Things Smart Entrepreneurs Should Not Do With Customers!

Hello, Believe Nation! Welcome to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in entrepreneurs, and this show is all about making your business a success. Now today I'm really excited. I am live on location. I am in Vancouver, British Columbia for the SOHO event, which is Small Office Home Office, and I'm here to meet the crowd, learn about the businesses, but also to discover a new program that Dell has launched called Dell for Entrepreneurs. which is a free program for all the small business owners out there that I'm excited to learn a little bit more about today, and I think by the time you hear all about it, you're going to want to sign up for it as well. And it's free, you can't beat that. But first, I want to talk about something that is really important, something that ties in, and so many people write to me and they're saying, Evan, I need to grow my business, I need to get more referrals, I need to get people talking about me. You know, how do I do it? How do I get past the point where I'm at right now? And the big challenge for a lot of you is you're too transactional. You're just trying to focus on the sale. You know, somebody emails you, somebody calls you, somebody sees you at a trade show, somebody comes and visits you at your store, and you're just trying to sell them. And as a result, you don't build a long-term relationship with them because you don't care about them, and they feel it, right? And the next time your competitor drops their prices by $10, you're going to lose your customers. This is a challenge that so many businesses and so many entrepreneurs face. If you want to get word of mouth marketing to happen, if you want people to actually care about your business, then what you have to do is actually care about them. And I get it, you can't go out there and take out a Super Bowl ad commercial and promote your business that way. You need to get people to talk about you. If you want them to talk about you, you have to give them something to talk about. And it starts with caring. Do you actually care about your customers and show them? Right? You want them to care about you, you've got to care about them first. So that brings us to Dell. Now Dell has launched this awesome new program and they really care about entrepreneurs and it's something that you really feel in their bones as you meet the various people on their team. And it started with Michael Dell. And this guy is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. Okay, he started as a 12-year-old kid collecting stamps and selling them and he sold his first collection for $2,000. He was hooked on business and decided I got to do this. I got to find more ways because he was hooked. His next business, he was 16 years old and he decided to to start selling newspaper subscriptions for a local newspaper called the Houston Post. And his first year, he made $18,000. And he had to find another way. He said, the way that most people sell newspapers is broken. Going door to door and trying to sell newspaper subscriptions is a broken model. I need to find another way to sell it. And that's Michael Dell's motto. And what he did was he said, you know what, the people who want to buy newspapers are the new people moving into an area. And he said, people who are getting married and are buying a house in our area, those are the guys I'm going to target. And he went to the marriage certificate office and found all the people who were getting married in his area, who had just got married, and he reached out to those guys. And that's how he made the sales. He made more sales faster than anybody else at that company working less time while still being a high school student because he found another way to do it. $18,000 in his first year, made more than his teachers. Bought a BMW and drove it to school. And it's funny because one of his teachers said that he would probably go nowhere in life. That was an awesome teacher there, right? Telling Michael Dell you're probably going to go nowhere in life. And we all have that little man in our life who tries to hold us back and tells us all the reasons why something's not going to work. So Michael Dell, he's the man. I've been a big Dell fan for years. My first computers were Dell. I'm off of a Dell XPS laptop right now. But it's not just him. Because his passion and love for entrepreneurship permeates the whole company, and you can really feel the love of entrepreneurship when you talk to people who are working at Dell. So I want to share a quick story. A couple weeks ago, I was at Dell's office in Toronto, and I met with a marketing manager named Carolyn. And she's the director of marketing there, and she discovered that a lot of their clients were interested in selling to educational institutions. So a lot of their entrepreneurial clients were selling products and services to universities and to schools. And she said, you know what, Dell does a lot of work selling to universities and schools. I'm going to put on a workshop to help these entrepreneurs out, to share my resources, to share my ideas, to share what works with Dell so that those entrepreneurs there could benefit as well. And she didn't get up on stage and say, in order to sell to universities, you need to buy a new Dell XPS laptop. She's not up there pitching products. She's adding value because she cares about entrepreneurs. And as a result, people are going to care about her. People are going to care about Dell. That's how you start to make a difference. That's how you start to build a brand. The next time those people go out, you know, they take Carolyn's advice and they go and they land some big university deal. The next time they're going to try to buy a laptop or a computer or a server for their business, who do you think they're going to buy from? Who do you think they are going to tell their friends about? They are going to remember that hey, Dell gave us all this great value. They actually care about us, so we are going to support them with our business, and we are going to tell our friends about them. Another quick story, I was in the cab yesterday with Allison who is in the room with me, and her eyes just kind of freaked out that I'm talking about her. She's not sure what I'm going to say about her on air. But we were at the same airport, same flight. We took a cab to our hotel together, and she's there negotiating with the cabbie trying to get the best fare possible. And threatening to go to another cabbie if we don't get a good deal. And that's entrepreneurial thinking, right? That's what we would do always as entrepreneurs. I can tell you, I've been around a lot of big companies and they're like, whatever, it's not my money, it's the big company's paying for it, so I don't care. But that's the mindset that Dell has. And so it permeates the whole culture and this is why they've started Dell for Entrepreneurs. Now I'm excited to learn more about it today, but a quick overview is they're trying to create a network of entrepreneurs. And so it's a free website you can go to and you can first of all meet other entrepreneurs. So, you know, we can't do this alone. We have so many questions, so many issues. You may not have the friends or the family to help you out, so who do you go and talk to for advice? Other entrepreneurs can help you. And so that's one of the main goals is trying to connect entrepreneurs together. But it also tries to connect you to capital. You know, you want money to grow your business. They're going to try to help you. You need technology to grow your business, they're going to try to help you. You need resources, strategies, ideas to try to grow your business, they're going to try to help you. That's the point of the program. And I got so excited to learn about this because you don't think about that coming from a technology company, right? You don't think about that coming from any of their competition. So here's a company that actually cares about entrepreneurs. And you need to do the same thing for your business. You need to care about your customers. I want you to make a list. Of the last 10 customers that have bought from you. Ideally you go 100 deep, 1,000 deep, 10,000 deep, but start with the last 10 customers and think, did I really help these guys? Do I actually know these guys? Did I add value beyond just trying to sell whatever product or service I have? That's what you need to do if you want them to talk about you, because selling a great product or service is not enough. You got to care about them. You got to build a brand. You got to build loyalty. You can't afford those big marketing budgets, so you need your customers to spread that word for you, and that's how you do it.

