Podcast appearances and mentions of Bell Mobility

Today, on The Signal, we'll be talking about cell signals.We'll hear from some people who've lobbied for improvements and what Bell Mobility has to say about the service it provides.

Host Lisa Laronde speaks with Miranda Steele, a strategic communications executive and president of the Ellevate Network Toronto. Lisa and Miranda discuss the role of strategic communications in shaping business culture and supporting women's leadership development to create authentic connections for women to support each other. Miranda shares her career journey working with global brands like McDonalds and discusses the challenges women face in leadership roles. Steele also mentions the benefits of external women's networks like Ellevate in providing a safe space for women to connect and share their stories outside of their company roles. They emphasize the importance of speaking up, setting boundaries, and normalizing conversations about gender equality in the workplace. Chapters (00:00) Introduction and Career in Strategic Communications (02:23) Working with McDonald's and Global Brands (05:26) Cultural Differences in Business (10:27) Challenges and Support for Women in Leadership (20:23) Building Authentic Connections and Communities (21:06) Challenges in Skilled Trades and Leadership Roles (22:12) Inclusive Networks and Safe Spaces (24:33) Speaking Up and Setting Boundaries (29:59) Finding Your Tribe and Building a Supportive Network More about Miranda Steele: As Founder and Chief Strategist at Words of Steele Strategic Consulting, Miranda brings extensive expertise and strategic counsel to organizations worldwide, helping them strengthen their business and solve communication challenges. Her background includes leadership roles with some of the world's largest brands, where she enhanced and safeguarded brand reputation globally. Before establishing Words of Steele, Miranda led Corporate Relations for McDonald's Restaurants in Canada and then became Senior Director of International Corporate Relations. In this role, she managed McDonald's brand reputation across over 80 countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Her prior experience in telecommunications at TELUS and Bell Mobility focused on Channel Communications and Event Marketing & Sponsorship. As a consultant, Miranda works directly with clients and through global agency partners to offer corporate communications, business transformation, and global engagement services. Clients and colleagues, both near and far, recognize Miranda's ability to create community, connect people and ideas, and drive positive change that leaves a lasting legacy. When she's not supporting clients, Miranda contributes to online and print publications, including Medium, the Toronto Star, and Chatelaine Magazine. She is a passionate advocate for women's career development and serves as President of the Toronto Chapter of Ellevate Network. Miranda always makes time for an energizing networking chat! www.wordsofsteele.com www.linkedin.com/in/steelemiranda

Guest: Michael Weening President and Chief Executive Officer at Calix (Ticker: $CALX) Website: https://www.calix.com/ Bio: President and Chief Executive Officer Michael was promoted to president and CEO of Calix in September 2022, and is a member of the Board of Directors. He brings more than 20 years of experience leading growth, strategy and transformation to his role as President and CEO. Michael most recently served as the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer since January 2021. Michael joined Calix from Salesforce where he served as the senior vice president of Global Customer Success and senior vice president, Japan and Asia-Pacific Customer Success, Services and Alliances. Over the span of his career, Michael has held executive positions in North America, Europe and Asia. Previously, Michael held leadership roles at Bell Mobility in Canada, where he was vice president of business and consumer sales. Michael also held sales leadership roles at Microsoft, in Canada and the United Kingdom. Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, from Brock University supported by ongoing executive education at Queens, Wharton and USC. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/smartmoneycircle/support

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - TELUS issued a press release stating “it has gained approval to construct a new tower on Tla'amin Nation treaty lands that will dramatically improve wireless service on Cortes Island. Once completed, this new site will provide residents and visitors of the Mansons Landing area and surrounding waterways with reliable cell service, enhanced safety and access to emergency services throughout the area.”  “This upgrade is part of TELUS' broader coastal connectivity initiative, which has resulted in improved wireless services to residents and businesses in Whaletown, Gorge Harbour, Cortes Bay, and Squirrel Cove. TELUS plans to schedule construction activities on Tla'amin land over the next few months.” While no firm numbers are available, a significant number of Cortes Island residents are known to oppose construction of this tower because of: concerns that electromagnetic fields constitute a health hazard, TELUS' refusal to hold a public meeting, as is the normal procedure in our area. A small number of Cortes residents have expressed support for the proposed cell tower. There are three major mobility carriers in Canada, and respondents to a survey in PC Mag last month placed both ‘Telus Mobility' and its subsidiary ‘Public Mobile' ahead of ‘Bell Mobility' and ‘Rogers Wireless.' “The company edges out its competitors in overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and satisfaction with choice of phones, customer support, and fees; while the rating of 6.6 out of 10 for satisfaction with fees is nothing to text home about, it's still quite a bit ahead of Rogers.”

Why small banks need to be buying, not building solutions so they can shift focus to delivering customer value that will drive net new revenue. View the full video interview here. Laurence Cooke is the founder and CEO of nanopay Corporation, a technology company that offers business-to-business payments and liquidity management solutions to businesses and financial institutions. Active in the payments community, Laurence is a member of the Payments Canada Stakeholder Advisory Committee, FinPay and the US Federal Reserve Faster Payments Task Force. Previously, he was VP of Wireless at Shaw Communications and COO of Bell Mobility.

Catching up on stuff…. ➥New Rhetoric Tiktok  ➥Lululemon just released the Team Canada for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. ➥Daylight Saving Time began this weekend in Canada, unless you're on the Bell Mobility network, then it was last week. ➥Kamloops chief criticizes Trudeau to his face over surfing vacation. ➥Elon Musk- conducted a poll on Twitter asking the public if he should sell 10% of Tesla's shares? ➥Astroworld concert- Travis Scott performs and a stampede ensues with the death of 8 people in Houston. ➥Gas prices are way up. Benny's market update:  We are in for a bit of a grind in the next coming months. Christmas time and end of year is usually difficult but this year will be especially tough.   And...Greta Thunberg is pissed off at the elites at COP26 Need some financial advise? Ben Weir Advisor at Sun Life Follow on Facebook/Rhetoric on TikTok @rhetoric_cybercast and  Instagram/Rhetoric for updates on stories and future shows.        

In this episode, two reports from RBC's Thought Leadership group are mentioned. Click the links to read Farmer 4.0: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Agriculture, and Paging Dr. Data: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Healthcare. For details on the City of Hamilton's digital transformation, visit their website. To learn more about IBI Group's work in building the cities of tomorrow, click here. For the latest on Bell Mobility's rollout of 5G services, go to Bell.ca—and for the very latest on the Government of Canada's spectrum auction, follow this link.

