April 15, 2025 • 27 mins
Bryce North is not your average entrepreneur. He's a venture capitalist, tech innovator, and the fearless founder of Don’t Be A Little Pitch — a platform aimed at transforming the pitch process for startups and investors alike. But behind the bold branding and quick wit is a deeper lesson — one that was hard-earned through pain, failure, and raw self-discovery.
In Episode 234 of Paper Napkin Wisdom, Bryce shares a powerful truth on a napkin:
“The hardest decisions often lead to the most meaningful outcomes.”
And he doesn’t just say it — he lives it.
From building startups and walking away from a business that wasn’t serving him, to reclaiming his voice after the kind of betrayal that cuts to the bone, Bryce’s story is proof that making the hard call — even when it feels like a leap into the void — is where real transformation begins.
Finding Meaning Through Missteps
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Govindh Jayaraman (00:02):
Bryce North. Welcome to paper napkin wisdom. I'm excited to have you here today.
Bryce North (00:07):
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for your time. Excited to get going on this.
Govindh Jayaraman (00:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So you shared a really interesting paper napkin with me, and I'm excited to dive in it says the hardest decisions often lead to the most meaningful outcomes underlined.
Why did you share that with me?
Bryce North (00:28):
I think you rock bottom moments in your life are the truly defining pivotal points on your success. I mean, these are all learning experiences, and I believe that as an entrepreneur you need to either be moving forward and succeeding or moving backwards and failing. Those are just learning moments. But if you're stagnant and not moving, and all, you're spinning your wheels that causes noise, confusion, and all of that. So when we do take a big leap backwards. These are moments for us to reflect on. I think a lot of people kind of
(00:55):
do, some of us, you know, kind of scary moments. But for us. There's springboard moments. I think we need to remember that.
Govindh Jayaraman (01:02):
I like how I like how you said a big leap backwards. You know some people call it a fall, some people call it. But you're calling a leap like it's almost like it's an intentional step that you're recognizing. It just didn't work in the right direction. Is that? Am I missing that? Or is that what you're trying to say?
Bryce North (01:17):
No, I am saying that. I think when we kind of swing big sometimes. We always forget that there's going to be some clawbacks. And there's going to be that leap from that risk, these just open doors. And I think a lot of people just need to understand that your job is looking for opportunity. Opportunity is finding new doors to open, whether that is, you know, forward motion or backward motion. But it's it's everything leads to connections and people and experiences that kind of guide us where we need to be going, at least help us understand what decision to make next.
Govindh Jayaraman (01:46):
Soup.
Have you always like? What did it come naturally for you to think about opportunities, whether they work or not, as being positive like is just being opportunities. Just a chance. Just another chance to swing the bat. Or was that something that you learned along the way.
Bryce North (02:03):
I mean, I'm gonna use this like, just like playing the guitar you could calloused right? I mean over time. The more crap you kind of go through the less or scarier the next crap, is it just, you know, when you're a dollar in debt that you know you get used to that when you're a hundred $1,000 a million dollars in debt or losing, you know, money from investors the next time around. It's not so scary. So no, it's just getting used to the turmoil, and like the sporadicness
(02:27):
of your everyday during this growth, and learn how to how to handle that emotions and everything around that, as well.
Govindh Jayaraman (02:34):
So what do you do to handle emotions? What does that look like for you?
Bryce North (02:37):
Yeah, I mean, I find it. Really, I am an anxious person. I find that really, really interesting and an impatient person. So how do I handle my emotions? I'm not a meditator. I'm not a person who needs to take a step back. I need to plow through it and figure it out. Figure what went wrong. My ease is understanding of what went wrong, and my ease is being okay with the fact that maybe I did everything right, but made a wrong bet. But at least my calculations
(03:01):
I were executed on. And so it's just discovery, fact finding and having a little bit of obsession on places that do matter to understand exactly where you need to go next.
Govindh Jayaraman (03:11):
But as an anxious person, can't you get like over obsessed with things that don't matter like it gets cloudy, doesn't it? Like some people kind of get paranoid, and they get nervous about everything. But that's not a path forward either.
Bryce North (03:26):
No, it's not. And it's true. So yeah, you do have a lot of noise. Right? So I think at that point you got to be really good at figuring out. How do you eliminate some of that noise and confusion? And I mean whether you want to become a little more organized do a lot of day planning future projection whatever that is. Yeah, you're going to have that cloudiness along the way the anxiousness does bring that along. But at the same time, I think, if you can really really start to pinpoint
(03:49):
where this is coming from, what are these anxious moments in who you can lean on whether people have done kind of as role models that really helps, and and that gets me to also, seeing that you should find some mentors some people that can guide you along the way. But
there's a lot of studies out there. How anxious, slash, obsessive people are the most excessive, and that just comes to the fact of that relentless. I'm not going to stop until I figure this out, or so at least, why this failed.
Govindh Jayaraman (04:15):
Yeah. And I and I totally agree that, like that relentlessness of staying with it is really important, but also not getting stuck in the pattern of, you know. Some people get stuck in a sort of it's snowing heavily today, so I can say, you know, get stuck back and forth in the same groove, and that groove gets deeper and deeper and deeper. You're not saying that you're saying.
(04:38):
you know. Understand the landscape. Understand what's going on and and use mentors or other people to help you guide you along the way right.
