Full Transcript for 6 Startups, 4 Exits, $400M | Peter Hwang | The Founders' Stack EP02

from 10 a.m. in morning to 10 p.m. at night, opening the store, closing the store. And essentially it was, you know, they bought themselves a franchise, but they actually bought themselves a job, right? So it was very difficult. They did that for 25 years straight. And I just saw, you know, the struggles that they went through and the sacrifice that went through, they went through. And it almost framed my thinking, you know, as a whole, as I started to, you know, realize, what do I want to do with my life? and seeing my parents sacrifice and struggle for that long. So you kind of see that with me and my two sisters. We did a lot of different things to try to get us outside or get us out of that day-to-day rat racer grind that they were going through when they owned the franchise. yeah, was my upbringing. I think it was very scrappy in nature as an overall whole, but it kind of paved the way for my mentality going forward as an entrepreneur. Ashish Kulkarni: So you you mentioned your parents are almost working every day at 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ⁓ You know how did that you know did that kind of made you think that maybe even I'll do this you know when I grow up and I'll also keep working or what was the thought process behind it? Peter: No, I didn't think that at all, to be honest. And again, if you kind of look at my background, we came from initially a very rough part of Toronto when we first immigrated here to Canada. And my parents did the typical thing where they like literally they moved into public housing as a very rough part of Toronto. And then they saved and saved and saved everything they owned to move us into a very affluent area in Mississauga, which is a suburb of Toronto. So it was amazing that they did that. you kind of outside looking in, you kind of see what they sacrificed. It was a really great thing that they did for us. But if you actually think of my upbringing, it actually almost created even more of a insecure bubble, so to speak, because literally we lived in an amazing part of Missi ssauga . I never felt I belonged there. all my friends' families were very affluent. came from doctors, lawyers, accountants. They all went on vacation. They had different, very different lifestyle. I was working, my parents were working shift work, right? They basically, you know, always worked their butts off. And the reality was I never really felt like, you know, I belong there. So in that community. So I had a lot of good friends growing up, don't get me wrong, but it kind of became fuel for me because there was definitely the imposter syndrome is the feeling like you're kind of in a cage trying to figure out, how do you get out of this? So everything I did basically was just kind of harder than anyone else. even from the mentality I had of becoming an entrepreneur, I just realized you got to work way harder than anybody because I was never really given anything. So I think from the perspective of when the learning that I had from day one,

and this came from my parents, like, you have to earn your place, nothing is given. And if you don't stop pushing, you ultimately fall behind. So like really it's like, it's that ability to just keep going and really kind of get your mindset into the mentality, which is like, got to work harder than anybody else. So that's the one thing that I can honestly say, you know, even from my last 30 years as an entrepreneur, I definitely have this resilience and this mindset that I just work harder than anybody else. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ Peter so you know so your goal was to essentially you know get out of that cage sort of a thing am I correct you know that your parents were kind of stuck in a loop working day and night you know for their children to have a comfortable and a good life am I correct yeah and ⁓ so you know how did you grow up like I understand probably your parents who are not home you know most of the time since they were ⁓ working. So I think I believe you and your sisters, you know, were at home studying and, you know, doing all sorts of different jobs. Could you tell me about that? How did you manage? Peter: Yeah, it became a family affair though, right? Like at end of the day, I kind of, I remember, I remember very clearly like working in the back and doing homework in the back of my parents' store. And, you know, growing up, if, if I wasn't at my parents' store working in the back, had to take care of me. I was at home with my sisters and they were feeding me. They were like raising me. So yeah, my sisters definitely took care of us, take care of, took care of me most of the time. And then, and then you get to that point where you become old enough that you work at the store and then the entire operation, know, the entire, you know, their work becomes your work, right? So you become almost like trapped in this entire like bubble. And what I saw every single day was like how hard that was. And, and again, what if to be very candid and very blunt what we didn't have, like we just worked every single day. So they worked and my parents worked every single day and my sisters worked every single day. So for us, it's like, you develop the mentality, which is like, if you don't want to continue doing this, then you've to formulate another path for you to succeed. Right? So that's kind of where, like, I developed the resilience, I think, from a hard work perspective. But what I realized is that, you know, the, I was going to do was something very different. So if I'm being honest, like if I kind of look at my parents' struggle and, you know, what they, what they sacrificed, I always talk about this in terms of like, where the real appreciation happens for kids, it's gifts to the generation. And what I mean by that is like my parents struggle. I know how hard they struggle, but I never really appreciated it. Like when I was growing up, I always thought of it as like, why couldn't you, why couldn't we go on vacations? Why couldn't you work a regular nine to five job? Why couldn't you do a number of different things that I saw my friends do? But you realize that they were, their sacrifice was basically just to take care of us both financially and from a security perspective, right? So. Like I didn't accept it at the time. actually thought it was, I thought I was a victim, so to speak, right? So you realize really quickly, you know, when that happens, you don't really appreciate what your parents do in terms of that sacrifice. Where I have a way bit greater appreciation from it now is that it skips a generation. So if I look at my kids, my nieces, my sister's kids, they don't really have anything that they get concerned about. They work, they think about, ⁓ well, why isn't our life like this? Because we provided them the stability that they have, that obviously that we wanted as kids, but the reality is it's skip the generation. Like they would never know truly the sacrifice that we made for them because it wasn't our sacrifice, it was my parents' sacrifice. So I always talk about this when it comes to like these type of stories, usually it's skip the generation in terms of like really where the pain lies and where all the struggle lies because... everything that my parents sacrificed really benefited greatly and tremendously ⁓ my kids, you know, and their kids' kids, right? So that's kind of where you'll see all the sacrifices that happen and there's always a trickle-down effect. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah, true. ⁓ So Peter, you know, do you think, you know, having a family business background kind of helps people start their own businesses? Because I've often seen people, know, whose parents are running their own sort of business, find it way easier to, you know, start their own ventures or their own businesses. Do you think it has some sort of correlation? Peter: It depends. it's, I wouldn't say my story is exemplary of that. Like it doesn't exemplify that at all. Really, my story is basically, I saw my parents how hard they worked and therefore, the sacrifices they made. So for me, it was far more of the context of like, I saw how hard they worked and I'm going to make sure that their hard work does not go to waste. So I got an education, I worked very hard. I always thought to myself, how do I How do I make money for my parents, candidly? Like I always thought to myself, like their sacrifice, I want to pay them off one day or pay them back one day and have them realize obviously their hard work didn't go to waste. So I think the hard work aspect for sure, as it pertains to the actual business side of it, yeah, like many times, know, entrepreneurs, if they're a lifetime entrepreneur and they pass a business or the mentality down to their kids, That's kind of when you see obviously, you know, there's a trickle down effect there. But when it comes to like, ⁓ my story, yeah, my parents, they worked a very hard life. And it was quite the opposite. anything, their business was

