June 12, 2025 • 39 mins
In this deeply personal and moving episode, I sit down with Alok Ahuja, co-founder and CEO of Trexity, for a conversation that goes far beyond business. When Alok’s father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Alok left a high-flying role at Shopify to become his full-time caregiver. That decision, rooted in love, sparked a journey of clarity, purpose, and the founding of a company built to serve Main Street, not Bay Street.
This is a story of legacy, resilience, and how one man chose presence over prestige to honor the father who shaped him. It’s also about the kind of father Alok hopes to be.
“My goal in life is not to say to my kids, but to show to my kids, to lead by example that hard work pays off.”
This Father’s Day, we celebrate the mentors, protectors, and everyday heroes who show up to lift their future, and ours on their shoulders.
To learn more about Trexity. https://trexity.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Here's some lyrics from a song by Luther Vandross.
Back when I was a child before life removed all the innocence
My father would lift me up and dance with my mother and me
and then spin me around till I fell asleep Then up the stairs
he would carry me and I knew for sure I was loved well, if I
could get another chance another walk, another dance with him
(00:26):
I'd play a song that would never ever end How I love,
love, love to dance with my again.
There's a unique bond between father and child. Sometimes it's loud and
constant, Sometimes quiet and unspoken. But when it's
there, it's unforgettable. When fathers show up in our lives as
(00:46):
protectors and challengers and cheerleaders. And in some
cases, I would argue many cases are first heroes.
Their most powerful lessons come not from what they say,
but from who they are. Especially when life gets hard. At that
moment, I realized, Tony, that this is not our practice life. You have
to do this right. The first time on this special Father's
(01:09):
Day episode of Chatter that Matters. I want to honor that bond
and what happens when we give ourselves fully to it. Today's
guest is Alok . He's a co founder and CEO of Trexity,
a company born not out of market analysis or product gaps, but
out of love. My dad always used to say to me, son, you're only
as good as your network. You always gotta go with your heart and your heart.
(01:31):
His heart was always telling him numbers. He was a numbers man.
A love that was tested when Alok's father was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer. It probably was the greatest year of my life, getting
to sit there with him. Alok left a high flying career at Shopify
to care for his father full time. And in doing so, he
found something more than time. He found clarity, purpose, and
(01:54):
even the seed of a company that's now helping local businesses
thrive in the age of giants. Let's put the power back
into Main Street Canada, right? The favorite store on the favorite street of your favorite
neighbourhood. This is a story about what really matters.
Family, resilience, legacy. What it means to build something that
lasts beyond.
(02:17):
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings reviews. Well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated.
Alokauja. Welcome to a Chatter that Matters. Tony, thank you so much
for having me. It's an absolute honor. We're going to talk about
(02:40):
your business In a bit. But when you and I were first having this
conversation, another theme roared through it, and that was the
love you had for your father and I. Just. If we could begin the show.
But telling me about your dad and you said,
even in quiet ways, he shaped who you are today.
Oh, man. 100%. My dad. Still, to date, the strongest
(03:02):
human I've ever met. He was an immigrant. He immigrated from India
75 years ago and came to Canada and was the only of all
of his siblings to make it out of India. And he came here as a
chartered accountant, landed in Montreal, Was
somebody that had a relentless passion for
numbers. To be honest with you, Tony, it's his love for
(03:24):
numbers and the way he showed off how good and sharp he was
with numbers that truly caught my eye at such a young age. And
a lot of dads will try to do things to impress their kids. I
mean, I'm a father of two. My son's nine and my daughter's 12. And I'll.
I do the same thing. Like, I'll try to cook a really hard meal and
try to impress them or play basketball with my son. And my
(03:46):
dad would do things like. Our weekly tradition was going to
the grocery store together. Every Saturday morning back in the day, you'd get
all your flyers in the mail. He'd open up all the flyers, and
as a true accountant with his green pen, he'd go through and he'd
tick mark all the deals that he wanted to go get. And where he really
impressed me was we'd always put stuff on the conveyor belt. And when he got
(04:09):
to the cash register and before she was done scanning them all, he'd give me
the total, and I would just be completely blown away. Be like,
my dad is a genius. You had this illustrious
career. I mean, I was. I mean, even Hamburger University, McDonald's, but
Microsoft, and then you end up in Shopify, which is, for those
outside Canada, is one of our star companies. And you were roaring in that
(04:31):
business. So tell me a bit about how this love of
numbers translated into the sort of world of
tech that you found yourself in. Yeah. So when I was in school,
I gravitated towards tech. And I remember being at
Carleton University here in Ottawa. It was, I think, my first
year of university, and I got issued this
(04:54):
thing called an email address. I was blown away a little bit. I
was like, what is this? And they said, well, you're gonna submit all your work
via this email. And this email is like sending in a mail
or sticking your report into the Professor's door that has a little slot to put
it in. You're just gonna send it to this email address, and we're gonna give
you an. This thing called an email client. Then I went home, and I
(05:14):
was sitting there and I was talking to my mom, and I said, I think
this email address is gonna change the world. Like,
if there's no more physical assets and paper, and we're gonna go digital, and
that's the way we're gonna communicate. I go, this is gonna be incredible. I need
to get in front of this. And so that's when I. I had a major
in economics, and then I went in and did a double major and
(05:36):
went into compsci and commerce and really started to imme
computers and technology. And this is in 1999.
And that's where I really fell in love with it. My father was always a
true businessman at heart, right? Loved numbers, loved business.
He was a wheeler dealer. He was a talker like nobody I'd
ever met before. He could work a room, work a conversation. You
(06:00):
know how I speak, Tony. I got all of that from my dad, 100%
of that from my dad. So as he groomed me growing up from,
like, running for class president and being, like, the most popular person in school,
because I knew everybody, because I had those relationship that I learned from my dad.
My dad always used to say to me, son, you're only as good as your
network. And so my goal growing up was to be friends with
(06:21):
all the different cliques in high school, because back then, there were cliques, right? There
was the goths, then there was the skaters, then there was the hip hop junkies,
and then there was the nerds, and I was down with every
single one of them. And it worked. It was that notion of, like, okay, if
I can learn technology, and I've got this really extrovert
personality, and I've got the numbers in the business sense behind me already,
(06:43):
I really think I can have a successful career in whatever I want to
do. So you're talking about your dad as this accountant and tax auditor,
and you're also presenting him as the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. I mean,
so was he in the wrong profession, do you think? Because as much
as he loves numbers, I have to believe that his ability
to build that network would be somewhat curtailed, especially if you
(07:05):
spend your life auditing other people's taxes. I think that was his
superpower, right? He had the gift of the gab. He was a great
businessman. He dabbled in real estate. He Was very successful there.
But you always got to go with your heart and your heart. His heart was
always telling him numbers. He was a numbers man. And I think him
having the gift of the gab and being able to work a room were just
(07:26):
natural to him. Like, just came out of him. It was in his DNA. So
I thought to myself, okay, well, I'm going to focus on what I love. And
I started falling in love with technology. And also, Tony, like,
I'm a forward thinker, right? So I'm always trying to see, like, where is this
going to take society? Like, where will this go? And I honestly
felt at that time that this little email address that I was given
(07:46):
by the university was going to change the way we operate as a society.
What advice can you give to people? Because very often that's
just something that's offered to us sometimes to fulfill an
unfulfilled need, to take some friction away from our lives. You saw this
though, as the, as the beginning of something much
bigger. There's two things that you really need to understand. One is your
(08:08):
gut is never wrong. It is the greatest decision maker
every human has. And it's not something you have to learn, it's not something you
have to study. When you feel it in your gut, you know, your body, your
mind is telling you what to do. But secondly, the other thing, and this once
again was advice that I got from my dad. Son, always gotta be a
sponge. Just absorb whatever you can, learn as much
(08:30):
as you can. And growing up in an Indian household, Hindu, Punjabi household, like
Eduardo, education was life. There was nothing more important than that. And so it was
always being this learning state. But the thing that he said to me that
I still talk about today is he said, when you walk into a room
with a bunch of really successful people, business people, entrepreneurs, doctors,
lawyers, whoever it is, and you know you've created some type of
(08:52):
success or you feel like you're doing really good, always be the
smallest person in the room. Feed into their egos,
congratulate them on their successes, and always put yourself below them.
That is when you truly control the room. Because
no one is going to expect you or expect anything from you.
That is the perfect time to strike.
