Two Life Changing Exits in 14 Months | Peter Hwang, S3E6

Our guest today is Peter Hwang, a serial entrepreneur who's built 6 companies over 28 years across 6 completely different industries. His 3rd company, Enwise, nearly went public in 2008 before the financial crisis, which led to their financing getting pulled a month before closing. He was left with $3 million in debt, a double-mortgaged house, and a wife 6 months pregnant with their 3rd child. He rebuilt from that and worked on 2 companies simultaneously for 7 years, Global Faces and Newstrike. Those 2 companies sold within 14 months of each other, an 8-figure and 9-figure exit. He was 45, but then everything stopped. The urgency, the purpose, the identity he built around solving problems. What followed was one of the loneliest and most disorienting periods of his life. In this episode, we get into what was driving him through all of it, why achieving everything he worked for still left him feeling empty, And why he came back to build again. If you've ever felt like you were chasing an external feeling of success and needed to rediscover your internal purpose, this one's for you. Welcome to another episode of Profit Led. I'm your host, Melissa Kwan, co-founder of eWebinar. This season, we're exploring the intersection of passion, profit, and purpose, and how those things change as founders evolve and come into financial success. Let's get started. Hey, Peter. You grew up watching your parents run a Baskin-Robbins every single day, 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM, 7 days a week for almost 30 years. And you've said that they created security for the family, but the business owned their time and their lives. And even as a teenager, you knew that you didn't want that. So, thinking back to those days, what did success look like for you? For you, did you have an ultimate career goal in your teens?

Yeah, I think if I kind of stem it back from where my background came from, it was like my parents, it's a typical first-generation immigrant story. My parents came from Korea with nothing. They were both educated actually. They both had university educations. They couldn't transfer that education here to Canada and there's no gig work or there's no Ubers or where you can actually work to reeducate yourself. So, They literally settled. They bought your— it's your very typical Korean story. They bought a convenience store. They did that for a few years. My dad worked in the warehouse for a while, and then they ended up buying a Baskin-Robbins, which is another— it's a very typical kind of Korean buy yourself a job story. But it's a level of security that they were getting for their family. And it's funny because I remember, I always think about this day, but I remember There's this entire franchisee map, and then in part of the map they have a part with Fast Grubbs. They had everyone that was the new franchisees and existing franchisees. And I remember my dad was the only one that had a full suit on in the picture. And it was almost like the proudest moment he had because he just bought a franchise. And I remember that was for him, he found security and he found a way to protect his family and provide security for his family. And then I still, I don't know where that picture is. I wish I had it, but I just remember that so clearly and vividly because over the span of the 25-year period, you saw the life get sucked out of him a little bit where that entire sense of pride and sense of ownership and sense of just turned into him being tired and him being resentful and him feeling like just, what did I do with my life? Because it was just exhausting and I saw it every single day. They just worked. The entire premise of you work to live, live to work. kind of applied for my parents, right? And I remember my dad specifically. So I had a conversation with him in regards to, I don't think it was a matter of regret, but I think he just felt like he was just very tired and very exhausted when he ended up selling the business. And he's like, thank God. I think that was a pretty hard existence. And I had a good conversation with him because I'm like, I think you don't really realize the sacrifice that you made because basically everything you did was kind of setting yourself up us up for obviously having a much easier life, but more specifically the next generation, which is our kids, they never have to worry again. So it was a lot of kind of what they sacrificed. I think in the moment it was really hard for them and they didn't realize that what they did was set themselves up or set us up for having a really good life, but setting my kids up for having a really, really good life. But yeah, they didn't really realize at the time. So I just remember many times just feeling sorry for them and then feeling like, Our life was always one of, we used to have to work really, really hard and I saw my parents struggle and they weren't overly happy all the time. So yeah, it was kind of just feeling like working for yourself wasn't all that it was cracked up to be until you actually found a way to actually not feel like you're working for someone else, like working for the bigger franchise or another person. So that's why the independence from an entrepreneurship perspective, if it was going to work for anybody, it was really going to be for myself.

So your idea of success back then was still having a business, but for yourself.

Yeah. It's funny because if I look at my sister's path, I have 2 older sisters. My oldest sister is an academic. She took the entire very academia route. She did her MBA, did a PhD. And then my middle sister took the very corporate route. So she worked in retail her entire life and then slowly but surely went up the ranks and now she's been present C-level at multiple different large organizations and she's now the head of retail at Samsung. I took a very entrepreneurial route. So all of us kind of have a very clear path of kind of the direction that we wanted to take, but all of us, I think, wanted to just make sure that we want to succeed. We just want to make sure that our parents' sacrifice was never going to be lost. So I think for us, it's like we just have to work harder than anybody else. So I wouldn't even think, say it was more entrepreneurial that I had in the back of my mind that I was going to be an entrepreneur from day one. I just knew that I had to work really, really hard. to make sure that my parents' sacrifice didn't go wasted. So that was always in the back of my mind.

Would you say that was the one thing driving the ambition in you? Because you started hustling pretty early, it seems like, from what I've heard on your podcast and from what I've read.

