Patrick Salomon

Huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our Growth and Financing event last week in Toronto with our friends at Loop Financial 🏦👏 Starting a business is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do… until you start looking for answers to funding and fundraising. Thankfully, we were able to bring together an expert panel of successful CPG founders, VC investors, and entrepreneurs for a night to ask all the difficult, niche, unGoogleable questions. Here's my two biggest takeaways! 👇 💡 Venture financing comes with a high bar of expectations. Look for non-dilutive options like grants and a line of credit first. 💡 Learn the impact between a P&L and a forecasting model. If you don't know how to create a thoughtful forecasting model, hire someone who does! Huge thank you to Laura Burget at Three Ships Beauty, Charlene Li at EATABLE INC., and Colin Harding at BrandProject LP for being our amazing panelists. Also huge thanks to Christian Harinarain and Loop Financial for hosting the event with us at Centro Commerce. Can't wait for the next one! 👏 #fundraising #financing #torontoevents #CPG #ecommerce

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I rarely share podcast episodes here. But this one is a MUST listen to both INVESTORS and founders operating in bricks&mortar hospitality & retail technology. So many true, real, no BS points Dax Harry Stebbings. 👏🏼 Be bold enough to operate with a sales strategy and approach that many VCs won’t understand or approve but that works wonders in that space and builds this amazing, sticky, powerful model that most platforms in the space can’t crack or are afraid to (because it doesn’t tick some boxes you read/hear about from the tech/VC experts) 🚀 A growth trajectory that changes and originally is not on the typical VC path but then, once the “cockroach”, groundwork is done you’re in an exciting and unique position to scale with a product market fit that’s hard to beat - PMF and growth not achieved due to endless millions raised but a real PMF that makes thing sticky, powering your product-led growth 👊🏼 Stay super close to your customers. No matter how big you become, but especially in the first 5-10 years literally speak to them DAILY. Not many manage to make it work for hospitality or retail SMEs, it’s one of the hardest group to find PMF with. But once you nail it - you’re like a constantly growing massive mountain 🏔️ - sky is limit & no one can’t move you no matter what. Don’t build businesses to please an investor’s thesis/POV which you’re currently talking to or following on LinkedIn. Build a business together with your ICP customers and bring them the most value you possibly can. The rest will follow. Even the ticked boxes that you read so much about.

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I stayed up coding until 4am so many nights for two years when I started Lightspeed Commerce — to me, this is part of the entrepreneur journey. Had a blast reflecting on those early years and discussing the challenges and opportunities of navigating a tech startup with Harry Stebbings from 20VC. Some takeaways: - Achieving strong product-market fit requires an iterative, customer-centric approach — especially with early users. Lightspeed wouldn’t have achieved profitability if we weren’t so close to our customers. - Companies can take different paths to scale, each with its trade-offs — some bootstrap profitably for years before taking VC funding. Sometimes you need the slow-burn process to create something truly phenomenal. - Founders must be willing to adapt their sales and distribution strategies as the business matures, especially after going public. If you’re a founder or entrepreneur, I think this episode will provide lots of value. Thank you to Harry and the team at 20VC for having me. Links to the interview in the comments 👇

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In today's 'Ecom Pro Tip' Arielle Levitan and Romy Block, Co-founders at Vous Vitamin, provide us with an incredibly smart tactic to help convert high intent visitors to highly engaged customers. By enabling customers to establish a more personal connection and get to know the brand's founders better via AI personalized videos from them, Vous Vitamin is able to effectively create upfront trust and drive significantly higher levels of engagement. What are some smart ways in which you leverage AI for your brand today?

