How Tech Entrepreneurs Can Capitalize on the Buy Canadian Movement

Sonia Sennik: and I’m Sonia Sennik, CEO at Creative Destruction Lab.

John Stackhouse: This is Disruptors x CDL: The Innovation Era.

Sonia, the last few weeks feel like more than a few weeks. They feel like an era, and we’re all figuring out whether this is an era of fear or hope of opportunity or retreat. But one of the things that’s going on that hopefully becomes more than a moment is this determination of Canadians to buy Canadian.

To support entrepreneurs around us and to reflect our commitment to Canada, not just in our words or our songs, but in the things we buy.

Sonia Sennik: John, it’s sort of our Reputation Era right now. There is a drive to support local businesses, products and services, and better understand our own economy. Where can we travel? Where can we eat? What can we buy from a fellow Canadian that’s building something great?

John Stackhouse: But of course in this complex economy, you can never be quite [00:01:00] sure where the things that you’re buying actually come from, because they usually come from a lot of places. That’s what often makes their quality so good and their prices so affordable.

I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time standing in grocery aisles reading something like a cereal box, trying to figure out is this really a box of Canadian cereal?

Sonia Sennik: The one thing we can be certain is, is a bottle of maple syrup, John.

But then there’s the bottle. Do we know where it comes from?

John Stackhouse: And the label. It’s part of the joy of living in a global economy and we don’t want to undermine that, but at the same time, we can all do more. And that’s what we’re kind of doing in buying local to support the economies that, in turn support us.

Sonia Sennik: Maybe learning a little more about ourselves along the way and getting more connected coast to coast.

This has been a unifying moment. And as you mentioned, that doesn’t take away from us being great global citizens.

John Stackhouse: Nothing wrong with pairing a Nova Scotia lobster with an Okanagan [00:02:00] White.

Sonia Sennik: I love that.

John Stackhouse: We’re gonna hear today from a couple of dynamic Canadian entrepreneurs who are running with this idea of buy Canada and try to help entrepreneurs, both in the physical economy and the digital economy to create more and sell more of things that are made by Canadians in Canada for Canadians.

Sonia Sennik: And one of our guests is Dax Dasilva, the CEO of Lightspeed. They ran a three day survey where they found that 91% of Canadians are prioritizing Canadian products. 71% of Canadians are willing to pay more for Canadian products, and 73% of Canadians are boycotting major US retailers. It’s a clear sign that consumer commitment to buy Canadian is strengthening, not fading.

John Stackhouse: I was reassured by another finding in the survey that said 65% of us are doing, just like me, standing in the aisle reading labels and tags to ensure that yes, we’re buying Canadian.

Sonia Sennik: A key question they asked on the survey was, even if the US tariffs are [00:03:00] lifted, will you continue to buy Canadian? And 74% said yes.

We may be on the precipice of a true cultural shift, John,

John Stackhouse: But as we’ve been discussing, Sonia, it’s not so simple in the digital economy. When you order something online, yes, you may know where the product comes from, but the software, the coding that allowed you to get that to your home, where did that come from?

And if the coding was done somewhere else, does that matter?

Sonia Sennik: Absolutely. John’s software knows no bounds. Whether it’s terrestrial or in outer space, as we’ve chatted with some of our space founders and entrepreneurs recently. So with such a profound technology that is borderless, how do you make sure you understand your source code?

Well, there’s a Canadian that we’re gonna be speaking to on the podcast today as well, Derek. Who put together a website that helps aggregate that information for you.

John Stackhouse: So as the title of our podcast suggests, this is all about disruption and disruption can go too far, and I do worry that some of this enthusiasm can spiral into economic [00:04:00] nationalism and create some unintended consequences.

We all benefit from international trade, including the ability to sell to other markets, which we have to be mindful of, but nothing wrong with a hometown spirit and try to buy. From the people you live next door to. Our first guest is Dax Dasilva, the CEO of Lightspeed. It’s a Montreal based e-commerce company that Dax founded in 2005 and took public in 2019. Dax, welcome to Disruptors.

Dax Dasilva: Happy to be here.

John Stackhouse: Dax, some of our OG Disruptors fans will remember you as an initial onstage guest. It’s great to have you back on the Disruptors stage in podcast form. I wonder if we can just kick off with a quick update on Lightspeed. You built a company, then the pandemic hit, it became a pandemic, darling, and then the world went upside down and you’ve been building it back since then. How are things going?

Dax Dasilva: Yeah, we’re in a new phase for the company after being for many years a growth at all costs [00:05:00] sort of model where, where that was, you know, how a lot of companies were oriented leading up to the pandemic and shortly thereafter, Lightspeed’s been going from, it’s a traditional business of retail and hospitality software to branching into building out our payments platform, which adds to the profitability picture.