Yeah, admittedly, it was probably like money was the first thing that drove me. And I wouldn't say money so much in terms of the materialistic side of money. It was far more the fact that, like I said, I saw the life that my parents had. And I shouldn't say that my parents— we had that life too. It kind of becomes a family affair when you own a franchise, right? I work there, both my sisters work there. So it's a consistent kind of like you're always working in the business and working for the business, and it's all-consuming. So I think the concept that I always had was if I wanted some level of freedom, it always had to be tied to making enough money to have freedom. But then It really got to the point where I didn't feel like I wanted to actually be accountable to anyone. Right. So that's where— and I just remember moments in time with my parents, just the struggle that they had, not only from a financial perspective of just paying bills and just working their ass off, but it was also just working in a retail hospitality environment where they're servicing people all the time. And honestly, this was back in the '70s, right? So being a minority in the '70s in Canada servicing people, There was a lot of really kind of negative stuff that was being thrown their way. So for them, it's like I saw all of that. So I think from the perspective of many different things, it's almost like I had to build up my own kind of psyche and own career to say, okay, I'm going to make sure I get outside of that, not only on the monetary side, but just on the independent side and the feeling that I actually made it and I can be accepted. So it was a combination of everything, but yeah, it kind of all stemmed from kind of seeing what my parents went through growing up.

And you started Extreme PETA, I guess, either in university or like shortly out of, but you had your first exit at 24, right? So, what did having an exit at such an early age do to you? Like, most people aren't even thinking about money or businesses at that age.

Yeah, I think the entrepreneurial journey is funny though, right? Like, when you start off that young, you don't think of it as, I'm going to have an exit. I think you're thinking of it as in you're just curious and you're kind of dumb as well. We did stuff where I remember at the time, I started multiple different stupid little ventures in high school. And when I went to university, I played football at university and I went to university primarily to basically play football, but also get a network and stuff. And I always had in my mind that I was going to have an entrepreneurial background or I was going to do something entrepreneurial. So when I graduated school, it was funny, I actually had My last year at university was my 5th year where you should go back and play football, but I decided to forego that because I knew I had a really close connection, like network at the university. So I'm like, why don't I open up a franchise? So we opened up the Extreme Pita franchise there and it just worked really well because I had my entire close-knit community that just came and supported us and networked and supported us. So that was probably the smartest decision I ever made because you just saw this ramp up of everyone supporting us and now We built this network effect around this pita franchise. So once we had one, we opened 2 others shortly thereafter, and then it became this really kind of— we were young, naive at the time. At that point, it was like 5 young kids that really didn't know anything. We didn't have a shareholder agreement. I was on the incorporation docs with 2 other brothers. They were my high school buddies, but there was nothing formal about it. So I think at that point, we weren't really thinking about the formalities of it. We were just thinking, hey, this would be really cool to start a business. And then everything happened really fast. So yeah, so a year and a half, not even 2 years, I end up getting an offer from the 2 brothers because we got a franchise development company that came in and they said, listen, we want to buy out some of the partners. I was one of the partners that they ended up buying out. And like I said, at that point I was 24. It wasn't a ton of money. I think it was like $50,000, but it was my first exit and it seemed very handsome at the time because You know, not having any money to having $50,000. It was a pretty cool thing, right?

I mean, that's huge. Yeah. 24-year-old, like people have like $1,000 in their account, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And it was funny because at that time I was actually working, my first job out of school was CIBC Finance. So I worked as a sales rep for CIBC Finance. So I was like moonlighting at the time. So I was still at CIBC when literally I was doing Extreme PETA Thursday, Friday, Saturday night till 3:00 AM in the morning. And then I sold it and then I was like, okay, I'm still working at CNBC and I have an exit, right? It was just a really cool thing at the time, but it wasn't cool to the extent of like, hey, I was always planning on making money and having my first exit really quickly. It was just really cool that we achieved that accomplishment, right?

And most founders I know stick with one industry, one type of business. You've built companies in food, finance, energy, tech, You know, charity, cannabis, and now like supply chain, food, grocery— like, all of these are different worlds. What would you say it is about you that makes it possible for you to pick up something new each time and just make it work?

Honestly, it's— and it's funny you asked the question because I've had this in many other podcasts and interviews and just like kind of mentorship meetings I've had with people where they always ask the same question, which is like, you don't Usually a lot of entrepreneurs, when they have an exit, they go to the next startup. They kind of forego a 2-year non-compete clause and they go to the exact same industry and just repeat it over and over again. I've never really been motivated by, like I said, I've never been motivated by money. I've been far more motivated by just being very curious and solving big problems. And then ultimately I think money and success kind of is a subset of that if you have the ability to figure it out. For me, it was always something that just came up where I'm like, okay, this is a cool problem to solve. And I think I've just been, in my early days, I was actually really, like I mentioned, I was kind of naive and dumb where I'm just like, for me, I was very courageous to the extent that I didn't know any better. So I would just do things, just trying it out. And then as my kind of knowledge and you learn from the last mistake, you learn from the last company, you just try new things, right? And then you kind of continue to build a framework around it. So yeah, it's kind of a, It's cliché, but it's absolutely true. You learn from your mistakes and then your first startup and your exit is always going to be small, but then you kind of build on top of it, on top of it, on top of it. And then obviously my last 2 exits in 2018, 2019 were life-changing exits, right? But that's because I kind of built a lot of frameworks. So yeah, for me, it's like starting off in terms of entrepreneurship was always about curiosity and kind of building things and just not being Too worried about the end result as long as I had the ability to figure out, okay, how do I actually commercialize this and make this work? So yeah, I've always kind of been more curious about solving problems than I have been about making money or just doing something repetitively.

So Enwise was your third company, right? You had grown it to 15,000 customers, like $50 million in revenue. You had a signed term sheet, you're going to go public, and then 2008 hit, financing was pulled a month before closing. You were very public about that. Basically overnight you're left with millions of dollars in debt, double mortgaged house, friends and family in the business, a wife that's 6 months pregnant with your third child. I mean, can you share more about how that period changed you?

