# The Operator (CMO) Behind Wealthsimple's Growth: Brand Bets, Blitz Hiring, and $125 Billion in AUA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyOQGUt1RyY
Translation: zh-CN

[00:01] Welcome to Between Two Bunettes, a show dedicated to highlighting Canadian voices.
  欢迎来到《Between Two Bunettes》，这是一个致力于推崇加拿大声音的节目。

[00:06] Together, we're sharing authentic conversations with the people shaping the future of Canada.
  我们将共同与那些塑造加拿大未来的人们进行真实的对话。

[00:10] We hope you enjoy the show.
  希望您喜欢这个节目。

[00:12] Today, we have with us Paul Toshima, chief commercial and chief marketing officer at Wealth Simple.
  今天，我们邀请到了 Wealth Simple 的首席商务官兼首席营销官 Paul Toshima。

[00:16] We are so excited cuz I feel like you've played a pivotal role across brand, marketing, operations, sales.
  我们非常兴奋，因为我觉得你在品牌、营销、运营和销售方面都发挥了关键作用。

[00:23] So, we are excited to get a little glimpse into your brain.
  所以，我们很高兴能一窥你的想法。

[00:25] Paul, are you ready for a conversation between two brunettes?
  Paul，你准备好和两位深色头发的女性进行对话了吗？

[00:29] I am so ready.
  我准备好了。

[00:30] Thank you for having me.
  谢谢你们邀请我。

[00:32] Before we get into Wealth Simple and everything that you've done in the past what, five or six years that you've been there now, want to go a little bit back in time.
  在我们深入探讨 Wealth Simple 以及你过去五六年里在那里所做的一切之前，我想先回顾一下过去。

[00:40] So, in 2020, you sold your company, Nudge.
  2020 年，你卖掉了你的公司 Nudge。

[00:43] Take us back to that time.
  带我们回到那个时候吧。

[00:48] What led you to want to join Mike's leadership team?
  是什么让你想要加入 Mike 的领导团队？

[00:50] Cuz in an article we read that there was maybe a little bit of hesitation at first.
  因为我们读到的一篇文章说，你起初可能有一点犹豫。

[00:56] Yeah.
  是的。

[00:58] So I just sold my company um I think it they closed like two weeks before COVID hit which was crazy.
  我刚卖掉我的公司，我想是在新冠疫情爆发前两周完成的，这太疯狂了。

[01:03] Um, and it wasn't a great exit.
  嗯，那并不是一次很好的退出。

[01:05] We had to basically shut down the company and sell the technology but enough time that we could let people find new jobs and do it in the right way which is really good.
  我们基本上不得不关闭公司并出售技术，但我们留出了足够的时间，让员工能够找到新工作，并以正确的方式处理这件事，这真的很好。

[01:13] And Mike, who I'd known for several years before because he was in a founders club I was with, asked me to look at an opportunity.
  迈克，我之前认识他好几年了，因为他在我参加的一个创始人俱乐部里，他让我看看一个机会。

[01:19] Well, simple.
  嗯，很简单。

[01:20] And I actually said, you know, it's B2B because I was a B2B person and it's financial services and I know nothing about financial services.
  我当时其实说，你知道，这是B2B，因为我一直从事B2B业务，而且这是金融服务业，我对金融服务一窍不通。

[01:29] I'm probably the wrong person for your role.
  我可能不是你这个职位的合适人选。

[01:31] That's what I said to him.
  我就是这么对他说的。

[01:32] But Mike's really smart and just a really sharp guy.
  但迈克真的很聪明，是个非常敏锐的人。

[01:35] And I, by the way, I've always wanted to work for Mike.
  顺便说一下，我一直想为迈克工作。

[01:37] Um, he said, you know, take your time.
  嗯，他说，你知道，慢慢来。

[01:39] You just sold your business.
  你刚卖掉你的公司。

[01:41] Why don't you meet a couple people?
  为什么不和几个人见见面呢？

[01:43] And so I met, you know, the co-founder Brett Honeyut.
  于是我见了联合创始人布雷特·霍尼特。

[01:45] I met at the time the chief operating officer, Robin Ross, and I was like, "Wow, these are really smart people."
  我还见了当时的首席运营官罗宾·罗斯，我当时心想：“哇，这些人真的很聪明。”

[01:51] And I thought, you know, maybe now is a good time to try and learn something new again.
  我想，也许现在是尝试再次学习新东西的好时机。

[01:54] And so that's why I decided to join.
  所以这就是我决定加入的原因。

[01:56] It's interesting that you say that on you feeling like you didn't have the experience being in industry because with a lot of the other founders that
  有趣的是，你说你感觉自己没有行业经验，因为对于许多其他创始人来说……

[02:04] We've talked about, they've been very intentional about not hiring people that come from the industries, especially the ones that are very slow moving and they want to innovate in because they want people who bring in new ideas and bring in innovation from other areas.
  正如我们所讨论的，他们非常刻意地不去雇佣那些来自相关行业的人，尤其是那些发展非常缓慢、他们想要进行创新的行业，因为他们希望引入能够带来新想法和创新的人。

[02:21] And it sounds like Mike probably had that point of view in bringing you on as well.
  听起来迈克在聘用你时可能也持有这种观点。

[02:26] I think so.
  我想是的。

[02:28] Yeah, I think he both wanted a different point of view.
  是的，我认为他想要一种不同的观点。

[02:30] He knew I had more of that gritty startup approach to things.
  他知道我更多地拥有那种坚韧的创业方式。

[02:34] Um more growth sales oriented and he obviously I'd had one success before.
  嗯，更偏向增长和销售导向，而且显然我之前有过一次成功。

[02:38] So it's seen that I'd known how to get take something further along the journey.
  所以看起来他知道我懂得如何让事情在旅程中走得更远。

[02:42] So I think that combination of things helped.
  所以我认为这些因素的结合起到了作用。

[02:44] It's interesting you don't nudge is not a success story to you even though you guys did manage to sell the company.
  有趣的是，尽管你们确实成功卖掉了公司，但你并不认为 Nudge 是一个成功的故事。

[02:51] It was like I saw an article it was framed as a failure and I was like interesting.
  就像我看到的一篇文章把它描述为一次失败，我当时觉得很有意思。

[02:54] And you were also pretty vocal about it.
  而且你对此也表达得相当直白。

[02:56] Uh I don't know if I Yeah, it's it wasn't a success story.
  呃，我不知道我是否……是的，它确实不是一个成功的故事。

[02:59] We didn't return that much money to the investors.
  我们没有给投资者带来那么多的回报。

[03:01] Yeah.
  是的。

[03:01] Um was it success in terms of learning a lot?
  嗯，从学到很多东西的角度来看，它算成功吗？

[03:03] We learned a massive a lot.
  我们学到了非常多。

[03:06] And I also learned never to run a startup into the brick wall and go like bankrupt.
  我也学到了永远不要让一家初创公司撞上南墙，以至于破产。

[03:10] Do you like properly winded up?
  你喜欢那种彻底结束的感觉吗？

[03:12] Yeah.
  是的。

[03:12] Um but if it wasn't for that ending, I never would have joined Well Simple.
  嗯，但如果不是那次结束，我永远不会加入 Well Simple。

[03:16] So it's kind of hard to It's bitter.
  所以这有点难以……这很苦涩。

[03:17] Yeah.
  是的。

[03:18] Surous in a way.
  在某种程度上是苦乐参半的。

[03:19] Absolutely.
  绝对是。

[03:20] You joined Well Simple 2020.
  你是 2020 年加入 Well Simple 的。

[03:22] Is that correct?
  对吗？

[03:22] Yeah.
  是的。

[03:22] November 2020.
  2020 年 11 月。

[03:22] And you guys would have been around somewhere between 5 to 10 billion in assets and somewhere between 500k and a million clients.
  当时你们的资产规模大约在 50 到 100 亿之间，客户数量在 50 万到 100 万之间。

[03:31] Today you guys passed 125 billion I think in assets and 3 and a half to 4 million clients which is crazy.
  今天你们的资产规模我想已经超过了 1250 亿，客户数量达到 350 万到 400 万，这太疯狂了。

[03:38] 70% year-over-year growth one.
  同比增长 70%。

[03:40] What's it like being at a company that's growing so fast and especially with all of the evolutions that you had in in the roles that you've taken so far?
  身处一家发展如此迅速的公司是什么感觉？尤其是考虑到你迄今为止所担任的各种角色演变？

[03:51] First off, when I joined Well Simple, I did not know that was what was going to happen.
  首先，当我加入 Well Simple 时，我并不知道会发生这些。

[03:55] So, uh it was already a pretty big company relative to other startups and um doing quite well and uh but we had a couple of interesting events happened.
  所以，呃，相对于其他初创公司来说，它已经是一家相当大的公司了，而且发展得相当不错，但我们确实经历了一些有趣的事件。

[04:04] One being the meme stock with GME and
  其中之一就是 GME 的模因股事件，以及

[04:07] All the trading that went on in early 2021 and then, um, two, um, I would say that Mike and leadership team really want to take advantage of the moment and lean in with growth.
  2021年初发生的所有交易，然后，嗯，二，嗯，我想说的是，迈克和领导团队真的想抓住这个时机，并致力于增长。

[04:17] And so that's where we really started to focus on, like, what do we need to do to build an amazing growth engine by focusing on our customers.
  所以这就是我们真正开始关注的地方，比如我们需要做些什么来通过关注客户来建立一个惊人的增长引擎。

[04:25] Um, being part of this journey, the thing that I'm a little more used to that maybe other executives aren't who haven't done the startup journey is just you're always uncomfortable.
  嗯，作为这段旅程的一部分，我比那些没有经历过创业之旅的其他高管更习惯的一点是，你总是会感到不安。

[04:32] Like you never feel comfortable.
  就像你永远不会感到舒适一样。

[04:35] Even today I don't feel comfortable.
  即使在今天，我也没有感到舒适。

[04:36] Even today I'm like, okay, so we had, we're going to have an amazing first half of this year.
  即使在今天，我也会想，好吧，我们已经，我们将迎来今年上半年惊人的表现。

[04:39] What are we going to do for the second half of the year?
  我们下半年要做什么呢？

[04:43] And so it's always that kind of uneasiness feeling that kind of drives you to kind of look for more opportunities or new ways to do things that I think helps.
  所以，正是那种不安的感觉在驱动你去寻找更多的机会或做事的新方法，我认为这很有帮助。

[04:51] Yeah, it's so crazy because on paper, Wealth Simple has made it as a company, but you guys don't act like it at all, which is so, it's so hard to maintain that.
  是的，这太疯狂了，因为从纸面上看，Wealth Simple 已经作为一家公司取得了成功，但你们的表现一点也不像，这太难维持了。

[04:59] It's actually a pretty impressive thing.
  这实际上是一件非常令人印象深刻的事情。

[05:00] Like you move with so much urgency.
  就像你们行动得非常紧迫一样。

[05:01] There's so much, there's a product velocity.
  有很多，有一种产品开发速度。

[05:02] It feels like there is momentum in every function of the business.
  感觉业务的每一个职能部门都有动力。

[05:06] From the outside, I'm like.
  从外部看，我感觉是这样。

[05:08] Feels pretty rare.
  这感觉相当罕见。

[05:10] Like you don't see a lot of Canadian companies operating that way.
  就像你没见过多少加拿大公司是那样运营的。

[05:11] I think I think you're right that I find it rare as well, especially at this size.
  我想你是对的，我也觉得这很罕见，尤其是在这种规模下。

[05:17] And I think that it's something that we want to really try and hold on to primarily because we think innovation drives value for customers.
  我认为这是我们真正想要努力坚持的东西，主要是因为我们认为创新能为客户创造价值。

[05:22] And if we can do that, um, everything else works out.
  如果我们能做到这一点，嗯，其他一切都会迎刃而解。

[05:26] You've evolved like through a couple of different roles as you've been at Wealth Simple.
  你在 Wealth Simple 工作期间，经历过几个不同的职位。

[05:31] When you first joined back in 2020, you were chief customer experience officer and really the focus there was on scaling customer support at the time, client support at the time.
  当你 2020 年刚加入时，你是首席客户体验官，当时的工作重点确实是扩大客户支持，即当时的客户支持。

[05:44] How did you balance growing a team at that speed and also ensuring that the quality remained there?
  你是如何在以那种速度壮大团队的同时，确保服务质量不下降的？

[05:53] Oh, there was no balance.
  哦，根本没有平衡可言。

[05:57] Uh like when I so when I joined Mike originally wanted me to join for both CX so support but also to start thinking about sales um humanled sales.
  呃，就像我加入时，Mike 最初希望我加入不仅是为了负责 CX（即支持），还要开始考虑销售，嗯，人工主导的销售。

[06:04] Okay.
  好的。

[06:05] And um we did and even then we had a small sales team advisories like advisor.
  嗯，我们确实做了，即使在当时，我们也有一支小型的销售团队，负责咨询业务，就像顾问一样。

[06:09] Advisor sales, and then eventually we got into business development sales.
  顾问销售，然后最终我们进入了业务拓展销售领域。

[06:12] But when I joined, um, was when that big crazy stock trend hit.
  但我加入的时候，正好赶上了那波疯狂的股票大涨。

[06:17] So we hit our year-end customer number in 30 days in January.
  所以我们在1月份的30天内就达成了全年的客户目标。

[06:19] And so we had to hire as fast as we could.
  因此我们必须尽可能快地进行招聘。

[06:22] So we adopted the LinkedIn blitzscaling model, which was every single person in the team does 30-minute one-call-close interviews.
  所以我们采用了领英的闪电式扩张模式，即团队中的每个人都要进行30分钟的“一通电话定录用”面试。

[06:30] That's what you were doing.
  这就是你们当时在做的事情。

[06:32] So, one-call-close interviews.
  所以，就是“一通电话定录用”面试。

[06:33] Okay.
  好的。

[06:35] Like you make a decision in 30 minutes whether you're going to hire someone.
  就像是在30分钟内决定是否要录用某人。

[06:37] Oh wow.
  哇。

[06:38] How were you preparing the...
  你们当时是如何准备……

[06:40] And for, yeah, it was for a period of time like we had to...
  而且，是的，有一段时间我们不得不……

[06:44] I've never heard of that in my life.
  我这辈子都没听说过这种事。

[06:46] Like how many customer support reps or people did you have at that time versus like the end of that year?
  比如你们当时有多少客户支持代表或员工，与那年年底相比如何？