Bryce North (04:47):
Yeah, but I mean understanding a breakback. Guru. This is the typical flywheel lifecycle of any entrepreneur. You know, things are great. We're starting out whether it's a new product or it's a new service, or at least it's a new initiative on our business. We get excited about that. So then we go, and we start learning and reading and taking courses and understanding those courses. Give us this power, this this feeling of Hey, I'm actually progressing and going through. We executed that and start building. That gives us more.
(05:12):
more ambition and more like fuel to the fire in order to doing something. I feel like, we're actually moving forward. That's building Mvps.
and like getting out of that circle, is probably talking to your customers, which is like, you know, I don't want to digress just yet, but a lot of people don't do that. So that's come back and say, now we're building avps, and we're testing now, that's failing. And now that's that's scary, and we're stuck in this pattern. So what do we do? We go back to the drawing board? Try to come up with new courses, new things to learn in order to try to bring this back. That's the ambitious circle that is a continuous where you're talking about
(05:43):
pitfall of anxiety, spinning your wheels, doing that all over again. Now, how do you get out of that? There's key points, I think, along the way which you can follow as guidelines, and it comes from a lot from experience of Hey, I'm not going to go through this repetition pattern again, of using my ego using false hope, or using these these tactics of learning to make me feel like I'm regressing when I should be doing the number. One thing out. There is actually talking to my customers
(06:07):
selling and getting market feedback. I think a lot of us skip that.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:10):
Yeah, I really like that. You emphasize talking to your customers. So let's go back. You get excited about an opportunity. You get excited about an idea or something. I I like how you went to the action of learning right, learn more about it, become even like a pinpoint expert and export on a little bit of it. Right? Is that what you're saying like? Really understand it?
Bryce North (06:32):
Yes, but it's also the problem, because a lot of us just want to consume more courses and more learning because they think that's the way to actually progress and go forward. I don't think more courses, and I don't think learning more is the the solution. I I think that comes a lot more like you said talking to customers, or actually execution.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:48):
Yeah. So then then you move to start building right? That's that was what you said next, start building. Get an Mvp. And talk to your customers about it.
Bryce North (06:56):
You should. Many don't a lot of them just build and hope that they will come.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:59):
Right? So yeah, I think this field of dreams is just, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So talking to customers, talking to engaging customers and getting meaningful, meaningful feedback is really important. Tell me about how you do that. What does that look like to you?
Bryce North (07:14):
Let me use an example with a company I had called Trap Tap, which was a amazing failure. But I had this idea, and just like a paper napkin. Literally. I drew it on there and then I went and pre-sold about a million dollars worth of the product before I even had the invention before I have any drawings or schematics. It was an IoT device ended up, you know, bringing me on Dragon's Den, Canada's version of shark tank and scaling to 20 different countries, which is amazing. But
(07:39):
I pre-sold this with just on an idea and hope and a good story, and I think that scares a lot of people which everyone says, I have this idea. I'm like, well, okay, the 1st thing you want to be doing is not creating it. It's not building is selling it. Go out and actually sell it. There's many ways you can do that. But ideally, that's the hardest job
(07:59):
that anyone ever has to go through is talking to your customers, getting feedback, real feedback, and actually trying to sell it.
Govindh Jayaraman (08:04):
Yeah, so so.
and I think this is the new thing, this IoT model. The idea that you can have an idea, sell it and use that crowdfunding to actually build it is is backwards to a lot of people. A lot of people don't understand that that you can do that.
Let's talk about that process. So you had an idea. You you built it on a napkin. You put it out into the world. You got people to buy it. That sounds successful. It sounds like it really worked. But you said it was a failure. Why was it a failure?
Bryce North (08:38):
Oh, my God! That is a great question. And it goes into a lot of that race of trying to chasing money. The wrong team members of having things involved, a little bit of an experience and and more of a fear of fullness in myself to move forward that imposter syndrome, that kind of came through. There are moments in every entrepreneur's life where we think that we're actually in momentum when we're not and we're trailblazing. And that's when we get a little too risky. We're not
(09:03):
like Lady. Maybe we spend it too much, and we have that feeling that this will 100 or more be successful. And it's not
that there are those moments in everyone's career path when they're when they're actually building something.
And this is just ego. Learn to calm that ego and understanding the risks behind that. So that came into play for us, where in about 9 months, we had this paper, the napkin drawing, and we actually prototyped, raised a million dollars in pre-sales, built it and shipped it to 20 countries in 9 months. In 9 months. Electronic devices.
(09:33):
It's inside an incredible team around that. But too many cooks in the kitchen led to a lot of different ideas of success. Who's involved the heavy cap table, some bad investments. And here we are in a hardware world where hardware is hard to sell and getting deals with people like best buy, which have long payment terms. There needs a lot of capital
behind this, and I think our story really blew us out of the water in a really good way that has a lot of attention, a lot of people interested. But that support and that demand didn't really give us a stable environment to really scale properly.
Govindh Jayaraman (10:04):
Yeah. So a lot of people don't. When you go from a presale environment to a post sale environment, the capital structure really flips on you really quickly, like inventory and inventory management is a whole part of the business that people have to learn, and it sounds like that was something that you learned in the middle of it, which would have been very challenging right.
Bryce North (10:26):
Yeah, my biggest realization was understanding who your true fans are and evangelists are, and why you should be actually maximizing your evangelists. These are people that really don't care if you screw up in any type of way the product can go on fire. They just love to be part of the story the 1st movers so that can go screaming the top of the rooftops for you. And so we try to tailor to everyone and sell to everyone when we had our true fans, were helping us build this and then share it along the way we should have maximized that.