(09:16):
And how did your mother come to terms with all of this? And I know
it's a Father's Day special, but to me, a great father is
only more often than not there's a great partner that's standing
shoulder to shoulder and very often creating some kind of boundaries
so that the effort and enthusiasm is channeled in every single
speech. He did, he would always say the same thing at the very end.
(09:37):
And he said, the only reason I'm standing up here is because of the smartest
decision I ever made was to make Usha Ahuja my wife. My
mom is the matriarch of the family. The glue that holds
us all together. The one that made dinner from scratch every night and
forced us to eat dinner as a family and talk about our days. The one
that, like, overly celebrated every holiday, you know what I mean? Like,
(09:59):
that was mom, and that's still Mom. And she's doing that for her grandkids
now, and she's doing that for me still. And so. And even on his
last day, he said, being with your mom was my greatest achievement in life.
I want to move the story forward. You've had this great career. You're at
Shopify, you're highly regarded, you're in early stages.
Just imagine if you'd stayed there, what you'd be doing and what you'd be
(10:22):
worth. But you walked away from it all to take care of your dad.
It was the easiest decision I ever made in my life. It was twofold.
One was I had two very young kids at the time that I was not
getting to spend too much time with. Cause I was constantly, you know, enamored with
work. But then also I had my dad that had just been
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so I made a very simple decision to step away
(10:44):
and be a father and to be a son. And sometimes
we forget that, like the roles that we play in life, you do
have to dedicate time to those. Being a brother, being a son, being a cousin,
being a niece. These are things that people just take these labels for granted. But
I wanted to truly honor it. I would dedicate myself
to making my kids lunches every day, dropping them off at school, and then going
(11:07):
over to the home that I was raised in and hang out with my
dad every day. It probably was the greatest year of my life,
getting to sit there with him. I was going to do this whole show on
this extraordinary entrepreneur. And then we started talking about it. And you
mentioned a lot of what you got out of that year. As much as you
positioned yourself as the caregiver. Share how you would
(11:29):
frame that year as time well spent. My dad was kind
of in and out of the hospital quite a bit, a couple of weeks at
a time. One of the moments sticks out to me the most, Tony, is he
was at the hospital for about four or five weeks. And I sat in the
room almost every day. And when I sat there, as
weak as he was, he lit up every time I got there.
(11:50):
And he would sit there and just tell me stories, and he would talk about
all of the things we did as a family, all of the sacrifices
my parents made for my older sister and my older brother and myself.
I really started to understand the true meaning of parenthood,
the true meaning of living a selfless
life where you sacrifice your commitments and your hopes and
(12:14):
your dreams to make sure that you can give everything you possibly can
to your kids. Even told me a story of some bad
business decisions he made. And we ultimately ended up as a family losing everything.
And he had to start over from scratch. As I'm sitting there
listening to my dad, this man who is slowly withering
away, but his attitude, the way he
(12:37):
spoke, he was still the same dad that would
say the speeches that are all the family events and get everybody involved. And he
was still the same person that would crack the most inappropriate jokes at the
worst times and everybody would laugh as he's lying
there. He was still cracking those same jokes to me.
At that moment, I realized, Tony, that, like, this is not our practice
(12:59):
life. You have to do this right the first time.
We hear this proverb all the time of, you know, living your life to the
fullest. And I don't think it's living your life to the fullest. I think it's
just, live your life, do what you love, do what makes you happy, and be
with those you care about. I knew right away as I
started committing every day to my dad, that this is where I needed to
(13:20):
be right now and forever, as long as I can. Because
my dad is the reason I am who I am, the reason
why our family is in a situation where we're, you know,
first generation Canadian and now providing for the next generation and
building a successful path here in this incredible
country that we have. And I'm so, so thankful that my
(13:43):
parents chose to come to Canada. And it's funny, I always joked,
as, you know, hardworking immigrants, I'd always say, dad, I'm so
glad you stayed on the boat a little longer and got off in Canada.
We come back, Aloka, Jewel and I talk about meeting Ben
Mulroney and how he quickly became a
(14:06):
new old friend. And then we unpacked some more lessons in life.
And before my three takeaways, I even asked what was his kids
say if I had them on a podcast 20 years in the future
about what Alok is as a dad.
Sunrise to sunset, it didn't matter. He was there to teach
(14:28):
you to throw, to tie your tie, and most
importantly, to try again. A tough game came
with words of encouragement and a great play. He was the
loudest cheer from the stands. He taught you how to stand your ground
and when to say sorry. He worked hard so you could
chase dreams. And he showed his love not just in words, but in
(14:50):
the doing. And it wasn't just fathers by birth. It was
the uncles and coaches and grandfathers and mentors. The ones who
chose to show up, step in and stay. Because
being a father isn't about perfection. It's about presence. It's about
being there. This Father's Day, we honor those who lift
futures on their shoulders because fathers matter
(15:13):
to you, to me, and to rbc.
Anything that's three stars or less, you have to
read. Go to the darkest places of your feedback. Actual
shoppers that have constructive feedback on something that you can do to
improve. If they truly care about your business, they'll give you real feedback.
(15:38):
Joining me today is Alok Ajila. He's extraordinary entrepreneur,
but I think what's magical about this show is he has an extraordinary
soul forged by a remarkable bond that he had with most of
his parents. But on Father's Day, we put a special nod out to his
dad.
You know, you talked about being in Carleton University, and
(16:00):
this little email set you down a path in terms of
this love of technology and monetizing technology because you could see
the future. A similar seed was planted when you were taking care of
your father that led you to traxity. And I'm curious, tell us
about that, because to me, again, it's a great lesson in life for people
that no matter where you are, no matter what you're doing,
(16:22):
it's not so much opportunity knocks, but the realities of the world
present themselves in very unique ways. While I was,
you know, at the house every day, I quickly realized that
almost every hour, my dad always needed something.
And unfortunately, he wasn't mobile. He couldn't leave, and I
couldn't leave him, and neither could my mom. Whether it was his boaster pack from
(16:46):
the pharmacy or whether it was some groceries or whatever we needed. And I would
always, you know, call these local stores and I'd say, listen,
can you send the following items to the house for my dad? And they said,
look, listen, we don't deliver, but we'll
leave everything at the front of the store here, and you can just send somebody
to come pick it up and we'll tell them where to take it. I said
this is awesome. Thank you guys so much. So then I got on the phone
(17:08):
and I would start calling kind of local courier companies. I'd say can you do
me a huge favor? I'll pay anything. Can you just go and bring it to.
Go get it and bring it to my, my, my parents house. And every one
of them said look, we don't do that. That's not how this works. So I
started ordering Uber drivers to the house and when they showed up, I'd pull out
cash out of my pocket and I'd say listen, I'm going to give you this
money. Can you drive to that pharmacy downtown, pick up those and bring it
(17:31):
back? Every one of them? Tony said bro, you're
wasting my time. That's not what we do.
That's when the smoke started bellowing from my ears like a Looney Tune character. I
was furious. And out of sheer frustration is when I went back into my
parents house and I said I'm going to solve this problem. And I started to
architect a platform that would enable any local business to
(17:53):
offer some degree of same or next day hyper local delivery. Right? I
wanted all of these businesses to own their customers doorsteps
in a very intimate way. Let's put the power back into
main Street Canada, right? The favorite store on the favorite street of your favorite
neighborhood. I wanted all of these stores to
outperform the big box retailers on local delivery. Why were they
(18:14):
the only ones that could move the fastest? There's gotta be something I
can build to level the playing field. And that's where it was built.
And my dad got the first ever trixity delivery.
So as we were testing this with my co founders Matt and Darren,
the tech, the power, the muscle, they're the everything, right? And so they're like okay
loke, it's set, we've loaded it on your phone, go ahead and try it out.
(18:38):
And the first ever delivery I did was
something from our makeshift office that we had to the hospital while I was going
to visit my dad to see it there. Do you feel traxity
added days or months or special
moments to your dad's life? Every time I'd show up, the nurses would get very
excited and they'd say alok, your dad has been waiting
(19:01):
all morning to see you. And I'm like oh you know, what better
feeling can you have as a son to hear your dad is so
excited to see you? So I would walk in and I'm like hey dad, what's
going on? And he'd say Betta, which means son in
Hindi. He goes, beta, how many deliveries are you doing now? Because he
was very excited about this technology platform I was building,
(19:22):
and I didn't want to break his heart, but it was me doing those deliveries,
obviously. So, you know, I would walk in and I'd say, dad, Dad, I
did two deliveries. And he goes, oh, my God, that's so great.