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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A bit late on this one, but I couldn’t help sharing! 🙌 I absolutely love it when our work not only improves our clients' operations but solves real problems for their customers. As a parent of two, I know firsthand how time-consuming it can be to shop for school supplies—whether in-store or online. 🛒 The fact that Magasin Le Compte’s customers can now buy their kids' entire school supplies in just 2 minutes is a total game-changer! 🎒 This is what commerce should be about: creating thoughtful solutions that address complex needs and make life easier. A big thank you to Éric Lecompte and Annabelle Lecompte for sharing their vision and collaborating with to bring it to life. Together, we created a solution that simplifies the back-to-school rush and makes a difference for parents. Shoutout to our partners for their contribution: Gorgias, Klaviyo, Rewind, Fast Simon! Here’s to building solutions that truly make a difference! #Ecommerce #Shopify #CustomerExperience #BackToSchool #CommerceInnovation

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AI is not just hype but can deliver $$$ as well ! Shopify ($SHOP) just announced its quarterly results yesterday, surpassing everyone's expectations on revenue growth. This impressive performance has led to a 14% surge in after-hours trading. And Shopify owes a big thanks for this to AI. Shopify has been quick to strategic integration of AI into its platform. Tools like Shopify Magic and Sidekick are designed to enhance merchant productivity by automating tasks such as product description generation, image editing, and customer support. These AI-powered features not only streamline operations for users but also contribute to Shopify's revenue growth by attracting and retaining a larger merchant base. At Una Brands, we have been first to leverage Shopify's AI capabilities to gain deeper business insights and boost productivity. We have seen improved productivity and it has enhanced our decision-making processes almost immediately. I share more frequent updates and insights on Twitter/X. To stay informed with real-time updates, please follow me on https://x.com/kirentanna (follow back guaranteed :)

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Acquisition offers often start by having initial conversations.   But what happens when those initial conversations evolve into something much bigger? Here's how Étienne Mérineau and the Heyday team’s journey unfolded: Etienne was approached by a product manager from Hootsuite interested in a demo of his platform. At the time, it seemed like a straightforward request, with no hint of M&A on the horizon. But shortly after, Hootsuite went silent. During this period of silence, Etienne received inbound interest from other players in the market. Some discussions even progressed to term sheets and offers, though none were compelling enough to move forward. While Hootsuite remained quiet, it turned out they were busy finalizing an acquisition of a company adjacent to Etienne's. When the news broke, he assumed they were out of the picture.   But Hootsuite had a different strategy in mind—they saw Etienne’s company as a perfect fit to build upon their recent acquisition and bolster their story ahead of a potential IPO. It wasn't until Etienne directly confronted them, clarifying that he was already in talks with other serious investors and potential buyers, that Hootsuite made their intentions clear. The takeaway from Etienne’s experience?   In M&A, timing, patience, and strategic insight are key. It's essential to remain open to all opportunities while also being direct about your expectations and goals.   It's not just about the demo—it's about understanding the bigger picture and navigating the complexities with clarity and purpose.

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Was Shopify's Winter Editions the most boring product update of 2024? Yes. Was I was lucky enough to get under the hood of what the update was all about with Ben Homer (Senior Solutions Engineer)? Yes. We discussed his journey from agency > tech, the pre curser to Editions (yes that other colossal event...BFCM) and a bunch of the updates in the release. What was my take? I think it's quite a bold and refreshing initiative for Shopify to take stock, ship their backlog and focus on what one might consider some of the 'un-sexy' stuff. And, of course, hats off to their comms and marketing apparatus. The Web 1.0 UX was an excellent touch. A master class in product marketing as always. CC: Benjamin Lang • OLY, Deann Evans, Megan King, Dave Ross-Tomlin, Pia Schratzenstaller ............. Listen to the pod on Apple: https://lnkd.in/ePV4XAFd Listen to the pod on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/evumwBih Powered by Shopify ⚡️ #podcast

