In this Masterclass, Chris McMartin sits down with Bobbie Racette, the founder and CEO of Virtual Gurus, as she shares her knowledge on how to raise capital and find investors!
Key Topics in this Conversation:
- The importance of knowing the investors you approach and tailoring your pitch to their interests
- Bobbie’s journey of self-education and growth as an entrepreneur, learning to balance work and life, and finding fulfillment in mentoring and coaching others
- How to utilize grants for funding, with a focus on understanding the requirements and restrictions of each grant
Tune in to this episode to learn how Bobbie closed Virtual Gurus’ Series A for $8.4 million and what she’s doing to set her company up for success for Series B
McMartin, Chris 0:15
All right.
Welcome, Welcome. Welcome.
We'll let everybody get in, the lobby is slowly flowing into join us.
Excellent.
Fantastic.
All right, so I do need to let everyone know before we get started as a housekeeping item before I forget that this call is being recorded.
So for privacy purposes, please don't share any personal identifiable information, not in the chat or verbally, and the recording will be just using the audio on our website later.
But it will be accessible to the Scotiabank Women Initiative and Scotiabank.
So welcome, everyone.
On behalf of the Scotiabank Women Initiative, welcome to our Master Class.
We're so happy that you all have joined us.
We're so excited today, so I have the very big pleasure of having Bobbie Racette from Virtual Gurus join us today.
Bobbie, I've told you before and I'll tell you again.
I'm so excited to have this conversation today and hear more about you, your story, your journey.
I always say that individuals can introduce themselves better than I can introduce them, so I'll turn it over to you for a little intro to tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive in.
Bobbie Racette 1:35
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you, Chris.
I've been looking forward to this, so this is so good.
Hi everyone.
So I'm Bobbie founder, CEO of Virtual Gurus, we‘re a talent as a service platform where we provide work from home opportunities to marginalized communities.
What started as just a splash page in 2016 has now kind of exploded into North America's largest virtual system platform.
And so, I bootstrapped it to about 1.8 million in revenue and then was able to raise my first few rounds.
I was able to close my first round in 2020 and then my Series A in 2022 and then a convertible in 2024 just recently and now raising Series B.
So lots of raising happening there, but I'm from Regina, SK live in Calgary, AB.
I'm currently in Puerto Vallarta on vacation.
McMartin, Chris 2:28
That's dedication right there.
Bobbie Racette 2:29
Just what entrepreneurs do right? Always working.
So, but yeah.
Yeah, that's me.
McMartin, Chris 2:38
Amazing.
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
We're so excited to have you here today.
I know that there's not only lots of entrepreneurs joining us today.
They're excited about this conversation, but I know that there's also lots of Scotiabankers who are here today excited about this conversation.
Just to learn more, to learn more about what it looks like to get capital outside of banking resources.
So, I think this is a really important conversation and we know from a lot of the research we've done and you and I, I think have had a little bit of this conversation, that access to capital is something that we need to talk about more and we need to do more work on.
Bobbie Racette 3:00
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 3:14
So I'm really excited to have this conversation and I think maybe if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to start by just, talk to us like we're not Bobbie and we haven't been through it all.
Bobbie Racette 3:14
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 3:26
And where did you even begin?
Where did you even begin when it was time to look for that capital?
Bobbie Racette 3:30
Yeah.
Well, you know, if I can go back to, I see the early days, but when I think about it, it was less than seven years ago.
I was so 2016.
I was laid off my own gas job and honestly, the reason I started Virtual Gurus was because I was trying to find work as an administration.
That was kind of my background and nobody would hire me and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm a woman.
I'm queer.
I have tattoos and I'm indigenous, so I mean, I'm essentially a trifecta and I knew that, it really was not, you know, I mean, I always say I'm not exactly Donna from Suits.
So I get it, but I mean I'm pretty good.
Like I think I'm pretty good at admin work, but and so I when I bootstrapped it I had no idea that I would need to raise.
I actually just started it to create my own job and my first year I had about 265,000 revenue I had.
I still at that point wasn't thinking I was gonna raise.
I didn't even think I was a startup.
I just thought it was a service fee to B2B going to the Yellow Pages and calling people myself to start to use the service, and then as I'm calling them, I'm like your VA.
But then it's like, ”Hi, it's your VA”, because that was me.
I was everything so.
McMartin, Chris 4:41
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 4:43
You know when you just kind of taken on all those hats, but when I realized that I needed to start raising was the 2018, I went to a few startup events in Alberta and Calgary and people were saying, you know, this could be a full on tech company like this could be a massive platform.
The light bulb kind of went on and I thought, you know, I could build this into that.
So I did some research realizing there was only one or two platforms at the time in the US, not in Canada.
So that's what I started aiming for.
I had no idea how to do it.
I looked online, tried to figure it out went to start-up events, went to pitch events, tried to learn how to build this into a tech platform, but then also how do I and like raise money to build the tech you know, and I had to learn that all by myself.
McMartin, Chris 5:28
Right.
Bobbie Racette 5:32
So I started taking classes online, figuring it out, you know, doing all that kind of just figuring everything out.
And so I started raising in 2018, I went through 170 investors that said no to me.
And the excuses that came to me were, ”it's not scalable, you don't need to talk about your story of being an LGBT, person of color, Indigenous, this and that, there’s nothing there. There's no story there.”
There's I could go on and on about the kind of reasons people were saying no to me.
McMartin, Chris 6:05
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 6:05
It was about halfway through when I realized that I was probably approaching the wrong investors.
So lesson #1 for me was, make sure you're doing your due diligence on the investors.
Just as much as they're doing on you.
Because here I was, I was totally going and gun shy, but also going in completely unaware and inexperienced.
On who I should be approaching?
And so that was that wasted a bunch of my time in the investor's time
McMartin, Chris 6:30
For sure, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 6:31
You know, and so I was finally able to close in 2020 and how we did that though was I cold called Raven Indigenous Capital and said, I just saw you raised, you invested as the first indigenous finding to Animikii.
Here's my numbers.
Here's what I got.
Literally they were on the plane, like almost 5 minutes later and they came down and yeah, and then I was able to show them what we were doing.
McMartin, Chris 6:51
Amazing.
Bobbie Racette 6:55
And at that time we were like 1.8 million revenue like so it wasn't bad revenue for bootstrapping it with $300.00 in my pocket.
McMartin, Chris 6:59
OK.
Bobbie Racette 7:04
So I think that was that it showed that tenacity, showed the resilience, and they they immediately were like we’re leading.
McMartin, Chris 7:04
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 7:10
So I was able to secure a lead funding funders, and then we were able to go and get some small investors around that to kind of patent it up a bit.