And then the next day, I'd come back and I'd walk in and he'd go,
berta, come here. And I'm like, yeah, dad, what's up? How many today? And
I'm like, dad, we did four. He goes, all right, you doubled.
(19:43):
That's my boy. And towards the end of his life,
when he was unable to ask, the
nurses pulled me aside and they said, you, dad
has been holding on for a long time here, and he's surpassed
all expectations we had. We feel
you coming in here every day and him inquiring about how
(20:06):
many deliveries you're doing on this little thing you're building as what's been pushing
him to stay strong and stay healthy and keep his head up.
Trustee's the reason right now that he continues to try to stay alert
so he can ask you that question every time you come in here. You launched
it out of need, necessity, smoke blowing out of your ears.
But I think it's important to share with the listeners that
(20:27):
ideas like this, as much as they seem sound,
it takes a village. You had to go out and talk to couriers in the
middle of winter. You must have knocked on, what, two dozen VC doors, if
not more, and got rejections. Talk to me about the DNA of
that entrepreneur that says, even after your dad passed away,
saying that we're going to make this idea work. What is the difference between people
(20:50):
that just dream, people that dream and do knowing that there's so
much friction in the way. Being an entrepreneur of a
startup is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I will
say the worst job in the entire world is being a CEO. There's no
glamour there, no respect. It takes a very
different person to do this. This mentality that I have of, I'm not
(21:11):
gonna lose. I don't lose. You can kick me in the face and punch me
down and I'll get up 10 times harder. That's my fuel. This
is all my dad. This is
Shamahuja 101 implanted
inside of me. Failure wasn't an option. And it's funny because I have some
investors that will sometimes say to me, no, no, look, it's okay to fail.
(21:33):
Your definition of failure and my definition of failure are completely different. Okay?
I'm okay to fail, fail and get back up,
don't fail, and then try to find something else. That's not what we do here.
When you go and you try to raise capital and you try to get a
team to believe in you and build an ecosystem of small businesses that will
say, sure, we'll put our entire life on the line and use
(21:54):
this platform, when the stakes are high, I get
focused. Nothing phases me. But in order to
hurl all of these people to believe in what you're doing, you
need to build relationship. You need them to
understand who you are as an individual and what you're gonna do for
them. I would go and I would hang out at the airport at night, the
(22:16):
Uber lot, and knock on the windows of drivers, ask them questions,
make them, my friend, build focus groups so I could hang out with them to
really learn and understand that. Where I would go to the back
room of small businesses and sit there with my laptop and my. My
knapsack and watch how they operated their business and built my relationship with
them. This isn't a fluke, and I'm going to share another anecdote here about my
(22:39):
dad. At a very, very young age, he taught me the importance of
building relationships, because if you can build those relationships, something special
will happen. And so I'm gonna go back to where it all started at
that grocery store on Saturday morning. And he would walk into the
produce section, and he would see the gentleman with the little hose
watering the carrots and the coriander and all the things. And he'd look at
(23:01):
him and he'd say, hey, Ben, those vegetables are looking real good. You're doing a
great job. And he'd say, oh, thank you. Thank you, sir. What's your name? He
goes, my name's Sham. He goes, keep up the great work. And then we'd go
over to the bakery, and he'd see the girl there and her name tag, and
I noticed he'd always call them by their name. And he'd say, bonnie, do
you have any fresh baguettes? She goes, yeah, I've got some. Let me get some
out of the bag for you. And he'd get it fresh from her. And he
(23:23):
goes, you're an absolute sweetheart. Thank you. My family is going to love
this. He didn't have a clue of who these people were, but
he started to make an impression on them. So we go back next week,
and my Dad's rummaging through the potatoes. Ben sees it, comes over, he goes, sean,
listen, these aren't the good ones. Let me go to the back and get you
some good ones. I know you want to get the good potatoes. He goes, oh,
(23:44):
thank you so much. Unbelievable. I appreciate that. Went over to the baker.
Did you want that hot baguette, Sham? How did you know? He goes,
son, that's our friend. And when you have friends like that, you
should never be afraid to go in for the ask. And so as I
got older and became a teenager, I had to do the groceries now by myself.
And the cool thing was, Tony, is because my dad made friends with all those
(24:07):
people. When I went to the grocery store, they're like, there's Sham's son Alok. How's
it going, buddy? It's all the same people, all the same managers. And now,
no word of a lie. I do the exact same thing with my kids
every Saturday. So two questions on that first one is another
memory that you brought back was when my daughter, I think she was
graduating high school, so it's quite a while ago, and said, you know, Dad, I
(24:29):
finally learned to accept sharing you with other people
because I very much like relationships and talking to people.
I don't think there's an Uber driver I've ever driven with that I don't know
more about their life, because I'm just a curious person. And I thought it was
interesting because there is an element of you that
you offer to others, and sometimes maybe the price to
(24:51):
pay is the time you spend with your family, which is my second question. Someone
that is so passionate about work, so passionate about people,
how do you find a way to make time for your wife
and your family and yourself versus just trying to burn
the cattle at both ends. One of the things that my mom
made sure of when we were growing up was we had
(25:14):
to eat and sit and have dinner as a family every night together.
And when I proposed to my wife, I asked her that,
and I said, listen, no matter how crazy life gets, whatever the journey takes
us on as two young newlyweds, if we build a family, we have to promise
each other that we're always gonna sit down and have dinner as a family every
single night. And, Tony, my wife and I have been married for 13 years. We
(25:36):
have two kids, and we sit down and have dinner as a family every single
night. That I am and she is not traveling for work.
We also make a commitment to spend our weekends together
as a family. And that, to me, is everything Right. I can work 16
hour days, but on that Saturday, I'm dedicated to my family.
No matter what, I have to give all praise to my wife. She
(25:58):
will make sure to block time in my calendar and book family
events for us. So if it's pink, it is an event for
my daughter. If it is yellow, it is a family event. And if it's orange,
it is an event for my son. She's the backbone to everything that I
do. And so I know this about fathers, but I
am non existent without that woman that holds this family together.
(26:20):
And so you cannot create a proper balance between work
and family if you don't have that counterpart, that best friend, that
wife, that person. And it could be the other way around. It could be the
woman working and it could be the father that's holding it down. But you really,
truly need that counterpart. You also have to want to make that commitment.
I don't want to do that. You have to want to do that. Like it's
(26:40):
got to be in your heart to say, I can't wait to
hang out with the kids tonight and ask them how their day was. I don't
know. In your religion, if you have a similar fable as David and Goliath
where you know, the small takes down the big, but you're really
trying to provide that to small business. You're trying to give them that
slingshot. Part of your superpower. You talk about, and you've
(27:02):
talked about in several interviews you is you're open to
listening to feedback or I would think a lot of entrepreneurs get
so blinded by their ambition and their idea that
no one else can be as possibly as right as you are.
And how dare you critique my dream. Growing
up, you know, my parents, my dad was very religious. Being
(27:25):
a Hindu, we'd be at the temple every, every Sunday. And one
of the things that I would always read when I walked in, it said,
love all, serve all. At our temple,
after we're done, we all eat lunch together and they
ask the kids to serve the food. And so I would serve the food and
help clean up. Then it started to make sense to me as I got older,
(27:46):
I'm like, yeah, love all, serve all. Like that's what you do. My father
was also a big person around giving back to the
homeless, always giving back. And he said, there's no point in working
hard and earning all of this if you can't share it with those that need
it. And so that's something that he instilled in me. And so when we talk
about building Something from scratch. Having it so that
(28:07):
all of these small businesses can have something that will not
only improve their quality of life, but improve their business and their reach and allow
them to succeed in the greatest country. That saying
was in my head was, love all, serve all.
How do we build this technology with love and
solving for the gaps that these actual business owners are having.
(28:30):
I didn't want to build something and shove it down their throats and say, you
gotta use this. It was more around, where's the
gaps? Where would you guys wish you had a superpower
or a piece of technology that would allow you to do something that you just
can't do right now? Let's build this. For many, not for one.
It's crazy. I get calls on my cell phone from, like,
(28:51):
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. One of them called and I hung
up because I thought it was a crank call. And they called back and they
said, I'm gonna repeat myself. And then they did. And I
said, why are you calling me? And they said, alok, we've been
ordering packages from these small competitors of ours, and
they're clearly outshining us on this local delivery stuff.
