Lunch Academy Ep 003 - VST, Community, and Tteok-bokki

Foreign. Welcome everybody, Back to episode 003 of Lunch Academy. I am Sam, your co host and as always, we have the star of the show, Shade.

Okay. The star of the show. Perfect.

How are you doing?

Doing great. Happy to have a guest. Because I was getting sort of bored of just talking to me.

Talking to me. Yeah, it's pretty boring. How's the weather today?

It's sunny, guys, but it is gonna rain in the afternoon. But there's sun all weekend long and in all of next week, there might actually be hope of spring being here.

Isn't spring sun? I mean, rain?

No, no, it's sun actually. Summer. Yeah, summer's here.

We are putting our guests to sleep. Talking about the weather.

No, I was gonna say you're in Vancouver, right? There's only two seasons. It's like it's literally fall and winter, pretty much May. And then there's three months of sun and then we go back to terrain and clouds and the possibility of really cold temperatures.

That's a perfect description of the weather.

We love talking about the weather.

We love talking. We'll come back. We'll come back to the weather. But before we do that, we're very excited to have our very first guest ever on this episode and on the show, I guess. Yes. This is James Graham, community manager of Victory Square Technologies. Welcome.

Well, good afternoon, folks. Thanks for having me.

Yay. Yay, guys. We added sound effects.

We added sound effects.

This is becoming a legit podcast.

We're gonna get put off for the next episode. We'll be episode four.

I am really excited to your first final guest.

So, like, yeah, tell us what we, we hinted at this last week because we've been talking about Victory Square and all the cool stuff they've been doing for a while, but now you're here in the flesh. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what Victory Square is up to and what you guys do.

Well, Gutry Square is a venture build studio. We invest in and help work with early stage companies and startups that are doing game changing, paradigm shifting stuff in areas like the blockchain, AR and VR health tech, fintech gaming. You know, pretty much we have fingers in a lot of all the cool stuff. Yeah, like it's really, it used to irritate some people when I come in and do the launch Academy standups and I'd be like, okay, if you guys are doing cool ish, please come talk to us. We want to hear what you're doing. But it's legit. Like we are very lucky to be working with a bunch of really amazing companies across the board that are really going to be changing the game in the next 18 to 24 months.

It's awesome. Awesome. How many, how many companies are under the Victory Square umbrella? Do you know?

There's the ones, I think we're officially at the double figures mark at this stage. And then there are a few things that we're waiting on the dotting of I's and the crossing of T's for before we can formally announce it.

It's been a heavy month for you guys. I keep seeing you pop up. I have a Google alert for Victory Square because they do the coolest stuff. So I get like an email every two weeks being like, victory Square just acquired this company.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have this opportunity to work with all these interesting companies and we're not a lot of these. Like, we're not just a VC thing. It's very easy for VC people to just come in, cut a check and go and not have any involvement. But that's not how we do things. We are very much about getting in there.

Right.

Rolling up our sleeves and going to war. Because you find that the more early stage companies actually have people getting involved with them in the process of trying to grow, the better off they become. Just cutting a check is not. It's just not good enough anymore.

Yeah, exactly. And this is kind of what we do a little bit at Launch Academy, where we try to be more than just an incubator in terms of what. We actually don't cut anybody any checks. All we do is try to give you that environment and that support along the way. And basically, like you said previously, going to war with the company, that's what we try to do here too. So it's nice to hear that VCs are trying to combine two of those things together.

We have this network of mentors and distribution partners, operational support. We have all the wisdom that we have collectively put together. Like, I've been in, I've been in tech for almost 20 years now. Our fearless leader and CEO Shuvin Diamond Tijani has been in doing it for longer than that. It just doesn't make sense to not take all this wisdom and knowledge that we have and not actually help people grow with it.

Also, I think it gave me anxiety to invest in a company and then just watch. I could never be a silent investor. I'd just be like, what are you doing? Should be a loud investor. I'll be the loudest you're there.

What are you doing? It's easy.

Why are you not at work? I need my 50 cents back pretty much. So about Shifine, I've. There's a question I've been dying to ask.

Yes?

Is diamond actually his name?

I believe so. I believe it's actually.

It's legally his name.

It's. It's legally. I think his parents, when his parents, you know, had him, I think it. It landed up on the Canadian ID.

Mr. Diamond.

Mr. Diamond.

Mr. Diamond. Tijani.

Tajani.

