lesson

Embrace Risks, Execute with an Edge and Seek the Asymmetrical Upside

On Friday, October 17, 2025, Chancellor Kathleen Taylor at York University conferred on Eva Lau the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.

I purposely avoided hearing her practice so I could experience it on stage for the first time, just like everyone else in the audience.

It turned out to be the right call. By taking the risk of not previewing it, I gained an asymmetrical upside! Ironically, these are the lessons she shared. Frankly, I wish someone had told me these lessons when I was in my twenties.

Please read her remark when you have a moment:

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Dean Zwick, faculty, honoured guests, proud families, and—most importantly—the graduating class of 2025: thank you. It is a profound honour to stand before you today.

First, I want to thank the school for recognizing my work in entrepreneurship and innovation and granting me this extraordinary honour.

I also want to thank my mom and my late father, whose leap of faith to immigrate to Canada opened the doors for me and my sister to build our lives here.

To my daughters—you’ve been my biggest motivators. You are the reason I push forward, because I want you to know your potential is uncapped. You can chart your own paths and build your own successes.

And to my husband, Allen: thank you for your love, support, and affirmations. You mean the world to me, and you make me a better person every day.

And to the graduating class—congratulations! Today is a celebration of your hard work, your determination, and your costly Red Bull habits. It is my greatest joy to share a few words with you. Since we are all business school graduates, let’s get straight to business. I want to share with you a strategy—a framework, at least for me—on how to calculate risk, how to execute with an edge, and how to maximize the upside, to a point that it can be transformational. That’s right, I am putting our education to work here. No group project required!

Lesson 1: Embrace Risk—But Know Your Bottom Line

In school, we learned about Risk Management in Finance. Identify the risks. Quantify them. Mitigate them. Protect value. Very neat, very rational.

But in life, risk doesn’t come with a spreadsheet. In life, managing risk means asking: how much am I truly willing to lose? Unless you define that, you can never truly take a risk.

When people read about the success of Wattpad, the story can look deceptively simple. We built the product. Users loved it. The product went viral. And ta-da! It became one of the most iconic internet platforms in the world, serving over 100 million users worldwide, sharing over 1 million new stories in 50 languages every day. We even have TV and movie products around the world. When the company was acquired in 2021, it was one of the most significant tech exits in Canadian history.

But the “ta-da” moment was actually years of sweat, doubt, and very small numbers. At the start in 2006, Wattpad didn’t just have few users—we had so few that our total ad revenue was…two dollars. Not two million. Not two thousand. Not twenty. Just two. And Allen and Ivan, the two cofounders, had to split it. I think one bought a coffee… the other just got the receipt.

Our family’s finances? Let’s just say “tough” doesn’t quite capture it. We were running low on savings and even had to leverage our house to keep everything going. Allen and I had many long kitchen-table talks. In the end, we decided we were willing to risk everything—even selling the house—if that’s what it took. But we drew a firm line: we were willing to go down to zero, but we were not willing to go into the negatives.

That’s what embracing risk looks like for an entrepreneur. It’s not about avoiding loss. It’s about defining your boundaries and then giving it everything you’ve got. Try your hardest to stay clear of the bottom line.

And when mobile computing took off with the launch of iphones and android devices, all that persistence paid off. Wattpad became the world’s number one story-sharing app on all app stores.

We took the same approach when exploring new frontiers at Wattpad—first with AI, then with entertainment. In 2012—long before “ChatGPT” became a household name—we became one of the first companies to deploy AI at scale on a commercial platform. It was a bold move, and yes, a risky one. Then in 2016, we leapt into film and TV production—an entirely different world for us. Both were high-stakes bets, but because we had clearly defined what we were willing to invest and what we were prepared to lose, we could take those risks with confidence.

So my first lesson: embrace risk. Define your bottom line so you can move forward without fear. Knowing your worst-case scenario gives you the freedom to take that leap of faith. In your case, living in your parents’ basement could be the worst-case scenario. But hey, you already know them well enough. I think you will survive.

