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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: Hi there. I'm Phil Bliss, a business visionary and host of Toronto's podcast, a member of the Canada's
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: podcast network. Today I'd like to introduce you to Rima Dugal. Rima is a strategic IT professional and technology entrepreneur with significant experience in the global IT industry,
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: which helps companies grow revenues and profitability by expansion in their digital business channels.
[00:53] SPEAKER_00: Rima is a seasoned tech leader with a strong blend of revenue generation experience, strategy, marketing, portfolio management and delivery management experience, as well as she has practice leadership, as well as program and project management expertise.
[01:09] SPEAKER_00: She has a solid track record in building and managing IT professional services, practices and project delivery teams.
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: She's also the co-founder of Silicon Halton, which started up nine years ago and is where I met Rima. Now with over 1,500 members Silicon Halton is a real hub of technology entrepreneurs in Halton, which includes Burlington, Oakville and Milton, a population based of approximately 1 million plus and a real entrepreneur in the GTA economy.
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: Well, hi, Rima. Great to have you. Thank you. Rima, why do you tell us a little bit more about yourself, the way you're from, give us the details on your current business or businesses, you know, a little bit of a, you know, a five minute bio.
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: Sure. Thank you very much, Phil. Well, my name is Rima Dugal. I have a couple of different ventures. One of them is called the satire and group and the satire and group is based in Oakville, Ontario.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: We help companies, as you mentioned, build digital business channels. Mostly I work with manufacturers, distributors and technology companies and we really help them sell their products around the world.
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: Second venture is Silicon Halton, as you mentioned, and it's also based here in the Holtner region, where as you said, a group of about 1,500 members that really help the technology ecosystem thrive.
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: Members learn about technology. They connect with like-minded peers and they grow their brands and their businesses. So we do a whole bunch of meetups and peer-to-peer groups and events like that to connect people and we have a thriving online community also.
[02:46] SPEAKER_01: It's been a great source of interesting events and people and a great way to grow our own networks here.
[02:53] SPEAKER_01: And I have a third venture called Configure and it helps manufacturers and distributors that make custom make to order products grow their business by being able to sell online.
[03:04] SPEAKER_01: I was born in India, I grew up in the Maritimes, but I've lived here in Holtner region now since 1997, so long time.
[03:11] SPEAKER_00: It sounds great. I just want to ask you a few things about your entrepreneurship. What are things I'm always interested in? What was your stop moment when you decided to become an entrepreneur?
[03:23] SPEAKER_00: What really kind of said, oh, I got to go off and do it myself kind of thing?
[03:29] SPEAKER_01: Well, for some people they make that decision. Other people, I think sometimes the decisions partly made for them. So I had been working with for a multinational and it was like 2000s and I was really right sized out of a job.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: And at that point, the decision was do I go back and work for another technology company? Certainly there were opportunities out there and if I worked hard at it, I'm sure I would have found an opportunity in another large multinational firm.
[03:59] SPEAKER_01: But I think I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and it was it was the right time. My kids were younger and it was an opportunity for me to spend more time with them and start to grow my business.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: I also wanted to work with smaller companies having worked for multinationals. It was always giant clients and giant teams and that was really a lot of fun. It was very interesting and very challenging.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to go work with smaller companies where I could work with the owner operators and really helped them change their business.
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: So I made a very you know, 362 well 180 degree turn and said, let's go to these small companies. And as I started doing that, I felt much, I think very rewarded. I felt much better about the work I was doing on a day-to-day basis. And from there, it was just a decision to stay down that path. And I don't think there's ever any turning back. Now I'm into it, you know, 10 years. So certainly this is my path.
[04:58] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the other thing is sort of the thing thing. It's a big step to take that jump. How did you consider it? You know, you know, you grew up, you know, really working in large corporations, certainly working with large corporations. What made you, you know, what were the think steps that took you to where you are today? Because you've refined your expertise quite significantly.
[05:26] SPEAKER_01: I think the think steps work. At first, it was trying to work with small to midsize companies with still the knowledge that I had from the multinationals.
[05:39] SPEAKER_01: So I think one of the think steps was the unthinking. You actually have to unlearn a lot of the jargon, a lot of the ways large companies work to be able to work with smaller companies.
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the processes are still the same. I mean, small companies and big companies, they all market. They'll have similar value chains. They market, they sell, they manufacture, they, first of all, sorry, they design, they manufacture, then they deliver, they manage their supply chain, they manage their operations. Those things are all the same.
