Marilou’s word
A feeling of having to move quickly constantly haunts me, as does my conviction that going slowly is the best way to avoid making mistakes. This contradiction makes me wonder how it is possible to see clearly and adopt the right rhythm in a society where everything moves at a frantic pace. Is asking ourselves every day whether our direction remains clear and precise our best protection?
“Young people who start a business today have no choice but to want to move quickly. And faster than before, because the world is changing faster,” says David Nault, founder and managing partner at Luge Capital, a Montreal venture capital fund.
David Nault works with entrepreneurs to help them build their businesses. He maintains that there has never been a better time than now to start a business.
“Especially in technology, because the cost is much lower than before. It doesn’t cost anything to sit down at a computer and build a website to start something. It’s a good time. We see a lot of innovation. Millennials, especially, are less well served by large companies that target people with a lot of money. »
Young entrepreneurs today are much more mature and prepared than 10 or 15 years ago, according to David Nault, because it is easy to obtain information on the web and follow entrepreneurs who present their ideas.
“Entrepreneurs go on YouTube and social media and talk about their successes,” says the man who works a lot with people in the technology sector.
He cites as an example the president of Shopify, Harley Finkelstein, who presents a lot of ideas online, what David Nault calls “peer to peer entrepreneurship”.
David Nault even goes so far as to say that entrepreneurs who want to go slower certainly have less chance of succeeding, because everything moves much faster around them.
“Young entrepreneurs have access to a cell phone at all times. It’s in their DNA today. It’s always “go, go, go”. Naturally, they are better placed than before to go faster. Because of the tools at their disposal and because they were born and raised with access to everything while always being connected. They need to be stimulated and that is a characteristic of an entrepreneur. The desire to always be stimulated by what’s next ? »
Éléonore Jarry-Ferron, partner at Brightspark Ventures and co-founder of Front Row Ventures — a venture capital fund that supports student entrepreneurs — agrees.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Éléonore Jarry-Ferron, from the Front Row Ventures investment fund
There are more tools and capital today than there were 5 or 10 years ago for an entrepreneur wanting to innovate. There are a lot more people who have done it before too, so more models of inspiration for young people and a lot of ways to have access to mentoring to avoid certain mistakes at the start of the journey and therefore go faster.
Éléonore Jarry-Ferron, co-founder of Front Row Ventures
She is positive about the accelerated pace observed today. “Yes, it’s a lot faster and that’s a good thing because technology and innovation are making things move extremely quickly. When you start a business, it’s very important to be able to pivot quickly to go left when things aren’t working right. Speed of execution is important,” she says.
“It’s better to know if you’re working on an idea that isn’t working very quickly and maybe move on to something else, rather than spending years building something and spending a lot of capital only to realize that it’s not working very quickly. there was no market or too much competition. »
One of the pitfalls to avoid, according to her, is making decisions without relying on available information or data.
The best entrepreneurs — young or old — are people capable of making difficult and rapid decisions taking into account a lot of collected information and arriving at a conclusion more quickly than others.
Éléonore Jarry-Ferron, co-founder of Front Row Ventures
If intuition still counts for a lot in entrepreneurship, she emphasizes that an entrepreneur must still validate his intuition with data, and in particular today when there is a lot of information available. “You have to be able to go to the sources. »
It is also important, according to her, to test on a small scale before deploying large budgets on an initiative.
Éléonore Jarry-Ferron also observes a change in the profile of entrepreneurs. She sees a “big desire” for impact among millennials.
“When I started, we saw a lot of young people who wanted to start businesses because it was cool to do so. We placed people like Mark Zuckerberg, from Meta [Facebook]on a pedestal, people who started businesses very young and who became very rich and achieved celebrity status,” he says.
“Today, we see a lot more aware people who want to build companies that will have an impact on climate change, the medical field, etc. There is really this desire to have an impact beyond oneself, beyond the company, which we saw less before and which is becoming a very recurring theme in the current generation, late twenties and early thirties. »
She specifies that it is a question of generation and economic and social context on a global scale. “We see young people in the streets demanding important changes for greater social equity and to protect the environment. We cannot afford to continue as before and the new generation is aware of this to allow children to have a more promising future on Earth. The power of today’s young entrepreneurs should not be underestimated. »