Entrepreneurship with James Lochrie – Wave Apps

After speaking with James, it turns out he’s a Toronto native, on “vacation”, think more like retirement/searching for new opportunities, for about six months now. All around stand-up guy, with a clear passion for entrepreneurship (more specifically, designing your product so that it creates the custom experience it should).

A quick note, I’m figuring out how to use WordPress as a blogging platform as I go… Along with the writing styles. To date, this website looks like shit.

Anyways, it was great to speak with someone involved in this field; someone who’s found success, and the real meal deal when it comes to creating your own success story. He started Wave Apps some time ago, I’d guess 2012ish, received $50 million in venture capital funding, and was one of the first tech companies to emerge from Toronto after the tech crash. A real true success story.

To date, Wave Apps is in the top three accounting software’s worldwide.

So what did I learn?
“Entrepreneurs seek opportunities. The reason that I’m speaking to you right now is because you saw the opportunity to approach me, and seized it. That’s what investors like to see. That’s what entrepreneurs need”
“Investors are invested in the individual. Equally to the margin’s, they take into consideration the person running the business is”
“You should always seek investment in a position of strength”
“I used to work 80 hours/week. After x years of that, I’m good to take a break”
“Investors invest in the value they expect your company to be valued in the future. On that note, business valuation is an art”
All around, it was a great meet up. There were takeaways in many aspects from the above, and I certainly can’t write more than this (other shit to do).

My takeaways:

CupCast is a good to go.

Should network now with investors. It will be valuable in the future for them to see development (without asking for money), so then later when you do wish to ask for investment, they’ve seen your growth.

Develop target demographics for each potential client, and explain how they can be targeted effectively through CupCast

James was a stand-up guy, interested in creating a legacy in Calgary by spurring the start of a cohesive tech society. 30 years more, he’s going to be da man.

To wrap up. It was a great meet up, and great to share such enthusiasm with someone who’s actually found his success. Not to mention that he is interested in meeting up on a regular basis to exchange ideas and that he is looking for individuals like me to take on future projects!

Sounds like the start of a great relationship! And a great turn of events after missing a meeting earlier in the morning.

Worth it.

Also, I did mentioned the whole entire camera app idea, with positioning and shareable stories. He shared the stoke saying that it was an idea which would engage the users. Hopefully he doesn’t steal it.

Thoughts of a ho, now you know