something that I never, I never wanted to get into retail for that reason, right? I never really wanted to kind of be trapped in my own business. So I wanted to make sure anything I did had levels of freedom and levels of potential financial, you know, security, but financial opportunity that I can definitely, you know, see a pretty significant kind of financial windfall, you know, for both myself and my family, right? So, and my parents. So that's kind of where I realized their sacrifice is what I learned from and their hard work is what I learned from more than anything, not necessarily, you know, what they did because, you know, I don't recommend a retail business for anyone, frankly. Ashish Kulkarni: Okay, and you know, what education did you take by the way? Peter: ⁓ I had a political science degree and a minor in economics. And the reality is, when I went to school, ⁓ I was a football player, so I was an athlete in school. So I really always had the mentality of just competing, I guess. But I never really used my education. I was considering becoming a lawyer at one point, but then I just got the entrepreneurial bug. I just realized, I want to start businesses, you know, and I had that kind of drive, you know, early on. And I always thought the mentality of the reason why I want to start businesses was always because I saw other people and other families that start businesses that they're doing very well for themselves. So I thought to myself, like, I want to, I want to actually get out of ⁓ the trap that my parents were in. And I really want to be, have some financial freedom. So that was the first, when I first started off, that was the main reason it was. primarily financial freedom and drives and trying to actually make a better life for myself and my family. Ashish Kulkarni: So this feeling you're talking about, it's when you were doing your education or was it like in your childhood itself? Peter: No, it was always in the childhood. when I grew up, I always knew like I had this entrepreneurial drive. I always wanted to try something. So yeah, it was, I went to school to get an education because my parents wanted me to, my dad wanted me to. So I definitely, know, they might actually make my dad obviously, you know, really wanted me to get a bank job. So my first job out of school was a bank job with a financial institution. So you realize You realize pretty fast, obviously, you know, as you kind of get into the working world, I had one corporate job and I was right out of school and then I never had a corporate job after that. I basically started thinking about my sixth business right now over 30 years. So I realized pretty quickly that I kind of had the entrepreneurial driving spirit. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow and ⁓ you studied political science right? How did that come out from political science to businesses? Any sort of correlation in that or how did it come to be? Peter: There's no real correlation. I had an interest in law and I thought one day, because I saw a bunch of my friends' parents that were lawyers and stuff like that. I thought I might want to become a lawyer, but I realized really quickly my drive was to start businesses. I was very creative and I was always thinking of the next idea. I always had in my mind early on that I want to be a business owner and be an entrepreneur. Ashish Kulkarni: Great, great. And ⁓ you know, could you tell me when did you finally start your first venture? Peter: Oh, it was right at school. So I basically graduated from Wolfit Laurier with my degree. My first job at a school was CIBC Finance was with a bank. And then I was moonlighting at the same time. So I did your typical nine to five job from Monday to Friday, but then Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, my very first business was ironically, it a restaurant franchise that I started called Extreme Pita. I started with a few different friends and I did that on the side. So basically I moonlighted where I would work nine to five Monday to Friday, but then Thursday night, I would work at the restaurant until three AM in the morning and did that Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So that was my very first entrepreneurial venture in which we took that to three locations. Like we opened up three locations in a matter of. Well, two locations and a third one in a matter of like less than a year. ⁓ and then. I ended up selling my shares to the owners, my partners, because a franchise development company came in and offered us an opportunity to expand the business. So I got an offer right away and I sold my shares within the first year and a half. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow, great. So within two years, you were able to exit your venture, correct? First venture. Peter: That was my first exit. Yes, that's right. was my first, my very first venture was exiting less than two years. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow! And how did you take it? Did that kind of make you happy that you know, initially you told me your goal was to free your parents from the trap? ⁓ Was this it? Was this enough or you felt I need more? Peter: No, no, no, this was was this is just a taste. This is like basically, honestly, probably that's a great question. Because I think it was probably the understanding I had, which is basically you you as an entrepreneur as a founder, you can build things and you can build things pretty quickly to get them to a point where you can actually monetize them or sell them. Right. So that's probably the first taste I had, which is basically you work hard, you have an idea, you work really hard, you get it to a certain level. And then you have the ability to liquidate or kind of sell your shares. Like that was the first opportunity where I realized, okay, this is the mechanics of how entrepreneurship works, right? If you build something that someone wants and you build it in a very sound way, then you can find a way to find a market for it and ultimately sell your business. So even though that happened really

quickly, to be honest, I don't think there's any methodical understanding I had of how to sell businesses because of Xtreme PETA, because of that first business. It was very lucky because It happened so quickly and we were so young at a school. I think I was 23 years old when I sold the business, right? So was very young. It's not like I knew anything, but it was like, at the very least it created the mentality, which is like, okay, I have a taste of it now. I want to keep going. So that's kind when I started my second, third, fourth. Yeah, from the next 25 years, all I did was start businesses. Ashish Kulkarni: And you know, why did you make the decision to, you know, exit the company? Like, ⁓ I believe, did all of your friends exit the company or it was just you or a select few? Peter: There's there's five is five. Yeah, there's five of us. So three, there's five of us. And there's two brothers that wanted to keep in the business. So they bought it all over shares of three other shares. And like I said, we're just young. We're young kids at school, right? So for us, it was like, I got I got offered a pretty significant amount of money as a 22 year old. So for me, I took it and I was like, I'm moving on to the next thing. So at that point, it was just it was, it was a great offer at the time. And I was young. So I'm like, this is a good opportunity to move on to the next thing. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow! And ⁓ were you still doing your job at that time or you had left your job, you know, working full time ⁓ at this restaurant? Peter: No, no, no. was doing gig work before anyone else was doing gig work. ⁓ So, like, ⁓ that was, I always had kind of that on the side as a side hustle. And ironically, you know, it's almost, that was the first time when I realized that, you know, there's an opportunity to actually make really, really good money by taking some risks and doing that. So, Ashish Kulkarni: I don't know. Peter: When I got, when I was at the bank, stayed there for another year, then slowly, like right after I sold Xtreme Pita, was still working at the bank. And then ironically, my sales manager, my boss at the time at the bank asked me, like, Hey, I know that you started this venture. Cause I did, I was pretty open with him. told him about my side hustle with Xtreme Pita. He basically said, he's like, I have an idea, you know, maybe you want to start something with me. So that's when I started my second venture with him. which was called Easy Lease, which was an equipment leasing company. ⁓ So yeah, a lot of these just happened, these ventures just happened because you have opportunities in a pretty good time, know, good timing, and then you just kind of, you go for it, right? So yeah, the timing was really, really good. I was still working at CBC Finance, sold my business, and then I automatically went into my second venture. ⁓ That was, you know, that was... basically similar to what I was doing at the finance company. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow and