Lesson 2: Leverage Your Uniqueness

Once you’ve defined your risk boundaries, the next step is execution. And here’s the secret: the best execution comes from knowing what makes us unique and leaning into it.

When I began my journey as a venture capitalist a decade ago, I knew I couldn’t just be another investor. What set me apart was lived experience: I had scaled a product from a few thousand users to tens of millions. I understood the fear, the pivots, and the sleepless nights—not from theory, but firsthand.

Before Wattpad, I worked in a semiconductor company, managing a product line that was competing with a startup at the time, called Nvidia. AMD later acquired the company for US$ 4 billion. That experience gave me the technical and operational lenses very few investors had.

And then there were my learnings from some of the best investors in the world—people who backed Twitter, Coinbase, Google, and even OpenAI. I had the opportunity to learn directly from them since they were also Wattpad investors.

All of that shaped my unique edge as a venture capitalist at Two Small Fish. With a distinct investment thesis, we became one of the few deep-tech investors in Canada, backing founders tackling hard technology problems with novel innovations. Today, I’m proud to say Two Small Fish is not only among the top-performing VC funds globally, but also a firm that founders love working with—because we do things differently.

That’s the second lesson: know our uniqueness and use it. Don’t downplay it. Don’t hide it. It’s our superpower.

Lesson 3: Chase Asymmetrical Upside

The third lesson is about aiming high. Really high. Chase the Asymmetrical Upside.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are not about making something just 10-20% better. They are about creating something 100 times, 1000 times better. Something transformational.

If you only focus on small, incremental gains, you might survive—but you won’t thrive when the next wave of disruption comes. But if you go after opportunities with asymmetrical upside—where the potential payoff is massive compared to the risk—you position yourself for breakthroughs.

Take Wattpad again. If we had only wanted to build a small reading app for a niche audience, that would have been fine. But by dreaming bigger—by imagining an AI-powered global entertainment company—the outcome was transformational.

And this applies to your careers too. You won’t change industries—or the world—by playing it safe. You have to reach for opportunities that feel a little terrifying, a little out of your league.

I like to remind young entrepreneurs: I have never seen a basketball player aim for the bottom of the net. They always aim above it. That’s how slam dunks happen.

So my third lesson: don’t settle for small steps. Chase the opportunities that stretch you, the ones that scare you, the ones that could redefine everything.

So, Class of 2025, to sum these up, I encourage you to:

  • Embrace risk. Define your boundaries. Know how much you’re willing to lose, and let that clarity free you.
  • Leverage your uniqueness. Don’t try to be a knockoff of someone else. Your unique mix of experiences, skills, and quirks is your competitive edge.
  • Chase asymmetrical upside. Don’t aim for incremental change. Aim for the slam dunk.

Your journey will not be a straight line. There will be pauses, setbacks, and zigzags. But each twist is part of the story that prepares you for the next leap forward.

So step into your future with courage. Take the risk! The world doesn’t need another safe bet—it needs bold leaders, innovative thinkers, and dreamers who are willing to take the shot.

Congratulations once again, Class of 2025. The future is yours—go and dunk it.

Masterclass Series: The Triathlon Rule of Deep Tech Startups

A swimming world champion, a cycling champion, and a marathon champion each tried their hand at a triathlon.

None of them even came close to the podium. All were easily defeated.

Why?

Because the swimming champion could not bike, nor could he run fast.

The cycling champion did not swim well.

The marathon runner was painfully slow in the water.

The winner?

It was someone who had been humbled by the swimming champion in the pool for years, finishing second in the world championships multiple times. He was an exceptional swimmer, yes. However, he could also bike fast and run hard. Not the best in any single discipline, but strong across all three. And that is what won him the race.

The takeaway:

To win in triathlon, you need to be competitive in all three disciplines.

The winner is often world class in one of them, but they must be very good if not great at the other two.

This is the same mistake many first time deep tech founders make.

They believe that superior technology alone is enough to win.

It is not.

While technology is crucial, and in fact it is table stakes and the foundation of innovation, it must be transformed into a usable product. If it does not solve a real problem in a way people can adopt and benefit from, its brilliance is wasted.