And it's fun.

Actually caring about your customers and helping them beyond whatever product or service you're selling is actually fun. It makes you feel great. It gives you a sense of purpose. So reach out to those last 10 people and try to find out how you can help them. Call and ask them, how are they using your product or service? What's their experience so far? Learn about them. A quick example, I do some work with TELUS and they asked me to create a blog post for them. And they asked me to write 300 to 500 words on a blog post. Instead of just doing that, I wrote 1,500 words and I added a video and I promoted it to my network and I did a show about them. I helped drive tons of traffic to their blog. It was the most popular post that had ever been put up. On their blog. All going above and beyond. They didn't ask me to do any of that, but I knew it would help them beyond what I was hired to do. And what happened as a result? They hired 10 people to do that same project. I was the only one they brought back because I went way above the call, and that's what you need to do. So today we're going to talk about Dell for Entrepreneurs. I have some special guests lined up with me today. We've got the president of Dell Canada, Kevin Piesker. We've got, uh, Jonathan Bixby, who's from Highline VC, which is an accelerator here in Vancouver. They're going to talk about how to grow your business and how they're using Dell for Entrepreneurs. And then Amy Millman, who's from Springboard Enterprises, and she supports women entrepreneurs, young women entrepreneurs who are trying to get their business up to the next level. So that's what's on the agenda today, but the message I want to leave you with from this first segment is think about ways to care about your customers, to add value to their lives, to try to help them out beyond just what that product or service is that you're selling, because that is how you build an important brand. That's how you build something that people care about. That's how you build something that people are going to spread the word about and love your business. If you don't do that, you're just like every other competition. You're just like everybody else. and it's going to be hard for you to stand out. It's going to be hard for you to win business, and you continue to struggle and be in mediocrity. It's an important message. I hope you guys take it to heart. I'm really excited to learn about Dell for Entrepreneurs today. Free program, tons of great value. Now I'm pleased to have a special guest with me here in my hotel studio, the president of Dell Canada, Kevin Piesker. Kevin, welcome to the program.