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i want to talk about "admin flavors", something i start to notice, is how Shopify is secretly replacing many business and ops tools. many brands we worked with at Autrement, have one way or another a business tool, a custom built technology that reflects team expertise, some brands use ERPs, some have it in-house, some use both, especially in b2b, or retail. a tool that unifies many aspects of the business, each business is unique thus each business stack has its own challenges, its own flavor i call it. what's the relation between this and that? good question. the concept of "admin flavors" is a key outcome of this approach. a flavored admin is a customized version of Shopify (operating commerce system and backoffice), tailored to meet the specific needs of different businesses especially verticals. - for instance, fashion retailers might have integrated size guides and lookbook and e-merchandising management tools inside shopify. - while food and beverage businesses could benefit from recipe databases and nutritional information blocks. - electronics retailers might have specialized warranty management and technical specification tools built into their admin interface. these customizations improve operational efficiency and allow brands to maintain their unique workflows. shopify is an open and extendable platform at its core, they give you the building bricks (extension components and apis), a map where you add them (extension points) these blocks act as bridges between shopify and other business tools, enabling seamless integration of various operations. as this process unfolds over time—an admin extension here, another there—you end up with a unified operational system. a tool that centralizes everything you use across different platforms. instead of switching between tools, which can cause significant issues, especially regarding privacy and permissions at scale, you have a single, controlled environment. in a disjointed system, a staff member might be denied access to a resource in one platform but inadvertently granted it in another for a specific task, leading to potential security breaches. a unified system helps mitigate these risks, that will ported by shopify. looking to the future, we may see the emergence of industry-specific apps offering pre-configured admin flavors for different verticals. I've personally observed this in fashion, where some solutions have moved outside Shopify to build this up, because Shopify's current admin extensibility state isn't yet mature enough to fully accommodate these tools. However, it's only a matter of time before it will be.

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Short teaser of my upcoming COO podcast. In this episode, I chat with Jean (John) Lafleur, Co-Founder and COO Airbyte about fundraising, what the role of the COO means to him, how to build teams with talent density, and fighting entropy. I will be posting an update here next week and a link to the full interview! Follow me for more updates and COO interviews.

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💎 When I launched my first startup, I was convinced our product was revolutionary. I poured my heart and soul into building the perfect app, certain that users would flock to us once we went live. I had dreams of millions of users, hockey stick growth charts and our servers overloading. Man, was I in for a rude awakening 💔. The most dangerous assumption founders can make is to think that if you “build it, they will come”. Far too many founders believe that creating an amazing product is enough - that users will magically discover and adopt it. The truth? It's far more challenging. Your users don't just appear, you have to fight for every single one. 1️⃣ Building a great product is only the first step. There's a vast graveyard of products that were built but never properly distributed. These were potentially game-changing products that faded away in obscurity, not because they necessarily lacked quality, but because they lacked visibility. 💯 Founders must commit significant time, money, and energy to attracting (and retaining) users. This means leveraging multiple channels: ▪ Email marketing ▪ Content marketing ▪ Social media ▪ Influencer marketing ▪ Events ▪ PR ▪ Partnerships ▪ Community building ▪ Paid ads Each channel requires its own strategy, setup and ongoing optimization. 🔥 So to all the founders out there, don't fall into the trap of neglecting user acquisition. Start planning your growth strategy from day one. Make it as big of a priority as your product. Test different channels and approaches, double down on what works, and be prepared to pivot when needed. Roll up your sleeves and get ready to hustle for growth 🚀. It’s the only way. What hard lessons did you learn while building your startup? How did you acquire your first 100 users? What user acquisition channels worked for you? Share your experiences and insights in the comments below! 👇 #startups #growth #marketing #founders

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Important fact about most startup (and VC) success stories. It is convenient to overlook this, but the best companies and products are not built on any specific timeline. The best people win, and that is the only thing that has consistently and repeatably truly won over the test of time.

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In startups, the firehose never stops. Either sink or learn to breathe underwater. Startup life is where yesterday's roadmap is today's paper airplane. The truth about building your career at lightspeed: 1️⃣ You'll wear 10 hats badly before mastering 2  ↳ Early on, you'll touch everything.  But true growth comes from finding where you add unique value. 2️⃣ Traditional career paths don't exist  ↳ You might start in finance and end up leading ops.  Your adaptability matters more than your title. 3️⃣ Learning trumps knowing ↳ The expert in legacy systems isn't the hero here.  The person who can learn new tools in a weekend is. 4️⃣ Your job description is fiction ↳ It was outdated the moment you signed.  Focus on solving problems, not defending boundaries. 5️⃣ Speed creates opportunity ↳ When everything moves fast, leadership gaps appear weekly.  Step up before you're ready. Startups aren’t for everyone. But if constant change energises you, there's no better place to accelerate your career. 💬 What's the biggest myth about startup careers? ♻️ Know someone considering the startup leap? Share this reality check. 🔔 Follow James Segal for honest insights about accelerating your career.