So making a lot of great progress. It’s, uh, it’s an overall transformation of the company and overall journey for long-term, sustainable, profitable growth. And now we’re into executing on this incredible transformation. But if we look at where the company is today, we’re at a billion in revenue trending the last 12 months.

We’re celebrating 20 years. We’re about 3000 people around the world and in our key markets of North America, retail and European hospitality, you know, we’re a leader. So we’re super excited about where we are serving the complex merchants that we do, and I’m excited to be leading this next phase.

John Stackhouse: It is an inspiring Canadian story.

And since we’re talking about Canada and buy Canadian, Dax, tell us a bit about your story as a Canadian.

Dax Dasilva: Yeah, so I grew up in Richmond, BC was [00:06:00] always really into computers. I mean, I was programming at 13 for a startup, but also had interest in the environment and the arts and sort of have done other projects related to those.

Moved to Montreal at 24. Started Lightspeed at 28. Montreal is where I call home today. And uh, it’s where we’ve got our headquarters, 20 something offices around the world. But now we’ve been in that building, which we call the Castle for about 10 years. So that’s an important part of the Lightspeed story.

John Stackhouse: And I’ve been in the castle. It’s a really cool building in a city of incredible architecture. Yeah. 120 year olds from our railway hotel. That’s pretty cool.

Sonia Sennik: You’ve, I’m sure been through so many ups and downs in the process of building your business. I’m curious to understand how the last couple of months have felt maybe a little different than any of the other chapters you’ve had with Lightspeed.

Dax Dasilva: Yeah, there’s certainly something new in terms of the new administration in Washington in terms of a different tone towards trade and commerce and sort of almost a reconfiguration of. The world order in terms of [00:07:00] free trade and just how, how we think about the liberal economic order and, and, and that is unsettling I think for consumers.

Uh, for the retailers and hospitality businesses that we serve. They’re wondering how this all shakes out for them. And I think that what we’ve seen is consumer sentiment being impacted. We see it in our numbers because more than 60% of lights v’s revenues are payments volume. So if there is a change in that, we see it immediately.

The reality is that if there’s uncertainty around the macroeconomic environment, then you also have businesses that are slower to invest, right? Invest in new inventory and so on. I think it affects our software less because our software is something that actually can help them do more with less and, and be more efficient with suppliers.

And so that’s a great pitch for us. And in these moments, just like it was during Covid. More technology can help you navigate these moments, and that’s a benefit. You know, we’ve got a supplier management tool with our retail product called New Order that lets you find new areas of [00:08:00] supply. And so we’re seeing our retail businesses use that tool to find other avenues. But yeah, it’s a very different time than I’ve ever seen in the 20 years that I’ve been doing Lightspeed.

Sonia Sennik: And what’s the most common conversation you’re having with customers right now?

Dax Dasilva: I think that it is a lot around when are things going to be more predictable? What can I think of as the new normal in terms of consumer sentiment?

Will people start to feel better? Will prices rise? Generally what will happen to my supply? Will I have to rethink where I source supply? So I think there’s lots of questions. Um, you know, we’re answering from the perspective of these are all the ways technology can help. In Covid, we helped a lot of folks go omnichannel when they might’ve been primarily physical.

And so this is a bit more of a logistics and supply and all sorts of other kind of calculations that are not within the norm of what people are expecting. But yeah, we’re definitely trying to assist.[00:09:00]

John Stackhouse: It is interesting, Dax, to compare the current uncertainty with the mass uncertainty, uh, during Covid. Night and day in some ways from an economic perspective, but maybe some similar management challenges. What do you remember from Covid as something you continue to try to apply and get all your clients also to apply?

Dax Dasilva: Yeah, so there are a lot of tools in the Lightspeed toolkit, right, in terms of software. But when you have moments like this, there are certain things that maybe shine. When it came to Covid, it was how do we help everybody go digital overnight? So that they could keep selling to their customers. What are the different ways that we can also support them with other things that we do?

We have capital programs. We have same day payment programs for people that are using our payment system. There’s all sorts of ways that we can support customers in this moment. It’s all about supply. It’s all about purchasing and shipping, receiving all of the different things that can logistically be different depending on how tariffs and and other trade questions [00:10:00] settle out.

John Stackhouse: We also had that burst of buy local during covid when people made every effort to support local suppliers, local restaurants, local services, and obviously we’re seeing more of that. Sonja and I talked in the introduction about the survey you’ve done. What motivated you? To do that survey?

Dax Dasilva: Yeah. We did a survey from March 12th to 14th. A thousand Canadian adults about how they’re thinking about the consumer market as Canadians.