(10:50):
Put a halt on sales perfected where you need to go, and then use that momentum in order to raise a fair valuation, to go forward.
Govindh Jayaraman (10:58):
Yeah, it's so cool. You know, one of the things that I think that a lot of people do. And I hear this a lot lately, and I think it's the time. It's you know, the time where a lot of people are. I think it's a tough time. So people are looking at, changing their business, or modifying their business, or adding things or subtracting things. But they go back and they look at these learning experiences. You talked about this big leap backwards. Right? They go to the leaps backwards, and they kind of hate on that. They're embarrassed about it.
(11:26):
I really admire how you're you're talking about it so openly. And you're talking about, you know my ego got in the way our ego got in the way we got off focus. So, learning from those opportunities almost like loving those opportunities.
gives you power, because that version survived the version of you that was there survived that challenge and brought you to where you are now, so you can bring all those skills to this moment if you honor that.
(11:57):
But if you fake line, hide from it, and you don't talk about the failure, and if you don't learn from it, it's not part of who you are right.
Bryce North (12:03):
No, you know, that's right. There's 1 thing that I actually use in our peer agency today. We run by 2 laws and number one is the most powerful is that people are attracted to other people's rough edges.
And what that is is that vulnerability and transparency is just the most important things in terms of connecting with people. We see our superstars, we see our heroes out there. We're never going to be like them, and that creates this pedestal moment, this discrepancy in this gap of knowledge and intelligence which is not really true. Once we hear these people.
(12:35):
and once they humanize themselves, but once we hear the rock bottom moments, their stories, their their underdog story, how they progress we can relate with that these are relatable moments. These are moments in time where we can say to ourselves, like holy shit, I was there. They are just like me. They're not as different as I thought. You know they and I are. So I think that's the most important part is be able to actually understand. How can you connect with people on a level that makes them not just appreciate respect you, but at the same time want to help you along with your journey.
Govindh Jayaraman (13:05):
Okay. What was the second part? You said, you have 2 rules.
Bryce North (13:08):
Oh, yeah, people always buy. People always buy better versions of themselves.
Govindh Jayaraman (13:13):
People always buy. Okay, so why are those rules for what you do now like? Why are they so important?
Bryce North (13:20):
I think it's really interesting, you know, from my learning of actually running a Saas company to an IoT to now going into an agency I was. One thing I was really good at is just being edgy and telling good stories. I'm from a small city in Canada which no one, a lot of people haven't heard of no deal flow another catalyst to why, we probably failed, but also the same time realized that I got pretty good in getting my name out there, where I did
(13:45):
like speaking in touring stints and raising money in the valley, and all of that. And so this kind of taught me the actual importance of humanizing yourself and building connection with people along the way, and we do that in and out, because it doesn't matter where your company is in that stage line, whether it's a new idea where you're actually raising your seed, A or B or Series A and B, you are trying different initiatives, reaching different moments of pittable
(14:09):
pivotalness within your company and understanding. We're taking a different direction. That moment from 0 to 10,000 is super hard, but from 10,000 to 50 is even harder, and then 50 to half a million is a different beast itself growing from there in my mind, or just different tranches, in different ways of actually needing to tell your story.
In the very beginning we need to connect with people. We are our brands, which is in itself a problem. But we need to be doing is showing that trust people are not going to trust our companies unless they trust the people behind. There we build. We show that culture. We push that through as we progress, and then solely separate personal from corporate brands. We're making these people, their identities, the Guru as the leaders in the world.
(14:46):
those that people should follow and listen to, and while their companies, the solutions, their products, the boards they're sitting on are all products that are often solutions to these problems. This is where we need to clearly separate and understand who has a story, what significance it has in the persons in the customer's journey in their life, and how your culture really supports that.
Govindh Jayaraman (15:06):
I find it really interesting that you really leveraged your story
right like your journey is now how you're helping other entrepreneurs and other businesses elevate their own brands.
And I really like this idea that people are attracted to each other's rough edges, and you're putting yours out there like sometimes entrepreneurs hide from the things that didn't work. You're actually using what didn't work
(15:35):
as a catalyst for what you're doing now by sharing it openly
did? Is there? Is there ever a time when
when you feel doubt around that? Because you say you're an anxious person, does that ever come back? How do you? How do you quell that.
Bryce North (15:53):
Yeah, I mean, there's always gonna be doubts on new endeavors things and on, you know, chartered territory I haven't been before, and it's just kind of taking back, like, you know, and trying to call myself. And I thankfully have a really great team right now. They're pretty level headed, and a lot smarter than I am, which is fantastic, and we can kind of balance things off and talk about these uncertainties. But I've had moments, my rock bottom moments, where I can always say to myself, things will never get as bad as that where I've lost everything
(16:21):
from, you know, friends and relationships to money and companies and everything within 3 h, literally. And it was incredible. So I remember that moment, and how horrible that was, and that feeling I got in my gut, and I don't think things will get that bad, because I'm more calculated now, and a lot smarter with that. But I use that as my, my springboard and and kind of really propelling myself forward is like things are going to actually be okay. Things won't be like that again. If they are. You know how to get out of them? You did it before. Why can't you do it again?
Govindh Jayaraman (16:50):
Yeah, I really like that. And it sounds like you also share it quickly, like you. You speak that truth quickly, and by speaking that truth quickly. You get it out there. You get those rough edges out there. You make sure that people are aware of them, and then people can also cover you right. Your good team, your great team can't cover your blind spot. If you don't say Hey, I caught a blind spot. I might need you to help me here.