We’ve all seen it — maybe some of us have even fallen for the trick — you’re on an ecommerce site and a big “Wheel of Savings” pops up. This innocent-seeming discount offer, though, isn’t what it seems, and it’s doing damage to the end-user spinning the wheel, and the site the wheel pops up on. The world of malvertising and browser extensions has been causing headaches in the ecommerce world for years and brands are constantly looking for ways to fight back and regain control of their websites. Matt Gillis is helping with that mission. Matt is the CEO of clean.io, which offers real-time protection against malicious actors and code for some of the most-trafficked websites in the world. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matt takes us through some of the methods bad actors are using to install malicious code on ecommerce sites, and he gets into the nitty gritty of why browser extensions like Honey and Wikibuy are hurting brand bottom lines, and why those extensions are making marketing attribution nearly impossible. But he also offers some solutions, too, so that ecommerce brands can finally win back control of the user experience. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Good Guy or Bad Guy?: Traditionally, malvertising is done by bad actors who infiltrate websites and take over through ads. But in the world of ecommerce, the bad actors are actually manifesting in the form of Fortune 100 companies that profit from website extensions like Honey and Wikibuy, which disrupt the user experience of the customer on the original ecommerce site. Solving that problem is the challenge for ecommerce brands that want to take back control.Sneakily Effective: In the malvertising world, the bad actors are at the top of the marketing game. They can achieve a 100% click-through rate at little to no cost because they are using sly, untraceable strategies. Targeting and eliminating those malvertisers is critical in order to level the playing field for ecommerce marketers to have success moving forward.Last Line of Defense: Publishing platforms hold most of the responsibility for the end-user experience. Everybody has a role to play in minimizing the risk of malicious buyers or advertisers, but ultimately, the publisher is the last line of defense against malvertising moving into the user experience, and they should be held accountable.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles co-founder at mission.org. Today on the show we have Matt Gillis, the CEO at clean.io. Matt, welcome.Matt:Stephanie, thanks for having me. I'm excited.Stephanie:I am very excited to have you here. We were just talking about how cool your background is, and I think that's actually kind of a fun place to start of where you're at in the world. And tell me a bit about your background.Matt:Yeah. Hey, so I'm in Baltimore and we actually just took possession of this office in February, right before the pandemic. And so the irony is I've been here every day since the pandemic started pretty much.Stephanie:By yourself?Matt:But I'm by myself. So we have 4,000 square feet. We just did the mural right before the pandemic and no one on our team has been able to experience it pretty much. But yeah, cybersecurity company located in Baltimore, we're about 45 people, I guess you could say solving this problem of untrusted and malicious JavaScript that is ruining user experiences in revenue across the internet. That's us in a nutshell.Stephanie:Cool. Well, I am really excited to dive further into clean.io. Before we do that though, I was hoping you can kind of go through your background because I saw you've worked at places like AOL, you've been in publishing. You've been in ad space. Tell me a bit about what you did before you came to clean.io.Matt:So full disclosure, I'm old. And so I've been around a little bit. I've had some fun. But yeah, I think key things I've spent probably the last 20-ish or so years in a couple of different capacities. Right out of university, I started in the mobile industry and mobile at that time was just making phone calls, that's it. There wasn't even texting then.Matt:In fact, my job back in those days was I would stand on a golf course at a golf tournament and let people make free phone calls because that was the cool thing to do then. No one had cell phones and if they did, they were like those brick ones. You remember those ones that you couldn't fit in your pocket?Stephanie:Yeah. And you were the cool guy like, "I've got access to an awesome phone, anyone want in?"Matt:Yeah. And listen, men and women would come up to me and they'd be like, "Can I call back and check and see if I have any messages?" And so that was the cool thing to do then. I know it sounds so crazy that was a thing at some point, but yeah. So I worked at mobile operators in the early stages of my career.Matt:So I worked at Bell Mobility in Toronto, Canada. I'm from Toronto. And then I moved down here to work at Verizon Wireless. And at the end of my tenure at Bell Mobility and my tenure at Verizon, I was focused on some of the services that you live by on your cell phone today. So this was in kind of late '99 and then the early 2000s of things like video on demand on your phone, playing games on your phone, downloading ringtones on your phone, I'm sure you did that.Stephanie:Oh, ringtones, yeah [inaudible].Matt:They were, obviously a huge business at some point.Stephanie:Now if my phone rings I'm like, "Stop it, what are you doing? Who's calling me? Don't call me, text me."Matt:Put it on mute. Yes, exactly. So I was kind of part of the foundational days of things that you would do with your phone, before the iPhone. And then I went and took a swing at being an entrepreneur and joined a little small video game company. Our biggest game was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? We did a lot of TV game shows. So we did, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? And things like that.Matt:So I kind of walked the mile as a publisher for a while and then Capcom, which is the Japanese video game company acquired us. So I ran their publishing business for a few years and I got to experience what it's like to be a publisher and how hard it is to make money.Matt:And that was kind of in those early days of the iPhone where I'd say to people, "You'll go and spend $5 on this latte, but you won't pay $5 for unlimited use of a game over a period of time." And this is back in 2008, 2009. And so we had a real struggle and people weren't wanting to pay for our games. They want them free and free became kind of the thing on the iPhone.Matt:And so recognizing that struggle, I actually joined this company called Millennial Media, which was one of the earliest mobile ads platforms for app developers, helping app developers make money with ads. Some of our biggest customers at the time were like Words with Friends, if you've played Words with Friends-Stephanie:Yes, I have.Matt:... ads in every game. So we were kind of one of the foundational tech partners with folks like Words with Friends and various other games across the internet and apps. Did that for eight years through an acquisition with Verizon and AOL. And then we acquired Yahoo. So I ran the publisher platforms business at the combined entity of those companies, which was awesome.Matt:And one of the biggest problems in my time over that period was this thing called malicious ads, or malvertising as they call it. You probably are familiar with when you're scrolling away on your phone and all of a sudden it redirects you and says, congratulations, you won an Amazon gift card. And you're like, "I didn't click anything." Or spin the wheel for your chance.Stephanie:Yeah. I did that once I fell for it. I was like, "Oh, I spun it." I couldn't help it.Matt:Never spin the wheel, Stephanie.Stephanie:I only did it once, but yeah, afterwards I'm like, "That was a bad call. Why did I do that?"Matt:Yeah. So it was a big problem in my past life. And there were a few folks that were solving this problem and two of them were folks that I had worked with at AOL. When I left, it was called Oath at the time, which is Verizon Media now.Matt:I went and had lunch with these guys and they told me that they were spinning up this company called Clean Creative and set to solve this problem of malvertising. And I didn't have a job and it was getting too cold to golf. And so I said, "Hey guys, can I be an intern?"Matt:And so I came and hung around for a couple of days a week. And I was like, "You guys are really onto something here because this was a massive problem in my prior life." And so I said, "Hey, can I have the keys?" And they obliged. And that's how I'm here, started as the CEO two years ago. And we've kind of been blowing it up ever since. That's awesome.Stephanie:Yeah, such a fun story. So what is your day to day look like now? And what's your best day in the office look like while you're there by yourself? Are you around skipping around bicycling around the big office? What is your days look like?Matt:I do pace and I get my steps in over there. Day-to-day, we're startup, so we're small. And so as any of your listeners would know at a startup you do everything, and you take the trash out and you sign big contracts, hopefully you raise money. You kind of do run the gamut. So it's a little bit of everything. If you've worked at a startup you know that generally speaking, there's epic highs and epic lows. And so you have those days where you are the king of the world and you and your team are high-fiving and celebrating. And that's a little different now because you got to do it all virtually.Matt:Part of being at a startup is you get that culture of everybody generally speaking, being in an office like this, but we're a widely distributed culture now. We were before the pandemic where we kind of had, I don't know, five or six or seven locations among all of our people, but now we have 40 locations. So it's just like any other gig except there's really no net underneath you. You're walking this tightrope and hopefully you get to the other side.Stephanie:Yes. I definitely feel that.Matt:It's fun though. Isn't that why you do it?Stephanie:I mean, yeah, it's definitely really fun. Other times you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm responsible for so many lives." And then other days it's like, "This is fun." So it's a good balance.Matt:Yeah. I mean, I won't lie. I had months of sleepless nights when we were raising money. We most recently raised our series A and we started raising it in March, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And yeah, all these people's jobs, for me, the pressure was on me to make sure that we could raise money and continue on this mission.Matt:The reality is, is the people behind the scenes are the ones that actually made my job easy because they're the ones that enabled me to go and tell the story of our massive revenue growth and our massive traction and our product market fit and all of that sort of stuff.Matt:Startups are hard, but there's a reason that many people once you leave the big company and you actually go and take your swing, that becomes the thing that you keep doing and doing and doing because you like having that euphoric feeling.Stephanie:Yeah. No, I definitely agree. And I mean, I think it's a good reminder too, as the CEO at any company to kind of get out of your way and hire a team that can support you and do things, but then let you do the higher level things like selling, raising money, such is a good point for, I think a lot of business owners who want to kind of stay attached to, "I've always been coding." Or, "I always did this part of the business." You need to step away and find people who can step in for you so you can go on to the next thing.Matt:Yeah, and focus on your strengths. Don't try and overcompensate and really... We did this thing called StrengthsFinder with our leadership team. And it was really about figuring out what are the strengths across this group of people that are practically leading the company. And you go, "Okay, well, I'm really good at this, this and this. And you're really good at this, this and this. Wow. We compliment each other. I should continue to keep doing this stuff. And boy, we should just let you handle all of this sort of stuff." So yeah, hire a diverse team and hire people that are way smarter than you and you'll be successful.Stephanie:So how have you seen the digital security landscape change? Maybe even over just the past year or two, what new things are popping up, what should e-commerce owners be aware of right now that maybe wasn't happening last year or two years ago?Matt:I would say that where we cut our teeth was in this malvertising space and what it is, is malicious JavaScript that's kind of being injected into the user experience through ads. And what we've seen is that the bad actors, the people that are doing it, are getting even more sophisticated over time. They have figured out how to get around the systems. They've figured out how to get around the checks and balances.Matt:And we kind of stumbled into this e-commerce world where we were protecting, we're protecting some of the biggest websites on the internet. There's seven million websites that run our code. Probably many of the websites that you go to everyday either to get your news or to read entertainment gossip, or that sort of stuff if you do.Stephanie:No.Matt:I'm not saying you do Stephanie, but we protect all of those sites; every single page view on those pages, we make sure that the user experience is protected and revenue's protected. And by the way, in that world, it's folks that I would say, delivering malicious JavaScript. What we started seeing in the e-commerce world is there's this whole phenomenon of what I would call untrusted JavaScript.Matt:Now in either case, the premise is you own your website. You should be able to control everything that executes on your website. You should be able to protect your user experience. You should be able to dictate your user experience because it's your website. On the malvertising world, what we saw happening was if folks had ads on their website, they had lost control of the user experience. They had lost control of revenue because any bad actor could just buy an ad and take over the user experience and get you to spin the wheel.Stephanie:Only once, but yes.Matt:Only once, but it happened. And so in the e-commerce world, what we've noticed is there's a lot of stuff happening on e-commerce sites, just like there is in any website that is without the permission or without the authorization of the person who owns the site. The biggest problem that we kind of dug in and gone to solve for is, if you ever heard of these things called Honey or Wikibuy?Stephanie:Yeah.Matt:So these are Chrome extension, Safari extensions, Firefox extensions. They sit resident on the user's device and Stephanie, when you're out shopping on your computer and you get to check out, Honey will pop up and say, "Hey, I've got coupons for you. Do you want them?" You as the user you're probably like, "Yeah, I'd love to get a discount. I'd love a better price, if I can get it without having to do any work." Honey does all the hard work for you.Matt:We think that's not really in the best interest of the merchants because they own their website and now someone is injecting code in and disrupting the user experience, disrupting your revenue. So just like it is in this malvertising world, the same phenomenon is happening over here. The difference is Honey is owned by PayPal. Wikibuy is owned by Capital One.Matt:So the folks that I would call "bad actors" in this world are actually fortune 100 companies. They're folks that you would expect to be able to trust. And what they're doing is they're actually injecting code in to disrupt the user experience and disrupt revenue. And so that's the problem that we've gone out and solved.Matt:We just launched our product that's called cleanCART. And what it is is it's a Shopify app and it gives Shopify merchants the ability to protect their carts at checkout and make sure that they can prevent this sort of code from disrupting user experiences in revenue. So it really is giving control of the websites back to the merchants.Stephanie:Oh, interesting. So when you implement that you just can't get coupons or are there other pieces that it kind of protects as well, or the user can't see coupons from a Honey or something, or are there other things that your app is also protecting against?Matt:So we're in, I would say the second inning of the baseball game. So early stages. We're really focused on to start is blocking the automation of these coupons. So we don't want to block you as a user going in and manually inserting the coupon. We think that's the intended use case. But what we think is unfair is that someone is standing beside you at checkout and handing you a mitt full of coupons and actually not even handing them to you, they're actually giving them and just scanning them all to make sure that they all have a chance to work.Matt:If you think about this analogy, the grocery store would never let someone come and stand beside the checkout and save you 30% off your grocery order while you're already ready to pay. And I think that's the phenomenon that we're trying to solve for in the earliest days, which is, let's prevent the automation from happening. Let's not prevent people from manually inserting coupons. Let's give control back to the merchants because it impacts them in so many different ways. Obviously, it impacts them from a revenue loss perspective.Matt:I talk to merchants every day. Many merchants are complaining that these injections are literally scraping and pulling 30% off of their cart value at checkout. So someone who had $100 cart, they go to checkout, Honey runs and it knocks their cart value from $100 to $70. That's kind of bad for the merchant, especially if that person was going to convert anyway.Matt:The other key thing is Honey and Wikibuy and these other discount extensions have made it really hard for merchants to have discounting strategies that they can track. And so what's happening is that promo codes are ending up in the wrong hands. It's creating an attribution nightmare for merchants where they think that this social media influencer or this Instagrammer, or this YouTuber is driving tons of sales and lo and behold, Honey has grabbed that coupon and is injecting it.Matt:And now every order that comes