Because people, People get confused sometimes. Like, is it Mr. Diamond? Is it Mr. Tijani? No, it's Mr. Diamond Tijani.

Gotta use both.

Or Shaft. Or Shaft.

Like a nickname or something. Like, you know, when you get called like Cougar or something. I guess Cougar is like the worst example.

Do you think it was a stripper name? This is. Her name is Diamond.

We just had this talk about keeping it pg.

Sam, are we at the Roxy? No, we're not at the Roxy. There are no cougars here.

So I mean, for everybody watching who doesn't know who Shaft is, maybe you can introduce him.

Shavin Diamond Tujani is a long standing member of the Vancouver venture scene. A philanthropist. He is intent on donating, I believe it's $10 million to various charities around Vancouver and the Lower mainland this year. Wonderful, wonderful gentleman. Very cool guy to work with on a daily basis. Has his fingers in a lot of different pies. He's involved with launch as well. So, you know, look him up. There's a really good Forbes article out there.

It's too bad he likes the Raptors.

Yeah, well, I guess.

What are you positioned to shot to talk trash. But anyway, moving along.

So we could talk basketball for days.

We could, we could. But that's not the point of. That's where we plug in your podcast. Fans Unite Podcast. See? See what we did there? We transitioned.

Now we have to actually start doing it again. Isn't that right? Fans unite boys.

For sure. So I mean like your role at. Your role at Victory Score. It's. We've chatted at length about this in the past where, you know, multitude of hats.

Well, you have to in this industry, right?

Yeah, you throw the name community manager in there. But I'd say victoryscore is one of a couple of companies that you do some work for. Like could you expand a little bit of what like your day to day.

Looks like it's radically different on a daily basis. Just because I'm here. I'm here today representing VST I was attending a workshop as part of the We Vancouver initiative that VSD is co sponsoring at the Park Hotel. Last weekend, I came in and scheduled our social for today, this morning, everything, every day is different. I have the opportunity. Like, community manager is like a really amorphous term. Like every company that has one has them doing something different. So I like to think of myself as kind of an evangelist and a man of action. That actually used to be the SIG file on my email for a different company at one point. But it's my job to not only get out there and stand on top of the mountain and be like, hey, look at us. This is what we're doing. But to also be able to tell the story of not only VST and what VST is doing, but the wide array of companies, be it fans unite, be it blockchain assembly, that we're working with.

Cool. This is where James and I have a lot in common, because I'm here, community manager here at Launch Academy. And it works a little bit the same way where we're trying to. I'm trying to be the spokesperson for every company in our space and make sure that we're giving them shout outs and putting them on all of our channels as much as possible and highlighting their successes because their successes are successes. As easy as that.

I'm stuck in rooms with community managers. That's my role.

But a question for you, from community manager to community manager, how is it. How do you deal with taking on kind of different voices for each of the companies that you represent? Because you have to make sure that you're kind of. That's my biggest fear as a community manager is representing a company in the wrong way. Say, like, I put something and I write something about them. And then my biggest fear is the CEO messaging me. It's the right tone and it accurately represents them.

You have to be very cognizant of the fact that you're not doing this for you, you doing this for the company. So you actually want to know, like, what are the platforms that the company stands on? What are they about? What is their community and their culture about? You know, you actually want to be able to talk. You want to talk to the companies. You know, just talk to the CEO, talk to the employees, know who they are, what they are and what they're about. Because I don't just do social and community for vst. I also am doing it for one of our subsidiaries, Fans unite, right now. And the way I approach VST is far different to how I Approach Fans Unite. Because Fans Unite is. It's very sports driven. It's about sports picks and sports data. And so I get to. I'm trying to appeal to a sports audience, to a gambling audience, and I'm not going to. I'm not going to talk smack about sports teams and try and drive people to win and to do stuff like that on the VST channel. It's just. It's.

You put on different personalities to fit the Persona of the brand.

Community managers usually become a little bit schizo.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's not.

I feel like as a community manager, it takes a lot of. That takes a lot of work that doesn't feel like you're getting anything done, but it's crucial to your job because you have to get to know all the companies and you have to socialize yourself into them and you have to do all those things where I'm like, I'm talking to members, I think 30% of my day, and I'm like, am I getting anything done?

There's a preconceived notion that community manager. All community managers do is just sit there in front of their computer and crack out, really bitching tweets all day and memes and memes. And that's only just a portion of what the community manager does. It's about being able to represent for literally your community.