And so that was good.
But then that was only 1.25 million.
So it took Me 2 and 1/2 years to close 1.25 million and I thought that surely had to be better.
My Series A was gonna be horrible.
I was able to close Series A in five months in 2022 for 8.4 million and of course some of that is from a non-dilutive of Roynat, which is obviously Scotiabank sister company, whatnot.
McMartin, Chris 7:37
Wow.
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 7:44
And so Roynat venture gave us 3 million.
On top of that, so I was able to close that and then I was able to raise a small convertible here just recently, and then now I'm raising about 15 to 18 million series.
McMartin, Chris 7:58
I was gonna say much larger, much larger.
Bobbie Racette 8:00
Yeah. Scary.
McMartin, Chris 8:03
So yeah.
Well, I mean scary.
McMartin, Chris 8:06
But I mean you you've got the track record, you've proven the the, you know, tenacity, the courage, the, you know, the know-how, obviously you've come a far away.
When you say, Bobbie, that it was important that one of your first lessons was really knowing the investors, like knowing who you wanted to be working with, right? So.
Bobbie Racette 8:25
Yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 8:27
Can you give us a little bit of a deep dive of like, what does that look like?
What was important to you?
What was the alignment that you were missing before?
Bobbie Racette 8:34
Thank you.
Yeah.
So one of the things that I first needed to realize which I didn't, was I thought venture capitalists and everything was the exact same.
I could go for impact venture.
I could go for angels.
All of it?
I thought that was all equal to.
It just depended on who wanted to come in for whatever size.
That was wrong.
And you know, I really do wish that there was a little bit more training on raising capital, in high school even, you know, because then I would probably have learned a little bit faster.
McMartin, Chris 9:02
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 9:05
But for me, I'd realized that venture capitalists at the time were not the kind of investors I needed to hit.
I didn't need to hit private equity firms.
Obviously not, not what I needed at the time.
I needed to hit more impact investors, and how we realized that was, was a lot of the VC's were interested because they heard Virtual Gurus this upcoming.
McMartin, Chris 9:22
OK.
Bobbie Racette 9:28
But our numbers just weren't where they wanted them to be.
Even though our numbers were good, they were saying, well, your it's not scalable.
McMartin, Chris 9:32
OK.
Bobbie Racette 9:37
You have no tech you're you know.
And whereas impact investors, they're due diligence was way different.
They didn't necessarily care about the tech, they actually cared more about what is the change in the impact we're creating, and and I didn't have a way to monitor and build my KPI’s at that time.
McMartin, Chris 9:45
Right.
OK.
Bobbie Racette 9:54
So it was almost just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what stuck.
To see what they wanted and being like.
McMartin, Chris 9:58
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 10:00
Ohh OK so this is the KPI they're gonna need.
They're gonna need this.
Well, I’m gonna have to figure out how to achieve that.
McMartin, Chris 10:05
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 10:06
We really had no idea at the time, so it was really getting a lot of, I would say, garnering a lot of trust into me more than anything.
McMartin, Chris 10:13
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 10:14
So then when I flipped that, it started just going for impact investors.
They were all knocking at my door and it was great.
It was really good, but as you scale bigger you you kind of need those VC's because you need that bigger money for the bigger valuation.
So, I really have to start going that way as well.
McMartin, Chris 10:28
Right, right.
Right.
So you have to be ready for that, that that change, that conversion of you know what you need and what you're going to need.
Bobbie Racette 10:35
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you have to get ready.
You always have to think six months to a year ahead, no matter what.
So what I'm raising like I just closed the small convertible for a million, and I know right now I have to already think six months ahead and know, OK, how much runway is that giving me.
Whhat is here?
How do I save budget so that we can extend it to the runway?
McMartin, Chris 10:59
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 11:00
Because right now, everybody needs to protect runway.
And how do I get myself to that next stage, and from somebody who had, you know, no business training, no education, no nothing, all of this, I was just teaching myself as like a person with a grade 12, you know?
McMartin, Chris 11:03
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 11:15
And so I had to.
I had to learn it all.
I had to really put myself out there, so it is a that was probably the hardest part.
McMartin, Chris 11:20
Well, what was your best resource for that, Bobbie?
What was your best resource for teaching yourself everything that you needed to know from scratch?
Bobbie Racette 11:29
Yeah.
I ended up signing up to some online programs, but I also really went to companies like startup Calgary, Calgary Economic Development, Alberta Innovates, and started getting put into incubators.
McMartin, Chris 11:36
Hmm.
Bobbie Racette 11:42
I went into Arlene Dickinson's incubator.
And then I went into a few other ones.
And I realized that OK, I could just figure this out and then I just signed up to, cause COVID hit.
So we were still just small revenue when COVID hit.
McMartin, Chris 11:52
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 11:55
So I just signed up online to everything and anything and then I ended up getting into the Harvard program.
So I went to Harvard, and was able to graduate and be able to get some training from that and leadership training.
McMartin, Chris 12:01
OK.
Bobbie Racette 12:06
Mostly because they needed a lot of leadership training, you know, and that was all the part of the business was, not just realizing it's about the raise and this and that, it was about, ohh my God, now I have to lead people?
Like this is hard.
McMartin, Chris 12:17
That's it.
Yeah, a large team of people.
Bobbie Racette 12:19
Yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 12:19
Yeah.
Yeah.
And speaking of that, what was the biggest, maybe not necessarily challenge maybe surprise of you know the things that you found yourself enjoying doing or the things that you had to learn how to do that we're really farfetched from what you thought in the beginning?
Bobbie Racette 12:36
Yeah.
You know, I can honestly see right now, I actually enjoy raising money.
I don't enjoy it to the point of the heartaches and the stress.
Because I don't think anybody, and especially my employees, realize the amount of stress that goes into that.
On top of having to lead the entire company, to have to show scale and grow and all of that.
McMartin, Chris 12:50
Fair.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 13:01
There is so much pressure to that, that I don't think you can even explain it to employees, and I'd realize that for me it wasn't about explaining.
It was about I had to show it to them, and I couldn't and I was just like, this is so hard because I'm like, probably one of the bluntest people.
And I know that, I’m blunt and I'm like, hey straight up because I I feel like there's no going around trees here.
McMartin, Chris 13:24
Yep, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 13:24
I'm just gonna tell you how it is, because that's just who I am and I feel that that's just the best way.
But I realized fast I have to add a lot of fluff to that.
And then I was like okay this is really hard for me, I had to learn a lot, but I realized that that part of it was really learning about myself and what kind of a leader I want to be.
And so that was hard.
But with that is trying to show them at the same time, while I'm being stressed.
Yeah, I'm super stressed, to having to raise money to our runway.