Yeah, I think it changed me in multiple different ways. Like, at the end of the day, I think that's probably admittedly the first 2 companies I started and first 2 exits I had, they're just bottom-up build operational businesses. They weren't big or they weren't big visions in scope. Like, Both of them were really good exits and they're great, almost like lifestyle businesses. But when I went down the Enwise route, it was under the whole premise of I knew there was a big market here to tackle. It was the first kind of top-down analysis where I was looking at addressable market. I'm like, this could be a huge opportunity. So I took the approach of I got to raise money, I got to hire a ton of people, we got to grow quickly because we actually built the model on the premise of there was a big eco-energy, like a government grant rebate program that just launched, and we were the first ones to actually build a company around it. So there's rebates and energy grants that were given to households if you retrofit their equipment. So I built an entire model so fast around that. And like I said, over a 2-year period, we grew to 15,000 customers, $15 million in top-line revenue. And it was just a good business. Mind you, we bought the business because we were growing so fast and we raised the money to do that. And it's so funny, you feel indestructible to a certain extent. And all I knew previously was success, right? So for me, it was like, you feel like this trajectory that's happening and everything's kind of going the upward route. And then all of a sudden, like I said, a material event happens. And I talk about this in multiple different kind of teachings I have, even with my podcasts I've done before and Substacks and kind of learnings and teachings I have, which I always talk about the 4 determinants of success. But you realize market timing can really screw you up really in a very, very quick way if you don't see it coming. So for me, it's like I felt indestructible at the time and all of a sudden 2008 hits And I get this email, it was from our investment bank that basically said, listen, as per clause 14.C, it was like act of God clause or it was something like financial crisis, we're pulling the term sheet. So it was like $5 million we had as financing that got pulled immediately. And at that point we were just left with debt. And at that point I was so confident because we had such a high trajectory of the business. I went deep into the business, I double mortgaged my house. I was one of the lead investors in the previous round. So it was like, Everything was on this whole fearless moment because, like I said, I felt like I was indestructible and all of a sudden, it just gets pulled immediately. So that was probably the most, again, the most difficult time in my career by far, not only professionally, but personally, because everything I was thinking about was like, I saw the afters of the success that was going to happen when we went public and then it just got pulled. So again, very cliché, but it's like, You realize really quickly the type of person you are in the worst of times when a couple things happen, when obviously a material event like that happens, but also when you're going through the aftermath of it and you realize, okay, who are the people that are closest to you that are your tribe, so to speak, that are most loyal to you and they just care about you? And I remember, I'm not going to name names, I'm going to— like, there's a very specific kind of story I always tell people that it's always the loneliest period when things are on the downfall or things become a struggle, because when everything's going amazing, you have co-founders or people that want to be part of the company or people that are saying, hey, I was one of the early employees of the company. They always want to be the first person to say, hey, I was part of this. But the second something goes wrong, it's like they're the first ones jumping off the ship, right? And if you're the founder that's left standing, you just got to figure out how to compartmentalize that and deal with it, right? So And I was dealing with it in a very difficult way because I had all of friends, I had colleagues, I had co-founders that basically just said, listen, I can't be part of this anymore. So you realize pretty quickly who your friends are. And there's a really kind of funny story I have, and it's kind of a sad story, but it's funny. I had 2 really good friends. One was, I think he invested like $15,000 in the business right before we went public. And I was almost letting him in because it was kind of late stage in terms of investment, but I'm like, hey, come on in for no problem because it'll be good for you and a good opportunity. And then I had another friend that was a plumber, one of my best friends still to this day. He invested like, I think, $50,000. He didn't have that money to invest in, but he just believed in me at the time. And when the actual deal got terminated, the individual that invested $15,000, to be clear, he was like, He was in the financial services industry. He was actually way more well-off than our friend that was a plumber. He would pepper me with questions saying, what could you have done differently? This doesn't make sense. Why? What did you do wrong? Whereas my best friend who was a plumber basically just said, listen, I saw how hard you were working and I see how hard you're working right now. I see how stressful it is. Don't worry about it. At the end of the day, it is what it is. I trust you. We'll figure it out. So it's that moment of clarity that you have to answer a question where it's like you just realize who you're people are and who your friends are and who you actually need around you to support you in the bad times. And the biggest thing was my wife. She was 6 months pregnant at the time when I told her that this was happening. Her first response was, and this was after a few hours of just having a lot of sober, very emotional conversation, her first response to me was basically, listen, Pete, we've been through everything together. We came up with nothing. If we have to start over again, we'll be okay. So that almost kind of gave me the clarity of like, okay, it's okay for us to keep going and we'll make it work somehow. But that's the whole thing. If you don't have that support unit and those individuals around you, it can be a really, really lonely and tough place. And honestly, I probably wouldn't have started my 4th, 5th, and now 6th company if I didn't have that level of support, especially from my wife, Cindy.

Honestly, I heard that as I was doing my research for this podcast on another one. And I gotta say, it like made me tear up a bit. Like, those are really important moments, right? And I've actually over the years seen unsupportive partners break businesses because they just didn't understand why, you know, their partner had to, you know, go on a business trip instead of investing in something else in the home or like something really basic like that versus just being fully supportive as You know, Cindy is even, even in bad times, right? And, you know, if you're not an entrepreneur, it's very, very difficult to understand the sacrifices that you have to go through, right? It's like before I hit record, it's like me, me telling you where my dad never fully understood, like why I had to go start a business, not just go and work for somebody. And he would ask me the question straight up, like, if you were good at what you do, why don't you have any money? Like, why aren't you successful? And it's the same thing from a partner, right? And it's something that, like, you have to deal with every day. So I love that story. Thanks for sharing that. And actually, 2 years after the NYSE thing happened, you were still rebuilding that company, right? Trying to rebuild it from nothing. And you've said that what you take from failure will carve out your future. So I'm curious, like, what kept you going? In those 2 years when things were bad? And how did that experience end up carving your future?