And even if you have built world class technology and a beautifully crafted product, you are still not done. Without effective commercialization, which includes distribution, pricing, sales, positioning, and partnerships, you will not reach the users or customers who need what you have built.

I wrote more about this in The Three Phases of Building a Great Tech Company: Technology, Product, and Commercialization. Each phase demands different skills. Each must be taken seriously.

Neglecting any one of them is like trying to win a triathlon without training for the bike or the run.

Just like a triathlete must train in all three disciplines, a founder must excel across all three pillars:

  • Great and defensible technology
  • An excellent product
  • Execution on commercialization

You need all three.

That is how you win the world championship.

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This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

AI’s Real Revolution Is Just Beginning

Thank you to The Globe for publishing my op-ed about AI last week. In it, I draw parallels between the dot-com crash and the current AI boom—keeping in mind the old saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” The piece also explores how the atomic unit of this transformation is the ever-declining “cost of intelligence.” AI is the first technology in human history capable of learning, reasoning, creativity, cross-domain thinking, and decision-making. This fundamental shift will impact every sector, without exception, spurring the rise of new tech giants and inevitable casualties in the process. The key is knowing which land to grab!

The piece is now available below.

In the past month, everyone I spoke to has been talking about DeepSeek and Nvidia. Is Nvidia facing extinction? Have certain tech giants overspent on AI? Are we seeing a bubble about to burst, or just another public market overreaction? And what about traditional sectors, like industrials, that haven’t yet felt AI’s impact?

Let’s step back. We’ll revisit companies that soared or collapsed during the dot-com crash – and the lessons we can learn. As Mark Twain reputedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

The answer is that the reports of Nvidia’s demise are greatly exaggerated, though other companies face greater danger. At the same time, new opportunities are vast because this AI-driven shift could dwarf past tech disruptions.

Before 2000, the dot-com mania hit full speed. High-flying infrastructure players such as Global Crossing – once worth US$47-billion – provided backbone networks. Cisco delivered networking equipment, and Sun Microsystems built servers. However, amid the crash, Global Crossing went bankrupt in January, 2002. Cisco plummeted from more than US$500-billion in market cap to about $100-billion. Sun Microsystems sank from a US$200-billion market cap to under US$10-billion.

They failed or shrank for different reasons. Global Crossing needed huge investments before real revenue arrived. Cisco had decent unit economics but lost pricing power when open networking standards commoditized its gear. Sun Microsystems suffered when cheaper hardware and free, open-source software (such as Linux and Apache) undercut it, and commodity hardware plus cloud computing made its servers irrelevant.

However, these companies did not decline because they were infrastructure providers. They declined because they failed to identify the right business model before their capital ran out or were disrupted by alternatives, including open or free systems, despite having the first-mover advantage.

Meanwhile, other infrastructure players thrived. Amazon, seen mostly as an e-commerce site, earned 70 per cent of its operating profit from Amazon Web Services – hosting startups and big players such as Netflix. AWS eliminated the need to buy hardware and continually cut prices, especially in its earlier years, catalyzing a new wave of businesses and ultimately driving demand while increasing AWS’s revenue.

In hindsight, the dot-com boom was real – it simply took time for usage to catch up to the hype. By the late 2000s, mobile, social and cloud surged. Internet-native giants (Netflix, Google, etc.) grew quickly with products that truly fit the medium. Early front-runners such as Yahoo! and eBay faded. Keep in mind that Facebook was founded in 2004, well after the crash, and Apple shifted from iPods to the revolutionary iPhone in 2007, which further catalyzed the internet explosion. A first-mover advantage might not always pay off.

The first lesson we learned is that open systems disrupt and commoditize infrastructure. At that time, and we are seeing it again, an army of contributors drove open systems for free, allowing them to out-innovate proprietary solutions.

Companies that compete directly against open systems – note that Nvidia does not – are particularly vulnerable at the infrastructure layer when many open and free alternatives (such as those solely building LLMs without any applications) exist. DeepSeek, for example, was inevitable – this is how technology evolves.