(29:13):
After we just injected millions of dollars into our programs,
we saw this little delivered by Trexity logo on the
sticker and we looked it up. We found you, and we're calling you and we're
asking, let us in. I said, you're going to use it
the same way all of these mom and pops are going to use it. It.
I'm not building a special solution for these big box stores. So if you want
(29:33):
to use it, sign up and use it just like them and Tony. It's been
two and a half years, and we now service a lot of really big box
stores and the small stores, and we bundled them all together and we let
Everybody win at 1. Ben Mulroney, who I join him
on his radio show every Monday, was the one that introduced me to
you. And he's such a fan. I think he's a fan of your soul.
(29:55):
How did you and Ben come about? And why bring people like him in
to grab a microphone on stage? What value is it for an entrepreneur to
realize that there is truly strength in numbers? Ben
is one of the most
unique and special individuals that I've met over the last
three years. We met by fluke. He was in town here
(30:17):
in Ottawa at a Canadian Chamber of Commerce event. And I
got asked to show up. And I was walking by
this booth and there he was standing, and he looked at my name? And he
said, hey, who are you? Who the hell are you? And
he said, well that's bold. My name's Alok. I'd said, it's a pleasure to meet
you. And he said, I'm Ben and what are you doing here? I had some
(30:39):
downtime and I was asked to come walk around and meet some people. And this
is what I'm building and why I'm building it. And we ended up going
from a 2 minute hello to a
40 minute talk about how I
admired what he was doing there. And he had some great things to say about
me. And we talked about our families, we talked about our kids. It quickly diverted
(31:00):
into a conversation about life. Life. And he said, here's my
card. He's like, can you do me a favor, can you shoot me a text?
I feel like this conversation's not over. I said, yeah man, I feel like I
could talk to you forever. You don't make new friends in your 40s, right?
This just doesn't happen. And so I remember going, and it was a Friday,
I went home and he started texting me Saturday morning,
(31:23):
what are you doing tonight? It's Saturday, I'm at the grocery store right now with
my kids. No word of a lie. You gotta do me a favor, can we
meet after dinner? Can you come meet me? I'm in Ottawa till Sunday, so I
gotta, I went over and I met him and he was there with a group
of people. All these people were sitting at this table and Ben had left the
seat next to him empty. And he said, no one can sit here because when
(31:43):
a loke gets here, I need him to sit here. And we literally were talking
like two 16 year old boys that just loved life.
And I felt like he was my best friend that I just never knew I
had. And from that moment on, Ben and I talked every single day.
We created a very strong bond. And he would always ask me, he's like, man,
tell me more about this Trexity thing. And I would always tell him, this is
(32:04):
incredible, you guys built this. As he started absorbing all
of this knowledge, Tony, he would then fly back to Toronto. And then a couple
days later this started happening where I would start getting emails from like
businesses in Toronto, like big ones. I started calling him, I go,
ben, are you talking about me in Toronto? He goes, look, this is too good.
I don't know what else to talk about. So I just start talking about you.
(32:26):
And I'm like, holy. So Ben started becoming a source of inbound
leads for Trexity and I started talking to my board about this and
I said, guys, listen, I've created this bond with somebody that I can't even. I
would have never imag imagined if you had asked me. I really want
to work more with Ben. I want to bring him on as an advisory board
member, and I want him to be a part of the story. And if I
(32:47):
win, I want Ben to win with me. So I remember calling Ben and I'm
like, hey, Ben, listen, I got to run something by you. And he said, yeah.
And he always calls me boss man. He's like, yeah, what's up, boss man? I
would be honored if you would join us at TREXD as an advisory
board member. And I want you to be an equity owner in the business and
help us grow this thing. He was floored. He
(33:07):
yelled, he screamed, I want you here right now. I gotta give you a hug,
buddy. A couple days later, I flew down. What's your son's name? My
son's name is Jaden. And what's your daughter's name? My daughter's name is
Aria. Aria. So if Aria and Jaden were doing a podcast with
me 20 years from now and they were talking about their
dad like you talked about your dad, what are you hoping they would say?
(33:29):
My goal in life is not to say to my kids,
but to show to my kids, to lead by example that hard
work pays off. They know how hard dad works at everything
I do. Whether it's mastering a recipe in the
kitchen that they want to try, whether it's building this business,
whether it's trying to supply his mom with the greatest Mother's Day gift. I will
(33:52):
stop everything to get that job done. And I will work as
hard as I can. I'll give it 150% every time. And I try
to put that in them, which I feel like I have. My daughter is
one of the most competitive people I've ever met. She's in competitive dance, and she
does not take well to failure. She's like, dad, why would I try
to lose when I can just win? And my son's the same way. He'll have
(34:14):
a hard day at school. He'll come home like, buddy, you can stay home tomorrow.
He's like, why would I do that, Dad? I would hope they'd get on a
podcast and say that our dad worked really hard. I worry
as a dad. I never want my kids to have this level of self entitlement.
I want them to know, love all, serve all, just be
a well rounded and respected human My
(34:35):
dad never told me to be nice to people. My dad never told
me to thrive for greatness. He never told me to build relationships. He
just did it and gave me a front row
courtside seat. The most expensive tickets you could get
to witness all of it. And in your religion, is
there a belief that the spirit and energy
(34:57):
of the people that have left us are. Still with you 100%. As
Hindus, we believe in reincarnation. And I still
will have moments where I feel like my dad's around me all the time. I
mean, he's in every single meeting I've ever had. And then I have Ganesh
right here, and my mom, my wife, my daughter. I believe
that there's nothing more important than that. I'm gonna share
(35:19):
another anecdote about my dad with you that my mom said
to me. My father, unfortunately passed away November
19, 2019. It was the worst day of my life.
I started and was building this technology with my co founders, and
my mom took over that role of my dad very quick. She started asking
me how it was going to keep my head up. As we all know,
(35:41):
end of February, beginning of March of 2020, the entire world
shifted, right? We were hit with this thing called a global pandemic. I feel like
you can have the greatest technology in world. The. The world. But there is some
luck and some timing involved into truly scaling that technology
or that company. And so here we are. The entire world
locks down. Every single storefront is told that you cannot open your
(36:03):
doors to the general public. And here I am, Tony, sitting with a delivery platform
that has been a year and a half in the making, hums like a bird,
and is ready to be taken over by every small business that needs help.
And we explode as a business. And as we start scaling and getting some notoriety,
my mom pulls me aside at Sunday dinner. You know, look, dad
was really proud of you, and he loved watching you build this. And you
(36:26):
know what? Dad went up and he said, I gotta help my son. He
said, okay, maybe I'll put a global pandemic on the world and lock everybody down
so my son can thrive. And I said, oh, my God, mom,
you can't say that. As wild as that sounded
at the moment, it stuck in my head. And I was like, man, like, my
dad's still helping me. He's still helping me open doors,
(36:48):
build relationships. One of the last photos that I have of
my dad actually standing up and being himself,
it's my dad wearing a Trexity T shirt and standing there. He
never took that Shirt off. You know, look, I always end my
shows with my three takeaways. The
first one is just that sign you saw at the temple as a young kid.
(37:09):
Love all, serve. All that came to life when you first started serving the
elders in the church. Something that clearly roars through you because it
is the DNA of your business. The second thing is
this concept of happens for a reason. Things are happening around us all the
time, but so often we're locked into screens or our own self
image and we just don't open our minds to getting to know the baker
(37:32):
people watering the carrots. The fact that you and Ben had such an immediate
connection, I call that new old friends. It happens very rarely in
life. But the fact that you constantly see that, and you saw that from an
email, you saw that from trying to get your dad the medicine he
needed. Things happen for a reason. And if we're just having our 10 out.
And the last thing is just this concept of relationships, you know, your
(37:54):
dad teaching you about the networking and building
relationships that you took all the way through school. But I think the most
important, important lesson within the relationships is your dad saying, even if you
think you're the smartest in the room or the funniest or the loudest, the most
important role you can play is to be the quietest. Because what you're doing
is you're building your currency as opposed to
(38:16):
constantly spending it. Those three lessons are powerful lessons that
you can apply to whether you're building a business or building life,
because it all ladders into the thing that you found with the great.
