Danish Yusuf is Founder & CEO of Zensurance, Canada’s Only Digital Marketplace Built for Business Owners to Buy Insurance

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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada.
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[00:26] SPEAKER_00: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:31] SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, a business visionary
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: and welcome to Toronto's podcast.
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: Part of the Canada's podcast network, your source of the great insights
[00:40] SPEAKER_01: from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: Okay, Danny's nice to see you and as I said, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: And as we said, you know, let's kick off, you know,
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: introduce yourself to everyone, tell them a little bit about you,
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: the person and you, the entrepreneur basically.
[01:02] SPEAKER_02: Sure, thank you Phil for having me on today.
[01:05] SPEAKER_02: It's great to be here.
[01:06] SPEAKER_02: As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the guests you've had are
[01:09] SPEAKER_02: are there friends of mine or people have interacted with.
[01:12] SPEAKER_02: So it's a great setup you have to share the stories of entrepreneurs
[01:15] SPEAKER_02: across Canada. So thank you for having me.
[01:18] SPEAKER_02: So a little bit about myself.
[01:20] SPEAKER_02: I'll share about where I came from
[01:22] SPEAKER_02: because that really says a lot about what I'm up to now.
[01:25] SPEAKER_02: I was born in the Middle East and moved around
[01:28] SPEAKER_02: a tremendous amount in the first 12 years of life.
[01:31] SPEAKER_02: I probably went to 10 or 12 schools before undergrad.
[01:36] SPEAKER_02: Every year, every two years, different school, different city.
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: Been there, done that, yeah.
[01:42] SPEAKER_02: And if that's all you know, that's normal, right?
[01:46] SPEAKER_02: I had no idea that there are people out there that live their entire lives
[01:50] SPEAKER_02: in one city or with one group of friends.
[01:53] SPEAKER_02: Me, every movement, new school, new city, new friends,
[01:55] SPEAKER_02: always try and fit in again and keep moving.
[01:58] SPEAKER_02: Until finally, 1996, how a family moved to Canada.
[02:03] SPEAKER_02: I did high school in two different schools, of course.
[02:06] SPEAKER_02: The one plus side of all of those moves is I ended up just by virtue of the schools.
[02:10] SPEAKER_02: I went to skipping two years of schooling along the way.
[02:14] SPEAKER_02: But I finished high school at 16.
[02:17] SPEAKER_02: And in my high school, I said, okay, what do I want to do?
[02:19] SPEAKER_02: Afterwards, I bought my LSAT books.
[02:22] SPEAKER_02: I bought my GMAT books.
[02:23] SPEAKER_02: I was thinking of medicine.
[02:24] SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, engineering was the hardest to get into.
[02:27] SPEAKER_02: So I said, it must be good.
[02:29] SPEAKER_02: So let's apply it.
[02:30] SPEAKER_02: Let's try and do that for not a whole lot of reason other than that.
[02:34] SPEAKER_02: And I did like computers.
[02:36] SPEAKER_02: I in kindergarten, I remember learning about this programming language called logo,
[02:40] SPEAKER_02: which is a turtle that moved around the screen and you could make shapes.
[02:43] SPEAKER_02: And I still remember that from kindergarten.
[02:46] SPEAKER_02: And I remembered when we first bought an IBM XT computer.
[02:50] SPEAKER_02: Two and a half megahertz, no hard drive.
[02:53] SPEAKER_02: Five and a half or five and a quarter inch floppy disks.
[02:56] SPEAKER_02: And I loved it.
[02:57] SPEAKER_02: I was always into computers, but never thought that would be exactly what I'd get into.
[03:02] SPEAKER_02: But I ended up going into engineering, went through schooling.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: I applied to IBM.
[03:07] SPEAKER_02: I actually missed the deadline for the application for the internship.
[03:11] SPEAKER_02: And through a friend of mine that worked there,
[03:14] SPEAKER_02: I managed to get invited anyway to the interview slots.
