’ll hear in the conversation that ensues, they succeeded. Our conversation spans across Charlie’s career growth, lessons learned from his previous startups, and even some personal development stuff.Of course we also dive into how Clearbanc is different from other investment firms including their “20 minute term sheet”, the 2 metrics that they base their investment decisions on, and how they funded 8 times more female founders than the venture capital industry average.To learn more about Clearbanc or join their portfolio, visit clearbanc.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guests are Jamie Lee and Isabelle Lam. They’re both registered dietitians that graduated from McGill, and together they founded Remix Snacks, taking on the challenge of creating delicious snacks that combine the delicate taste of fine dark chocolate, with the nutritional benefits of their favourite plant-based protein – beans. They have a double-sided mission of making snacks healthier and protecting the environment. Our conversation spans across their founding story, how McGill helped them, and their experience behind the scenes on Dragon’s Den. They also share their insights on the consumer-packaged-goods industry, how to iterate on taste, and what they’d do differently if they had to restart their company tomorrow.To learn more about their company, visit remixsnacks.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anna Chif is Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Product Officer at Dialogue, Canada’s leading telehealth company. Dialogue provides progressive, premium and affordable virtual healthcare to Canadian businesses for their employees, accessible on mobile and online. This past summer they raised a $40M Series B Financing Round to expand to other markets including Europe.Previously she had founded Anna Cuisine, which was a healthy meal delivery service. And before that, she was at McKinsey.Our conversation spans across transferable skills she developed at McKinsey, lessons she learned with her previous startup, the founding story of Dialogue, and some of the exciting products they recently launched.This episode is brought to you by Interac, Canada's leading payment brand. Interac is chosen an average of 16 million times daily to pay and exchange money. To learn more, visit interac.ca. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Made At McGill podcast is brought to you by Interac, Canada's leading payment brand. Interac is chosen an average of 16 million times daily to pay and exchange money. To learn more, visit interac.ca.This episode features Emilie Boutros - who’s currently a general partner and CFO at TandemLaunch, which is a startup foundry and seed fund based in Montreal. They work with driven entrepreneurs to turn research from the world’s best universities into exceptional technology companies. Last week, they raised another $30M to support the creation of 20 new Canadian technology startups.Emilie is also a board member of several AI-based companies, including Contxtful, Sportlogiq, fluent.ai, and Deeplite. She graduated from McGill’s math program in 1999, before going on to complete the chartered accounting program at HEC, and performing in several accounting / finance roles before going on to become employee number 4 at TandemLaunch. If you’re interested in building a company with them, visit tandemlaunch.com.Topics discussed: management lessons she’s learned over the course of her career, how to work with a remote team, what the day-to-day of a board member is like, and how entrepreneurs can deal with their board better. We also talk about the secret sauce of TandemLaunch and their approach when building deep technology startups.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode we talk about a bunch of different things, including: the 9 principles of effective learning, mental models, his friendship with author Cal Newport, motivation, cultural differences in storytelling between the West and the East, education, the mysteries of consciousness, and why we can form analogies between vastly different things.Scott H Young is an entrepreneur and author of Wall Street Journal best-seller Ultralearning. This bonus episode is (a LOT of) extra content from my interview with him. You can learn more about Scott at his blog ScottHYoung.com, and his book Ultralearning is in bookstores everywhere and of course, on Amazon.Scott is most well-known for a couple of things:Designing and completing “The MIT Challenge”, which involved teaching himself MIT’s undergraduate computer science curriculum in 1 year instead of the standard 4 without taking any classes.He also did “The Year Without English”, where in 12 months he learned 4 different languages in 4 different countries in complete immersion with little to no training in those languages beforehand. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a definitive guide on how to develop your entrepreneurial skills: Scott walks us through the 9 principles of effective learning, and how to apply them to become a world-class entrepreneur.Scott H Young is an entrepreneur and author of Wall Street Journal best-seller Ultralearning. You can learn more about him or read his free content at his blog ScottHYoung.com, and his book Ultralearning is in bookstores everywhere and on Amazon.He is most well-known for a couple of things:Designing and completing “The MIT Challenge”, which involved teaching himself MIT’s undergraduate computer science curriculum in 1 year instead of the standard 4 without taking any classes.He also did “The Year Without English”, where in 12 months he learned 4 different languages in 4 different countries in complete immersion with little to no training in those languages beforehand. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the full story of how Dax Dasilva got to where he is now. He's the CEO of Lightspeed, which IPO'd in March & sits at a $3B+ market cap. He also founded NeverApart, a nonprofit cultural centre that aims to unite people through art. This episode explores all the untold stories you don't hear about in other interviews - it's not about business, it's about the human and his philosophy.His new book Age of Union is on Amazon, or any bookstore. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a conversation I had with Francis Davidson when he visited McGill last year, and the subject matter spans across: The founding of SonderHis influences including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff BezosHow building Sonder and living in San Francisco has changed his worldviewUsing VR to reshape educationThe 4 major activities he does to continue to develop his skills as an entrepreneur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vent Over Tea is a social enterprise founded at McGill that offers a free active listening service in Montreal (and recently, Calgary) to anybody who wants to talk through their struggles. They won 1st place in the Social Enterprise Track in the McGill Dobson Cup 2016, and have been featured in the Montreal Gazette as well as Bell Media.The 3 founders: Chloe Chow, Sarah Fennessey, and Nimra Khan walk us through they journey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is brought to you by the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship. Our mission is to inspire, teach, and develop world-class entrepreneurs. Now, Made at McGill is usually a narrative-driven, highly produced podcast about the origin stories of McGill’s top entrepreneurs. But this episode is different, it’s experimental; it doesn’t match that description at all. It’s more of a “Friends of McGill” episode, and it’s unedited audio from a live conversation I had on stage at McGill with Philip Beaudoin.Philip Beaudoin is Co-Founder and Senior Vice-President of Research at ElementAI. Element AI delivers AI software products at scale to help people work smarter.This conversation explores Philip's journey on the way to co-founding Element AI and how they plan to democratize artificial intelligence with a non-predatory, collaborative research model. He also shares some stories from his time at Google that led to him making a stand for ethical AI, including a conversation he had with Tristan Harris from the Center for Humane Technology.Before we dive in, let me give you a rough idea of what Philippe’s path looked like up to now. After doing his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD in computer science at Universite de Montreal, he went on to do his Postdoc at UBC. Throughout his studies and research, he was always working on side projects in industries like computer graphics, video games, and software. After his postdoc, he spent 5 years at Google, where among other things, he worked on the Google Chrome New Tab page that you probably use everyday. And in 2016, he co-founded ElementAI, which recently topped the annual list of Canadian tech companies with the potential to reach $1B in value. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everybody likes good food. Not everybody has access to it. And not all good food is good for the planet, or the people preparing it.That’s why McGill MBA alum Natasha Alani and chef Aaron Fetherston started Kiffin. They’re on a mission to make real food accessible to real people. And they’re doing it while running an operation that’s sustainable and ethical every step of the way.This heroic journey spans across several chapters. It involves moving from San Francisco to Montreal, a building burning down, and an ominous letter As you read between the lines and see the pattern of Kiffin getting up every time they fall, you’ll see there’s more to it than a series of hardships.It’s a story of resilience and renewal. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its predecessor, Kiffin has gotten up every time it has fallen. And not only did they get up, they got stronger. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Taiga Motors is building and commercializing the world's first electric snowmobile. The founder, Sam Bruneau, is a McGill Engineering alum who won the McGill Dobson Cup in 2016. This is the story of how Taiga was made at McGill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We need more entrepreneurs and innovators in the world. In a word, Makers. But there’s a well-kept secret on campus – McGill harbors Makers. They’re everywhere. Every faculty, every building, every classroom. Made At McGill is a highly produced, narrative-driven podcast focused on their origin stories. And it’s the first Canadian media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for guests. The best way to learn entrepreneurship is by making your own mistakes. But we’d argue that the 2nd best way is to learn from others’ mistakes…by listening to their stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.