The greatest thing that happened with your dad's death to you is
life isn't a dress rehearsal. This is it. For all of that and
more, I appreciate you spending the time with me on Chatter that Matters.
(38:39):
Absolute honor to talk with you today and especially on
Father's Day. To every single dad out there, it's the greatest
job in the world. And for those dads that are not here
anymore, this is the day that we honor them. Not us.
Us. Once again, a special
thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's Tony
(39:01):
Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
Here's some lyrics from a song by Luther Vandross.
Back when I was a child before life removed all the innocence
My father would lift me up and dance with my mother and me
and then spin me around till I fell asleep Then up the stairs
he would carry me and I knew for sure I was loved well, if I
could get another chance another walk, another dance with him
(00:26):
I'd play a song that would never ever end How I love,
love, love to dance with my again.
There's a unique bond between father and child. Sometimes it's loud and
constant, Sometimes quiet and unspoken. But when it's
there, it's unforgettable. When fathers show up in our lives as
(00:46):
protectors and challengers and cheerleaders. And in some
cases, I would argue many cases are first heroes.
Their most powerful lessons come not from what they say,
but from who they are. Especially when life gets hard. At that
moment, I realized, Tony, that this is not our practice life. You have
to do this right. The first time on this special Father's
(01:09):
Day episode of Chatter that Matters. I want to honor that bond
and what happens when we give ourselves fully to it. Today's
guest is Alok . He's a co founder and CEO of Trexity,
a company born not out of market analysis or product gaps, but
out of love. My dad always used to say to me, son, you're only
as good as your network. You always gotta go with your heart and your heart.
(01:31):
His heart was always telling him numbers. He was a numbers man.
A love that was tested when Alok's father was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer. It probably was the greatest year of my life, getting
to sit there with him. Alok left a high flying career at Shopify
to care for his father full time. And in doing so, he
found something more than time. He found clarity, purpose, and
(01:54):
even the seed of a company that's now helping local businesses
thrive in the age of giants. Let's put the power back
into Main Street Canada, right? The favorite store on the favorite street of your favorite
neighbourhood. This is a story about what really matters.
Family, resilience, legacy. What it means to build something that
lasts beyond.
(02:17):
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings reviews. Well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated.
Alokauja. Welcome to a Chatter that Matters. Tony, thank you so much
for having me. It's an absolute honor. We're going to talk about
(02:40):
your business In a bit. But when you and I were first having this
conversation, another theme roared through it, and that was the
love you had for your father and I. Just. If we could begin the show.
But telling me about your dad and you said,
even in quiet ways, he shaped who you are today.
Oh, man. 100%. My dad. Still, to date, the strongest
(03:02):
human I've ever met. He was an immigrant. He immigrated from India
75 years ago and came to Canada and was the only of all
of his siblings to make it out of India. And he came here as a
chartered accountant, landed in Montreal, Was
somebody that had a relentless passion for
numbers. To be honest with you, Tony, it's his love for
(03:24):
numbers and the way he showed off how good and sharp he was
with numbers that truly caught my eye at such a young age. And
a lot of dads will try to do things to impress their kids. I
mean, I'm a father of two. My son's nine and my daughter's 12. And I'll.
I do the same thing. Like, I'll try to cook a really hard meal and
try to impress them or play basketball with my son. And my
(03:46):
dad would do things like. Our weekly tradition was going to
the grocery store together. Every Saturday morning back in the day, you'd get
all your flyers in the mail. He'd open up all the flyers, and
as a true accountant with his green pen, he'd go through and he'd
tick mark all the deals that he wanted to go get. And where he really
impressed me was we'd always put stuff on the conveyor belt. And when he got
(04:09):
to the cash register and before she was done scanning them all, he'd give me
the total, and I would just be completely blown away. Be like,
my dad is a genius. You had this illustrious
career. I mean, I was. I mean, even Hamburger University, McDonald's, but
Microsoft, and then you end up in Shopify, which is, for those
outside Canada, is one of our star companies. And you were roaring in that
(04:31):
business. So tell me a bit about how this love of
numbers translated into the sort of world of
tech that you found yourself in. Yeah. So when I was in school,
I gravitated towards tech. And I remember being at
Carleton University here in Ottawa. It was, I think, my first
year of university, and I got issued this
(04:54):
thing called an email address. I was blown away a little bit. I
was like, what is this? And they said, well, you're gonna submit all your work
via this email. And this email is like sending in a mail
or sticking your report into the Professor's door that has a little slot to put
it in. You're just gonna send it to this email address, and we're gonna give
you an. This thing called an email client. Then I went home, and I
(05:14):
was sitting there and I was talking to my mom, and I said, I think
this email address is gonna change the world. Like,
if there's no more physical assets and paper, and we're gonna go digital, and
that's the way we're gonna communicate. I go, this is gonna be incredible. I need
to get in front of this. And so that's when I. I had a major
in economics, and then I went in and did a double major and
(05:36):
went into compsci and commerce and really started to imme
computers and technology. And this is in 1999.
And that's where I really fell in love with it. My father was always a
true businessman at heart, right? Loved numbers, loved business.
He was a wheeler dealer. He was a talker like nobody I'd
ever met before. He could work a room, work a conversation. You
(06:00):
know how I speak, Tony. I got all of that from my dad, 100%
of that from my dad. So as he groomed me growing up from,
like, running for class president and being, like, the most popular person in school,
because I knew everybody, because I had those relationship that I learned from my dad.
My dad always used to say to me, son, you're only as good as your
network. And so my goal growing up was to be friends with
(06:21):
all the different cliques in high school, because back then, there were cliques, right? There
was the goths, then there was the skaters, then there was the hip hop junkies,
and then there was the nerds, and I was down with every
single one of them. And it worked. It was that notion of, like, okay, if
I can learn technology, and I've got this really extrovert
personality, and I've got the numbers in the business sense behind me already,
(06:43):
I really think I can have a successful career in whatever I want to
do. So you're talking about your dad as this accountant and tax auditor,
and you're also presenting him as the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. I mean,
so was he in the wrong profession, do you think? Because as much
as he loves numbers, I have to believe that his ability
to build that network would be somewhat curtailed, especially if you
(07:05):
spend your life auditing other people's taxes. I think that was his
superpower, right? He had the gift of the gab. He was a great
businessman. He dabbled in real estate. He Was very successful there.
But you always got to go with your heart and your heart. His heart was
always telling him numbers. He was a numbers man. And I think him
having the gift of the gab and being able to work a room were just
(07:26):
natural to him. Like, just came out of him. It was in his DNA. So
I thought to myself, okay, well, I'm going to focus on what I love. And
I started falling in love with technology. And also, Tony, like,
I'm a forward thinker, right? So I'm always trying to see, like, where is this
going to take society? Like, where will this go? And I honestly
felt at that time that this little email address that I was given
(07:46):
by the university was going to change the way we operate as a society.
What advice can you give to people? Because very often that's
just something that's offered to us sometimes to fulfill an
unfulfilled need, to take some friction away from our lives. You saw this
though, as the, as the beginning of something much
bigger. There's two things that you really need to understand. One is your
(08:08):
gut is never wrong. It is the greatest decision maker
every human has. And it's not something you have to learn, it's not something you
have to study. When you feel it in your gut, you know, your body, your
mind is telling you what to do. But secondly, the other thing, and this once
again was advice that I got from my dad. Son, always gotta be a
sponge. Just absorb whatever you can, learn as much
(08:30):
as you can. And growing up in an Indian household, Hindu, Punjabi household, like
Eduardo, education was life. There was nothing more important than that. And so it was
always being this learning state. But the thing that he said to me that
I still talk about today is he said, when you walk into a room
with a bunch of really successful people, business people, entrepreneurs, doctors,
lawyers, whoever it is, and you know you've created some type of
(08:52):
success or you feel like you're doing really good, always be the
smallest person in the room. Feed into their egos,
congratulate them on their successes, and always put yourself below them.
That is when you truly control the room. Because
no one is going to expect you or expect anything from you.
That is the perfect time to strike.
(09:16):
And how did your mother come to terms with all of this? And I know
it's a Father's Day special, but to me, a great father is
only more often than not there's a great partner that's standing
shoulder to shoulder and very often creating some kind of boundaries
so that the effort and enthusiasm is channeled in every single
speech. He did, he would always say the same thing at the very end.
