Flagship Podcast

Guillaume Jacquet is one of the strongest founders I know. He co-founded Chronogolf which was acquired by Lightspeed. He rose to run product & technology eventually leaving to start Vasco.  After being in stealth mode, they announced a massive US$8M seed round, led by Inovia Capital, with support from BY Venture Partners, Framework Venture Partners.    Vasco empowers RevOps teams to unify their data, processes, and technology to build frameworks and blueprints that actually work.  

Andrew Lockhead, co-founder and CEO of Stay22, shares insights from his journey in the travel industry. He discusses the creation of a platform for travel content creators and navigating the challenges of the pandemic. The implementation of large language models to enhance their business model is explored. Andrew also reflects on leadership lessons learned and his vision for the future of travel in an AI-driven world, emphasizing the need for a balance between technology and human connection.

Philippe Beaudoin is a gritty founder and one of the world’s foremost experts on AI. He’s relentlessly focused on his startup Waverly and shared some very candid and inspiring insights.  We spoke about: Waverly 3.0 - pivoting and hard lessons Building personalized experiences for enterprises   Provocative idea that Data is Dead  Why the GPT wrapper challenge is flawed Getting to default alive as a bootstrapped founder His thoughts on the AI landscape

(00:00:00) Intro (00:01:39) Research spotlight by Réseau Capital (00:23:08) Investor panel (00:54:26) Founder panel (01:22:28) Fireside chat with Tom Birch      

Dr. Nicholas Nadeau is the Chief Technology Officer at SmartOne, a leader in ethical AI and data solutions. Nicholas has become a pivotal figure in tech innovation with a Ph.D. in AI and engineering and a career dedicated to emerging technologies. Before joining SmartOne, he founded Nadeau Innovations, propelling startups to success as a fractional CTO.    We spoke about The evolving role of the CTO Pitfalls for Startup CTOs Maintaining a Startup Mentality at Scale SmartOne's Value Proposition  

I’m lucky that I get to work alongside Julie Lacasse and learn from her every day.  If you don’t know her, Julie is a serial entrepreneur and current venture capital partner at Amiral Ventures. She’s the cofounder of Tracktik, an innovative company specialized in optimizing the management of security agencies, she led the company to international success and exit.  Julie now brings her expertise to Amiral Ventures, where she focuses on venture capital investment. Her inspiring career path and strategic vision make her an influential figure in the entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem.   We spoke about:  Julie’s entrepreneurial journey  Insight that led to hyper growth company Board and VC dynamics  Principles that Julie learned operating and scaling  Lessons learned during the exit process  

Startup Montréal, the non-profit organization that has supported early-stage Montréal startups is now known as Québec Tech. The rebranded organization has also adopted a new mandate to grow the international footprint of Québec tech companies with high export potential. To talk about the important mission of Québec Tech, I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Chenier on the podcast to learn more about their plans and how they plan on addressing a key challenge for Quebec based startups. On the episode, we spoke about:  The reason to expand the mission of Quebec Tech to the entire province How they plan to support their initial cohort of startups  Why they focused on international go to market as the key value creation lever How Quebec compares to other provinces Reasons for optimism and why Quebec startups will win  

I had a great conversation with Aydin Mirzaee, CEO & Co-Founder @ Fellow. Aydin is a tech loving entrepreneur with a passion for building great products, leadership and people.  Fellow solves a huge problem for companies, help people spend less time in meetings and make them more productive. Previously , he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Fluidware which was acquired by SurveyMonkey.    On the episode, we spoke about:  Why he decided to start Fellow after having sold his previous startup  How meetings have grown significantly since the pandemic Their product offering and how it improves organizational performance Using AI for human level transcriptions and building institutional knowledge  Advice he gives to fellow founders  Why they started their own podcast Supermanagers (https://fellow.app/supermanagers/)   

Sur cet épisode du Flagship podcast, j’ai eu le plaisir d’échanger avec Marc Bédard, cofondateur et PDG @ Lion Électrique.  Marc Bédard a toujours été passionné par la technologie, l'innovation et la finance. En 2008, il a fondé Lion Electric et a peu après mis l'entreprise sur la voie du zéro émission en s'engageant dans un portefeuille de produits de véhicules lourds et moyens entièrement électriques.    Sur l’émission, nous avons parlé de:  Comment le Karaté l'a aidé à devenir un meilleur leader Acceptation sociale des véhicules électriques Comment ils naviguent sur les marchés en tant qu'entreprise publique Pourquoi nous en sommes encore aux premiers balbutiements de la transition énergétique pour les transports  

There is a cool new fund called DevCap based in Montreal founded by Max McCrea and Jordan Steiner. Developer Capital is a pre-seed and seed-stage investment corporation. They  strive to provide what other investors promise: real support for our investments in the form of actionable technical and operational support via its partnership with Monadical. Jordan and Max are not building your typical VC firm which is structured as an evergreen investment corp. They bring solid technical expertise for their founders.   We spoke about:  Building a strong culture as a new VC fund How they built a relationship of trust  and decided to start a fund together Culture principles they put into practice  Deep dive on the excitement around AI and their investment thesis