McMartin, Chris 13:50
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 13:53
To me, sometimes the employees don't realize that I even don't pay myself.
Sometimes so I can make sure they're paid right.
McMartin, Chris 13:58
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 13:58
Like this is what a true leader has to do.
And, but you can't tell them that.
McMartin, Chris 14:01
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 14:03
So you just, you go for it and you do things.
McMartin, Chris 14:03
Right, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 14:05
And so that's the part of the raising I don't like, but the part that I do like is if there's one thing that you want me to do, you just have to tell me.
No, you can't do it.
And I like mic dropping and saying, you know what?
McMartin, Chris 14:16
Ah, and that's it.
Bobbie Racette 14:18
I'm gonna do it.
McMartin, Chris 14:18
And that’s it, you're in.
Bobbie Racette 14:19
I’m in.
I mean, I'm like, you’re telling me no?
Ohh, hold on.
Right.
So and I love that part.
McMartin, Chris 14:24
I love that.
Bobbie Racette 14:25
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I kind of turned it into a I'm gonna do it regardless.
McMartin, Chris 14:28
A challenge.
Bobbie Racette 14:29
Yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 14:29
A challenge?
Yeah, you've been dared.
You've been dared.
Bobbie Racette 14:32
Yeah, exactly.
McMartin, Chris 14:33
Ha ha ha.
Bobbie Racette 14:34
Yeah.
And then we turn out to be like my best friends.
The investors, I'd say no.
And then I turned them around.
And then they're, like, amazing.
And I love them.
So I mean, it just took a little bit of tooth and nails to get there, but you know I think I'm gonna have to say the other thing is.
McMartin, Chris 14:46
Absolutely.
Bobbie Racette 14:51
Like the pressure is probably the number one thing, I don't like.
The amount of pressure, but it's not just from who I am and how I’m in the media.
McMartin, Chris 14:54
OK.
Bobbie Racette 15:00
Obviously that adds a lot more pressure, but it's you always want to do good by your employees, but you never can.
McMartin, Chris 15:05
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 15:06
Cause not everybody's gonna like you and you have to be OK with that.
And so I'm totally reading the book of how how to have the courage to be disliked because I know I'm disliked sometimes.
But it's not because I'm, you know, I’m a mean person or anything, it's because I have to say no or I have to put my foot down.
McMartin, Chris 15:22
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 15:23
And sometimes that's the hardest.
But nobody understands that unless they've owned a business, and that's one of the hardest things for me because I hate, I hate being disliked.
So you know.
McMartin, Chris 15:33
I I love.
I love the honesty.
Bobbie Racette 15:34
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 15:35
I love the openness about that and is there anything that you're doing or or trying to do?
If it's a challenge of yours that's helping you with that.
Bobbie Racette 15:44
Yeah, I read a lot of self help books, you know right now I mean, pardon my French, but so right now I'm reading Fuck List, by Gianna Biscotti.
Really good.
McMartin, Chris 15:53
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 15:55
I'm really liking it, but a lot of it kind of helps me, but at the same time it's it's always about learning and growing every day.
If I if I require my employees to learn and grow every day, then I need to as well.
McMartin, Chris 16:07
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 16:08
And if they see me learn and grow everyday, then they will.
And so those are the things they all know that when we go into arrays, it's a scary thing.
A lot of them, they know we're going into our our series B, but they don't know how hard it's going to be on me.
But my job is to protect them and make sure they don't see how hard that is.
McMartin, Chris 16:24
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's incredible.
I'm gonna skip over to a few questions we've received from some of our attendees today.
Bobbie Racette 16:30
Yep.
McMartin, Chris 16:32
And so they're, they're here.
They're listening, but here's what they have to say, and I will encourage anyone that's here as well that if you have questions, there will be questions at the end.
So start thinking about those, and if you're not comfortable coming off mute and having them through conversation, that's no problem.
Feel free to put any questions and comments in the chat as well, and I can moderate those for sure.
So the first question we have says,” how should you pitch your business idea to arouse investors interest in throwing their money into your startup?”
Do you have some good tips and tricks?
Bobbie Racette 17:07
Yeah.
I do.
I think I've, you know, if I go back to when I first started, to how I do it now, there's a thing that investors like the word they, they like FOMO.
McMartin, Chris 17:14
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 17:19
You always create that kind of fear of missing out, and that's kind of that
dangling the carrot.
I'm saying that in a true professional way, really.
McMartin, Chris 17:25
Yeah, absolutely.
Bobbie Racette 17:26
But I mean, yeah, so what I used to do is I would just give them all my numbers and pitch it right away.
Boom.
Call me if you're interested, but they're not gonna call me.
But I was like, how come nobody's interested, right?
And so.
But the way we do it now is I actually throw out 2-pager or I just kind of drop like high level, but it's a little bit easier now because we are kind of all over the media.
So it's easier that they think and know we're growing, but I do just drop a kind of a 2-pager.
And it's a high level 2-pager on you know where we're at with our growth, our traction, who our leadership team is, about me and how our traction has gone up.
McMartin, Chris 17:49
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 18:04
So we show that kind of holistic growth almost.
McMartin, Chris 18:06
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 18:07
Sometimes it's holistic, but it's there.
And we show what's in it for them, you know.
McMartin, Chris 18:09
Yeah, it's there.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 18:14
And then we talk a lot about our DEI.
And then I typically say, you know, reach out.
Let's chat, we're about to raise.
One of the number one things that has worked for me, and this is why I was able to close my Series A super-fast.
Was I have a whole sheet of investors that I've pitched, that have said no to me, said maybe, maybe they've ghosted me.
And you know whatever.
And I put him in there and I put them into my quarterly updates.
So every quarter I send them an update on where I'm at.
McMartin, Chris 18:40
OK.
Bobbie Racette 18:42
So then that they could see that we're scaling, but it's kind of like a lower level of kind of the financial statements and everything that he sent to my investors and my quarterly update.
McMartin, Chris 18:49
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 18:50
So it's like more of a company statement, and I send them high level and then I put on their timeline of raise.
It's a creative FOMO, but I let them know you can opt out here and really only a handful have because again, investors have major FOMO.
McMartin, Chris 19:04
That's it.
They want.
They don't want to opt out.
They wanna know what you're doing and how you're doing it, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 19:06
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, so I I do that and then I go in next and go, OK, we're going into a raise, or you know, we're preopening it up.
Let me know if you're interested.
You can have a early access to the data room, so I created data room, and the data room is where it's got everything updated.
So all of the ethics, but I only have a tier one of the data room.
So that's kind of early, earlier stuff you don't want to get into the dirty until maybe an NDA or maybe it's a little bit you know further along, like into the raise.