That's a big role to play. I was so anxious when I first started at LaunchCaddy. I'm like, I have to represent all of these companies. What?

Well, I'm very lucky that I've been able to. Over my career in the tech scene, I've been able to do a lot of. I've been essentially repping community in one form or another, whether it's the companies that I'm working with at BST or working with the companies of, say, you know, an MMO space or science fiction fans. I was essentially a community manager for a CBC project over a decade ago, working with music, working with musicians. So it's all.

It's all scrambling.

It's all the same. It's all learning about what people want and how they want to be presented and occasionally having to learn to think on your feet really fast.

Yeah. And on that note, I mean, one of the questions we had when we were prepping the show is this idea, like, what are community managers doing wrong? Or maybe you want to throw that in there. Communications managers or other fancy titles these.

Guys have now, it's not about you. And you see that with some people that you can read that they're trying to show off themselves, but it's not about you, it's about the company. It's about the customers, about representing that as opposed to just trying to show off with like, again, who's got the gnarliest meme.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

And I mean, I mean like knowing, knowing what you've done. I mean you came over from very strictly the media industry. How did that crossover? Like, what was, what was your first like tech or startup job outside of, I guess you were working with CBC and so on and so forth.

Well, I've been very lucky that I've been able to sort of ride the crossover between media and tech for pretty much my entire career. I mean, first, first tech gig that I ever had was with a company in 1999, 2000 or thereabouts that was essentially doing what Spotify is doing now in terms of curated channels of music and being able to provide you with a user interface. Like, does anyone remember, like, did you guys ever use like Real Audio?

Yeah, yeah.

Like we, we literally had a. This company. Yeah. She's like, what the hell's that?

Winamp.

Winamp.

Winamp.

We had like a deal with Real Audio where they provided us with like a custom UI for our player so you could have like, we had links to our, the store so we could sell. Sell CDs. Yeah, you know, we'd have updated news on what's going on with people, links to interviews, stuff like that. So providing you with more than just the, you know, just the music.

Yeah.

And then I went from there to working with CBC Radio 3, which was the youth culture, I guess, Trojan horse with the cbc. Well, CBC is very. They had this image of being very stodgy for a lot of years. And we went out with CBC Radio 3. We did a. I hosted a broadcast show on CBC Radio 2. I did work with a Webby award winning web magazine, so.

So where we highlight the young up and coming Nickelback. Good Canadian artists.

No, we. I guess what we did was like we were actually one of the first people to break like say the Arcade Fire.

Okay.

At the time.

What.

So that's not bad.

That's amazing. I love Arcade Fire.

There you go.

Yeah. Finally something shot A relates to what you don't like Nickelback.

I like zoned out through all of that. And then I heard our.

Actually a former. A form. A former colleague of mine actually went to high school in Hannah, Alberta with Nickelback.

I feel like every time I say the word Nickelback, like Somebody else logs.

Off, just don't say it. If you say it one more time, Chad Kroger will bust in the door. It's like Beetlejuice, right? You say it three times.

Yeah, no, we're, we're stopping that talk. Moving along. But okay, okay. Like where, where I'm kind of curious and where I want to lead this discussion is. I went to School of Communication, sfu. Shout out to sfu. Not really. I got a degree from there, but. But I know when I first started going to school, every communication student, really, anybody that's working in this kind of communication media realm, they want to be on the radio, they want to be on tv, they want to be a reporter. Like, those were like. They wanted to be a journalist of some sort of. And, you know, you probably keep half an eye on, on what's going on in the media industry these days. I won't go too deep into it, but I mean, like, jobs are dropping left, right and center, like, and it's not just audio, it's not just writing, it's everything. Right. But nowadays I find, you know, if I'm talking to like the first and second year version of Shade, they all want to be community managers. But it's weird. It's weird how that's turned out.

Well, you got it locked in then, don't you?

I guess you'll just go and be a journalist five years from now. Go back.

Me as a journalist?

Yeah.

See myself.

But anyway, the point is, like, I. Have you noticed that shift in different people you've worked with and what are kind of like your general thoughts on the media industry in general and how it's kind of changed?

Oh, God. Do we have several hours? No, we don't.

40 minutes. Go.

Yeah. I mean, we are at a stage now where the, I mean, the Internet was a huge paradigm shift for, for all forms of media. Like, first, first thing that interview that I ever did was actually was in print. And I have done a lot of print stuff over the years because when I was younger, I would hustle and I would write for literally anyone that would, that would take a pitch.