[06:52] So, we had, when I joined, we had 70 total people in the team, of which maybe 40 were in support.
  所以，我加入时团队总共有70人，其中大约40人在支持部门。

[06:56] Okay, 40.
  好的，40人。

[07:00] And when January happened, we had to hire 20 every two weeks.
  而当1月份到来时，我们必须每两周招聘20人。

[07:05] And so we ended up closer to 200 by the end of March or...
  所以到3月底时，我们的人数接近200人，或者……

[07:09] Wow.
  哇。

[07:09] Yeah.
  是啊。

[07:09] Something like that.
  差不多就是那样。

[07:11] It's crazy.
  太疯狂了。

[07:11] But it was important because customers were joining really fast.
  但这很重要，因为客户加入的速度非常快。

[07:15] And support and we wanted to make sure we had people who could pick up the phone, answer the emails and so yeah, it was a pretty aggressive growth curve.
  还有支持方面，我们想确保有专人能接听电话、回复邮件，所以是的，那是一条相当激进的增长曲线。

[07:23] But today, obviously that's not the same, it's not the same today, but back then that's what how aggressive we had to be.
  但今天显然情况不同了，今天已经不一样了，但在当时，我们必须得那么激进。

[07:29] Yeah.
  是的。

[07:29] And so if there was no balance, how did you just manage for the days where things went wrong or things were messy or things were breaking?
  那么，如果没有平衡，你是如何应对那些事情出错、变得混乱或出现故障的日子呢？

[07:38] You know, there's this book called uh Made to Stick, and it's about storytelling and why certain stories stick and certain don't.
  你知道，有一本书叫《粘住》，它是关于讲故事的，以及为什么有些故事能让人记住，而有些则不能。

[07:45] And they have this concept called the bright spots.
  他们有一个概念叫“亮点”。

[07:47] And so, one of the things that um happens in a startup land is that when things go wrong or things are going crazy, you only focus on all the bad stuff that's going on.
  所以，在创业过程中会发生的一件事是，当事情出错或变得疯狂时，你只会关注所有正在发生的糟糕事情。

[07:56] [clears throat]
  [清嗓子]

[07:57] And what they teach you is to actually not do that.
  而他们教你的是实际上不要那样做。

[07:59] That try and focus on something that's working well and ignore the bad things to some extent and focus on that.
  试着专注于一些进展顺利的事情，在一定程度上忽略坏事，并专注于那些亮点。

[08:05] So like ignore as in like don't address.
  所以是指忽略，也就是不去处理吗？

[08:07] Yeah.
  是的。

[08:07] Just let the fire.
  就让火烧着吧。

[08:08] So during this time of like the fire
  所以在这种火烧眉毛的时候

[08:10] Burn.
  燃烧。

[08:10] Yeah.
  是的。

[08:10] Yeah.
  是的。

[08:11] Absolutely.
  绝对是。

[08:11] Yeah.
  是的。

[08:11] Don't ignore it like completely, but just know that you should make a decision of what you want to focus on.
  不要完全忽略它，但要清楚你应该决定自己想要专注于什么。

[08:16] And during this time, you know, we were taking many days to get back to customers who had problems and all these things.
  在那段时间里，你知道，我们花了很多天来回复遇到问题的客户以及处理所有这些事情。

[08:21] And I remember at one point, um, they were asking me to say, should we stop signing on new customers?
  我记得有一次，嗯，他们问我，我们是否应该停止签约新客户？

[08:27] Like are you so underwater that you need to stop?
  就像是说你是否已经忙得不可开交，以至于需要停下来？

[08:29] And I, it's just beyond me.
  而我，这简直超出了我的理解。

[08:31] I couldn't let that happen.
  我不能让那种事发生。

[08:33] I was like, I'm never going to stop that.
  我当时想，我永远不会停止签约。

[08:33] Yeah.
  是的。

[08:34] And so we did this analysis, and what we realized is that of all the new customers who joined us, only 7% ever called in for help.
  所以我们做了这个分析，我们意识到，在所有加入我们的新客户中，只有7%的人曾打过电话寻求帮助。

[08:42] So if we shut it down, 93% who wanted to participate and did it in a seamless way, self-service, would be stopped of that opportunity.
  所以如果我们关闭它，93%想要参与并以无缝自助方式进行的人，就会失去那个机会。

[08:49] So we focused on that bright spot and kept going.
  所以我们专注于那个亮点并继续前进。

[08:51] And that's why we went into this hiring.
  这就是为什么我们开始进行招聘。

[08:53] We're just going to hire as fast as we can, catch up, and make it work.
  我们只是要尽可能快地招聘，赶上进度，并让它顺利运行。

[08:57] Now, are a lot of those processes automated or do you still have a big...
  那么，这些流程中有很多是自动化的吗？还是说你仍然有很大的……

[09:01] Oh, it's very, it's very, very different now.
  哦，现在非常、非常、非常不同了。

[09:02] You can even compare.
  你甚至可以比较一下。

[09:04] We can handle massive scale and spikes.
  我们可以处理巨大的规模和流量高峰。

[09:06] It's not even close to the same.
  这根本无法相提并论。

[09:08] That was a much different time.
  那是一个非常不同的时期。

[09:09] And you, you mentioned that when Mike...
  而且你，你提到当迈克……

[09:11] Brought you on in this role, you guys were already starting to like build out the sales team as well.
  在你担任这个角色时，你们已经开始着手组建销售团队了。

[09:18] So when you moved into the role like officially as chief commercial officer a couple years later, had you already been scaling and building out all these different sales teams and that was more of just like an official recognition, but the org was already getting developed from the start?
  所以当你在几年后正式担任首席商务官时，你是否已经在扩展和组建所有这些不同的销售团队了？那更多只是一个正式的认可，而组织从一开始就已经在发展了吗？

[09:32] Yes.
  是的。

[09:34] Yeah.
  没错。

[09:34] It'd been since uh right when we started we had sales people when I joined in 2028.
  从我们刚开始的时候就是这样，我2028年加入时就已经有销售人员了。

[09:38] They were in the advisor group and then we added on what I call a full stack business development team.
  他们当时在顾问团队中，后来我们增加了一个我称之为“全栈业务开发团队”的部门。

[09:42] So these were people who would call nonadvised clients.
  这些人负责联系非顾问客户。

[09:45] So clients who don't want to work with an adviser.
  也就是那些不想与顾问合作的客户。

[09:47] And the thing about what I believe in sales is that you know um especially in this world is money is pretty personal.
  关于销售，我的信念是，你知道，特别是在当今世界，金钱是非常私人的。

[09:54] Like it's very personal.
  它非常私人化。

[09:54] Yeah.
  是的。

[09:55] And most people in Canada especially, they're going to move large sums of money to you for investing.
  特别是在加拿大，大多数人如果要将大笔资金转给你进行投资，

[10:01] They want to talk to someone.
  他们希望能与人沟通。

[10:02] And so we tested the Siri out in late 2023 and then realized that this could really work paired with a really strong growth marketing engine and then we started to really accelerate.
  所以我们在2023年底测试了Siri，然后意识到如果将其与强大的增长营销引擎相结合，这真的行得通，于是我们开始真正加速发展。

[10:13] That in 2024.
  那是在2024年。

[10:15] And I think the major insight was this gentleman named Simon who's my chief growth officer today.
  我认为主要的洞察来自于一位名叫西蒙的先生，他现在是我的首席增长官。

[10:19] He said, 'You know, rather than spend millions and millions of dollars with Facebook and Google, why don't we just pay our customers directly referral to make?'
  他说：‘你知道，与其花数百万美元在Facebook和谷歌上，为什么我们不直接付钱给我们的客户作为推荐奖励呢？’

[10:30] And so we came up with this idea of providing incentives, but not even just refer like you're talking about the like buying someone a home.
  所以我们想出了提供激励措施的想法，但这甚至不仅仅是像你说的推荐，比如帮某人买房。

[10:35] They have like a monthly millionaire.
  他们有类似每月百万富翁的活动。

[10:38] We just ran a match program where if you moved your RRSP over, we'd give you a 3% match on it over the next 5 years.
  我们刚刚运行了一个匹配计划，如果你把你的RRSP转过来，我们会在未来5年内为你提供3%的匹配。

[10:43] So, it's like covering the transfer fees, too.
  所以，这就像是也涵盖了转账费用。

[10:48] That's right.
  没错。

[10:48] And so we spend more money directly in our customers' pockets than we do in advertisers.
  所以我们直接花在客户口袋里的钱比花在广告商身上的钱更多。

[10:52] So that was a big unlock for us.
  所以这对我们来说是一个巨大的突破。

[10:56] I'm curious to know kind of like macro big picture.
  我很好奇想了解一下宏观的大局。

[10:58] I remember Wealthsimple when it first started.
  我记得Wealthsimple刚开始的时候。

[11:00] It was actually my first case study in like business school back in 2015.
  它实际上是我2015年在商学院的第一个案例研究。

[11:02] And back then the competitive advantage was lower fees, stronger UX and brand.
  当时它的竞争优势是更低的费用、更强的用户体验和品牌。

[11:10] Do you think that's still what, like how would you?
  你认为现在还是这样吗，或者你会怎么看？

[11:15] Describe what the competitive advantage is today, almost 12 years later?
  请描述一下近12年后的今天，竞争优势是什么？

[11:19] I would say that it's very similar.
  我想说它非常相似。

[11:21] I think the experience you get absolutely is a big advantage for us.
  我认为你们获得的体验绝对是我们的一大优势。

[11:24] And when I talk to customers, they often talk about how they feel when they use Wealthsimple as much as the actual features, which I think is important.
  当我与客户交谈时，他们经常谈论使用 Wealthsimple 时的感受，就像谈论实际功能一样，我认为这很重要。

[11:31] And then the investment in brand early on, I think, is what really allowed us to build trust with Canadians over long periods of time.
  我认为，早期对品牌的投资是让我们能够长期与加拿大人建立信任的真正原因。

[11:37] Something that most FinTechs in Canada have not done at all.
  这是加拿大大多数金融科技公司根本没有做到的事情。

[11:42] And it's hard to make that decision because it's expensive.
  做出这个决定很难，因为它很昂贵。

[11:45] It's counterintuitive.
  这有违直觉。

[11:46] But one of the co-founders, Rudy Adler, really spearheaded that.
  但联合创始人之一 Rudy Adler 确实带头做了这件事。

[11:48] And I've tried to carry it through after taking over as marketing officer.
  在我接任营销官后，我一直试图将其延续下去。

[11:55] And we have an amazing in-house creative team that really supports that.
  我们有一个很棒的内部创意团队，他们确实为此提供了支持。

[11:57] It's actually not well known.
  事实上，这并不为人所知。

[11:59] A lot of people ask me like, "What agency do you work with as your in-house?"
  很多人问我：“你们内部合作的是哪家代理公司？”

[12:02] And we don't have one.
  我们没有代理公司。

[12:03] We do it all in-house.
  我们全部在内部完成。

[12:05] That's amazing.
  太棒了。

[12:07] It's also so cool, too, because I feel like the brand's been good since the beginning and has only gotten better and evolved more and more.
  这也太酷了，因为我觉得这个品牌从一开始就很好，而且只会变得越来越好，不断进化。

[12:11] And I remember, I thought this was fascinating reading in an interview.
  我记得，我觉得在采访中读到这一点非常引人入胜。

[12:15] Where because you guys were investing so much in brand early on too, the CAC was actually bananas and no traditional venture investor would have actually underwritten the strategy to invest in brand the way that you did.
  因为你们早期在品牌上投入了太多，获客成本（CAC）实际上高得离谱，没有传统的风险投资人会真正承销你们那种投资品牌的方式。

[12:29] Obviously, it's paying dividends to this day, but like really hard for another startup to replicate that.
  显然，这至今仍在产生红利，但其他初创公司真的很难复制这一点。

[12:34] Even I'm thinking about us, too.
  甚至连我都在考虑我们自己的情况。

[12:36] Like, we have shied away from making too big of a brand investment because it's just like is the CAC there, is the payback there, all of the questions.
  比如，我们一直避免进行过大的品牌投资，因为总会有诸如获客成本是否合理、回报周期是否达标之类的各种疑问。

[12:43] But you guys early on were like, we're doing this, it's important.
  但你们在早期就认定：我们要这样做，这很重要。

[12:46] And like in hindsight, amazing, amazing decision.
  事后看来，这是一个非常、非常棒的决定。

[12:49] And I think particularly with the sector we're in and the fact that the way Canadians feel about financial services and you needed to we needed to build trust over time that way.
  我认为特别是在我们所处的行业，考虑到加拿大人对金融服务的看法，你们需要——我们也需要——通过这种方式随着时间建立信任。

[12:57] Well, it's like shocking for me now, like even when we've spoken to some of our friends who are in that like 25 to 35 age range and they're like, I don't trust the incumbent banks.
  现在让我感到震惊的是，即使当我们与一些 25 到 35 岁年龄段的朋友交谈时，他们也会说：我不信任那些老牌银行。

[13:09] I don't know.
  我不知道。

[13:11] I'm just nervous to like take my money out of RBC or TD.
  我只是不敢把钱从加拿大皇家银行（RBC）或道明银行（TD）里取出来。

[13:13] And like I think that that's less.
  我觉得这种情况正在减少。

[13:15] Common in a younger demographic, but it's still very much the culture in Canada just because we've had such very large banks that have been extremely safe and conservative for so long.
  这在年轻群体中很常见，但在加拿大，这仍然是非常主流的文化，仅仅因为我们长期以来拥有如此庞大、极其安全且保守的银行。

[13:30] Like it's so embedded in our society, but it needs change.
  它深深植根于我们的社会中，但它需要改变。

[13:31] I'm not saying it doesn't.
  我并不是说它不需要改变。

[13:33] Yeah.
  是的。

[13:34] Yeah.
  是的。

[13:34] Yeah.
  是的。

[13:34] You guys have proven the banks no longer have a monopoly on trust.
  你们已经证明了银行不再垄断信任。

[13:38] Certainly in some segments of the market, we're making good headway for sure.
  当然，在市场的某些领域，我们确实取得了良好的进展。

[13:41] Yeah.
  是的。

[13:41] But what's the relationship like with the banks now?
  但现在与银行的关系如何？

[13:43] Obviously, you were mentioning off air they're both competitors, but you also need to partner with them.
  显然，你在节目外提到过，它们既是竞争对手，但你们也需要与它们合作。