you know how long were you at this second company and do you normally you know people say that to be an entrepreneur you need to be a full-time founder not a part-time thing what would you say to that Peter: Yeah. Yeah, the second venture was definitely a full-time thing. I feel like my very first venture was getting my feet wet, so to speak. And then, you know, when I got into my second venture, it was like a full-time job. I thought about it. ⁓ Everything that went into it as myself and my partner, again, as my boss at my bank, sorry, the bank I worked at, that essentially approached me on it. And then we just spent basically seven years building this out and we built it out to a pretty big, you know, equipment leasing brokerage called easy lease. Um, we built that over, we're proximate seven years and it was, it was doing, it was probably one of the biggest leasing companies, um, brokerage companies in Canada. And I got to the point where, yeah, it was my full-time job working there consistently. doing very, very well. It was, it was an amazing lifestyle business. had 30 different brokers that were bringing in fees. So it was a fee based business doing phenomenally well. ⁓ and then I got to a point where I asked my partner said, I think I want to do something else. Would you want to buy my shares? And he ended up buying my shares off me. So that was my second exit, which it was a management buyout, ⁓ and when she basically bought my portfolio. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ So you know what I'm trying to understand is at what time do you decide that okay the company has grown big enough that I would like to exit or is it more like a yeah my mind is not into it anymore maybe let's try something else is that how you go about it or what is it? Peter: No, I went about that in my early career. again, as you keep in mind, I'm on my sixth startup, Ashish, right? So you develop a framework slowly, but surely once you actually realize, okay, the idea goes into execution. And then you actually build, I believe kind of a three year framework, and then a five year framework. So basically a three year framework is basically the gestation period. I call it the gestation period where You are trying to build out the concepts. You're trying to build the operational model. You're trying to get the product market fit, see if it works. And then you have signaling that, okay, after three years, my actual concept works. So you have something that actually have proof of concept and you have actually, you know, I call product market fit where things are actually working. And then from years three to five or three to six, that's when you, you have basically a foundational work. So you're just scaling it up. So that's kind of what I built a framework around, around many of my kind of concepts and ideas where you get to that. three year gestation period and you realize, okay, I have something that was working and my concept actually has legs. And then now from three years onwards,

that's when you get to the point where I can actually like scale it up. So when you scale it up, when I talk about that next threshold of like past five years, at that point, you have an optionality for exit. And it's an option for exit where it doesn't mean you're selling your company, but you've built a company that is really sound, that's really smart, has likely recurring revenue, and it's at a point where you have the option to sell it. So I've done that a couple of times, you know, with my later exits, but it was always based on the premise of like building a proper framework first. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ You know another question I had is you know normally whenever founders are building their companies Whenever they are pitching to investors they often say you know what we'll get to IPO and stuff like that But you on the other hand you took secondary exits right selling your shares to management ⁓ or directly you know Private exit essentially not going through the public way What do you think should be the decision process to know if you are the kind of founder? who can take your company till the IPO stage or probably exit at the earlier stage. Peter: So my first two exits were management exits. The second two exits were private equity and IPO. So again, this is kind of when you build a framework around how you actually grow and scale your company, you get to the point where you have optionality for a liquidity event or optionality for a sale. And that's kind of what I did with the two companies I sold, Global Faces and Newstrike. companies that hit a certain threshold and realized, okay, there was a really good kind of concept here that was actually working very, very well. One company, we grew and scaled it, that private equity approached us and we ended up selling to them. And the other company was an IPO because we just happened to be in a very fast, high growth momentum type of industry in cannabis. And we ended up IPO-ing that. So to answer your question, I think early on, If I'm being honest, like the first two exits I had were very small in scale, right? They were operational businesses and I never had the opportunity to effectively have large liquidity events. But then as you kind of realize, okay, here's how I'm building businesses, you learn from the previous exit of the previous startup and then you stack on top of that, right? So that's kind of what I did. And from now, from this point onwards, like everything I do is build off frameworks, right? I, it's learning from my kind of previous exits, my previous startup. So to answer your question, that's kind of why I had multiple different exits and multiple different builds in different kinds of realms. So for me, whether it's IPO, private equity, management, buyouts, I kind of have that experience. I can talk about all of them because I've done all of them. Right. So that's kind of where you realize, you know, and you learn from each previous startup, previous exit. Ashish Kulkarni:

Yeah, yeah, makes sense. ⁓ So when did you exactly exit your second startup? This was in which year? Peter: It was in 2005. Ashish Kulkarni: Okay and after that you started another venture or what happened after that? Peter: Immediately. So I started the other vent, the third venture, and this is the one that failed. So if I, when I talk about five startups, four exits, they have one exit that failed, sorry, one company that failed. And that was the company, you know, that was my third startup. ⁓ so everything that, you know, I've, I made in the first two startups, I gave back on the third one, which I pretty much lost everything. So it's again, It's the roller coaster ride that you go through with entrepreneurship. But ⁓ I started my third business in 2006. And it was a really, it was a great business that I built off of learnings from my previous off of easy leads, because, you know, I, built these finance programs for these companies. And then I happened to look at a concept. said, okay, I want to start this. And it was basically the it was the energy retrofit sector in which we were providing energy retrofits for homes and also providing them grants and rebates from the governments, but also financing that equipment. So because I had a finance background, I was able to build like a finance portfolio of all these clients that we're putting energy efficient equipment home in their, sorry, efficient equipment in their homes. And we're financing that equipment to them. So I built a portfolio of supposed to 15,000 customers, think we're doing 15 million revenue. And that was my first experience to now take a company public. that's probably the biggest, again, like you said, all your learnings come from your failed startups. And that was like, I learned so much from that, both from a mental perspective, both from a change in markets, like fluctuation of markets perspective, the fact that you can't play a victim, so to speak, when it comes to the market. the market's turning because you don't know when it's going to happen. But that company, I built, like I said, I built up to a pretty significant run rate of revenue. We hit $15 million run rate of revenue, 15,000 customers. got approached, so we approached the company to take the company public. I had a term sheet to go public. was a $5 million term sheet to fund the company and go public. And then 2008 hits. So early 2008. we're planning the entire IPO and July 2008 hits where the financial crisis happens, the housing market collapses, and our term sheet gets pulled immediately and then the deal was off. again, it was a very tough time and I could talk about that for a lot in terms of learnings, but that was probably one of the most difficult times I went through because, you know, I talk about market momentum and market turns and market, you know, timing being one of the most like the greatest determinants of determinants of success or failure is because sometimes you just can't control, you know, what the markets do. And that was exactly that what happened with analyze. Ashish Kulkarni: I would love to know if you could talk more about this because I think failure is something which every founder should at some point in life get to know and learn from it. If you could walk me through the circumstances and how you got through it, that would be great. Peter: Yeah, it was, like I said, it was, it was one of those things that I think the mentality I had was that everything was going amazingly. we were, like I said, you go from being on top of the world because you're, you're developing a really fast growing business and you sign a term sheet to go public because you're, you're building a fast growing business and everything, everything is pointing to the momentum of this thing is going to be, you know, an amazing ⁓ opportunity to grow the business, but also have a pretty significant liquidity event for shareholders and for myself. So you realize pretty quickly that, you know, 2008, it was a tough time. the financial crisis happened. Every business that was kind of in the markets at that point, they either had their business terminated, they went bankrupt or, you know, any sort of financing probably was stripped from them as well. So I remember the email very, very specifically. It wasn't dramatic and just final. It was basically saying as per clause 14.2, whatever the clause was, and it was a, the clause was basically financial crisis or like act of God type of crisis is like the deals off. And at that moment, it wasn't just a business. It was kind of my identity, you know, up until then I was the founder of a growing company that was about to go public. And then, then overnight I wasn't. So I remember that, that drive home. was like one of the longest drives of my life. Not because obviously it was like, I lived far away from my house, but because I was kind of rehearsing in my mind, I had explained, you know, the situation to my wife and what was going on. And at that point it was, yeah, this is a very personal story, but my wife is pregnant at that point. She was six months pregnant. We had two young, two young daughters. We had a third on the way. She was six months pregnant. We had a pool project that we're building in the backyard. And I remember her very specifically, like I was looking through the kitchen window when I got home, she was in the backyard, um, looking over the backyard and she was six months pregnant, I don't know why she was doing this. She was digging a trench for whatever reason. And she was helping, like just plan everything for the construction team to come in. And it was basically, it was almost like a surreal experience because she was basically planning a project that couldn't, we could no longer afford. And I remember that moment, it was the purest definition of how I felt. was financial stress, it was guilt, it was the responsibility I had. It was a realization that maybe I wasn't cut out for