Yeah, it's funny. They always talk about like a postmortem period, and it's very real. Like the PTSD that you get from like a failed business is very real. It's like losing like a loved one, right? In terms of like, you've put your money, time, effort, your entire heart and soul into this, everything, your entire existence kind of goes into this business, and all of a sudden just goes away, right? So I had to deal for about 2 years of trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself. And the easiest thing I probably could have done was just shut down the business. But honestly, I'm not wired— and there's a whole other conversation we can have, Melissa, around the entire Asian scarcity model and the wanting to prove yourself and make sure you can prove yourself that you're worth around your peers, but more specifically to your family members, to your peers, to other people that doubted you. I have this mentality of a fear of failure that I have and fear of people thinking that differently of me or feeling I might be a failure or I can't succeed on something. So that's why it's always ingrained in me to push and work harder than anybody else. But it's funny, I remember that moment in time where the easiest thing I could have done was just shut down the business because, like I said, it was the financial crisis. Everyone knows about 2008, what happened. And it could have been easy for me just to shut it down and just say, hey, I'll start over or get a job or do whatever the case might be. But something in me just said, listen, And it probably was that, again, the agency, like fear of failure. I just had, I got to keep going. I just got to, in some way, shape, or form, there probably is going to be a lesson here that I should be able to figure out that hopefully in some capacity will give me some level of clarity and clairvoyant thought of what I can take in the future. And it's funny because I remember 2 years into the restructuring of the business, I learned how to become an operator. I restructured the business. I took the entire kind of sales channel from a fixed cost model where we were paying tons for customer acquisition and ads and marketing, And I put it all, turned into variable cost model where we just had all sales agents and third-party agencies that came on board. And it's funny, this kind of goes to the premise of like what you'll learn in your most difficult times will kind of carry forward you. And whether it's serendipity or it's just like sheer luck or if it's just like part of the process, one of the agencies that I was working with when we were restructuring that were part of this kind of variable cost kind of model that we're changing, Turned out to be the agency that ultimately, when we ultimately shut down the business, Nwise, they approached me a year later and said, hey Pete, I know we weren't very good as partners with Nwise, but I saw what you built there and I have an idea and I really, we really need your help to come on board as a potential partner of ours. So again, a lot of this is like, if you think of it, there's no way I would've connected with those individuals because I wouldn't have known them if I didn't kind of gut it out through that 2-year span. So it's like really the learnings that you take ultimately can lead the path of what can happen later on down the road. And to be honest, I know we're going to fast-track and probably talk about this, but Global Faces was by far my— not by far, but it was one of my more successful exits in terms of from a liquidity standpoint, from how proud I was in terms of rebuild of that, what it did and how the impact it's created. But that would've never happened unless I kind of gutted it out for those 2 years. At NY Post.

And while you were running Global Faces, you were also running another company called Newstrike, right? At the same time, you, you said you were traveling constantly. You never really stopped to celebrate any of it. There wasn't a way to turn your brain off. I'm curious, like, what was your passion for those businesses and what was your purpose that was driving you at the time? Like, where were you headed?

Yeah, Global Faces was basically the comeback story, so to speak, and it was like the bottom-up build of like building something really big, really cool, but also just building something that literally was from scratch again. So it was almost like the entire, so to speak, resurrection of like, okay, I'm going to start this over again and prove to everyone, okay, I can do this. So Global Faces was the coolest model because we built it with 4 partners having no money, just literally kind of grinding it out and kind of getting to that point when we built it up. I got involved in Newstrike, which was a cannabis company. I got involved in Newstrike probably 2 years later in 2013, 2014. 14-year timeframe, of which that was far more of a market opportunity because I saw that 2 very different businesses. Global Face was a bottom-up build. Newstrike was far more of a, hey, there's something that's happening in the cannabis sector where Canada is being the first federally legalized nation across globally that basically is legalizing cannabis. So it was a moment in time where we said, okay, let's jump on it. And we had to figure out how do we actually get a license. So we became early entrants into that market, and that was a pure play, like right place, right time. But that wasn't as operational as Global Face is. Global Face was always operational, but Newstrike was like you had to hit moments in time where you're okay, I got my application. We ended up building a facility. It was kind of a lower CapEx facility, but you had to build it. You have to do all these different things. But nothing was operational until one day when we realized, okay, we got officially accepted with our license. And then all hell broke loose in which we caught that moment and wave where we ended up going public within a year period. We signed a sponsorship deal with Tragically Hip as our brand ambassadors and partners. We ended up going public 6 months later. We ended up riding up to close to a $700 million valuation. We ended up raising $170 million just under a year later. So all of that happened so quickly because we caught a moment in time. Again, 2 very different businesses. Global Faces was still operating, but NewsCircuit was just like milestone, milestone, milestone, milestone. And then it was funny, the moment we raised that big round of financing, we had to do something with it. That's almost a parallel path of when I had some buyers that were looking, private equity that was looking at So the timing was really perfect because they approached us saying, hey Pete, here's what we're thinking. And I was very open and transparent with them. I said, listen, I'm also partners in this cannabis business. So if I sell Global Faces, there is a very, very strong chance that I want to make sure that I find a CEO to replace me immediately so I can go over to Newstrike. And they agreed to it. So it happened almost like Immediately where I sold the company in 2018, Global Faces, and I had no time to celebrate. I don't think I did anything. I ended up buying a vacation property, but that was the only thing I did. And then I ended up going on as president of NewsStrike, and then that was a whole other year and a half of just chaos. And then we ended up selling that like a year and a half later. So it's like, it was just pure, like there was a blur, but basically from 2012, To 2019, it was like, it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but it was like 7 years of just like nonstop building.