through where Honey was present on the page is applying that person's code. And so now the merchant not only has bad data that is going to ultimately drive their marketing decisions but now, they're also losing revenue and they're paying out affiliate fees to folks that generally didn't deserve that affiliate fee. So I think it's created a bit of a nightmare.Matt:And so, we felt this kind of pent up demand for this product. And that's exactly what's happened is that no one has solved it. We think we're first to market. And we think it's important that people are fighting for the merchants. There's been 10 years of growth in e-commerce over the last year. The pandemic driving a lot of that.Matt:And we think it's important that merchants really get control of their websites, get control of their margins, get control of their revenue and really get the right data to make the right data-based decisions of how they're going to run their marketing programs.Stephanie:Yes. I think that's a really cool story. You were just talking about how you were looking at a problem that people were complaining about, and then now you guys are like, "Well, let's solve it." Because I've read, I'm trying to think where this was, where they're talking about going to Reddit and looking at some of the threads of people talking about problems that keep occurring and occurring and how you could build businesses just based off Reddit threads. And you guys did that, just looking at problems with what merchants were struggling with. So a really cool example of how to build a business is look at all the problems that are going on and jump at solving it.Matt:Well, and I think the other key thing here is as you know is solving the problem, but also during that process of your hypothesis that you're going to develop of what you're trying to prove, it's you also need to prove that people pay for it. And that's, I think part of the foundation of what we've built here, obviously on the malvertising side, but also on the e-commerce side is it's a big enough problem. People need to protect user experiences.Matt:If you think about just in the internet in general, it's very expensive to create content. It's very expensive to drive traffic. And once you've done those two things, why would you leave it to chance that someone might come to your website and have a crappy user experience? Protect your user experience.Matt:It happened last week on the Harvard Crimson on the crimson.com where somebody was on Crimson and they got one of these redirect ads that took them to this landing page that said, "Hey, you're a Verizon customer click here and take the survey and answer these nine questions and you'll have a chance to win." And this user actually took to Twitter and said, "Hey @thecrimson, which is, I think their Twitter handle, you've got a crappy user experience. Why are you letting this happen?"Matt:I never even saw a reply from the Crimson. But when we did some investigation on what was going on, they don't even have protection on their website. So it almost feels irresponsible at this day and age to not be protecting your asset because your asset generally speaking, isn't your website, your asset is your users.Matt:And so protect your users, make them feel confident that when they come to your site, they're going to have a great experience. And so that's really what we've focused on is just delivering technology that solves a problem that people are willing to pay for. Because obviously without that, we don't have a business.Stephanie:So when thinking about like the Crimson example, that's all from a bad ad being run on their website, correct?Matt:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Stephanie:Someone was able to buy that ad unit have bad JavaScript, and then that's when they were sent to that Verizon survey. I'm I thinking about that, right?Matt:You're totally thinking about that right. And what's interesting about the thread is that when this woman went on to Twitter and said, "Hey, this is what happened. And here's a screenshot," there were a whole bunch of people that piled onto the thread of like, "Oh, here's what I think is happening." "Oh, you have a virus on your computer." Or, "Oh, you have a bad extension on your computer or whatever." Everybody had a hypothesis of what's happening.Matt:And so we actually went and captured the threat and reverse engineered it and said like, "Here's exactly what's happening." And yeah, it's all coming through ads in that case. And there's so many great things of the open programmatic ecosystem.Matt:So programmatic media being able to buy a single oppression at a time by single user real humans, real devices, real networks, like you know I'm having a one-to-one engagement with this person and in the malvertising world, that's a feeding ground for bad actors because they get to do the same thing.Matt:And quite frankly, they're better at it than any other advertiser out there because they're the ones who know how to pay 20 cents CPM and buy an ad and actually get 100% click-through as opposed to the rest of the world that's just hoping that they get a half a percent click-through rate. And so they figured out how to buy that ad, that ad renders on your device.Matt:And then usually it's like an onTouchEvent. So when you actually just touch the device, they put a transparent overlay on your device. And that turns into a click or they'll auto click something on your behalf, or however they decide to inject their technology. But yeah, it's as simple as that. And I think it's lucrative, otherwise-Stephanie:They wouldn't be doing it, yeah.Matt:What they do is they try to do it at the lowest possible level without getting caught. So if you think about sophisticated marketers, what do you do? Well, you pick the right users, you maybe frequency caps so that you don't lambaste them with ads. You want to hit them at the right time with the right message and all that sort of stuff.Matt:And so these bad actors have figured out how to very elegantly and in a sophisticated fashion, they'll hit you with that ad. But the reality is they'll probably frequency cap you to one so you can't reproduce the experience and that's how they evade getting caught in most cases.Stephanie:Yeah. Very interesting. I didn't understand the whole backend of how that works. I mean, I do spend a lot of time thinking about building incentives for advertisers because we build up our own ad networks to advertise our podcast and we bring on partners all the time.Stephanie:And it's really funny thinking through how to build incentives for especially newer advertisers when you might say something like, "Oh, we'll incentivize you based on a download." Then all of a sudden you're getting all these fake downloads. No, not downloads. We'll incentivize you based on consumption. Like, does someone listen to the episode? They wanted to hear it.Stephanie:And then you see instead of actually having good people come through and consume the episode, the advertiser will say, "Okay, I'll pay you to review the ad or review the podcast, which makes it show that you were consuming it because you had to for maybe a minute to then be able to review."Stephanie:And it's always interesting trying to figure out, I mean, and these people are not good actors maybe, I'm not really sure. But it's always very interesting thinking, how do you incentivize people to do the right thing and actually deliver and not try and always get around the rules and just meet a number which I'm sure a lot of the platforms deal with the same kind of thing, but-Matt:It's interesting you use the word incentivized, and that was a dirty word in the early days where most advertisers didn't feel that the word incentivize was a good user because they didn't truly have the intent to do the thing that you want because they were being paid or a bounty or whatever the thing is.Matt:I saw the evolution of incentivized in my mobile career where it became really hard to get people to consume video commercials, like 15, six second whatever that metric was. And in the games world, they figured out this thing and they actually rebranded it instead of calling it incentivized video, they actually called it rewarded video. And-Stephanie:I feel like that's a little more, I don't know.Matt:Well, listen, and so I talk about one of the apps that I love is this app called Candy Crush. And I've been playing candy crush for almost 10 years now, I think. And when's the last time you played the same game for 10 years? Like never?Stephanie:Yeah. That's impressive.Matt:But they've artfully integrated video into their app. And I think if you run out of lives, you can watch a 30 second spot that is unskippable. So you have to watch the whole thing. And then if you, do you get rewarded with that extra life or whatever it is, maybe a lollypop, I don't know. But yeah, so I think there's different ways to approach it. But you're right, usually when you figure out the bounty, everyone else figures out how to capitalize on the bounty.Matt:And I think the interesting thing with Honey and Wikibuy is they've figured out how to get paid for the bounty or get credit for the bounty when lo and behold, they didn't really do anything. All they did was they had code that was resident on the machine that allows them to kind of get credit for that user purchasing when I think it's questionable whether they had any influence on that.Stephanie:Yeah. I've kind of thought that too, when seeing different Instagrammers with their promo codes for e-commerce site. And I always thought like, "Oh, how does that attribution work?" Because I mean, she's sharing it here, but I'm sure it's very easy for someone who doesn't follow her to also find that code outside of a Honey, but just be like, send it to my friend, "Hey, use this code." They never even followed her and now, they've got 25% off or something. So it does seem like attribution can be tricky, even if someone's not using Honey. How do you think that world's changing right now to make it easier for merchants to track where their sales are actually coming from? It feels very messy.Matt:Oh, I agree. I think it's a total mess. That's why we focused on the automation because I think that's one of those low hanging fruit, but big problems. Honey will tell the world that they have 17 million or so users. I don't know if Wikibuy which is now called Capital One Shopping, I don't think they announced how many users they have. But what I can tell you is both of those companies are spending a tremendous amount of money acquiring new users.Matt:Every time I log into Twitter, usually the first ad that I get is from Honey. All throughout the Christmas season, the holiday season just recently Capital One which owns Wikibuy Capital One Shopping, they were running TV commercials for this product with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta. So there's like a tremendous push for them to grow these user bases.Matt:In talking with merchants and we've got, I don't know, we've got maybe 25 merchants using our product right now. And we're in closed beta. That problem that you just mentioned, which is, "Hey, I worked with an Instagrammer and I gave them a code. And all of a sudden two days later, I've had a vitamin company tell me that story. I've had a sporting goods company tell me that story. I've had a toilet paper company tell me that story.Stephanie:They're using Instagrammers?Matt:They're using Instagrammers. They're using YouTubers. They're actually using podcasts as well.Stephanie:I mean, interesting to see how they're partnering on toilet paper.Matt:Because they're partnering for the audience on these podcasts and they're hoping that they can get that audience to find out about their product and again, then they're incentivizing them to come and become a customer. It's basically the same net story. The vitamin company told me they're like a supplement company. They partnered with one of the biggest triathletes in the world.Matt:Let's just say they had 50,000 or 100,000 followers, but you've got to imagine they're probably rabid followers. If you're into that, then that's probably the gold standard of who you would listen to. And that person did some blog posts and did some Instagram posts and posted their code and as soon as it happened, they saw a surge in sales attributed to that person.Matt:Now, the marketing person at the company was like, "Oh my gosh, we figured it out. We nailed this. We knew that people would be rabid about that person's content. We knew that person had so much influence to get people to come and buy." And then they're like, "Oh my God, it's Honey." Because literally they went from zero sales to 80% of their sales that had coupons was that person on Monday.Matt:I think it's a frustrating problem. And I think the sophisticated marketers have woken up and are like, "Man, we're bleeding money." One merchant told me that when they started kind of parsing out the attribution that Honey was costing them. They did about a million and a half in revenue online per month, so call it a $15 million business give or take. They believed that these promo code extensions were costing them about 150 grand a month, 10% their overall value.Stephanie:I mean, we just had a guest who they ranted about their hatred of Honey, I mean, even on the show. So I think it's maybe a couple episodes before maybe when yours is going to go out.Matt:Call me. We can help.Stephanie:Yeah, I'll send the link so you can hit him up.Matt:Absolutely.Stephanie:He was not a happy dude about Honey. But I guess when I think about promo codes, it kind of feels archaic to me. Maybe this is just a me thing, but it feels like where QR codes were where all of a sudden they're gone and you don't even think about them anymore. Promo codes kind of feel like that to me too of just, it feels like a manual old way of attributing things.Stephanie:How do you think about attribution when it comes to influencers and stuff or anyone, without having to use a code? Are you guys even thinking about a new way of doing things or do you hear of people trying new ways of attribution that isn't like I'm putting in a manual like Stephanie 20, to get my 20% off? Is there a new way of doing it?Matt:I mean, we're thinking through all those things. I think the challenge is specifically if you're using these one-to-many mediums. In a perfect world, I think you'd have a unique code for every user and so you'd have to authenticate. We'd know that that code went to you Stephanie and if you redeemed it, I would know that you actually bought something and you bought something because of this engagement that we had. I think in these one-to-many mediums it's, how else can you do it? And some of the challenges that the one-to-many mediums like think of YouTubers.Matt:One of the companies that we're working with has a problem where they have a very high dollar ticket item. Their item that they're selling is about 1,000 bucks. And obviously, if somebody grabs a code of 20% off that you're losing 200 bucks, it's a lot of money. Their problem was that they were doing YouTuber videos and they were publishing a code within the YouTube video to reach the audience. And for them, it was extreme sports, the audience that they were going after.Matt:Well, literally the next day, and I don't know if you know how Honey works. If you have a Honey on your machine, the very first thing that Honey does is it scrapes out anybody who manually puts a code in. So in order for Honey to be able to grab that code, it has to happen once where a real person saw the code and was motivated to go and type it in and buy.Matt:If that happened to me, if I got that code, I would go in and type it in. And if Honey were on my machine and then I hit okay, Honey will scrape that code out and now everybody who comes after me gets access to that code whether they saw that YouTube video or not.Matt:The problem for this company is spending a lot of money engaging with YouTubers and creating videos and obviously, doing the presentation layer of these offers. Well, once Honey gets a hold of the code... And what they've also found is that Honey and the other extensions, are not very merchant friendly. The relationship between Honey and these merchants is actually quite adversarial. And so it leaves them with no other option.Matt:I guess the two options: one, you just keep running your YouTube thing and you resign yourself that you're going to be paying out a 20% discount to everybody who comes and has Honey; which that stinks, that doesn't feel right or you need to reach out to the YouTuber. You need to recut the video. You need to recut the voiceover. You need to kill that code. You need to put a new code in. And so it's made this sort of marketing endeavor with YouTubers and Instagrammers and you name it very hard, because you're actually turning off codes.Matt:We saw one email which was interesting. I always say to people, let's remember we're all consumers too, you and I buy stuff on the internet, even though we're deeply entrenched in the businesses that we're running. I have Honey on my machine, so I can understand what that user behavior is, so that I can actually talk with merchants.Matt:One of the folks on our team bought a pair of shorts from one of these companies that advertises on Facebook and Instagram. And they were out of stock after he had ordered it, so they sent him an email. And they said, "Hey, listen, sorry you didn't have it but guess what, here's a code. You'll save X percent. But please, make sure you use it within the next 48 hours because Honey has been grabbing our codes and we're going to shut this code off."Matt:How can people market, if you constantly have to play whack-a-mole. And if you now think of the analogy, it's back to what we do in the malvertising side. If you aren't going to solve things with software, you're basically playing this long cat and mouse game that you won't win.Stephanie:I mean, that's why I think about merchants turning on and off codes.Matt:It's a nightmare.Stephanie:We were handing out swag and me just trying to... I had unique links that could work for more than one person and just thinking, "That could be tricky and go really bad." But I guess that's why I just think codes just feel, like I said, a little bit archaic. Why can't I just go to a YouTube video?Stephanie:I mean, the internet knows so much about me and where I'm at anyways. It should say, "Hey, Stephanie watched Matt's video where he was talking about this