[13:49] Has their attitude towards you guys changed?
  它们对你们的态度改变了吗？

[13:52] I mean, I think the banks are a great part of the Canadian fabric of financial services.
  我的意思是，我认为银行是加拿大金融服务体系的重要组成部分。

[13:55] Like, they're not going anywhere.
  它们不会消失。

[13:57] If anything, like what we hope is there's just continued innovation in financial services because customers are asking for it.
  如果有的话，我们希望金融服务能持续创新，因为这是客户所要求的。

[14:04] Yeah.
  是的。

[14:04] And so, we'd love to see that continue to happen, but we do partner with banks on different things when it comes to the customer that you're focusing on.
  因此，我们很乐意看到这种情况持续发生，但在针对你们所关注的客户时，我们确实会在不同方面与银行合作。

[14:10] So, I just looked online at Wealth Simple's mission, which is to bring smarter financial services.
  所以，我刚才在网上查看了 Wealth Simple 的使命，那就是提供更智能的金融服务。

[14:17] To everybody regardless of age or net worth.
  面向所有人，无论年龄或净资产如何。

[14:20] When I looked, so I looked up website visitors for Wealthsimple and it skewed 60 40 men to women and the most common age group was 25 like this 25 to 34.
  当我查看时，我查询了 Wealthsimple 的网站访问者，发现男女比例为 60 比 40，最常见的年龄段是 25 岁，也就是 25 到 34 岁之间。

[14:31] I'm curious like with the focus of your product suite now which is very much focused on options getting into predictive markets crypto are you still long-term trying to build for everyone or is there like a natural progression where you do focus on a subset?
  我很好奇，鉴于你们现在的产品套件非常专注于期权、进入预测市场和加密货币，你们长期以来是否仍然试图为所有人打造产品，还是说存在一种自然的演进，让你们专注于某个细分群体？

[14:53] Well I think I think we want to earn the entire financial relationship of our clients so I think that we are going broader on many fronts and and the focus on some of the your products is really this idea of providing access.
  嗯，我认为我们希望赢得客户的全部金融关系，所以我认为我们在许多方面都在扩大范围，而对你们某些产品的关注实际上就是提供准入机会这一理念。

[15:03] So if you think of the traditional financial service industry, a lot of the wealth building tools are kept away from the general population of retail investors.
  所以如果你想到传统的金融服务行业，许多财富积累工具都被拒之于普通散户投资者之外。

[15:13] And so you know maybe we started for example with like crypto uh but we chose.
  所以你知道，也许我们以加密货币为例开始了，但我们选择了。

[15:18] To become the first regulated crypto and safe place to do crypto, and we work really tightly with regulators on making sure we're adopting the right rules and processes to support that.
  成为第一个受监管的加密货币平台和安全的加密货币交易场所，我们与监管机构紧密合作，确保我们采取正确的规则和流程来支持这一点。

[15:26] Similarly, we launched alternatives for retail investors.
  同样地，我们为散户投资者推出了替代方案。

[15:29] Yeah.
  是的。

[15:29] And you may have seen the news that the Ontario teachers pension fund um made over $10 billion on their investment in SpaceX.
  你可能已经看到新闻说安大略省教师养老基金在 SpaceX 的投资上赚了超过 100 亿美元。

[15:35] And so this idea of like well why can't we provide like our one of our roles is to provide this access to new financial products and then work within regulation and put the right guidelines in place so that Canadians can do it in a way that's responsible.
  所以这个想法是，为什么我们不能提供呢？我们的角色之一就是提供这种获取新金融产品的渠道，然后在监管范围内工作，并制定正确的指导方针，以便加拿大人能以负责任的方式进行投资。

[15:50] So that's the same approach we're taking for prediction markets.
  所以这就是我们对待预测市场所采取的相同方法。

[15:54] Okay.
  好的。

[15:54] Yeah.
  是的。

[15:54] So, it's more around just broadly accessibility to these different types of assets to then be able to give it to everyone.
  所以，这更多是关于广泛地提供对这些不同类型资产的访问权限，从而能够将其提供给每个人。

[16:02] Yeah, accessibility and education.
  是的，可访问性和教育。

[16:04] And what we've found with clients is that the average Canadian investor is actually pretty educated and smart.
  我们从客户身上发现，普通的加拿大投资者实际上受过良好的教育并且很聪明。

[16:07] And if you give them the tools and you give them the content and education, they may make some mistakes, but they certainly will learn from them and they tend to do.
  如果你给他们提供工具、内容和教育，他们可能会犯一些错误，但他们肯定会从中学习，而且他们往往会这样做。

[16:18] The right smarter and do the right thing.
  更聪明地做正确的事。

[16:22] Is there any like focus as a subset of younger people who are either currently or we expect in the future to have a higher net worth and think more around like how can you help create like exit strategy planning when they sell their companies or like estate planning and try to capture more of that market that you said is like this very kind of niche no one talks about area?
  是否有一种针对年轻人群体的关注，即那些目前或我们预期未来将拥有更高净值，并更多地思考如何帮助他们制定退出策略规划（当他们出售公司时）或遗产规划，从而试图占领你所说的那个无人提及的利基市场？

[16:47] I mean we focus on what we call uh as a moderate investor.
  我的意思是，我们专注于我们所称的“中等投资者”。

[16:50] So this is someone who has more than 50,000 of investable assets.
  所以这是指拥有超过 50,000 美元可投资资产的人。

[16:53] Although you can get onto our platform with any any any number of assets.
  尽管你可以用任何数量的资产进入我们的平台。

[16:58] Our fastest growing segment actually is people who have more than a million dollars in net worth which was surprising to us over the last two years.
  我们增长最快的细分市场实际上是净资产超过一百万美元的人群，这在过去两年里让我们感到惊讶。

[17:04] That's changed pretty significantly from like a decade ago like who the client base was back then.
  这与十年前的客户群相比发生了相当大的变化。

[17:08] No, it has changed and as a result we've had to um build other types of products, services to support them like advisory because they a lot of them do want to work with an adviser for example.
  是的，它已经改变了，因此我们不得不构建其他类型的产品和服务来支持他们，比如咨询服务，因为他们中的许多人确实希望与顾问合作。

[17:17] Um but we still want people who are just
  嗯，但我们仍然想要那些仅仅是……的人。

[17:20] Starting their investing career at 2022 to have a way to do it with a very low barrier to entry.
  在2022年开启他们的投资生涯，以一种准入门槛极低的方式进行投资。

[17:25] They can just start open an account digitally, put in $20 a week or whatever they want to do and still do in a low fee manner.
  他们只需以数字方式开立账户，每周投入20美元或任何他们想要的金额，并且依然能以低费用的方式进行。

[17:32] Yeah.
  是的。

[17:32] Have you talked to any of them about why they chose to switch to Wealth Simple?
  你有没有和他们中的任何一个人聊过为什么他们选择转投Wealth Simple？

[17:36] That's a great question because I was just thinking about this.
  这是一个很好的问题，因为我刚好也在想这件事。

[17:39] I was, so we had a dinner, so we do in real life events.
  当时是这样，我们举办了一场晚宴，因为我们确实会举办线下活动。

[17:41] We had this big Wealth Simple presents event in Calgary and we're doing more and more in real life stuff.
  我们在卡尔加里举办了一场大型的Wealth Simple展示活动，而且我们正在越来越多地开展线下活动。

[17:46] And we had a dinner not that long ago where I asked to bring some of our higher net worth clients to dinner to learn from them, talk to them.
  不久前我们举办了一场晚宴，我要求邀请一些高净值客户来共进晚餐，以便向他们学习并与他们交流。

[17:55] And so we did it at, we actually did it at Prime Seafood Palace.
  所以我们举办了这次晚宴，实际上我们是在Prime Seafood Palace举办的。

[17:58] Amazing.
  太棒了。

[18:00] It's amazing.
  这真的很棒。

[18:00] And I remember I asked them this question, hey what...
  我记得我问了他们这个问题，嘿，什么...

[18:05] And I thought I was going to hear, oh you has this great match program or oh you know I love the low fees.
  我本以为会听到他们说，哦，你们有很棒的匹配计划，或者说，你知道我喜欢低费用。

[18:11] And actually what they said was not that.
  但实际上他们说的并不是这些。

[18:13] They said, I kind of felt you were trying to teach me something and I've never felt that before from my financial partner.
  他们说，我感觉到你们是在试图教我一些东西，而我以前从未从我的金融合作伙伴那里感受到这一点。

[18:20] I would not have expected that as the reason that it was a very strange through product and product design or like the newsletter.
  我本来没预料到那是原因，因为通过产品、产品设计或像时事通讯这样的东西，这非常奇怪。

[18:27] Everything that we were doing made them feel like there was something they were going to learn that was going to be interesting or different or they were going to be, you know, something that they'd be exposed to that'd be new.
  我们所做的一切让他们觉得，他们将要学到一些有趣或不同的东西，或者他们将会接触到一些新的事物。

[18:33] That actually really solidified my thought that we don't need a separate brand to move up market.
  这确实巩固了我的想法，即我们不需要一个独立的品牌来向高端市场发展。

[18:39] Like we don't have to have a, you know, a different well simple to service the high net worth if we get there.
  就像如果我们达到那个阶段，我们不必拥有一个不同的 Wealthsimple 来服务高净值人群。

[18:45] Um, which is great because I think we want to try and have a brand that's consistent and the same feel for all Canadians who try and use us.
  嗯，这很好，因为我认为我们想要尝试拥有一个品牌，让所有尝试使用我们的加拿大人都能感受到一致性和相同的体验。

[18:53] When we spoke to Stephen, your Purpose co-founder, he did Yeah.
  当我们和你们 Purpose 的联合创始人斯蒂芬交谈时，他确实……是的。

[18:55] Is it Steve or Steven?
  是 Steve 还是 Steven？

[18:57] It's Steven.
  是 Steven。

[18:57] Steven.
  Steven。

[18:58] We were joined at the H for 20 years.
  我们在 H 公司共事了 20 年。

[19:00] So, yeah.
  所以，是的。

[19:01] Yeah.
  是的。

[19:01] We said, "What's Paul like?"
  我们问：“Paul 是个什么样的人？”

[19:03] And I think the first thing that he said is, "You are customer obsessed and you will do anything to make the customer happy."
  我想他说的第一件事是：“你们以客户为中心，愿意做任何事情来让客户满意。”

[19:09] What does that look like at 4 million Canadians?
  当面对 400 万加拿大人时，这看起来是什么样的？

[19:11] And if there is like people listening to this that are joining their first startup or in a head of CX role, strategy ops, how do you live it day-to-day?
  如果有人正在听这个节目，他们是刚加入第一家初创公司，或者担任客户体验主管、战略运营职位，你们是如何在日常生活中践行这一点的？

[19:19] And how do you inspire it in?
  以及你如何激发这种精神？

[19:20] Organizations?
  组织吗？

[19:22] I think the first thing is just you talk to customers.
  我认为第一件事就是与客户交谈。

[19:23] I know everyone's going to say that.
  我知道每个人都会这么说。

[19:24] One of the things I will say though that I try and do when I talk to customers is I try and the one question I do ask is like what was unexpected in your experience with us.
  不过，我想说的是，当我和客户交谈时，我会尝试问的一个问题是：在与我们的合作体验中，有什么是出乎意料的？

[19:35] And usually the best thing to figure out is the gap between their expectations and what you delivered whether it's up or down.
  通常，最好的做法是找出他们的期望与你交付成果之间的差距，无论是高于还是低于预期。

[19:40] So obviously if it's down then that's like not great but if it's up it's usually an opportunity you can go much bigger on.
  显然，如果低于预期，那不太好；但如果高于预期，通常就是一个你可以进一步扩大规模的机会。

[19:45] Like I never like for example we launched this um uh prepaid card on our checking account and um it has no FX so if you go to like you know Europe and you're using it there's no FX additional exchange on it.
  比如，我举个例子，我们曾在支票账户上推出了预付卡，它没有外汇费用，所以如果你去欧洲等地使用它，不会有额外的汇率兑换费用。

[20:01] Okay and um we didn't think that was going to be the big thing on the prepaid card.
  好的，我们当时没想到这会成为预付卡的一大亮点。

[20:05] Was several years back, but some customers started like talking about it a lot like they had no idea like this was so important.
  那是几年前的事了，但一些客户开始频繁谈论它，就好像他们没想到这功能如此重要一样。

[20:11] Interesting.
  很有趣。

[20:12] And so, uh, we started to really lean into this idea of FX and then we did it on our credit card.
  因此，我们开始真正深入研究外汇这一理念，随后将其应用到了我们的信用卡上。

[20:17] And so, like those type of like differential expectations are really interesting to.
  所以，这类差异化的期望真的很有趣。

[20:21] learn in customer conversations. So,

[20:23] that's one is just talk to customers a

[20:25] lot. And then the second I would say is

[20:26] that if you can't always talk to

[20:28] customers, talk to the people who are

[20:29] talking to customers.

[20:30] Mh. [clears throat] So meet directly

[20:31] with your support organization or meet

[20:33] directly with your sales organization.

[20:35] It's like way better to do that than to

[20:36] do surveys or research studies that kind

[20:38] of proxy what customers are trying to

[20:40] do.

[20:41] Were there certain customer segments

[20:43] that were harder than you expected to

[20:45] get on the platform?

[20:46] I mean still to this day, I'd say

[20:48] someone who wants to go to a branch to

[20:49] do their transactions. That's a hard

[20:51] segment for us.

[20:52] Crazy that those people exist. They

[20:54] should watch the video.

[20:55] I go I go to like the bank. I won't say

[20:57] the name, but like I go to the bank and

[20:58] I feel like I'm like going back to like

[21:00] the 80s when I'm standing in the bank

[21:02] branch. Like it even looks dated.

[21:04] Yeah. Yeah. They're so dated. They're

[21:06] really dated.

[21:06] But but I think there's something to

[21:08] having the comfort of like being able to

[21:10] go somewhere really

[21:11] about your money. I'm not I'm not saying

[21:13] we're going to build a branch, but I'm

[21:14] saying there's something that

[21:16] we are we will look into as an

[21:18] opportunity of like having a physical

[21:19] presence. I think that's something that

[21:20] is important.

[21:21] You're going to look into it, but maybe

[21:22] different ways other than a branch.

[21:24] It's going to be beautiful. It's not

[21:25] going to look

[21:26] well. Hopefully it's beautiful.