Thank you very much, Evan.

So tell me about yourself and your role at Dell Canada.

Fantastic. Well, I do have the role of president, which is an honour to be a leader of any company, and to be a leader of one of the world's leading tech companies here in Canada is absolutely outstanding. For myself, I'm a passionate individual around many things. Number one, around growth of business, around personal growth. I'm passionate about developing people and developing members of our team, and I'm very, very passionate, as to your previous segment, around serving customers customers better than anyone else. My background's kind of interesting, and I've been very, very involved with small, medium businesses here in Canada and in different parts of the world. I've traveled to over 70 countries. I've worked on 5 continents, and just prior to taking this role at Dell as leader of Dell Canada, I was responsible for consumer and small business across all of Europe. So I got to engage with many, many countries, many entrepreneurs in that part of the world, and it's been an outstanding journey of being able to engage with those organizations fuel the economies where they work and where they live.

Very cool. I met Kevin just outside the room on the way in and I told him I was jealous of his voice because he's got this really deep voice that's kind of putting me to shame here on this podcast.

Yeah, but you're far better looking, Evan.

This is a radio show here.

Yeah, there you go.

Okay, awesome. So tell me about Dell Entrepreneurs. I've heard about it, but I want it to come from you. I want you to tell my listeners why this is something that's really important for entrepreneurs to learn about.

Yeah, so entrepreneurship, I'll just take it back a little bit from a macro level. You mentioned some of the genesis of Dell, and Michael himself with an entrepreneurial spirit from the age of 12, moving into founding the company out of his dorm room and building it into an organization that has over 100,000 employees serving 180 countries around the world, and then taking the company private again one year ago. So if you go on Michael Dell's personal website and you check him out, he's basically coined himself as self-employed. That's pretty interesting because it goes back to the core of our business, which is, as I've worked in other organizations over 30 years in the tech industry, it's been at Dell the most entrepreneurial large business you could find. And risk-taking is embedded in the culture. It's core belief of what we do. So when it comes to entrepreneur— entrepreneurship, and we look at the customer markets we serve, there's a business requirement for us to be there. It just makes great business sense to service entrepreneurs. If we go to some entrepreneurs that we worked with as they were basically 1 or 2 or 3 people in their organization, they're companies that now you might have heard of like Twitter, like software— SFDC software or Salesforce.com, pardon me. Like Dropbox, organizations that started out as entrepreneurs with a big vision that are now global. And at Dell, we serve them right from the beginning from the technology space. So as we think about in the markets that we serve, Canada being an area of course that I have responsibility for, there are millions of individuals in Canada that are currently employed in corporates and public sector. Half the employment group in Canada is in entrepreneurship. So it makes good business sense, it's great for the country, and it's something that we're really, really passionate about supporting in Canada.

So, so what do I get if I go to Dell for Entrepreneurs? What's this program all about?

Yeah, so the program we launched initially in the US. It was such a success for us there, we took it over to the UK, launched it in the UK, in France, in Ireland. And bringing it into Canada, for us, it's about providing a platform for entrepreneurs to do a number of things. Number one, get engaged with a network of like-minded individuals, providing membership programs, investor connectivity, interest and engagement with accelerators, entrepreneur— or enterprise and industry experts in the area of entrepreneur. Second is in capital, and capital is obviously important. You mentioned it earlier in your segment. That capital comes in a couple of key different areas. One, we provide access to credit through Dell Financial Services. We have startup-specific opportunities for those companies that are really at that stage. They've had their first set of VC funding, but they need to really accelerate their infrastructure, their technology base to get access to more customers and provide greater service to their customer base. We do that, and obviously we free up capital by providing a great engagement around access to that technology for incredible value. A third area is in the technology space overall. We've worked with some startups to literally assist them go to market by embedding technology and their ideas, their software, and taking it to market and allowing them to then go global with their technology, which is pretty cool. And then finally, knowledge. I think knowledge is critical for everybody when they're in a business. Organizations in that startup phase look to gain information about, hey, how do I get crowdfunding? What's a way to do that? How do I speak with a VC in my first dialogue with the VC? What are some of the key aspects as I start up a business that I need to be thinking about in terms of going to market in Canada or going to market globally? And we provide a knowledge base through our platform for entrepreneurs to get engaged with each other from a networking standpoint and get that knowledge base through our website and through seminars and regular sessions that we hold.