[03:17] SPEAKER_02: The day before I managed to get on,
[03:19] SPEAKER_02: gone through the interview, went to IBM, kept moving.
[03:22] SPEAKER_02: And I remember one time at IBM, I asked my manager,
[03:25] SPEAKER_02: said, hey, so what's next for me?
[03:27] SPEAKER_02: I'm here for the last year.
[03:29] SPEAKER_02: When's my next promotion?
[03:31] SPEAKER_02: And they said, you know, four to five years, we can talk about it.
[03:34] SPEAKER_02: And for me, I said, wow, that's five or six years in total before the next step that feels like a long time.
[03:41] SPEAKER_02: So I applied for a consulting role at McKinsey and company on their website,
[03:45] SPEAKER_02: went through the process, and ended up spending seven years over there.
[03:49] SPEAKER_02: Loved my experience.
[03:51] SPEAKER_02: I took a two-year break to do my business school in the middle.
[03:54] SPEAKER_02: It was very standard for everyone to go.
[03:55] SPEAKER_02: Do your MBA come back?
[03:57] SPEAKER_02: And in that time, I started working with a lot of insurance companies.
[04:01] SPEAKER_02: And sitting with the management teams or the directors,
[04:04] SPEAKER_02: the discussion was always on one side of insurance, the home and car insurance.
[04:08] SPEAKER_02: Because that's perceived to be a bit easier.
[04:10] SPEAKER_02: It's a much bigger market, a bigger headache.
[04:13] SPEAKER_02: And people forgot about or chose not to focus on the commercial insurance side.
[04:17] SPEAKER_02: So that's insurance for businesses.
[04:19] SPEAKER_02: And I really saw an opportunity there.
[04:21] SPEAKER_02: So I ended up quitting at the end of 2015 to the co-founders insurance.
[04:26] SPEAKER_02: And I had thought about quitting for many, many years prior to that.
[04:31] SPEAKER_02: As much as I loved the job and I had a great time,
[04:34] SPEAKER_02: I saw all my friends launching different businesses.
[04:36] SPEAKER_02: Most failed actually.
[04:39] SPEAKER_02: And some succeeded as is normal.
[04:42] SPEAKER_02: And I thought to myself, if I don't do this now, I don't know if I ever will.
[04:47] SPEAKER_02: It's always harder.
[04:47] SPEAKER_02: The longer you go, you make more money or more settled.
[04:50] SPEAKER_02: I was about to get married.
[04:52] SPEAKER_02: I constantly did the net present value analysis of the job versus a start off.
[04:57] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[04:57] SPEAKER_02: And the job always won.
[04:58] SPEAKER_02: So I never quit.
[05:00] SPEAKER_02: And eventually I took the decision and then moved on and launched the insurance at the beginning of 2016.
[05:06] SPEAKER_01: We're interested.
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: Will your parents entrepreneurs or not?
[05:11] SPEAKER_02: No.
[05:12] SPEAKER_02: So in my extended family, there's a lot of small business owners.
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[05:16] SPEAKER_02: My parents and my sister were very much, hey, let's do a job.
[05:22] SPEAKER_02: My sister's a doctor.
[05:23] SPEAKER_02: My brother is an entrepreneur.
[05:24] SPEAKER_02: So he loves being in the construction space.
[05:26] SPEAKER_02: But generally, my family's been non-entrepreneurs.
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: You know, in terms of why you've become an entrepreneur,
[05:32] SPEAKER_01: you know, next is that, I mean, I worked it out.
[05:36] SPEAKER_01: I was at 14 different places, you know, over, over 17 years kind of thing.
[05:43] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: So the same thing, you know, and maybe that means a corporate life.
[05:50] SPEAKER_01: You never, you know, that waiting for five years for the next move.
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: Maybe that we just don't have the patience.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
[05:57] SPEAKER_01: I'm always interested to know, why would you become an entrepreneur?