Yeah.

And I noted over the years that there was a transition in terms I was pitching less to print and pitching more to web over the years. And that's just, that's the nature of where eyes are going. And where are eyes going to go from here on in? I, you know, who knows? I mean, we may see a greater growth in VR and AR media, you know, getting big. Do I see people wanting shirts? I Mean, it's a weird one because in terms of broadcast media, Vancouver has some very interesting web stations going on right now. People like no fund radio antennas as well as your traditional terrestrial radio. That's happening as well. So people who want to aspire to I want to be on CBC or I want to be on cknw, they can still do that. But there are a lot of people that realize that that may not be the thing for them, but the technology and the possibility is out there so that they can get involved with something that's maybe not as respectful to their moms, but is still an opportunity for them to be out there broadcasting and, and preaching their gospel.

Yeah, that's fair. Is our podcast going to kick out radio? It's a loaded question. Oh, we are on a podcast. So, you know, there might be a little bit of bias, but.

I think there's room for everything.

That's fair. Expand.

Speaking of someone who doesn't. Yeah, I do a podcast. I also do a terrestrial radio show. I mean, I literally got home from doing my radio show.

Whoa.

Sleep.

I very rarely sleep on any anymore. At least on. No, but I've been doing, I've been doing a show on Vancouver's Cooperative Radio CFRO 100.5 now for the last 14 years. Yeah, so it's 14 years of very sleep deprived Fridays.

Wow.

Yeah. Crazy. So let's, let's book that down. We're gonna start filming at 2am in the morning instead. That's my prime time anyway. So that's why I have a hard time getting here in the morning. It's like, it's really hard for me to make it here for the 12 o' clock show.

Hashtag peak Sam.

Yeah, that is peak Sam. But, but I mean, on that note, and to draw it back to kind of the companies you work with, I mean, there's so many different ways that media can be created now. Like you can have a medium account, obviously. You have the Twitters and the Facebooks and so on, so forth. You can also make podcasts. I mean, it's relatively no frills now. I mean, compared to, you know, when you started the industry and the kind of massive equipment that we had back then, like just everything is just a lot smaller.

In fact, back in my day, I had to go 12 miles in the snow just to do a radio broadcast.

Exactly, exactly. Now you can do it on anchor, on the phone, like just, just through Skype calls, all that kind of stuff. I mean, like what, what advice would you have for, for you Know, startups, maybe earlier stage and at what point do they dive deep into, you know, one realm? Is there one preferred, you know, medium.

No pun intended, into like, like in terms of media startups.

Yeah. In terms of content and content marketing and brand building.

I guess those are usually, man. I mean, I'm very much, I mean it's going to be case specific as to like, what doing. I mean, I believe very much in the, the Jackson Pollock idea of throwing something, you know, keep throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what, and, and seeing what fits. Because we are in a day and age where your ability to seize the means of production and to get your voice out there is, it's so easy as, because as you're saying, it's like get it, get an anchor account, get a medium account, get a, you know, get a registered blue with Blogspot or WordPress or something and just get out there and just, and do it. So if you have the opportunity in which to create all kinds of content, get it out there. Because for as much content is out there, there are as many content funnels. Yeah. So people are going to be listening and looking at and watching all different things. So do you have a YouTube account? Cool. Get a Vimeo account, you know, get a dailymotion account. Oh, food just came in.

Oh yeah.

Are we ready for food?

Well, I mean, we're always ready for food, but. Oh no, it's. It's gonna hide.

It's gonna hide. Let's not get too excited. We'll wait a little bit.

Wait a little bit. But yeah, for sure. Like one of the, one of the things one of the startup mentors told me is that every company should be a media company. And obviously I don't think they're meaning like every company should be Fox News or something like that, but just having this concept, having, having some sort of content strategy from day one in this.

Day and age, it's very much what have you done for me lately? So you should, if the opportunity is there, generate content in one form or another and get it out there and continue to generate that content and people, if it's, you know, will pick up on it. If it's your niche, if they're into it, if you're good.

Yeah.

I also want to tie, in fact that video content is really taking over and the reason I was so rudely on my phone, sorry guys. Is I want to know.

I got notes on my phone too.

I brought back the schedule from this conference I went to this week called Vid Talks.

Oh yeah.

