Raw unedited with Ben Rodier, CEO of FrontlineIQ - Failure- AI - Hero - Strange business learning

Speaker A: Computer. Hello, everyone. Welcome to, uh, the podcast. This morning I'm starting a new series, um, interviewing entrepreneurs, uh, who've done exciting, different things. And I want to introduce you to Ben Rodier, uh, an old friend, but also an entrepreneur who's had quite an exciting business life in the last, what, 20 years? Ben?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you, Paul?

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. Um, the first question I want to ask you. Well, not first question. The first thing I'd like to talk about, Ben, is maybe tell us a little bit about. Um. Well, first of all, we met when we were a very corporate enterprise, and then Ben did two sort of startups after that. Maybe tell us a little bit about that and then I can get in, drill down on my questions.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm ready for your tough questions.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, Paul, you and I met, I think it was more like 25 years ago. And I'm not going to say how old you were, because then the audience will figure out the math of how old you are today. But, uh, we. We met. We met at a time in our careers where I think we were realizing that, you know, corporate maybe wasn't for me and for you either. And then, you know, the journey kind of took took place after that. We were. We were at Cannes, which is now, like Shaw and Rogers communication. We worked in television. And that was really the beginning of my career, uh, after university. So, you know, my background is born and raised Montreal. Uh, super proud to be building here, to be working here, um, uh, you know, as an English and a bilingual Quebecer. Um, you know, it's not always easy to build businesses and to be successful, uh, in this part of the world. But, you know, you've been and I've been, and, um, I'm happy to talk about it, but if we go back to, I think it was about 2003, maybe 2005, we were selling ads on Global Television.

Speaker A: You were 10. I was 20.

Speaker B: Yeah, you were a lot more experienced than I was because you're way older than me here.

Speaker A: It's already starting. It's already. Ben's been ripping me about this for 20 years. 25 years. Okay, keep going, buddy.

Speaker B: And you, I mean, I think you eventually, you left the business probably a year or two, uh, before I did.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I think back then I was in my mid-20s, and I was, you know, I was getting married or maybe engaged at the time. And I think that was the beginning of me realizing that working in corporate, um, was not going to, you know, fill my cup. It wasn't going to give me everything I wanted, whether it was the stage of my career and the amount of money that I could make or just, you know, the thing that motivated me, uh, as an individual. So I met what would later become my co founder, uh, in, uh, in future businesses. And he and I, uh, built a company that was selling advertising so very adjacent to my TV experience. Uh, but this company, AdSplash, was effectively figuring out how to sell advertising on e commerce sites and no one had done that before. Uh, fast forward to today. Retail media networks are a huge industry. And I, I even say sometimes, you know, timing is, is half of it. Luck is almost the other half. But when you think about the timing of it, nobody was doing it and the market was all ours.

Speaker A: And I'll never remember you explaining it to me. And me going, oh, wow. And part of me was like, this is really exciting. It's fun. And the other part of me is like, is this really going to work? Is someone going to look at, uh, advertising on someone else's website? You know, so it was very.

Speaker B: So I think, I think that's what motivated me and that's what kind of lit. The spark as a, um, you know, a for real entrepreneur is when, like when you see something that is so obvious as a great idea, why didn't I think of that? Or how come no one else has thought of that, but you're able to counterbalance it with. I can see how this will work, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Advertising on retail websites was something that had never been done before. But Oscar, uh, who is the founder of that company, AdSplash, and had figured out ultimately the vision of how to make it happen.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And he brought me in as, you know, number two to operationalize it and figure out based on the realities of like, the ad business and trafficking and stuff like that.

Speaker A: And I got to stop you there. Honestly. Did you have what you needed to know back then or you had to learn a lot on the job? Like, why did Oscar come to you? Is it because you're friends? Or he felt that you really did have the.

Speaker B: Uh, we were, we had common contacts. Like we didn't know each other before we met each other. And um, I think there was enough of a baseline coming from Ken west and Global Television that on paper I should know what I'm doing. And the truth is, even you coming out of Global, you knew how the ad business worked. Maybe you knew more about TV than you did about digital, but during my time at Cannes, uh, online video was huge. And I was the Young gun who was trying to really.

Speaker A: You really had the knowledge and you really did understand what's going on. Okay, I've got to ask you before we, before you move on. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you apologize. Wasn't it scary to think I'm going from corporate where I've got a, you know, solid income to this thing could fail and dive down and I could be looking for a job in like three months?