McMartin, Chris 19:34
Right.
Bobbie Racette 19:40
But so I get them into that part and if they ask for early access then I know I've got them.
So then again moved to another sheet on my Excel sheet and it's like ping.
Interested or something.
McMartin, Chris 19:49
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 19:52
If they’re not interested, they have five friends that are interested, so I always ask for those referrals, you know, do you have anybody that we fit their thesis and you know typically they do.
McMartin, Chris 19:57
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 20:01
So I I think that has what I was able to close Series A in 5 1/2 months or so, you know by just keeping up.
McMartin, Chris 20:09
It's that sticks out in your story to me, Bobbie, that I wanna.
It's important to note is that when you were telling us you're the beginning of your story and you had said those 175 people who said no, and said that your story wasn't important, and your story didn't need to be told and then you mentioned in the last comment that you made that it's getting easier because you're so in the media right now.
Bobbie Racette 20:24
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 20:33
And I just want to note, and I'm sure you know this, this correlation, but you're in the media because of your story, right?
Bobbie Racette 20:33
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 20:40
Like you're in the media because we're listening to your journey and your story and the path that you've come, and you're DEI story, that you're very passionate about and that you speak about often and that you share with leadership teams and other entrepreneurs.
Bobbie Racette 20:40
Exactly, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 20:54
And so I think that's so impressive that all those individuals and said, you know, it's not about your story.
Bobbie Racette 20:55
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 21:01
And while it's not, it is about your business.
But it's your story that's relatable and that's caused such a media stir.
Bobbie Racette 21:05
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 21:10
And you know, got you the extra exposure.
Bobbie Racette 21:11
Yeah, I think you know typically when people ask me which one of my points of advice is and I I typically say it's, you know, don't be afraid to live your story 'cause I was afraid to live my story for the first four years of the company or three years.
And when I started realizing that if I don't tell my story, then who is, there's a lot of indigenous women out there that wanna start a business.
McMartin, Chris 21:32
Yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 21:36
They have no idea where to start and they don't think anybody's gonna believe in them, so it's just easier just not to do it, where you know now my story is inspiring them.
McMartin, Chris 21:41
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 21:43
And so for that, I think that this path that I'm on of not listening to the ones that say don't tell your story and actually listen to my gut and my instinct and stop saying no.
You listen to your story, you tell your story.
Be proud of your story.
McMartin, Chris 21:56
Absolutely.
Bobbie Racette 21:56
You know it's just a big thing that I think is, you know, switching around now we have investors.
I had one investor come up to me at a speaking engagement a couple months ago and said, yeah, I know I said no to you 16 times, but when can I come in on the next race?
And I'm like, ah, yeah, you're just not, you know.
McMartin, Chris 22:10
That's gotta be more rewarding than anything else.
Bobbie Racette 22:12
Yes, it is.
It really is.
McMartin, Chris 22:14
I love that, I I love that, I love that.
So how do you do your research when you're looking for particular investors?
Like, where do you start?
Bobbie Racette 22:27
Yeah.
So I typically start by my current internal investors.
So when you when you're raising through impact funds, typically they have a ton of LP's.
And so LP's are people that are coming in and putting a little small amount into their funds.
So they're therefore extending and building a bigger fund and a lot of those LP’s come in as family foundations or VCs even.
Banks to large institutions.
And so, I start by obviously letting them know, you know, that my board knows that we're gonna go into raise, then they let their funds know.
I start getting invites through that and I start kind of going that way, but I go out to a lot of events, or my team goes out to events.
So just recently, Joanna, Win, and I were down at South by Southwest, I was speaking there and we basically tried to divide and conquer.
You know, I'm gonna find investors that are interested.
You find this.
She was looking for partnerships and then SMB leads and we went and we had many people interested.
McMartin, Chris 23:26
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 23:31
But right after that, we went to Vegas.
I just got back.
Literally the other day, and then flew out here and I was at Rez and Transform and I went to a bunch of 1 on 1 meetings to meet investors.
McMartin, Chris 23:43
OK.
Bobbie Racette 23:43
And now one of them is most likely coming on the Series B.
He's always he also wants to acquire us, so, it's really about the reach out constantly and keeping tabs on those, putting them into a sheet or document or contact form, CRM form and following up with them.
The other thing I do is I research just by knowing the events I go to who are good.
So if there's a company that's like me, I reach out to them and say who your investors, and they'll tell me, you know, they they'll tell you because that's just the name of the game.
McMartin, Chris 24:05
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 24:13
So I'll reach out to them.
You know the number one thing that works is asking for an intro.
It's looking in your network and finding an intro and you can give me an intro to this VC in Canada there's a group called the A-list.
McMartin, Chris 24:20
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 24:27
It's a Tech Slack form, a Slack, and it's all tech founders in Canada.
McMartin, Chris 24:33
OK.
Bobbie Racette 24:36
And we can go in there and say, hey, here's a PC or investor I wanna get.
Can somebody give me an intro and then we all support each other,
But yeah, networking always, always talking, following up, and asking for intros.
McMartin, Chris 24:51
I love that, and we talk all the time within The Scotiabank Women Initiative about the importance of Community, the importance of strategic networking and I love that you you've touched on that.
Bobbie Racette 24:59
Mm-hmm.
McMartin, Chris 25:01
Do you have any tips, tricks, feedback?
Because I know you shared with us earlier that public speaking, networking, that sort of thing, wasn't always your Forte.
Wasn't your favorite thing to do, or maybe your secrets talent, but how?
Bobbie Racette 25:15
No.
McMartin, Chris 25:17
How have you changed that?
How have you improved on it and what do you do that really makes it impactful when you are out there at those events?
Bobbie Racette 25:24
Yeah.
You know, I think with geared me up probably to be better at public speaking and better at doing this kind of speaking cause I really struggled with it.
I'm quite an introvert, but I think it's the 170 No’s that did.
Because the 1st 10, 15, 20, 30 No’s they made me sad and like aww man not believe in myself and I lost confidence.
McMartin, Chris 25:49
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 25:55
And then the next, like, I don't know, maybe 30 to 70-80.
They just made me mad.
I was like, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 25:57
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 25:57
You’ve fueled my fire.
I'm coming for all of you, and I'm gonna go and show you that you're wrong.
McMartin, Chris 26:03
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:03
And where the other ones finally just made me learn and understand and grow.
And so, I realized through that I had a lot to learn, but I also had to learn as I went.
And it probably be one of the hardest things, because I really had no experience in that.
McMartin, Chris 26:17
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:22
But the other number one thing that helps especially with my public speaking is you get better by just doing it, right.