And it's all about how to use video for marketing as well as many other areas in your. In your company and how to do it at any level of your.

So we should just film everything and be like the Truman show, right?

Reality TV for companies? No. Well, we're not doing that. But I wanted to bring up this cool company was the first speaker. There's a company called Wistia. If I'm pronouncing it wrong, sorry, Wistia, but the, the girl talking up there, she brought some really good points. And what they have is they have a really awesome product that makes it really easy for you to record yourself on any device and create some cool videos that you can then use either for marketing or a cool thing that she brought up is customer service. So a lot of companies are using their program to do their customer service responses through videos. So if they get kind of an inquiry, they send back a video of them talking and then next to them they can like split the screen into their face and then their computer screen and then kind of do a demo on the alongside.

And I think that's where the growth is going to come with the application of media to various tech companies is that you can do things with audio, you can do things with video that can be applied to, as you say, the customer service experience and nobody. And if no one else is doing that, then that's a game changer that's going to switch things up.

It's more personable and it just makes the experience, I think a little bit better for the person on the other side. So I don't have to read a freaking novel of how to fix whatever is going wrong with the software. The platform that I'm using.

Here's a PDF.

Yeah, it's Giver and it's like here's a fun video of me showing you exactly what you need to do on your screen. And then they were also using it for. And this kind of threw me off, but they were using it for biz dev as well. So people that go out to conferences, they actually would do follow up emails with the video instead of text. And some people are even using videos in their email signatures, which I think is also really cool.

Please don't email us with videos.

Yes, only if they're cat videos you.

Can use like get creative on how to use video and you don't need. They were really highlighting on how to make quality videos with the least amount of equipment possible. And it was amazing. You can do a lot with very little stuff.

That's true True. Actually, on that note, last week we sent an email here at Launch Academy sending out to anybody interested in startup visa. We did an Ask Me Anything series. So we got a ton of responses. So for anybody that's listening that's going. Sam's. Eddie, to answer my question, we are working on the video responses for you. So just hang out, wait a little bit, and we'll come out with them probably sometime next week.

It's really hot under these lights. He can only spend so much time in front of the camera before he starts. Like, that's why we're all losing weight.

That's not true. These lights are supposed to produce zero heat. It's just you guys.

What are you talking about? Guys, there's no lights here. This is natural.

I look this good on it.

Thanks. Ruin the shtick shot a. Jeez.

Anyway, anyway, so, I mean, we could sit here all day and. And just pester you with questions, but Shade and I came up with a game that we want to play because you're one of the most diverse people I know.

So.

So I have a theory about people, like, they're usually interested in one of few things. It's either, you know, music or sports or some of them really like tech, geeky, or I can't. Cars, usually another one. Those are kind of like the common topics that. That, you know, for anybody that wants to create small talk, those are kind of your big four. But talking to you, I know you have such a massive, diverse amount of interest that you could go on about any one of those topics. So what we're gonna play is a game we called Rapid Fire.

Oh, yeah. Let's go, baby.

All right, so Shadi and I have prepared a whole bunch of questions for you.

Okay.

And we're gonna have it under the pressure of annoyingly. Well, annoyingly annoying.

Is that a return or annoyingly quick?

Annoyingly quick, yeah. Music.

Oh, okay. I just thought the producer was going to throw things at me if I.

You have to answer these questions and.

Do that next time. And we're going to see how many we can get through so we can learn a little bit more about you.

Cool. Let's go.

Are you guys ready? Yeah.

Also, I've never done this before, so if I mess up on this Rapid Fire questioning.

Okay, so as understood, Chat is going to ask you the questions you want to answer as quick as possible, and then she's gonna move on to the next one and hopefully we'll get some truth out of this as well about, like, you know, your true feelings. About how you really feel about Victory Square and working there.

You can't elaborate on these questions. Okay?

Okay, you guys ready? 3, 2, 1.

My cat. Tattoos? Yes.

Cats.

Vegetables or fruit?

Vegetables.

Coke or Pepsi?

Coke. Tinder or Bumble Tinder?

World domination or world peace?

Oh, world domination by far.

Sam or Sh.

Producer lady?

Money or free time?

Free time.

Gummies or chocolate?

Chocolate.

Mac or PC?

Mac.

On the streets. PC in the sheets.

Cereal or milk?

First cereal.

Xbox? Both. Favorite company ever?

Three.

Square.

Oh, obviously. Victory swear.

Good one.