Very cool. Is this for every kind of entrepreneur or startup or later stage? Anybody can apply? I haven't started my business yet, I want to. What range of startups or entrepreneurs?

That's a great question. I would encourage anyone if they're in that very, very early startup phase, they're sitting in their kitchen or they're sitting in their car right now, and you've got a great idea, you think this idea can clearly differentiate you in the market, check out our website and go to the microsite, www.dell.ca/entrepreneurs, and you get in there and you can see a range of areas that I've just mentioned around building that network, getting engaged on the capital side, how you can utilize technology to drive the start point of your business and growth. And then also get access to knowledge base from the platform. So whether you're at the very start of the program, you can get access through that website. You can sign up. As you mentioned before, it's free. Free is a good thing. Sometimes free isn't associated with value. There's phenomenal value that we're providing through the program and through the lessons learned as we engage with entrepreneurs in the US and in Europe and other locations. So get access there. Get started there. The secondary is for those organizations that are a bit further developed in terms of their business, the way in which they've gone to market. Maybe they've got that first round of funding or they're really set at a platform for explosive growth. Those organizations have another way of engaging with us, which is a club we call the Founders 50 Club. Globally, we take in 50 founders that have a program every 6 months, 50 founders. They're with us for 2 years. For those individuals, everything from having access to a concierge to assist them in working through Dell, to literally engaging with the Dell Venture Fund, with our engineers, with key partners of ours.

We're going to have to cut it there. We're kind of against the clock. But guys, go check out Dell.com/venture. Kevin@kevincarney.ca/entrepreneurs. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Awesome.

Go entrepreneurs.

My next guest is Jonathan Bixby. He's one of the co-founders of Highline VC, which is an accelerator here in Vancouver as well as in Toronto. He's going to share some of his thoughts on entrepreneurship and give some advice. Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Nice to be here. Thanks.

So tell us about yourself and what you do at Highline VC.

Sure, so serial entrepreneur, I graduated, so I'll use luck a lot in this conversation, I graduated in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom, and got into a company that actually did really well through that period, and then started my first company in 2001 as a young buck, and then sold that in 2006, and then started my second company, Strange Loop, in 2006 right away, and then sold it in 2013, and then since then have been doing angel investing and been on a bunch of boards, and I joined Growlab about a year or so ago, and then was, you know, dated Marcus Daniels at Extreme, and finally married about 2 months ago to create Highline, which is Canada's first cross-Canadian accelerator.

[Speaker:EVAN_CARMICHAEL] So what do you guys do there at Highline?

[Speaker:JAMES_WEST] So what we do is we take companies that have found product-market fit, and we accelerate them, and so we, you know, there's a lot of accelerators, so one of the questions I always ask is, "Why are we different?" And I think we're different because of 2 things. One is that we have cross-Canada connectivity, so we're the first group that has actually realized that there is going to be a lot of consolidation in this market, and so we need to offer, you know, companies from Toronto to Newfoundland to BC opportunities to get into this program and get funded by this program. And two, I think, which is really the mantra, is we have the best program for speed to seed. So one of the things that we find in the ecosystem is that companies really struggle to raise that first bit of capital. They might have put their $30,000 of savings or credit cards in, but now it's that next leap, and they're all too early for traditional seed institutional investors. So what we provide is up to $200,000 of funding with our partners BDC, and we provide that instantly. And so if you're a company that gets chosen to join Highline, you get money faster than anyone else, and so when we believe that that will translate into success.

Got it. So what are some of the things that you look for, for people coming into your program?

Good question. So we are primarily interested in the segment of, uh, you know, the population that is interested in building a big business. So for us, one of the segmentations we do is, is this a big enough market? Could it be venture fundable? If it's not, then, you know, there are angels and other seed funds out there that might be interested. We look for big game-changing markets, number one. And number 2 is we're looking for founders that are absolutely passionate about building a big business in Canada, and we want to support those people. So I'd say those are the 2.