entrepreneurship because it was like, maybe I've like, I never expected, you know, failure to hit me that hard or the I didn't expect to be that dramatic. And then, you know, it was what I realized is probably the biggest learning that you have is. this it's not cliche, but you learn the most from your failures than you do more from the fails than you do from your successes. And I'll tell you why, because that moment when And keep in mind, Sydney and I had been together since like, since we were young, right? So she's been with me since the ups and downs and she was with me for the first two exits. She was with me kind of building a home, starting a family. And so she supported me the entire time. And I remember when I told her that we pretty much lost everything because we had a second mortgage mortgage on the house because I invested into this company, my, own company. ⁓ I asked her, I told her point blank, like I think going be in trouble, financial trouble. And she, was probably about two hours of like tears and very emotional kind of responses back and forth. And then she looked at me and said, like, listen, like this is, I understand the situation, but the reality is we came from nothing. We built a family together. We built a life together. Like if we have to start over again, we'll be just fine. And that's probably what you realize more than anything as an entrepreneur is like, people who you surround yourself with. And by the way, I'm not just talking about spouse, I'm talking about like, it could be a co founder, could be friends, could be colleagues, it's likely a spouse, a partner. If they understand the sacrifices that go through and the ups and downs with entrepreneurship, then you probably have something that that can get you through hard times and the best times. And that's kind of what I realized there is like, having a partner that was supportive of me is, it was the most is the only thing that got me through, you know, the next chapter of what would happen next. And like I said, I've had two other life-changing exits and Cindy's been there the entire time. So it kind of goes to show you that if you have a rock and you have a partner that can support you through the bad times, ⁓ obviously it's amazing feeling when you have the good times with them as well. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, in this third startup, did you have a co founder or it was just you a solo founder? Peter: It was just me, I still the founder. Ashish Kulkarni: and in the first two, once you had co-founders, do you think this kind of made you think in your future startups that maybe I need a co-founder or not really? Peter: Um, yeah, I think, yes and no. think the, really is a circumstance of the time. Like, I don't think you pick and choose in your brain that, Hey, I, I need a founder. need a co-founder in many respects. You just basically have an idea. If you're, if you're the one thinking of the idea, you have an idea and then you typically bring co-founders into the mix. So when I say I was a solo founder, I had people that started the company with me, but know, in this particular case, I was the one that was, you know, front and center, I was the one that was in front of shareholders in front of media in front of, you know, the team stuff. So I was the one that was taking on all the brunt of the responsibility, right, whether it good or bad. So when I say solo founder, I had partners as well that that were with me, but the reality is, they weren't they weren't at the forefront, right. So ⁓ if I look at my fourth business, I had three other co-founders in which all four of us had equal shares, equal weight, equal responsibility. So yeah, my fourth business was something that to your point was a very different business I ran and I built. And that was probably the one business where I realized having four co-founders that work very much in tandem with each other and they have very different responsibilities, but they all converge into the same kind of leadership and same partnership. That was the best business I've ever built. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow. ⁓ So I am assuming you managed to shut down your third startup and then you started your fourth one. Am I correct? Peter: I did. Yes, that's exactly what happened. I had about two years, I had about two years in which I basically had a quiet period just trying to get over obviously the loss of the business, you know, and I learned a lot, learned a lot about myself and then I realized I wanted to get back into entrepreneurship again. So yeah, so that's kind of when I started the fourth business. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, how did the fourth one come to me? Wow, I would love to know what happened in those two years. Like what things did you do to finally feel like, okay, I can put this behind and start again. How much was the role of your family and also what all things you did that finally helped you get out of the rut, as we say. Peter: Yeah, it was definitely a quiet period. Like you just have to realize there's a lot of self-reflection that you have, is, know, failure is one of those things that defines your life at that moment in time. And it almost feels like almost all in a cup of thing kind of suffocating a little bit. you feel like, what could I've done differently? You second guess yourself. You wonder, you know, you always wonder if you could have done some things differently. But then in retrospect, you kind of look back at it and you say, okay, listen, like a lot of your character is built of how you built after you have that failure and what you do after that. Right. So, you know, I've for two years, I just realized, okay, what do I, what do I have to do to get my confidence back? And what do I do to actually realize, okay, this is this entrepreneurial life for me. And I just, I did consulting. I was going to get a job with another company and that I just. I really kind of looked at the two years just to take some quiet period in downtime, just to