[06:00] SPEAKER_01: You know, like you were with the Kinsey, with IBM,
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: I was with GM and big names, you know, it's like,
[06:06] SPEAKER_01: why the heck did we leave, you know, I mean, and go it on our own
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: when most people clamor to be with those big names?
[06:15] SPEAKER_01: So it's just a, it's kind of interesting.
[06:18] SPEAKER_01: It's, I haven't worked that profile thing out in terms of why.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: How long have you been in Toronto now?
[06:25] SPEAKER_02: Since 96, so 24 years.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: So why stay here?
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: What are the benefits of being in Toronto?
[06:33] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I assume you have a reasonably international view of things.
[06:38] SPEAKER_01: What's the, what's the benefit of being here, you think?
[06:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[06:43] SPEAKER_02: So when I was doing my MBA in the US, I had the choice of staying there
[06:48] SPEAKER_02: or coming back to Toronto.
[06:50] SPEAKER_02: And just the way Kinsey works, you can live in one place and work elsewhere.
[06:53] SPEAKER_02: So I said, I love living in Toronto.
[06:55] SPEAKER_02: So my friends are here, I had relatives.
[06:58] SPEAKER_02: This is where I was comfortable.
[06:59] SPEAKER_02: So I lived here, but most of my work was elsewhere.
[07:03] SPEAKER_02: So that's why I came back.
[07:06] SPEAKER_02: And then why being entrepreneur here is just this,
[07:10] SPEAKER_02: where my network ended up being.
[07:12] SPEAKER_02: Given I lived here so long, my professional life has been here.
[07:16] SPEAKER_02: But again, my biggest investor is from the US.
[07:19] SPEAKER_02: So just physically being here doesn't limit where you can do business.
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: No, I totally agree with it.
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: I have this question, what's the best thing about being an entrepreneur?
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: But I think most people think it's sort of getting rich,
[07:31] SPEAKER_01: you know, the material side of it, which has definitely has a part.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: But what for you, you know, is that it?
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: Or what's the best thing about being an entrepreneur?
[07:41] SPEAKER_02: I agree with you.
[07:43] SPEAKER_02: If you are trying to get into entrepreneurship with the sole purpose of making money,
[07:49] SPEAKER_02: you're going to have a really long uphill battle.
[07:51] SPEAKER_02: The majority of people never cash it in.
[07:54] SPEAKER_02: And so you'll be sorely disappointed if that's your primary reason.
[07:58] SPEAKER_02: For me, it was part of, it was two part one was the allure of it.
[08:03] SPEAKER_02: And just what you see other people, the excitement they have with what they,
[08:08] SPEAKER_02: about what they're doing, the impact they feel like they have,
[08:12] SPEAKER_02: the control they have of what they do day to day,
[08:14] SPEAKER_02: that really appealed to me.
[08:16] SPEAKER_02: Being able to have an idea,
[08:19] SPEAKER_02: marshal a team, bring a set of investors and supporters and really live out a vision.
[08:25] SPEAKER_02: That was the most exciting thing for me.
[08:28] SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, I said, look, let's say I fail, I try it one or two or three times,
[08:33] SPEAKER_02: I can always go back to a job.
[08:34] SPEAKER_02: The job of any form of some form will always be there.
[08:39] SPEAKER_02: In my mind, taking this high risk of cutting off the salary,
[08:44] SPEAKER_02: still paying rent, still meeting all your obligations,
[08:46] SPEAKER_02: it just gets harder and harder later all in life.
[08:49] SPEAKER_02: So it was part the excitement and the control in that part that I mentioned.
[08:52] SPEAKER_02: But also, I don't know if I can ever do this later in life.
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: You're in the insurance business.
[08:59] SPEAKER_01: You've brought, I would imagine, a logic slash technical approach to it
[09:06] SPEAKER_01: with the computer engineer and back gun.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: So what are you most excited about your approach in that business today?