The headline here is 91% of respondents are currently or planning to prioritize Canadian products in response to the tariffs, and 65% of that group are now checking labels to identify Canadian goods. So this is significant. 71% are willing to pay more. For a Canadian product and 76% of that of that group, were open to spending five to ten percent more.

We did see that buy local, support your local business during Covid. So I think people are already used to the idea and already have done some thinking about it. Because they did that to support the [00:11:00] businesses in their communities. They probably perhaps got to know some of the local business owners.

Got to understand that they could source some of the things that they need from a local business around the corner and. That was maybe a precursor to where we are today, which is okay, we have to think about things differently as Canadians and we have to support our local producers, our local retailers, our local sources.

And maybe that’s gonna cost me a bit more, but the money’s staying in my community. There’s also folks thinking to do something more active around boycotting. You know, 73% are considering or actively are boycotting major US retailers, the Walmarts, the Amazons names like McDonald’s in favor of Canadian alternatives.

Sonia Sennik: Yeah. Great. Time to finally start that poutine business. You’re mentioning the importance of technology, being able to help through uncertain times and unpredictable times. One of the things that happened in C was remote work and being able to access [00:12:00] talent from all over the world and bring them into your team.

How are you thinking about the transformation of your workforce in a moment like this?

Dax Dasilva: In this particular moment, I’m not sure if that changes things too drastically. We still have a very international business and we’re still hiring. All over the world. The US and Canada are our biggest market in terms of for our retail product.

Uh, and we have incredible employees in the US and of course we do in Canada. And we have a lot of people in Europe, uh, servicing our hospitality customers. And in rest of world, which is, you know, Asia Pacific, there’s folks there as well.

Sonia Sennik: So you’re not thinking of talent sourcing any differently?

Dax Dasilva: No. We need folks that are going to, you know, be able to help us grow in these markets.

John Stackhouse: So it’s interesting, Dax, to hear you speak about the global footprint of Lightspeed. While we’re also talking about being much more local with buy Canadian, source Canadian. As you step back and look at Canada’s economic transition through the years ahead, as some are suggesting we need to do, how do you think about that balance of being local and being [00:13:00] global and also being super connected to the United States, which is the best non-Canadian market still for most Canadian businesses?

Dax Dasilva: You know, when you’re working with hospitality businesses, restaurants, your teams have to be very local with them in order to find businesses like, uh, it’s field sales teams. Right? So our primary market for restaurants is Europe. And so we have field teams in every major European city. And that is a very local experience to have those teams that are on the streets, working with those restaurants, making sure they’re successful and so on.

You know, I think we can centralize a little bit more, uh, for our North America retail business. We have a lot of folks working out of headquarters, and of course we have really, really talented folks that are working all across the US in different offices and remotely. But yeah, in North America, a lot of talent is concentrated in Montreal and uh, to some degree in Toronto.

Where we’re managed out of it at HQ is the HQ. But I think that there’s, you know, very global talent. I mean, we have a lot of American execs, especially when you come to engineering [00:14:00] talent and, and talent around development. We have a lot of leadership in the US and I mean, it’s only growing. I think that’s always gonna be part of the reality,

Sonia Sennik: Dax, to maybe the entrepreneurs. And company builders that are listening right now, what would be your advice to them as they’re in the middle of the overused word, unprecedented times? What would be your advice as they focus on trying to build their company and become the next Lightspeed?

Dax Dasilva: I think sometimes it’s easy to think about what’s good for your company and how to grow your company, but in these moments you’ve got to.

Be empathetic and place yourself in the shoes of customers and potentially talk to customers, uh, and actually really understand their reality. And from there, from the listening build solutions and craft solutions, maybe you already have solutions, but maybe you’re packaging them differently or making them more accessible.

We do these, this series called Table Talks. We recently [00:15:00] did one in Toronto around retail and connecting physical retail with social media. And just sitting with retailers, uh, and doing the discussions, you get to understand their reality more. And then you start to think about, okay, how can we bring solutions together from what we have or what we can build to address their reality?

Sonia Sennik: And how might tech entrepreneurs make the most of this by Canadian moment?

Dax Dasilva: Yeah, I think that there’s certainly now people making decisions based on, you know, what is considered Canadian content. 74% of people continue buying Canadian products even after a US tariff. Regime is lifted, so this could be a lasting phenomenon.

I think it’s been a moment where there’s been a tremendous amount of Canadian unity. I mean, it’s probably unprecedented in terms of Canadian unity that I’ve seen in my lifetime. And so in the same way that the US is trying to kind of reshape its economy from things that were maybe perceived to be taken away from free trade, I think we have an opportunity to [00:16:00] reshape our and make sure that we have.