Speaker B: 100%. And. And again, that is where the entrepreneurial spark got lit in me because, you know, you swallow when you make the decision. You know, it was actually one of our executives at canwest who told me back then when I was in my 20s, that life is filled with, uh, OSMs. Oh, shit. Moments where you make the decision and you step through the doorway, but then, you know, shit gets very real, very quick and you swallow, you have butterflies in your stomach. And I actually remember where I was and, and when, when it kind of hit me. Where normally at canwest, when we needed to do xyz, you would have to go up the chain of command, right? Yes. Uh, and, and you know, ask Toronto or New York, whatever for, for approval. And then here we were, like, we were selling ads on Walmart and Best Buy at the time, and there was like a really important decision, whatever it was, and someone had to make the call. And I remember, like, oh, shit, I'm the person that needs to make. There's no approval. Yeah, there's no approval to make. Like, it's my ass. And so that, and then obviously, you know, that business worked out in a very short amount of time. We gained a lot of traction. Uh, the business ended up, uh, being acquired by Yellow Pages. And so that whole experience for me paid off. Yeah, but there were definitely moments where it was, you know, the sun was not so bright and, you know, there were dark days of trying to figure out how we're going to make it work.

Speaker A: Did you have a family then? Or were you single? Or like, were you, were you supporting or.

Speaker B: I was, I was engaged and married and probably actually no. Uh, in the first six months of leaving Cannest, I had Jack, I had my firstborn son. So we, and we bought a house and we had a big mortgage and, you know, life was getting very real very quickly. But, but again, like the whole, the whole thesis, uh, behind leaving corporate and joining a startup, uh, at an early stage was that there was this arc. There was this concept of I can arc higher and make more and have a larger, you know, outweighed impact, uh, in a small pond than I could in a big pond.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, very interesting. Okay, so that was that first experience and then you moved on to something else.

Speaker B: Yeah, so Yellow Pages, uh, acquired that company. And, uh, I was part of a very small group of people who, uh, were brought in as part of the acquisition to make it all work. And I actually got a chance to reunite with a lot of, you know, people that you and I know from media in Canada and in, in Montreal and Quebec. And, uh, and Mediative was born. And I spent, uh, just under three years building the acquisition plan into what was later known as Mediative, which was, uh, kind of a digital innovation agency for Yellow Pages. My career was in a great spot. I was getting more and more responsibility. I was management in my early 30s for a publicly traded company. Um, but as soon as that earnout hit and the remaining opportunity was just a regular salary with some bonus attached to it, uh, again, I remember where I was.

Speaker A: You got the itch.

Speaker B: My co founder, he know, he called me, he's like, we can't do this anymore. We gotta go. Like, like the next thing is waiting for us. And, and we're just wasting time here. I was literally on the first vacation since the whole earnout had happened. But, um, he convinced me to start a company with him that would later become Sales Floor. And we built that with our own money. Uh, we learned the ropes of what it means to build a software company and to really grow a real startup. Um, and the one thing that I learned there was, you know, when you're actually building something, and that's really what got me even more excited was when you're actually building a product, whether it be software or hardware or whatever, it's really hard. Whereas in media and television and online ads, we just wrote PowerPoint documents, went out and pitched agencies. And so long as the trafficking worked for the advertising, building a product and advertising back then was really easy. Now it's obviously a lot more sophisticated, but back then it was a real shift. So we built Sales Floor, we grew it like bootstrapped it with our own money. Eventually, uh, found amazing investors that believed in our vision. That was BDC and White Star and later Level Equity. And the company eventually grew to a point where we were able to sell a nice piece of it to private equity. And everybody in the company, including, you know, engineers and marketing managers, whoever was there at that time, had the opportunity to make some money, pay off debt, pay down mortgages. So that was a great moment.

Speaker A: And how long were you with Mediative

Speaker B: Uh, that was just under three years. And then Sales Floor, uh, we built over a 10 year period. Sales Floor still operates today.

Speaker A: And how long were you with Sales Floor?

Speaker B: What's that?

Speaker A: How long were you with sales floor?

Speaker B: 10 years.

Speaker A: And when did, when and why did you leave Sales Floor?

Speaker B: So I was approached. I never thought after we made the deal with our private equity, uh, uh, owners that bought a portion of the company, I never thought I would leave. I thought I would just stay and continue to grow the company, which, ah, I did for three years, uh, after the private equity deal. But, um, I was approached by a group in California who were basically incubating a concept that was very similar to Sales Floor, which was, you know, a sales technology platform. This sales technology platform was very different. Nothing anybody had ever done before focused on helping salespeople achieve their maximum potential by leveraging everything AI has to offer. And they had proved out a very small test with a significant retailer, uh, in the US and in Canada. And as I saw this grow over the few months just being an advisor and watching from the sidelines, it clicked for me that the next adventure could be, you know, taking on what would later become Frontline IQ and turning it into the world's first AI sales coach for in person sales teams. And that's what I did last year. I replaced myself at sales floor after 10 years. Um, my co founder and I are still on amazing terms. I help him and the board and the company in every way that I can. I'm still a shareholder. Y. But, um, I think despite how challenging it was personally for me to get over the hump of deciding to do something new, um, I think the most important thing that I got out of that experience was how to split ways or how to go on to the next thing the right way without burning people and without leaving people behind dry.