McMartin, Chris 26:29
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:29
So if you're pitch 10,000 investors and only one says yes, well, you wouldn't have gotten that if you didn't pitch that 10,000, so who cares?
You know, all you did was perfect your pitch.
McMartin, Chris 26:36
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:39
You look at the plus side of it.
You, you know your first pitch was pretty wobbly.
Your second pitch was probably even wobbler and then as you got on your pitch is probably perfect.
So you perfected your pitch.
And so, I looked at it as a learning lesson for me.
McMartin, Chris 26:49
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:51
Now it's a, you know me trying to teach and teaching my employees how to pitch the company, and it's amazing to see them pitch it.
McMartin, Chris 26:56
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 26:58
Yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 26:59
That.
That's incredible.
And so can you share with us what that feels like for you as someone who had to teach yourself the ways of how to pitch and how to perfect that pitch?
And now you're sharing your expertise with your employees.
And so how that must feel?
Bobbie Racette 27:15
Yeah.
You know, I think that I found my calling essentially, which you know, if, and when I ever exit Virtual Gurus.
I think what's there for me is coaching and mentoring and helping companies scale and giving them that that scale and showing them how I did the scale.
McMartin, Chris 27:30
Fantastic.
Bobbie Racette 27:34
Because my lesson learned is I probably could have scaled faster than this lot of lessons I've learned along the way.
McMartin, Chris 27:39
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 27:39
I probably could have closed faster.
A lot of lessons I've learned on the way, so I'd love to save people a lot of time and stress, but at the same time, I think that that's the way you have to learn is by doing it that way.
So I think for me, I feel sometimes just a little bit, I don't know kind of odd or weird.
I was actually at a Saint Patrick's Day event on March 17th and then rate literally the next day we were flying out here.
McMartin, Chris 28:03
OK.
Bobbie Racette 28:08
And I was walking to go to the bar to get a drink and a guy came and said, ”ohh my god are you Bobbie Racette?”
And I'm like, yeah, you know, this guy recognized me.
I couldn't get over it and he was like; I'm a leader at this company.
He's like I do leadership coaching and I just couldn't.
He's like I was starstruck.
He's like I'm sitting, looking at your table, thinking Bobbie’s here, Bobbie’s here.
And he's like I’ve used you as my main story to all my classes that I trained.
And so, I realized that that's probably where a lot of the change was coming from me and where I started realizing that maybe this is my calling.
McMartin, Chris 28:34
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 28:36
So it feels good.
It feels good.
McMartin, Chris 28:38
That's incredible.
That's incredible.
And it's funny because you are very humble because I did share with you when we first connected.
I was so excited to reach out and, you know, introduce myself.
And would you even consider doing this with me?
And you responded with,
“Ohh my God. Of course.”
Like you know, I was, you know, and so you are very humble about how far you've come and what an impact you've made and so I think that's incredible.
Bobbie Racette 28:53
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 29:02
And you mentioned that coaching is your calling, and I think that's fantastic because I do think that you make a big impact every time you speak.
And you mentioned mentoring, has there been mentors in your journey that have been really impactful for you? And you don't need to share their exact name if you don't feel comfortable doing so, but even you know what sort of advice or support they gave you along the way would be great.
Bobbie Racette 29:13
Yeah, there has been.
I mean, I really struggled with that because at first I didn't have a lot of mentors or a lot of people that really believed in me.
But one of the first things I did was I created my own personal Board of Directors.
McMartin, Chris 29:41
Hmm.
Bobbie Racette 29:41
So really what that is it’s like; it's not an actual Board of Directors.
They don't get options.
There are people that you can reach out to essentially.
McMartin, Chris 29:49
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 29:50
To say, I gotta talk to you about this and you know, so I supported myself with people that I knew could bring me the strengths that I needed and that that for me was probably game changing.
So it helped when I went to Harvard, I was able to take two of the professors there that I learned a lot and put them on my personal Board of Directors.
McMartin, Chris 30:08
Amazing.
Bobbie Racette 30:09
And so if I really need leadership advice, how do I handle this?
I was able to reach out to them and they were able to give me the right.
They also sent me tons of books and I have so many books now because of it.
But and I don't know if many of you know, but Harvard's all about reading in case studies.
McMartin, Chris 30:24
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 30:24
So yeah okay here's a case study for you to read.
McMartin, Chris 30:25
Yeah.
Here you go.
Yeah, here's your 400-page answer.
Bobbie Racette 30:26
Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, read it and come back to me.
Bu like yeah, I think I had a lot of people, more on a personal level, but then I started getting a lot of mentors that were VC's.
McMartin, Chris 30:33
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 30:44
My board I would have to say like 3 out of the five of them are like mentors and coaches to me. I can call and text them any minute right now and they're like, let's hop on a call and they can give me the advice I need.
McMartin, Chris 30:44
Hmm.
Amazing.
Bobbie Racette 30:56
And there was one person that believed in me from day one.
I I couldn't make my payroll had three employees.
I wasn't being myself at all because I needed to pay those three employees and he started investing in by giving me 70,000 a month just to put into paying them and to give myself even a $10,000 pay.
McMartin, Chris 31:06
Yeah.
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 31:15
And I took it.
I was like, this is good.
So now he's one of our lead investors.
He's coming out on my rounds.
He's he‘s my biggest, my biggest supporter and I'm forever grateful for him because if I didn't find him, Virtual Gurus wouldn't be here right now, you know, But yeah.
McMartin, Chris 31:25
Yeah.
That's amazing.
That.
That's amazing.
Where we firmly I, you know, The Scotiabank Women Initiative, we firmly believe obviously and mentorship, we have our mentorship program, and we really do value the importance of having those individuals to be able not only to support and encourage but to give you some guidance and to share their expertise.
Bobbie Racette 31:40
Yeah.
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 31:49
And so I love that personal Board of Directors.
I think that's really important part of of your journey and and that you had that support right from the beginning, even when you know, like you said you were, there was no financial gain for them was it was simply, you know, a circle of people that you trusted.
Bobbie Racette 32:03
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think you know, now I'm that person for other people.
So you know it's it's, you know, give and take.
McMartin, Chris 32:11
Yeah, absolutely.
Bobbie Racette 32:15
You know, I I remember needing to resort to these people to help me and times that were extremely tough for me, you know, and there was many times I wanted to throw the towel and I was.
I was done.
McMartin, Chris 32:25
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 32:26
If it wasn't for my mom saying, you know, honey, you fought so hard for this just keep pushing. Or for Ryan giving me funds when I need it cause I couldn't even keep the lights on, to me just just so much stress to get to this that point, to get over that hurdle, you know, but that's what it takes is resilience, perseverance and it takes, takes that and I think almost every entrepreneur has to have that and you don't have to have it off the beginning.