Trade amongst our provinces that we are prioritizing Canadian products the way that other countries might more instinctively do that with their own products and also the willingness to pay more. Uh, coming outta the survey is heartening because when you’ve had cheap imports in North America, both in the US and Canada from, from foreign countries, if we want to have things that are sourced and created here.

It’s gonna cost us more. And I think that willingness to spend for that is gonna support a Canadian ecosystem.

John Stackhouse: Maybe we can wrap up with a question about mindset, especially mindsets during disruptive periods. You’re a disruptor, Dax. Uh, you’ve got an incredible 20 year run at Lightspeed. Lightspeed’s disrupted whole sectors in a positive way, and we’re all now in this moment of perhaps unprecedented, but pretty intense disruption.

What kind of mindset do we need both for the near term and the long term to [00:17:00] turn this to Canada’s advantage?

Dax Dasilva: I think it’s easy to fall into. Fear of the unknown. And I think that if you look at what happened during the pandemic, there was a certain amount of fear because there, it was very unknown how things would turn out.

But understand that a lot of positive can come from a crisis, right? Like it, you create new shoots, new opportunities, new connections. And that I think is the mindset, right? The mindset is like, okay, this is a forcing function for a lot of change. How can it be impactful for my stakeholders, you know, for my business, for my customers, for the country, for our partners in the US, for our trading partners.

I mean. Okay, things are changing, but how can we come out of it much, much further ahead?

John Stackhouse: That’s a really powerful message. We should all be starting from a position of hope, not one of fear. Hope not fear. Dax, it’s been great to have you on the podcast again. Thanks so much. Thank you.[00:18:00]

Sonia Sennik: We spoke with Derek Jouppi. Founder ByCanada.Tech. It is a platform or coast to coast startup directory designed to help Canadians find and support local alternatives to foreign digital products and services. They currently have over 10,000 Canadian tech companies listed

Derek Jouppi: On February 1st. Trump had announced tariffs. Everybody on my feed was asking how do I find Canadian tech and I said, well actually, I can do this. I can find them all. I started calling up all of my friends who also run different incubators and accelerators, community tech CoLab out in Saskatchewan, all the way up to Tech Yukon, some VC firms like Pender Ventures, and everybody said, yep, I can send you a list of Canadian companies if you can put them in the project.

And in two days we had written code that basically compiled a coast to coast view of Canadian tech. About 10,000 startups. [00:19:00] I’m not the only person that took this opportunity to help people find and buy more Canadian products. I focused a lot more on the tech startup scene, whereas other people focused more on consumer goods.

But we all are actually collaborating under one banner, a new project called the Canadian Index, or TCI for short and. What we are doing is collaborating and putting all of our data together to create an open source repository that anybody who wants to know what’s happening in Canada can use to continue to build apps like this going forward.

It’s very easy at the grocery store to look at the sticker on the fruit and know that you’re buying something made in Mexico, Canada, the US or another country. It is much harder to do so when you’re looking at the digital products and services that you use. Where you give your data, where you spend, what software products you’re using as infrastructure, at least at BI Canada Tech, we’ve made a search by replacement feature.

So you type in an American product or a service, and you’ll get a [00:20:00] list of Canadian companies building equivalent tech that you could use in place of it. The tech world has come to the consensus. That they want to find the product that best meets their needs and that’s where they go with. But I think right now it’s been never more important than ever to invest in the Canadian tech startups that might not be where you need them to be.

But because without your investment, they will never get there. I don’t think there’s a sense of doom and gloom that maybe being cut off from American resources, American customers and American investor capital might have done to the ecosystem. I think a lot of people are just optimistic. Support your local founders.

Buy something from them. That is the best way that we will all get through this.

John Stackhouse: Sonia. I really like Dax’s point about starting from a place of hope rather than fear. It’s all too easy these days to succumb, to fear, to hunker down because of the uncertainty. [00:21:00] And yet, as we know time and time again through history, uncertainty is when opportunity can flourish.

Sonia Sennik: Without a doubt, John, and if the pandemic did teach us anything, it’s that Canadians know how to come together and get through tough times. This moment in the next few years will be no different. One thing that’s great to see is the types of conversations that. Early stage startups are now having to think about how they’re going to manage their international scaling.

That level of sophistication around export controls and thinking carefully about how to be a great global citizen as a company is so important, and it’s happening right now in the very early stages of company development. I think that can only bring us great things in the years to come.

John Stackhouse: That’s a great message of hope, Sonia, and maybe that’s where we should sign off with that word hope and know that we have a moment here.

Not just to hold hope, but to act on it. And act on it together.

Sonia Sennik: There’s no doubt we can meet this moment. John.

John Stackhouse: This is disruptors, an RBC [00:22:00] podcast. I’m John Stackhouse. And I’m Sonia Sennik. Talk to you soon.

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