(09:37):
And he said, the only reason I'm standing up here is because of the smartest
decision I ever made was to make Usha Ahuja my wife. My
mom is the matriarch of the family. The glue that holds
us all together. The one that made dinner from scratch every night and
forced us to eat dinner as a family and talk about our days. The one
that, like, overly celebrated every holiday, you know what I mean? Like,
(09:59):
that was mom, and that's still Mom. And she's doing that for her grandkids
now, and she's doing that for me still. And so. And even on his
last day, he said, being with your mom was my greatest achievement in life.
I want to move the story forward. You've had this great career. You're at
Shopify, you're highly regarded, you're in early stages.
Just imagine if you'd stayed there, what you'd be doing and what you'd be
(10:22):
worth. But you walked away from it all to take care of your dad.
It was the easiest decision I ever made in my life. It was twofold.
One was I had two very young kids at the time that I was not
getting to spend too much time with. Cause I was constantly, you know, enamored with
work. But then also I had my dad that had just been
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so I made a very simple decision to step away
(10:44):
and be a father and to be a son. And sometimes
we forget that, like the roles that we play in life, you do
have to dedicate time to those. Being a brother, being a son, being a cousin,
being a niece. These are things that people just take these labels for granted. But
I wanted to truly honor it. I would dedicate myself
to making my kids lunches every day, dropping them off at school, and then going
(11:07):
over to the home that I was raised in and hang out with my
dad every day. It probably was the greatest year of my life,
getting to sit there with him. I was going to do this whole show on
this extraordinary entrepreneur. And then we started talking about it. And you
mentioned a lot of what you got out of that year. As much as you
positioned yourself as the caregiver. Share how you would
(11:29):
frame that year as time well spent. My dad was kind
of in and out of the hospital quite a bit, a couple of weeks at
a time. One of the moments sticks out to me the most, Tony, is he
was at the hospital for about four or five weeks. And I sat in the
room almost every day. And when I sat there, as
weak as he was, he lit up every time I got there.
(11:50):
And he would sit there and just tell me stories, and he would talk about
all of the things we did as a family, all of the sacrifices
my parents made for my older sister and my older brother and myself.
I really started to understand the true meaning of parenthood,
the true meaning of living a selfless
life where you sacrifice your commitments and your hopes and
(12:14):
your dreams to make sure that you can give everything you possibly can
to your kids. Even told me a story of some bad
business decisions he made. And we ultimately ended up as a family losing everything.
And he had to start over from scratch. As I'm sitting there
listening to my dad, this man who is slowly withering
away, but his attitude, the way he
(12:37):
spoke, he was still the same dad that would
say the speeches that are all the family events and get everybody involved. And he
was still the same person that would crack the most inappropriate jokes at the
worst times and everybody would laugh as he's lying
there. He was still cracking those same jokes to me.
At that moment, I realized, Tony, that, like, this is not our practice
(12:59):
life. You have to do this right the first time.
We hear this proverb all the time of, you know, living your life to the
fullest. And I don't think it's living your life to the fullest. I think it's
just, live your life, do what you love, do what makes you happy, and be
with those you care about. I knew right away as I
started committing every day to my dad, that this is where I needed to
(13:20):
be right now and forever, as long as I can. Because
my dad is the reason I am who I am, the reason
why our family is in a situation where we're, you know,
first generation Canadian and now providing for the next generation and
building a successful path here in this incredible
country that we have. And I'm so, so thankful that my
(13:43):
parents chose to come to Canada. And it's funny, I always joked,
as, you know, hardworking immigrants, I'd always say, dad, I'm so
glad you stayed on the boat a little longer and got off in Canada.
We come back, Aloka, Jewel and I talk about meeting Ben
Mulroney and how he quickly became a
(14:06):
new old friend. And then we unpacked some more lessons in life.
And before my three takeaways, I even asked what was his kids
say if I had them on a podcast 20 years in the future
about what Alok is as a dad.
Sunrise to sunset, it didn't matter. He was there to teach
(14:28):
you to throw, to tie your tie, and most
importantly, to try again. A tough game came
with words of encouragement and a great play. He was the
loudest cheer from the stands. He taught you how to stand your ground
and when to say sorry. He worked hard so you could
chase dreams. And he showed his love not just in words, but in
(14:50):
the doing. And it wasn't just fathers by birth. It was
the uncles and coaches and grandfathers and mentors. The ones who
chose to show up, step in and stay. Because
being a father isn't about perfection. It's about presence. It's about
being there. This Father's Day, we honor those who lift
futures on their shoulders because fathers matter
(15:13):
to you, to me, and to rbc.
Anything that's three stars or less, you have to
read. Go to the darkest places of your feedback. Actual
shoppers that have constructive feedback on something that you can do to
improve. If they truly care about your business, they'll give you real feedback.
(15:38):
Joining me today is Alok Ajila. He's extraordinary entrepreneur,
but I think what's magical about this show is he has an extraordinary
soul forged by a remarkable bond that he had with most of
his parents. But on Father's Day, we put a special nod out to his
dad.
You know, you talked about being in Carleton University, and
(16:00):
this little email set you down a path in terms of
this love of technology and monetizing technology because you could see
the future. A similar seed was planted when you were taking care of
your father that led you to traxity. And I'm curious, tell us
about that, because to me, again, it's a great lesson in life for people
that no matter where you are, no matter what you're doing,
(16:22):
it's not so much opportunity knocks, but the realities of the world
present themselves in very unique ways. While I was,
you know, at the house every day, I quickly realized that
almost every hour, my dad always needed something.
And unfortunately, he wasn't mobile. He couldn't leave, and I
couldn't leave him, and neither could my mom. Whether it was his boaster pack from
(16:46):
the pharmacy or whether it was some groceries or whatever we needed. And I would
always, you know, call these local stores and I'd say, listen,
can you send the following items to the house for my dad? And they said,
look, listen, we don't deliver, but we'll
leave everything at the front of the store here, and you can just send somebody
to come pick it up and we'll tell them where to take it. I said
this is awesome. Thank you guys so much. So then I got on the phone
(17:08):
and I would start calling kind of local courier companies. I'd say can you do
me a huge favor? I'll pay anything. Can you just go and bring it to.
Go get it and bring it to my, my, my parents house. And every one
of them said look, we don't do that. That's not how this works. So I
started ordering Uber drivers to the house and when they showed up, I'd pull out
cash out of my pocket and I'd say listen, I'm going to give you this
money. Can you drive to that pharmacy downtown, pick up those and bring it
(17:31):
back? Every one of them? Tony said bro, you're
wasting my time. That's not what we do.
That's when the smoke started bellowing from my ears like a Looney Tune character. I
was furious. And out of sheer frustration is when I went back into my
parents house and I said I'm going to solve this problem. And I started to
architect a platform that would enable any local business to
(17:53):
offer some degree of same or next day hyper local delivery. Right? I
wanted all of these businesses to own their customers doorsteps
in a very intimate way. Let's put the power back into
main Street Canada, right? The favorite store on the favorite street of your favorite
neighborhood. I wanted all of these stores to
outperform the big box retailers on local delivery. Why were they
(18:14):
the only ones that could move the fastest? There's gotta be something I
can build to level the playing field. And that's where it was built.
And my dad got the first ever trixity delivery.
So as we were testing this with my co founders Matt and Darren,
the tech, the power, the muscle, they're the everything, right? And so they're like okay
loke, it's set, we've loaded it on your phone, go ahead and try it out.
(18:38):
And the first ever delivery I did was
something from our makeshift office that we had to the hospital while I was going
to visit my dad to see it there. Do you feel traxity
added days or months or special
moments to your dad's life? Every time I'd show up, the nurses would get very
excited and they'd say alok, your dad has been waiting
(19:01):
all morning to see you. And I'm like oh you know, what better
feeling can you have as a son to hear your dad is so
excited to see you? So I would walk in and I'm like hey dad, what's
going on? And he'd say Betta, which means son in
Hindi. He goes, beta, how many deliveries are you doing now? Because he
was very excited about this technology platform I was building,
(19:22):
and I didn't want to break his heart, but it was me doing those deliveries,
obviously. So, you know, I would walk in and I'd say, dad, Dad, I
did two deliveries. And he goes, oh, my God, that's so great.
And then the next day, I'd come back and I'd walk in and he'd go,
berta, come here. And I'm like, yeah, dad, what's up? How many today? And
I'm like, dad, we did four. He goes, all right, you doubled.