realize, okay, do I have it immediately to become an entrepreneur again? And I realized like, yeah, I have this creative mind and I have this like, kind of thirst for kind of building things and building widgets, so to speak. And for me, it's like, it didn't go away. And that's kind of when I realized, okay, I gotta try something else. And it was definitely difficult. after a failure, it's difficult to kind of realize, okay, I'm ready to start something else. Because you just don't know if you have it in you again, right? So I realized, you know, during that two years, again, thought a lot of self self reflection, a lot of understanding of like, what my skill set was, and what I can do what I can't do. Yeah, and then, honestly, the four startup happened very organically, because I had partners, I these individuals approach me because they work with me, ironically, in the failed startup, in the third business. So they were a sales agency. They were a sales agency for me. And ironically, they were a sales ⁓ agency for me that didn't really work that well. We didn't have a great partnership, but they loved the fact of my background. They loved my hustle. They loved the fact that I built this big company that they were doing services for. They said, Peter, like, I have this, know NY's didn't work out for us, but I have this other idea. So they approached me with the idea in which my first thought process was like, wasn't sure if I love this idea, but like, let me hear more about it. And when I, when I heard more about it and we kind of built out the company, I realized, okay, there's an opportunity, real opportunity here. then all four of us kind of, again, we're 25 % owners, each equal owners. And we kind of built the company together and we built it over a six year period and sold the private equity. And that was, like I said, that was probably one of my best, best builds. For many different reasons, like one being like it started from a place where yeah, it started as more of a place where I was getting my footing again. It started from a place where I had three great partners that were supporting me in the entire way. It started from a place where I could focus on what I was really, really good at, which is a lot of the strategy, business development, corporate development, kind of building the company, the frameworks of the company. And then I three great partners, amazing at operations and sales. So Like all four of us were working kind of in tandem with each other. So yeah, it was, it was a great way to kind of resurrect my entrepreneurial journey and then, you know, realize, okay, I have this in me. I actually like building startups again. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow. And you know what was this company about if you don't mind? Peter: Yeah. So basically this company was a, it was a fundraising company that provided the fundraising services on behalf of every charity in the world. my, my fourth company was called global faces. And if I'm not sure if they have these, you know, where you live, I sheesh, but in North America, in the UK, everywhere, basically charities, the fundraise, ⁓ by having multiple different methods of fundraising. The one method that everybody uses is face-to-face fundraising. So people that knock on your door, people that stand on street corners, people that stand in events where they try to fundraise and bring on monthly donors on behalf of the charities. I ran the largest, Global Faces was the largest face-to-face fundraising organization on behalf of every charity in the world. So we had, you know, at our inception, or sorry, at our, at our, at our, highest level before we sold the private equity. I think we had 40 charities, we had 30 offices across North America. We had close to a thousand, know, fundraisers knocking on doors, standing on street corners that were fundraising on behalf of every charity. So it was a big, large scale organization, but in which we were raising money in monthly donors on behalf of every charity. But the thing that really created our moat and created the valuation, elevated our valuation was the fact that We had market timing, we market timed everything perfectly because it was the inflection of like, the change over from like paper applications to tablets. So everyone you see standing in, know, standing, knocking on your door or standing on the street corner have tablets now. So if they represent World Vision or Red Cross or any charity, those are like anyone you've seen in North America, they're my fundraiser. And we digitize the process from paper applications. So typically you'd have someone knocking on your door that would basically, you know, Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, like, let's sign you up. We actually digitize that to tablets. And then we were able to basically collect all of our data and all the payment processing via tablet. But we also aggregated all the data impressions on behalf of the charity. So we own all the aggregated data. So I would literally track 200,000 points of impression based data on a daily basis. You know, so it was, it was a really, it was a big massive data personalized data play in which private equity when they approached us, they loved our kind of run rate and ramp up of revenue, but they also really valued kind of the data assets that we aggregated. So, you know, that was, that was why we were able to sell the company for as much as we did. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow, know Peter one thing I've realized is in all of your four startups that you have mentioned till now all four of them have been you know in different sectors. How has your you know experience been across all of these sectors? Obviously there has been this common link of financing part that probably you also do specialize in but how is your experience been? Peter: Yeah, everyone asks that same question, actually, because a lot of founders and entrepreneurs, what they typically will do is that they'll start in one sector. And then if they have a if

they have an exit in that sector, they'll usually wait a non like a two year non-compete period and then restart a company again. Right. That's one type of entrepreneur. I'm not that type of entrepreneur. I think I'm very much an entrepreneur that's industry and sector and idea agnostic. Like for me, I'm I'm just really curious. I've always been curious and I look at companies based on the problems that we're trying to solve and the industries that we're trying to disrupt. So I look at things a little bit differently and maybe that, I don't know if that makes me somewhat unique or maybe somewhat a little bit more risky, but I really love learning and I really love trying to solve problems. So yes, every single industry has been different and every single industry kind of comes from the overarching kind of curiosity around, can I solve a problem? the big problem that exists with a solution. So that's kind of what you kind of see, you know, in the patterns of my startup. So I think that's probably why when I look at even obviously funding and investing companies right now, I kind of look at that same mentality, which is basically how big is the problem that we're trying to solve? And is there is a solution that this founder is trying to figure out? Can they solve that problem? Right. So and is there a methodology in a framework that they apply to it? So I've done that. throughout my entire career. yeah, you're right, Ashish. I don't really look at the same industry over and over again, because that's not what drives me as an entrepreneur. What drives me is like solving big problems and building a solution around them. Ashish Kulkarni: And you know, okay, so once you exited the fourth startup Did you immediately again start a fifth one or do you normally have a cool down period? You know before you jumped into the fifth one Peter: No, ironically, I actually, I moonlighted a little bit. So basically I started Global Faces in 2012 and then my fifth startup, was working and operating Global Faces the entire time. But in 2014, there was an opportunity to basically start a company that was in a basically a high momentum sector, which was the cannabis industry. So this is more of an investment and an opportunity just to catch a moment in time. So while I was at Global Faces in 2014, also co-founded, by the way, this is more of an idea that we're kind of, we're building off of because in 2014 was the time when Canada federally legalized the sale of the sales and production of cannabis. And it was the first industrialized country in the world that that legalized it. and it was legal, it's legal medically in other different areas of the different countries in the world. But Canada was the first country that actually legalized it from every aspect, both federally, ⁓ medically, ⁓ recreationally, and from a financial perspective, too. So people like companies were actually going public in IPO in Canada. And you had companies all across the world in the US, in Germany, in Australia that were coming to Canada to actually do their public listen. So it was the first country that fully federally legalized every aspect of cannabis. So we saw that announcement come out and we were one of the early entrants and early applicants of a license. So in 2014, we kind of applied for a license and it was a lot of very much wait and see. So ironically, you know, when we were, when we were when I did my fifth startup, nothing really happened until 2015, 2016 period, right? So I was operating Global Faces for three to four years prior to anything really happening in in Newstrike. So I almost look at Newstrike as basically, it was almost like a science experiment a little bit because we were just catching a momentum and wave at the time. And we were at the right place, the right time. We got our application early enough and then we ended up getting our license in 2015, 2016. And then that's when you saw this massive tidal wave of opportunity because once we got our license, we ended up signing a public listing. We ended up raising, you you're not going to believe this, but we raised $170 million, you know, off of two financings. And we did that within a year period, very, very fast. And It was literally almost at the inflection point of like when I was about to sell global faces and we raised all this money that we had to do a lot with it. So I was consulting for Newstrike, the cannabis company, and it was on the board of directors of the public company the entire time. But right when I sold global faces, I came on as president of Newstrike. And then my job was to essentially kind of build a distribution across Canada very, very fast. So It was a blur, but literally within a 16 month period, we ended up building distribution, building a facility, ⁓ selling across multiple different provinces across Canada. And then we ended up getting approached by Molson Coors Hexo, a company, and they ended up buying us within, again, within like 15, 16 months. So it was a crazy, crazy period, a time. ⁓ our public company kind of wrote, wrote up, you know, to a high valuation. think it was just under $800 million valuation. That's when we raised the money we did. And then we ended up selling the company, you know, two years later. So just under two years later. So it was a crazy time and all that happened, you know, back to back. So I ended up selling global faces in 2018. I ended up selling new strike, you know, Ashish Kulkarni: Bye. Peter: We are a public company, but we ended up selling to Olsen Corp's Hexo about 15 months later. Ashish Kulkarni: how. So roughly how much money have you made in all of your exits and how much money did you lose in your failed startup would you say. Peter: Oh, gosh. Yeah, if I look at the entire exit, so I'll give you a give you a rough estimate and you can kind of determine what kind of like percentage owner I was. So basically in the public company, we sold that company for $350 million. I was, you