Rare.

Alex.

Shouts out to my man. Kanye east all day.

Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad?

Oh, Game of Thrones.

Marvel or DC Comics?

Marvel.

Spoon or fork?

Spork.

Fried chicken or roasted chicken?

Fried chicken.

Vodka, Tequila?

Scotch.

Monopoly or Settlers of Catan?

Oh, Monopoly. And my girlfriend will kill me on that one.

Ice cream or froyo?

Oh, ice cream.

Oh, this one's fun. Sporty. Scary. Baby posh or ginger spice?

Sporty.

Oh, okay. The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings?

Lord of the Rings.

Okay. Are we gonna keep going?

Should we keep going? Do we want to keep going? Yeah. Good. About 20, 25. Yeah, keep rolling them.

Okay. Super fast or invisible?

Super fast.

New York or la?

La.

Soccer. Football.

Well, aren't those the same thing?

I don't know. That's the answer I was hoping for.

Snapchat or Instagram?

Instagram.

Toronto Maple Leafs or Winnipeg Jets?

Winnipeg Jets.

Never picked the Maple Leafs.

10 minutes late or 20 minutes early. Case dependent Hot dogs or burgers?

Burgers.

Boxers are brief. Don't answer that.

Boxers, obviously.

What did you. Oh, wait, no, let's not do that one. There's all long ones. Messi or Ronaldo?

Messi.

Favorite superhero.

Oh, man, I'm gonna say the Vision.

Okay.

Comic book vision. Not Avengers. Movie vision.

Dream spot. Vacation or dream vacation spot? Yes.

Probably Sapporo, Japan.

And we'll finish with this one. What's your favorite place to eat in Gastown?

My favorite place to eat in Gastown, man. Well, it doesn't actually exist anymore, so I'm gonna cop to. I'm gonna cop to probably La taqueria.

Nice. You like to pay too much for tacos. Good to know.

Asada man.

I like tacos.

Actually, let's finish on this question.

It's. It doesn't hit the level of the LA street taco truck that I've been to.

Yeah, I'm going to a place this weekend called Gringo that has good tacos and apparently east van. Have you heard of it?

No, I haven't.

I thought it was just. Yeah, just like.

It's not East Van is Gaston. I just want to be.

Which is East Van to some people.

So it's like, three blocks away. Never mind.

But it is true. I noticed there's, like, two. Like, in terms of talking about tacos and totally jumping off your train, like, there's two sets of people. Like, there's people who, like, love, like, la tacos, and then there's like, the Texas kind of middle. Middle us who don't believe in putting fish in tacos. This is a real thing. This is a real thing.

Yeah. No, no, no. I'm familiar. Well, it's. It's even. It gets even more difficult because if you actually talk to actual, like, Mexicans, like, if you go down to. If you go to Mexico City and actually have legit, like, dyed in the wool, proper roots tacos, the people that are down there will look at la tacos, they'll look at Texas tacos, they'll look at wherever tacos and be like, that is just not the thing.

Like, they're so. They're really passionate about it.

It's. It's a niche, which. It's like barbecue. It borders on obsessions.

Yeah.

Honestly, I'll eat any taco. Like, I don't. Why are people so picky? Tacos.

It'S an art form, man. It's a craft.

And just, like, the whole cereal, milk or cereal question, like, what you put on first, like it matters.

Yeah, that's true. I don't trust people that put milk first. No.

Who puts milk first?

I don't know.

If you put milk first, leave a comment down below and then we're gonna make fun of you.

Yeah, I also don't trust people that say no to ice cream.

I'm so hungry. Can we get to this?

Why would. Why. Why would you say no to ice cream? What is wrong?

Trust them. When you're like, do you want some ice cream? People are like, no. I'm like, you are serial killer. I'm not trusting you.

Okay, so. So, I mean, before we get to the food, like, let's do some announcements, do some shoutouts, obviously. Thank you. Thank you, James, for. For coming by and shout out to Victory Square.

Well, thank you all for having me. Shouts out to the BST team, of course. Shouts out to Kanye east, jkp, and enough respect to my girlfriend's cat, Jasmine.

What kind of cat?

Hey, that's my middle name.

Jasmine.

Yeah.

Yes.

Perfect.

All right, so we're doing announcements before food.

Yeah, you gotta get. Gotta work before you eat. That's how it works.