(19:43):
That's my boy. And towards the end of his life,
when he was unable to ask, the
nurses pulled me aside and they said, you, dad
has been holding on for a long time here, and he's surpassed
all expectations we had. We feel
you coming in here every day and him inquiring about how
(20:06):
many deliveries you're doing on this little thing you're building as what's been pushing
him to stay strong and stay healthy and keep his head up.
Trustee's the reason right now that he continues to try to stay alert
so he can ask you that question every time you come in here. You launched
it out of need, necessity, smoke blowing out of your ears.
But I think it's important to share with the listeners that
(20:27):
ideas like this, as much as they seem sound,
it takes a village. You had to go out and talk to couriers in the
middle of winter. You must have knocked on, what, two dozen VC doors, if
not more, and got rejections. Talk to me about the DNA of
that entrepreneur that says, even after your dad passed away,
saying that we're going to make this idea work. What is the difference between people
(20:50):
that just dream, people that dream and do knowing that there's so
much friction in the way. Being an entrepreneur of a
startup is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I will
say the worst job in the entire world is being a CEO. There's no
glamour there, no respect. It takes a very
different person to do this. This mentality that I have of, I'm not
(21:11):
gonna lose. I don't lose. You can kick me in the face and punch me
down and I'll get up 10 times harder. That's my fuel. This
is all my dad. This is
Shamahuja 101 implanted
inside of me. Failure wasn't an option. And it's funny because I have some
investors that will sometimes say to me, no, no, look, it's okay to fail.
(21:33):
Your definition of failure and my definition of failure are completely different. Okay?
I'm okay to fail, fail and get back up,
don't fail, and then try to find something else. That's not what we do here.
When you go and you try to raise capital and you try to get a
team to believe in you and build an ecosystem of small businesses that will
say, sure, we'll put our entire life on the line and use
(21:54):
this platform, when the stakes are high, I get
focused. Nothing phases me. But in order to
hurl all of these people to believe in what you're doing, you
need to build relationship. You need them to
understand who you are as an individual and what you're gonna do for
them. I would go and I would hang out at the airport at night, the
(22:16):
Uber lot, and knock on the windows of drivers, ask them questions,
make them, my friend, build focus groups so I could hang out with them to
really learn and understand that. Where I would go to the back
room of small businesses and sit there with my laptop and my. My
knapsack and watch how they operated their business and built my relationship with
them. This isn't a fluke, and I'm going to share another anecdote here about my
(22:39):
dad. At a very, very young age, he taught me the importance of
building relationships, because if you can build those relationships, something special
will happen. And so I'm gonna go back to where it all started at
that grocery store on Saturday morning. And he would walk into the
produce section, and he would see the gentleman with the little hose
watering the carrots and the coriander and all the things. And he'd look at
(23:01):
him and he'd say, hey, Ben, those vegetables are looking real good. You're doing a
great job. And he'd say, oh, thank you. Thank you, sir. What's your name? He
goes, my name's Sham. He goes, keep up the great work. And then we'd go
over to the bakery, and he'd see the girl there and her name tag, and
I noticed he'd always call them by their name. And he'd say, bonnie, do
you have any fresh baguettes? She goes, yeah, I've got some. Let me get some
out of the bag for you. And he'd get it fresh from her. And he
(23:23):
goes, you're an absolute sweetheart. Thank you. My family is going to love
this. He didn't have a clue of who these people were, but
he started to make an impression on them. So we go back next week,
and my Dad's rummaging through the potatoes. Ben sees it, comes over, he goes, sean,
listen, these aren't the good ones. Let me go to the back and get you
some good ones. I know you want to get the good potatoes. He goes, oh,
(23:44):
thank you so much. Unbelievable. I appreciate that. Went over to the baker.
Did you want that hot baguette, Sham? How did you know? He goes,
son, that's our friend. And when you have friends like that, you
should never be afraid to go in for the ask. And so as I
got older and became a teenager, I had to do the groceries now by myself.
And the cool thing was, Tony, is because my dad made friends with all those
(24:07):
people. When I went to the grocery store, they're like, there's Sham's son Alok. How's
it going, buddy? It's all the same people, all the same managers. And now,
no word of a lie. I do the exact same thing with my kids
every Saturday. So two questions on that first one is another
memory that you brought back was when my daughter, I think she was
graduating high school, so it's quite a while ago, and said, you know, Dad, I
(24:29):
finally learned to accept sharing you with other people
because I very much like relationships and talking to people.
I don't think there's an Uber driver I've ever driven with that I don't know
more about their life, because I'm just a curious person. And I thought it was
interesting because there is an element of you that
you offer to others, and sometimes maybe the price to
(24:51):
pay is the time you spend with your family, which is my second question. Someone
that is so passionate about work, so passionate about people,
how do you find a way to make time for your wife
and your family and yourself versus just trying to burn
the cattle at both ends. One of the things that my mom
made sure of when we were growing up was we had
(25:14):
to eat and sit and have dinner as a family every night together.
And when I proposed to my wife, I asked her that,
and I said, listen, no matter how crazy life gets, whatever the journey takes
us on as two young newlyweds, if we build a family, we have to promise
each other that we're always gonna sit down and have dinner as a family every
single night. And, Tony, my wife and I have been married for 13 years. We
(25:36):
have two kids, and we sit down and have dinner as a family every single
night. That I am and she is not traveling for work.
We also make a commitment to spend our weekends together
as a family. And that, to me, is everything Right. I can work 16
hour days, but on that Saturday, I'm dedicated to my family.
No matter what, I have to give all praise to my wife. She
(25:58):
will make sure to block time in my calendar and book family
events for us. So if it's pink, it is an event for
my daughter. If it is yellow, it is a family event. And if it's orange,
it is an event for my son. She's the backbone to everything that I
do. And so I know this about fathers, but I
am non existent without that woman that holds this family together.
(26:20):
And so you cannot create a proper balance between work
and family if you don't have that counterpart, that best friend, that
wife, that person. And it could be the other way around. It could be the
woman working and it could be the father that's holding it down. But you really,
truly need that counterpart. You also have to want to make that commitment.
I don't want to do that. You have to want to do that. Like it's
(26:40):
got to be in your heart to say, I can't wait to
hang out with the kids tonight and ask them how their day was. I don't
know. In your religion, if you have a similar fable as David and Goliath
where you know, the small takes down the big, but you're really
trying to provide that to small business. You're trying to give them that
slingshot. Part of your superpower. You talk about, and you've
(27:02):
talked about in several interviews you is you're open to
listening to feedback or I would think a lot of entrepreneurs get
so blinded by their ambition and their idea that
no one else can be as possibly as right as you are.
And how dare you critique my dream. Growing
up, you know, my parents, my dad was very religious. Being
(27:25):
a Hindu, we'd be at the temple every, every Sunday. And one
of the things that I would always read when I walked in, it said,
love all, serve all. At our temple,
after we're done, we all eat lunch together and they
ask the kids to serve the food. And so I would serve the food and
help clean up. Then it started to make sense to me as I got older,
(27:46):
I'm like, yeah, love all, serve all. Like that's what you do. My father
was also a big person around giving back to the
homeless, always giving back. And he said, there's no point in working
hard and earning all of this if you can't share it with those that need
it. And so that's something that he instilled in me. And so when we talk
about building Something from scratch. Having it so that
(28:07):
all of these small businesses can have something that will not
only improve their quality of life, but improve their business and their reach and allow
them to succeed in the greatest country. That saying
was in my head was, love all, serve all.
How do we build this technology with love and
solving for the gaps that these actual business owners are having.
(28:30):
I didn't want to build something and shove it down their throats and say, you
gotta use this. It was more around, where's the
gaps? Where would you guys wish you had a superpower
or a piece of technology that would allow you to do something that you just
can't do right now? Let's build this. For many, not for one.
It's crazy. I get calls on my cell phone from, like,
(28:51):
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. One of them called and I hung
up because I thought it was a crank call. And they called back and they
said, I'm gonna repeat myself. And then they did. And I
said, why are you calling me? And they said, alok, we've been
ordering packages from these small competitors of ours, and
they're clearly outshining us on this local delivery stuff.
(29:13):
After we just injected millions of dollars into our programs,
we saw this little delivered by Trexity logo on the
sticker and we looked it up. We found you, and we're calling you and we're
asking, let us in. I said, you're going to use it
the same way all of these mom and pops are going to use it. It.