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It was definitely curiosity, but it was also the ability to see kind of things that you build from scratch. start to actually take shape gets you motivated just to do more and more and more and things that you actually never thought you can potentially accomplish when it happens at such speed. And it's funny, admittedly, that whole 7 years was just nonstop building and I was just working so hard, but I never really thought it was hard work. I was just so excited about the momentum that was going on. And I talk about market timing, by the way, When 2008 hit, in 2010, there was an entire market shift in which markets were amazing. Like everything I talk about this with everybody, like you have to catch the wave of good market timing. But after the housing crisis happened, from 2010 to 2022, you had like 10+ years of like, if you were in tech, you were doing amazing. If you were in real estate, you were doing amazing. If you were in cannabis, you were doing amazing. So you were in industries in which you just had to be at the right place at the right time, and then you could actually build really good companies because Money was free-flowing, like cheap money was free-flowing, financing was happening. So that was a really great moment in time to be an entrepreneur. And like I said, I happened to catch a wave in which I started a business immediately, but it was just a really great time to be an entrepreneur. And that's kind of where I was just really excited about all the different things we're building because it was just becoming incremental so fast. So like I said, it was like 7 years of pure building, building, building. And I always tell this, I genuinely tell this to entrepreneurs. And if you look at my kind of determinants of success, they're basically idea is number 4, execution is number 3, and then market timing and resilience of a founder is like 1, 2, and they're very close to each other because at the end of the day, if you can be as resilient, have the best idea possible, but if you miss time and market, you're going to fail, like your business is going to fail and vice versa. Timing is not good, you can find a way as a founder to build your business and be very resilient and be very smart, but that's the whole premise of it. You got to keep going. And like I said, they hit that market perfectly. So you're right, it was kind of a blur, but when 2019 hit, I just realized I had 2 big exits back to back. And that was the first time when I had the sober second thought where I'm like, holy shit, I actually made it and I actually built something else. 2 things that are pretty cool.

I mean, you've seen a lot of founders around you, right? Some who made it, some who got stuck. And outside of market timing, right, which I guess one can debate whether you can control that or not, what do you think separates the 2 groups? Like, what makes the successful ones successful, and what keeps the other group from getting there?

There's a reason why I talk about founder resilience and founder mindset as the number one factor. And I don't want to have this sound cliché or sound something that is like out of a textbook or whatever, but it's absolutely true. The reality is, and by the way, I know it to be true because I'm in my 6th startup right now, which I would argue from 2022 to now, it's the worst market I've ever been in. And I've been on this planet for a long time. I'm turning 53 this year and I've been an entrepreneur for 30 years, right? So this is by far the worst market for entrepreneurs and founders that I've ever seen, unless you're building a very quick, AI kind of engineering and architecture engine, which it can build off of, which again, you can do that. But the reality is most businesses aren't that. So you kind of realize that from the perspective of when you're building something and you realize times, you just go through this really difficult period. And I talk about this with every founder. There's only 2 moments of clarity. And when you start a business, one is at the very beginning, one's at the very end. The very beginning is when you have a great idea and then you have friends, family, people that say, hey, that's a fantastic idea. I'll invest a little bit of money into you. And you're too stupid to realize anything other than just, I'm going for it. So that's one moment of clarity because you're just going for it. Everything's exciting. The other moment of clarity is when you either sell the business or you shut down the business. Everywhere in between is this level of rollercoaster ride and uncertainty where it's just like you're trying to figure things out. I talk about this, especially in periods where it's difficult, to your point, when the market might be off, is like you just have to have the ability as a founder to have the mindset just to know and understand, okay, when do I pivot? How long can I sustain this? What type of resilience do I have? Can I keep going? And I talk about this with everybody, which is basically more often than not, companies don't fail. Founders just get tired and They run out of good ideas and they can't do it anymore. So I really believe that to be true. And that's not to say that people shouldn't shut down businesses, but there's a reason why when they talk about 8 or 9 out of 10 companies fail, it's more often than not because the founder resilience and founder mindset just can't keep going on because they're just so tired. Right. And I've seen that multiple times. And the best founders I know are the ones that have kind of built up this muscle where they can sit in suffering and sit in pain long enough to just say, okay, I can withstand it, right? And that's not for everyone, by the way. That's— it is an entrepreneurial muscle that you have to build.

My Substack note today was one of the best advice I ever got was don't marry your idea. And I got that advice, I guess, in my late 20s. It taught me at the time to ask, you know, what if I'm wrong, right? I think there's a certain kind of conviction and stubbornness that you have to have for your idea, but there is an opportunity cost. If you don't change paths, I guess. And sometimes that path is like when you're tired or when you're not having fun and when you kind of realize like this is never going to be a great business. Actually, that's why I sold my last one. Like I realized I was waking up and I just, I didn't want to do it anymore. Like I wanted to not be in that industry. Like I've been in the same industry for like in real estate for 10 years and I was just ready for a change. But I could have said, hey, this is the business that I have right now, and I could have just kept hammering at it, but the opportunity cost of staying there just would've been too high. And if I hadn't given that up and sold it, I wouldn't have the business I have today, which is the one that actually and finally gives me the life that I've always wanted to have 15 years ago when I quit my last job.