Speaker A: That's a big thing, Ben, because there's not many, there's not many textbooks or coaching that's done to show you how to part ways and move on to something, uh, else that's. We could probably have a whole podcast episode on that. But listen, I have my seven questions that I told you about and I want to get into them.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And you know, one of the reasons that you're on this podcast is because you took those risks. Right. And I know we've talked for, you know, been talking obviously all these years. We've stayed in contact. And I remember, there's a few times where I remember going to lunch with you and you were stressed out, you know, and you were genuinely stressed out. So it's not like it's always, oh, this is great, everything's going there. You know, when you, when you jump into the entrepreneurial game, there are moments where you're pulling your hair out of four in the morning wondering, why the hell did I do this? Right. I should have just stayed. And that I have a lot of respect for because I think you went, you did it even in, in a more scary, uh, way than I did.

Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think taking a leap, whatever that leap is for you or for me, it's, it's always that, that osm, right, that oh, shit moment, like, what am I really doing here? And I, I think, you know, when it, what, when you really boiled, boil it down. Like, there's never a moment where you could look at it and say, like, okay, now and forever, this was the right decision.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: There's always going to be hills and valleys of, um, you know, how you feel about, about what you've done or what you're doing. And you know, to use the example that you just gave when we were at lunch, I think you really find out how resilient you are when, you know, it's a Tuesday morning randomly and you, you're going for lunch with Paul this afternoon, but at, uh, 10:45 or 11, something right before lunch, you get really bad news. Someone you are counting on is quitting or a customer that you are counting on that revenue is, is terminating a contract or something.

Speaker A: 25% of your revenue. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Like something that hits you in your belly, you know, like I would say that's the one thing as an entrepreneur that you, you need like everyone should become conditioned around which is the pain, you know, um, the CEO of Nvidia had a video a few months ago talking to a university audience saying, I wish you all hardship and pain because that pain creates the toughness and the resilience. Uh, and I think you find out who you are when you go for lunch with Paul at 12 o' clock and 25 minutes ago, you found out that 20% of your revenue is at risk or that person that you were counting on is, is out the door and you need to find a way to not completely ruin lunch, but at the same time balance all of that craziness going on between your ears.

Speaker A: And Ben didn't ruin lunch, by the way. He did express his, his what was going on, but he didn't ruin lunch.

Speaker B: Which still, that was probably one of the ones where you paid.

Speaker A: Yes, I think you, I think that one you made me pick up the tab. Um, so on that note, Ben, my first question. We, we talked about this, but maybe talk to us about a business failure that occurred. That. And what did you learn from it? One you want to share with us that you think is, is, um, is is good for this storyline of our podcast?

Speaker B: I think, um, you know, one of the big failures we had in the last company at sales floor was, um, some of our earliest customers were just, they were the wrong fit. And uh, we had a running joke that, you know, we were building a sales application for salespeople to use that would, uh, allow them to engage customers wherever they are, um, online, in store, text message, uh, email, video chat and sales floor became a market leader in this. But the very, very early days when we were really creating the market for this kind of technology that didn't exist. Um, my co founder and I had a running joke where before we had our first customers, we'll pilot, we'll test with a, with a dependur, with a corner store. You know, we'll take 7 11. Exactly. So, you know, in, in that, in that spirit and those early, awkward, unclear stages of, of a new business, um, it's. It's very dangerous what you say yes to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I remember there was one customer which, uh, I'm not going to say the name because, you know, it wouldn't be right, but there was one customer that was way outside of our core, you, uh, know, icp, you know, ideal customer profile that we, we really tried to make it work. And I was the customer and operations person at the early stages of that business. And I remember for like four or five, six months we tried to make it work. We banged our head against the wall and lo and behold, at the end of the term of that pilot or that test, they're like, no, this is not working. And I like, uh, in my mind I'm like, I agree.

Speaker A: You had to agree.

Speaker B: But inevitably I was so committed to making it work because it was like the only thing that we had at the time, but, but it was a massive failure. And we learned from our failure that if it looks like shit, it probably or could be shit.

Speaker A: It looks like shit, smells like shit, tastes like shit.

Speaker B: It's probably, it probably is shit. Now entrepreneurs are great at turning and I think, you know who said this to us, turning dog shit into dog food, right? There are scenarios like that, but I think with experience comes the ability to understand the dog poop that you want to stay away from. From the onset, being able to say no is the learning that you get from these failures.