Bryce North (17:14):
It's 1 of our values honestly, and everyone's pretty open. But my biggest 1st customer was for me, reluctantly wanting to talk about my previous past, and how my company failed, but I got invited to a speaking opportunity to do it. It was hard I talked about it, and everyone said that was incredible. And I realized these these polarizing moments are what tracked people and polarization, which is why our business is called. Don't be a little pitch with a P tracks, the right people in the right audience, but also makes people
(17:44):
really respect you. They're like, don't get me wrong. If people are gonna love. You. People are gonna hate you. We have a lot of people that don't like us. But we have a lot of people actually love us, which matters the most, because now we capitalize on that same thing. When you're expressing yourself with your team, there's gonna be moments, where you're kind of feel uncertain. But go go with the good stuff, go with the stuff that's gonna move you forward.
Govindh Jayaraman (18:03):
Alright. So how do you? How do you
focus yourself on the good stuff in the sea? Because because for every one person that loves you. There's probably more than one that doesn't.
How do you drown out that and focus on the good.
Bryce North (18:19):
By celebrating the small wins, and everyone talks about it. But no one actually does it. So emotions are in motion. Right? So that's why we remember things that have really big emotional moments, breakups, huge successes, huge wins, things from our childhood which cause trauma like these are moments in time that cause motion with an emotion. So I say that one thing we're really bad at as humans is
(18:44):
pushing that goalpost which I think should be done. But I think we should take those moments to recognize where we want and make a big stink about it, winning, getting the customer beating some Revenue Goals company being around for X number of years, whether you hit your 6 month or 12 months, whatever that is, take time out of your day to actually build a highlight board, and in some sort of you know.
(19:08):
award. Reel for yourself and talk about these little wins, because that's gonna pile up, rewire the brain
and work with you in such a positive momentum that you're going to remember all the good things that when the bad stuff does come they're going to be overweight. It's kind of like having so much good press out there that when something bad happens to you, people won't believe the negative.
Govindh Jayaraman (19:29):
So I like this idea of an award reel for yourself. Right? It's almost like that promo reel for yourself. But you've got to have that in your mind that you can turn on anytime.
What, what.
what does that look like? How do you build? How do you build that for yourself. Tell me about celebrating like I love the celebrating small wins. We're going to come back to that. But this award reel for yourself. What is what's on your award reel. How did you build it?
Bryce North (19:51):
Yeah, I I think it's just documenting moments. Within time. So we record every company call, every highlight, every excited conversation, recording every sales call. I handle them all. You know, excited clients, good testimonials, things we see online. These are things we like should be highlighted. That's all of our people person in our company to do that. But at the same time it's like that montage of information we put together for each other.
(20:16):
and something we should be celebrating on company anniversary since we do. And and you know, highlighting well, this went wrong. But remember this, and this is what came out of this, and I think it's just having the visible make it present. And then, just, you know, making kind of exciting and make it a big deal like just make it a big deal.
Govindh Jayaraman (20:32):
You know, one of the things I learned really early, and I remember Linda Lundstrom, she a fashion brand fashion designer in Canada. Many, many years ago she was at a keynote, and she talked about planning the celebration before starting work.
So you'd start working on a project. But you'd always plan the celebration first, st
and she would vision the celebration with her team.
(20:55):
And and in this particular moment, in this particular instance, she was saying, this is how it looked this morning before I came here to give this speech.
I plan the celebration that I would give myself after I saw a thunderous standing ovation at the end of this presentation.
and you know the way that she built the story just made it so interesting that she got one right that second, and then she got another one at the end, and it was just. It was incredible to see it all come together in that way. That's what you're talking about right like.
(21:28):
celebrate the plan a celebration. Celebrate the moment, make a big deal about it like, own that right?
Bryce North (21:34):
Yeah, whether it's before. And you're manifesting this. You know, it's what sounds like in this case, or even after when like when there's a win. But
a lot of times it's like that doesn't have to be that grand. A lot of people may think that you know what are what are small wins? Right? Well, you know, for me, the other day I wrote a really killer email campaign. I'm a cold email campaign and I've got incredible open rates and response rates. And my email campaigns are offered no value at all. I believe, like the secret to actually sales is humor and charm. And so I just say ridiculous things and and Photoshop some bad photos. And
(22:08):
and you know, that's a big win for me like getting a really big response rate understanding. Okay, this is a moment where humor really just outshines and wins. And this is a really big moment in learning for us. So we celebrated that. And and we learned from that. And this has kind of led to like more moments of like little things that we're experimenting with. My team knows
they can break stuff like one of our values is go break stuff, and literally, and have no fear in executing and trying new things. And I mean. That's how we kind of innovate and can grow.
Govindh Jayaraman (22:35):
I love that. So in that idea of celebrating wins and celebrating things, let's this season of paper, napkin wisdom. We've been ending every episode with what you appreciate appreciates putting some appreciation out in the world. Because we know when we appreciate people they grow in value. So
who would you like to appreciate. Who are you going to shout out today?
Bryce North (22:57):
I gotta shout out Michael Franco and Michael Franco is an individual I met actually within Mexico traveling, and he's been handling our our people and cultural operations, and I give him a big shout out, because
culture is one of the hardest things to build in any company. And I, my team is 10 people, but even at the point of like 5 and 8 I realize how hard it is a lot of times to like reign people and motivate them and keep them so inspired that they're hungry. And this guy is just like a masterpiece of what I want to say is like proper and healthy manipulation in a really good way, right like making people just love what they do and kind of pushing them through. So he owns.