know, one of the largest shareholders in the company. In global faces, we sold the company private equity for mid eight figures, I was 25 % owner of that company. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah, ⁓ Peter: So my last two exits is like it's true the last you know the more you stay in the game so to speak is when you have large much larger exit so my life the last two exits. Or my life changing exits you know global faces in news right there my life changing exits everything before then we're kind of small incremental. You know learning experiences but they weren't life changing anyway we should perform so that's why. I always talk about staying in the game long enough and learning. Like you do realize everything becomes incremental, right? You kind of stack on building blocks on top of a framework and top of a framework and it's all based on learning. So if you stay in the game long enough, then you realize like your experience kind of becomes far more incremental and your experience becomes something that you can kind of build really great businesses with, right? So it's not cliche. I've done it, you know, over 30 years. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow. And now when you look back, probably in the first two startups, do you think you exited a bit too early or no, it's still a learning and you feel you did the right thing back then. Peter: ⁓ gosh, no, the first, like the first two startups are exactly that. Like they're learning experiences, right? Like my first startup, were kids at a high school that just happened to build a cool concept that happened to grow really, really, really quickly. Right. So I don't think there was anything in there that was like framework related or things that we just, we built off of like learnings, right? That was just like, we're flying off the seat of our pants and we built a good business. I happened to sell it really quickly. My second business was a little bit more of a lifestyle business where I built a portfolio of clients and I had a really good recurring revenue. So my partner bought my portfolio. So that was like, those were two businesses that were like really good, but they weren't, they were never destined to like have a big liquidity event or big exit. Right. From the third point, from the third startup onwards, that's when I got really into the mentality of like, okay, I really want to build something bigger and build something that can go, has the opportunity to go public, build something that has the opportunity to have like, mass kind of distribution across multiple different kind of geographic territories. So that's when after the third startup, that's when I thought way bigger. And I thought kind of there's a much bigger opportunity for me to actually not only grow and scale my company, but have a large liquidity event. And that's what happened. Ashish Kulkarni: Regarding your 4th startup, the cannabis one, how did you meet up with your co-founders? Peter: ⁓ my one of my co founders is my brother, my brother-in-law and we were co investors. Yeah, we're co investors in a few different businesses. So yeah, he was he was a CEO and I was a president. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ okay. ⁓ Okay, so did you initially start off as an investor and later on transition into a role or what exactly happened? Peter: No, we were all somewhat passive investors because there was nothing really... The way the licensing process worked is that you had to apply for the license, build your facility before you got your license. So the first two, three years, there was no operations, right? It was just basically just investments. So we're all just investors in the company. And then it got to the point once you got your license, then it became operational. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ okay. Okay. and so I'm assuming you exited your fourth startup by 2020, fourth and fifth. Peter: Yeah, my fourth startup was, was early, sorry, Global Faces was my fourth startup. Newstrike, the cannabis company is my fifth. So, Global Faces, we exited in early 2018 and Newstrike we exited in 2019, mid 2019. So was a bit, roughly 15, 16 months apart from each other. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah. And now you are ⁓ you have been building Tre'dish Am I correct? That's your current startup. Could you tell me more? Yeah. Peter: I am. I, sure. I basically sat after I retired for about a year and a half, two years almost, not even, I'm probably retired for about a year and a half. I started a family office, which I called Alyst Ventures, in which I was investing in a few different companies. And then I always joked about not having the bug again, but I just, realized, you know, I was still young at the time when I retired was 45 at the time. I realized I was too young. My kids were still young. if I was going to, if I was going to retire, I, you know, I, I thought that point it was way too early. So I decided to have my sixth startup, which is Tre'dish. And I want to build it around the entire premise of like, this is more of a passion project for me, but it happens to be a passion project that really is in a, it's in a sector that has a big problem with it. Right. So. If I think of like Tre'dish it's the hardest thing I've ever built. It's not even close, right? Like if I think of like the thought process around cost of living right now, cost of living is an all time high, specifically in Canada. Groceries and food is the second highest expense in a family household. And the problem exists where you're really capped at what you have in terms of discretionary income. If I look at, you know, if I look at kind of Ashish Kulkarni: Before I interrupt you, could you tell me what does Tre'dish do first? Peter: Sure. Yeah, traditions, we provide wholesale groceries. ⁓ We have a wholesale grocery app that goes direct from wholesalers right to consumers. So we eliminate five different points in the supply chain. So we're not a bricks and mortar store. And we're not like an Instacart that buys and delivers groceries from

from grocery stores. We eliminate all those costs in between. we we've negotiated deals, procured deals with wholesalers, suppliers, butchers, farmers. And then we use our app to basically ⁓ send product and send groceries directly from those wholesalers right to the consumer. So we kind of bypass all the middleman steps. And therefore we save close to 25 to 30 % savings on someone's groceries. So that was a big problem that we're trying to solve because like I said, like food costs are an all time high right now. And people don't have, people can't afford life like in Canada and the US like cost of living is an all time high and people's discretionary income have not caught up. Right. So for us it's like, If I can solve the problem of optimizing the supply chain and getting people better quality, fresher groceries, because we're cutting out all those supply chain steps at a fraction of the costs, then that's a problem that I wanted to solve. So that's kind what we've been building over the last three, four years. Ashish Kulkarni: And you know, are you doing this alone or do you have co-founders in this venture? Peter: I have a co-founder, yeah. I have a co-founder that started with me. He is a technical co-founder, but he's also my co-founder from ⁓ a strategy and brain trust perspective. So him and I kind of built together. Ashish Kulkarni: And nope. And how did you meet your co-founder? Did you work with him previously or? Peter: No, I didn't. met him because he was initially, he was a programmer that came on, that was always kind of building out the app for us. you realize it's like everything, right? You realize when, and by the way, I've had multiple different kinds of people come in and out of the business, right? Like it's like everything, right? When you start a business, you have co-founders or you have founding partners that... some stay, some don't. So psychologically, you of have to get, you have to just realize that and understand that, right? Cause things get hard. when, when I always talk about this and this could be something that obviously we talk about, but every single venture and every single entrepreneurial founder has two moments of clarity. One is in the beginning and one is in the end. And I call it the book ends. Like the beginning part is when you first have your concept and idea and you tell people about Everyone loves it. Everyone thinks it's fantastic idea. So that's the moment of clarity you have, which is like, I'm going to go for it because, you know, everyone seems to have like a really great affinity for this idea. That's one moment of clarity you have. The second moment of clarity you have is when you either exit or you shut down the business. Everywhere in between is a roller coaster ride where you have uncertainty, you have friction, have trying to figure things out. You don't know, you know what you don't know. So I've had many different co-founders in the business, like in this business in which basically we were kind of going through this like rollercoaster ride, but you know, Jack is my one co-founder that we built from day one that we built this together. So he was my technical co-founder, but he was, he's also become again, my strategic partner to figure out how to build a business model and rebuild the business model. yeah, so it was like, need that. Like you're going to go through many, every startup founder is going to go through multiple different kind of ups and downs, especially when it comes to like individuals that that might be on the founding partner team, or they might think that they're the founding partners, but it might not work. Like you have to be able to accept that. Ashish Kulkarni: You know, you have been in six startups and one thing I've seen is in every startup you have had a different co-founder, right? So probably in six startups, six different sets of co-founders, except for the one, ⁓ the third one where you were a solo one. I would love to know, you know, what do you think about before, you know, either joining someone or, you know, onboarding someone as a co-founder? What do you, what is your process for that? Peter: Well, I want to clarify. So my brother-in-law has been involved in three of the businesses. So my brother-in-law was also an investor. So him and I have invested in each other's business. So I would consider him somewhat a co-founder because he's also been part of my brain trust, so to speak. so I, usually you have to have one common thread, common thread. That's as crazy as you when you're building businesses and thinking about businesses, but operationally you're going to have different co-founders that come in the mix every single time. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ okay. Peter: So Jay, who's my brother-in-law, he was one of the first investors into my third business that failed. He was an investor in my fourth business. He was the first checker came to the fourth business and the fifth business, was cannabis, he was the CEO, I was the president. So again, I would consider him somewhat of a co-founder, even though he wasn't operational for any one of these businesses. But I'm not sure what your question was, Ashish. Your question was, how do you determine Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if a person can be a co founder or he cannot be a co founder. Peter: Yeah, I don't, I don't really have a distinction here. Here's my honest take about this. I think anyone that comes in early stage in a company, you don't know who your co-founders are. And to put a label on them day one, before you have any POC or product market fit is a mistake because individuals that might be employees early on, they might ultimately become your co-founder if that makes sense. Like you don't know what you don't know. Right. So Ashish Kulkarni: Mm-hmm, yeah. Peter: So many, like Jack, for example, at Tradish, was a young technical programmer, but he was there since day one. If you ask me when we first started the company, if he