toilet paper." And then all of a sudden she's at our website, you can say, "Stephanie, a 20% coupon awaits you when you go here."Stephanie:And then when I get there it should know who I am and then be like, "Your coupons applied. And it will be applied for the next three days on this website or whatever, because I know where you've been and what you saw and where exactly you came from." Why can't it just work?Matt:I mean, I wish it was all that simple. Listen, we are taking obviously, technology solution to what we think is a longstanding and challenging problem. And in the malvertising world, the people in ad operations were literally playing whack-a-mole. Like, "Let's figure out where this bad ad came from." "Turn that demand source off." Or, "Turn that buyer off." And guess what, the bad actors, they just pop up again.Matt:And so we believe that, and I've seen and talked to merchants who are like, "Listen, here's how I solved the Honey problem." And they're like, "We actually created promo codes for 10% off, but the promo code was Honey is stealing your data."Matt:Because if you use Honey, you know that when Honey pops up it'll actually tell you the codes that it's implementing. They went on a mission to discredit and put the fear of God in their buyers that Honey was doing... They were like, "Honey is doing nefarious things with your data." And guess what, Honey D listed them as [inaudible].Stephanie:Well, there you go. Now, you know how to do it, I guess.Matt:The irony is, is that was three months ago that I talked to that merchant. And yesterday they cameback in and said, "Listen, we have a problem again."Stephanie:Honey added us again.Matt:No, this time they've got a Wikibuy problem. The problem is going to be never-ending, I think. Ultimately, we're hopefully going to give e-commerce companies the tools that they need to go out and be able to operate their business and focus their time on the things that really matter, in my mind, which is driving incremental revenue; not playing whack-a-mole with your promo codes and having to go recut YouTube videos. Hopefully, that's one of the big things that we help solve for.Stephanie:That's cool. I mean, I do like the idea of that one merchant you were mentioning where they said, "If you act within the next 48 hours or whatever, it'll only lasts this long." And I just had a guest yesterday who said that. I think it was either Burger King or McDonald's made it so if you're within 20 feet or something of a McDonald's they would send you a code and say, "You have five minutes to get to a burger King to get a free burger or something."Stephanie:And I'm like, "That's interesting." That's a good way to make people act quickly if you know something's expiring, I know I act a lot quicker. But I mean, of course, solve the problem that's number one. But I do think that's an interesting marketing tactic too.Matt:And make it measurable. I think that's the key thing is that... I often say, "What gets measured gets managed." And so hopefully, what we're doing is we're taking one of the things out of the equation that is making measurement really challenging for merchants. Again, using the triathlete example, yes, the marketer was high-fiving the rest of their team going, "We finally solved this." And then when they actually looked at the data they were like, "Damn it. I guess we got to go back to the drawing board."Stephanie:It's also just so tricky too, knowing how much of those people would have bought otherwise or not. So even looking and being like, wow, we have all this attributed to this one promo code and maybe it was because of Honey. But how many of those people would have bought if there wasn't some promo in there? It's just hard to know.Matt:We're solving that problem. We're giving merchants some deep analytics on exactly what's happening on their site, because we think there's a blind spot there where they don't know. For instance, how many users actually came to your site that actually had an injection capability? One of the extensions of Honey, Wikibuy, Piggy, Amazon Assistant, you name it. So we give them that lens.Matt:And then we give them the lens of, what were all the promo codes that they tried to inject? What was the most popular promo code? And stack rank those things and then going deeper down to conversion rate. And guess what, what we're seeing in these early days is that when you block Honey and Wikibuy at checkout, the vast majority of users actually still convert.Matt:And so that to me is the icing on the cake which is, guess what, you take control back of your website. You take control of your margins. You take control of your revenue. You now have the data you need to be able to go out and drive incremental sales. We think that's pretty powerful.Stephanie:I mean, that makes sense. I've heard a couple of times that also, discounts don't matter as much as you would think. I think they were talking about, they did a study between 10% off and 20% off. And actually, they were kind of the same when it came to consumer happiness. And what can be worse though, is if someone has the ability to go in and put a promo code in or something and then it doesn't work.Stephanie:I don't know if you remember those days of just going to the internet promo code for macys.com and trying out 10 different promo codes and all of them failing. I was way more unhappy then, than just not having one at all, just buying at full value.Matt:Let me tell you the opposite of that which is the worst-case scenario, in one of our merchants experience and that's why they're using our software. They're in the home interior space, so they do drapes and carpets and wallpaper and all that sort of stuff. And they were trying to build favor with interior designers because they wanted interior designers to know their site and know their stuff and all that sort of stuff. And so they did a very exclusive but unfortunately, a promo code that Honey got ahold of that gave interior designers 50% off.Matt:Well, lo and behold, as soon as one designer used that code and also had Honey on the machine, that code then got swept up in the Honey and everybody, every order that had Honey was now getting 50% off. Their customer service nightmare was that they couldn't afford to give every consumer 50% off, so they actually had to cancel orders; believe it or not.Matt:They called customers and said, "We can't honor your order with that coupon because that coupon was not intended for you." Created a customer service nightmare for them. And that's what they want to do is, they want to control their user experience. They want to control their revenue and their margins.Stephanie:Oh my gosh, that's horrible.Matt:Out of control. But think of that disaster of having to call someone and say, "Hey, I know you wanted to spend $500 with me, but only pay me 250 bucks. I can't give you 50 off but I can give you like 15 off, that's kind of what you were probably entitled to." So anyways, just trying to get control back in these merchants hands and let them control their destiny.Stephanie:I love that. When thinking about back to the now advertising piece, how much do you think it's on the publishing platforms? Is it their responsibility to make sure that they continue to increase their efforts to make sure bad actors aren't out there anymore?Stephanie:I mean, I know they're probably doing a lot. A lot of people like to hate on the publishing platforms and they want them to always do more and more and more. Is it maybe on them or maybe not on them anymore to continue to try and track those bad actors, who like you said are kind of popping up here and then they shut down and then open up a new account and do one off things and then shut down again. How should we think about leaning on the platforms like that?Matt:Well, I say to folks, the value chain in that industry is actually quite wide. And so from the bad actor who's putting their hands on the keyboards to the consumer, there's a whole bunch of players in the middle. I think it's on everybody to really have defenses in place and to make sure that they're protecting...Matt:So if you're at the front end, if you own the demand side platform that the bad actor's using, you need to have your own checks and balances to make sure that you're not bringing in malicious buyers. But all through that value chain, the onus is on everybody. But at the end of the day what I say is, the only person that can be responsible to that end user, is the publisher.Matt:Pick your publisher, if you are Fox News or you're the New York Post or you're the Washington Post, you're the one that has that ultimate relationship with Jenny or Johnny consumer who is surfing your site and consuming content. So you're the last line of defense. You're the one that created the site. You're the one that drove the traffic. You're the one that is using ads to monetize your traffic. It's really on you I think, ultimately.Matt:Now the publishers, all those folks that I named and there's millions of them, they all want to look upstream and they should. And they should hold everybody accountable upstream. But I think they're the ones that are really the that last line of defense.Matt:Because if you go to one of these sites and you have a crappy experience, you don't really care that it came through an ad. Like the woman at Harvard Crimson last week, she didn't know the origins of why it happened. And here's the other crazy thing, she knew that when she went to the Crimson, she was delivered a crappy experience.Matt:Now, the crazy part. First time we've ever done it, we actually did a private webinar with the end user because we wanted to explain to her here's exactly what's happening. She told us this story, she said, "Listen, I use ad block." And obviously, the risk to publishers are, if you don't create great experiences, your users are going to start using ad block.Matt:What she said was, in the desire to get real news and in the desire to really understand what's going on in the world and in the desire to actually make sure that real news publishers are actually getting compensated, she turned her ad block off and this is what happened.Matt:So shame on the Crimson for not delivering a great experience, because guess what? Now that user's like, "I'm not turning ad block off the next time I come to your site. You're not going to get paid for the traffic that I'm going to generate." So again, it really goes back to the publishers, the onus is on them.Stephanie:And thankfully, I think there is like new technologies popping up that maybe we'll be able to enable them or even just thinking about implementing. I mean, I've seen some advertisers looking into blockchain and having that as being kind of like a more source of truth to be able to know a one-to-one relationship and knowing who's behind... You don't know exactly who's behind what, but if you have it in a way where they sign up and they can't just start creating a million different accounts because they've got their one single one that they can go off of, it seems like there's a lot of ways that it can improve over the next couple of years that maybe hasn't been so easy the past decade or so.Matt:I agree. Obviously, there's industry bodies all trying to figure this out together. There's companies like us who are innovating and coming up with new and unique techniques to block these sorts of nefarious actors. I do think the biggest and most important thing is to recognize that the bad actors aren't just sitting still waiting for somebody to solve this problem. They're innovating honestly, a more rapid rate than many of the industry leaders that you would expect that have hundreds or thousands of people trying to solve this problem. Bad actors unfortunately, are innovating at quite a rapid pace.Matt:So the problem I think is going to evolve and change. We've seen it evolve to not just being ads but obviously, compromised Chrome extensions that just seems to be a great vector. And so I think you're going to see the problem move around and especially, if there's a lot of money in it. If there's ways for these guys to make money, you're going to see them salivate with... You're going to put up this defense and they're going to figure out this way to get around it.Matt:And there's so many different browser types. There's so many different machines. There's security flaws. There's zero-day. There's so many ways for these guys to actually buy and target, to only focus on iOS 13 and below and blah, blah, blah to reach their audience.Stephanie:So tricky. Hopefully, it'll get solved over the next decade. Cool. Well, with a couple minutes left, let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Matt?Matt:I am ready.Stephanie:All right. First the harder one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Matt:Listen, I think it's been the gold rush for e-commerce merchants over the last year. In many cases I talk to merchants, they're like, "It was raining money last year." Sales were up five X, 10 X, who knows. I think the next year is going to be that year where folks actually look to efficiency, and they look to figure out where there are holes in the boat that they haven't had to look before.Matt:And I think that plays to our product because I think in many cases when it's raining money, you almost turn a blind eye to some of these sorts of things. But I think now folks are like, "Listen, if I can be more efficient. If I can take control of my revenue and my margins, I'm going to do that."Matt:So I think that's probably, this is the year of people now are catching their breath and they've figured out their distribution and they've figured out their fulfillment and their warehousing and all that sort of stuff and the panic that they had to do to keep up with the pandemic growth. Now, I think it's a deep breath of like, "Okay. Now, let's look at the math."Stephanie:Yeah. I agree, that's a good one. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Matt:What one thing do I not understand. I think the affiliate landscape is complex. I think there are a lot of legacy ways in which people have calculated incrementality and I'm not sure if they're all believable. And I hear a lot of feedback from merchants where it's kind of like they just brush it under the rug and they're like, "I know I'm probably paying for stuff that I didn't really get, but let's just let it go." I think every percentage point matters. That ecosystem, because I hear there's good guys and there's bad guys and I'd love to really dig deeper on that. And I think that's a big opportunity for us as a company.Stephanie:That's a good one. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Matt:Wow. The nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me.Stephanie:I like to go deep.Matt:Yeah. That's a deep question. I think I've been fortunate throughout my whole career in that, I have been given opportunities that I probably wasn't ready for. And by the way, I had never been a CEO before I was at this company. And so, who knew that I'd be able to do it.Matt:But I think it actually starts way back to when I first graduated and I was seeking my first job. And I had a mentor that took a risk on me and gave me my shot. And I worked my butt off and hopefully that translated and he and she felt great about what I was doing. So I think the nicest thing, I've just been given opportunities that I don't think I deserved and hopefully I earned that respect and trust over time.Stephanie:That's a good answer. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Matt:Wow. This lightning round is hard.Stephanie:Good. Needs to be.Matt:If I were to have a podcast. I love gadgets. I'm one of those guys that buys the infomercial type stuff. I bought one of those Rotisserie Showtime girls 20 years ago, I still use it.Stephanie:Worth it.Matt:Maybe it could be interviewing people who've built made for TV products and really understanding the backstories behind how they came up with the idea and how successful they were and God knows how much money we all made them.Stephanie:That's good. We had Kevin Harrington on the show, he was the original OG shark in Shark Tank. He basically made the infomercial. And it was very interesting hearing his perspective of how it started, where it's at now and Shark Tank.Matt:I'm fascinated by that ecosystem, it's super cool. And by the way, I always do buy one of those stupid things for my wife for Christmas and she hates me for doing it because she's like, "You're just burning money."Stephanie:I had fun buying it and watching the infomercial today.Matt:Believe it or not, one of my coworkers gave me a Squatty Potty for Christmas.Stephanie:I actually feel like those have good value though, the science is there. It's just a weird thing to buy your wife, if you got that for her. Someone gave it to you, got it.Matt:I was given it, by one of my coworkers, "By the way it works."Stephanie:And their marketing, I think that's the Harmon Brothers who did their marketing with the whole unicorn and they did the Poo-Pourri thing.Matt:Oh yeah, it's super cool. I love those kind of gadgets.Stephanie:That's a good one. I would listen to that show. All right. And then the last one, what's up next on your Netflix queue?Matt:Well, on my Netflix queue, I think I've got three episodes left on the Queen's Gambit.Stephanie:Love that show. That was a good one.Matt:I'm a documentary guy. I actually will tell you that I've been kind of hooked on HBO Max for a little bit. And I just finished the Tiger Woods documentary last night, which was fascinating. Nothing that you hadn't been told before. This guy through adversity has come back multiple times; knee surgeries, winning on a broken leg. So I'm into those sorts of stories. One of my guilty pleasures is The Bachelor, so it's on my DVR. I'm playing catch up on that.Stephanie:That's great.Matt:I love reality TV and that sort of stuff.Stephanie:I like where your head's at, me too. Well, Matt, this has been a very fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and clean.io?Matt:So you can find me at matt@clean.io. So if you want to send me an email, obviously happy to help you guys in any of your challenges and would love to hear your challenges if they're similar or if they're different than ones that we're solving for. Hit me on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. And our company website is clean.io.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us.Matt:Thanks Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