[21:28] Hopefully it's functional. Hopefully it

[21:29] matters. It makes difference. It won't

[21:31] be the same thing that's there today.

[21:32] But I think the idea of like having

[21:34] something where someone can go and

[21:35] engage us physically in real life is

[21:37] important. Today we do that through

[21:39] events and other things, but maybe

[21:40] there's something more permanent we

[21:42] should explore.

[21:42] I was reading it was a quote from I

[21:44] think is Simon your head of growth?

[21:46] Yes.

[21:46] He was like the secret from going from

[21:48] 10 billion to 100 billion wasn't

[21:50] acquiring millions of new customers. it

[21:52] was convincing existing clients who had

[21:54] a,000 in the app to transfer their

[21:56] $100,000 from the bank. Can you just

[21:58] unpack how that strategy comes to life?

[22:00] And

[22:00] I don't I don't I think it's probably

[22:02] much more of like a whole series of

[22:03] tactics that eventually look like a

[22:05] strategy when you look at it from behind

[22:06] the scenes. And I think that it starts

[22:07] off with this idea of like low barrier

[22:09] to entry, low fees, let people try

[22:10] things really easily.

[22:12] Um the second is build an experience

[22:14] that really um over time engages you and

[22:17] then really try and stick to some of our

[22:19] key principles around transparency.

[22:22] um keeping things simple like and then

[22:24] giving access to things like not holding

[22:26] things back and so uh by doing that over

[22:29] time people will start to realize wait a

[22:30] second I'll move a little more money a

[22:31] little more to this open a TFSA maybe

[22:33] I'll move my RRSP oh you have banking I

[22:36] should try it out I can open a checking

[22:37] account digitally not put not have any

[22:38] minimums right and so all those things

[22:41] kind of help

[22:42] and really that's like one way we get

[22:43] customers and then the other way is that

[22:45] something crazy goes on at the current

[22:48] institution they're with like they lose

[22:50] 50,000 of their dollars and they're like

[22:51] kind of like I'm fed up

[22:52] and I move everything all at once. And

[22:54] so those are the two ways people usually

[22:55] find us

[22:56] and you incentivize them really well now

[22:58] to do that.

[22:58] Yeah. Yeah.

[23:00] How do you guys think about growth

[23:01] today? Obviously product expansion is

[23:03] one way. How else do you guys think

[23:05] about growing?

[23:06] First off, I will say this. We have an

[23:08] extremely

[23:09] strong relationship with our finance

[23:11] department. um they are

[23:14] one of our most strategic partners in

[23:16] the business because in in marketing

[23:18] this we have the most discretionary

[23:19] budget to spend and so you could spend

[23:20] it on so many things like we could go

[23:22] try and name a stadium if we wanted but

[23:24] like so you want to try and build some

[23:25] science around what we're doing. So in

[23:28] working with that we tend to think about

[23:30] what are things we know that we can do

[23:32] that work. So for example we we run

[23:34] these incentive campaigns and we know

[23:35] they work and we know they linearly

[23:36] scale with spending money to do X Y and

[23:39] Z and we know that customers love them.

[23:41] So we can run that playbook at different

[23:44] times.

[23:44] Um we always try and then do some things

[23:47] that are nonlinear, non-scalable or like

[23:50] unsure. We don't know what's going to

[23:52] happen. And um you know we just launched

[23:55] a contest where you can win a million

[23:57] dollars a month if you have a checking

[23:59] account with us.

[24:00] And so we don't know what's going to

[24:02] happen with that one. And you know we we

[24:04] put constraints around how we think

[24:05] about it. But so far it's go doing

[24:07] really well and and really encouraging

[24:08] people to save. That's the idea is like

[24:10] the more you save, the better chance you

[24:12] have to win this these these rewards.

[24:14] And so um

[24:16] yeah, we always try and do a little of

[24:18] both things that we know and then save

[24:20] some room for some experimentation.

[24:22] And would you know in that example, so

[24:23] like a million 12 million a year, would

[24:25] you know what that would have gotten you

[24:27] if you had put that money on ads in

[24:29] terms of like you guys ran the analysis

[24:32] to be like

[24:33] if we spent that on other things that

[24:35] that we've done before, we would know

[24:36] what that would produce.

[24:38] Yeah. And um why I love this other

[24:41] campaign is that we really want

[24:43] Canadians to save more. Like that's like

[24:44] a big thing.

[24:45] It's like so missionoriented.

[24:46] [clears throat]

[24:47] Yeah. Like the ways you you grow your

[24:48] wealth are you get promoted. We we can't

[24:50] help you with that today. Maybe someday

[24:52] we can. Two, [laughter]

[24:54] you save more. Like you spend less, save

[24:55] more. And three, you just stay invested

[24:57] in the market, right? You stay invested.

[24:58] And so

[24:59] as much as we can help with those last

[25:01] two things is really important for us.

[25:02] What's been your most successful

[25:04] campaign since you've been at Wealth

[25:06] Simple? It depends how you how you judge

[25:08] it. If you were to say in terms of

[25:09] growth, it was the last one we just did

[25:11] which we called an unreal deal. It was

[25:14] we gave away the home in Vancouver and

[25:16] we m gave this very large match for your

[25:18] RSP up to 3% if you stay 5 years.

[25:21] So that was very successful.

[25:23] Um

[25:24] but I would say like some of the

[25:25] campaigns that I've I've really really

[25:27] loved are our well simple presents where

[25:30] we go and talk about our product

[25:32] showcase. And so

[25:33] we did our first one last year and we

[25:34] had no idea

[25:36] cuz it's a very B2B play to go and do a

[25:38] product event,

[25:39] right?

[25:39] Was that the like the stage?

[25:42] We got on stage presentation. Yeah. So

[25:43] we did one last year called the end of

[25:45] banking

[25:46] and we thought who knows if this will

[25:47] happen but we're going to do it live and

[25:48] we're going to do it like

[25:49] it's a classic B2B, you know, Salesforce

[25:51] Dreamforce play, right?

[25:52] Yeah.

[25:53] And we had 110,000 people sign up to

[25:55] watch it. And so this last one we did

[25:56] had over 330,000 people sign up to watch

[25:58] it and we just had no idea Yeah. that

[26:01] people would want to listen and hear

[26:04] about a checking account. Yeah. You

[26:05] know, and and so that's been probably

[26:07] one of my favorite

[26:08] and for something like that or a

[26:10] commercial where it's a little bit

[26:12] harder to measure the ROI like how does

[26:15] your team approach that measurement?

[26:17] Um I I think uh so they do do like don't

[26:21] get me wrong and the woman who runs his

[26:22] name's Dasha. She's amazing. She uh they

[26:24] put in all the metrics and

[26:26] instrumentation to look at incremental

[26:28] change in account openings, client

[26:31] satisfaction, all this stuff.

[26:33] But the um um part of it is just we know

[26:36] when you're we do it like you know when

[26:38] you're there it's worth

[26:40] intuition and feeling.

[26:41] And you asked this thing about urgency.

[26:43] So um one of the things I think is hard

[26:45] to manufacture is what I call an

[26:47] immovable date.

[26:48] An immovable Oh,

[26:49] it's very hard to do in most businesses.

[26:51] Usually most dates can move. Even if a

[26:53] CEO commands it, usually it can still

[26:55] move ultimately.

[26:56] When you announce to all your customers

[26:59] you are launching something on a date

[27:01] and

[27:02] that's how we can relate to that as a

[27:03] podcast where there's an expectation

[27:05] that episodes go live. That's right.

[27:07] Right. [laughter]

[27:09] So the whole product and R&D

[27:10] organization gets in line and starts

[27:12] going getting ready for it. The

[27:13] marketing organization does the the CX

[27:15] organization, the operations, everyone

[27:16] in the company builds to this moment and

[27:19] then everyone experiences all their hard

[27:21] work and it's an incredible internal

[27:23] value for us. So we would do it even if

[27:25] the external metrics were bad, but the

[27:27] internal value is like through the roof.

[27:29] Yeah, it's special. I also I happen to

[27:31] read the comments on the because the

[27:33] YouTube link is still up. It is insane.

[27:34] You guys have so many loyalist

[27:36] customers. Everyone's like, "It's the

[27:38] best company in the world. The best

[27:39] financial institution Candace is ever

[27:40] going to have. I've been a client for 11

[27:42] years." Like, it's actually it's pretty

[27:43] powerful. I can't like I can't imagine

[27:45] the feeling in the room because the

[27:46] comment section alone I was like, "Wow."

[27:48] Yeah. The the clients are amazing. Like

[27:50] I

[27:51] you know, part of why I like to talk to

[27:53] customers is just I get so inspired to

[27:54] talk to them because they so much they

[27:56] believe so much in what we're doing and

[27:57] like you don't want to let them down. So

[27:59] it's like how do we keep doing

[28:00] better things like

[28:02] in that presentation? And I might like

[28:04] mess up the slogan, but you guys

[28:06] revealed this more is more wealth simple

[28:08] takes over your life um camp. I don't

[28:10] know if it's a campaign or the new

[28:12] messaging, but it was a pivot from what

[28:15] it was before. I would I think it was

[28:16] get rich slow. Is that intentional?

[28:20] It was definitely intentional to

[28:22] upgrade our brand a little in this last

[28:24] change.

[28:25] Um

[28:27] and I think that because we're evolving,

[28:29] you know, I think there's a couple

[28:31] things. we have way more products than

[28:33] ever before. Like we don't just have um

[28:36] you know the investing and the

[28:37] portfolios that grow slowly.

[28:39] And so I think the idea is just expand

[28:40] until like when we have more that you

[28:42] can

[28:43] do.

[28:44] I think the second is this idea like I

[28:46] still believe that's keeping things

[28:47] simple is like our craft. Like it's hard

[28:49] to do simple really well.

[28:51] So we want to obviously say that we have

[28:53] more things but we want to stick to the

[28:54] fact that we're going to make it as

[28:56] simple as we can for you. And so the

[28:58] combination of those two things are

[28:59] where we're working on with our brand

[29:01] between like your different uh channels

[29:03] like you have you have the retail and

[29:05] then you have the commercial side on on

[29:08] the retirement plans.

[29:10] How interconnected are those teams and

[29:13] kind of the movement of customers who

[29:15] maybe came in through the group

[29:17] retirement and then they start banking

[29:19] with you and investing with you beyond

[29:21] that.

[29:22] I mean they they all do work together. I

[29:24] mean, we do it's the same customer. And

[29:26] that's one of the benefits of having

[29:28] both the retail and the group retirement

[29:30] business is that

[29:31] some people who come in through the

[29:32] group side would never have known who we

[29:34] are on the retail side.

[29:36] Yeah.

[29:36] And then when they come in and they move

[29:38] their workplace savings over and even if

[29:40] they leave the job, they say, "Well, you

[29:41] know what? I'll just transition to a

[29:42] retail account. Why wouldn't I? Why

[29:43] would I move off platform?"

[29:45] And it's not really well known in the

[29:46] group industry, especially in Canada,

[29:48] that if you have a GRSP, that you can

[29:49] actually move it,

[29:51] right? And so there's just like

[29:52] yeah I moved my LRA that was with

[29:55] whatever whoever we were with at KPMG to

[29:58] well simple.

[29:59] Well thank you for that. And that's not

[30:00] very many people know you can do that.

[30:02] So there you go.

[30:03] And so it's it's this idea of like

[30:04] getting people in the door and getting

[30:06] getting them access is what we try to

[30:07] do.

[30:07] I was paying horrible fees and now I'm

[30:10] not. So thank you. [laughter]

[30:12] Yes. Yes.

[30:13] What I did my tax filing that was new

[30:15] for me this year with Well Simple and I

[30:16] was just so shocked at how easy it was

[30:18] and it was no cost. You guys don't

[30:20] charge a single dollar for Turboax, but

[30:22] you can if you want give.

[30:24] It's like a gift at the end, right? I

[30:26] didn't even I didn't even see that.

[30:27] Yeah, you can like choose how. It's like

[30:29] choose how much you pay. It's like those

[30:30] workout classes are meant to be like

[30:32] that.

[30:33] Yeah. Mike uh our CEO has a vision that

[30:35] he says one day you'll just be able to

[30:37] click a button and your taxes will be

[30:38] done automatically

[30:39] if you if you do everything on well

[30:41] simple. And I think it's interesting

[30:42] because um

[30:44] one of the things that we're also trying

[30:45] to do is provide more what we call tax

[30:47] alpha to customers. Okay,

[30:49] tax alpha is like

[30:50] when you get tax advantage during the

[30:53] year in decisions and what you're doing

[30:55] um so that you can get tax back or tax

[30:57] benefits. Something again that the

[30:58] wealthy really take advantage of

[31:00] like even like borrowing for your

[31:02] against your RRSSP and then

[31:04] yeah borrowing early at a good rate so

[31:06] that you know if you can if you can

[31:07] handle the risk

[31:08] um or consolidating your loans and then

[31:11] like using some of that borrowing rate

[31:13] to actually you can actually deduct the

[31:15] interest

[31:16] on that. So there's lots of little

[31:18] things we want to try and do better on

[31:19] the tax side over time. I think

[31:21] over time. Yeah. Any recommendations for

[31:23] how to think about setting up a growth

[31:25] and marketing function and especially

[31:26] now with AI and all the like new tools

[31:29] and apps out there?

[31:30] Just any advice for maybe like newer

[31:33] companies or newer entrepreneurs

[31:35] starting.

[31:35] I mean I would say first off you like

[31:37] you get get a person who's like a growth

[31:38] hacker who can do multiple things and is

[31:41] good with tech. Absolutely. That's super

[31:43] super important. And then I still

[31:45] believe in like some of the more

[31:47] traditional foundational things like

[31:49] figure out who your audience is. What's

[31:50] the value proposition? What pain are you

[31:52] solving?

[31:53] And then I would just start trying

[31:55] things right away. That's the thing

[31:56] that's the most important. The cycle

[31:58] time to try things is going to be the

[32:00] critical factor in starting any growth

[32:01] cycle

[32:02] and just learning

[32:02] learning in data

[32:05] what's working, what's not, double down

[32:06] what's working

[32:07] and just keep going from there. And um

[32:10] even with the advent of AI, I think that

[32:12] what you're going to see is that, and

[32:14] we're already seeing it, is that

[32:15] customers still sort of understand like

[32:17] what's good or not, they have taste.

[32:20] Mhm.

[32:20] And so you still need someone to be that

[32:23] taste maker, understand what is

[32:25] interesting, and

[32:26] it works.