[06:11] SPEAKER_01: And the technology that they need is similar, but at a very different scale. So what I had to stop doing was using big company jargon and stop using the $20 words all the time and start using much simpler language.
[06:28] SPEAKER_01: That was the language of small business. The second thing I think is, at first, I was much broader in my offerings and what I could possibly offer.
[06:37] SPEAKER_01: But as time came on, I learned that the more you specialize and I have my whole focus is on building digital sales channels. The more you focus, the easier it is to find business that it's easier to refer people.
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: If you do everything is hard to say, we'll go talk to that person. But when you narrow your focus, you become much more of an expert in that area and people come to you for your knowledge and your expertise and your ability to get things done.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: So I think those are the things that I had to unthink and then narrow my focus very much.
[07:09] SPEAKER_00: Very interesting. I really like that explanation. So I think the hardest thing is getting the focus basically. So you stepped out of one world into another.
[07:21] SPEAKER_00: You started to unlearn things as you said. Tell us how you took action. You got things rolling. How do you began to focus on building those ideas into a real business?
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: When you're an entrepreneur, at the beginning, you go after all business. That was the idea. So I did a lot of different things.
[07:47] SPEAKER_01: At the beginning, I was helping companies get online somehow. There wasn't really a focus specifically on e-commerce at the beginning. And 10 years ago, they still needed a lot of that.
[07:58] SPEAKER_01: But we would walk through that whole value chain that I described a few minutes ago. We would talk about business processes that they had in their company.
[08:08] SPEAKER_01: The applications that they needed to be able to deliver on those processes, the technology infrastructure. Today's world everything is cloud, but 10 years ago, it wasn't always cloud-based.
[08:19] SPEAKER_01: The organization that they have inside their company, the kind of people that they had that could do some of these things that would help them sell online.
[08:27] SPEAKER_01: And then the governance around how their processes needed to be done. Because if they were selling on the phone or face to face, they just made things up as they went.
[08:37] SPEAKER_01: But when you go online, everything has to be transparent. You have to have built-in processes or built-in governance on around all your processes.
[08:46] SPEAKER_01: Because it has to be put out there for everybody to see in the same way. And so for me, as I started talking to companies about that, what I learned is those that were ready to sell online were more and more likely target.
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: Because they were ready to make money online. If you weren't ready to make money online, it's a slower decision-making process for you.
[09:09] SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'll upgrade your website or maybe you'll upgrade your presence and do some other things. But when you can start making money online, they started to be more active and more ready to go faster. That's how I narrowed my focus.
[09:23] SPEAKER_00: So the big thing, I think that lots of upcoming entrepreneurs is financing. And you want to start something. But how do you finance it? And you're interested in how you did.
[09:37] SPEAKER_00: And also, along with that, how long did it take you to get to where you were making money? You're a profitable kind of thing.
[09:47] SPEAKER_01: So as a services business, there's the cost of entry is very small. Really, if you have a laptop and you can get some software, you're ready to go.
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: So I looked at first, I never considered financing for myself. I always knew that I was going to bootstrap it. I also knew that if in the first few years I wasn't making money, then I would have to think about what I was going to do.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: So I was able to start making money within, I'd say, by the second year. I mean, enough that I felt that this was where I was going to stay.
[10:21] SPEAKER_01: The business has grown over time. But I think the bigger thing is that the opportunity for financing has presented itself more than once.
[10:30] SPEAKER_01: And I haven't to this date felt I've needed it. But that's also because I've stayed relatively small. There's myself and a host of other people that I tap into within the Silicon Holt and community.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of partnerships there that people work on projects together or we work on clients together. So because of Silicon Holt, I've not needed to bring full time staff into my business, but have been able to contract out for all the other needs that I have.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: Now that being said, there are days now that I start to wonder, I've been doing it now for 10 years. If I want to continue to do this, I have to scale so I can take time off and so I can do some other things that I'd like to do.
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: So I think the time might be coming soon.
[11:18] SPEAKER_00: OK, well, that's interesting because you're going to say, what does your business model look like? And it sounds like you've got a focus on how it looks today and how it might look as you scale it a bit.
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: So you see your company expanding into other areas of Canada or elsewhere. You seem to have very much kind of a Holt and region slash Toronto focus.
[11:39] SPEAKER_01: I do and I purposely chose that up till now, you know, just it was easier. It was where I wanted to be and there was business to be had, but that doesn't mean that I can't change that as I go forward.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: I think another thing that I'd like to consider as I go forward beyond expanding in expansion, you can work online at any time or we can get the work done.