(23:33):
And it's been like, you know, our in seat culture, people, person, Hr. For absolutely everything. And I am so excited. How energetic my team is since he came in, so he deserves a really big reach here.
Govindh Jayaraman (23:46):
That's awesome nice shout out and awesome to meet you. Thanks for joining me today.
Bryce North (23:51):
Hey? Thanks for having me on. It was awesome. Really appreciate it.
Bryce North. Welcome to paper napkin wisdom. I'm excited to have you here today.
Bryce North (00:07):
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for your time. Excited to get going on this.
Govindh Jayaraman (00:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So you shared a really interesting paper napkin with me, and I'm excited to dive in it says the hardest decisions often lead to the most meaningful outcomes underlined.
Why did you share that with me?
Bryce North (00:28):
I think you rock bottom moments in your life are the truly defining pivotal points on your success. I mean, these are all learning experiences, and I believe that as an entrepreneur you need to either be moving forward and succeeding or moving backwards and failing. Those are just learning moments. But if you're stagnant and not moving, and all, you're spinning your wheels that causes noise, confusion, and all of that. So when we do take a big leap backwards. These are moments for us to reflect on. I think a lot of people kind of
(00:55):
do, some of us, you know, kind of scary moments. But for us. There's springboard moments. I think we need to remember that.
Govindh Jayaraman (01:02):
I like how I like how you said a big leap backwards. You know some people call it a fall, some people call it. But you're calling a leap like it's almost like it's an intentional step that you're recognizing. It just didn't work in the right direction. Is that? Am I missing that? Or is that what you're trying to say?
Bryce North (01:17):
No, I am saying that. I think when we kind of swing big sometimes. We always forget that there's going to be some clawbacks. And there's going to be that leap from that risk, these just open doors. And I think a lot of people just need to understand that your job is looking for opportunity. Opportunity is finding new doors to open, whether that is, you know, forward motion or backward motion. But it's it's everything leads to connections and people and experiences that kind of guide us where we need to be going, at least help us understand what decision to make next.
Govindh Jayaraman (01:46):
Soup.
Have you always like? What did it come naturally for you to think about opportunities, whether they work or not, as being positive like is just being opportunities. Just a chance. Just another chance to swing the bat. Or was that something that you learned along the way.
Bryce North (02:03):
I mean, I'm gonna use this like, just like playing the guitar you could calloused right? I mean over time. The more crap you kind of go through the less or scarier the next crap, is it just, you know, when you're a dollar in debt that you know you get used to that when you're a hundred $1,000 a million dollars in debt or losing, you know, money from investors the next time around. It's not so scary. So no, it's just getting used to the turmoil, and like the sporadicness
(02:27):
of your everyday during this growth, and learn how to how to handle that emotions and everything around that, as well.
Govindh Jayaraman (02:34):
So what do you do to handle emotions? What does that look like for you?
Bryce North (02:37):
Yeah, I mean, I find it. Really, I am an anxious person. I find that really, really interesting and an impatient person. So how do I handle my emotions? I'm not a meditator. I'm not a person who needs to take a step back. I need to plow through it and figure it out. Figure what went wrong. My ease is understanding of what went wrong, and my ease is being okay with the fact that maybe I did everything right, but made a wrong bet. But at least my calculations
(03:01):
I were executed on. And so it's just discovery, fact finding and having a little bit of obsession on places that do matter to understand exactly where you need to go next.
Govindh Jayaraman (03:11):
But as an anxious person, can't you get like over obsessed with things that don't matter like it gets cloudy, doesn't it? Like some people kind of get paranoid, and they get nervous about everything. But that's not a path forward either.
Bryce North (03:26):
No, it's not. And it's true. So yeah, you do have a lot of noise. Right? So I think at that point you got to be really good at figuring out. How do you eliminate some of that noise and confusion? And I mean whether you want to become a little more organized do a lot of day planning future projection whatever that is. Yeah, you're going to have that cloudiness along the way the anxiousness does bring that along. But at the same time, I think, if you can really really start to pinpoint
(03:49):
where this is coming from, what are these anxious moments in who you can lean on whether people have done kind of as role models that really helps, and and that gets me to also, seeing that you should find some mentors some people that can guide you along the way. But
there's a lot of studies out there. How anxious, slash, obsessive people are the most excessive, and that just comes to the fact of that relentless. I'm not going to stop until I figure this out, or so at least, why this failed.
Govindh Jayaraman (04:15):
Yeah. And I and I totally agree that, like that relentlessness of staying with it is really important, but also not getting stuck in the pattern of, you know. Some people get stuck in a sort of it's snowing heavily today, so I can say, you know, get stuck back and forth in the same groove, and that groove gets deeper and deeper and deeper. You're not saying that you're saying.
(04:38):
you know. Understand the landscape. Understand what's going on and and use mentors or other people to help you guide you along the way right.
Bryce North (04:47):
Yeah, but I mean understanding a breakback. Guru. This is the typical flywheel lifecycle of any entrepreneur. You know, things are great. We're starting out whether it's a new product or it's a new service, or at least it's a new initiative on our business. We get excited about that. So then we go, and we start learning and reading and taking courses and understanding those courses. Give us this power, this this feeling of Hey, I'm actually progressing and going through. We executed that and start building. That gives us more.