[09:15] SPEAKER_02: I'll give you an example of something from this weekend, which really illustrates what excites me.
[09:19] SPEAKER_02: So I bought a leather recliner this weekend from Lazy Boy.
[09:24] SPEAKER_02: And it's something I wanted next to my desk to read a book or something.
[09:28] SPEAKER_02: And I knew what I wanted.
[09:29] SPEAKER_02: I checked the website.
[09:30] SPEAKER_02: I go in and tell the person, hey, this is the one I like.
[09:33] SPEAKER_02: Okay, great.
[09:34] SPEAKER_02: All right, let me pull out the swatch.
[09:36] SPEAKER_02: So she went and looked for piles and piles of leather,
[09:39] SPEAKER_02: which one do you like looking at the code?
[09:41] SPEAKER_02: Okay, I like this one.
[09:42] SPEAKER_02: Great.
[09:44] SPEAKER_02: Let me pull out the pricing manual or it outcomes the pricing manual.
[09:47] SPEAKER_02: This option, that option, that option is all paper.
[09:50] SPEAKER_02: Let's go to the computer.
[09:52] SPEAKER_02: And then a form was printed.
[09:54] SPEAKER_02: The form was printed and we started filling out.
[09:58] SPEAKER_02: And then we go to the next desk.
[10:00] SPEAKER_02: So now this is the third desk.
[10:02] SPEAKER_02: We go to the next desk where they have to be faxed into some central location.
[10:07] SPEAKER_02: And on and on.
[10:08] SPEAKER_02: And I took me 35 minutes to buy a couch.
[10:11] SPEAKER_02: That's only 35 minutes.
[10:13] SPEAKER_02: In insurance, it can take you two to three weeks to buy a policy.
[10:17] SPEAKER_02: And it's the same manual process.
[10:19] SPEAKER_02: People after people after people, probably after government,
[10:23] SPEAKER_02: insurance is going to be the second biggest users of faxes.
[10:26] SPEAKER_02: Maybe healthcare is somewhere in there.
[10:28] SPEAKER_02: So our vision, what really excites me is eliminating all of that waste, that overhead.
[10:33] SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of biases that come in.
[10:36] SPEAKER_02: A lot of conflicts of interest.
[10:37] SPEAKER_02: So we just want to have a machine do that.
[10:39] SPEAKER_02: In a clean, simple, proper way.
[10:42] SPEAKER_02: And just make it as you would expect.
[10:45] SPEAKER_02: You know, you can buy a car online, a plane ticket.
[10:47] SPEAKER_02: I ordered a book yesterday and it's going to be delivered in one hour.
[10:51] SPEAKER_02: Within less than 24 hours, I have it.
[10:53] SPEAKER_02: Why can't I buy a $500 insurance policy like that?
[10:56] SPEAKER_02: So that's the part that frustrates me, but also is the reason we exist.
[11:02] SPEAKER_01: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada.
[11:05] SPEAKER_01: eBay Canada is powering Canadian small businesses.
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: Go to ebay.ca, slash up and running to open your online shop.
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: So I mean, we've had a, we were just talk, we've had a couple of other fears, if you like,
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: that are trying to transform the insurance business.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a very conservative business.
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: And it's dominated by the few, not the many.
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[11:36] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, can you impact the future?
[11:40] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[11:41] SPEAKER_02: I hope so. There's no guarantee we're four years in and there's still no guarantee.
[11:47] SPEAKER_02: The industry is often described as male, pale and stale.
[11:51] SPEAKER_02: Just because nothing ever changes.
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: Policies are still sold the way they were 50 years ago.
[11:58] SPEAKER_02: So it's a fair question.
[12:00] SPEAKER_02: Our whole reason of existing is because it's this way.
[12:03] SPEAKER_02: So I'm, it creates the opportunity.
[12:07] SPEAKER_02: Can we impact it?
[12:08] SPEAKER_02: We're already seeing signs that we are impacting it four years in.