Miguel Armaza sits down with Dave Unsworth and Kerri Golden from Information Venture Partners, a Canadian Venture Capital firm that primarily invests in early-stage North American B2B FinTech and enterprise software. We talk about: - Dave and Kerri’s transition from operators to investors - IVP’s relationship with the Royal Bank of Canada - Fundraising from institutional LPs - The duo’s strategy to invest in the next generation of leaders - The importance of engineering a culture early on - Interesting fintech trends - The role of a CFO at a Venture Capital firm - And a lot more! Dave Unsworth Dave Unsworth co-founded Information Venture Partners in 2014. Dave has led investments in eSentire (exited, 2017), Verafin, Sensibill, Igloo Software (exited, 2017), Viigo (acquired by BlackBerry), Coconut Software, BigID, Knowtions and LendingFront. Dave is focused on FinTech and Enterprise software and is particularly interested in cybersecurity, mobile, enterprise 2.0 and ventures that create highly valuable data assets by being at the center of large-scale financial transactions. Prior to founding Information Venture Partners Dave worked as an investor with RBC Venture Partners from 2001. Prior to his career in venture capital, Dave had a successful career in operating roles focused on e-commerce strategy development, technology-enabled financial services product development, technology project management and retail/commercial financial services. Dave is an active member in the start-up community in Toronto and Waterloo as a mentor to early-stage CEOs and founding teams. Dave also serves as a mentor in the Kaufmann Fellows program and more recently with the Holt FinTech Accelerator and as an investment committee member for the Investment Accelerator Fund. Dave has been a frequent contributor to Private Capital Magazine. Dave is an original member and past Chair of the Financial Services Venture Capital Alliance. Dave was granted an MBA from Queen’s University, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a graduate of the NVCA’s Venture Capital Institute and the Rotman SME Board Effectiveness Program. Kerri Golden Kerri Golden joined Information Venture Partners at inception in 2014 and works with the investment team to help select and support the fund’s investee companies and manage the financial operations of the fund. She has over 30 years of general management and finance experience in a variety of technology industries and she’s been active in securing financings of over $1 billion in equity and debt and in negotiations of a number of merger and acquisition transactions. Kerri was a General Partner of Primaxis Technology Ventures for eight years where she led and managed several investments in early-stage companies in the IT, software and communications sectors and also served as CFO of the fund. Kerri had a successful corporate career with high growth technology companies. She was a mobile pioneer at Rogers Wireless, joining prior to service launch and experiencing start-up challenges and opportunities as company grew from zero to $200M in revenue during her 2.5 year tenure. She was a public company CFO at Alliance Atlantis Communications and Lorus Therapeutics and ended her successful 7-year career at Bell Mobility as CEO, Paging Division after progressive leadership positions in Finance and IT. Kerri is an experienced start-up executive. She co-owns a small business Urban Flats Toronto and served as COO at SeaWell Networks and CFO at Infobright. She serves the start-up community as an active mentor at MaRS, where she co-founded the JOLT Fund and continues to serve as a volunteer general partner. Kerri obtained an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and earned her CA designation while working with KPMG in Toronto.