Open standards, open source and other open systems dramatically lower costs, reduce barriers to AI adoption and undermine incumbents’ pricing power by offering free, high-quality alternatives. This “creative destruction” drives technological progress.

In other words, OpenAI is in a vulnerable position, as it resembles the software side of Sun Microsystems – competing with free alternatives such as Linux. It also requires significant capital to build out, yet its infrastructure is rapidly becoming commoditized, much like Global Crossing’s situation. On the other hand, Nvidia has a strong portfolio of proprietary technologies with few commoditized alternatives, making its position relatively secure. Nvidia is not the new Sun Microsystems or Cisco.

Most importantly, the disruption and commoditization of infrastructure also democratize AI innovation. Until recently, starting an AI company often required raising millions – if not tens of millions – just to get off the ground. That is already changing, as numerous fast-growing companies have started and scaled with minimal initial capital. This is leading to an explosion of innovative startups and further accelerating the flywheel.

The next lesson we learned is that the internet was the first technology in human history that was borderless, connected, ubiquitous, real-time, and free. Its atomic unit is connectivity. During its rise, “the cost of connectivity” steadily declined, while productivity gains from increased connectivity continued to expand demand. The flywheel turned faster and faster, forming a virtuous cycle.

Similarly, AI is the first technology in human history capable of learning, reasoning, creativity, cross-domain functions and decision-making. Crucially, AI’s influence is no longer confined to preprogrammed software running on computing devices; it now extends into all types of machines. Hardware and software, combined with collective learning, enable autonomous cars and other systems like robots to adapt intelligently in real time with little or no predefined instructions.

These breakthroughs are reaching sectors scarcely touched by the internet revolution, including manufacturing and energy. This goes beyond simple digitization; we are entering an era of autonomous operations and, ultimately, autonomous businesses, allowing humans to focus on higher-value tasks.

As with connectivity costs in the internet era, in this AI era, “the cost of intelligence” has been steadily declining. Meanwhile, the value derived from increased intelligence continues to grow, driving further demand – this mirrors how the internet played out and is already happening again for AI. The parallels between these two platform shifts suggest that massive economic value will be created or shifted from incumbents, opening substantial investment opportunities across early-stage ventures, growth-stage private markets and public investments.

Just as the early internet boom heavily focused on infrastructure, a significant amount of capital has been invested in enabling AI technologies. However, over time, economic value shifts from infrastructure to applications – just as it did with the internet.

This doesn’t mean there are no opportunities in AI infrastructure – far from it. Remember, more than half of Amazon’s profits come from AWS. Services, such as AWS, that provide access to AI, will continue to benefit as demand soars. Similarly, Nvidia will continue to benefit from the rising demand. However, many of today’s most-valuable companies – both public and private – are in the application layer or operate full-stack models.

Despite these advancements, this transformation won’t happen overnight, but it will likely unfold more quickly than the internet disruption – which took more than a decade – because many core technologies for rapid innovation are already in place.

AI revenues might appear modest today and don’t yet show up in the public markets. However, if we look closer, some AI-native startups are already growing at an unprecedented pace. The disruption isn’t a prediction; it’s already happening.

As Bill Gates once said, “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in one year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”

The AI revolution is just beginning. The next decade will bring enormous opportunities – and a new wave of tech giants, alongside inevitable casualties.

It’s a land grab – you just need to know which land to seize!

P.S. If you enjoyed this blog post, please take a minute to like, comment, subscribe and share. Thank you for reading!

This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

How We Built a Truly Global Powerhouse with 100 Million Users

Most people don’t realize just how global Wattpad’s business is. Here are a few fun facts:

• Only 25% of our 100 million users are from North America, while 25% come from LATAM, 25% from Europe, and 25% from Asia.

• Of the 50 languages on Wattpad, the most popular isn’t English—it’s Spanish. Other widely used languages include Bahasa Indonesia (10 million users) and Tagalog (6 million users), with millions more reading and writing in Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and many others.

• Not only have our print books (yes, we’re a book publisher too) been New York Times bestsellers, but they’ve also hit #1 in multiple countries, including Germany and Colombia.