[12:06] SPEAKER_01: So it's not necessary that I have to have all clients, but because I wanted to go see them, it was just easier for me.
[12:12] SPEAKER_01: But as I go forward, one of the things I'm considering is building some programs that allow me to teach what I know to people so that they can buy from me in ways that they don't have to work with me personally or probably maybe even a program that allows me to sell some of that course where online with some, you know, one on one time over the phone with me.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: I think then I can help a lot more people than I've been able to help today because up till now, it's been, you know, services work and project work and retainer type work.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: So that's my goal for for next year for 2019 is actually to get that started. I hope I get it finished, but I'd like to at least get started.
[12:53] SPEAKER_00: You know, this particular drone, the spot cast has a focus on the GTHA.
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: What would you say the biggest benefits are for you about being an entrepreneur in this area? Why here versus Vancouver?
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the ecosystem is huge. You know, we're really lucky to have so many different organizations to tap into whether it's Silicon Halton or other tech associations or just that the organization is going to be a big deal.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: There's events that are happening on any given day, whether you go look at meetup.com or event, right?
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: If there's anything you want to learn about or anything you want to participate in or anything you want to meet people, you're going to find it within the GTHA.
[13:36] SPEAKER_01: I also think that there's a lot happening on this West end that, you know, people in Toronto don't necessarily know about.
[13:43] SPEAKER_01: I know when sometimes people have come out from Toronto to some of our events out here, they've been surprised at the level of knowledge and the quality of the people and the quality of the relationships that get formed.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: So I just think that that's the biggest reason. Now not to say the Vancouver doesn't have that, but with Toronto being such an important part in the tech center sector and now, you know, being recognized internationally as a V-place for, you know,
[14:12] SPEAKER_01: AI leadership and just as a technology center of excellence, I think we can't go wrong. We're very fortunate. I'm happy to be here.
[14:21] SPEAKER_00: So a couple of different approaches. You know, we do some of our best work outside the office. Is there a place in Toronto or the GTA or close to the city where you like to recharge, get inspired or just to think?
[14:36] SPEAKER_01: So I like to think locally by walking. I live very near a trail system here in Oakville. I can go down the end of my street and walk down into the valley and I can walk and think there.
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: But in terms of thinking about business, I get charged very much by I always have to go back to the people that within our Silicon Halt and community inspire me every single day by what they do.
[15:00] SPEAKER_01: I learn from every one of them all the time and I get charged by them because there's always new ideas coming out of those that crowd.
[15:09] SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's self-serving in a sense. They are my people. They are from my industry. And so I know that if I want to reach out, I can, it's like having a large company, but of, you know, individual members to tap into it any given time.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: I reach into that community always first to get inspiration and, you know, get really thinking about new ideas.
[15:34] SPEAKER_01: In terms of where I work best, I work best at home. When I leave home and I go work at a co-working space or somewhere else like that, I mostly end up talking. I don't, I don't, I don't work because at home, I work with multiple screens and, you know, large, large monitors and stuff like that when I get out. It's with my laptop.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: I just end up keeping it shut and I start talking to people.
[15:56] SPEAKER_00: If you were to start all over again and you just moved here, what would you do? How would you do it? How would you start over again as an entrepreneur?
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think, I mean, the one thing I would probably do looking back is I probably would have scaled sooner for various reasons I didn't.
[16:16] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, when they had to do with my family and the H.A. were at and all the different things that were happening.
[16:22] SPEAKER_01: But I think I would probably scale sooner because I just think that would have been important.
[16:27] SPEAKER_01: But if I was a newcomer right now, I go back to what we just talked about. Why is G.T.H.A. such a great people are a great place to be.
[16:36] SPEAKER_01: I would start getting connected in all these organizations and all these communities and get out there and start talking about what I do best.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: And I think that those connections would help get it started. I know it's hard for newcomers sometimes because they feel that they don't have Canadian experience or whatever.
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: But I see that changing a lot in the tech industry. I see the people that have the skills to really do good work are finding great opportunities and are starting to build client faces.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure I'd do it a whole lot differently, but I'd probably scale sooner.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: And I think I would tell that other entrepreneurs too. You think you have to get to a certain point before you're ready to scale.
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: But I don't know. I think it's always good to try.
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: What does the first hour of your day look like? When you get up in the morning, do you have a specific routine to get you motivated to start your day off?
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: Yes, I try not to look at my phone for the first hour. Doesn't always work. It doesn't really doesn't.
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: But I start, yeah, I get up around six most days and go down, make my coffee.