Speaker A: Yeah. But it's interesting, wouldn't you say, though, that when you, when you, when you started or, uh, when you took on those first clients that weren't the right fit, did you really know they weren't the right fit already?

Speaker B: I think it was 50% confidence that it was not the right fit.

Speaker A: Okay. All right. So you knew, you said, we have to do it. We just had. And you were like, yeah, yeah, some,

Speaker B: sometimes you get lucky. Right. Sometimes something that looks like dog poop turns into, you know, gold and, and, uh, a new use case or a new use for the, for the tool that opens up a whole new opportunity.

Speaker A: So it was a risk. 50. 50. It went, it went south. But on others, I guess you took the risk and it went the right way.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: So, so basically you're saying is you'd probably do the same thing again, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I, I, I think I've become better at understanding the, the what's in front of you and being able to say, this is not going to work. Let's, let's dump it. Let's move on.

Speaker A: Okay. All right. Okay. Question number two. Thank you, Ben. That was very good. Um, if I had to ask you, and, and when I say this, uh, you have your entrepreneurial hat on or your, your, your risk taker entrepreneurial hat on. Why do you do what you do? Why, why is Ben motivated by this type of business? And I know you've done well. You, you know, you earned some coin. But, you know, it can't just be that because, you know, you could have gone into finance and work for some big finance company, probably make 10 times what you make now. Uh, you know, working for some big firm in New York doing deals, whatever. But that's, you know, why do you do what you do?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think when it comes down to it now I can tell you, you know, we're, we're doing this interview in 2025, and I've done the entrepreneur thing now for, you know, 13, 14 years. I can safely say that the, the building part of creating something from nothing and being able to identify an opportunity and build for the opportunity, that's, that's the exciting part. When you validate what is literally something that doesn't exist and you can actually create not only the plan to build a product for that opportunity, but how you monetize it, how you, you, you market it, how you hire for it, like all of that is what, is, what is incredibly rewarding when you're in these early stages of building a business. But I have to, like, I'll be very honest with you, as like, you call it entrepreneurship. But my experience over the last 15 or 20 years literally went from, you know, I knew entrepreneur stuff was exciting and I, I always dabbled in it. But when I was at, uh, you know, global with you, my first move into entrepreneurship wasn't starting a company, it was joining an early stage company. And then we made that work. And then the next one was starting a company myself, but with a co founder who had done it before. And now the next one is let's start a company on my own with partners in California who have incredible experience and resources. But the journey has been kind of leaning heavier and heavier on those early stages of building as I went on. And now that I'm at the stage where I'm actually building from scratch on my own as the CEO, it's, it's. I know this is where I belong. Right. And not everybody realizes.

Speaker A: Yeah. But there's one thing that you haven't mentioned that I think I kind of, I think maybe I'm wrong, but I get a feeling you get a little bit of a high too, from when you're, you're closing business. When you're doing that development and that customer comes on and you're able to help them. I think you enjoy that. Um, am I right?

Speaker B: It's what validates the vision that you have as someone who sees the opportunity and builds for it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: If you get a customer that signs a contract. I was really fortunate in Frontline iq. We've only been this, this product has been around only for about 18 months, and we've really only been selling it for less than a year. And within like, I think it was 44 days was the number when we got our first signed contract. That was real revenue from, from a customer. When you get that DocuSign in your inbox, you know, it's, it's really weird when you work from home because you want to turn around and ring a bell, go grab a beer with everybody. But when you're, when you're working from home, especially at the early stages, you know, you have to kind of step back from your computer for a second and say, okay, this is.

Speaker A: I did good. I did good. Jump up and down a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're allowed to have a beer. Still have a beer, but yeah, depends if your wife likes to have a beer. Um, okay, so thanks. That's. I think that you answered my question number two onto question Number three, um, what would you say are your values as an entrepreneur? What, what defines Ben? I know it's a tough question, but if I asked you what are the values you believe in, what drives you in your relationships, in your communication, in what your clients should expect of you and what you expect of them?

Speaker B: Uh, I think values evolve, especially in an early stage company. But if you're asking me personally, like, what values I bring to work, um, I think hard work, no shortcuts, um, you know, you got to put in the sweat, which is, you know, sometimes you get sweat equity. They call it that for a reason. Um, and, you know, the, the resilience that comes with not taking no for a failure or coming back. I always, I always used to say with, with our, our team at sales floor, you know, we, we faced real headwinds uh, when it came to introducing what we were doing to certain companies because they'd never equipped salespeople with digital tools to serve an online customer. Like, it was all very new when we were, when we were growing into our market. And sometimes people said no or terminated a contract. And I always thought that, like, okay, this hurts. Like you take it in the chest, you know, everybody should learn from their mistakes. But that's not, that's not what, what it's about. It's. It's about how hard you bounce off of that wall, right? You're going to get pushed down and pushed up against the wall when you start a company and you build a product. But it's never, and I mean never, about what, what does this failure mean? And it's everything about how do you respond to it. Okay, and change pivot, react, come back, overcome obstacle. Like, it's, that's what it's all about.

