#10 Starting tech companies without a technical background with Arctic Leaf founder Josh Garellek

Capital Ventures

English - October 20, 2021 05:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MB
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Previous Episode: #9 Standing out in the sea of sameness with Yellow Beauty founder Jaz Fenton

Next Episode: #11 How to get the Government to fund your Startup with SR&ED (SHRED) Credits with Naren Balakrishnan

Big three Takeaways:

1. Take action, when you notice a trend with business potential. Josh admits later in the interview that he has said yes to too many things in the past, but his default mode is to take action and he creates opportunities for himself with this mindset.

2. The other side of that coin; Be careful what you say yes to. Choose the topics you want to focus on and the people you want to work with carefully. Time is your most valuable resource.

3. Instead of jumping right into the middle of a trend and opening an online store, try starting a business that helps other stores sell their product more effectively. These have been referred to as picks and shovels businesses, and it goes back the mid 1800’s during the gold rush. Instead of digging for gold, some entrepreneurs had a great success selling picks and shovels to other prospectors.

Other Takeaways for entrepreneurs

00:03:16 – Josh takes us back to before e-commerce was as important as it is now and shares his insights of the potential he saw back in 2012.

00:06:33 – Think about how others will use your website. Not everyone will explore the site in the same way.

00:08:10 – removing steps improves user experience.

00:08:59 – Mountain Crest Gardens. Before and after, Air Kayaks

00:17:00 – Josh explains how he was able to immerse himself into tech to the point where he knew enough to start companies despite a lack of formal technical training.

00:18:32 – Josh goes through several resources available now to learn anything.

00:19:55 – Josh explains how he balances his curiosity and interest in learning new skills with the need to focus when you’re building a company.

00:25:51 – Josh disagrees with the notion that there’s no point in acknowledging weakness and wins me over to his viewpoint.

00:27:43 – Josh’s entrepreneurial journey

00:31:17 – What Josh thinks the future of e-commerce might look like.

00:34:19 – We get off-track and discuss supply chain and inflation. Josh’s advice, buy all your Christmas presents ASAP.

00:39:00 – How the pandemic has made it much harder to find talent and what Arctic Leaf is doing to keep up.