During the lockdown last year, I sat down to watch FounderFuel demo day where startups pitch their company to the community. It was hosted by the brilliant Katy Yam from Real Ventures. They pulled off a fantastic event despite all the restrictions in place. One startup in particular caught my eye. Guillaume Parent was on … Continue reading Empowering Artists →

Photo by Sofia on Unsplash This is part 2 of a series on strategy fundamentals and how the concept will evolve. Here’s the previous post in case you missed it.  Part 1 | Starting Strategy  Every year, a curious phenomenon occurs. Many managers will lock themselves in a multi-day retreat and come out with a … Continue reading Starting Strategy | Designing Sustainability →

This is part of a short series on strategy, its fundamentals and how the concept has evolved in today’s world  Strategy is one of the most used words in the business world and yet still feels remarkably nascent. There is no single agreed upon definition and every organization applies strategic concepts in a completely freeform … Continue reading Starting Strategy →

Canadian Tire is a Canadian institution. It is the quintessential Canadian retailer. It was my favorite place to go to when I was a kid. One of the things I loved about it was Canadian Tire money. It consisted of coupons which resemble real banknotes and were used to save on your next purchase. You … Continue reading Programmable Loyalty →

Why addressable markets aren’t what they used to be If you work in a startup and are meeting with investors, you are obligated to include a slide on your total addressable market, also lovingly referred to as the TAM. The TAM isn’t just reserved for startups of course. The notion of the size of the … Continue reading New Markets →

Photo by Zé Ferrari Careto on Unsplash Technical debt is a well defined problem today. It is the result of prioritizing speedy delivery over perfect code. When you want to go fast, you have to take shortcuts. Over time, these shortcuts accumulate and cause slowdowns. When this happens, you need to invest to fix it. … Continue reading Organizational Debt →

We finally entered the first year of the twentieth first century. It took 20 years for the new century to arrive. There will be a clear line in people’s minds, the old world and the new one. Even things that occurred 2 or 3 years ago seem completely distant and less relevant. In the business … Continue reading Past the point of no return →

Certain principles about learning just make sense. My favorite one comes from the meme king himself.  it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to … Continue reading Solving at different levels of the stack →

It was the annual spring tradition. We would dress up in our traditional Greek clothing and freeze our little butts off walking down Jean-Talon. The  Greek independence day parade in Montreal was a staple of my childhood. The event was the celebration of the country and also served as a reminder of our roots for … Continue reading Overcoming Fear →

I’ll be honest. When I started my consulting firm, I had no idea what consulting was. We just thought it would be cool to help companies figure out their strategic challenges, particularly when it comes to the massive technological shifts occurring.  Now after 6 years, I think we’ve figured it out somewhat even though we’re … Continue reading Pattern Recognition →