McMartin, Chris 32:35
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 32:51
You just have to grow it and then you learn right?
McMartin, Chris 32:52
Yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 32:54
And and I think that's one of the number one things that is is difficult.
But now I am that person to many up and coming entrepreneurs, they reach out to me and, you know, if I could split myself into 10,000 pieces so I could support them all, I would.
McMartin, Chris 33:01
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 33:10
But you know, on top of Virtual Gurus, I sit on a couple boards.
I’m a chair of a board and I do a lot on the side of Virtual Gurus, so I'm always working and it's tough.
McMartin, Chris 33:15
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 33:22
And so you you have to really have those people that rely on, but at the same time, not stretch yourself too thin.
McMartin, Chris 33:26
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 33:29
And be wanting to mentor the whole world.
It's like that's all I wanna do is mentor and push everybody.
McMartin, Chris 33:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 33:33
So yeah.
McMartin, Chris 33:34
I think that leads perfectly into a question that we've got in the chat and I think it's you know, I can't wait to hear your answer as you sit on your vacation in your hotel room and have this chat with us.
But it was asked in the chat, you know, running a business, especially at the level that you are takes a significant amount of time and dedication and then you just talked about all the additional things that you do sitting on boards and sharing a board.
And I've seen all the the volunteer work that you do in the, you know, community programs that you're involved in.
So the question is, how do you turn it off after hours?
How do you balance business and life?
Bobbie Racette 34:11
Yeah, you know, well, I don't think as an entrepreneur, as a founder, there's such thing as turning it off.
McMartin, Chris 34:12
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 34:17
There is more of how do you turn it down for a while, you know, and that is something that I struggled a lot with.
McMartin, Chris 34:24
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 34:26
I definitely came to a burnout.
There was a point where I was over 320 pounds.
I think it was just two years ago, we did our first retreat and I saw a picture of myself.
I was like 320 pounds and I was like Katie, someone is not right.
Like what is up?
I was on extreme burnout.
McMartin, Chris 34:41
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 34:42
I was working 20 hour days.
I you know, I hit, I hit the burnout.
That everybody talks about, it was horrible.
But unless you see yourself in that, and you're actually realize, you know, entrepreneurs were, I wouldn't say we're stubborn and or were you know, we just think we could keep going and doing it.
Maybe somebody in your family can actually say, hey, look, you're going a little bit far and then you're gonna trust that person, but anybody outside of that tells you that you're like, hey, I got this.
McMartin, Chris 35:05
Yep.
I got this.
Bobbie Racette 35:09
I'm superwoman, you can’t take me down.
McMartin, Chris 35:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 35:09
And so you don't really know.
And when I did hit that, I'd realized that I had to make a change in my lifestyle, my diet, to my health, to just the way I was leading.
McMartin, Chris 35:17
Hmm.
Bobbie Racette 35:23
You know, I was an angry leader, you know, and I knew I didn't want to be that.
McMartin, Chris 35:24
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 35:26
So all of that came as part of that burnout.
So for me what I found that worked, I travel all the time.
I actually spend probably 70% of my time in the planes right now.
I'm running my business from the air really cause it's it's that's I'm going through speaking events to speaking event and I I realized that for me is shutting down is is this.
Is come in having a vacation now.
McMartin, Chris 35:40
Yeah, yeah.
OK.
Bobbie Racette 35:52
I mean, I've got here on Sunday and I've been working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
McMartin, Chris 35:55
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 35:56
Your employees are constantly on you.
Like I today I had 15 slack messages from employees and you know the thing is I have to answer them because that's my my baby, whereas now it's leading them into saying OK guys, yes, I'm working today doing this and then I have a board meeting but after the board meeting don't call me I'll call you.
McMartin, Chris 36:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 36:18
I'm off until you see me Monday.
McMartin, Chris 36:18
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 36:19
Like I need this moment and I need time.
You guys are all capable.
You can run this business without me, you know.
McMartin, Chris 36:24
Yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 36:26
And so it's really just understanding your limits.
Umm, the other thing I do is is I actually do shut down every day at 4:30.
So the businesses are not only ran on two week sprints, but we also shut down at 4:30.
McMartin, Chris 36:40
Yeah.
OK.
Bobbie Racette 36:44
So it's 8:30 to 4:30 and we really don't like when employees work late until the hours.
So we actually typically we'll tell them, hey, stop working that late.
McMartin, Chris 36:51
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 36:52
I mean, obviously there's some things you have to do, but we really try to focus and encourage them work life balance and so that helps me. Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 36:54
Yep.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 36:59
And then I shut down, you know, and it's been nice cause shut down at 5:30 and then the other thing I do is all summer, I never go traveling during the summer and I shut down Friday, Saturday, Sunday and we go camping.
I bought an RV and I camp, but then I have like a computer and a whole office in my RV, but still at least I'm out there.
McMartin, Chris 37:13
Fantastic.
Yep.
But your way?
Yeah, you're away.
Bobbie Racette 37:20
Yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 37:20
You're enjoying.
I love that.
I love that, camping is also one of my passions, and that's how I shut down as well.
Bobbie Racette 37:23
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 37:26
So I I can definitely appreciate that.
Bobbie Racette 37:27
You too.
McMartin, Chris 37:29
I also have an RV and let me tell you all summer long Friday to Sunday, that's where you'll find me and my family and it's it's a great way.
Bobbie Racette 37:31
Yeah.
Yep, me too.
McMartin, Chris 37:38
I am a firm believer of actually physically removing yourself from where you work to get that sort of.
Bobbie Racette 37:42
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 37:45
OK, I can dial it back a bit and and so I can appreciate that.
Bobbie Racette 37:47
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I mean, there are a few times like my partner.
Obviously she knows what she signed up for when we got together.
And you know, and as an entrepreneur, but there are times where, you know, she'll say, OK, you know, I love that you're you're working as hard and you know, because you have, so this is your baby.
McMartin, Chris 38:05
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 38:06
But your other baby is our family, and this is our time too.
McMartin, Chris 38:08
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 38:11
So I I really had to take that moment to say, hey, wait a minute, this is this is it.
And and if I'm working late and all hours of the day, then that's showing my employees and it's OK to do that and that's what I don't wanna do.
McMartin, Chris 38:21
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 38:22
So yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 38:24
Yeah.
And I I would imagine I you know, we sound to have similar personalities.
I would imagine that turning it around in that leadership view makes it easier to OK, I've got to set the example right, so makes it easier to follow through with.
Bobbie Racette 38:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In it is too and and I want you know you want your employees to have trust in you.