• #1 on Netflix globally and other streaming platforms? We’ve done that many times—including the Spanish smash hit A Través De Mi Ventana (Through My Window), which we co-produced with Netflix. Many #1-rated TV shows worldwide are based on Wattpad stories—and we co-produce them.

• #1 at the box office? We’ve achieved that in multiple countries as well.

How did we build this?

A lot of things made this happen, but I’ll highlight a few. It started on day one. Here’s a screenshot of our website when we launched in 2006.

Notice that we already supported many key languages worldwide. Why? Because only about 400 million people speak English as their first language—that’s less than 5% of the world’s population.

And we were right! The first language that took off wasn’t something we predicted—it was Vietnamese. We couldn’t have guessed that!

When the first Android phone came out (the T-Mobile G1), we were one of the first to support it. At that time, the iPhone was primarily a high-GDP country phenomenon, while low-GDP countries were dominated by $30 Android phones. When I travelled to these regions, I frequently brought back bags of inexpensive phones so our team could test and ensure our app worked on low-end devices. This allowed us to dominate globally.

When we raised growth capital, we didn’t just seek funding from Silicon Valley investors—we broadened our investor base to include backers from other countries. This helped us learn the nuances of international expansion while gaining support from investors who understood these markets.

When we launched subscriptions, we recognized that a one-size-fits-all model wouldn’t work. Some countries preferred à la carte purchases over all-you-can-read models. So, we introduced our own virtual currency, allowing users to buy content à la carte.

When we expanded into movies and TV shows, we didn’t just partner with Hollywood studios—we forged partnerships with entertainment companies across five continents. This ensured Wattpad story adaptations could be seen everywhere.

And the list goes on.

None of this happened automagically. It took years of conscious, deliberate effort. But once we built the foundation, expanding into new countries became incremental. There’s no free lunch, but it’s also not rocket science—it got easier and easier as we grew.

We built a truly global powerhouse with 100 million users.

If we could do it, you can too.

Choosing between the U.S. and international expansion is a false dichotomy—you can do both. As the world shifts toward intangible assets, building a global business is easier than ever.

Keep in mind that while the U.S. is the largest economy, it only accounts for approximately 26% of the world’s GDP. To create true optionality, not expanding globally—especially beyond the U.S.—is not an option.

Our experience in building a successful global business also allows us to help our portfolio companies scale internationally. We’ve been through the challenges of global expansion firsthand, and we actively share these insights to support the next generation of world-changing companies. Reach out to us if you want to be part of it!

P.S. This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

Strategic Partners Turn Your Vision Into Reality Faster Than You Can

A few months ago, Wattpad announced a partnership with Anvil Publishing in the Philippines. Together, we’re launching Bliss Books, a new Young Adult imprint that’ll bring some of the biggest Wattpad stories and authors to bookshelves across the country. 

The news means Wattpad can realize the vision I laid out in the Master Plan much, much faster. But really, speed is just one of the values a strategic partner brings to the table.

Anvil also has deeper insights into local purchasing habits and consumer behaviour than we do. The first part of the Master Plan is to “Discover more great stories,” and we do this by leveraging our Story DNA machine learning technology and a passionate community to find unique voices and amazing stories that are validated in Tagalog. With their local insights, Anvil can corroborate our insights using their local knowledge to guarantee a successful adaptation. 

The best strategic partners also have a reputation you can piggy-back off of. Another element of the Master Plan is ‘Turn these stories into great movies, TV shows, print books, etc.,” Anvil has a reputation for publishing high-quality books, and that’s exactly what we want to do. 

Anvil is the publishing arm of the National Book Store with hundreds of bookstores. It’s established presence means we – through NBS – have the ability to distribute Wattpad books to every practically every part of the country tying into another key part of the Master Plan to “Distribute and monetize content on and off Wattpad and earn money for storytellers.” 

The Philippines is one of Wattpad’s largest markets and a very important one since its home to some of our most passionate users. Plus, when you factor in the expertise and reach of Anvil, it was an easy decision to partner with this local company who can help us continue to celebrate and reward Filipino authors and their fans. 