[32:27] Yeah.

[32:27] Right. I love that you just said the

[32:29] word taste maker. I just listened to a

[32:30] podcast with um I'm going to forget his

[32:33] name. What's who's the found the

[32:34] designer of the iPhone? Tony

[32:36] Johnny IV.

[32:37] No, it wasn't Johnny. It was someone it

[32:39] was a co-designer I think his name was

[32:41] Tony but he the entire podcast was about

[32:44] being a taste maker and the fact that

[32:46] it's so easy early on uh in an

[32:49] organization but then over time you have

[32:51] like committees and bureaucracy and like

[32:52] you just lose taste in product or in

[32:54] marketing or in all these other

[32:55] functions and he talked the entire it

[32:57] was an hour on how hard it is to

[32:59] maintain taste. It is. It is. And

[33:01] sometimes, and this is something I've

[33:02] realizing working with our creative

[33:04] team, is that sometimes you just need to

[33:05] let them do stuff that isn't on the

[33:07] plan.

[33:07] Yeah.

[33:08] Because so we had this um we just

[33:10] finished our second Well, simple

[33:12] presents. So, everyone had been working

[33:13] flat out

[33:14] and the Jays were in the World Series.

[33:16] And um one of our creative leads was

[33:20] like, "We should do something with the

[33:21] Jays in the series World Series." This

[33:22] is like rare.

[33:23] Yeah.

[33:24] And uh

[33:24] it wasn't on the road map. No, not only

[33:26] that,

[33:27] it's always the like last minute like

[33:29] people were like flying home.

[33:30] Yeah.

[33:31] Um from this thing and really tired and

[33:34] literally started with the lines like

[33:36] we should start 1993 and do a line about

[33:40] the stock market and say good things

[33:42] take time.

[33:43] And so that was Thursday. By Sunday we

[33:46] had a finished commercial.

[33:48] Wow, that's crazy.

[33:48] That we put the the media and it did

[33:51] incredibly round. I think it did over 55

[33:53] million impressions. We got it on

[33:54] 55 million. Wow. We got it on um

[33:57] Sportsnet.

[33:58] More than the population of Canada.

[33:59] Yeah. And such a simple idea. So low

[34:01] effort.

[34:02] It was Oh, it was high effort. It was

[34:03] just a good idea. Simple idea.

[34:06] Yeah. Who do you look to outside of

[34:09] Canada for inspiration? And are there

[34:11] any things that you're like really keen

[34:13] to bring here?

[34:15] I think we look to lots of companies

[34:17] outside. Some of the work especially in

[34:19] financial services being done by New

[34:20] Bank or Revolute are incredible. and

[34:22] Revolute especially has done a great job

[34:24] breaking into new regions um really

[34:27] really well and that's been very

[34:29] interesting.

[34:29] Okay.

[34:30] Um New Bank uh has uh this incredibility

[34:34] to acquire new customers. I think their

[34:36] their CAC is like $5.

[34:38] Wow. Wow.

[34:38] And it's because

[34:39] well it's it's ones they have they have

[34:41] products that are very accessible and

[34:43] early stage no matter what your

[34:45] um wealth is but they also have a

[34:48] maniacal focus on NPS like I think their

[34:49] NPS is like 94 or something 93.

[34:52] And so they just realized like if we can

[34:54] make our products incredibly promotable,

[34:57] they're going to get people like

[34:58] Wildfire to spread them. And so I think

[35:01] we try and take different things from

[35:03] different

[35:04] um uh players in the space that are

[35:06] doing great things at the same time be a

[35:08] little worried because like eventually

[35:09] they're going to want to come to Canada.

[35:10] Yeah.

[35:12] No,

[35:12] I was going to ask a question on go you

[35:15] saying that one of the things was how

[35:16] well that they revolute gets into new

[35:18] regions for well simple. you guys were

[35:21] in different regions and then you went

[35:22] back to just focusing on Canada I think

[35:25] around the time that you joined but is

[35:28] there like based on your comment is

[35:29] there an idea of potentially going back

[35:32] and expanding again

[35:33] I mean I think we're always considering

[35:36] how do we keep growing um Canada's is

[35:39] this is something that not a lot of

[35:40] people know it's the third largest

[35:41] financial services market in the world

[35:43] really did know that

[35:44] yeah it is US China then Canada

[35:47] so you can build a hundred multiundred

[35:50] billion business in Canada alone.

[35:52] Um, and so today we're focused on

[35:54] Canada, but that doesn't mean that at

[35:56] some point we may not decide to go

[35:57] somewhere else, but I think um, we have

[36:00] a lot of work to do here still, so

[36:01] that's where we're focused.

[36:02] Okay.

[36:02] And you guys are are you dipping your

[36:04] toes into business now?

[36:06] We are.

[36:06] Okay.

[36:07] Yeah. Um,

[36:07] we're super happy to hear that.

[36:09] Yeah. Well, we Except we're with Ben

[36:11] right now. [laughter]

[36:12] Yeah. But I'm just curious, how bullish

[36:13] are you guys on because obviously like a

[36:15] revolute has just kind of taken it all,

[36:16] but how bullish are you guys on business

[36:18] and how deep are you?

[36:20] I mean, I think that um I mean there's

[36:22] 1.1 million small businesses in Canada.

[36:24] It's it's like a huge market opportunity

[36:27] and when I talk to these entrepreneurs,

[36:28] I would say that some of them feel

[36:29] they're like it's actually a harder they

[36:31] have like more challenges than the

[36:33] retail customers. Like

[36:34] totally and like way higher threat like

[36:37] Yeah.

[36:38] And it's it's more like discombobulated.

[36:40] they're using like 15 different

[36:41] platforms to achieve the same thing.

[36:43] Especially in today's day and age where

[36:45] everything is so global like even for us

[36:47] like we work from people we work with

[36:49] people all over the world and we're

[36:51] paying people all over the world and

[36:52] we're like this baby little company and

[36:54] it adds so much complexity to things.

[36:56] I think that we are very very excited

[36:57] about our business offerings and we

[36:59] think that it's going to be um a real

[37:01] opportunity to add lots of value to

[37:02] people who are trying to start new

[37:03] companies, be entrepreneurial and not

[37:05] worry about the money part of it as

[37:07] much.

[37:07] Yeah. Mhm.

[37:08] How have you guys maintained such a high

[37:10] quality bar on product cuz you are a

[37:13] productled organization, right? That's

[37:14] how you characterize it.

[37:16] Absolutely.

[37:16] And obviously in startup world it's like

[37:19] do one thing and do it well. Like that's

[37:20] the gospel recommendation that you hear,

[37:23] but you guys have so many offerings and

[37:25] you're like pushing so much more out.

[37:27] How one like how is the organization

[37:29] organized to support this? And then how

[37:32] is the quality maintained? First off,

[37:34] our our co-founder and chief product

[37:36] officer Brett Honeyut's this amazing

[37:37] leader. Um, and he's brought an amazing

[37:39] leadership team and they really focus a

[37:42] lot on a set of product principles that

[37:44] they want to adhere to like u fast and

[37:47] frictionless. Um, they want to make sure

[37:50] that it's a delightful experience. They

[37:51] want it to be low cost, high value. And

[37:54] they really there's a process a lot of

[37:57] like get something start something

[37:58] really and they take that sort of

[38:00] startup mentality of like get that MVP

[38:01] early get customers using it very early

[38:04] like Brett

[38:05] I hear many times in meetings saying

[38:07] like

[38:08] wait a second what we need to do is do

[38:10] this much

[38:11] and then get in the hand of a customer

[38:13] even though we're a very large business

[38:14] like there's not

[38:16] um this idea that you know we need to

[38:18] build this massive product first and

[38:20] then hold it back and have this big

[38:21] reveal like he would rather get it in

[38:23] the hands of customers. customers first

[38:24] and then learn really quickly. So I

[38:26] think that's why we've been able to

[38:27] innovate really fast is to keep that

[38:28] agile approach.

[38:29] Is there a product or product feature

[38:32] that you can speak to that like maybe at

[38:35] the beginning you thought was a really

[38:36] good idea and then going through this

[38:38] realized it was a bust and didn't didn't

[38:41] go through.

[38:41] Let me think about a product that idea

[38:43] that we thought was great that maybe hm

[38:46] you're like no we're just like

[38:48] no no no I'm just trying to think about

[38:50] like what that would be. I mean, there's

[38:52] certainly features that we've done that

[38:53] have not been as well adopted.

[38:55] Mhm.

[38:56] Um,

[38:56] or ones that maybe even just never saw

[38:58] the light of day because

[38:59] I mean, we used to have a product u that

[39:02] was uh for advisers to use like not for

[39:05] clients.

[39:06] And um I think we learned early on that

[39:08] was challenging because you know

[39:10] advisors have clients. We were pretty

[39:12] big in the market. clients look at so

[39:15] maybe I should try just using you

[39:16] directly and it was causing this like

[39:17] real channel conflict

[39:19] and I think that was hard for us um

[39:21] because we don't know how to dial things

[39:23] back like so we're not going to figure

[39:24] out how to not market

[39:26] um and so that was a problem I remember

[39:28] and we wanted to back that was called

[39:29] well simple for adviserss

[39:31] um and we end up shelving that about the

[39:33] second year I was there

[39:34] okay how much internal debate like when

[39:37] you guys launch things like cash tags or

[39:40] options predictions obviously coming how

[39:42] much internal

[39:43] debate is there around these products?

[39:45] Is there is everyone like on board with

[39:48] every launch and every feature? And

[39:49] I don't think everyone's on board with

[39:51] every launch and every feature. I think

[39:52] as an executive team we get aligned and

[39:54] you know we tend to debate and like

[39:55] commit really well. I mean we do take a

[39:57] pseudo

[39:59] Amazon memo style approach.

[40:01] I love debate and commit or disagree and

[40:03] commit. Yeah.

[40:04] Yeah. It's hard to do to be honest. So

[40:06] hard.

[40:06] It's very hard to do. And so we've

[40:08] started to do so we have a threeh hour

[40:10] two to three hour management meeting

[40:11] every week and um we then do also

[40:14] periodic offsites and like the offsites

[40:15] are for the times we really want to go

[40:17] long and not be forced by a timeline on

[40:19] something and but I would say that the

[40:21] management meetings weekly are very

[40:23] productive in terms of the fact that we

[40:24] do talk about decisions we need to make

[40:27] and then we make a decision we typically

[40:28] try and get to an action versus just

[40:31] like continuing to talk about something.

[40:33] Um and so back to this idea, do we have

[40:36] um debates about launching a certain new

[40:38] product like predictions? Yes.

[40:41] Uh but when we get back to like why are

[40:43] we doing this? Focus on that. We tend to

[40:45] get aligned.

[40:46] Yeah.

[40:46] Um and then we hold hands and make sure

[40:48] that if things go wrong, we all kind of

[40:50] figure it out together.

[40:51] Yeah. There's no pointing fingers at the

[40:53] end of it all. [laughter]

[40:53] Yeah.

[40:54] Yeah. I mean there's maybe some fingers

[40:55] pointing but like I think at the end of

[40:56] the day it's like

[40:59] uh if we can get a line on the

[41:00] principles of why we're doing it I think

[41:02] it usually works out.

[41:03] Yeah.

[41:03] And you mentioned the prediction

[41:04] markets. I'm curious like why now? Why

[41:07] did Wealth Simple choose to launch it

[41:09] early 2026?

[41:11] Um well because we um we feel it's like

[41:14] a trend in in financial products that's

[41:17] taking off and we want to again bring

[41:19] those innovative products to Canada like

[41:21] no one else is doing it and we want to

[41:22] do it in a regular way in a safe

[41:23] conservative way

[41:24] in a regular way. So

[41:26] um yeah we believe like first to

[41:28] market's important and then being able

[41:29] to shape how it works for Canadians is

[41:31] important. I was honestly like surprised

[41:32] that it was coming in a good way and I'm

[41:34] like, yeah, things usually take longer

[41:37] for us to get in Canada and it was nice

[41:39] to see, but I know there was also like a

[41:41] lot of push back and people maybe not

[41:43] understanding the differences of how you

[41:46] guys are approaching it versus if you

[41:48] were just like directly trading on

[41:49] Kelshi. So like for the people who think

[41:51] that this is a bad idea, what would your

[41:54] explanation be?

[41:55] Or maybe not a bad idea, maybe like a

[41:57] deviation from original like ethos of

[42:00] the company. Well, yeah. I think I think

[42:01] the the ethos of the company for me has

[42:03] always been about providing access to

[42:05] financial products and and new products

[42:07] um in a way that's um you know simple,

[42:12] understandable

[42:13] um also in a way that we can kind of

[42:15] manage the responsible aspects that are

[42:17] important for Canadians.

[42:18] And so like

[42:20] choosing to be regulated is first. The

[42:21] second is is that

[42:23] um

[42:25] you know for this particular product the

[42:26] way predictions work it's a futures

[42:28] contract. So the idea is that you can um

[42:32] with another person or party on the

[42:34] platform make a decision on a contract

[42:36] with no middle person, no book, no book,

[42:39] not like sports betting where there's a

[42:41] book or a house that decides the odds

[42:43] and based on the the supply and demand

[42:45] of that contract, you can place uh your

[42:48] opinion on something. Say it's like

[42:50] what's the weather going to be in 45

[42:51] days in trial? And then um based on that

[42:55] you can take one side a yes or no and

[42:57] the outcome of that pays out whoever

[42:59] made the right decision on the contract.

[43:01] Yeah.

[43:01] And so right now uh we have predictions

[43:03] in weather um economics and financial

[43:06] not sports

[43:09] not crypto not politics

[43:10] or any of like these other just like

[43:12] random things that really get into

[43:13] gambling.

[43:14] Yeah. Yeah. We also have to Yeah.

[43:15] Yeah. And we've also made a decision to

[43:17] not do contracts even in those sectors

[43:19] that have anything that could result in

[43:20] like for example a disaster or or

[43:22] something that would be something that

[43:24] would be extremely negative event.

[43:26] So we've been really cautious about what

[43:28] contracts we put on the platform. I

[43:30] think another important call out too is

[43:32] just on like the we were talking about

[43:33] this off off the air before but the

[43:36] 30-day contract piece because a lot of

[43:39] the manipulation risk for this like in

[43:43] in the platforms in the states comes

[43:45] from these like one two three day trades

[43:49] that they can make and so I think

[43:51] there's a lot less risk for that and

[43:54] there's

[43:54] we only we only put on contracts that

[43:56] have to be settled in 30 more than 30

[43:58] days. Yeah, absolutely.