Speaker A: And I think, and if I go a little deeper, and I ask you, because this is very much, you know, you're giving the perspective of someone who's working really hard to build something new. But let's say you, Once you have those first clients, what should they expect from you? What, what do they get in return from dealing with the company that you're part of?

Speaker B: What does it, uh, hard work, no shortcuts.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And that should resonate in, in how we, how we run the business. So, um, I'm, um, I've been.

Speaker A: I say no shortcuts. Do you mean no excuses? You mean.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, bare honesty.

Speaker A: Take, take everything, Take responsibility for the, the stuff that might go wrong. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think, I think accountability for what you sell is, is really what. What. No shortcuts. Hard work means, okay, if I tell you I'm going to sell you something and it's going to help you increase your sales. Everything that we do at Frontline IQ and in the last few businesses has always been against objectives and numbers. It's not, it's not rocket science. We read books about OKRs, you know, objectives and key results and rocks and pebbles and all of that stuff is there because it works. And it works for thousands of businesses. And if you're diligent and you say, okay, we're going to increase your sales by how much? Hey, Paul, would 5% be good? Yes. Okay, good. So now you're buying something from me that's going to increase your sale by 5%. I owe you as your vendor that 5%. And no hard, no, no shortcuts. Hard work is what's going to get us. Because sometimes, especially in software, you know, there's a lot of criticism of software salespeople that, like, you know, a lot of people go out there and they make big promises and then it fizzles out. I think that's where rubber meets the road for me. If, if we're selling a sales enablement technology that's going to increase your sales. I just did this yesterday. We looked not at our data, because our data looks great. They're using the app 80% weekly active usage. Uh, everybody's got, you know, the metrics that they need to show that it's being used. But is it moving the needle?

Speaker A: So is it helping them? Is helping y. Yeah.

Speaker B: So we took our customers data and said, okay, everybody using the app, uh, how are they doing? Okay, here's the percentage growth year over year. And then we looked at everybody else that's not using it and said, what's, what's their, uh, what's their growth? And if we could show that 5% in your case difference, then we're doing our job.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Oh, cool. So I, I like that. So it's very. It's funny because you, you talk about those values and really their values that have existed for, you know, hundreds of years for entrepreneurs or thousands of years for people who really want to deliver something that works and no shortcuts and move forward. It's funny because sometimes I talk to people in, you know, big. You've probably seen this too, big corporations and, and they talk about values and they're very different. Right. They talk about respect because they're not in, let's say, a sales perspective. So they talk more about respect and, um, you know, grow and so integrity, which are all important things, but if you don't have that in a startup and your clients can walk away if you don't have integrity, respect, accountability, like, your client can, you know, flip the bird pretty quickly and turn around. So, um, that's interesting. Um, would you say, you know, of all the places you worked in, and this is a tough one, would you say that your values always aligned with the enterprises that you worked with or for or earned or owned?

Speaker B: I think so. Uh, I think going back to the resilience of what it means to be someone who likes to build things, you find common ground wherever you are. And if you can't find that common ground, then you should leave because it's, uh, unhealthy. But Yellow Pages is a great example of probably the one place that I spent a few years at. Now, it was, it was because of an acquisition. I didn't, I didn't choose Yellow Pages.

Speaker A: But you were, you were brought in.

Speaker B: Yeah, we chose, we chose to say yes to them buying the company. And because of that, you know, I was now a Yellow Pages employee, and I needed to find things that resonated with me, uh, within Yellow Pages. Now, Yellow Pages, you know, the big printed book that goes on your doorstep, that's. That wasn't the product or the line of business that we were anywhere close to. We were, we were the digital answer to that problem. And that fired me up. We were building something to, to basically, uh, you know, uh, leverage all the data that Yellow Pages had for the future of digital advertising. And I, I was excited to be a part of that story. But, you know, after the earnout and the, and the mediative thing kind of fizzled out, uh, it was a very natural reaction for me to come back to building a company.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, very true. Does that big yellow book still exist?

Speaker B: I think so. And especially the one thing I remember when, when the, when the transaction finished up is we were blown away at the kind of data that yellow, uh, pages actually had. You know, they could, like, they could tell you when the most amount of phone calls happened for pizza places at the time, day, hour. So that kind of consumer information was super interesting. But in terms of the Yellow Book, I think other than, like, remote markets, um, that don't have access to great Internet, um, I think that ship has sailed.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think of old phone books with that book in there, you know, the White Pages and then the Yellow Pages. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: But I was so young then, I barely remember. Okay, question number four. Um, this is one of My favorite questions, but maybe hard to answer in a way. Tell me about, Ah. When I say, tell me about a strange business experience you can share, and what I mean by that is something that maybe was very unexpected or odd or, you know, just a good story.