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: My coffee is a very simple humble, nest cafe and Tim Horton's hot chocolate, a spoon of each.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: So mixed up sort of like a poor man's mocha, Gino. And then I sit down and I start to read.
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: I tend to try to read business things first before I go get caught up in news or Twitter or whatever.
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: I try to focus on the things that I really am interested in business so that I can again think and charge my brain.
[18:14] SPEAKER_01: But that's pretty much my first hour most days. Then I get out and go for a walk if I can.
[18:22] SPEAKER_01: Not all days because some days in meetings start very early. And then I get to work.
[18:27] SPEAKER_01: Then I read the emails and I do everything else. I don't start with my emails.
[18:32] SPEAKER_00: Do you think entrepreneurs have to be kind of weird or unique? Do you think they're wired differently?
[18:40] SPEAKER_01: I think they are wired differently. But I think they always have to want to try new things.
[18:49] SPEAKER_01: They always have to want to learn. They always have to want to do more than the clients asking for.
[18:58] SPEAKER_01: And I think they have to want, really they want to be, I don't, it's not alone, but they want to be in charge of their own destiny.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: And I really think that when you're working in a company, it's all about being part of the team.
[19:15] SPEAKER_01: And when you want to be an entrepreneur, it's all about leading what you want to do. You're destiny.
[19:22] SPEAKER_01: Now that doesn't mean you don't have a team that you're bringing along with you. But I really think you want, you like the independence.
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be, I guess, managed by someone.
[19:32] SPEAKER_01: I think that's why if what I talked to other entrepreneurs, that's what they all say. They just want to do their own thing. They're not, they're not interested in that.
[19:42] SPEAKER_01: And many of us have worked in corporate life. So we know what it is. And we liked it at the time. I think we thrived in it.
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: But then there comes a point where you want to do something different.
[19:53] SPEAKER_00: So what books are you reading now? And can you recommend any books for a list of the, they may find interesting as entrepreneurs, things that have inspired you?
[20:05] SPEAKER_01: Well, so I listen to books more than I read.
[20:08] SPEAKER_01: I do. I listen to Unaudible. I have three on the go right now. And I'm sad to say that I'm not more than about two chapters in on any of them.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: From a business perspective, it's Seth Godin's new book on marketing. Very good. And then from a personal or just fiction, not fiction, the sort of nonfiction.
[20:28] SPEAKER_01: I was listening to Becoming by Michelle Obama. I think the one that I listened to this year that was really, really eye opening, I guess, was fear Trump in the White House.
[20:39] SPEAKER_01: That one I listened to earlier in the year. And boys, there's a lot that shook me to my core.
[20:48] SPEAKER_01: I think it should shake a lot of us. Yeah, well, you know, we hope that, you know, things will be calm and peaceful in the US going forward.
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: But I'm sure they will be. It's a great country. So all things happen for a reason.
[21:06] SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about that, you know, that work, life balance. You know, how do you relax? Where's your sanctuary?
[21:12] SPEAKER_00: You know, what activities do you, do you know, your favorite activities?
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: Well, the walks down the valley to think that I like the valley. It's a nice valley.
[21:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I like golfing in the summer. I don't do enough of that. That would be my big, my big summer thing.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: Winter wise, I started Pilates somewhere mid fall. I enjoy that a lot. I should do more of that too.
[21:41] SPEAKER_01: So where's my sanctuary? You know, as an entrepreneur, you'd say, oh, well, I go off and I do other things all the time.
[21:48] SPEAKER_01: But I think as an entrepreneur, often you're saying, jewelry is thinking about your business.
[21:53] SPEAKER_01: And that's not necessarily a great thing. But I don't know too many entrepreneurs that say, hey, you know, I can just get away from it.
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: Like when they're thinking about their business and cool ideas are coming ways that they can help people.
[22:06] SPEAKER_01: I think they're often very, very focused and they feel that's their space.
[22:12] SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing what you do now, what would you like to do for a profession?
[22:18] SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's funny because I started my career in the hospitality industry.
[22:22] SPEAKER_01: I worked for Sharet and Hotels for a long time. And I really enjoyed that.
[22:28] SPEAKER_01: I think if I wasn't doing this, I might go back to hospitality. Although it's a wonderful.
[22:34] SPEAKER_01: It seems like a wonderful life, but it's a hard life because it's always about the quantity of time you put in, not the quality of time.
[22:41] SPEAKER_01: The minute you're not there, something goes wrong.
[22:44] SPEAKER_01: And you're always working when everyone else is playing.