[12:12] SPEAKER_02: It's not a long time.
[12:14] SPEAKER_02: We write with 50 different insurance companies in Canada now.
[12:18] SPEAKER_02: A handful of them have given us authority to issue policies on their behalf.
[12:22] SPEAKER_02: So we, like, we should have policy.
[12:24] SPEAKER_02: And one month later, they realized we've issued the policy.
[12:26] SPEAKER_02: That's the way it works.
[12:28] SPEAKER_02: So they're now trusting us to that level.
[12:31] SPEAKER_02: We're almost at 100 employees.
[12:33] SPEAKER_02: We were licensed coast to coast.
[12:35] SPEAKER_02: So there's some early signs that customers are trusting us over 10,000 customers,
[12:40] SPEAKER_02: business owner customers.
[12:42] SPEAKER_02: So it's, there's a lot of early signs.
[12:44] SPEAKER_02: But who knows what's going to happen over the next four years.
[12:47] SPEAKER_01: So let's move on to challenges.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I think the, the big listening learning thing
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: is how we all face challenges.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: And remarkably, we don't necessarily all have the same formula for, for, for all the coming challenges.
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: So when you're faced with those unexpected challenges, I mean,
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: we can use logic as much as we want.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: But it's still, we still hit things that we, we don't anticipate.
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: How do you typically handle those?
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: They can be, you know, critical.
[13:21] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[13:22] SPEAKER_02: And we, we face these types of things every month or two months, some big issue.
[13:28] SPEAKER_02: I'm, I'm lucky in, in the sense, in the sense that I'm, I'm not a very emotional person.
[13:34] SPEAKER_02: Probably not a very good thing for my family.
[13:36] SPEAKER_02: But in the business context, ups, downs, you would not see it.
[13:41] SPEAKER_02: I'm very stoic that way.
[13:42] SPEAKER_02: But I think for me, it's, I, I use typically a couple of times a week, early morning.
[13:48] SPEAKER_02: I'm typically up at 6 a.m.
[13:50] SPEAKER_02: I'll go to a coffee shop in a pre-COVID world or, or some corner, quiet corner.
[13:55] SPEAKER_02: With just the notebook and I'll make my notes.
[13:57] SPEAKER_02: No laptop, no phone at just do that.
[13:59] SPEAKER_02: So for me, if there's a big challenge like that,
[14:02] SPEAKER_02: I'll try and break it down, assess it, think about it, reflect on the past, think about the future,
[14:06] SPEAKER_02: and really just make paper notes.
[14:08] SPEAKER_02: And then I have a really good network of, of other startup founders and, and friends in the industry,
[14:14] SPEAKER_02: and people at insurance companies that I can pick up the phone and call or exchange emails,
[14:19] SPEAKER_02: get together. It's bouncing off ideas of a lot of people.
[14:23] SPEAKER_02: So it's, part one is me really just breaking it down, making sure I understand what it is.
[14:27] SPEAKER_02: And then relying on, on my network to help solve it.
[14:30] SPEAKER_02: And quite often, our employees will solve the problem before I even hear about it.
[14:34] SPEAKER_02: So they'll, they might be doing the same thing.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: So what's been the greatest challenge to date that you've had to overcome?
[14:43] SPEAKER_02: The greatest challenge and it's something we are still working on is convincing more and more
[14:50] SPEAKER_02: insurance companies that online distribution, the one we are putting forward, is the only model
[14:57] SPEAKER_02: that we think will succeed in the way we're looking at it.
[15:00] SPEAKER_01: But then the current pandemic must have helped you in the sense, like all of us in the digital
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: side of things. I mean, it's speeding it up.
[15:09] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
[15:10] SPEAKER_02: So it's really convincing them that, hey, yes, there will be some room for in-person sales.
[15:17] SPEAKER_02: But the average customer is now used to Amazon and Uber and UberEats, these apps that are online
[15:24] SPEAKER_02: that's really instant gratification. People want the same for insurance.