(05:12):
more ambition and more like fuel to the fire in order to doing something. I feel like, we're actually moving forward. That's building Mvps.
and like getting out of that circle, is probably talking to your customers, which is like, you know, I don't want to digress just yet, but a lot of people don't do that. So that's come back and say, now we're building avps, and we're testing now, that's failing. And now that's that's scary, and we're stuck in this pattern. So what do we do? We go back to the drawing board? Try to come up with new courses, new things to learn in order to try to bring this back. That's the ambitious circle that is a continuous where you're talking about
(05:43):
pitfall of anxiety, spinning your wheels, doing that all over again. Now, how do you get out of that? There's key points, I think, along the way which you can follow as guidelines, and it comes from a lot from experience of Hey, I'm not going to go through this repetition pattern again, of using my ego using false hope, or using these these tactics of learning to make me feel like I'm regressing when I should be doing the number. One thing out. There is actually talking to my customers
(06:07):
selling and getting market feedback. I think a lot of us skip that.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:10):
Yeah, I really like that. You emphasize talking to your customers. So let's go back. You get excited about an opportunity. You get excited about an idea or something. I I like how you went to the action of learning right, learn more about it, become even like a pinpoint expert and export on a little bit of it. Right? Is that what you're saying like? Really understand it?
Bryce North (06:32):
Yes, but it's also the problem, because a lot of us just want to consume more courses and more learning because they think that's the way to actually progress and go forward. I don't think more courses, and I don't think learning more is the the solution. I I think that comes a lot more like you said talking to customers, or actually execution.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:48):
Yeah. So then then you move to start building right? That's that was what you said next, start building. Get an Mvp. And talk to your customers about it.
Bryce North (06:56):
You should. Many don't a lot of them just build and hope that they will come.
Govindh Jayaraman (06:59):
Right? So yeah, I think this field of dreams is just, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So talking to customers, talking to engaging customers and getting meaningful, meaningful feedback is really important. Tell me about how you do that. What does that look like to you?
Bryce North (07:14):
Let me use an example with a company I had called Trap Tap, which was a amazing failure. But I had this idea, and just like a paper napkin. Literally. I drew it on there and then I went and pre-sold about a million dollars worth of the product before I even had the invention before I have any drawings or schematics. It was an IoT device ended up, you know, bringing me on Dragon's Den, Canada's version of shark tank and scaling to 20 different countries, which is amazing. But
(07:39):
I pre-sold this with just on an idea and hope and a good story, and I think that scares a lot of people which everyone says, I have this idea. I'm like, well, okay, the 1st thing you want to be doing is not creating it. It's not building is selling it. Go out and actually sell it. There's many ways you can do that. But ideally, that's the hardest job
(07:59):
that anyone ever has to go through is talking to your customers, getting feedback, real feedback, and actually trying to sell it.
Govindh Jayaraman (08:04):
Yeah, so so.
and I think this is the new thing, this IoT model. The idea that you can have an idea, sell it and use that crowdfunding to actually build it is is backwards to a lot of people. A lot of people don't understand that that you can do that.
Let's talk about that process. So you had an idea. You you built it on a napkin. You put it out into the world. You got people to buy it. That sounds successful. It sounds like it really worked. But you said it was a failure. Why was it a failure?
Bryce North (08:38):
Oh, my God! That is a great question. And it goes into a lot of that race of trying to chasing money. The wrong team members of having things involved, a little bit of an experience and and more of a fear of fullness in myself to move forward that imposter syndrome, that kind of came through. There are moments in every entrepreneur's life where we think that we're actually in momentum when we're not and we're trailblazing. And that's when we get a little too risky. We're not
(09:03):
like Lady. Maybe we spend it too much, and we have that feeling that this will 100 or more be successful. And it's not
that there are those moments in everyone's career path when they're when they're actually building something.
And this is just ego. Learn to calm that ego and understanding the risks behind that. So that came into play for us, where in about 9 months, we had this paper, the napkin drawing, and we actually prototyped, raised a million dollars in pre-sales, built it and shipped it to 20 countries in 9 months. In 9 months. Electronic devices.
(09:33):
It's inside an incredible team around that. But too many cooks in the kitchen led to a lot of different ideas of success. Who's involved the heavy cap table, some bad investments. And here we are in a hardware world where hardware is hard to sell and getting deals with people like best buy, which have long payment terms. There needs a lot of capital
behind this, and I think our story really blew us out of the water in a really good way that has a lot of attention, a lot of people interested. But that support and that demand didn't really give us a stable environment to really scale properly.
Govindh Jayaraman (10:04):
Yeah. So a lot of people don't. When you go from a presale environment to a post sale environment, the capital structure really flips on you really quickly, like inventory and inventory management is a whole part of the business that people have to learn, and it sounds like that was something that you learned in the middle of it, which would have been very challenging right.
Bryce North (10:26):
Yeah, my biggest realization was understanding who your true fans are and evangelists are, and why you should be actually maximizing your evangelists. These are people that really don't care if you screw up in any type of way the product can go on fire. They just love to be part of the story the 1st movers so that can go screaming the top of the rooftops for you. And so we try to tailor to everyone and sell to everyone when we had our true fans, were helping us build this and then share it along the way we should have maximized that.
(10:50):
Put a halt on sales perfected where you need to go, and then use that momentum in order to raise a fair valuation, to go forward.
Govindh Jayaraman (10:58):
Yeah, it's so cool. You know, one of the things that I think that a lot of people do. And I hear this a lot lately, and I think it's the time. It's you know, the time where a lot of people are. I think it's a tough time. So people are looking at, changing their business, or modifying their business, or adding things or subtracting things. But they go back and they look at these learning experiences. You talked about this big leap backwards. Right? They go to the leaps backwards, and they kind of hate on that. They're embarrassed about it.