So if you're up working all over the night, being a grumpy leader, then how are they going to trust you, you know, and and that that that was I had to learn that the hard way.
McMartin, Chris 38:50
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 38:55
And because I did lose some of the employee's trust.
McMartin, Chris 38:55
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 38:58
And I was.
I wasn't the best leader and you know, but it says I wasn't happy myself and I was burnt out.
You know.
McMartin, Chris 39:03
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 39:04
Whereas now I’m not, like I Iactually have a lot in me left to give. You know.
The only thing is learning to balance like how I do the votes here.
So I sit on the board for Telus future friendly.
We raised money to give to youth charities across Canada, and I'm on that with Manjit Minhas and Craig Kielburger from WE Days.
McMartin, Chris 39:20
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 39:25
Some pretty big names and then I'm the chair of the Indigenous Prosperity Foundation, where we raise money for charities and not for profits.
McMartin, Chris 39:26
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 39:33
Umm, but what we're doing is we're raising that money for Indigenous startups, so we don't need to take equity to help them and we help them raise.
And so, I'm really proud of that work that I'm doing and those things, they fuel me a little bit more to have that drive to continue with Virtual Gurus too.
McMartin, Chris 39:51
Yes, yes, yes, I can imagine.
Bobbie Racette 39:52
So yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 39:54
I can imagine when you're talking about doing your, you know, work on the side through your boards, through chairing, when as an entrepreneur, when do you know that you need to say no or that you need to say I can't add more to my plate?
Like, how do you decipher when it's time?
Bobbie Racette 40:12
Yeah.
I think you're if you are your intuitions, and if you're staying true to your health and where where you need to be, only you know that.
But like just the other day, I had to have a talk with, you know, some of my employees about stop loading me up as much as you are.
Because stretching me thin is gonna do nothing but take us backwards and, you know, and so.
McMartin, Chris 40:29
Hmm yeah.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 40:37
So it's hard to say no.
But I mean, you know, you also have to remember like, what are what are your two points that you wanna hit?
So for me have been on these two, these two things, is it's it's amazing for me to be on these boards because I can be like, hey, that's fueling my fire, but I can't accept anymore words.
McMartin, Chris 40:51
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 40:55
So I set it down from the mentoring job thing that I was doing and ended up did signing up for the LGBT Chamber of Commerce as an advisory.
McMartin, Chris 40:58
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 41:03
But I I want to do that because these are things that mean a lot to me.
McMartin, Chris 41:05
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 41:06
Indigenous prosperity means a lot to me, charity and the youth, and not for profit.
McMartin, Chris 41:08
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 41:10
And then obviously, LGBT rights means a lot to me.
So it's these that help fuel me to give me that fuel.
McMartin, Chris 41:13
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 41:16
But I have to say no to a lot of things.
And that's speaking engagements, to media.
McMartin, Chris 41:20
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 41:20
You know, we get requests, we get like 70 to 100 requests a month for me to travel and speak we’re probably saying no to about 80% of them right now.
So it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
McMartin, Chris 41:31
Right.
Yeah.
Well, that being said, I can't say thank you enough for you sying yes to us, we're really excited about that.
And for those who are who are listening in, I have to acknowledge that we got the pleasure of announcing our partnership with Virtual Gurus, The Scotiabank Women Initiative and Virtual Gurus have partnered together.
And so if you in fact are a Scotiabank Women initiative participant, we have a great offer for you, and we'll put in the details.
We'll make sure everybody gets that.
It's on our website.
If you go to our socials, if you go to Bobbie’s social, Virtual Gurus social, it's everywhere.
Bobbie Racette 42:07
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 42:09
It's everywhere.
Our announcement, we're really excited about it.
So I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned that because we do have the honor of being part of Bobbie’s circle now.
So we're very excited about that.
We're very excited about that.
So I know we talked a lot about raising funds, but one thing we didn't touch on and I'm curious to hear about is were there ever in your process, did you have experience with grants and if you know how you went about that?
Bobbie Racette 42:36
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think in total we've gotten about one and a half to two million in grants.
So the first grants for me were with IRAP it was like IRAP, Alberta Innovates.
But one of the best grants for me as an early-stage start-up, can't afford to get a COO. You can't afford to build the tech because you don't have the right people to help build. It was actually with Alberta Innovates where and I think every province has something very similar, where we were able to get grant money to pay for the salary of that person.
McMartin, Chris 43:07
Yep.
OK.
Bobbie Racette 43:14
And so I was able to pay for the salary.
The first person I hired was my COO cause I needed somebody to help me with operations.
Because God I had no idea what I was doing on that part, COO first check.
McMartin, Chris 43:22
Yeah.
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 43:26
And then the second was a CTO and both of these were through grant options, which was really good because I was able to finally leverage that to increase the business growth and enable to start paying them myself and hire bring them on.
IRAP was able to give me funding and then the biggest one for us was obviously Prairies Can which in Ontario I believe it's Fed Dev.
McMartin, Chris 43:38
Yeah.
Yes.
Bobbie Racette 43:48
We got a million through them, and that was a really good one that came at the most significant time for me.
So there's so much areas that you can look for grants.
For us we're gonna get back on the grant train now because we are getting a lot of folks to reaching out and saying, hey, you know, for us, one of the biggest grants right now is also SHRED.
So all the money that we're putting into we have SHRED credits for the technology we're building and the salaries has really helped.
But there is some really good grants in actually.
McMartin, Chris 44:19
Oh, sorry, we've got someone not on mute.
We could just make sure everybody's on mute.
Someones in travel.
Bobbie Racette 44:31
Yeah, sounds like they're walking through like snow or something, and maybe they're in Calgary, cause all my staff right now are messaging me.
McMartin, Chris 44:33
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 44:39
It's snowing in Alberta.
McMartin, Chris 44:40
About the snow.
Bobbie Racette 44:40
Oh, it's 30 degrees here, but I found some websites, so I actually sat on a panel with this company.
NerdWallet, you might have heard of them, but they were talking about some of the grants.
McMartin, Chris 44:51
Yep.
Bobbie Racette 44:53
I'll put it in the thing here, but there's this was really neat.
It was some grants for women.
That or everywhere that I think we're right and I took a look at it.
McMartin, Chris 45:03
OK.
Bobbie Racette 45:06
I'm thinking that we'll hit them up a little bit too, but.
McMartin, Chris 45:12
Amazing.
Amazing.
And one of the other things that I will share is that The Scotiabank Women Initiative does have our partnership with Pocketed grant platform as well.
And so they're an excellent resource too, for grants and for information.
So we'll definitely share that as well.
So I think that that's definitely, I'm happy to hear that you're back at the grants.
So that's perfect.