Brian Crombie has a special two hour motivational and introspective shows to motivate you to launch 2021 the best you can. Five inspirational guests: - Maria Fudas a Certified Assertiveness and Transformational Life Coach and Author of “Connect with yourself and others” will speak about burning what Didn't serve us in 2020 and Manifesting what you really desire in 2021- Jacquelyn Platis is the Founder and Chair of the Conference on Law and the Ethical Responsibility of Business a forum to find solutions to world-wide challenges, such as inequality, climate change, and poverty. - Tracey Celotti a recovered addict, Transformational Life, Personal Fitness trainer and Nutrition expert who motivates us to start 2021 strong with daily rituals - Kataryna Patsak project manager, Bell Mobility for accessibility. She is passionate about creating a positive impact through organizing and working towards an inclusive, just, and accessible world for all and volunteers for community based organizations and projects, including BAM Collective and Apathy is Boring.- Lavander Morantz, a lifestyle and business mentor who overcame some profound personal issues and motivates us to find our passion and legacy.

There's been no shortage of hype. Now, after years of headlines heralding it as a transformative technology, an evolution in wireless service, even a “game changer for humanity,” 5G is finally being rolled out across Canada by the big three telecom providers. But are we ready to make the most of it? And what does 5G's arrival really mean for consumers and businesses? The possibilities are legitimately exciting.On this episode of Disruptors, an RBC podcast, host John Stackhouse examines the true potential of this next-generation of wireless networks, as well as the apps and devices they will enable, with the help of the President of Bell Mobility, Claire Gillies. Together, they tackle the full spectrum of questions surrounding 5G, including why it's really more of a “revolution” than an evolution, and how it will transform everything from healthcare to agriculture. You'll definitely want to hear about the driverless combine John once saw rolling across the open prairie in Saskatchewan. Or about how 5G might finally make it easy to park downtown. You'll get to hear about one of the cities on the front lines of adapting to this new economy. Cyrus Tehrani, the Chief Digital Officer for the City of Hamilton, shares his thoughts on how 5G will “level up” some of the services people depend on every day. And Keith Ponton, a Senior Systems Consultant from IBI group with decades of experience in the telecom business, offers his perspective on how Canada compares to other countries in the 5G race, and where the greatest opportunities for advancement lie. Notes:Two previous pieces from RBC's Thought Leadership team are mentioned in this episode. Click the links to read Farmer 4.0: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Agriculture, and Paging Dr. Data: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Healthcare. For details on Hamilton, Ontario's ‘Digital Transformation', you can visit the city's website. To learn more about IBI Group's work in the fields of engineering, planning, transportation and technology, click HERE. And for the latest on Bell Mobility's rollout of 5G services, go to Bell.ca.

In this special episode, we pulled nuggets and discussions from three of our previous episodes with Christy Soukhamneut, Gregg Jorritsma and Eli Fathi    Christy Soukhamneut is a 20+ year veteran of the mortgage industry who is dedicated to turning possibility into reality.  A gifted strategic thinker, she knows that you must cut through the clutter, clearly articulate the vision, and then rally support at the street level.   Everything she does is evaluated against these three bars: Will it make your life easier?  Will it help you & your team be more productive? Will it help you grow your business?   Gregg Jorritsma has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.    Eli Fathi is CEO at MindBridge Ai, developer of the world’s first auditing tool based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies – Ai Auditor – to uncover errors in financial data. Eli has been a technology entrepreneur for over 30 years, having founded or co-founded many successful technology companies. Eli was recognized as the 2018 AI Leader of the Year by the Digital Finance Institute and is a prolific speaker, including talks at the AICPA, Startup Canada Day on the Hill, and TEDx.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Top mistakes salespeople make all the time  The rise and meaning of AI salesperson Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson How to help salespeople see something within themselves that is just below the surface What to do to get people to take you seriously     SHOW NOTES [00:24] Introduction to this episode [02:22] Welcome  [01:55] Business success stories that inspire our guests [02:08] “The story of Febreze” [03:39] “Resilience in the face of adversity”  [04:48] “Jim Estill story” [07:58] How they all got into sales [11:04] Their favourite sales failure [13:34] Mistakes salespeople make and how to avoid them [15:06] The mortgage industry... [16:09] Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson [16:38] Be wary of multinational companies... [17:38] Sales and rejections [18:03] The rise of Artificial intelligence [19:05] Stories that excite their customers [21:09] AI as a threat to salespeople?  [22:36] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders  [26:30] The art of storytelling   You can listen to the individual episodes here: Christy Soukhamneut, “Logic and data can only take you so far, Story is where we really connect,”  Gregg Jorritsma, “Don’t Outsell Your Competitors, Out Question Them,”  Eli Fathi, “Why AI won’t Replace (Top) Salespeople.”

David DeRemer is Founder and President of Very Good Ventures, a Flutter development consultancy with offices in New York, Chicago, and teammates around the world. Very Good Ventures is the World’s leading Flutter development team. They have been working with Flutter longer than anyone and on the biggest Flutter apps, including the first commercial app outside of Google in 2017 — the Hamilton app. Flutter is a UI toolkit created by Google for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. In prior roles at Posse, Chobani, frog design, and Accenture, David has developed innovative products and solutions for companies such as: Chobani, The Rock Clock, Jet.com, Sixpoint Brewery, Shoptiques, Spring, Gatorade + Smart Design, Best Buy, Staples, GE, AT&T, Bloomberg, TouchTunes, Humana, Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Mobility, CNN.com, Crocs, Estée Lauder Companies, ETS, GE Healthcare, GE Money, IMAX, KLA Tencor, Nokia, Philip Morris, WalMart, Accenture, Sony, and many more.

Tibor helps B2B companies translate sales strategy to reality. He has been called a brilliant sales tactician, obsessed with execution. His company, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., works with companies from Fortune 50 to start-ups achieve their revenue goals, including, Bell Mobility, Pitney Bowes, Spirent Communications, ChevronTexaco, and others.

FRIENDS We are back in the kitchen with some more quality content. On this week's rip: Bell Mobility and Cell Phone Plans The "Smile" Curve Rolling Stones and Rising Tides Ontario Math Changes #HamOnt Property Values Cactus Fest Costs $AAPL Review And much more. As always, thanks for listening - don't forget to share, subscribe and engage with the show however you prefer. Every review on Apple Podcasts helps, every YouTube like helps, and every time you tell a friend about the show it helps. See ya in a week. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/2-whites-and-a-blue/message

Tibor Shanto is one of the best Tactical Sales Coaches in the business. His direct, results driven attitude has put him in front of companies like Bell Mobility, Pitney Bowes and Spirent Communications. Whether it's fortune 50 or start up companies, Tibor will help drive sales results, focusing on the most critical component...increase your pipeline! I had a chance to sit with Tibor and talk how Renbor started, relationships and how he became one of the most respected and awarded sales coaches in the business. You can catch Tibor at:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiborshanto/https://www.tiborshanto.com/https://www.youtube.com/user/Sellbetter

Laurence is the Founder and CEO of nanopay Corporation, where he drives the vision to offer the infrastructure to enable what’s more commonly known as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Prior to founding nanopay, Laurence came from the telecom industry where he was Vice President of Wireless at Shaw Communications, prior to his role as Chief Operating Officer of Bell Mobility. Active in the payments community, he is the Chairman of the Paytechs of Canada and a member of the Payments Canada Stakeholder Advisory Committee.   Episode overview: This week, I get to chat with Laurence about how we have an ambitious goal to lead the world’s transition to digital cash.  What isn't commonly understood about payments, is while money might appear to move quickly or instantly (ie. in the case of e-Transfer), the real money doesn't move until the next day when the banks settle the payment overnight. This creates settlement risk for the banks involved in the transaction. This risk grows exponentially when the transaction is cross-border, introducing currency and exchange risk.  Our innovative technology securely moves value from one user to another in real time – with instant settlement – and is ideally suited to transform the global payments infrastructure. That being said, the road to digitizing cash isn't necessarily a straight line. Today, we offer a self-service payment platform for small businesses (you can sign up at Ablii.com), a business to business payment product, and a liquidity and cash management solution for banks.   About nanopay: nanopay is a Fintech company based in Toronto that empower banks and businesses to scale with innovative payment and liquidity software. nanopay offers two products: Connect, a business payment product which easily integrates with your ERP software and enables both domestic and cross-border payments, and Liquid, a real-time intra-company cash and liquidity product, which enables self-service virtual account management. nanopay's products are built on a payment engine, nanorail, that securely tokenizes money to move value from one user to another in real-time. nanopay is venture funded with strategic investments from international partners including the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs.   Connect with Laurence: Website: Nanopay.net Facebook: Nanopay Corporation Twitter: @nano_pay and @laurencecooke LinkedIn: nanopay Corporation and Laurence Cooke  

David Inns is CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of GreatCall Inc., the leader in connected health solutions for active aging. Since its inception in 2006, GreatCall has developed a complete portfolio of products and services that help enable independent aging, including: telehealth services, medication adherence programs, emergency response, fall detection and activity monitoring. GreatCall’s commitment to simplicity and best-in-class service helps the older consumer adopt and enjoy connected health solutions while keeping caregivers up-to-date on their own smartphones with the GreatCall Link app. Under David’s leadership, GreatCall has grown from a startup in 2006 to a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue and over 1,000 employees. David is also an Executive Board member of the Consumer Technology Association. He was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 nationally in the Services category.Before joining GreatCall, David was Vice President, Consumer Markets for Bell Mobility in Canada where he ran the $1.6 billion consumer market P&L. He was also Vice President, Consumer Marketing for Bell Canada where he ran the $4 billion wireline P&L. David was a Partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, which was bought by PWC in 2010 for $378 million.