[44:00] Is the cuz obviously while Simple's now

[44:03] all consolidated in one app is

[44:05] predictions going to be its own separate

[44:06] app or within the

[44:08] Today it's own separate app. I'm not

[44:09] saying that

[44:10] is that a regulatory reason?

[44:11] No, that's our decision to do it that

[44:13] way and it doesn't mean that we'll

[44:14] always have it that way, but we thought

[44:15] it was the best to launch it separately,

[44:17] allow people to try it

[44:19] in a in a way that was really easy. At

[44:21] the same time, um we wanted to keep it

[44:23] separate from our main investing app

[44:26] today. Um, but it may change in the

[44:28] future.

[44:29] Yeah. We also have to remember like you

[44:30] guys have done so much to have human

[44:33] level design. Like I was having this

[44:35] combo with my friends like this isn't

[44:36] Robin Hood at the end of the day that

[44:38] has like gamified every element and it's

[44:41] so aggressive and it's like you get like

[44:43] confetti all over your screen. It's

[44:45] aggressive push notifications. Like you

[44:47] guys have such a human element to how

[44:48] you approach these things. So

[44:50] we try. It's a balance. It's a balance.

[44:51] We try. Sometimes

[44:52] communication is critical. Like you got

[44:54] like the we talked the wealth ranks.

[44:55] Yeah. that we kind of love. [laughter]

[44:57] I think it's a great idea. Like when

[44:59] Germana and I were talking about this, I

[45:00] was saying like we are like inherently

[45:03] competitive as people. I would much

[45:05] rather someone be getting peer pressured

[45:08] to invest so that they can show a higher

[45:10] wealth rank which helps them in the long

[45:12] run than posting a story at a restaurant

[45:14] where they spent $200 that they didn't

[45:16] have,

[45:17] right? Like one helps you, one hurts you

[45:19] and like

[45:20] I don't know. I think it's a good push.

[45:22] Wealth rank did get some dialogue and I

[45:25] think the thing that we we um debated

[45:27] and committed on is this idea that one

[45:29] of the things we want to try and do is

[45:30] normalize some of the subjects that

[45:31] Canadians don't like to talk about. Like

[45:33] if you go to the US it's much more free

[45:35] when people talk about like how much

[45:36] they make or whatever. And so it's it's

[45:39] like we should normalize some of these

[45:40] discussions so people actually will ask

[45:42] questions or like I'm curious.

[45:44] I feel like as as females even less like

[45:47] men don't talk about wealth.

[45:48] My head went

[45:49] as women it's like down here.

[45:51] Yeah. Like if people are cuz like if you

[45:53] aren't saving any money as like a

[45:55] 25-year-old and all of a sudden you're

[45:57] at dinner with your friends and they're

[45:58] talking about the fact that they're

[45:59] putting away 20% maybe they're like

[46:01] Anton and they're putting away 70% of

[46:04] their [laughter]

[46:04] or maybe they just say like hey how did

[46:05] you do that or what would I I don't I

[46:08] don't even know where to start what do

[46:09] you invest in and like just those

[46:10] conversations help and that's what we

[46:12] heard when we talked to customers that

[46:13] even people who were negative on it

[46:15] when we asked them well did you have any

[46:16] conversations around it they said oh

[46:17] actually we did it served it purpose

[46:19] yeah we actually did so did Okay. So,

[46:21] serve its purpose.

[46:22] Awesome.

[46:23] I um cuz we were talking a little bit

[46:25] about like just company building and

[46:27] team building earlier. I'm curious to

[46:30] know at this stage

[46:31] as a member of the leadership team, how

[46:33] do priorities get set at the company and

[46:35] how does accountability get maintained,

[46:37] metrics, all the things? It's it's a

[46:40] really interesting thing because I would

[46:41] to say there's like this clean fame

[46:42] framework would be kind of wrong. But I

[46:44] would say it starts with um setting uh

[46:48] understanding what's like a core thing

[46:49] we want to accomplish in the year. And

[46:51] so for example, we have this theme this

[46:53] year called win the future and like you

[46:54] know

[46:55] what does that mean

[46:57] what does that mean to the to the

[46:58] company? What are the key KPIs around

[46:59] it? And Mike Mike actually is really

[47:02] clear on like what he wants us to do. He

[47:04] thinks that so customers vote by moving

[47:06] their money to us. That's when they

[47:07] decide that we're valiant. So we call

[47:08] that flows or net deposits and he thinks

[47:11] that's the most important thing is like

[47:13] earning trust so that customers move

[47:14] their money and they keep it here and so

[47:16] this key metric then gets set for the

[47:18] company and everything flows from that

[47:20] and that metric um um has there's a mic

[47:23] version of the metric [laughter] and

[47:25] then there's a another version of the

[47:26] metric that's still aggressive but like

[47:28] we find see a path to it and

[47:30] um we then set the rest of the KPIs and

[47:33] key initiatives off that and it's true

[47:35] that's net deposit

[47:36] well net deposit starts setting under

[47:38] this idea of win the future, but win the

[47:39] future has like these other

[47:41] um initiatives under it that then line

[47:43] up to those KPIs.

[47:45] Yeah. And so we may have like seven or

[47:46] eight what I call like tier one

[47:48] initiatives that we want to or programs

[47:50] that we want to do and those get

[47:52] assigned DRIs

[47:53] and then we have a process um not always

[47:57] um structured to report on them

[47:58] throughout the year throughout the

[48:00] quarter.

[48:00] And then how is accountability

[48:02] maintained? Is it like one person per

[48:04] metric or is there like multiple owners

[48:06] to a metric?

[48:07] As much as possible, we try and have

[48:08] singlethreaded owners. That means one

[48:10] person owns not maybe per metric but one

[48:12] person owns a key initiative of which

[48:13] they're measured on something.

[48:15] Yeah.

[48:15] Um and then as much as possible, we want

[48:17] that person to be able to make decisions

[48:20] and this is probably the hardest part

[48:22] decisions and take action without a lot

[48:24] of overhead on what they want to do.

[48:26] And especially in very crossunctional

[48:27] things, it can be hard.

[48:29] So hard. Yeah.

[48:29] Yeah. And so without doing full reorgs

[48:32] every time you have a new set of

[48:33] initiatives, it's like that's probably

[48:34] something that we we need to work on.

[48:36] And you know, we used to do these things

[48:38] called growth pods where we would try

[48:40] like when we started these incentive

[48:41] programs um we created a growth pod. So

[48:43] it was this autonomous little unit with

[48:44] like some engineers, data people,

[48:47] marketers, a salesperson. I said go

[48:50] figure out how to make that thing work.

[48:52] Like a cross functional pod.

[48:53] Crossunctional pod. Yeah. and and even

[48:54] at the time I think they were meeting

[48:56] together in person all the time to do it

[48:58] and that worked out really well but you

[49:00] can't always do that

[49:01] uh in every initiative. So

[49:03] yeah.

[49:03] Yeah.

[49:04] Did you find from that that there were

[49:05] any like wins that came from just better

[49:08] integration and connection across the

[49:10] teams?

[49:11] It always is that way. I think I think

[49:13] always tighter loops um in person things

[49:16] can get solved really quickly.

[49:18] Absolutely. And we're we're big on

[49:19] principles not process at well simple.

[49:21] So like what are the principles of like

[49:23] how we want to approach something versus

[49:24] what's the process to get there.

[49:26] And so

[49:26] can you give me an example of

[49:28] principles? You said one earlier but

[49:30] yeah I mean on on the marketing side I

[49:32] think like for example we always try and

[49:35] like whatever we're trying to do with on

[49:36] the marketing side it's about like

[49:37] leading with customer value first. So

[49:39] like if we're going to do something is

[49:41] and be aggressive on it ultimately still

[49:43] is it still better for the customer or

[49:44] not that can guide our decision. And I

[49:46] know that sounds a little trit but we

[49:48] really try and do that. Um because if we

[49:50] like even when we launched this

[49:52] millionaire piece today, some people

[49:53] were like, is [clears throat] it oh is

[49:54] this going to seem like a lottery?

[49:56] Like that would be bad for us on our

[49:57] brand, right? We wouldn't want to do

[49:58] that.

[49:59] But then what we said is that but

[50:00] ultimately we want people to save like

[50:02] the way they get

[50:02] you're not spending the way you would

[50:04] for lottery tickets.

[50:05] Well, they're saving to get the entries.

[50:08] So like so that principle kind of held

[50:10] true and we carried through with that

[50:11] initiative because of it.

[50:12] Yeah.

[50:12] Yeah.

[50:13] Okay.

[50:14] What is the most unique thing about how

[50:17] you guys operate at Wells Simple?

[50:20] I'd say it's two things. It is one of

[50:22] our values is naive ambition. And um

[50:25] Mike especially is good at setting um

[50:28] goals or targets that when you hear

[50:30] them, you're like, that's just that's

[50:31] crazy. That's not going to happen. But

[50:33] he has this kind of determination and

[50:34] he's this incredible leader, humble

[50:36] leader that you're like, I'll just give

[50:38] it a shot. Like let's give it a shot.

[50:39] So that is actually probably the thing I

[50:41] would say I was the most

[50:44] surprised and learned about the most

[50:46] since my journey with well simple is

[50:47] like set crazy targets you never know

[50:49] what's going to happen makes you think

[50:51] differently and so that's been a really

[50:53] strong push for us.

[50:54] Yeah.

[50:55] Um

[50:56] it also sounds like there's also a

[50:58] culture of comfort and failing then too

[51:00] if you're going to have such ambitious

[51:02] targets.

[51:03] Yeah, I think I think there I mean

[51:05] everything every company works on trying

[51:07] to make that better. I would say like

[51:08] I'm not a big like fail person. I I

[51:11] win.

[51:12] I I'm I'm more like learn fast.

[51:14] Yeah. Evolve it until I I don't I don't

[51:17] You don't want people to be scared of

[51:19] taking, you know,

[51:20] like it's okay to fail and take a swing

[51:22] and miss it as long as you're learning

[51:24] something. If you take like three big

[51:25] swings and don't learn anything, then

[51:26] that's a problem.

[51:27] Yeah. A pattern.

[51:28] Yeah. You need to kind of like figure

[51:31] out where you're trying to take those

[51:32] those swings and then like what do you

[51:34] want to learn out of it.

[51:35] Steve also said that you are exceptional

[51:37] at building teams. if you agree with

[51:39] that sentiment. He mentioned that a lot

[51:42] of people that worked for you or

[51:44] reported into you at other organizations

[51:45] have gone on to have incredible careers,

[51:48] CMO, C, I don't know, CCO.

[51:50] I'm curious to know just what your

[51:52] approach is to like maintaining this

[51:54] high performance and also just building

[51:57] building people, building teams.

[51:59] I think that um some of the things are

[52:00] going to be things you've heard before

[52:01] like servant leadership like you're

[52:03] there to really serve your

[52:04] Okay. No, I actually don't know what the

[52:05] word servant leadership.

[52:06] Okay. Servant leadership is this idea

[52:07] well I think I've heard of it but I'm

[52:08] like

[52:09] servant leadership is this idea that

[52:10] like my job as a leader is to make you

[52:12] successful

[52:13] and so like whatever you're working on

[52:15] is the most important thing whatever

[52:16] problems you have is the most important

[52:18] thing and so

[52:19] I've often said to like younger leaders

[52:20] like who are complaining about things

[52:23] that happen at work and I was like you

[52:25] know 40% of your job leader is kind of

[52:27] whatever is happening that you just got

[52:29] to deal with and so just make the time

[52:30] for it

[52:31] I think so there's a bit of just put in

[52:33] the work and it actually helps I I think

[52:37] the second is is that um I've you know

[52:39] one thing I've I've liked to do is

[52:42] provide more real actionable feedback to

[52:44] to my team.

[52:46] I'll give you an example. Someone will

[52:47] say uh there's a phrase often like you

[52:48] got to level up the team. You've

[52:50] probably heard that before in startup

[52:51] world like everyone's got to level up or

[52:53] level up but like what does it actually

[52:54] mean? Like no one knows what that means.

[52:57] And so I would say to a team, you know,

[53:00] the questions that you come and ask me

[53:02] in our 101 at our level,

[53:04] I need you to figure out how to get your

[53:05] team to ask you those questions.

[53:07] And they'll say, but if they're going to

[53:09] ask me those questions, they would have

[53:10] to know this. They'd have to have this

[53:12] understanding

[53:14] that I have. Like, yeah, that's right.

[53:15] That's you'd have to transfer

[53:17] everything you know to them. So then

[53:19] they would be worrying about things that

[53:21] you're worrying about with me,

[53:22] right?

[53:23] And that's like an example of like where

[53:24] I try and take something that's

[53:27] you know, I guess something that's like

[53:28] kind of told often like it's level up

[53:30] idea and make it so someone can actually

[53:31] do something with it. [clears throat]

[53:33] Yeah, it's good advice. It's hard.

[53:36] One of the hardest parts I find is just

[53:38] like leading creating high performing

[53:39] teams and maintaining it.

[53:41] I Yeah, I think it's just a lot of work.

[53:42] I think it's you have to put in the time

[53:44] and then you have to make them your

[53:45] priority when they have challenges.

[53:47] Yeah. And then the other thing I just

[53:48] say is like I'm a and I've loved this at

[53:50] well simple and one reason I joined was

[53:52] because of this philosophy is like I was

[53:53] I'm not a big delegate or like don't pay

[53:57] attention like stay at your level of the

[53:59] business. Don't go too deep.

[54:00] I'm a big if you want my help I'm going

[54:02] to go deep with you into your part of

[54:04] the business and I will

[54:05] I want to learn everything. I don't want

[54:06] you to have to write a giant dock for

[54:08] me. Like I'll figure it out.

[54:09] But if I'm going to help you really I

[54:11] have to be really

[54:12] you have to understand

[54:13] understand what's going on. Yeah.

[54:14] Yeah. Yeah, we had some

[54:15] and that's where AI actually helps a lot

[54:16] right now. It's like you don't have to

[54:18] host 50 meetings to get caught up on

[54:20] something.

[54:20] Yeah. Yeah. How do you guys use it in

[54:22] the organization? Is it like every

[54:23] function, every level

[54:25] I assume you have clawed on every

[54:26] you know we we went out to um meet with

[54:29] a bunch of companies in the valley as an

[54:30] executive team to see like what's the

[54:31] actual state of going on and we were

[54:33] pretty impressed that we're pretty

[54:34] advanced compared to what we thought we

[54:36] were

[54:38] pretty advanced look like?