Got it. So you're involved with Dell for Entrepreneurs, right? What's— how does Highline play a role in that program for Dell for Entrepreneurs that's launching?

Yeah, so Marcus Daniels, our CEO, is on the advisory board, and I think what Dell's done is amazing, obviously, but I think it's amazing for a couple of reasons. So we are involved because We believe entrepreneurs need a leg up, and what Dell provides, obviously on the financial side, but more importantly on the advisory side, is really, really important for these businesses. They can't get enough really core credible advice, and I think that what Dell's bringing to the table is that network effect of really credible advice.

What are some of the mistakes— I mean, there's got to be a lot of people who apply to your company that don't get in. and even the ones that do, they have a lot of holes that you have to help them fix before you go for that $200K funding. What are some of the common problems that you see over and over and over and over again with the entrepreneurs coming to your program, and kind of advice to the listeners on how to overcome them?

Sure, yeah, and I'll put this into context. So when I was running GrowLab, we had a lower rate of acceptance than Harvard or Stanford. So we had 400 applicants for 4 spots. Twice a year. And so, and what we would do is we would give, you know, we'd take those applications in and they would be credible, and then we'd interview a quarter of them, and then only 4 of the 100 that we interviewed would make it. So, so we are looking for the cream of the crop. To answer your question specifically, what I find is that there's a culture of entrepreneuring, which is it's more important to be cool than to get stuff done. I'm not going to swear on your site. So, so for me, it's a culture of You actually have to do things. Right. So you mentioned earlier delight customers. I think it's equally important to delight your company and the people that work for your company. Mm-hmm. And so for me, the difference between the 400 and the 4 are the 4 actually said we're going to do something and they accomplished it. Mm-hmm. And they didn't just talk and go to coffee shops and have ironic hair. And so I think for me, actually accomplishing something, which sounds so trivial, is the key differentiator between the people who are successful and not. And then I think the other thing that I would mention in terms of mistakes is people try to raise money too early before they've accomplished anything. So they go and say, look, this is a great idea, and they're not really putting their skin in the game. And so for me, it's all about the passion that they exhibit, and the passion is not just what they tell me at a coffee meeting, it's actually what they do. So for me, I measure outputs, I don't measure inputs. and I think that's a key differentiator between what we're looking for and the typical startup.

Do you have some— I'm wondering, how much do I have to get done? You're not expecting them to have figured it all out, because they need the money, obviously, to come to you for help, but they have to show some level of ambition and willing to work.

So what proof, momentum, do they have to have before you'll look at them and say, "Hey, you got something." Yeah, so we talk about, and we can use the lean entrepreneur's vernacular here, we talk a lot about product market fit, and so customer discovery, I don't care if you're a techie or a salesperson, you have to have gone and talked to your target market. So identifying a big market is one thing, have you spoken to them? And so literally, have you done customer interviews, and can you correlate some of the information you're getting from one group and say, hey, there might be a hole here or a market opportunity. So for me, that's, core and key. If you haven't done that, i.e., if you just have an itch that you want to scratch personally, you haven't done enough work. So that's number one.

Do I need sales?

No, you definitely don't need sales. You need people to say— this is the classic— if you build it, I will come. Right, okay.

Letters of intent.

Sure, if you want to get a letter of intent and sign that, that's great. But really, more importantly, what I would do as someone investing into you is I'm going to call the people that I want to call that you've said you've talked to, right? And I'm going to say, hey, Rebecca, are you going to buy this stuff if they build it? And if they say, "Eh, not really sure, it's kind of 10th on my list," that's not going to be interesting. If they say, "This is a critical problem for my business, and if these guys fix it, these young whippersnappers, I'm going to pick it up," awesome.

So you need momentum from customers, okay. What else? What's next?