Speaker B: I think Covid, um, like the pandemic and everybody, you know, shifting to work, uh, from home. It created, I think everybody who owns companies and had to deal with HR and equipment and zoom. Like, we. I think everybody has crazy stories over those two years.

Speaker A: Okay, so tell me when.

Speaker B: So, so, number one, I remember going on walks with my partner, not knowing if we were going to survive the month or the quarter.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Followed by the next day, uh, kind of doing a 180 and realizing we might be in an amazing position to actually grow this business triple. Because of the way people are shopping, buying and all and all of that. So, you know, that gave birth to, okay, we're going to make this. This. This work from home pandemic thing have to work. Um, so from doom to bloom. Yeah. When. When people work from home for two years, I, um, think we. We all saw that. Everybody's got wild stories. My wild story is that, um, we quickly realized that people were starting to relocate themselves to remote markets. We had employees of all different cultures and nationalities. And, you know, I remember this one particular employee put in a request for a vacation. Uh, and, you know, they were following the rules, asking their manager, uh, whatever, it was, two, three weeks lead time for the vacation, but they requested like, five or six weeks. They wanted to take, like, a month and a half. Okay. And so the manager went back and said, like, why do you want to take a month and a half off? Like, we have a business to build. And they said, well, I need to go home to my family, uh, because I haven't seen them. The pandemic has shut travel off. So I want to go there. And this was. It was a far. It was a far off country.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, so rightly so, the manager came to the executive team and said, this is the situation. And we had policies in place in terms of relocation and all that. And so we came to a compromise and we said, look, two, three weeks, no problem. Um, you know, uh, but in terms of, like, working from that location, the time zone was inverted. That person would have to, like, work through the night and sleep during the day. So. So we said no to that. And we said, take your vacation. Be with your family.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So the employee says, okay, thank you. Takes 10 days off, comes back from vacation. And I don't know if you know this, but in Slack it displays your location. Uh, the employee decided to not tell anyone, get on a plane, go halfway around the world and pretend like no one was going to find out. And uh, we found out and we had to deal with it. But there's these, this story exists in many, many companies. During the pandemic, the weirdness of it was that it was, it literally created a culture of employees versus employers.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: That took a long time to go away. And sett particular, that particular situation really, really buzzed me because it was full on deceit, it was full on lying, but it was physical lying. It was like going to another conference.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And did I guess, did you have to terminate the person or. Yeah, okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, we, we, we waited until the person came back and you know, HR was involved at that time big enough that we had.

Speaker A: You're right. You're lying. Yeah. So you, you. So, yeah, that is kind of strange. And you're right. Covid created a bunch of weird everything

Speaker B: came out of the woodwork situations.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's, yeah.

Speaker B: And the concept of virtual sexual harassment became a real thing.

Speaker A: Oh my God. Yeah, that's, that's. I hadn't thought of that. But, uh, yes, that's kind of, kind of strange. Um, okay. Thank you. Good answer. Okay, number five. Five. Um, what would you say? I love this question too. I wrote them. I love them. What would you say to your 20 year old self as far as, as, as, you know, as what the future is going to. Not what the future is going to bring, but what would you, what advice would you say to your 20 year old self?

Speaker B: Spend more time with Paula Fleur

Speaker A: Brown noser.

Speaker B: Don't wait. I think I'm a real, uh, Back then I was way more risk averse and conservative regarding how I'm gonna grow as, you know, a professional in business.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And the pragmatic approach to get a job out of university, climb the ladder, move into another job, take a risk on an early stage startup. I wish I did all that twice as fast because all the cliches are true. When you don't have children, when you don't have a significant other or a mortgage, you can take those risks. You do things that put you on a higher arc than you would have waiting for, uh, for the raise or the promotion or whatever gets you to that next stage. So if you track my, my journey, it was corporate, it was join early stage, it was start a company with someone. Um, and then it was start a company on Your own. I wish I could condense that and make it all happen in five years instead of 20 years.

Speaker A: Now. Are you saying this to your kids?

Speaker B: I am, I am. My kids are amazing because they do have they. I don't know if it's because of the DNA that I share with them,

Speaker A: but yeah, we'll say that's the reason.

Speaker B: Yeah, they have a desire to work at a very young age and I love that. Um, and I think there's a careful balance to strike with like the desire to make money while learning things and finding out what makes you happy. At the same time. The last thing that I want to do is say you should be an entrepreneur or else everything else sucks. That's not right for everyone. So, um, I'm definitely supportive of it.