[54:38] Well, I mean we use AI for a lot of our

[54:41] coding a lot. A lot. Um today I'd say we

[54:46] in our marketing commercial almost every

[54:48] function use it to some level for

[54:50] improvement of productivity.

[54:52] Even [clears throat] my chief creative

[54:53] director will do prototypes with

[54:55] uh like runway or AI to before very

[54:58] quickly get it into the hands of like

[55:00] the rest of the team so they can

[55:01] understand what he's thinking about. Um,

[55:03] I use it for a lot of information flow

[55:04] in Slack. Like we build this I have this

[55:07] process where I can understand like what

[55:08] people are working on without having to

[55:09] bother everybody and then I can ask a

[55:11] questions. Like I can say how far down

[55:14] the org has this idea gotten.

[55:15] Yeah.

[55:16] Today.

[55:16] Oh, that's really cool. I've seen that

[55:18] use case

[55:18] because like often in large orgs, one of

[55:20] the problems is that people start

[55:21] working on things that aren't the top

[55:23] priority and you're not and you're not

[55:24] clear.

[55:25] Yeah.

[55:25] And it's not cuz they're doing the wrong

[55:27] thing. It's just this is what they

[55:28] thought this was or that was. And so

[55:30] just finding a way to know where I

[55:32] should support or what blockers are in

[55:34] is really helpful.

[55:35] Yeah, I'm loving it for just uh deep

[55:38] data analysis like we have, it's

[55:41] probably the same with you guys, but we

[55:42] have all of our data on Snowflake.

[55:44] That's our system or our data lake and

[55:46] now the AI connects directly into that

[55:48] and every question that you could have

[55:50] it run so much analysis for you. Gives

[55:53] you such clearer recommendations. Not

[55:54] that it all makes sense, but it's like

[55:57] the speed at which I can get like an

[56:00] idea or hypothesis through to numbers

[56:02] through to I have a point of view is

[56:04] faster than it's ever been.

[56:05] I think that's one of the big things you

[56:06] every or has to figure out is like how

[56:08] do you get that information layer

[56:09] consistent across all the things you

[56:10] need like from meeting recordings to

[56:12] data

[56:13] to understanding goals and key KPIs

[56:16] you're measuring. Yeah.

[56:17] I think the problem is is that

[56:19] especially in our world as as a

[56:20] financial service organization is that

[56:22] we still are want to be very careful

[56:23] about PII and information about our

[56:25] customers.

[56:25] Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Yeah.

[56:27] But definitely.

[56:28] Yeah. I think a lot of companies are

[56:29] investing in AI but they're not

[56:31] investing in like what's needed

[56:33] underneath as much which is like do you

[56:35] have quality data? Do you have the SOPs?

[56:38] Like because like that like the quality

[56:40] of what's coming out of any AI that

[56:42] you're adopting is based on that, right?

[56:44] So yeah,

[56:45] I agree. I'm just curious to know at

[56:47] this stage of the business, is there

[56:50] anything that keeps you up still?

[56:52] Well, I'm sure the answer is yes. What

[56:54] keeps you up?

[56:55] I mean, I think the I think the main

[56:56] thing that keeps me up, and this is

[56:58] definitely the startup person, me, is

[57:00] just that like, you know, we need to

[57:01] continue to um serve more customers and

[57:05] grow.

[57:06] Uh we have a long way to go. I know you

[57:07] said we're 125 billion in assets. I

[57:09] mean, I think the the the smallest bank

[57:12] is 900 billion. So smallest Canadian,

[57:15] smallest Canadian bank is like 900

[57:17] billion. So we would have to grow six or

[57:19] seven times just to catch them.

[57:21] And so I think that's the thing that

[57:22] keeps me up at night. And yeah,

[57:24] you know, it's always harder to grow

[57:26] faster than you just grew. You know, the

[57:28] the last record you just quarter you

[57:29] just had, it's always harder to find the

[57:30] next record. And so I think that's hard.

[57:32] Um and then a second is that, you know,

[57:35] as you get bigger, um it all comes about

[57:38] like getting the right talent and

[57:39] keeping them. And I think that's harder

[57:41] and harder as you get bigger. uh

[57:42] especially now that like I find we find

[57:45] especially that with the advent of all

[57:47] these AI companies and the hyperrowth

[57:49] they're going through there's a lot of

[57:50] attractive opportunities out there for

[57:52] some of the really really strong talent

[57:54] and it's kind of borderless so um I

[57:57] think that's really hard for us

[57:58] so what have been some of your

[57:59] strategies to retain

[58:01] yeah yeah retain and also compete like

[58:03] in the attraction game

[58:04] well um so we spend a lot of time as an

[58:08] executive team also on just our talent

[58:09] strategy for example we run these events

[58:12] um called Northstar.

[58:14] So we kind of like borrow on like the

[58:16] Canadana DNA and we go down to like San

[58:18] Francisco and say if you're an expat

[58:19] we're having a happy hour for all expat

[58:21] Canadians and literally within 24 hours

[58:24] they everyone who's Canadian wants to

[58:25] show up and we have like ketchup chips

[58:26] and stuff and like all stuff and then we

[58:29] talk to them and we say you know we we

[58:30] say hey you know if you ever want to

[58:31] work for well simple and stay in San

[58:33] Francisco or come back we would support

[58:34] you and so we'll do things like that.

[58:36] Um, and I've been to like three of these

[58:38] events and they're amazing. And the

[58:40] what's more amazing to me is like how

[58:42] many Canadians are working in senior

[58:43] levels and incredible companies

[58:45] and just, you know, but maybe want to

[58:47] stay and work remotely or maybe they

[58:49] want to come back based on decision

[58:51] climates and so just

[58:53] doing things like that.

[58:54] Those are good strategies.

[58:54] I like you're bringing the Canadians

[58:56] back.

[58:56] Yeah.

[58:56] Yeah, we need to we need to Yeah.

[59:00] Um, I'm curious to learn a little bit

[59:02] more about you. Where did the

[59:03] entrepreneurial bug come from? So my dad

[59:07] as a partner is his own architecture

[59:08] firm. So I think he always had a

[59:10] business and I always we used to go play

[59:11] in his place, his office. I remember

[59:14] in Toronto.

[59:14] In Toronto. Yeah. It was called Moriam

[59:15] and Tashima. They they did like the

[59:18] reference library. They did the science

[59:20] center.

[59:20] Oh, that's so cool.

[59:21] Yeah. They did a bunch of places and

[59:23] internationally they did a bunch of

[59:24] places as well. So they're one of the

[59:25] more successful firms. And so I think I

[59:27] always had this feeling of like owning

[59:28] and running your business piece. Um

[59:32] but for me it was really just an

[59:33] opportunistic thing where I was uh doing

[59:36] my masters at uh UBC

[59:39] and I was an engineer and I was about to

[59:41] take a job with the engineering firm

[59:43] that sponsored my thesis and my mom just

[59:45] told me to come home and she's never

[59:46] told me she would never if you met my

[59:48] mom she would never say come home Paul

[59:51] just never would express that type of

[59:52] emotion. And I was like, that's very

[59:53] strange.

[59:54] And so I came home and I just happened

[59:56] to fall into this opportunity to build a

[59:58] business.

[59:58] And so it was a little bit fortuitous.

[01:00:00] And then a bit of my dad.

[01:00:02] What business was that?

[01:00:04] The first one. Okay.

[01:00:06] And coming from an engineering

[01:00:07] background, you were a mechanical

[01:00:08] engineer, right? But

[01:00:10] I was in engineering physics in my

[01:00:11] undergrad, which was the hardest thing

[01:00:14] I've ever had to do and not be good at.

[01:00:17] And it's not like it's not a typical

[01:00:19] training of someone who ends up being in

[01:00:21] a marketing commercial role. Would you

[01:00:24] say that you do take more of that like

[01:00:26] systems approach to how you approach

[01:00:28] growth and how you approach brand and

[01:00:30] creative?

[01:00:31] I do I do take more of a I think the

[01:00:34] engineering trait that helps me the most

[01:00:35] is probably just this idea like

[01:00:37] everything can be solvable eventually

[01:00:38] like you can figure it out.

[01:00:40] Um my dad though was very creative and I

[01:00:42] was going to be an ar like I wanted to

[01:00:44] be an architect.

[01:00:45] Okay. M

[01:00:46] um

[01:00:47] do you have the design capabilities?

[01:00:48] Yeah, like I like design and I and I

[01:00:50] really loved it and I loved art and um I

[01:00:53] think he kind of made it sound like it

[01:00:54] was very hard to be an architect and so

[01:00:56] I ended up not choosing that direction

[01:00:58] but I think that creativity was there

[01:00:59] and then in my first role at Eloqua we

[01:01:01] work with marketer global marketing

[01:01:02] leaders like that's that was the

[01:01:04] software was basically marketing

[01:01:05] automation so we work with like leaders

[01:01:07] at like sure B2B companies but also BDC

[01:01:09] companies like Activision or like Wells

[01:01:11] Fargo or Morgan Stanley and like so we

[01:01:14] spent a lot of time working with global

[01:01:15] marketers both on the on um uh the

[01:01:19] revenue sort of growth side but also on

[01:01:21] the creative side.

[01:01:22] Okay. At both um Eloqua, is that how you

[01:01:24] pronounce it and Nudge, what would you

[01:01:27] say, what do you remember about those

[01:01:28] experiences that like shaped who you are

[01:01:30] as a leader the most?

[01:01:32] I think the first thing is is that um

[01:01:34] the best part about any of those

[01:01:36] journeys are the people you get to work

[01:01:37] with and the customers you get to meet.

[01:01:39] So that's so even by even though Nudge

[01:01:41] was like a in my books a failure, it was

[01:01:43] still a great experience ultimately. Um

[01:01:46] I think the second is is that uh there's

[01:01:49] a lot lot of luck involved like even

[01:01:51] even if you work really hard there's

[01:01:53] always a bit of luck

[01:01:55] and so you can never take things for

[01:01:56] granted and

[01:01:57] um

[01:01:58] just like making sure you stick around

[01:02:00] long enough for that luck to happen is

[01:02:01] important.

[01:02:02] So just keep going.

[01:02:04] Yeah. Giving yourself opportunities to

[01:02:06] find the luck.

[01:02:07] That's right. That's right. And then

[01:02:08] keep doing things like keep

[01:02:09] shots on goal.

[01:02:10] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously,

[01:02:12] I know your heart is well sinful right

[01:02:14] now, but like way down the line, would

[01:02:16] you ever see yourself going back into

[01:02:18] entrepreneurship?

[01:02:19] No. No.

[01:02:20] This is it. This is the last one for me.

[01:02:22] This is the last one. I'll take as long

[01:02:24] as I can go, but uh this is the last

[01:02:25] one. Yeah. I'd love to like maybe at

[01:02:26] some point help other

[01:02:28] Yeah,

[01:02:28] I've done some advising. I've been on

[01:02:29] some boards before, but like yeah,

[01:02:31] mentorship, but

[01:02:32] yeah, I'm in this. I

[01:02:33] think it's the moon.

[01:02:34] Yeah. As far as we can go.

[01:02:35] What does Wealth Simple look like in

[01:02:38] like 10 or 20 years? I think ultimately

[01:02:40] if you think about where things are

[01:02:42] going is that we have to be get much

[01:02:44] better at human behavior to make a real

[01:02:46] change because

[01:02:47] like psychology. Yeah.

[01:02:48] Well, just like how people like think

[01:02:50] about money, react, do things because

[01:02:52] saving for your retirement is a vitamin

[01:02:56] for sure. [clears throat] It's not a

[01:02:57] painkiller. It's not Advil.

[01:02:59] People don't want to do it and they

[01:03:01] don't want to change their lifestyle.

[01:03:03] Yeah.

[01:03:03] And so when you have a vitamin, you have

[01:03:05] to get really good at understanding like

[01:03:07] what turns the vitamin into a fake pain

[01:03:08] or what turns a vitamin into something

[01:03:10] that people want to take.

[01:03:11] Um, you know, wealth ranks a good

[01:03:12] example where it's more FOMO that's

[01:03:14] driving that interest versus actually I

[01:03:16] want to be better with my money.

[01:03:18] It's like no, I want to know how much

[01:03:20] you're worth compared to me and so

[01:03:21] that's going to drive my behavior. And

[01:03:23] so I think there's an element of us

[01:03:24] becoming much better at the human

[01:03:25] behavior element of money. And so

[01:03:28] that'll allow us to do things that let

[01:03:30] people actually save more, get wealthy

[01:03:32] faster, and like you know, achieve their

[01:03:34] goals.

[01:03:34] And then I think the other part which is

[01:03:36] a little more obvious is just that

[01:03:37] there's going to be way more engagement

[01:03:38] of of intelligence within the entire

[01:03:40] experience. Like just

[01:03:42] we we talk about like the CFO in your

[01:03:44] pocket for your for your personal life.

[01:03:46] Like why can't we

[01:03:48] identify things that you don't know

[01:03:50] where you could save more, spend less,

[01:03:51] make more money,

[01:03:52] and make it just like strategies?

[01:03:54] Yeah. Everything agent. Do you guys

[01:03:56] equally prioritize um approaches to

[01:03:59] going deeper with your existing clients

[01:04:00] as much as you do acquire like finding

[01:04:03] ways to acquire new and ste obviously

[01:04:05] steal from other?

[01:04:06] I think historically we we focus much

[01:04:08] more on like people who are already on

[01:04:09] our platform. How do we get you to

[01:04:11] consolidate more and do more with us?

[01:04:13] I think we're now at the point where to

[01:04:14] continue to to grow at the pace we want

[01:04:16] to. We need to get new customers. And so

[01:04:19] um

[01:04:20] that's why you're seeing things like

[01:04:21] more commercials, more things that are

[01:04:23] brand oriented starting to come out. And

[01:04:25] I think we'll continue to do that.

[01:04:26] Is there an IPO in the future?

[01:04:29] I mean, at some point in time, I'm sure

[01:04:30] we'll IPO. Uh,

[01:04:32] right now I my only investment in Well

[01:04:34] Simple is through Power Corp.

[01:04:36] Well, there you go. There you go.

[01:04:37] That's like the way to do it. I'm like,

[01:04:38] they're invested. So, I'm as an

[01:04:40] extension invested.