Entrepreneurs: if you have the ability to form a partnership with another complementary company, seize it. The strategic upside is great and may help you realize your vision faster than you ever could alone.  

Attitude > Skill

The Wattpad team is growing and we’re hiring for many roles. Recently, the team was in the position of having to choose between two highly qualified candidates for a single role (a great problem to have). One applicant had more experience or skill but the other one had a better attitude.

So who did we pick? Well here’s what I told the team:

“All things equal, always choose attitude over skill and experience. Skills can be learned, but it is hard to change one’s attitude.”

Of course, all candidates need to meet certain skill-based criteria, whatever that may be. It’s hard to hire someone in finance if ‘spreadsheet’ is an unfamiliar term. It doesn’t make sense to hire an engineer who has never written a line of code before. These are somewhat facetious examples and IRL the bar would be set much, much higher, but you get the point.

Hiring a person who may be less experienced but possess the right attitude can be a worthwhile investment and a risk worth taking if you believe you can get the candidate 80% up to speed in 3 months and 100% up to speed in 6 months.

With the right attitude one can overcome any obstacles, but when people have the wrong attitude, getting them to fit into the company can be mission impossible because of the inevitable cultural clashes and teamwork disruption. It can drag down the performance of the entire team. People with positive attitudes can solve problems proactively rather than reactively. While it’s hard to quantify, they can greatly increase business velocity and team performance.

Choosing attitude over skill is a guiding principle that I have been using for many years and has served me really well!

The next time a candidate walks through your door and doesn’t exactly have the right skills or experience, ask yourself if they have the right attitude.

Masterclass Series: CEO, It’s Your Decision. Don’t Dodge

When you work at a startup, seeking advice and gaining buy-in from the broader team can help you move faster … until it becomes a crutch.

Recently, I bumped into an entrepreneur I invested in. He’s making some changes to the direction of his company, and after explaining them to me, I pointed out some of the potential issues. He immediately asked me: “So, do you want me to revert to the old plan?”

It was the wrong question to ask.

I explained to him that it doesn’t matter what I want. As CEO, with all the context, he’s the only one who can make that decision. As an investor, I’m not thinking about his business 24/7, but he is. It’s his company, and it’s his decision what he does with it (and only his decision). Investors should share their experiences and opinions, but they shouldn’t make decisions that affect the business.

Not long after, I had an investor friend contact me about one of his portfolio companies that’s going through a pretty rough patch. My friend said: “The CEO now blames the board of directors for making the wrong decision.” My ears perked up. This was a red flag and I told my friend as such.

A company’s board of directors only has one decision to make: Hire and fire the CEO. Inexperienced CEOs have a tendency to defer difficult decisions to the board or even other people in the company. It’s not uncommon to hear a newbie (or unconfident) CEO say something like “My recommendation to the board is …” This isn’t helpful. All this does is enable inexperienced board members to jump in and make decisions out of context. It’s tragic, really.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting that there is no value to be gained from consulting with your board: Every CEO has blind spots and can benefit from another perspective. But in the end, what happens in the business is always the CEOs call.

And it doesn’t always have to be the CEO who holds the ultimate decision-making ability (nor should it). I remember speaking with a senior leader at Wattpad, and the person said: “I would advise we do this …” I quickly reminded this person that they are the head of the business unit and the only person accountable for it. It was an important decision with huge implications across the company, so of course, I expected this person would engage with the broader team to think through the different scenarios and make sure all the bases were covered, but at the end of the day, the person was the leader, not an advisor.

These three conversations illustrate one critical point. Whether you’re a co-founder, CEO, technical lead, department manager or even individual contributor, you are the presumed expert in your role, so don’t dodge making tough decisions. Remember: You are not an advisor to your own job.

Don’t Be a Parasite If You Want To Be A Disruptor

I spoke with an entrepreneur whose company is building a new, disruptive product for the education sector. One of the challenges he’s facing is that none of the company’s co-founders have worked in the education sector before. He wondered if he should hire someone with some relevant experience.

