Inventor of Earned Wage Access. Café sidequest. Spent 100+ days at sea. Lent $250k on Craigslist at 16. Tweet fintech, Canada tech, and half-baked thoughts
Calgary, Alberta
Joined November 2014
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Last week, I wrote 2 checks to Canadian founders 🇨🇦
This week, I'd like to write 2 more.
Who's raising?
Evan putting out the important content
The Quiet Force. My profile of @AlexKolicich is out.
Raised by a single mom in Hamilton. Google engineer. Peter Thiel’s math guy. Founding partner of 8VC.
“8VC is 8VC because of Alex.” I was told.
I spent months reporting his story in SF, Palo Alto and Orange County, talking with founders and the people who knew him at Clarium, Mithril and 8VC.
Highlights
- Peter Thiel playing blindfolded chess
- Turning down Geoffrey Hinton’s lab twice
- Dreaming about oil
- Back story on 8VC's investments in Quince, Cognition and Anduril
Link to read below.
But have you ever flown 15 hours from Calgary to Turkey for 3 days to get a hair transplant but when you got there you freaked out and didn't do it and then got a staph infection on your hand likely from a Turkish bath and then you flew home?
Istanbul Tűrkiye - 12 days in 10 neighborhoods, meeting up with 30 local people for 60 hours of conversation: sive.rs/met/at-16
Tate Hackert retweeted
Don't over complicate, just do.
The pace at which things are moving can leave you in a state of overthinking and paralysis
But everyone forgets that the market doesn't need to move independently of them
You can be nimble and make the market to avoid innovators dilemma
Tate Hackert retweeted
Been out in Alberta doing some work with The Government. Got to hang with @TateHackert and @evansammccann - time we spent. 🥰
My cto when a client asks if a feature is possible for next week and with 100% conviction I say "absolutely"
Travelling with baby and Wife got upgraded to first class. I told her she should deny it and stick together since it'll be super tough to deal with the baby solo.
Anyways, I'm in row 25 and can hear the baby crying from here
Don't over complicate, just do.
The pace at which things are moving can leave you in a state of overthinking and paralysis
But everyone forgets that the market doesn't need to move independently of them
You can be nimble and make the market to avoid innovators dilemma
I'd expand the moats left to:
- Proprietary data or content: data nobody else has, or unique content you can create
- Network effects / community: users make it more valuable for each other
- Audience / distribution: you can get attention on demand
- Physical component: hardware, locations, real-world operations
- Capital: owning assets and investing (esp into the AI companies as they are and will suck up large parts of the economy)
- Regulatory: licenses and legal barriers
Canadians doing business in the states you need to figure out which are endearing Canadian-isms and which help you relate.
Ya'll = relate
Washroom = endearing
Shoes off in a house = common sense
Tate Hackert retweeted
43 today 🎂
Father of 4. Married 19 years. Great hair.
43 lessons on raising kids, building a business, and living a good life 🧵
The exclusive Earned Wage Access provider for millions on the UKG platform. Wow.
We first partnered with a UKG reseller in 2018.
A single payroll company (one of hundreds) using UKG software to help businesses pay their employees.
That meant the world to us.
We then spent 8 years navigating that world we knew nothing about
But we knew strong partnerships with payroll and a strong embedded offering is what would win.
And, as the inventors of Embedded Earned Wage Access, we knew that "embedded" is more than just a product motion.
The secret sauce is in how you orchestrate across sales, marketing, product and success to ensure ewa gets the adoption it deserves
8 years later and I guess we're doing something right.
We're now the exclusive ewa provider for ALL of UKG ready.
A massive small business footprint responsible for paying millions of frontline workers.
Power to the the deskless workforce.