I think team is super important. So you're going to have holes in your team all the way up to being a big business. The key holes I think early for me are, do you have a technical co-founder? And obviously we're talking in the tech space. Do you have a technical co-founder that can get stuff done and can actually speak credibly to a customer and to a potential investor? So if you don't have a tech co-founder, if you're a single co-founder, you're too early for us. If you have a tech co-founder, we really only require two, a tech co-founder and some sort of business co-founder. So that's the other side that I think is just absolutely, you know, table stakes. You need a team of two. and the dynamic between that team is actually really important to us. We want to watch that you guys trust each other, you're not talking behind each other's backs, and that there's a level of trust between the two team members.

Got it. How long do you stay with the company?

Yeah, so we stay all the way from seed to exit. So an exit might be, you know, a self-sustaining company, it might be a large company that comes and acquires one of the companies that we just did. Retsly just got acquired by Zillow. There are a number of ways that obviously you can exit a business, but we are— our founders and our team are involved all the way through, as much as you want, obviously. We're not in your face, but we do monthly checkups, and I continue to have coffees with all the companies that we've invested in.

But then if they don't start hitting their goals and they're not doing their work, you get more in their face, no?

Yeah, we do, and I think one of the things that we have been, as polite Canadians, we are really reticent to fail. And so one of the cultures that I've really tried to push forward is it's okay to fail. It's okay to say this isn't working. And so one of the things we're trying to change in the culture is fail quickly, but exhaust all that you've done. So yes, we'll get in your face, but then we're going to have a meeting and say, why are you doing this? And that's a really powerful thing thing to do, and it allows people to feel forgiven to fail, and I think that's important.

And then do you sit on their board? Do you take a board seat?

We do not. No, we don't take a board seat. We are just advisors, and we take founder shares, so we're very friendly from a cap table perspective. Right. Is there—

what's the range of equity that you usually take from a startup company?

Yeah, so that changes depending on how much money we're putting in, but I would say a range of 5 to 8% is pretty typical.

Okay. For $200K? If you're doing $200K, you're looking at—

Yeah, probably the higher end, and some of that money is convertible loans, convertible notes, so that money is BDC money. BDC and Relay are our two big sponsors and partners in this, and so, not all the money is always coming from Highline.

Very cool. Jonathan, awesome. For people who want to learn more, where are they going?

They're going to highline.vc. Very simple website.

Very cool, and I guess you're also in the Dell for Entrepreneurs program on the backend if people have to find you there.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you so much, man.

Thanks.

Awesome show. Today's show is all about bringing on special guests to help you grow your business. Today I've got Amy Millman, who's the founder of Springboard Enterprises, who supports women of all ages, not just young women, in helping them build their business. Amy, welcome to the program.

Hi, Evan.

So tell me about Springboard Enterprises and what you guys are all about.

We're all about women entrepreneurs and we're all about helping them grow billion-dollar businesses.

Billion-dollar businesses. I love it. I love the thinking big. So how are you involved in this Dell for Entrepreneurs program?

Well, I actually am a big Dell groupie, and what I've learned a long time ago is that when you've got somebody at the helm of a large company that actually started it from scratch, a founder, which is very similar to our organization where Our found— one of our co-founders, the woman named Kay Koplovitz, who started USA Network cable television, grew it to a $5 billion business and sold it to NBC. And, you know, you begin to realize that those founders really have what it takes to build these huge billion-dollar enterprises, and Michael Dell was one of them. So we got interested in Dell really early on as a partnership opportunity resource collaborator for our entrepreneurs, and we haven't been sorry about that connection.

Very cool. And so if I sign up for Dell for Entrepreneurs, you're one of the organizations I can connect with as a source of wisdom and potentially capital and connections as we grow?

We are an on-ramp to all services that Dell can provide for growing companies, whether it's cloud services or hardware or any of the collaborations that they have with the amazing software partners that go into the Dell network.

Very cool. So our last guest, Jonathan, was focused on the very early stage, seed capital, I have an idea, I'm just getting started. You're a little bit later on and you want to help people build billion-dollar companies, so huge goals there.

What—

how do you judge, how can you judge if somebody can build a billion-dollar company or not? What are the characteristics you look for in an entrepreneur coming to you?