was my co-founder, he was not my co-founder at Tradish, but he's been there since day one. So if I think of all the different individuals, and there's been a few of them that have come and gone in Tradish, because again, like I said, the... the uncertainty, the uncertain middle, the lonely middle, like the uncertainty that happened, a few of individuals that I thought were co-founders, they left. They are no longer with the company. But then Jack stayed here the entire time. ⁓ again, I don't put a label on the term co-founder because you realize as you start to progress the business and you figure things out, your co-founders actually come out of the woodwork, right? You realize, you know, who your co-founders truly are because they stick around in the business, right? Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah. And Peter, another thing I've seen is up till now, except for one startup, most of the other startups you are part of were the ideas of other founders. Am I correct? Except for the third one and this one. Peter: Yeah, yes. Newstrike, yes. Newstrike was a... Newstrike was a colleague that gave us the idea. Global Faces was one my partners that approached me. Extreme PETA was a collection of all of our ideas. Yeah, it's a combination. It's a combination of both. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ Yeah, yeah, yeah. And since this one you say is really special to you, is it because it was also because you are really passionate about the idea, you know, as compared maybe to the, you know, other startups where execution was more the key than the just the idea? Peter: Yeah, this one is far more of a passion project for me to the extent of like, I believe we're solving a big problem. And my whole thinking was, if I can slowly realize how this problem can be solved, then we're disrupting a pretty big industry. If I think of the grocery sector, the grocery sector is like this old antiquated, very kind of old school type of sector in which the supply chain works in a very specific way where you have like five points in the supply chain going to the grocery store. Everyone's accepting of it and everyone just believes that's way it should be. And, but the problem is that groceries are at such a high cost right now, then people can't afford them. So my thinking was always basically like, if there's a way to disrupt it, let's figure it out. And so it's been, that's, I consider it a passion project because it's very hard, it's very difficult. And I funded the startup. So it's like, It's always in the mentality that I have for this one where I had the finances to basically fund the startup. ⁓ I had the thought processes, like if we actually start slow and start building off of it, then, and we figure it out, then we kind of scale it. So now we're at a point right now where we have all the infrastructure built, the foundation built. our customer acquisition cost, CAC, TLTV ratio was actually really down the level. So we're now at a point where we're raising kind of a late seed round. So yeah,

like I'm pretty excited about it because a lot of this was like built off of the premise of like, let's start slow. But now that we're seeing this inflection point, we want to grow and scale fast. So I think we're again, we're to raise probably, you know, late seed round in the next few months. Ashish Kulkarni: Wow, great. ⁓ And Peter, as you move towards the end of this, ⁓ I would love to know, up till now you have raised a lot of rounds for your startups. You have got a lot of exits. What do you think is the key to getting investors ⁓ to invest in your company or how to exit your company? Is there any sort of ⁓ framework for that that you have? Peter: There is. Yeah, I think there's two things. If you're talking about like the seed round, or like almost like pre seed seed round, the concept idea where you don't have you don't the initial stage. So that's one the initial stage is basically ⁓ you have to have a problem that is disrupted. I call it the four walls theory. So you have to have a problem that that extends four walls, meaning like, if your addressable market is big enough, and you're Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah, the initial stages, yes. Peter: your strategy to deploy out into the SOM, like your serviceable, attainable market is sound enough, then you should have a recipe. Meaning like you should be able to prove to a bigger audience, whether it be investor audience or even friends and family that invest in the seed round. You should be able to show them exactly what that stage looks like. Like ideas, everyone has a good idea, but the idea combined with the execution of how you actually execute against it is really, really critical. And that's kind of where if you basically have a pretty good framework to show exactly how you're actually launching your pilot test, how you can take again, the big problem, take it, take a really good market that you can actually attack and actually get a small proof point on it. Then, then you have a one to one correlation with basically you can raise a little bit of money to prove it out. That's kind of where I look at every one of these investor decks. If it has that one to one correlation in terms of the problem is big enough, the four walls are extended big enough. You have a very good framework to actually start small and develop like an ICP and a repeatable process around like here's a small cohort on this pilot test that it's working on. And then all of a now you can extend out to a bigger group of people and a bigger ICP. Then you have your recipe. That's kind of where that's how you raise funds. Like you have to have things that are logical in nature. ⁓ it's very different now, if I'm being honest, it's very different now because When you raise seed funds, also have, you you have to do it with a very scrappy mentality because with AI and the tools, and we talked about this earlier with Claude and Claude code and everything that you can do for significantly less expensive and less friction, you now have an opportunity to actually build something out with less money. So there's going to be that as well. Like fundraising is not, ⁓ is not a definitive. you know, science anymore before it was now it's more of an art because literally you can actually build a pretty big company with very little tools and little resources. So a lot of that, you know, you have to think through and you have to be able to think, okay, what can I do to, you know, raise less money, be far more efficient in terms of how to get the product market fit. So a lot of that is again, there's a framework around that for sure. Your second question, sorry, go ahead. Ashish Kulkarni: And yeah, yeah, please, please finish. Peter: No, I say your second question was basically, ⁓ how do you exit a company? that's the framework I always talk about is that three-year gestation period and the five-year optionality. I built that out where that's kind what I look at for every one of companies as well my own company. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah and Peter when you are raising funds at an initial stage, how much do you think your network matters? I mean, I know by now you already have a good network of investors who you can call and simply say, hey, I'm starting this. Does this interest you? But at the initial stage, you know, in the earlier years when you did not have this network, what exactly, you know, help you? Did cold emails help you or? Did you focus more time on getting a reference or you know what exactly you work? Peter: Yeah, that's a good question. I think a lot of, there is a ⁓ lot of noise out there as we all know, like even cold emails are really difficult these days because everyone is using Apollo and everyone is using the same kind of template cold email templates. I think if I look at my LinkedIn DMs, I probably get a DM at least like twice a day in regards to people that are looking for money. So it's like, it's a very busy kind of space right now. So I think honestly, if I look at kind of the first thought process around how important a network is, it is very important for your initial raise. Like you either have to have a fantastic idea that's on the cutting edge and the ability to kind of pitch that out there. But those, again, keep in mind, everyone has really good ideas, right? So I think the network is pretty important in the initial stage of like a pre-seed idea stage where you have to be able to convince a really kind of close network. that your idea is a really good idea and they can support it. And that could be friends, family, high-net-worth individuals that are within your network. Those are usually, especially for first-time founders, like that probably is kind of where you're raise your first funds. And again, the exceptional rule is if you have something that's so cutting edge and so kind of outside the box and everyone's like, wow, this is like, this is an idea that I can pitch to multiple different people because... And you just