[15:27] SPEAKER_02: And that they should be supporting that shift, not resisting it.
[15:31] SPEAKER_02: So we've made progress, but there's still more to go.
[15:33] SPEAKER_02: And absolutely, COVID helped.
[15:35] SPEAKER_02: There's a handful of insurance companies that only accepted physical signatures before.
[15:39] SPEAKER_02: That's gone now. Electronic signatures are okay.
[15:43] SPEAKER_02: Many only accepted check payments. That's gone.
[15:45] SPEAKER_02: They're saying, please, no more checks, only electronic.
[15:48] SPEAKER_02: So this has really helped some things forward.
[15:52] SPEAKER_01: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
[15:57] SPEAKER_02: I think I waited too long to try the entrepreneurship route.
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: How old are you when you stepped out of McKinsey?
[16:07] SPEAKER_02: 32, maybe 33.
[16:09] SPEAKER_02: I hear about right.
[16:12] SPEAKER_02: I feel like I should have left earlier.
[16:15] SPEAKER_02: I left what I think was probably the last point at which I would have been comfortable leaving,
[16:21] SPEAKER_02: as comfortable as one could be.
[16:23] SPEAKER_02: So my advice to my younger self would be, take more risks, take them earlier,
[16:29] SPEAKER_02: and don't worry about things. Things have a way of working themselves out.
[16:33] SPEAKER_02: You can get a job later.
[16:35] SPEAKER_02: If not IBM, then something else.
[16:37] SPEAKER_02: If not McKinsey, then something else.
[16:39] SPEAKER_01: What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
[16:42] SPEAKER_01: Not just received, but it resonated, and you kind of carry it around with you.
[16:49] SPEAKER_02: It was that morning routine.
[16:52] SPEAKER_02: It was a piece of advice I got from a local Toronto founder.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: He said he would take one or two mornings each week to do exactly that.
[17:02] SPEAKER_02: And this was maybe three years ago.
[17:04] SPEAKER_02: I started doing that right away.
[17:06] SPEAKER_02: It helps so much because as soon as you step into the office or you open your laptop,
[17:10] SPEAKER_02: you get WhatsApp messages, text messages, emails, Slack, everything.
[17:15] SPEAKER_02: You just can't focus.
[17:16] SPEAKER_02: You end up spending time on the urgent things,
[17:19] SPEAKER_02: rather than the important things.
[17:21] SPEAKER_02: And when you carve out your morning, you can focus on the non-urgent, but important things.
[17:26] SPEAKER_02: Your mind is clear.
[17:28] SPEAKER_02: No distractions.
[17:28] SPEAKER_02: You get so much more done.
[17:30] SPEAKER_01: So let's move on to what would I tell rapid fire questions.
[17:35] SPEAKER_01: You don't think too much about them.
[17:37] SPEAKER_01: Just go for it.
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: If you weren't doing what you were doing now,
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: what would you be doing instead?
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: And why would you be doing it?
[17:46] SPEAKER_02: I probably would still be at McKinsey because that would have been the easiest thing to do.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you kind of enjoyed it from what you said.
[17:53] SPEAKER_02: Oh, I loved it.
[17:54] SPEAKER_01: It was great.
[17:54] SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of things are problem solution.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: You brought in yourself.
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: You know, you work on the problem, you solve it
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: off to the next one kind of thing.
[18:02] SPEAKER_03: That's right.
[18:04] SPEAKER_01: What book are you currently reading or listening to?
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: Or what book would you really recommend or a couple of books
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: that can really made a dent in your psyche, basically?
[18:17] SPEAKER_02: There's one I read recently and one that I'm rereading now.
[18:21] SPEAKER_02: The one I'm rereading now is so good that can't ignore you by Cal muports.
[18:26] SPEAKER_02: The whole philosophy there is
[18:29] SPEAKER_02: don't follow your passion.
