Darrell MacMullin, CEO of Goldmoney Inc.Jamie Shulman, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Hubdoc.
Q: What’s Your Biggest Pet Peeve When It Comes to Large Organizations Working With Entrepreneurs?
Darrell: Having to be bounced between multiple people to explain the opportunity repeatedly and not having clarity about who can prioritize. Corporates need someone who acts as a project manager to vet the opportunity in full internally in the organization. Similar to how a VC firm vets opportunities then brings them internally to an investment committee team once initially vetted accordingly.
Jamie: Large organizations often don’t appreciate the real resource constraints of entrepreneurial businesses. A large organization can send many people to several lengthy meetings over and over again, while entrepreneurs can barely sacrifice 30 minutes.
Q: What’s the Smartest Thing an Entrepreneur Can Do to Get Through the Door of a Large Corporate?
Darrell: Put yourself in the corporate’s shoes: why would they want the meeting? What’s in it for them? Understand their needs. Don’t look desperate or look like you are for sale. Have a compelling value proposition a corporate could see benefit in or don’t waste your time.
Jamie: Find a champion in the large corporation who’ll shepherd the entrepreneur to the right person to begin a real discussion.
Darrell: Learn how to sell. Enterprise sales needs to be a function of your company’s DNA. There are winners and losers based on the deals they can do. If you can’t sell, hire someone who can to manage the process.
Q: What Do Canadian Entrepreneurs Need to Do to Take on the World?
Darrell: Depends on the stage of the company. They are not bound by borders like large corporates, but you need to methodically know how to approach. On one hand, limiting yourself to Canada will not get you the scale you want long term, but a great market to launch and get to revenue stage in Year One. Trying to boil the ocean all at once will burn a lot of capital and not gain you not a lot of relevance anywhere at your initial stage.
Jamie: Set goals to be a world-leading. Whether it’s building a world class team or world class product, there’s no reason a company in Canada can’t be world-leading.
Darrell: Stop labelling yourself as a Canadian start up. You are a start-up that happens to be domiciled in Canada, but solves problem X for customer Y with a compelling value proposition. Absolutely think bigger.
As Senior Vice-President, Office of the CEO, John advises the executive leadership on emerging trends in Canada’s economy, providing insights grounded in his travels across the country and around the world. His work focuses on technological change and innovation, examining how to successfully navigate the new economy so more people can thrive in the age of disruption. Prior to joining RBC, John spent nearly 25 years at the Globe and Mail, where he served as editor-in-chief, editor of Report on Business, and a foreign correspondent in New Delhi, India. Having interviewed a range of prominent world leaders and figures, including Vladimir Putin, Kofi Annan, and Benazir Bhutto, he possesses a deep understanding of national and international affairs. In the community, John serves as a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, C.D. Howe Institute and is a member of the advisory council for both the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute and the Canadian International Council. John is the author of four books: Out of Poverty, Timbit Nation, and Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of a Media Revolution and Planet Canada: How Our Expats Are Shaping the Future.
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