discovered something and have an idea that's so that's so on the verge of cutting edge. But again, there's so many ideas similar to that out there right now. So I think network is really, really important, you know, for your initial race for sure. Ashish Kulkarni: Okay, so from what I understood at the initial stage when you are just building out your network, the best way to go about it is initially just raise from friends, family, and people whom you already know from ⁓ high network individuals. then, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then build out some good metrics, good financials, and then for the next round, you can probably ⁓ approach actual investors. Am I correct? Yeah, yeah. Peter: That's always gonna be the first. That's right. Ashish Kulkarni: And later on, once you have had successful exits like you have, you probably have investors who can jump in at a lot earlier stage. Peter: Yeah, and then they have networks as well. again, it becomes a very much that. Yeah, that's right. The ripple effect. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, yeah. Ripple effect, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And ⁓ right now, apart from Tre'dish, think you're also running A-list am I correct? Peter: That's right. Yep. Yeah. ALS basically is it's a venture advisory studio in which we're basically providing advisory frameworks for again, similar way I talked about, is basically that framework around. We work with companies that are like past POC pre-series a, but at a point they're at an inflection point where Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah. Could you tell me a bit more about it? Peter: building a framework to get to that point where they can really get a good product market fit and then scale the company. That's when we kind of look at companies where we either invest in, we advise for first and we invest in. And right now we have like four different portfolio companies that we're working with. Tradish is obviously our largest kind of thesis. We kind of built that into, you know, into the portfolio as well. So A-list is the largest investor for Tradish. It's an investment for other companies. I'm looking at this in terms of extending out, you know, the network of companies that we want to. help advise for and potentially work with. And I think the biggest premise being is like the vast majority of these founders ⁓ to your point, they're looking for frameworks and repeatable processes, right? So that's kind of the one thing that she said we kind of built out in this where not only it's one thing to provide simply, you know, the how of like these frameworks, but the other side as well, which is basically the mentality shift and the founder psyche of like, how do you actually kind of build these companies from scratch? Knowing that There's so much, again, it's really, entrepreneurship is hard and things are really busy out there. Right. So if you can partner up with someone, I can give you kind of the psychological kind of framework to actually start a company, build a company and scale a company combining with

the actual, the processes, the how processes. That's what we've, we've done. we, yeah, like I said, we're pretty excited about this because we're working with some pretty good companies right now and we're looking to grow more. and my partner is kind of building a sub-stack community with me right now, which we're It's called the unstuck entrepreneur. And we're starting to really kind of talk with a number of different founders that are on that flexion point where they're either thinking of ideas or they're even at that stage where they might be stuck because they might've hit proof of concept, but they're trying to figure out how to get to that next level. So, yeah, we're starting to build a community in a framework around how we actually help those, those entrepreneurs as well. Ashish Kulkarni: Great. And ⁓ do you invest and advise these companies in just Canada and US or are you also looking at some other geographies? Peter: ⁓ Our company is in Canada and US right now, but we will be looking at the geographies. Ashish Kulkarni: Okay, okay, great. ⁓ And you know, as we move towards the end of this, you know, at the initial stage, you had told me that, you know, you're seeing your parents work in this trap, your goal was to get them out of this trap. My question is, are they out of the trap today? And how are you feeling about it? Peter: Yeah, they are well out of the trap. Yeah. It's a funny story. I, after I sold my fourth startup, Global Faces, I ended up buying a house in Florida, in Naples, Florida. And it was, I was, I was still pretty young at the time, but it was mainly for them. I wanted them to kind of snowboard there and take some time off. So they did that for three years before COVID. They did that for like two and a half years. in which they went there and yeah, they're older now, but they don't have to worry about anything. Between myself, my two sisters, we're all very independent. We've all done very well for ourselves. So I think it's like, yeah, I mentioned to you earlier, which is the sacrifice that they made, I think their version of like what now they're realizing this, even though... they came here for a better life, to create a better life, maybe not only for the family or for themselves. If they don't feel like they created a better life for themselves because they work so hard and struggle so much, I think it's come full circle when they see what they have now. They have an opportunity to obviously live their life. They see their kids being very successful. They see their grandkids all not having to worry about money. So yeah, I definitely think it's all been worth it. if you ask them, they'd say the same thing. Ashish Kulkarni: ⁓ Okay, Peter any parting note you would like to give to you know potential founders who are looking to start their ideas or something Peter: No, I think, like I said, I think this is a very, if I'm being honest, it's a very difficult time. It's a very difficult economy. It's a very difficult fundraising environment. Like the world is just a very turbulent place right now, as we all know, right? So I think the goal for every founder has to be thinking outside the box and thinking what you can do. do more with less. you know, lot of that comes with like AI tools. A lot of that comes with what we talked about earlier, which is basically the friction point of like you developing a software or an app, didn't it, it was the friction was so high. You had to get like five different technical co-founders or, individuals they had to high salaries for that doesn't exist anymore. Right. So the biggest thing you can do is basically prove solve a problem and do so in a smaller scale, because you have the tools. to do so. And if you do that, then you get to a proof point quicker. So when you, when you talk to individual investors, you have a lot more to prove out. It's not something that's a big concept, right? So that's the one piece of advice is like, just think outside the box relative to doing that outside the box, it's inside the box now, do do as much as you can with as little tools as possible, because they're all accessible right now, you can do a lot more. ⁓ Like even last two years, it's fundamentally different. And then Fundraising landscape has changed because the expectation is that you should be doing a lot more with a lot less. Ashish Kulkarni: So yeah, uniqueness is a key because the initial execution, the MVPs and stuff has become a lot easier, a lot low cost. So yeah. Peter: That's right. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, thanks a lot, Peter. ⁓ It was a pleasure doing this with you. Peter: My pleasure, sheesh. Okay, all the best. Take care, bye now. Ashish Kulkarni: Yeah, thank you.