Okay, so I'm gonna talk about a few events, some announcements that are happening this week. We've got a lot happening actually. Not this week, next week we've got some cool events. On April 25, we've got a cybersecurity workshop. On April 26, we've got a startup ladies night. So all the ladies out there, please come join us at 5:30, it's on. There'll be wine, there'll be cheese, and, you know, good conversation. And then April 30th is Intro to Blockchain workshop. So if you're still out there saying, what the hell is blockchain? Come join us on April 30th. Some announcements. We're on the hunt for a junior marketing intern. So if you know anyone or if you are anyone that thinks they're up for the. The massive responsibility of being a junior.

And hanging out with us, getting us food.

Yes, they're good people, folks, I promise. Please go find our job post. It's on. Indeed, some shout outs because there's a lot of really cool stuff that's happening in the the last week with our members. So our member, Lee Sambaluk. Sorry if I mispronounce your name, Lee, because.

What up, Lee?

Hey, Lee. He just published his first book. Yeah. And so Lee runs a company called Perception. I'm not going to describe it, just Google it. It's cool. But he published a book about the secret of being one step ahead in professional sports and in high performance environments. So taking what people do in sports and putting it in everyday life and learning how to be one step ahead in general.

I know Lee worked a lot with the Whitecaps. Probably the reason they stopped winning is because they stopped working with them. So. So there you go.

Also, the White Caps have two Costa Rican players and that's why I like them. I don't care if they're good or bad. You have two Costa Rican players.

I like you, tight shorts and nice hair. We get it.

Yeah. So way to go, Lee. And if you want to take a look at his book, it's now on Amazon. You can buy the ebook. I think the published actual printed book is coming out in a few weeks. That's what he said last time. So a few other shout outs. We have an alumni called MeetMe who just acquired their first company. So they've just Meet me is super cool. Yeah, it's super cool.

So unless you're vegetarian.

Yeah, but it makes basically eating meat a little bit more ethical. And environmentally friendly and local. So check out meetme if you don't know what they are. And they've just acquired barons of beef. And this makes them the number one platform for delivery of locally raised beef in British Columbia or meat in general in British Columbia. That's pretty amazing. So we're really proud of them. Way to go.

Meet me right out of these doors.

Yeah. And also this week, our alumni lendified won a hundred thousand dollars at a pitch battle at the Canadian Fintech 2.0 summit. So way to go. Lend a fide. That's awesome.

Launch Academy fam.

Killing it.

Seriously.

Yeah. So. So these are all either alumni or actual members. I think Lee's actually outside that door.

Meet me and Linda, Fighter alumni.

Anything. Any announcements from you, James, or keep.

Your ears to the ground. Victorysquared.com Twitter is @vicsquaretech. There's going to be some big announcements from some of the members of the family coming up real soon. You might have seen we just got involved with a neat little company called Loconoco.

How do you spell that?

L O, C O, N O, C O.

They've got to be doing something cool. Loco noco.

It's actually an abbreviation for something that I can't remember off the top of my head. But the press release is floating around. We're looking very much forward to getting involved with them. And yeah, just again, hit us up on the. On the socials. And as I've always said, if you're doing cool things, come say hello.

How can they say hello?

Twitter squared. Victor.com is the website. Contact information's on there. Or just give us a call and leave us a message. 604-28916. Who calls it?

Yeah, no, don't call them.

Hey, hey. What's the phone number?

Awkward.

Yeah, that's right. That's what I saw it.

If you call them, they're all. They're gonna know you're not cool and they're not gonna want to work with you.

So please call in if you want.

To be your junior marketer only now and you win a set of one.

Fair enough. I mean, housekeeping items. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook. That's launch underscore Academy on Twitter and Instagram as well. Facebook, you're probably already on it, but it is a launch academy.

If you're watching and you're. Yeah, come on.

So it's already here. Anything else you want to announce?

Have we. Have we given shouts to the brand new producer of.

Yeah, we do have a brand new producer Here, Robinson, the mic. Actually, I didn't give her a mic. We'll give her a mic next time.

Yeah, that times. Our previous producer, Matthew, left us.

We got rid of him.

Yeah, we fired him. Not quit.

All right.

Voted off Launch Island.

So this week, I think we. I think our other intern actually helped. Helped me microwave it. Because this is a food that you need to eat warm.

Okay.

If not hot, I have no idea what it'll taste like. I bought it from my local supermarket called H Mart. Have you ever walked in any.