[22:47] SPEAKER_01: So every holiday, every big event like New Year's Eve, you'd be working.
[22:51] SPEAKER_01: So I might do that, but maybe a travel company, you know, maybe something where I could take people on tour.
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: So then I could just go travel the planet.
[23:00] SPEAKER_00: What kind of job would you not like to do?
[23:04] SPEAKER_01: I think something where it would be repetitive, fundamentally.
[23:07] SPEAKER_01: I'm not. When I was working in corporate life, I was always good at taking on projects where there was chaos.
[23:14] SPEAKER_01: And I had to lead it to get to a point of, you know, calmness.
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: I wasn't the best when I was told, here's what you have to go do.
[23:24] SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to tell you how to do it.
[23:26] SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to measure you every day on it, that kind of thing.
[23:29] SPEAKER_01: So I would say the kind of job that was fairly repetitive.
[23:33] SPEAKER_01: And maybe I don't want to say easy, but repetitive and comfortable.
[23:37] SPEAKER_01: Then I don't thrive in that kind of environment.
[23:41] SPEAKER_00: In business, what's your favorite word or quote or your sentence you like to use?
[23:47] SPEAKER_00: And what is your least favorite word or sentence you don't like to hear?
[23:55] SPEAKER_01: A favorite quote by Gandhi that is be the change you want to see in the world.
[24:01] SPEAKER_01: Anytime we talk about, you know, can't do this or we can't do that in terms of change, I think we have to be that change at any given time.
[24:10] SPEAKER_01: The least favorite, I guess, is probably we can't.
[24:17] SPEAKER_01: Meaning we can't because there's some crazy reason we can't we can always try.
[24:24] SPEAKER_01: I don't feel I hear that very often with my clients.
[24:27] SPEAKER_01: I mean, once in a while, sometimes there's a situation that it's not so much the main client,
[24:34] SPEAKER_01: but somebody on their team says, well, we can't because they give you all these reasons.
[24:38] SPEAKER_01: You know that they have to change and they have to do things differently.
[24:43] SPEAKER_01: They have to accept change.
[24:45] SPEAKER_01: So it's not when you say you don't like to hear, I don't like to hear it,
[24:49] SPEAKER_01: but there's always ways around it.
[24:51] SPEAKER_01: That's what I try to work on with my clients.
[24:53] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick on two words to describe yourself, what would they be and why?
[24:59] SPEAKER_01: First one I would say is works hard and that's not one word, that's two words, but anyway, I think I work.
[25:07] SPEAKER_01: I'm driven by my business.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: I love doing what I do and I love helping my clients in that way.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: And I work really hard at making sure they get more than they've asked for.
[25:18] SPEAKER_01: Second one would be I think I want to be known as being authentic.
[25:25] SPEAKER_01: And by that, I mean, when I work with a client or anything in my business, I really want it to be about that what I do for them, I do in a way that like their business was my business.
[25:41] SPEAKER_01: So I don't look at it as how much money can I make off of them?
[25:43] SPEAKER_01: I work at what do they need to do to get done to grow their business?
[25:49] SPEAKER_01: And what would I do if I was in their shoes?
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: And that I think you have to have a level of authenticity about you to be able to play that, to be able to work that way.
[25:58] SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise you're just saying how much money can I make?
[26:01] SPEAKER_01: And clients will always come back to you over and over when you take, when you put yourself in their shoes as opposed to just as a service provider.
[26:13] SPEAKER_00: Give me the top three things on what item you're inspired lifeless.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00: Those three things that inspire you.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: My family.
[26:25] SPEAKER_01: I have two boys, one's in university, one's in high school.
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: They inspire me. I learn a lot from them.
[26:32] SPEAKER_01: My husband also, for sure, he's also in the tech industry.
[26:35] SPEAKER_01: So my family, my work, my clients.
[26:40] SPEAKER_01: I guess my clients, I learn so much from them.
[26:44] SPEAKER_01: And the manufacturing and distribution businesses are changing so much in the tech industry.
[26:49] SPEAKER_01: Every day when I talk to them and I learn from them, I'm fascinated by the amazing things that they're able to do.
[26:56] SPEAKER_00: I can only agree with you on that one.
[26:59] SPEAKER_01: And then I would say, you know, it sounds, my friends, but there's my business friends and my personal friends.
[27:06] SPEAKER_01: My business friends, I know through work and through Silicon Halton.
[27:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm always inspired by them and my personal friends too.
[27:15] SPEAKER_01: I have a really good group of friends that we have known each other since our university days at Delhouse University.