I'm not building a special solution for these big box stores. So if you want
(29:33):
to use it, sign up and use it just like them and Tony. It's been
two and a half years, and we now service a lot of really big box
stores and the small stores, and we bundled them all together and we let
Everybody win at 1. Ben Mulroney, who I join him
on his radio show every Monday, was the one that introduced me to
you. And he's such a fan. I think he's a fan of your soul.
(29:55):
How did you and Ben come about? And why bring people like him in
to grab a microphone on stage? What value is it for an entrepreneur to
realize that there is truly strength in numbers? Ben
is one of the most
unique and special individuals that I've met over the last
three years. We met by fluke. He was in town here
(30:17):
in Ottawa at a Canadian Chamber of Commerce event. And I
got asked to show up. And I was walking by
this booth and there he was standing, and he looked at my name? And he
said, hey, who are you? Who the hell are you? And
he said, well that's bold. My name's Alok. I'd said, it's a pleasure to meet
you. And he said, I'm Ben and what are you doing here? I had some
(30:39):
downtime and I was asked to come walk around and meet some people. And this
is what I'm building and why I'm building it. And we ended up going
from a 2 minute hello to a
40 minute talk about how I
admired what he was doing there. And he had some great things to say about
me. And we talked about our families, we talked about our kids. It quickly diverted
(31:00):
into a conversation about life. Life. And he said, here's my
card. He's like, can you do me a favor, can you shoot me a text?
I feel like this conversation's not over. I said, yeah man, I feel like I
could talk to you forever. You don't make new friends in your 40s, right?
This just doesn't happen. And so I remember going, and it was a Friday,
I went home and he started texting me Saturday morning,
(31:23):
what are you doing tonight? It's Saturday, I'm at the grocery store right now with
my kids. No word of a lie. You gotta do me a favor, can we
meet after dinner? Can you come meet me? I'm in Ottawa till Sunday, so I
gotta, I went over and I met him and he was there with a group
of people. All these people were sitting at this table and Ben had left the
seat next to him empty. And he said, no one can sit here because when
(31:43):
a loke gets here, I need him to sit here. And we literally were talking
like two 16 year old boys that just loved life.
And I felt like he was my best friend that I just never knew I
had. And from that moment on, Ben and I talked every single day.
We created a very strong bond. And he would always ask me, he's like, man,
tell me more about this Trexity thing. And I would always tell him, this is
(32:04):
incredible, you guys built this. As he started absorbing all
of this knowledge, Tony, he would then fly back to Toronto. And then a couple
days later this started happening where I would start getting emails from like
businesses in Toronto, like big ones. I started calling him, I go,
ben, are you talking about me in Toronto? He goes, look, this is too good.
I don't know what else to talk about. So I just start talking about you.
(32:26):
And I'm like, holy. So Ben started becoming a source of inbound
leads for Trexity and I started talking to my board about this and
I said, guys, listen, I've created this bond with somebody that I can't even. I
would have never imag imagined if you had asked me. I really want
to work more with Ben. I want to bring him on as an advisory board
member, and I want him to be a part of the story. And if I
(32:47):
win, I want Ben to win with me. So I remember calling Ben and I'm
like, hey, Ben, listen, I got to run something by you. And he said, yeah.
And he always calls me boss man. He's like, yeah, what's up, boss man? I
would be honored if you would join us at TREXD as an advisory
board member. And I want you to be an equity owner in the business and
help us grow this thing. He was floored. He
(33:07):
yelled, he screamed, I want you here right now. I gotta give you a hug,
buddy. A couple days later, I flew down. What's your son's name? My
son's name is Jaden. And what's your daughter's name? My daughter's name is
Aria. Aria. So if Aria and Jaden were doing a podcast with
me 20 years from now and they were talking about their
dad like you talked about your dad, what are you hoping they would say?
(33:29):
My goal in life is not to say to my kids,
but to show to my kids, to lead by example that hard
work pays off. They know how hard dad works at everything
I do. Whether it's mastering a recipe in the
kitchen that they want to try, whether it's building this business,
whether it's trying to supply his mom with the greatest Mother's Day gift. I will
(33:52):
stop everything to get that job done. And I will work as
hard as I can. I'll give it 150% every time. And I try
to put that in them, which I feel like I have. My daughter is
one of the most competitive people I've ever met. She's in competitive dance, and she
does not take well to failure. She's like, dad, why would I try
to lose when I can just win? And my son's the same way. He'll have
(34:14):
a hard day at school. He'll come home like, buddy, you can stay home tomorrow.
He's like, why would I do that, Dad? I would hope they'd get on a
podcast and say that our dad worked really hard. I worry
as a dad. I never want my kids to have this level of self entitlement.
I want them to know, love all, serve all, just be
a well rounded and respected human My
(34:35):
dad never told me to be nice to people. My dad never told
me to thrive for greatness. He never told me to build relationships. He
just did it and gave me a front row
courtside seat. The most expensive tickets you could get
to witness all of it. And in your religion, is
there a belief that the spirit and energy
(34:57):
of the people that have left us are. Still with you 100%. As
Hindus, we believe in reincarnation. And I still
will have moments where I feel like my dad's around me all the time. I
mean, he's in every single meeting I've ever had. And then I have Ganesh
right here, and my mom, my wife, my daughter. I believe
that there's nothing more important than that. I'm gonna share
(35:19):
another anecdote about my dad with you that my mom said
to me. My father, unfortunately passed away November
19, 2019. It was the worst day of my life.
I started and was building this technology with my co founders, and
my mom took over that role of my dad very quick. She started asking
me how it was going to keep my head up. As we all know,
(35:41):
end of February, beginning of March of 2020, the entire world
shifted, right? We were hit with this thing called a global pandemic. I feel like
you can have the greatest technology in world. The. The world. But there is some
luck and some timing involved into truly scaling that technology
or that company. And so here we are. The entire world
locks down. Every single storefront is told that you cannot open your
(36:03):
doors to the general public. And here I am, Tony, sitting with a delivery platform
that has been a year and a half in the making, hums like a bird,
and is ready to be taken over by every small business that needs help.
And we explode as a business. And as we start scaling and getting some notoriety,
my mom pulls me aside at Sunday dinner. You know, look, dad
was really proud of you, and he loved watching you build this. And you
(36:26):
know what? Dad went up and he said, I gotta help my son. He
said, okay, maybe I'll put a global pandemic on the world and lock everybody down
so my son can thrive. And I said, oh, my God, mom,
you can't say that. As wild as that sounded
at the moment, it stuck in my head. And I was like, man, like, my
dad's still helping me. He's still helping me open doors,
(36:48):
build relationships. One of the last photos that I have of
my dad actually standing up and being himself,
it's my dad wearing a Trexity T shirt and standing there. He
never took that Shirt off. You know, look, I always end my
shows with my three takeaways. The
first one is just that sign you saw at the temple as a young kid.
(37:09):
Love all, serve. All that came to life when you first started serving the
elders in the church. Something that clearly roars through you because it
is the DNA of your business. The second thing is
this concept of happens for a reason. Things are happening around us all the
time, but so often we're locked into screens or our own self
image and we just don't open our minds to getting to know the baker
(37:32):
people watering the carrots. The fact that you and Ben had such an immediate
connection, I call that new old friends. It happens very rarely in
life. But the fact that you constantly see that, and you saw that from an
email, you saw that from trying to get your dad the medicine he
needed. Things happen for a reason. And if we're just having our 10 out.
And the last thing is just this concept of relationships, you know, your
(37:54):
dad teaching you about the networking and building
relationships that you took all the way through school. But I think the most
important, important lesson within the relationships is your dad saying, even if you
think you're the smartest in the room or the funniest or the loudest, the most
important role you can play is to be the quietest. Because what you're doing
is you're building your currency as opposed to
(38:16):
constantly spending it. Those three lessons are powerful lessons that
you can apply to whether you're building a business or building life,
because it all ladders into the thing that you found with the great.
The greatest thing that happened with your dad's death to you is
life isn't a dress rehearsal. This is it. For all of that and
more, I appreciate you spending the time with me on Chatter that Matters.
(38:39):
Absolute honor to talk with you today and especially on
Father's Day. To every single dad out there, it's the greatest
job in the world. And for those dads that are not here
anymore, this is the day that we honor them. Not us.
Us. Once again, a special
thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's Tony
(39:01):
Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
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