Yeah. I think the vast majority of founders There's also the entire part, because you asked me earlier, which is basically what is it that in my mind kind of keeps me going and stuff like that. And yeah, there is definitely the thought process that I have sometimes where it's like the fear of failure I have, it can kind of block the entire logic base and intuition of like, are you just holding on because of the stubbornness that you have, right? So you have to really kind of compartmentalize those things because if you don't, then you're right, you can hang on for too long and realize, okay, my opportunity cost in losing is like way too much, or you realize I'm just hanging on for the sake of hanging on for no particular purpose, right? So it's like there's a lot that goes into the entire founder mindset that goes towards being resilient for the sake of being resilient. Being stubborn to your own detriment is not a good thing either. But if you realize what I'm building is actually meaningful and there's forward momentum happening, then being resilient is a very important thing because you realize it could be one unlock that actually takes that next level, right? So you're right, it definitely is a fine line of just understanding which one it is.

You went from running 2 companies full speed, 7 years, to 2 exits in 14 months, like one 8-figure, one 9-figure. I mean, that is impressive, right? It's the stuff that founders only dream about. And yet you talk about the arrival fallacy, right? About how it never feels the way you think it would. So, how did you think it was going to feel versus how did it actually feel?

I genuinely thought, and keep in mind, when I talk about my 2 exits, it's like my first 2 exits were management buyouts. They're good exits, but they weren't life-changing, very similar to what we talked about earlier. They weren't life-changing, but they just kind of gave me almost the motivation to say, hey, do your next one, do your next one. So the first 2 exits were not big exits. And then candidly, my 3rd company, I gave it all back anyway. Is as I got into startup number 4 and 5, I literally was going crazy and everything in my mindset was simply, hey, redeem yourself, redeem yourself, redeem yourself. And it was all the voices in your head about, okay, people think you're a loser, you failed, you got to redeem yourself now. And again, I've always came up with this entire Asian kind of glass ceiling scarcity model where I have to prove myself outside of it. And keep in mind, My parents were amazing humans for this one purpose, which is basically they took us out of the projects of Toronto and they brought us into a very affluent area in Mississauga. But they did it because they saved up tons of money and they bought the smallest house in this very affluent area. So I grew up literally with very affluent friends, very Caucasian, all white doctors, lawyers, accountants, right? So for me, it was like I was always Like thinking, okay, I gotta compare myself to these people. So the only thing I could possibly do is just work harder, be a better athlete, work harder, and try to prove myself. So I kind of grew up with this entire mentality of like, I'm gonna prove myself and I'm gonna prove to everyone that I can do something that they don't think I can do. And I probably— I went through my entire life on that. And even to the point where like post-Nwise, that's all it was. I'm gonna work, work, work, work, work, work, and then When I exit these companies, I'm going to feel a certain way of complete relief, financial freedom. I did it. I feel great. And that didn't happen. It didn't happen at all. So when I sold Global Faces, like I said, I didn't have time to relax. I just went right into the operational president role at Newstrike. And then like I said, 14 months later, I ended up selling that company. That was a 9-figure exit. At that point, everything just stopped because literally we sold the company, I sold the company, and then I was off emails, I was off everything. So my 100 emails a day literally went to, I joke about this, it went to like 3 emails a day where it was like an email from promotions from Loblaws or companies that just send me something. And it was a very empty feeling, scary feeling. And you realize all of that seems just very, okay, what am I doing this for? What was I actually doing this for? Because it didn't at the time. For me, it was like the hard work of just trying to prove myself was probably the reason why I was doing it. And then all of a sudden it all ends and I have a lot of money. But at that point, the purpose and the thought process I had of feeling like this would change my life and I would feel like I made it actually felt very lonely and very depressing and very— it didn't feel like the way I thought it was going to feel. So a lot of what I realized Was that first of all, money wasn't the thing that I was chasing. It was just far more of the proving myself and proving to other people that I can do what I was intending on doing. And when I did that, admittedly, you kind of realize that that's your own personal feeling that you have right now, that it's quite empty because not everyone feels that way. Not everyone's looking at you as like, hey, this guy has improved himself. It was just far more my own internal thinking of like, I got to work this hard to always prove other people wrong. And then when it happened, I realized what was I actually doing? Why was I actually thinking that way? So yeah, so it was a really kind of lonely, depressed feeling where it was like I wasn't doing anything. I didn't feel I had a sense of purpose. And that's kind of when I realized that my sense of why I like entrepreneurship and why I like the struggle of entrepreneurship is because I just like figuring things out. I like being busy, and I like feeling like I can actually accomplish something. So when that all that ended, it just, it was just, it almost stopped immediately. And it was like just the arrival fallacy I had was like nothing that I thought I was gonna feel in terms of the fulfillment side of it didn't transpire at all.

So how did you overcome that eventually to, I guess, rediscover purpose that democratizes yourself from the external validation, the money, the proving to yourself or your friends or your parents?