Speaker A: Okay. And uh, sorry, sideline 4.5. Do you think that, that uh. Because in a way it's a bit of a lack of confidence, right, that I think you and I both had that we felt we need to go corporate. But yes, I'm older than you, but also when I graduated university it was like, well, you got to go get a job, work for corporate. Like the idea of being entrepreneur right away was, was foreign. I mean I've got a few friends who did it and, and I think it was the same thing for you. So do you think that the conversations you now have with your children are about having confidence to believe in what you want to do, or are they more about following a certain path?

Speaker B: I don't think it's about following a certain path. I think my kids are between the ages of 9 and 15 right now. Jack actually turned 15 yesterday. And it's not about, here's the path. It's more about learn as much as you can to figure out what makes you happy. At this age. They still have a bunch of years ahead of them before they need to make those decisions. But let's be, let's be really clear. Being an entrepreneur at uh, 20 or 25 years old means that you are not getting in on the ground floor of a company that's going to potentially take care of you, give, uh, you ah, a pension, um, give you stock options and all of that compounds over time. My personal opinion is less and less companies are built to sustain someone's career over that period of time anymore. But back then that, that was that like that's what we gave up when we left Global, uh, and we said we're going to work for small early startup companies. We gave up the idea that at 65, 70 years old on top of your government pension, you're going to have something from your company.

Speaker A: And I left CBC in 1993. Right. So if I. If I had stayed at CBC, I'd probably be. No, stay there. I'd be retired now. I would have gone crazy. It wasn't the right place for me. But I would have this huge pension fund and I could probably just retire. So. So you're right. You. You've got to see. So I guess you're. What, uh, Am I wrong in saying. What you're saying is they have to make their own path, make their own decision, discover what's right for them and have the confidence to do what they need to do and want to do 100%.

Speaker B: And that could mean doing a job in a company that may not pay you an enormous amount of money, but if it makes you happy, who are we as parents to stand in the way of that? We just need to, uh. My, uh, personal opinion is our job as an usher is to show them all the seats in the theater that are available to them. And which one they choose to sit in is really up to them.

Speaker A: Eventually, Yeah, I said 4.5. Four was actually 5.5, because now we're at six. And number six is I wanna. And I don't know, this is a big topic that everyone talks about and everyone's got an opinion, everyone's got strong opinions, but I want to hear yours within the confines of your reality. You know, um, and it's AI. I want to know how you see AI affecting what you do currently. And you must think about this. Everyone does, um, how do you see it? Tell me a little bit about that. Like, how will AI affect the company you are currently working to build?

Speaker B: So we have an AI product. Uh, it doesn't just use AI or it's not AI powered. The AI is part of what the product actually does by analyzing data and analyzing real conversations between salespeople. So. So AI is really embedded in the actual foundation of what we do. Um, so part of the reason why I'm so excited about what we're building at Frontline IQ is that the timing of AI's ability to massively impact, in a positive way, people's lives, it's moving so quickly with such mass acceptance that it's just an incredible tidal wave of tailwind. Regardless of what our product actually does, everyone is looking for how AI can improve their lives. So from a company perspective, there's a very high bar and a very high set of expectations that whatever you do in our Company, you are using every shape or form of technology, including AI, to accelerate and aggressively hit your objectives, goals, deliverables, whatever it is. And we have very specific expectations around what that means for engineering, for marketing. And I think that's where companies are succeeding, is that they're creating the box of minimum good best practices for AI in different areas of work. At the same time, if you look at, you know, in your personal life, how you use, you know, AI assistants and agents, I think what we're seeing today, like we're talking, you know, at the end of the summer of 2025, I think what you're seeing with AI is it's separating society from those that are embracing it, from those that are not. And what it's going to do, especially for the next generation of workers, like, like our kids, is it's going to create the have and the have nots and the ones that are equipped to do all of the amazing things at a speed and momentum that AI technology will help them do that. They're going to be at a huge advantage. And the ones that aren't paying attention to it are the ones that are really going to be at a disadvantage and be limited in their choice in what they do from a work and from a business perspective. So I think more and more now we need to put pressure on our schools to make this part of the curriculum. Not just as a cool, you know, um, what is it called? Workshop, uh, once a quarter, but actually part of the day in, day out, of course, curriculum so that our kids are leaving high school and college and university with the tools they need to compete. Because it's fierce now.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you're. So if I was to summarize a few of the points you make, because you made a lot of points there, you see AI as a tool to benefit. Currently, what you're doing in your enterprise, that can really maximize your customer experience in using the, um, tool that you're selling at different levels. Like you said, operations, engineering, even for sales. And what you're saying as far as the next generation is concerned, is learn to properly use AI in your life so that it can maximize and be, um, an add on to what you do, rather than being an adversary. Because a lot of people speak of AI as an adversary and I'm kind of with you. I think that's a bit of a mistake. Um, you have to embrace it. And there's so much positive potential with anything that brings so much potential. Of course there's negative potential, but in reality, if you don't adopt it, then, like you said, you're just left behind in the dust. Yeah. Unless, unless you choose to be, you know, uh, an organic farmer on his own.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: That's okay. Right, but that's, that's, that's the limited