Oh, I've been. Yeah, I've rolled through H. So.

So when I've done everything.

When I picked this food, I was 98% sure that. And it's. You notice with arbitrary numbers, it's always 98% that he's tried this food. You know, you can bring it in.

Well, one of the fun parts of. I used to live in. I used to live in Japan for a time, and there's a few things in Japanese cuisine which they always love to throw past the foreigners because it's. They're like, oh, my God, we're totally going to gross out. Yeah, this guy.

So then eventually you got. You get.

You get.

Well, you know, it's always. It's always that. And then actually, this is vegetation vegetarian. So this might be my one and only vegetarian dish ever, period.

Wow, that's impressive. I'm excited to see what this is. Claire's. Claire, our producer, is celebrating in the background. She gets to eat the leftovers. So.

So there's. There's two parts to this. One is. It is a rice cake.

Okay.

And then I think they mix it with vegetables, but I don't eat the vegetables. I just eat the rice cakes. So I haven't actually tried this. So it's gonna be hit or miss. I mean, it's the supermarket. So, you know, you get what you get.

But we try food.

Yes. I'm gonna. You open it up.

Lizzie. Lemon, lunch. Abbed me.

There you go.

Oh, that looks cool, son.

This is called doboki. I don't know how to actually pronounce it. I don't know how to spell it either. Don't ask me to spell it. Some people spell it with two T's. Yeah.

Somebody can provide us with the actual spelling. Sometimes it's like comments.

Two Ds, too. Like, it's. It's confusing.

So the camera's a little bit away for Facebook Live stream people here now. Sorry that you can't see.

We're trying. Have you had this before, James?

No, I have not.

Oh, 2% chance, eh? Yeah.

No, you've done well. You've done well. All right, so it's rice cake with vegetables.

Yeah. But it's made with, like, some sort of kimchi sauce.

Okay, so like gochujang or.

I don't know.

The more I put it, the grosser it starts looking.

Yeah, it looked really good in the store.

Don't let your mind get too deep into it, otherwise you're. Don't let your mind get too deep into it, otherwise you're gonna be like, oh, my God, it looks like pig intestine. What am I gonna do?

There is no pig intestine in here. There's really nothing in here. Here you go. Is it still. Is it warm now? Oh, there you go. Good job, Caroline. Thank you. She. She has this look of perplexed, anxious.

I don't want to chew into the mushroom.

She doesn't want to chew. Does she like it? It's not bad, right?

That's actually really good. It's kind of like a slightly underdone gnocchi.

So that's what I was looking for. I'm like, what does this taste like? Tastes like gnocchi's.

Gnocchi's.

Have you had gnocchi's?

Okay, so the thing with this is if you go to the supermarket and this is like a life tip, if you hit him up around like, 6, 6:30, that's when their hot food usually gets discounted.

Well, yeah, it's because they're trying to clear it all out, because they don't.

They don't need it for the next day like we're doing right now. I have no idea.

Is that vegetable or is that like. Or is that. Or is that possibly being curd? Looks like a shooting curd.

I have no idea what that is.

I have no clue.

So anyway, this was. This was taken at 30 off, so.

So what you're saying is you cheaped out on feeding me.

We can't afford to feed us every.

Week as we're not profit.

We're not for profit. Cool. Any last remarks before we sign off? It is spicy. So that is the thing. I think I've gone too spicy weeks in a row.

No, it's good.

No, that's really good.

So maybe next time I'll not have.

The spicy or next time it's my turn, I get to bring you some kale based thing.

I was actually. I was actually very close to bringing you guys something. I just. I didn't have the time to. I had something in mind. I just didn't have the time to actually.

Why would you say that?

Because maybe I'd have to show. No, I'll just. I'll just randomly show up for.

Okay, good.

That's how he gets back on the show.

Like, smart.

So thank you very much, James, for being our guest today, guys. Hope you guys had fun.

So much for having me. This has been a blast. I look forward to seeing future episodes of Lunch Academy.

Cool. Cool. So, yeah, enjoy the dobo key. And until next time, any last remarks.

Thanks Facebook people for watching our livestream and thanks everybody else for listening.

Hello to Shade's entire family.

Yes, I'm almost watching this.

So. Yeah. Please subscribe to us on itunes. Leave us a five star rating. I heard that helps us out. I'm not really sure. Never gotten one. So we'll go from there.

All right.

One star rating. All right, take care, guys.

Signing off.

There.