Yeah, great question. I kind of went down an entire thought and purpose-driven kind of almost self-assessment of like, okay, what is it that actually drives me and what actually gives me purpose? What actually gives me actually the feeling like I want to wake up every single day and feel like I'm accomplishing something or I'm adding value to something? And that's when I just looked at The next chapter, which is like, if I'm going to do anything, and whether it be invest in a company, which I've invested in a ton of companies, if it's going to be start a new— have a new startup, have my 6th startup, it has to be something that's very purpose-driven and very impact-driven. And again, it can't be for the sole purpose of like, I'm doing it for money, or I'm doing it to prove people wrong, or I'm doing it to just start something, start a company. It has to be because I truly believe it has some level of purpose and meaning that And again, I don't want to sound cliché or too idealistic, but that was me personally. Like, I just really wanted to— and the next thing I did, to have tremendous amount of impact and be very purpose-driven.

And did you ever imagine that you would get to where you are today? Like, and was there ever a version of you that, that doubted that it would happen?

The only doubt I had ever was during the moments of Struggle when I'm like, can I keep doing this? Can I keep doing this? Can I keep doing this? But when I actually realized there was that next threshold I hit, and like I said, I truly believe entrepreneurship is one of those, like the biggest quality that entrepreneur has is their ability to endure pain and loneliness and the ability to kind of work through stuff during the most uncertain times. And once I realized I can hit those thresholds and I can like sit uncomfortably a little bit in that pain, is when I realized that I'm cut out for this, right? And I can definitely do this. So that's really where I realized that entrepreneurship is definitely for me because it's like I said, the vast majority of time you live in uncertainty, right? So for me, it's like, that's why I get actually joy and I get fulfillment from just figuring things out, right? And that's kind of where maybe other entrepreneurs and other founders, definitely other founders I talk to, When I talked to them initially saying, okay, what drives you? If money is the main motivation they have, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by the way, but I'm saying a lot of times it's empty, right? Because for them, it's like they realize they might not be building the company that they're building and they just feel unmotivated and all of a sudden they realize, I don't want to do this anymore. So a lot of times when those companies fail, it's just because the purpose that you have, the reason why you're doing it might not have been that fulfilling in the first place, right? Or might not have been the right one. For me, I always had in my mind that it was just, I was really, really okay in the struggle of being an entrepreneur. And just because I love figuring big problems out, that's kind of why I go on and drive to start new things. Because for me, it's about not feeling like I can't figure out something or I can't solve something.

And looking back 28 years, 6 companies, how has your passion and purpose kind of changed over time?

Would you say, like, say in the early years and in the middle and right Like I said, I think the first part of my career was, if I think of the 3 steps, it was probably money was the biggest driver because I knew that we didn't have money. So for me, it was almost like the financial freedom of helping my parents out. Definitely always in the back of my mind is like, I'm going to buy my parents a house. I'm going to do something very special for them. And then my parallel path to that was probably the second chapter, which is like, I'm going to prove people wrong. I'm going to make sure that people respect me. I'm going to do whatever it takes to just fulfill and not fail. And I would keep going, keep going, keep going until it got to the point where, like I said, I had my exits and realized, wow, those 2 things were a little bit empty. Not providing my parents obviously security. I can talk about that all day long because one of the proudest moments was definitely being able to give my parents something that they wanted, which is just not To feel like they have to worry about me anymore. I know we've talked about this. That was the greatest gift my dad said. My dad said, I don't want anything you're going to give me. I don't want a car. I don't want anything. The only thing I've ever wanted is not to feel that I'm worrying about you anymore. He's like, I don't want to feel tak tak te. Tak tak te means always feeling like you always have to worry about your kids. And he's like, you gave me that greatest gift where I don't have to worry about you anymore. And that was really touching to me because for me, I always thought that he wanted a house or he wanted something materialistic. So once I got through those 2 chapters, then the final thing was basically, okay, what am I actually building for? And like I said, now in my 3rd chapter of my life, so to speak, it's like I want to build really cool things that have impact and have purpose. And like I said, I don't want to sound idealistic in nature, but for me, that's the vision I have. Anything I do has to have some level of meaningful impact, not only for myself, but generationally for people that see what I'm doing. And I have 3 daughters. I have a wife that's been through 30 years of entrepreneurship with me. I think the greatest gift I can have is if they say, hey, this is what you built is pretty cool, Dad. And I'm able to say, well, this is how that works with me in this business. And is it very much an impact-driven business? They're seeing the things that we're doing and the impact we're making. So yeah, I'm very proud about that. That's kind of where I'm pretty driven to just make sure that is really the reason why I do things these days.

And how has building these businesses built you as a person? When you think about who you were in your early 20s to who you are today?

Like I said, I've developed a muscle where I have this whole level of appreciation for struggle and appreciation for people that just gut it out and just have the ability to just Do whatever it takes to succeed. And like I said, I think for me, it's like, I think more often than not, and I'm very different than many people in the respect of, I know there's always that equilibrium, the why versus the how. And everyone says just law of attraction, vibrate into your world and just believe what you're doing has purpose and meaning and it'll all come in. And I believe that as well, I truly do. But the reality is I know there's an equilibrium between the two, which is like, I've developed the muscle of the how and understanding the frameworks of how to build companies, but also very specifically the understanding of how to actually be okay with the uncertainty in the lonely middle of all the things that you don't know. And that's kind of the greatest— if I were to teach a class on my Substack newsletter and the community that I developed, it's called The Unstuck Entrepreneur. So it really is like teaching individuals how to actually work through this lonely middle and work through this uncertain period, because that is truly 80, 90% of the actual journey that you have as an entrepreneur is that uncertain period. And just knowing that if you can get through that and just kind of learn through that, then you'll be successful. But that took a long time to figure out.

So tell us what you're doing today and the kind of impact that you want to create in the world.