Speaker B: choice that, I mean that if you choose to say this isn't for me, then I think if you go back 20 or 30 years from now, this is like someone saying, I, I think this computer thing, or I think this Internet thing, you know, it's, it's not for me.

Speaker A: I remember hearing that. Ben, I don't need that computer thing on my desk. I could just use the phone in my pad.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Okay. All right. That's good. Well, thanks. And you know, and I don't want to, I don't want to talk too much about AI, uh, just because there's so many conversations out there. And I really want it. And I'm happy you really, you addressed it in a very specific manner. So that's good. Okay. 7. My last question to you, um, and it totally veers off. Do you have a hero? Is there, is there someone? And if you say me, I'm gonna punch you in the head next time I see you. Do you have a hero? Um, and if you do, like, is it a business hero? Is it someone in school that really motivated you? Is it someone who helped shape you? Um, who, why? And if you, and, yeah, me about it and maybe you don't have a hero, it's fine.

Speaker B: I, I have trouble, like, you know, naming a hero, especially from a business perspective.

Speaker A: Okay, so people who've influenced you, then. Someone.

Speaker B: No, but I, I, I do have someone that I think, you know, I, I can answer the question with. Part of the problem of naming a hero in business is that you don't know what that person is going to do and, uh, what you're going to see that person do in the future and.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or someone who's influenced you so far. Let's say we'll, we'll, we'll cut it at what they. So far.

Speaker B: I can answer the question in two parts, you know, uh, framing who I am and what I've become. It comes from my parents, okay. My, uh, family. Um, you know, we didn't, we didn't have a lot, but we had enough, you know, growing up. And I learned from my parents, um, how to, how to build a family and what it looks like to be, you know, in business, both successfully, along with failures. Um, but my family, especially my parents, formed for me what good looks like, you know, what good looks like in terms of relationships, in terms of working hard, no shortcuts. So all of that, I credit, uh, to both my mom and my dad. And then later in life, you know, obviously you're gonna make me cry.

Speaker A: I love it.

Speaker B: Oh, uh, thanks. Um, hopefully I didn't make my parents cry if they're watching this, but just watch this bit.

Speaker A: They'll put more in your. They'll put more in there in your inheritance. I'm just being sick.

Speaker B: My wife is, Is the other person that has influenced me, but I'm not. And I'm not saying that because, yeah, she's my wife and she, she's amazing. She's all those things. But the truth is, is that, you know, you really do see the difference. Right. People who, who chose well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And have that lock, sync attitude with their partner and build a family, build a life, you know, give. Give you the ability to go out and take risks and do things while counterbalancing you in other ways. Like all of that is, is like this is all impossible if it's, if it's not solid there.

Speaker A: Wow, that's. That's. That's a great answer. It's funny. I, I'm not surprised by your answer, but I also am. But I think they're. They're great answers. You know, I mean, I've known you a long time and I know you have a lot of respect for your fans, family, and your parents. And I know you have a really good relationship too. And I have a really good relationship as well. And I think for me, I probably forget sometimes how important that is and being able to do what you do. I don't think I could have left Global back then and take the risk that I did had I not gotten the encouragement from my partner who is my, you know, she partnered my wife,

Speaker B: or encouragement and support. Right. Like, because if it didn't work out, like m. My wife, she's worked and she never wants to stop working as, you know, as a professional. So, you know, the ability for her to want to work while I'm able to take risks that, you know, what I'm doing now, it can go to zero in a couple of months from now. And if it does, um, I know that I've got a partner who's got my back. And that's the same kind of thing you have with the right co. Founder or early stage partners that come into a new company.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Well, this, look, it's a great way to, uh. It's a great way to end the podcast. Uh, thanks so much, Ben. This is, like, the first series, but I find it's been very successful. Uh, I think we, you know, I know a lot about you, and my fear in this podcast was will I be able to convey or get Ben to convey the things that I find really, uh, interesting? Will I be able to ask the right questions? And I think it was very successful. So thanks to the listeners. Thank you to you, Ben. Um, uh, listen to future podcasts. Go find out about Ben. He runs a great company. And, uh, we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker B: Thanks, Paul.