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I’ve never read a book written by a friend, until now. Fin Heureuse is only available in French for now. In it, Derek Morin reverse-engineers his startup exit in just 24 months. And he does it with flawless execution. Knowing the person behind the words you're reading is a feeling I might not get to experience often, but I loved every page of this book. Here are 3 things that stood out to me: → The ugly > the bad > the good Derek doesn’t hold back. He even shares how he planned to push some people out right before executing his exit plan. → The recipe + the ingredients + the cooked meal From revenue numbers to growth metrics and the accounting books, he shares it all. You’ll also see how he course-corrected in real-time. → From decision made to the finish line, step by step He lays out the 24 months in chronological order, event by event, sharing what he learned along the way. It was a short, fun, and informative read. Reading Derek’s book encouraged me to do two things: → Be more surgical about our growth and direction, even without an exit in mind. → Start planning my own book, a dream I aim to achieve one day. Now while I work on convincing Derek to write the English version, I highly recommend it to my French-speaking founder friends. -- That’s Derek Morin, a successful founder, author, and friend. Follow him to learn how to build a no-BS startup.

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Thrilled to partner with The Firehood to teach Strategic Leadership as part of the Firestarter program! This initiative is a game-changer for women-led startups, providing mentorship, resources, and education to tackle critical entrepreneurial challenges. Applications are now open at https://lnkd.in/e4hthKTV

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This is a really good post by Ghassan Halazon. It's easy for armchair quarterbacks to say "Canadians sell our companies out too early", or "we don't think big and therefore sell out early", but it's never that simple. I don't agree with Ghassan that first-time founders should always take the offer (eg. Google could have sold to Yahoo in 1998, and I'm sure Shopify had multiple interested suitors on their path to an IPO), but he's probably right in most situations. The first exit I had as a VC was a 5x return over about 4 years. I recall the negative comments I received from people in the ecosystem that we sold out too early to the Americans (Microsoft was the acquirer), and that we weren't thinking big enough. But none of those critics saw the slowing sales pipeline, or the increasingly competitive sales cycles, or the churn rates, or the difficult fundraising. No matter how good things are, there are always risks to the business. Most companies plateau long before they achieve a market dominating position, and distinguishing between approaching that final plateau vs. just a slowing blip before the next growth wave is difficult for entrepreneurs that are usually 'half-glass-full' people. And, on a related point, despite what many say, it is never that companies sell out early because they lack the access to capital needed to scale. They may lack capital at a valuation they desire, but that's different, and in fact a datapoint on where a business is on its path to plateauing or market domination.

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When asked why I called my startup Amical. Essentially, Ami (friend) + Call. When you drop the last L, you get Amical. A french word that translate into Friendly or Amicable in English. Unique, memorable, perfectly encapsulate the product, and highlight the French origin of it's makers :) #startup #branding #branddesign

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Applications for our popular Partner Manager Mastermind Summer Cohort starting June 26th are now open 😎 Details 👇 ▶ 15 partner managers in a private community, building skills/confidence in public ▶ 8 week program, 1-hour weekly "lecture" per week on a focused topic (e.g., co-selling, data informed decision making, cross-functional collaboration) ▶ 1.5-2 hour time commitment per week; grad requirements are mix of reflections, case studies and strategic meetings with peers/network Results 👇 ▶ 100+ grads from Zapier, Hubspot, Crossbeam, Klaviyo, Amazon and Google (+ many true start ups!) ▶ all-time NPS of 87 ▶ avg. grad class self-reports >20% growth in competency & confidence across 5 major areas (including HOW to generate revenue 💰) ▶ 94% of graduates said "Yes" to "did you move the needle on your #1 growth area?" BONUS = many FRIENDSHIPS made. This has been the most surprising/rewarding part Ready to level up in a group environment, and make some really cool new connections? I'd encourage you to apply or share this info with your colleagues and partners, link in comments👇

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