(11:26):
I really admire how you're you're talking about it so openly. And you're talking about, you know my ego got in the way our ego got in the way we got off focus. So, learning from those opportunities almost like loving those opportunities.
gives you power, because that version survived the version of you that was there survived that challenge and brought you to where you are now, so you can bring all those skills to this moment if you honor that.
(11:57):
But if you fake line, hide from it, and you don't talk about the failure, and if you don't learn from it, it's not part of who you are right.
Bryce North (12:03):
No, you know, that's right. There's 1 thing that I actually use in our peer agency today. We run by 2 laws and number one is the most powerful is that people are attracted to other people's rough edges.
And what that is is that vulnerability and transparency is just the most important things in terms of connecting with people. We see our superstars, we see our heroes out there. We're never going to be like them, and that creates this pedestal moment, this discrepancy in this gap of knowledge and intelligence which is not really true. Once we hear these people.
(12:35):
and once they humanize themselves, but once we hear the rock bottom moments, their stories, their their underdog story, how they progress we can relate with that these are relatable moments. These are moments in time where we can say to ourselves, like holy shit, I was there. They are just like me. They're not as different as I thought. You know they and I are. So I think that's the most important part is be able to actually understand. How can you connect with people on a level that makes them not just appreciate respect you, but at the same time want to help you along with your journey.
Govindh Jayaraman (13:05):
Okay. What was the second part? You said, you have 2 rules.
Bryce North (13:08):
Oh, yeah, people always buy. People always buy better versions of themselves.
Govindh Jayaraman (13:13):
People always buy. Okay, so why are those rules for what you do now like? Why are they so important?
Bryce North (13:20):
I think it's really interesting, you know, from my learning of actually running a Saas company to an IoT to now going into an agency I was. One thing I was really good at is just being edgy and telling good stories. I'm from a small city in Canada which no one, a lot of people haven't heard of no deal flow another catalyst to why, we probably failed, but also the same time realized that I got pretty good in getting my name out there, where I did
(13:45):
like speaking in touring stints and raising money in the valley, and all of that. And so this kind of taught me the actual importance of humanizing yourself and building connection with people along the way, and we do that in and out, because it doesn't matter where your company is in that stage line, whether it's a new idea where you're actually raising your seed, A or B or Series A and B, you are trying different initiatives, reaching different moments of pittable
(14:09):
pivotalness within your company and understanding. We're taking a different direction. That moment from 0 to 10,000 is super hard, but from 10,000 to 50 is even harder, and then 50 to half a million is a different beast itself growing from there in my mind, or just different tranches, in different ways of actually needing to tell your story.
In the very beginning we need to connect with people. We are our brands, which is in itself a problem. But we need to be doing is showing that trust people are not going to trust our companies unless they trust the people behind. There we build. We show that culture. We push that through as we progress, and then solely separate personal from corporate brands. We're making these people, their identities, the Guru as the leaders in the world.
(14:46):
those that people should follow and listen to, and while their companies, the solutions, their products, the boards they're sitting on are all products that are often solutions to these problems. This is where we need to clearly separate and understand who has a story, what significance it has in the persons in the customer's journey in their life, and how your culture really supports that.
Govindh Jayaraman (15:06):
I find it really interesting that you really leveraged your story
right like your journey is now how you're helping other entrepreneurs and other businesses elevate their own brands.
And I really like this idea that people are attracted to each other's rough edges, and you're putting yours out there like sometimes entrepreneurs hide from the things that didn't work. You're actually using what didn't work
(15:35):
as a catalyst for what you're doing now by sharing it openly
did? Is there? Is there ever a time when
when you feel doubt around that? Because you say you're an anxious person, does that ever come back? How do you? How do you quell that.
Bryce North (15:53):
Yeah, I mean, there's always gonna be doubts on new endeavors things and on, you know, chartered territory I haven't been before, and it's just kind of taking back, like, you know, and trying to call myself. And I thankfully have a really great team right now. They're pretty level headed, and a lot smarter than I am, which is fantastic, and we can kind of balance things off and talk about these uncertainties. But I've had moments, my rock bottom moments, where I can always say to myself, things will never get as bad as that where I've lost everything
(16:21):
from, you know, friends and relationships to money and companies and everything within 3 h, literally. And it was incredible. So I remember that moment, and how horrible that was, and that feeling I got in my gut, and I don't think things will get that bad, because I'm more calculated now, and a lot smarter with that. But I use that as my, my springboard and and kind of really propelling myself forward is like things are going to actually be okay. Things won't be like that again. If they are. You know how to get out of them? You did it before. Why can't you do it again?
Govindh Jayaraman (16:50):
Yeah, I really like that. And it sounds like you also share it quickly, like you. You speak that truth quickly, and by speaking that truth quickly. You get it out there. You get those rough edges out there. You make sure that people are aware of them, and then people can also cover you right. Your good team, your great team can't cover your blind spot. If you don't say Hey, I caught a blind spot. I might need you to help me here.
Bryce North (17:14):
It's 1 of our values honestly, and everyone's pretty open. But my biggest 1st customer was for me, reluctantly wanting to talk about my previous past, and how my company failed, but I got invited to a speaking opportunity to do it. It was hard I talked about it, and everyone said that was incredible. And I realized these these polarizing moments are what tracked people and polarization, which is why our business is called. Don't be a little pitch with a P tracks, the right people in the right audience, but also makes people
(17:44):
really respect you. They're like, don't get me wrong. If people are gonna love. You. People are gonna hate you. We have a lot of people that don't like us. But we have a lot of people actually love us, which matters the most, because now we capitalize on that same thing. When you're expressing yourself with your team, there's gonna be moments, where you're kind of feel uncertain. But go go with the good stuff, go with the stuff that's gonna move you forward.