Tradish is one of those businesses that I truly believe if it's built the way I envision it, can have massive amounts of impact for all the reasons that are basically kind of leading the mentality that people have in this world today in terms of AI advancements, all these different things. So if you think of where we came from, basically the cost of living is at an all-time high right now, but that came literally because people actually got to the point where they were spending a lot of money and things were built off convenience. Technology was built off convenience, but you realize If you think of salaries and compensation back 30 years ago versus now, when I first graduated 30 years ago and I got my first job at the bank, I got paid $50,000. My daughter, first job out of school, got paid $60,000 30 years later. There's not much disparity there between the two, yet a house is $1.2 million now. The same first house I bought 30 years ago was $200,000. Gas is now $1.60 per liter here in Canada. Gas back then was like 35 cents. So the entire paradox of what cost of living looks like back then versus now is dramatically different, but your ability to earn has not changed or it's limited. It's far less limited than— so it hasn't grown at the same pace. So my whole premise is there's certain industries and markets that you can actually change if you just change the foundation of how they're built. So food is by is the second highest cost in a household. Groceries are the second highest cost that people have in a household, yet people go through everything about how they're going to afford groceries on a weekly basis and it's a struggle. And candidly, food is, and I believe it's a right, not a privilege. So the premise that I had with it was basically I had to look at the underlying foundation and the infrastructure that food and grocery was based on. And what it's based on is basically layered middlemen. So you think of all the different ways a grocery store gets you food, It basically goes from multiple wholesalers to distributors, to suppliers, to bricks and mortar, the retail costs, merchandisers, and then ultimately delivery. Like an Uber Eats that delivers from the grocery store. All those are layered costs that are very bloated in nature. So my whole premise was like, if I eliminate most of those costs and try to optimize the supply chain, and I do go directly from wholesaler right to consumer and use technology to actually get you that product, can I save you money? And I wanted to build the premise off of a very small subset first, which I did, in which it took us about 2 years to figure it out and just negotiating really good procurement contracts, delivering very smartly, pick and packing at a facility, and just really optimizing the supply chain, which is where all the hard work resides. And we built a model where we can save our customers up to 25% on their grocery bill. And that's with very little volume, very little revenue right now. So my mentality now is if I scale and grow that, can I get to that point where I'm saving more money and now groceries become again back the mentality of that being something that is just simple to buy as opposed to a thing that you have to worry about consistently? So that was the premise of the impact model of providing affordable groceries to homes again. But the biggest thing that I realized was that the data side of it and the personalized behaviors that I can analyze, if I understand someone's personalized behaviors on a a week-over-week basis when they order from us. The reality is I know what they order, I know the habits they have, I know their personalized ordering experience, and the biggest thing I know is their budget. So for me, it's like if I know they only have $150 to spend on a week-over-week basis, how do I actually build an entire technology tool and an engentic tool to actually learn your behavior so I can get you more product for your discretionary budget? So that's kind of what I built and being launched literally in 2 weeks where It's called Sprout AI, which is basically our AI tool, an agentic tool that basically acts as your grocery assistant, where not only do I know your food preferences and your personalized behaviors, how big your family is, but I know exactly how much food that you can afford with the discretionary budget you have, and I can make very smart recommendations. So a lot of this is entirely the business model where I had to rebuild the infrastructure first to get you those cost savings. But once I have that, then you layer on innovation in AI to actually make it far smarter for you to actually be able to create impact for yourself.

Oh, that's awesome. We're going to have to keep an eye on that.

Yeah.

Last question for you. So, it seems like you've lived a few lifetimes now with all your experiences and all your learnings. You made a decision at a very young age about your future by watching the way your parents work. What do you hope your kids will take from watching you?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me, the biggest thing, if I take something from my parents, it basically was the hard work that they did and the sacrifices that they made literally allowed me to have the freedom to do what I did. And I struggle, don't get me wrong, because I always talk about this, like the struggle, the sacrifice that one generation makes doesn't really get passed on to the next generation because they still struggle. Like I struggled my entire life. But what happened, if you look at kind of the sacrifices that my parents made that allowed my sister to be an academic, she's a teacher, does very well for herself. My Sophia was the president of Tommy Hilfiger. She's now the head, the global head of global retail for Samsung. I've sold 4 businesses. I'm on my 6th startup right now. All that only happened because of the struggle that my parents made. So now I really want obviously my kids to realize that obviously they should be very grateful and happy and proud that we've given them the life that we've given them as their parents. But the reality is my parents, their grandparents are the ones that actually sacrificed everything, right? They're the ones that actually allowed them to have what they have. So I don't want them to take that for granted. They have to realize that in their mindset if they pass down from generation, it literally is the same thing. You've got to be able to pass down the next generation and be able to pass on the work ethic, pass on the don't take anything for granted, you have to work harder than anybody else. I still want them to have that mentality. And I truly believe, hopefully, I'm not suggesting that, I know we've talked about this earlier, I'm not suggesting that I'm going to force them to get a job. If anything, I want them to actually have the ability to experiment and take some risks. Build a business for themselves, build a life for themselves because they can do that. And I'm glad I've given them the opportunity to do that, but I think they should because genuinely, with or without any sort of starting point, I truly believe the vast majority in this day and age, the most successful individuals and the most independent individuals are the ones that are going to start their own businesses. They're going to be founders, they're going to be entrepreneurs. So developing that muscle and seeing my kids seeing kind of what I went through, it's important because They have to understand like starting a business is hard, but it's definitely doable. Like they can, they've, they've hopefully learned from me and they can do it on their own now. So that's what I really wanted for them.

Well, Pete, that was an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for your time and thanks for being here.

Thanks, Melissa. I appreciate it.

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