Gregg has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.  Gregg, his wife of 29 years and two sons live in Burlington, Ontario, Canada  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Inspiration stories of Jim Estill  (EMJ Data Systems) and  William Tatham (Janna Systems) Gregg's most memorable sales failure The role of the coach and mentor in his sales career Why there’s no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson SHOW NOTES [00:20] Intro [00:51] Welcome Greg [01:10] Business success stories that inspire Gregg [02:52] Bringing Syrian refugees to Canada [03:15] Officer, Order of Canada  [06:30] Commitment and passion [07:30] How he got into sales [08:15] Moving to Waterloo [09:05] Getting the first sales job [10:55] No such thing as “natural” sales reps [11:15] Confidence [11:32] Asking customers questions and listening [11:48] Don’t out-sell competitors; out-question them [12:35] A favorite failed deal [13:28] Comforting remarks from his former sales manager [14:24] Keeping in perspective winning and losing [15:41] How storytelling helps sales [17:25] The type of story prospects want to hear [19:05] Using storytelling to overcome objections [21:06] Providing a solution [23:00] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [23:30] Technology and mobility [28:35] Contact info [29:40] Outro   SHOW TRANSCRIPT Greg Jorritsma:             00:00                When you start a story, typically you can see a physical change in how people in the room are seated and how they're looking at your changes. I always explain that as when you start telling a story, people are preconditioned and hard-wired to listen and they drop their critical thinking barrier. Automated Voice:         00:23                This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business. Ed Bilat :                       00:33                Hello, this is Ed Bilat, and today we'll have a deep and introspective show for you with a great sales leader and my distinguished guest, Gregg Jorritsma, senior director of sales and marketing at On-Ramp solutions is joining us from Toronto, Canada. Gregg Jorritsma. Welcome to the show. Greg Jorritsma:             00:52                Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here, and I  appreciate the invitation to be part of this. It's a great opportunity. I'm happy to take part. Ed Bilat :                       01:01                I'm really excited that you could join us today and would love to jump right to the interview but before we do this, I will ask you our traditional question, what business success story inspires you and why? Greg Jorritsma:             01:13                That's a great place to start actually. Because I think a lot of this is about identifying someone and seeing something in somebody that you want to emulate and make part of your life. Greg Jorritsma:             01:24                I've always been of the mind that there are no Roy Hobbs out there. There are no natural salespeople, none that I've ever met anyway. I think everyone that is achieving success in sales at some point in their career, mostly early in their careers, had somebody see something in them and really take the effort to sort of mentor them and coach them. I have had the great benefit of having some wonderful people coach me and mentor me over the years, and there are a couple that really stand out above more so than some of the others. A couple I would refer to are both William Tatham and Bill Tatham from Janice systems and now NexJ Health but also Jim Estill. Jim Estill founded EMJ distribution in Guelph when he was just out of university. He started the business by selling printer supplies out of the trunk of his car. Greg Jorritsma:             02:17                He built that business up to probably just shy of $1 billion before one of the big boys Cynics acquired the company. Ed Bilat :                       02:27                Okay. That's not a bad position. Greg Jorritsma:             02:30 Yes. That's not bad stuff. But I think what really resonates with me about Jim Estill is he's always had this sort of a philosophy of being more than just a business guy, but being involved in his community and giving back. A  few years ago, anD I think it was 2015, he actually reached into his own pocket. Now it's reported he spent about a $1.5 million and brought 50 Syrian refugee families to Canada and set them up in Guelph. Ed Bilat :                       02:58                Oh, this is very recent. Greg Jorritsma:             03:02                When I first read about that, I mean it didn't surprise me at all since he was always that type of person that really was not interested in doing good business, but also setting an example. and when he did this, it was just amazing to read about. Greg Jorritsma:             03:15                Recently he's been inducted into the... As an officer of the order of Canada and he's just such a humble man. I've known him for about 20 years. First obviously as a customer selling product Tmj, and then later he has become a friend and a mentor and a real business hero for me. In my mind, I think he is the type of person that you look at and go, Jeez! I hope my kids all grow up to be like him. Ed Bilat :                       03:42 Wow! Well, I know you have two boys, so that's a really good example. Greg Jorritsma:             03:46                Yeah, exactly. I think one of the things that really says it all about Jim is after Cynics and Siebel thing, he recently became the owner of Danby appliances in Guelph. One of the first things he did was change the company motto to " Do the right thing". I think that just exemplifies Jim in every way that is possible. He is the type of person that always does the right thing, I think, in my opinion, and he said, you know, in conversations with him,  he's told me,  it's caused me make some mistakes, and it costs me money, but overall it has served me well and it makes sleeping at night and doing the right thing is, it just makes sense for him. So I've always admired that and kind of look for him for inspiration and guidance from time to time. Ed Bilat :                       04:30                That's a wonderful story. Wonderful story and a wonderful source of inspiration for you and the kids. So what you're saying that you can be successful and then you can do the right thing at the same time? Greg Jorritsma:             04:42 Yeah, I think especially in today's environment, there is so much emphasis on profit, profit, profit, stock market reports, stock tickers and everything else that it's easy to get distracted from doing what's right. I really admire him for that. The other business hero that really comes to mind is a gentleman I worked for a couple of times in the late nineties was Bill Tatham. He founded Janice systems, which was a CRM company and he believed in it and was passionate about it to the point where, he confided in me one time that the sheriffs were at the door to take the house at one point, but he believed in what he was doing and was going to make it right. Greg Jorritsma:             05:25                He did. He turned it around and grew that company substantially in the late nineties when companies like Siebel and Clarify and where the dominant players, this little company out of Toronto came out and grew its business by focusing exclusively on the vertical segment of financial services. One of our strategies was focused on the teaching within the book about crossing the puzzles,so we focus exclusively on financial services and despite the fact we were a fraction of the revenue play that companies like Siebel and stuff were, we were winning on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and All state and eventually the big stock players, a Siebel and stuff came knocking and had to buy the company because they needed the roster, they needed the customer roster. I think it's still $1.4 billion. I think it's still one of the top five or six acquisitions of the Canadian company to date. Greg Jorritsma:             06:23                What I've learned from him more than anything and working in that environment is, if you're committed to something and passionate about it and have the discipline more than anything to stick with it. In those early days as we were chasing around trying to find revenue and customers. It would've been easy to avert our focus away from financial services and just take some opportunistic count. But his vision was to focus on financial services. There were opportunities that we bypassed that we probably could have won, but it was really important that we dominated with financial services and as it turned out, that was absolutely the right move to make so that more than anything is, if you believe in it and you're willing to be disciplined about it, you can achieve something is what I really learned from that. Ed Bilat :                       07:13 I really love it. Those are great two stories you mentioned. Let's turn the spotlight back at you. Obviously, you have been in sales for orals for many years. I mean Bell, Siebel, Citrix, Round One, SOTI, Blackberry and now On- Ramp Solutions. How did you even get into the sales? Greg Jorritsma:             07:33                Actually completely by accident. Greg Jorritsma:             07:36                What happened? Greg Jorritsma:             07:39                In the late...in about 1988, I had finished college, and I had a summer job last the previous couple summers on an order desk for a chemical supply company. I didn't even consider it a sales role really. I was just answering the phone and taking orders for various electroplating chemicals, most of which I had no idea emphasis on profit, profit, profit, stock market reports, stock tickers and everything else that it's easy to get distracted from doing what's right. I really admire him for that. The other business hero that really comes to mind is a gentleman I worked for a couple of times in the late nineties was Bill Tatham. He founded Janice systems, which was a CRM company and he believed in it and was passionate about it to the point where, he confided in me one time that the sheriffs were at the door to take the house at one point, but he believed in what he was doing and was going to make it right. Greg Jorritsma:             05:25                He did. He turned it around and grew that company substantially in the late nineties when companies like Siebel and Clarify and where the dominant players, this little company out of Toronto came out and grew its business by focusing exclusively on the vertical segment of financial services. One of our strategies was focused on the teaching within the book about crossing the puzzles,so we focus exclusively on financial services and despite the fact we were a fraction of the revenue play that companies like Siebel and stuff were, we were winning on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and All state and eventually the big stock players, a Siebel and stuff came knocking and had to buy the company because they needed the roster, they needed the customer roster. I think it's still $1.4 billion. I think it's still one of the top five or six acquisitions of the Canadian company to date. Greg Jorritsma:             06:23                What I've learned from him more than anything and working in that environment is, if you're committed to something and passionate about it and have the discipline more than anything to stick with it. In those early days as we were chasing around trying to find revenue and customers. It would've been easy to avert our focus away from financial services and just take some opportunistic count. But his vision was to focus on financial services. There were opportunities that we bypassed that we probably could have won, but it was really important that we dominated with financial services and as it turned out, that was absolutely the right move to make so that more than anything is, if you believe in it and you're willing to be disciplined about it, you can achieve something is what I really learned from that. Ed Bilat :                       07:13                I really love it. Those are great two stories you mentioned. Let's turn the spotlight back at you. Obviously, you have been in sales for orals for many years. I mean Bell, Siebel, Citrix, Round One, SOTI, Blackberry and now On- Ramp Solutions. How did you even get into the sales? Greg Jorritsma:             07:33                Actually completely by accident. Greg Jorritsma:             07:36                What happened? Greg Jorritsma:             07:39                In the late...in about 1988, I had finished college and I had a summer job last the previous couple summers on an order desk for a chemical supply company. I didn't even consider it a sales role really. I was just answering the phone and taking orders for various electroplating chemicals, most of which I had no idea what they were or what they would be used for. Ed Bilat :                       08:00                So that's not even the farmer, you know, it's definitely and, but not a farmer either, right? Greg Jorritsma:             08:07                Not at all. Once the summer ended, I had recently become engaged to my now wife of 29 years. We were young and stupid and we decided to quit our jobs and just move out of Toronto to Waterloo, no jobs, no prospect, nothing. Greg Jorritsma:             08:24                Why would you do that? Greg Jorritsma:             08:26                Well, it was the start of what was going to be our marriage and our life together. We just figured, well, let's just throw. Looking back, there's a saying that goes, it's not youth that is wasted on the young, it's fearlessness. Ed Bilat :                       08:42                That's interesting. I can resonate with that. Yeah, absolutely. Greg Jorritsma:             08:45                I remember being so fearless back then. We had no responsibilities. We had no kids, we had no bills, we had no mortgage or anything. It wasn't an easy decision to make but was one that, you don't have all the baggage that you do later on in life to make. Ed Bilat :                       09:00                Sure. Greg Jorritsma:             09:01                So we moved and of course back then there was no internet or anything. A few days later I read an ad on a local paper about a new company in town called Desktronics and saw that they were hiring inside sales reps and I thought, well, that was my title at the Chemical Company. Who knows? I applied and I was called in for an interview a few days later. It was 1989 so there was no internet research or anything I could do about the company before I went to the interview. Greg Jorritsma:             09:25                I just put on my best face and best clothes and went for the interview. Ed Bilat :                       09:29                And let's show up. Greg Jorritsma:             09:30                Yeah. So I met initially with the director of inside sales and we talked for about 5 to 10 minutes. And to this day I still don't know what it was that I did or said, but she immediately told me," Well, you're way to qualified for this role. Would you be interested in talking to the director of channel sales a better role?" At this point in my life, I didn't even know what channel sales was. I didn't know what the company did, but I said," Sure, I'm keen. Why not?" Greg Jorritsma:             09:58                I met with the director channel sales and about 30 minutes later I was offered a job on the channel sales team. Ed Bilat :                       10:04                Right on the spot? Greg Jorritsma:             10:05                Yeah. I was thrilled and terrified all at the same time. I showed up on a Monday and I remember sitting in the lobby waiting for them come and get me. And I remember looking at the poster of the product and thinking, oh, what is that and what does this company do? Greg Jorritsma:             10:20                Yeah, we'll do, they'll do, what do they actually do here? Greg Jorritsma:             10:23                I absolutely had no idea it was even a software company on my first day. I was in that role for about three years with the company until a proceeding, got into some different financial issues and ended up selling the company but I learned how they were selling a see source code application generator, a very technical product for programming and was successful and really got my introduction into software and sales as a whole and I immediately just loved it. Ed Bilat :                       10:51                Would you say it was like a natural fit for your abilities? Greg Jorritsma:             10:55                As I said, I don't think there's a natural sales rep. I think there's always more that you can learn and certainly nobody comes in with the answer to every sales problem. Thinking back to that time, I think it was something that I was excited about on a daily basis and I felt I had some success with early on in, in the role. In so many times with salespeople, it's really about confidence. Do you have confidence in what you're selling? Do you know it can make a difference? If you have that confidence, there's a lot of intellectual curiosity goes with that confidence that drives you to learn more and become more capable. I've always found the ability to just ask questions to potential customers and listen to what they're saying can really fuel your imagination as to what kind of solution and what kind of place you can play in that role. Ed Bilat :                       11:43                Yeah, that's an interesting point. I've read somewhere actually today they say, "Don't, outsell your competition. You should out question them." Greg Jorritsma:             11:52                Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Ed Bilat :                       11:54                And this has to do with your success. So obviously, do you have any particular failures like early sales failures? What's your favorite sales failure? Greg Jorritsma:             12:02                Well, of course, every sale I've ever been involved with, I closed. Ed Bilat :                       12:05                I'm sure, from day one? Greg Jorritsma:             12:12                Yeah. Actually, I've never lost a deal, of course, there are always different things that come up and things you could've done right or wrong. But I think one of the most significant sales disappointments I've ever had really led to a real epiphany moment with a great manager I had at the time, this was the early nineties and it was the last day of a quarter and we were driving, we had hit the number, but we were driving for over achievement. Greg Jorritsma:             12:40                Right. And I had a deal working and it was going to be there, it was going to come in. And I remember, you know, I was on the phone to the prospect right up till the deadline, right up til the end of the day, only to have the customer in the end, take a last-minute bid from one of the companies that I thought had already been eliminated from the process. Ed Bilat :                       13:00                Oh, what a surprise, huh? Greg Jorritsma:             13:02                Yes. Apparently, they came in with some last minute cheat, low ball offer and won. And I remember sitting at my desk and it was maybe about 05:30 by now and I was really upset. I was really disappointed. My sales manager had to walk by and said, you know... asked me. He could see I was visibly upset. Ed Bilat :                       13:19, Of course, you could feel this, right? Greg Jorritsma:             13:23                Absolutely, I'd promised I was going to get it. Greg Jorritsma:             13:24                So, and he said, he came up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Hey, it happens. Did you do everything you could do? "And I said, yeah, "And it didn't go your way." No. He told me," You can't beat yourself up about it." This is what has always stuck with me. He said, "We are selling software here. We're not curing cancer. Nobody dies because you didn't close the sale. Now put your head up, go home, be with your family. Your family is more important than any sale would ever be." And another little tidbit he offered a few days later, in the months that always stuck with me too is," You're no good to me here as a salesperson if you don't have a life outside of the office."That's sort of always stuck with me. So over the years in conversations with many reps I've worked with and had on my team and staff, I've always emphasized, take the work seriously. Greg Jorritsma:             14:12                Don't take yourself too seriously. And remember we're selling software, we're not doing brain surgery, we're not curing cancer. Nobody dies if it doesn't work out. And for me it has always been a way of keeping in perspective, winning and losing in the marketplace. When we, when we don't cure cancer either. We're selling software, and we want them to choose ours, but nobody dies if they don't. Ed Bilat :                       14:38                That's right. And that gives you an attitude and perspective, right? So just when you're looking at this, this is not the end of the world. It eliminates stress. So your team is more excited, more motivated and they don't feel punished if they've done everything they could and the sale just didn't go your way. So what? Greg Jorritsma:             14:59                Yes absolutely, it happens to everybody. One of the things that I've learned over the years and when I talk about there's no Roy Hobbs or natural salesperson out there. Greg Jorritsma:             15:11                You're asking for rejection, and you make your living day after day being rejected. And so you have to have a perspective. And a more holistic view of what's going on in the world, I think to really make the value in the conversations you have with your prospective clients and coworkers. Ed Bilat :                       15:28                That's right. Absolutely. So speaking of your team in the leadership positions in the... You've done everything from a market manager to channel sales manager, director, VP, all these years. How do you think storytelling could be used to motivate your sales team and drive success in terms of reaching or even surpassing quarters and objectives? Greg Jorritsma:             15:49                I think there are so many different things that storytelling really allows you to do. I find it's often the best place to start a conversation and build a connection to a person you are engaging with. I've obviously met people that I've tried to convey things to and sometimes the pushback as well. I don't feel comfortable, or I'm not sure I can actually tell a story and everything. Greg Jorritsma:             16:10                When that comes up I often talk about, okay, so have you ever been to a social event or a cocktail party or anything like that? Well of course they have. When you met someone new there, what did you talk about it? Oh, well, you know, we had a couple of swell and then I've talked about work or my family or whatever. You told a story, right? And Oh yeah, I guess so. And a sales rep comes to me and says, I don't really know how to build a story or how do I craft a story or structure, and I'll talk to them about their last sale. Whose company? They'll tell me. What did they do? What problem were they struggling with? How did our solutions solve their problem? Greg Jorritsma:             16:52                What kind of results are they having today and quickly they ... I guess that's not hard at all. I think if you're not really cautious or told about or understand the value of storytelling to a prospect, there's intimidation; I think to it that you won't be believed or they'll dismiss your story. Is that a hand or it's just a fabrication? And so I think just getting people to the point where you tell stories every day, all the time to everybody. Now put yourself in the prospect's shoes and think about what story would they like to hear. Most often it's a story about a similar company, a similar type of business that was wrestling with a problem cause they probably have a similar problem, how they chose your product, how you built it up, how you deployed it and what kind of results they're getting. Greg Jorritsma:             17:44                The inherent thing in storytelling is that we're hardwired to both tell and listen to a story right from childhood. As a parent, you read stories to your kids and early on they start with, once upon a time, and they typically add happily ever after. Ed Bilat :                       18:02                That's right. Greg Jorritsma:             18:02                That's what a customer wants to hear. I think when you start a story, typically you can see a physical change in how people in the room are seated and you know how they're looking at your changes. I always explain that as when you start telling a story, people are preconditioned and hardwired to listen and they drop their critical thinking barriers. If you think about when you go to a movie today a ridiculous movie, a Scifi movie and you know, you suspend your critical thinking to enjoy the story. That's exactly the power and transformative engagement that can happen when you start telling a story on business B, and it's been hugely valuable throughout my career. Greg Jorritsma:             18:50                I was lucky enough, as I said, early on, to have some mentors that really taught me the value of being able to tell us a story. Ed Bilat :                       18:56                Yeah, absolutely. I love your response because you're hitting two very important points. One is the actual story, and there is a formula behind it and the second one is the way how you can use storytelling to overcome objections. So instead of saying like, what do you mean you don't have a budget? What do you mean you're not the decision maker? So like all you do, you acknowledged an objection. And by the way, an objection is actually is a good thing. And it's an indication that they will have a conversation with you. Because otherwise they will just go away and there will be no for the talk. So if a person objects to you, that means there is an interest and how do you work with that objection.? Ed Bilat :                       19:40                I think you hit on some very important points. Instead of telling them, we have the best in the world, we're going to take care of you well-done millions of times, and we're going to do a good job. You tell them, listen, I appreciate what you're saying. Two months ago we've been working with the company X-Y-Z, and they essentially told us the same thing. There is no budget for that type of project. Then you tell the story, and then you demonstrate the end results, and this is the way the customer will see that, hey, if that worked for somebody else, maybe that could work for me. That's where the magic happens. Greg Jorritsma:             20:19                As you speak about a budget and things like that. One of the stories from a Siebel Day, actually it was the success we had with one of the biggest auto manufacturers in the world. We had won the deal, and it was some months later, and we were having lunch with the decision maker, and I was with the CEO and Bill Tatham, and he asked them, why did we win the deal? I thought the answer was not only fascinating, but it has been a real source of inspiration over the years. Ed Bilat :                       20:47                Interesting. Tell me more. Greg Jorritsma:             20:49                The guy told me that of all the vendors, we brought in seven vendors, and of all the vendors, you guys were the only one that didn't ask what the budget was. Greg Jorritsma:             21:01                The answer was, or the response from Mr Tatham was that, the reason we didn't ask about budget was because our only concern was finding a solution that worked for you, our thinking is always that if we provide the right solution, if the budget doesn't fit, you'll either find the money or you'll decide that you don't need that much solution. Ed Bilat :                       21:25                So it doesn't matter what the budget is, right? Greg Jorritsma:             21:27                Yeah. So over the years, what that is evolved to is when I have those type of budget discussions is, are you looking for exactly this or are you willing to compromise and do without something  so it fits a budget? Is your goal to solve the business problem completely or is it to hit the budget number? When you put that to them, that creates a whole different set of parameters for them. Greg Jorritsma:             21:53                Even if they're not the decision maker in most cases, they're probably not. You're probably talking to the project manager or someone who is in a technical role or whatever and they're obviously very concerned about budget and price because their bosses told them," Okay, you've got this much money and go fix the solution and go find the solution." Getting back into what does that person want to be able to tell, what story does that person want to tell to his boss? In that circumstance it was, we're going to give you the story that says we can solve all your business problems and this, this and this but it's going to cost you an extra percentage so you can decide if you want to spend the extra money to get everything resolved or settle for something that isn't quite...spend that amount of money and still not have exactly what you want. Ed Bilat :                       22:42                I love how you've positioned this and it does make sense though in this case isn't budget is irrelevant. This is what we're trying to achieve. This is the task at hand. We are going to help you adjust to that. I think that's an excellent story. Thank you so much for sharing this. Obviously, you've been in new sales situations over the years, you've seen a lot of great leaders. What challenges do you see facing many of today's sales leaders? What's happening today? Greg Jorritsma:             23:09                Well, certainly the world has changed since I started. As for the third or fourth time I'll mention the Internet didn't exist when I started so checking your research on a customer and really preparing yourself for a meeting was a lot more difficult when I started. I think there are two problems that are really relevant today. Greg Jorritsma:             23:27                The first one is technology and mobility. I think it has created a real challenge for sales leaders because you're going to have sales reps working from home offices, working in remote locations or they're on the road, and they have access to all the tools and communication and everything else. But I think quite often because of that convenience of technology; sales managers miss out on a couple of things. And one is, I think it's imperative and what I do all the time is make sure that I'm bringing the group together, let's say quarterly sales meetings so that they have the opportunity to meet with the other sales reps on their team and have social interaction. Ed Bilat :                       24:12                See them face to face. Right? Greg Jorritsma:             24:13                Yeah. It creates real trust relationships. The other thing is when I reflect on some of the great learning that I've been exposed to over the years, most often it's been completely informal. I talk with one of the senior sales guys while we're getting coffee in the kitchen or were downstairs having a smoke years ago [crosstalk] or whatever. Greg Jorritsma:             24:43                I think what often goes missing in today's day, and age is the sense that it's really important to bring together the group collectively on a regular basis. Then the second thing around that is, I think it's really important the sales managers also go out to those regions and work one on one with them. Go on a few sales calls every quarter or whatever. Just have that one to one sort of interaction with their team. It offers so much exposure to their lives and who they are as people that it really gives you a great insight into how to build and how to support that person. A favorite line of mine is fair and same or not the same terms are not synonymous. The idea that what works for one person, if I give this other person the same thing, they should be successful isn't the way the world works anymore. Greg Jorritsma:             25:35                People learn differently. People have different behavior practices and different requirements. You need to be flexible and understand that your objective as a sales leader is to give each individual on your team what they need to have an equal opportunity at success. Now for some that might be almost a completely hands-off relationship with the person that they know what they're doing, they're just gone, and they do. It might require to talk to you periodically get some coaching, another, it's all over the board, but if you're not receptive to the idea that you need to support different people on the team in different ways and you're not willing to go out and naturally spend that time with them one on one, I think that becomes a real issue in today's world. The other one that I think is an age-old problem is the use of a CRM. In my experience over the years, too many CRMs lean way too heavily on what management wants from data as opposed to building something that is supportive and it guides the sales rep through the sales process. The best deployments are ones where the sales rep actually loves using the CRM and doesn't see it as a burden and a chore to do. Ed Bilat :                       26:54                Right. Like as of as a punishment or like a big brother watch, right? Greg Jorritsma:             27:00                Yes, exactly and if they feel that way about the CRM, what happens is the data you're getting in is minimal. It's incomplete; it's not what you ultimately set out to get. I always tell people that a sales CRM should drive the sales rep through each stage of the sales cycle and give them specific tasks and chores that need to be accomplished in each stage before you can check off and move it to [crosstalk.] Ed Bilat :                       27:25                It's a tool. It's a useful tool which will also help the sale. Greg Jorritsma:             27:31                It's a roadmap. Ed Bilat :                       27:33                This is just like something I feel out on Friday afternoon, so management is not going to punish me on Monday morning. Greg Jorritsma:             27:40                When you get to that level, the sales reps want to use it and want to be involved in it. When a sales rep starts to struggle as everyone does periodically, it gives them a basis to go back and say," Okay, I got to get back to doing that, and I got to do this." Then from a new hire perspective, it gives them a roadmap as to what others have done here and how they were successful. I think there's a real balance between building the CRM so that you get the data out of you want as a management group but also making it a supportive and consultive tool for the sales reps that are working day today. Ed Bilat :                       28:15                That's a wonderful suggestion. Both of them. I liked them so far. Any of our podcast listeners, sales leaders, please listen up to these two. We'll make sure to summarize them, so we are getting towards the end of our podcast. It's been a wonderful,  combination of wisdom and practical experience. Gregg, before we disconnect, what's the best way to connect with you for our listeners? Greg Jorritsma:             28:41                Sure. I'm on LinkedIn, I've got all my contact information, unlike almost everybody else. I have an email address and a phone number on my LinkedIn profile. Ed Bilat :                       28:49                Oh well you're very brave. Greg Jorritsma:             28:52                I'm always holding the talking to you. The other thing, the other party, one of the other pieces of advice I received early on, and I've always kept to, I always share with people, when someone wants to talk to you, you learn nothing by saying no. Whether somebody's calling for a job, would you be interested in that job about this as well? If I say no, even if I'm not particularly looking or interested, I say no, I'll never know anything about it so always say yes. Always be willing to have a discussion and listen and learn. Ed Bilat :                       29:22                That's right, and you will know, or you'll never know where at thou could take you. Wonderful.Thank you so much, Gregg. I really, really appreciate it, so we'll make sure to include your contact information. It's been wonderful to have you on the show today. Greg Jorritsma:             29:37                Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it. Ed Bilat :                       29:40                Thank you. Bye for now. Automated Voice:         29:42                 That does it for this episode of storytelling for sales; you'll find show notes and links and our webpage storytellingsales.com you can subscribe to the podcast on Itunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. LINKS On-Ramp Solutions Danby Appliances NexJ Systems Wall Street Siebel Wells Fargo Citrix BlackBerry SOTI Goldman Sachs Roy Hobbs Jim Estill William Tatham Bill Tatham Connect with Gregg Jorritsma on LinkedIn      