Govindh Jayaraman (18:03):
Alright. So how do you? How do you
focus yourself on the good stuff in the sea? Because because for every one person that loves you. There's probably more than one that doesn't.
How do you drown out that and focus on the good.
Bryce North (18:19):
By celebrating the small wins, and everyone talks about it. But no one actually does it. So emotions are in motion. Right? So that's why we remember things that have really big emotional moments, breakups, huge successes, huge wins, things from our childhood which cause trauma like these are moments in time that cause motion with an emotion. So I say that one thing we're really bad at as humans is
(18:44):
pushing that goalpost which I think should be done. But I think we should take those moments to recognize where we want and make a big stink about it, winning, getting the customer beating some Revenue Goals company being around for X number of years, whether you hit your 6 month or 12 months, whatever that is, take time out of your day to actually build a highlight board, and in some sort of you know.
(19:08):
award. Reel for yourself and talk about these little wins, because that's gonna pile up, rewire the brain
and work with you in such a positive momentum that you're going to remember all the good things that when the bad stuff does come they're going to be overweight. It's kind of like having so much good press out there that when something bad happens to you, people won't believe the negative.
Govindh Jayaraman (19:29):
So I like this idea of an award reel for yourself. Right? It's almost like that promo reel for yourself. But you've got to have that in your mind that you can turn on anytime.
What, what.
what does that look like? How do you build? How do you build that for yourself. Tell me about celebrating like I love the celebrating small wins. We're going to come back to that. But this award reel for yourself. What is what's on your award reel. How did you build it?
Bryce North (19:51):
Yeah, I I think it's just documenting moments. Within time. So we record every company call, every highlight, every excited conversation, recording every sales call. I handle them all. You know, excited clients, good testimonials, things we see online. These are things we like should be highlighted. That's all of our people person in our company to do that. But at the same time it's like that montage of information we put together for each other.
(20:16):
and something we should be celebrating on company anniversary since we do. And and you know, highlighting well, this went wrong. But remember this, and this is what came out of this, and I think it's just having the visible make it present. And then, just, you know, making kind of exciting and make it a big deal like just make it a big deal.
Govindh Jayaraman (20:32):
You know, one of the things I learned really early, and I remember Linda Lundstrom, she a fashion brand fashion designer in Canada. Many, many years ago she was at a keynote, and she talked about planning the celebration before starting work.
So you'd start working on a project. But you'd always plan the celebration first, st
and she would vision the celebration with her team.
(20:55):
And and in this particular moment, in this particular instance, she was saying, this is how it looked this morning before I came here to give this speech.
I plan the celebration that I would give myself after I saw a thunderous standing ovation at the end of this presentation.
and you know the way that she built the story just made it so interesting that she got one right that second, and then she got another one at the end, and it was just. It was incredible to see it all come together in that way. That's what you're talking about right like.
(21:28):
celebrate the plan a celebration. Celebrate the moment, make a big deal about it like, own that right?
Bryce North (21:34):
Yeah, whether it's before. And you're manifesting this. You know, it's what sounds like in this case, or even after when like when there's a win. But
a lot of times it's like that doesn't have to be that grand. A lot of people may think that you know what are what are small wins? Right? Well, you know, for me, the other day I wrote a really killer email campaign. I'm a cold email campaign and I've got incredible open rates and response rates. And my email campaigns are offered no value at all. I believe, like the secret to actually sales is humor and charm. And so I just say ridiculous things and and Photoshop some bad photos. And
(22:08):
and you know, that's a big win for me like getting a really big response rate understanding. Okay, this is a moment where humor really just outshines and wins. And this is a really big moment in learning for us. So we celebrated that. And and we learned from that. And this has kind of led to like more moments of like little things that we're experimenting with. My team knows
they can break stuff like one of our values is go break stuff, and literally, and have no fear in executing and trying new things. And I mean. That's how we kind of innovate and can grow.
Govindh Jayaraman (22:35):
I love that. So in that idea of celebrating wins and celebrating things, let's this season of paper, napkin wisdom. We've been ending every episode with what you appreciate appreciates putting some appreciation out in the world. Because we know when we appreciate people they grow in value. So
who would you like to appreciate. Who are you going to shout out today?
Bryce North (22:57):
I gotta shout out Michael Franco and Michael Franco is an individual I met actually within Mexico traveling, and he's been handling our our people and cultural operations, and I give him a big shout out, because
culture is one of the hardest things to build in any company. And I, my team is 10 people, but even at the point of like 5 and 8 I realize how hard it is a lot of times to like reign people and motivate them and keep them so inspired that they're hungry. And this guy is just like a masterpiece of what I want to say is like proper and healthy manipulation in a really good way, right like making people just love what they do and kind of pushing them through. So he owns.
(23:33):
And it's been like, you know, our in seat culture, people, person, Hr. For absolutely everything. And I am so excited. How energetic my team is since he came in, so he deserves a really big reach here.
Govindh Jayaraman (23:46):
That's awesome nice shout out and awesome to meet you. Thanks for joining me today.
Bryce North (23:51):
Hey? Thanks for having me on. It was awesome. Really appreciate it.
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