[01:04:42] It's really clear to us that um

[01:04:44] Canadians, you know, the bulk of

[01:04:46] Canadians, it would really increase the

[01:04:48] trust level if we were a public company.

[01:04:50] So, at some point, I think it's

[01:04:51] important. What do you think has to

[01:04:53] happen in Canada for us to see more

[01:04:55] builders, more innovators, more

[01:04:56] entrepreneurs?

[01:04:57] Yeah, so I think there's a couple

[01:04:59] things. So when I started the first

[01:05:00] company, it and this is a perspect

[01:05:02] perspective I have is like there was no

[01:05:04] one venture firm in Canada called

[01:05:06] Jefferson Partners. There was like one

[01:05:07] or two angels.

[01:05:08] Wow.

[01:05:09] And um SAS meant you had servers in your

[01:05:12] office

[01:05:13] and you literally running just a rack in

[01:05:16] your office.

[01:05:16] And so it's very very different. And I

[01:05:19] would say that when I think about it, I

[01:05:21] think we have capital here. I think we

[01:05:23] have lots of talent and sure there are

[01:05:24] things that could be better about all

[01:05:26] those things and people will talk about

[01:05:27] it.

[01:05:28] Um

[01:05:29] I think you want more founders,

[01:05:31] successful founders to stay and build

[01:05:33] their second or third company.

[01:05:34] Yeah.

[01:05:34] And I think the reason is that when

[01:05:36] you're on your second company, you've

[01:05:38] gone through some hard challenges and

[01:05:40] you know how to kind of keep going. The

[01:05:41] second is that financially you're way

[01:05:43] more able to go the distance. Yeah.

[01:05:47] Right. and you know how to attract other

[01:05:49] talent, other capital, it's much easier.

[01:05:51] And so that second and third time, you

[01:05:52] can go even bigger.

[01:05:54] And the other thing is like something I

[01:05:55] would call like tech density, like

[01:05:58] you know, when you're in the valley, and

[01:05:59] I used to go to the valley every other

[01:06:00] week for almost like 10 years,

[01:06:03] things happen just by bumping into

[01:06:04] someone on the street or at Starbucks or

[01:06:06] whatever. And until you get that tech

[01:06:08] density, it's hard to have those happen

[01:06:10] stance things occur.

[01:06:12] Mhm. Um like I went down to New York for

[01:06:14] an event with First Mark and uh just to

[01:06:16] actually get back into the ecosystem a

[01:06:18] little even though it's the US and we

[01:06:19] sell we were only in Canada

[01:06:20] just because like I kind of feel I'm

[01:06:22] missing doing that. I'm not part of this

[01:06:24] the ecosystem as much and having those

[01:06:26] conversations that

[01:06:28] you know where things can happen that

[01:06:30] was like well that was really fortuitous

[01:06:31] that I met that person.

[01:06:32] So I think that tech density piece of

[01:06:34] like keeping really strong focuses in

[01:06:36] different areas of the country I think

[01:06:38] would be important.

[01:06:39] I think that's such good advice. Do you

[01:06:40] think that cuz obviously there are some

[01:06:43] like the exhify employees and there's

[01:06:45] probably some others like

[01:06:47] I'm like have they started their

[01:06:48] companies yet? Cuz you always wait for

[01:06:50] people that are like exiting

[01:06:52] a company to then like pick up and

[01:06:54] start. I'm like have they

[01:06:56] or like the ex I don't know maybe I just

[01:06:58] don't see the density yet but it doesn't

[01:07:00] feel like that has like happened or

[01:07:02] materialized.

[01:07:03] I think I I you know I definitely see

[01:07:05] some people who've done multiple

[01:07:06] startups. I think you're right. It's not

[01:07:07] the same. Well, I worked for like my two

[01:07:09] founders are exceptional. They sold

[01:07:10] chef's plate and now they started this.

[01:07:12] They breed other entrepreneurs, right?

[01:07:15] We learn so much more from a tenure

[01:07:17] founder than you do like a first time a

[01:07:19] first we we notice differences like we

[01:07:22] can spot a difference between a first-

[01:07:23] time founder and a second and third, you

[01:07:25] know.

[01:07:25] 100%. Yeah. And I think you're right on

[01:07:27] that. And I think that um maybe part of

[01:07:29] what this platform can do is expose more

[01:07:32] scenarios where that's happening and

[01:07:33] like bring more um awareness to it.

[01:07:36] Okay. Awesome. Rapid fire. Let's do it.

[01:07:39] What is your biggest productivity hack?

[01:07:42] I think it's it's two things. It's it's

[01:07:44] running.

[01:07:45] Okay. Like marathon, long distance?

[01:07:47] No. No. Just half an hour to 40 minutes.

[01:07:50] Just to clear your head.

[01:07:51] Yeah. For mental, not mainly mental,

[01:07:53] less physical.

[01:07:53] Outdoors?

[01:07:55] Or indoor? Okay.

[01:07:56] I'm actually probably more indoors than

[01:07:57] outdoors. I used to run indoors.

[01:07:59] The ankles. It's hard.

[01:08:00] Well, it's hard in the winter here in

[01:08:01] Canada.

[01:08:02] I don't understand why people run, but

[01:08:04] it's a mental for sure. It's mental. So

[01:08:06] that would be one. And the second is I

[01:08:08] do this thing um at the beginning of the

[01:08:11] week and the night before they it's like

[01:08:12] it's like a version of golf swing

[01:08:14] thoughts. It's like

[01:08:15] envision your week like what's hard,

[01:08:18] what's going to be easy, what's going to

[01:08:19] be fun. And then make sure for the hard

[01:08:21] parts you're ready mentally for when

[01:08:23] they're going to happen or like what you

[01:08:24] need to prepare for. And then I do it

[01:08:25] for the next day. And that actually

[01:08:27] helps me also for the leadership piece.

[01:08:28] Like if I have a one-on-one, I don't

[01:08:30] show up with like nothing to talk about.

[01:08:31] Like I don't show up like almost like

[01:08:33] pretending like I didn't even know that

[01:08:34] oneonone was happening. At least I try

[01:08:35] to do that. Maybe my team would call me

[01:08:37] out on that a little bit. Like

[01:08:38] no, fired. [laughter]

[01:08:39] But like it's like I know I've been

[01:08:40] thinking about your business or there's

[01:08:41] some things I want to talk about and so

[01:08:43] this idea of like being prepared.

[01:08:45] So that swing thoughts for your week.

[01:08:47] Yeah, I like that. I haven't heard that

[01:08:48] before.

[01:08:49] Uh okay. What's the best piece of advice

[01:08:52] you've ever gotten? I think the best

[01:08:54] piece of advice uh that I've ever gotten

[01:08:56] is um from a gentleman by the name of

[01:08:58] Alec Christristitch who used to be the

[01:09:00] head of Rogers at home before this is

[01:09:03] again before most people's time would

[01:09:04] know this is the internet division at

[01:09:05] Rogers before it became Rogers and he

[01:09:08] told me a lot of people say put your

[01:09:10] customer first you should put your

[01:09:11] people first because if you put your

[01:09:13] people first they take care of your

[01:09:14] customers and I think that's well known

[01:09:16] now but I think at the time

[01:09:18] it was really stuck with me

[01:09:20] especially in a

[01:09:23] like a people business like we're in I'm

[01:09:26] in veterinary care so it's like your

[01:09:27] veterinarians and your nurses are the

[01:09:29] front line I feel like probably in a

[01:09:31] product role organization too but

[01:09:33] especially yeah that's the number one

[01:09:34] thing that we actually it's the number

[01:09:36] one metric is employee

[01:09:37] job see too right like I think that

[01:09:39] matters more in a like than if you're

[01:09:41] just like exclusively

[01:09:43] we we actually track employee job love

[01:09:44] as like a quarterly metric

[01:09:46] yeah no that's great and and I'll give

[01:09:48] you one more which um is probably Um, I

[01:09:52] won't say it's controversial, but maybe

[01:09:53] it's like less romanticized. Um, is that

[01:09:56] I think Drew Hston, who is the CEO and

[01:09:58] founder of Dropbox, said um, a lot of

[01:10:00] people don't realize, but like building

[01:10:03] a startup is, um, not these like magic

[01:10:06] moments that happen that like everyone

[01:10:07] romanticizes. It's actually like have

[01:10:08] you ever had a dog and you take them to

[01:10:10] a park and you throw a ball?

[01:10:12] I have a dog.

[01:10:12] Yeah. So,

[01:10:13] and you throw a ball at the park and

[01:10:14] they'll go and get that ball and they'll

[01:10:16] just do it forever. Like they'll never

[01:10:18] stop.

[01:10:19] That's what it's like to build a

[01:10:20] startup. just keep going and getting the

[01:10:22] ball

[01:10:22] every day.

[01:10:24] The same thing and then one day

[01:10:25] something different happens but like you

[01:10:26] just keep going and getting it.

[01:10:28] Yeah,

[01:10:28] I like that.

[01:10:30] If you had to choose between optimize

[01:10:34] for customer acquisition or unit

[01:10:35] economics, which would it be?

[01:10:37] We we kind of think about those as like

[01:10:39] we always want to optimize for

[01:10:40] customers, but like we care about the

[01:10:42] unit economics of how we do it so that

[01:10:44] we don't spend our money foolishly. M

[01:10:46] um but we would tend to be more on like

[01:10:50] let's try something that's going to

[01:10:51] really attract attention.

[01:10:53] Yeah.

[01:10:53] Than get the perfect economics.

[01:10:56] What is the product you're most proud of

[01:10:58] shipping?

[01:10:59] The most recent product is is not going

[01:11:01] to be a sexy product. It's something

[01:11:02] called portfolio line of credit.

[01:11:04] I love this though.

[01:11:05] The reason is that most so most people

[01:11:07] don't take any leverage. They don't like

[01:11:09] taking leverage.

[01:11:10] And it's fair. Some people shouldn't

[01:11:11] take leverage just so we're clear. But

[01:11:13] leverage is a huge wealth building tool

[01:11:15] for the wealthy.

[01:11:16] It is and the wealthy know it. It's the

[01:11:18] people that aren't wealthy that don't.

[01:11:20] Yeah. And so this idea that you could

[01:11:21] take a credit card debt or you could

[01:11:23] take your your line of credit at a bank

[01:11:25] and instead of paying whatever seven or

[01:11:27] eight% pay 4%

[01:11:30] is like just automatic extra money for

[01:11:32] you.

[01:11:33] I don't want to sound like a commercial,

[01:11:34] but like I love the idea of making it

[01:11:36] more

[01:11:38] it's going very well and just making it

[01:11:39] easy and transparent and like people can

[01:11:41] do it and it's not something scary.

[01:11:43] I was shocked like when I was on the app

[01:11:45] when I saw that it was just automatic

[01:11:46] approvals for I think it's a third of

[01:11:48] your Yeah. portfolio. So

[01:11:50] Mhm.

[01:11:50] Yeah.

[01:11:51] Okay. Um what would you tell your

[01:11:54] younger self to stop doing? I think I

[01:11:57] would tell my younger self to stop being

[01:12:01] I it's not like workaholic is the wrong

[01:12:03] word. I think like I through my first

[01:12:06] two startups I didn't learn how to be

[01:12:08] present.

[01:12:09] I think I've learned how to be present.

[01:12:11] So whatever the opposite of that is

[01:12:13] so learning how to be present was what

[01:12:15] I've only learned to do here.

[01:12:16] Mhm. like in in life in the in the

[01:12:19] corporate environment environment

[01:12:22] but

[01:12:24] in my first two startups I didn't learn

[01:12:26] how to do that and you know there's an

[01:12:27] interesting um so I was part of this

[01:12:30] founders group which actually Mike was

[01:12:31] part of and one of the exercises you do

[01:12:32] is um you rank like your personal life

[01:12:35] your family life and your work life and

[01:12:37] then you describe like so you give it a

[01:12:38] number and then you

[01:12:39] describe things that are happening that

[01:12:41] are positive and negative and the first

[01:12:42] thing it tells you if you're a founder

[01:12:44] or executive is that your in your

[01:12:47] personal life you talk about family in

[01:12:49] your family life you talk about family

[01:12:50] and work and then in your work so

[01:12:51] there's no personal

[01:12:53] and so this so like after that I

[01:12:55] actually decided I was going to do

[01:12:56] something for myself personally and I

[01:12:58] start I used to play tennis

[01:12:59] competitively so I actually started to

[01:13:00] get back into tennis and I play start

[01:13:02] play tennis and it's crazy that if you

[01:13:05] think of you can go like so many years

[01:13:06] in your adult life without actually

[01:13:07] having anything that's just for you

[01:13:09] especially adult life you can just like

[01:13:12] be consumed with so many other things

[01:13:14] so Yeah, that would be it.

[01:13:16] Okay. And then final question. What is

[01:13:18] put my Q cards down, but what is one

[01:13:20] thing you would tell your your future

[01:13:22] self would tell you to do more of today

[01:13:24] beyond being present?

[01:13:26] I would say two things on the work side.

[01:13:29] I would say I I appreciate what's going

[01:13:31] on right now in technology. It's insane.

[01:13:33] And like I think there's both this like

[01:13:36] disbelief it's happening, but also like

[01:13:39] concern, but also maybe it's overhyped.

[01:13:42] But like there's very few times you have

[01:13:43] these kind of shifts. And so just like

[01:13:45] really appreciate it. And I as an

[01:13:46] engineer like I should spend more time

[01:13:48] like really understanding it and getting

[01:13:49] excited by it. And I tend to be

[01:13:51] I'm always a bit of a cynicist on

[01:13:52] anything. Um the second would be like um

[01:13:56] and I know this is going to sound

[01:13:57] cliche, but like I have two kids. So I

[01:13:58] have an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old.

[01:14:00] And like it is the biggest cliche that

[01:14:01] time goes by so fast. So I would just

[01:14:04] tell

[01:14:06] uh me to be more forceful with them to

[01:14:08] spend time with me.

[01:14:10] A that's really cute

[01:14:11] cuz I I let them off the hook all the

[01:14:13] time.

[01:14:13] Yeah. My wife doesn't, but I do.

[01:14:15] A well,

[01:14:16] thank you so much for your time today.

[01:14:17] We really appreciate it.

[01:14:18] Thank you. It was great.

[01:14:20] Thanks for listening to this week's

[01:14:21] [music] episode of Between Two Bernetts.

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