Another entrepreneur friend of mine is building a tool that is catered to the public sector. The company is struggling to scale as a business. The sales process is too slow. The product is becoming too specific for one sector.

In both cases when these entrepreneurs asked for my advice, I told them: Don’t be a parasite if you want to be a disruptor.

There are so many verticals out there that still have not been fully transformed by the Internet — education, public sector, book publishing, the list goes one. But it’s extremely hard to transform any industry if you have a lot of dependencies with the old systems. You can’t think out of the box. Your sales cycle is too long. And often you end up with a product or a service that is incremental at best rather than revolutionary.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, a lot of people have built great businesses by providing incremental solutions like consulting services to the government. But, if you want to build something truly transformative and net-native, then you have to stay as far away from the traditional systems as possible and draw closer to your end users or customers.

If you want to create something truly game-changing and be a disruptor, you can’t begin the journey as a parasite.

The End of 8-Hour Days

Both my parents used to work for a bank. For them, the work day started at nine in the morning and ended at 5:00 pm sharp. Day in and day out, this was their routine. They never understood the concept of flexible hours. They questioned why I would bring “work” home. On the other hand, they were always amused that I never needed to take time off work to see the doctor or get the car fixed during office hours.

“Am I expected to work an 8-hour day?” I get this question from employees from time to time, but I believe this is the wrong question to ask. Employees are expected to get their work done, deliver on OKRs and contribute to a positive workplace culture. For the most part, I don’t (and neither should their direct manager) care where or how the work gets done. Of course, it goes without saying (but I’ll still say it), flexible work hours should never impact collaboration or attendance at critical meetings.

Startups are fast-paced, ever-changing environments filled with bright employees. They’re solving complex and fascinating problems and it’s all very exciting. Being a disruptor and part of a paradigm shift is thrilling and the work itself should compel employees to give 100%. Offering flexible hours instills trust in your team and gives employees a sense of ownership to execute on projects in the way that works for them.

That’s not to say there will be no instances when burning the midnight oil for a specific project or tight deadline is required. Make no mistake, there will be times when a critical security issue needs to be addressed after-hours or a client has an urgent need on the weekend. But there should also be opportunities to take it easy and spend a few weeks out of the country or deal with a family or health issue. It’s about flexibility.

Most startups offer flexible hours, and it makes sense. After all, tech is a creative industry unlike working at a bank or factory. As people head back to work after their relaxing summer vacations, my advice to founders and startup execs? Measure productivity by outcomes and results, not timecards.

The Evolution of an Entrepreneur

Years ago, a summer job gave me one of the most valuable lessons in entrepreneurship.

I needed tuition money for university so I got a job at a factory printing t-shirts. I witnessed firsthand how the owner juggled multiple and often diverse tasks in order to operate a successful business. Looking back, I was naive to think that a t-shirt printing company was just about printing t-shirts.

If you look at the journey of an entrepreneur, it all starts with an idea. But an idea is just that – a thought. Without execution, an idea is as good as yesterday’s newspaper. Only when execution follows an idea, can you determine if there’s product-market fit. If you achieve product-market fit – congratulations, that’s a major accomplishment! You can start a company to further iterate on the idea and cement your place in the market. But once you start a company, you have to turn it into a business.

I’ve personally gone through this journey three times. My first business failed, I sold the second one, and the third has become one of Canada’s most successful startups. My experiences failing and succeeding as an entrepreneur reinforced the lesson I learned that summer many years ago: As an entrepreneur, the best product you can build is yourself.

You will wear many hats throughout the entrepreneur journey. As your company grows, you play different roles in the company and you can expect to change ‘jobs’ every few months. Each new job requires a different skill set. You may start as the product designer, but soon you’ll lead a team as a manager, and then eventually you transition into a leadership role.  I have yet to meet a single person who, at the launch of their company, has every required skill. So welcome continuous learning and crave self-improvement.

Taking the time to build yourself as a well-rounded entrepreneur will pay dividends.

Canada’s Economy Needs a Second Act

Note: This blog post was originally shared on BetaKit, Canada’s startup and tech innovation publication of record.