[27:22] SPEAKER_01: And they inspire me greatly.
[27:24] SPEAKER_01: I just ran into them this, so not ran that we met again this past weekend.
[27:28] SPEAKER_01: And I learn a lot from them.
[27:30] SPEAKER_01: And I'm happy to be a part of that group.
[27:37] SPEAKER_00: So here's his coming coming closing to the end.
[27:41] SPEAKER_00: I love this.
[27:41] SPEAKER_00: I love this question.
[27:44] SPEAKER_00: There's a small tropical island just off VG that only has one phone booths and there's no internet.
[27:51] SPEAKER_00: We drop you off there and you won't have a computer or smartphone or tablet.
[27:55] SPEAKER_00: You can use the phone booths located there anytime to call the boat and we'll come pick you up.
[28:01] SPEAKER_00: How long would you last before you made that call and what would you do there while you were there?
[28:09] SPEAKER_01: Is it warm there?
[28:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's tropical.
[28:13] SPEAKER_00: Tropical, okay.
[28:14] SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
[28:15] SPEAKER_01: So I'd last a month.
[28:18] SPEAKER_01: What would I do for a month?
[28:20] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think first, you know, you just de-stress or D.
[28:25] SPEAKER_01: You just get rid of all the things that have been, you know, on your mind and all that kind of stuff.
[28:30] SPEAKER_01: I would have no problem hanging out in the sun and the sand and the water.
[28:35] SPEAKER_01: I don't take enough time for ourselves.
[28:38] SPEAKER_01: I know that.
[28:38] SPEAKER_01: I certainly don't.
[28:40] SPEAKER_01: But if I had that opportunity, I think I'd take it for sure.
[28:44] SPEAKER_01: I could just relax and meditate and just think about nothing.
[28:50] SPEAKER_01: I probably sleep.
[28:51] SPEAKER_01: I think that's the other thing we deprive ourselves too much of his sleep.
[28:55] SPEAKER_01: Even though we think we're getting enough sleep, we often don't.
[28:58] SPEAKER_01: People say you should get eight to ten hours and I think I get eight to ten hours maybe twice a year.
[29:03] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, those are the things I do.
[29:07] SPEAKER_00: Have you any advice that you may have received?
[29:11] SPEAKER_00: You know, that you'd like to pass on to entrepreneurs that listen to our podcast?
[29:16] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the most important thing is you have to do something you love doing.
[29:21] SPEAKER_01: If you don't, you won't last with it.
[29:24] SPEAKER_01: And you have to find clients that you love working with.
[29:27] SPEAKER_01: One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is you get to choose your clients.
[29:32] SPEAKER_01: If there's somebody you don't like working with, it's not hard to walk away.
[29:36] SPEAKER_01: So, choose what you love.
[29:38] SPEAKER_01: Choose the kind of people you want to work with because if you like the people, they will inspire you.
[29:44] SPEAKER_01: And number three goes back to my think.
[29:46] SPEAKER_01: Think about scaling sooner than your comfortable scaling.
[29:49] SPEAKER_01: Because I think if you do that, your business will, you know, boom.
[29:55] SPEAKER_01: And that's a great thing.
[29:57] SPEAKER_01: You'll look back going, so that was a good time.
[30:01] SPEAKER_00: How can our listeners get hold of you and is there anything else you'd like to add before you leave us today?
[30:08] SPEAKER_01: Well, you can get hold of me by going to www.sataren.com.
[30:13] SPEAKER_01: That's s-i-t-a-r-a-n.com.
[30:16] SPEAKER_01: Or you can email me at infoatsataren.com.
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: I'd also encourage you to look at the Silicon Halt & Webstays to see if you're in the tech industry and you're in Halt & Region.
[30:26] SPEAKER_01: If you have any interest, it's a great community.
[30:29] SPEAKER_01: Anything else, no, I want to say thank you very much.
[30:32] SPEAKER_01: I think being an entrepreneur is a great, great thing for everybody to try it.
[30:36] SPEAKER_01: At least once in their life.
[30:39] SPEAKER_01: And it's not perfect for everyone.
[30:42] SPEAKER_01: But if you are independent in your hard working, and you love having great clients and love finding clients and love working for clients,
[30:50] SPEAKER_01: then it's a great experience.
[30:53] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[30:54] SPEAKER_00: Well, Rema, thank you.
[30:56] SPEAKER_00: And like the thanker audience, thanks for listening to Toronto's podcast, a member of Canada's podcast network.