[18:30] SPEAKER_02: You never once has followed your passion.
[18:31] SPEAKER_02: The book is about don't follow your passion.
[18:33] SPEAKER_02: Follow what you're good at.
[18:35] SPEAKER_02: You will become passionate about it.
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: I think that's true.
[18:39] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[18:40] SPEAKER_02: I believe that I was not passionate about insurance before.
[18:44] SPEAKER_02: I remember my only experience with insurance when I was younger was
[18:49] SPEAKER_02: the old guy who used to come to events and parties in the community center
[18:53] SPEAKER_02: to sell me car insurance or my parents.
[18:55] SPEAKER_02: I always thought there's no way I'm going to be that guy.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: But here I am.
[18:59] SPEAKER_02: I am that guy now, a licensed insurance broker.
[19:01] SPEAKER_02: But I become passionate about it.
[19:03] SPEAKER_02: I love the industry having spent time and gotten good at certain aspects of it.
[19:08] SPEAKER_02: So I like that book a lot.
[19:11] SPEAKER_02: And the other one is by Ben Horowitz, the hard thing about hard things.
[19:16] SPEAKER_02: That should be mandatory reading for every entrepreneur
[19:20] SPEAKER_02: talking about the character grit.
[19:23] SPEAKER_02: I think that is probably the most important skill set someone needs to either be born with
[19:29] SPEAKER_02: or learn.
[19:30] SPEAKER_02: I believe people can learn it to be successful over time.
[19:34] SPEAKER_02: And that book is fantastic about it.
[19:36] SPEAKER_01: So thinking of that one word, if you had to pick one word to describe yourself,
[19:41] SPEAKER_01: what would it be in why?
[19:43] SPEAKER_02: It would be now I would hope for it to be grit.
[19:47] SPEAKER_02: Because of all of the challenges we've been through as a company,
[19:51] SPEAKER_02: either raising money, hiring employees.
[19:53] SPEAKER_01: I think grit, tenacity, perseverance, these are all really good.
[19:59] SPEAKER_01: If you're not that, then you're not going to be an entrepreneur basically.
[20:04] SPEAKER_02: It will be very hard.
[20:04] SPEAKER_02: There's a great movie called True Grit.
[20:06] SPEAKER_02: It's about a little girl's journey and grit.
[20:11] SPEAKER_01: What's keeping you up at night?
[20:13] SPEAKER_02: So I recently gave up caffeine and so my sleep has gone so much better.
[20:20] SPEAKER_02: So I'm not as much up as much anymore.
[20:24] SPEAKER_02: But the times that are I am, probably a couple of times a month, thinking about the evolution
[20:30] SPEAKER_02: of the company.
[20:31] SPEAKER_02: At the pace we're growing, we're a new company every month.
[20:34] SPEAKER_02: Sorry, every nine months.
[20:36] SPEAKER_02: Like maybe 50% bigger, more insurance partners, more customer, different scope added in.
[20:43] SPEAKER_02: So really thinking about what do we need to do differently to be ready for the next evolution
[20:49] SPEAKER_02: of the company?
[20:50] SPEAKER_02: What skill sets do we need?
[20:51] SPEAKER_02: What partnerships do we need?
[20:53] SPEAKER_02: How much capital do we need?
[20:54] SPEAKER_02: Probably a couple of times a month.
[20:56] SPEAKER_02: I'm up at three or four in the morning.
[20:58] SPEAKER_02: I can't sleep and I'm thinking about this.
[21:01] SPEAKER_02: And how do someone that's like an individual contributor now?
[21:04] SPEAKER_02: Will they make it to the manager level?
[21:05] SPEAKER_02: What will it take for us to support them on that journey so that they can
[21:09] SPEAKER_02: take their division to the next level?
[21:12] SPEAKER_02: What's next for everybody in the company?
[21:15] SPEAKER_01: So what's your most favorite place in the world?