This weekend, while celebrating Canada Day with family and friends, and in the midst of a constant stream of news about a growing trade war with the US, I had a chance to reflect on the future of this country and our economy.

Canada’s economy is the 10th largest in the world, of which a massive 70.7 percent comes from services. We are unusual among developed countries in that some of our largest industries are oil and forestry, natural—and finite—resources that contribute huge amounts to Canada’s economy. Canada has the world’s third-largest proven petroleum reserves and is the fourth largest exporter of petroleum. We are also the fourth largest exporter of natural gas.

While the oil industry helped propel Canada to the top 10 in the world, the good times won’t last forever. Why? This price history of solar cells says it all: since the 1970s the per-watt cost of solar energy has fallen from more than $76 to less than 74 cents.

The genie is already out of the bottle. Renewable energy will create a dramatic shift in demand for oil and gas. In the next decade, the energy sector will see more change than it has in the past century.

Canada also has a sizable manufacturing sector, particularly in the automobile industry. However, more often than not, Canadian plants are merely branches to foreign companies. Unfortunately, Canada has no ownership in the brands and the intellectual properties that are very valuable and have lasting value.

Entertainment is another major sector for Canada, employing hundreds of thousands of people and representing close to 2.8 percent of our GDP. While many Hollywood TV and movies projects are produced in Canada, we capture few of the upsides; even if a locally-produced project is a mega-hit, we’re still providing a service to the Hollywood studios. Studios based in Los Angeles can easily choose to make their next movie somewhere else if Canadian locations aren’t price-competitive. Unlike Hollywood, Canada’s rich and creative entertainment industry heavily relies on government subsidies and remains transactional.

Energy and entertainment create many jobs in Canada, but we all know that industries can turn on a dime. Case in point: the ongoing trade war with the US. Canada can’t solely rely on oil and providing services to foreign companies to sustain our growth in the future.

Canada’s economy needs a second act. Fast.

The good news is that we have all the raw material to pull it off. How? Canada has already emerged as one of the world’s leaders in artificial intelligence and blockchain. Ethereum-one of the most important blockchain-based technologies-was born in Toronto. As such, the city has a disproportionate number of blockchain experts. AI and blockchain are two great examples of why Canada is leading the pack in the new data-driven economies. At the moment, the top 10 most valuable companies in the world are data-driven tech companies. This includes the likes of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Tencent, Alibaba, Alphabet and Facebook. Data is clearly the new oil.

With a thriving tech ecosystem and abundance of experts in leading fields like AI and blockchain, Canada has the potential to create the next generation of tech giants.

Canada’s leadership has led to many foreign companies to set up their AI research labs here. But you’d be right to point out that this just recycles a problematic model, in which foreign companies control these important jobs and retain intellectual properties generated by publicly funded research.

These are valid concerns. At the same time, we see a virtuous cycle emerge from this situation, in which (often) foreign companies help attract and retaining talent in Canada, benefiting the country in the long term. That said, if all of the new jobs created by these data-driven companies are all foreign-owned, it will be a missed opportunity for Canada. We’ll be reproducing what we now see in the auto and the entertainment industries. Canada could have created a Ford or a Warner Brothers decades ago.

The solution is not to prevent foreign companies from setting up shops here. Tariffs and walls are not the solutions. Just look at the Valley. Many foreign companies open up branch offices there, but the domestic firms are all thriving at the same time. If Canada produces many billion dollar companies, who cares if Amazon opens up an office here or not?

What Canada really needs is an environment where many—not just one or two—domestic world-class tech giants can emerge. The kind of companies that make a lasting impact on the Canadian economy. Fortunately, the seed has been sowed. For the first time, the environment has been created for domestic data-driven tech firms to thrive and succeed. I know because I’m the CEO & co-founder of Wattpad, one such company. In Canada’s technology sector, the wind is at our back. It is up to us to pull this off.

I am absolutely grateful for the opportunity to lead one of the rocket ships that is helping Canada pull off its second act.

#HappyCanadaDay.