Capital Ideas travels to Las Vegas for a wireless conference at the invitation of Siyata Mobile (TSXV:SIM;OTCQCX:SYATF). The company is kicking into a higher gear after striking distribution deals with AT&T, Motorola, FirstNet and Bell Mobility for its flagship product, the Uniden UV350, the “first and only” push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) device for commercial vehicles. Hear our conversation with Siyata mobile founder and CEO Marc Seelenfreund as he details why the company’s revenue, earnings and stock price should start to ramp up.

#CellphoneProviders #KnowYourRights #VirginMobile Worst Customer Service Experience to Date. Company involved: VIRGIN Mobile; People involved, Call Center Agents: Taylor, Alex, and WILLIAM. The Customer is always right, what ever happened to that ? #cabah #thejahfreachshow #jahfreach Know your rights, Stand up for yourself, Never give up. SUPPORT the Show Financially: https://www.patreon.com/user Some things about my personal life is also mentioned in here.

 :arrow: :arrow: GSMA Unites 800 Mobile Tech Operators and 300 Companies Worldwide on Buckhead Business Show Ana Tavares Head of North America for GSMA •Direct report to the CTO with delegated responsibility for high priority areas and activities in the organisation. Adviser to GSMA's Heads of Programme. •Responsible for cross programme coordination and activities that support CTO's Mobile World Capital Board position. •Americas Region lead for GSMA's Mobile Identity Program, driving the deployment of mobile Connect with mobile operators and service providers. About the GSMA The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 300 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organizations in adjacent industry sectors. Operator members in the North America region include companies such as AT&T, Bell Mobility, Digicel, Rogers Communications, Sprint, T-Mobile, Telus and Verizon, among many others. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Mobile World Congress Americas and the Mobile 360 Series of conferences. GSMA OPENS NEW NORTH AMERICA OFFICE IN ATLANTA New Facility Puts Mobile Industry Organization in Center of Atlanta Tech Scene, Provides Strong Foundation as GSMA Works with Members to Advance Development of Mobile Industry The GSMA announced it has opened its new North American regional office near Midtown Atlanta, a move that will enable it to better serve its members across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. At a ceremony attended by dignitaries and leaders from the Atlanta technology community, the GSMA officially cut the ribbon for its new 15,000 square-foot offices, which are located in Armour Yards and currently accommodate nearly 90 GSMA employees. “The opening of our new North American office marks the start of the next chapter for the GSMA in the region,” said Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA. “Our new location in Midtown Atlanta puts us at the very center of the vibrant, dynamic tech scene in the city, enabling us to draw on a rich talent pool and engage even more closely with the broad technology ecosystem that has developed here.” On behalf of its members, the GSMA leads a range of programs designed to drive collective industry benefit in areas such as future networks, the Internet of Things, mobile identity and others. The GSMA also engages with key stakeholders in a series of advocacy initiatives to secure greater spectrum for mobile, modernize regulatory frameworks and deliver life-enhancing mobile services to underserved populations around the world. Finally, the GSMA convenes the broad mobile ecosystem through its portfolio of industry-leading events on both a global and regional basis. With a presence in the United States since opening its first office in Sandy Springs, GA in 2006, the GSMA has invested significantly in its North American operations in the last year, with the addition of 25 new roles across a number of functional areas. Most notably, in September 2017, the GSMA launched “Mobile World Congress Americas, in partnership with CTIA”, the first mobile industry event addressing the entire Americas region. Held in San Francisco, the inaugural Mobile World Congress Americas attracted more than 21,000 visitors from 110 countries and territories, and in 2018, the event moves to Los Angeles, where it will target not only the mobile ecosystem, but also the media and entertainment and content creation sectors. Once a railway yard, Armour Yards has been transformed into a vibrant, mixed-use campus that delivers a life- and work-enhancing environment where businesses can thrive. The new GSMA office space, designed by HLGstudio, draws on influences from progressive loft-office environments prevalent in vibrant urban areas around...

Click Here Or On Above Image To Reach Our ExpertsPocket-Sized Spectrometers Reveal What's In Our Foods, Medicines, Beverages, etc..You want to know what's in your food before you buy it, before you order it, and before you eat it - because your health depends on what you eat. Foodscanners detect the molecular "signature" of your food and then sends the details to your smartphone through its Bluetooth connection. A database translates that signature into nutritional content.TellSpecBeam-up The Facts About What's In Your FoodMany foods contain chemicals and allergens that we want to avoid. But it can be difficult to know whether these chemicals and allergens are in your food or not. How can you tell if your food contains the nutrients you need? What about things like sodium, gluten or trans fats that you might be trying to avoid? Food labels can give us some information if they're available, but they are not always intelligible and some ingredients may not even be reported. We have invented a system called TellSpec combining a spectrometer and a unique algorithm to tell you the allergens, chemicals, nutrients, calories, and ingredients in your food.What is TellSpec?TellSpec is a three-part system which includes: (1) A spectrometer scanner (2) An algorithm that exists in the cloud; and (3) An easy-to-understand interface on your smart phone. Just aim the scanner at the food and press the button until it beeps. You can scan directly or through plastic or glass. TellSpec analyzes the findings using the algorithm and sends a report to your phone telling you the allergens, chemicals, nutrients, calories, and ingredients in the food. TellSpec is a fast, simple, and easy-to-use way to learn what's in your food.  We need your help to make it smaller and manufacture it as a handheld device. PRO-DTECH II FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)What Will TellSpec Do?TellSpec will identify allergens, chemicals, nutrients, calories, and ingredients in foods or beverages.TellSpec will warn you when a food contains allergens such as gluten or egg.TellSpec will track your daily calories and help you achieve your daily targets.TellSpec will tell you about inaccurately reported ingredients like trans fats and give you the background story on mysterious ingredients like tartrazine. TellSpec goes beyond the label! TellSpec will track what you eat, and based on your reports of how you feel, it will help identify your food sensitivities.TellSpec will help you monitor your intake of toxic chemicals such as mercury, so that you will stay within recommended limits.TellSpec will track your intake of essential vitamins and minerals, and help you ensure that you are getting the right amount How Will It Work?Light is made up of particles called photons. When you beam the low-powered laser in the TellSpec scanner at the food, some of the photons are absorbed, raising the energy states of the molecules in the food. Lower energy photons are then reflected back. The spectrometer inside the TellSpec scanner sorts these photons by wavelength and counts them. The resulting numbers, called a spectrum, describe the chemical compounds in the food.This spectrum is uploaded to our analysis engine where it is analyzed and correlated with other reference spectra. Information about the allergens, chemicals, nutrients, calories, and ingredients in the food is then downloaded to you and displayed on your smart phone.TellSpec responds to your specific food requirements and preferences. TellSpec is a smart system that learns as you use it, so that you see the information that is of most interest to you.An SDK For Developers And ResearchersWe believe that the community can develop applications of TellSpec that go beyond our dreams. So we are also developing a software development kit (SDK) that will provide developers with tools for directly accessing the food analysis data from our servers so that they can create their own amazing applications. The SDK includes source code for iPhone and Android apps, an API for TellSpec's analysis engine, JSON specifications for data interchange, and access to information about each nutrient, chemical, allergen, and ingredient.CELLPHONE DETECTOR (PROFESSIONAL)(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Global CrowdsourcingThe TellSpec food analysis algorithm learns from each scan. So every time you scan, you not only learn about what's in your food, you also help others learn what's in their food. That's why distributing TellSpecs globally, and into the developing world, is so important to us. As the algorithm learns from reference scans from around the world, the analysis everywhere will get better and better.  Our goal is to make this amazing system available to everyone, everywhere; and to encourage others to use our tools to make great things for the good of human health.What We're DevelopingIn the video, the device shown is a 3-D model of the future industrial design of the TellSpec scanner. TellSpec has developed a scanner and a cloud analysis engine. These work together to gather a spectrum of your food, analyze that spectrum, and display information about the food on your smart phone. We need your help to make it smaller and manufacture it as a handheld device.The handheld scanner is a Raman spectrometer. The low-powered laser inside the scanner emits coherent light through the front window. Stimulated light from the sample is then collected through a filter in the window that removes the Rayleigh scattered light. The light then passes through a diffraction grating that disperses the light onto a CCD detector. The CCD detector converts the light into an electrical signal that is then digitized and sent to the smart phone over Bluetooth.The smart phone receives the digital spectrum of the food and transmits it to the TellSpec analysis engine which processes it, compares it to reference spectra, and runs a learning algorithm on it. The output is interpreted through a large database, and information about the food is selected and customized for the user. The smart phone then downloads the information and displays it to the user.      Our designs for the scanner and the user interface are guided by the principle that interested people should be able to use the TellSpec system easily and immediately, without training and without reading a user manual; and they should be able to understand and use the displayed information without an extensive knowledge of food chemistry. PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Technical SpecificationsUntil recently, a large and expensive industrial spectrometer would have been needed to gather spectra of adequate resolution and signal strength, but recent developments in miniaturization of optical devices and in nanophotonics have made it possible to manufacture tiny and inexpensive spectrometers. A new and powerful method of analyzing spectra with a learning algorithm has also enabled the use of much weaker signals without loss of accuracy.  Over the past nine months, we've come a long way in the development of TellSpec. We've developed the analysis engine, coded it, and tested it; we've successfully tested three prototype scanners, including one using a nanochip; we've finished the industrial design for the scanner; we're well along with the user interface design; and we've been doing an independent validation of the underlying algorithm.  With your help, we can: • Manufacture the TellSpec scanner and get all the regulatory approvals needed to ship it.• Deploy the food analysis engine on servers that reliably provide quick analysis of the spectra. • Develop the SDK for Android and iOS platforms so others can build exciting apps.By backing TellSpec, you will be a key part of making this revolutionary technology a reality. PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)The Team Behind It Isabel and Stephen are working with a team of industry veterans who are passionate about this innovative new way of analyzing what's in your food. Together, we have experience in creating consumer software, hardware, and services in fields ranging from environmental health and preventive medicine to entertainment and education. Now we're excited to build a healthier world by empowering people to make informed choices about what they eat.Isabel Hoffmann is CEO and Founder of TellSpec Inc., a biotech company devoted to building a greener and healthier world by empowering people to make informed choices about what they eat. She has a proven track record in leading and scaling early-stage businesses.In the past 19 years, she has founded eight companies in the fields of health care, genetics, technology, entertainment and education, achieving consolidated revenues of US$75M, business valuations of US$300M, as well as creating 2,300+ jobs in the North American, European and South American markets. She has been working in the field of preventive medicine for the past decade and co-founded two private medical clinics, Vibrance Medical Group in Beverly Hills, USA, and GenoSolutions in Cascais, Portugal.Isabel has been honoured with Ernst And Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Canada's Top 40 under 40 Award, Canada's National iWAY Award presented by the Canadian Royal Bank and CANARIE Inc., the Women in Technology Award by Bell Mobility, the Canada-America Business Council Award, the University of Toronto's Alumni of the Year Award, and the Maclean's Honor Roll for Canadian Excellence. Consumer PhysicsTel Aviv-based startup Consumer Physics pulled the curtain back today on its first product: a tiny hand-held molecular sensor called Scio. The device, which Consumer Physics has launched a Kickstarter project for, would allow users to scan practically anything –foods, drinks, pills, plants, and more– and get detailed information on the object's chemical makeup in just a few seconds.PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)It might sound like science fiction, but it's actually built around an age-old method of materials analysis known as near-infrared spectroscopy. Basically, this process involves shining a near-infrared light onto the surface of a given material, which causes the molecules to vibrate and bounce back light in their own unique way. This reflected light is then collected and passed through a spectrometer (think of it like a prism) that separates the light out into all the different wavelengths it contains. By analyzing the unique optical signature of the scanned material, it's possible to determine what it's made out of.Near IR-spectroscopy has been used by scientists for decades, but up until Scio, spectrometers were very large, and prohibitively expensive. To bring the technology out of the lab and into the hands of consumers, Consumer Physics has spent the past few years shrinking the technology down and making it easier to use. In addition to the tiny, keychain-sized scanner, the company also designed an accompanying smartphone app to help you make sense of the readings it takes.WIRELESS/WIRED HIDDENCAMERA FINDER III(Buy/Rent/Layaway)To deliver scan analysis information in real time, Scio communicates the spectrum to your smartphone app via Bluetooth, which it then forwards to a cloud-based service. From there, advanced algorithms analyze the spectrum, and delivers information regarding the analyzed sample back to your smartphone within seconds.PRO-DTECH IV FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)It's not just limited to food and drinks either. Technically, Scio can be used to determine the molecular makeup of anything except metals, so it has an extremely broad range of potential applications. Need to determine the CO2 content of your home-brewed beer? Want to know the ripeness of an avocado at the grocery store? Want to check to make sure the drink you left sitting at the bar hasn't been tampered with? Scio could make that happen. Consumer Physics is even releasing a software development kit, so third-party developers will be able to create their own applications for the device.Oddly enough, this isn't the first time a device like this has hit the crowd-funding scene. You might remember a similar device called TellSpec from Indiegogo late last year. Both devices rely on molecular spectroscopy to scan foods — the difference is that Scio is actually past the R And D stage. Consumer Physics has already developed multiple working prototypes, and will supposedly be ready to ship to early backers as soon as December of this year.

Today's guest is David Inns, currently President and CEO of GreatCall Inc., the creator of  the Jitterbug cell phone and a leader in wireless services focused on helping customers stay connected, safe and healthy; David also sits on the Board of Directors. Working with founders Arlene Harris and Marty Cooper, David designed and launched the GreatCall service in November 2006—a service that has gone through extraordinary growth and has been recognized by a long list of awards for its innovations in Health and in serving Older Americans. David has 25 years of telecom management experience. Before joining GreatCall, David was Vice President, Consumer Markets for Bell Mobility in Canada where he ran the $1.6 billion consumer market P&L. He was also Vice President, Consumer Marketing for Bell Canada where he ran the $4 billion wireline P&L. David was also a Partner at DiamondCluster International in the Chicago and San Francisco offices.  Join Jim and David in a rebroadcast about his company's products, and in particular the Jitterbug Phone and 5Star Response.

Today's guest is David Inns, currently President and CEO of GreatCall Inc., the creator of  the Jitterbug cell phone and a leader in wireless services focused on helping customers stay connected, safe and healthy; David also sits on the Board of Directors. Working with founders Arlene Harris and Marty Cooper, David designed and launched the GreatCall service in November 2006—a service that has gone through extraordinary growth and has been recognized by a long list of awards for its innovations in mHealth and in serving Older Americans. David has 25 years of telecom management experience. Before joining GreatCall, David was Vice President, Consumer Markets for Bell Mobility in Canada where he ran the $1.6 billion consumer market P&L. He was also Vice President, Consumer Marketing for Bell Canada where he ran the $4 billion wireline P&L. David was also a Partner at DiamondCluster International in the Chicago and San Francisco offices.  Join Jim and David in a discussion about his company's products, and in particular the Jitterbug Phone and 5Star Response.