If anyone has questions for Bobbie if they want to either come off mute and ask the questions, or if they prefer to share it in the chat and we can definitely approach Bobbie with those questions.
I know she just froze up, so I think she's coming back in here.
There we get you back, Bobbie.
Bobbie Racette 45:58
I think so.
Can you hear me?
McMartin, Chris 45:59
There we go.
There we go.
We've got your back.
Bobbie Racette 46:03
Sorry this is been and then.
McMartin, Chris 46:04
No, that's OK, that's OK.
Technology is not always our friend.
Bobbie Racette 46:12
But before I left, I did hear you mentioned Pocketed grants.
McMartin, Chris 46:15
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 46:16
I was gonna mention them because I know you work with them as well and I absolutely love them.
McMartin, Chris 46:18
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 46:21
NerdWallet did also a blog on 40 small business grants for women.
Really, really good.
So NerdWallet, they have a whole bunch, and I think a lot of these, you can actually find in the Pocketed platform as well.
So yeah, yeah, I think there's tons tons of different grants that we can get.
McMartin, Chris 46:36
Amazing. Incredible.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
I know we do have a a question, Bobbie from the audience, if you're good with that, Aaron.
Bobbie Racette 46:48
Yeah.
Erin Mathany 46:50
Hi Bobbie.
Thanks.
I'm sorry.
It's a little bit late joining.
I just have a question about grants, and this might be very rudimentary, so apologies I’m just new to this world.
I was there ever any expectation to do anything for grants? Like I don't think you pay them back.
But like, is there any kind of like give back when you apply for grants?
Bobbie Racette 47:11
Yeah, it depends on which ones you're doing.
So essentially, if you are a for-profit company you would need to pay some back.
So for Prairies Can we had to pay them back.
Now there there's different things on that, though, like you didn't have to.
We have had a 0% interest and it you didn't need to draw it down fully, so you have essentially in a bank and then you can draw down when you need it, you know and then when you pay it back to its on the whole thing down the road.
So when you actually showing that you're growing and making money and so grants like that were really helpful for us because it’s essentially like a loan, like going to a Scotiabank or going to get a loan, was essentially like that, like growing it in terms for us were pretty decent.
McMartin, Chris 47:50
Yep.
Erin Mathany 47:51
OK.
Bobbie Racette 47:55
And so we were able to leverage that.
McMartin, Chris 47:55
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 47:58
But so some grants, like IRAP you do not have to pay them back.
Erin Mathany 48:05
OK.
Bobbie Racette 48:06
They have a certain amount there for you to use.
You do have to be showing that you're giving work to Canadians, like there's different things that fall under every grant.
One of my only main advice forums is whatever grant you do, do a little bit of research.
Find somebody who's used that grant because you wanna find out how much paperwork it involves.
Because as a founder, you don't have time to sit there and do 158 pages of reporting every quarter, you know.
McMartin, Chris 48:27
Hmm, good point.
Erin Mathany 48:31
OK.
Bobbie Racette 48:36
And so you have to prepare for that.
That was something I learned as I went through further with grants, cause some of the grants.
Ohh man, like there was 160 pages and my team.
McMartin, Chris 48:46
Really.
Erin Mathany 48:46
Ohh.
Bobbie Racette 48:48
Yeah, my team were like Bobbie, we can't do this like I was like, well, we really have no choice.
So we have to do because we've already leveraged the funding.
So.
McMartin, Chris 48:57
Yeah.
Bobbie Racette 48:58
So yeah, yeah.
Do your due diligence on it as well.
Do some research.
Grant people are just the same.
You can actually ask them can I talk to some people who have received your grant, and then they will get you to sign an NDA, and you can actually talk to some people who have received that grant just to get their feedback too.
McMartin, Chris 49:17
Fantastic advice.
Thank you for the questionnaire and great question.
Bobbie Racette 49:19
Cool.
Erin Mathany 49:21
Thank you.
That was really helpful.
McMartin, Chris 49:23
Is there anyone else that has questions for Bobbie?
Bobbie Racette 49:23
Thank you.
McMartin, Chris 49:29
All right.
So there's no further questions, Bobbie.
I always wrap up by asking one last question is what is your favorite thing to do to take care of you when you start your day?
So when you start your day every morning, is there something that you do to make sure it starts out on the right foot?
Bobbie Racette 49:45
Yeah.
So I read.
In the winter I wake up and I'm reading or I meditate.
McMartin, Chris 49:52
Ah.
Bobbie Racette 49:52
I had recently gone into meditation, and I meditate in my office sometimes because I'll need.
Sometimes I can feel the fume, and I’m just like can I just meditate.
McMartin, Chris 50:00
Yeah, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 50:01
And and then umm yeah, I golf in the mornings.
Sometimes in the summer or like I'll just get up at 6, go to a golf course golf and then go to work, get to work.
So golfing is is kind of my.
It's probably the one and only thing that I never think about work the moment I hit the golf course.
McMartin, Chris 50:19
Really. OK.
Bobbie Racette 50:20
And yeah, yeah, it's so good for me.
In fact, it's almost addictively good because you just.
I'm no longer shooting for, like at work thinking about the next step.
At golfing I just wanna hit the next ball that I’ve hit like last time.
McMartin, Chris 50:35
Yep, yeah.
Bobbie Racette 50:36
So I’m just going for that.
So, golfing is certainly one of one of our biggest, my biggest things to do to take my mind off of work.
McMartin, Chris 50:44
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
Bobbie Racette 50:45
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 50:46
Thank you for sharing that with us Bobbie, and I can't thank you enough for your time and the fact that you joined us while on vacation is is, you know, really impressive and you've just shared so much knowledge with us and once again made a huge impact for women entrepreneurs.
So thank you for all that you do.
And I'm really excited to continue our partnership that we've announced this week, and I look forward to working with you further.
Bobbie Racette 51:05
Yeah.
McMartin, Chris 51:08
So thanks for today and please take the next two days to go enjoy your vacation.
Bobbie Racette 51:10
Yeah, I'm excited.
Thank you everybody for your time.
I I really do appreciate it, and I have feel free to add me on LinkedIn.
McMartin, Chris 51:19
Thanks everyone.
Absolutely.
Please, we will drop all of Bobbie’s contacts.
Bobbie Racette 51:22
Alright.
McMartin, Chris 51:24
Where you can follow her on LinkedIn and Instagram Virtual Gurus, and I can't thank you enough.
Enjoy the sunshine.
Thanks everyone for joining.
Bobbie Racette 51:32
OK.
Thank you.
OK.
McMartin, Chris 51:34
Bye bye.
Bobbie Racette 51:34
Bye bye.
Dutta, Aparna 51:36
Thank you.