Well, first, you know, we're really looking for companies that are market-ready. So the kind of companies that have a product that they've developed and now need to either scale into bigger markets or maybe they're serial entrepreneurs and they've done this before. And so we kind of look at the teams, you know, is this a team that either has done this before or really understands what it takes or has a domain expertise. We have a lot of scientists that we work with. Life science is a big component sector that we work, that we work with. And so we're looking for people that really understand the basics of their technology and then have a really big audacious goal that they want to solve. So, you know, I've got a company that's doing the first treatment for autism, and we look at it and we say, all right, let's put it out there to the rest of our network and see what they can do about evaluating and assessing the potential of this technology or this solution. And they came back to us on that particular front and said, you know, this could be a game changer. And so—

That's a billion-dollar company.

That's a multi-billion-dollar company. And it was fast-tracked through the FDA process. The clinical trials, and so we could see actually the first treatment for autism coming out probably in the next 12 months.

Wow, very cool.

Which could, you know, again—

Change the world.

Change the world. Yeah, very cool. And that's what we— we're looking for companies that change the world, and sometimes they change it in very incremental amounts. So, you know, many of our companies are now engines inside larger entities, you know, really driving change or innovation inside those companies. That's a big win as well.

Is there something— because you focus on women entrepreneurs only, right? Are there problems that women entrepreneurs face that men don't, that come up, or is it just we all face the same problems?

I think we all face the same problems. We just saw that as an underserved market, and so we decided nobody else was really focusing on those companies that had women founders or the women in the team. Sometimes it was one woman in a team of 4 guys, and she needed sort of an affinity network to help her with guiding towards resources that would help her. So, you know, one of my favorite examples is a company called iRobot.

I love iRobot. Are they from your group?

That's the Roomba vacuum.

Yeah, yeah, it goes on every day at my condo.

There you go. So Helen Greiner and her 2 co-founders were at MIT, and they— decided that they didn't want to do any housework and could they come up with some robots that handled that stuff while they were doing Department of Defense activity. And they came up with this idea. The thing is, is that she really didn't have, outside of her MIT network, any connections into communities. And, you know, what we talk about in the Lean Startup Method is who would buy this stuff? You know, and it's not the government market or the industrial market that they were used to. It was the consumer market. So, you know, how does she tap into another network? Somebody referred her to us and, you know, it was just a concept at the time. So, you know, and I could tell you, you know, we have 550 of these businesses that we've worked with over the last 15 years and each one of them has something that is incredibly valuable to moving along, you know, the progress of making our lives better, faster, cheaper.

Yeah, and even just sharing their stories to have role models to look up to. If you think about tech, you think about a lot of guys. You think about Michael Dell and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Hewlett-Packard, and where are the women at the top of that list? And they're like creating the next generation and sharing their stories to encourage, you know, young entrepreneurs to say, hey, I could be like that person as well.

That's right. You know, it's not just it's climbing the corporate ladder, it's making your own ladder.

Yeah, very cool. What's the biggest challenge that people face when they're, you know, they come to you, they have this big idea, they've had some momentum, but now, okay, I want to get a billion-dollar company. What's the biggest thing that they need to overcome to get there that you help them with?

Well, when I'm sitting with Dell, I say that they don't know Dell. And when I'm sitting with some other people, you know, depending on what they need, you know, sometimes they're scientists and they don't have access to, you know, people who are expert in certain technologies or in business side, in the financial side. And so the, you know, we decided we would fill those ranks with people that we felt could help them either find the right contacts or be the right contacts for them.

So do you take an ownership position in these companies?

Well, we kind of, we call it the Hotel California, you know, you can check out but you can never leave. And so the entrepreneurs are with us forever as either experts or entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs. But we don't take an equity stake in the company. Some of them donate to us, and hopefully that— especially that they remember you, they'll remember us, and not only that, but they'll, uh, they'll have that billion-dollar deal, uh, eventually.

And that's what we're looking for. For people who want to learn more, where are we going to learn about you?

Um, SB.co.

Very simple. Of course, as well through Dell for Entrepreneurs, through their dell.ca/entrepreneurs. Amy, thank you so much for joining us. Great. Awesome. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Thank you, Daniela, Josh. You guys are awesome. I had a great time. I'll see everybody in 2 weeks. Continue to believe.