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: Is it Toronto or is it somewhere else?
[21:21] SPEAKER_02: Depends if you're asking favorite place to live, absolutely Toronto.
[21:26] SPEAKER_02: There's only a few other places that I think I could go to for a period of time,
[21:29] SPEAKER_02: but I'd want to come back.
[21:30] SPEAKER_02: So if it's to live without hesitation, I'd be here.
[21:34] SPEAKER_02: If it's to visit, there's lots of different places for different regions.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: But I think the simple answer to your place is Toronto.
[21:41] SPEAKER_01: You probably heard the tropical island question.
[21:44] SPEAKER_01: If you say you've listened to some of your other buddies that they've done it,
[21:48] SPEAKER_01: you know, and we do it for kind of fun anyway.
[21:52] SPEAKER_01: You know, so there's a small tropical island in the middle of the ocean.
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: There's no technology.
[21:59] SPEAKER_01: All there is is an old-style phone booth, basically.
[22:03] SPEAKER_01: We drop you off there and you could make a phone call whenever you want
[22:08] SPEAKER_01: first to come and pick you up.
[22:10] SPEAKER_01: How long do you last?
[22:12] SPEAKER_01: And what do you do?
[22:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've definitely heard this question.
[22:17] SPEAKER_02: So as an entrepreneur, we never like to hear no.
[22:20] SPEAKER_02: We never like to see boundaries.
[22:21] SPEAKER_02: We always like to challenge things.
[22:22] SPEAKER_02: So first thing I do is challenge the phone and see if I can actually make a call
[22:26] SPEAKER_02: and order supplies.
[22:28] SPEAKER_02: My laptop is at a phone, something so I can set up an office there.
[22:33] SPEAKER_02: But let's say that's not possible for whatever reason.
[22:37] SPEAKER_02: What I, first I do,
[22:39] SPEAKER_02: discount for supplies, food, water, etc.
[22:41] SPEAKER_02: And I've always thought about going to one of those Vipassana 10-day silenced retreats.
[22:47] SPEAKER_02: I just thinking about it, I don't know how I would force myself to
[22:51] SPEAKER_02: disengage from life for 10 days.
[22:54] SPEAKER_02: So if I truly was stuck on this island, I would spend those 10 days
[22:58] SPEAKER_02: that would be assigned to say, this is now your time to do the 10-day silenced retreat.
[23:02] SPEAKER_02: So I would do that and then call to be taken home.
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
[23:06] SPEAKER_01: It's funny how people respond to that.
[23:08] SPEAKER_01: So, Dennis, thanks very much for the interview.
[23:12] SPEAKER_01: Really good input, some good gems there.
[23:16] SPEAKER_01: And I always like, people listen and they see us and they often have questions,
[23:22] SPEAKER_01: especially of you, not so much of me.
[23:25] SPEAKER_01: So how could people get a hold of you if they do?
[23:29] SPEAKER_02: Best is LinkedIn.
[23:30] SPEAKER_02: They can find me on LinkedIn, Don Eschusef,
[23:33] SPEAKER_02: and shoot me a message or engage with me there.
[23:35] SPEAKER_02: I'm often active on LinkedIn, but that's the best place.
[23:40] SPEAKER_01: Dennis, once again, thanks very much for coming on Candace Podcast.
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: It's been great.
[23:45] SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
[23:46] SPEAKER_01: Thanks everyone for taking the time today to listen to Toronto's podcast
[23:50] SPEAKER_01: on the Candace Podcast Network.
[23:52] SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed the podcast today.
[23:55] SPEAKER_01: Make sure you sign up for a news service or write a review for us on iTunes.
[24:00] SPEAKER_01: Even connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
[24:03] SPEAKER_01: or at CandacePodcast.com, where you can listen, discover, and engage.
[24:09] SPEAKER_01: You can also check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country.
[24:12] SPEAKER_01: I'll see you next time.
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