Learn more about our new project: https://trainedtohelp.com/ Connect with Erin on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/erin-patchell Script: An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down. Hooey. Yeah, he is absolutely bang on. You cannot do it by yourself. You need a whole team around you. If you're in Ontario, I would highly recommend, you know, reaching out to your local community futures development corporations or CFDCs, because they have quite a bit of support that might be able to help you. Today on Weirdos in the Workplace, I want to talk a little bit about becoming an entrepreneur. And I really don't mean becoming a business owner and I don't mean becoming a solopreneur or a independent consultant. I do mean becoming an entrepreneur and growing a business. business. Growing a business, I have learned, is very, very different when it comes to entrepreneurship versus growing a business incrementally and slowly over time. Entrepreneurship is, at least from my experience so far, much more intentional, much more strategic, and much more growth oriented. I think until last October, I wouldn't have even really called myself an entrepreneur. I would have called myself a business owner. And then before that, of course, I was an employee in my previous role. And before that, I would have been self-employed. I would have called it being self-employed, which again, is not the same thing as being an entrepreneur. I think entrepreneurial people take significantly more risks. So that's something that I'm still kind of getting used to. And then my husband who is much more risk averse than I am is starting to get used to this idea that, you know, this is going to be a significant time, money and energy investment for both of us, since he's one of the co-founders for the train to hell project. But let me tell you the story a little bit.  So back in October, 2023, so we're looking at what was like eight months ago now, about eight months ago, because we're now into June, early June 2024. My, my team member, Sarah, who is a friend of mine since grade five, my first friend, if you've listened to some of the podcasts before, I've mentioned her a few times, my first real friend, Sarah, who is now my team member, who is now my co-founder. She has a partner named Tim who is, he's in a wheelchair. He's now quadriplegic. He had MS, was diagnosed with MS, muscular sclerosis, when he was about 33, 32, 33 years old. And so Tim's case progressed quite quickly. Within about four years, he's in a wheelchair and now he is currently paraplegic. So I've been hearing stories about how Tim and Sarah, you know, try to get around the world and how challenging that is. I've been hearing these stories for quite a long time because they've been together for, I believe, around seven years now, something like that. And it's, you know, it's a struggle for me to hear it because I want good things for them and I'm their friend. It's obviously a huge struggle for them. And one of the major issues was that, you know, even though she's good at doing the research and asking around, a lot of employees at retail locations, if they want to go out for, you know, lunch, or if they just want to go to the store, unless it's a large store, like a big box store, the employees usually don't know. They don't, they're not informed. They don't have the education. They don't have the training to understand, you know, what is, if their location is actually accessible, you know, how they can accommodate different types of people. So it's a really big challenge for them. And it's a challenge that is, you know, common across many, many, many disability categories. Basically anyone who has a challenge moving around the world in any way. And now we know that, you know, the last in 2022, the statistics came out from Stats Canada, indicating that 27% of the population of Canada, 15 years of age and older, has at least one disability that makes it difficult for them to move around the world or to interact with the world, the physical world. And so this was kind of in the back of our minds. And Sarah was part of the, or is part of the Accessibility Committee in the town of Carlton Place. This is where we live. And she, you know, learned that there was a business owner in town who had had kind of like a negative feedback from someone with a disability when they came to the location of their cafe. And the person with a disability learned that it really wasn't as accessible as it had been promoted to be. So this is a really big issue because, you know, we want people to be able to, we care about people, you know, we care about customer service. Retailers know that customer service is everything, especially nowadays, because if you're not going to do it well, guess what? Someone else will. And so having spectacular customer service, knowledgeable team members who can serve all of your customers with dignity, respect, and transparency is really, really important. But the very big issue is, you know, there's so much information to learn here.  So what we're doing with the Train to Help project is we're shining a really big light on this and we're creating really interesting online learning for people who are required by law to learn about disabilities and how to serve people with disabilities in the workplace, because we do have something in Ontario called the AODA, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. And they've got a customer service standard, and that customer service standard requires employees to be trained on the AODA. And there's very specific requirements there. So I know this sounds all very probably technical, but suffice to say, we want people with disabilities to be able to move around the world with more trust, to trust that they can explore the world, that it's safe to explore the world and that they'll be accommodated. And they know where they're going to be accommodated. So that's the whole goal of the project. Well, and why me, I guess I could say that, you know, me and my husband bring together a very unique blend of skills, you know, him being a software developer, which is a very key component, component, and myself having come from the learning and development space. So we know we have the two of us along with Sarah, who is kind of our subject matter expert. We have a pretty good team. And then we've brought on four additional people to bolster up different areas where we need support. So we've got an amazing team behind us. But that didn't happen by accident. We started talking about it in October. And then, you know, by the time January rolled around, we realized, you know, I don't think this is just pretend anymore. I think we're really going to do this. So we had committed to it really in January, which is less than six months ago. And then by the time February rolled around, we had already applied to be part of Ignition, which is a program by Invest Ottawa within the Invest Ottawa ecosystem, a venture ecosystem. It's the first program that you can start with when you have a business concept. And so we started with Invest Ottawa, our program started in April. And ever since then, it's been an absolute whirlwind of, you know, creating our demo, getting our demo and applying to Collision Conference, which is on July 17th, you know, and then beginning on the MVP, the pilot, minimum viable product for our pilot, which is running August 14th is the launch date for that. And so we set some very aggressive timelines. And we did that very intentionally. A, you know, because if you're going to do it, you might as well do it and rip off the bandaid. And I would say that's true for anyone. So really this message that I'm sharing today is about like how to get something accomplished, you know, how to actually do it. If you have an idea, how do you get it across the line? How do you bring it to fruition? Well, these deadlines aren't manufactured. I'm not making them up. So as the leader, as the CEO, and you know, I hate titles, so I don't call myself that, but as the person who's driving the performance of the company, the performance of the company, it's up to me to create deadlines and create some pressure so that we can, you know, pressure. And we've got to be careful because we want some stress because without stress, there's no result. But not so much stress that we burn people out. So we need to be very careful, like how much we're pushing on that gas. people out. So we need to be very careful, like how much we're pushing on that gas. But we do need enough pressure to actually get things done. And I think it would surprise you how quickly people can get things done when they're motivated to do something and when they have a passion for it and when they have the right skills, when the skills aren't holding them up. Now, if you have to learn a whole bunch of things, it takes a long time to learn, right? So that could be a roadblock for you. But if you can find the right people to come alongside you and help, and they have the right skills, and they also have the right passion and the right mindset for it, then you can create some real magic. And that's kind of what we're noticing now. some real magic. And that's kind of what we're noticing now when we brought on Jackie, a great project manager, when we brought in Alex, who's a phenomenal instructional designer, when we brought on Noemi, who has a passion for semiotics and user experience and customer experience and graphic design and marketing. She's like a Swiss army knife. Um, when we, when we brought on Debbie, who is another person with a disability, um, who's an amazing finance administrator, administrator, and we've worked together before, and she's going to be helping with making sure we stay on budget for the project. Um, and then when you, when you put all the things together and you, you know, you, you see what your skill sets are and what you're lacking and what you need, and hopefully you have some money. So it's really hard to do anything unless you can find the money for it. So create a plan. Go talk to your family and friends and people who you know in your network. Convince them that your plan is viable and maybe they will actually loan you some money towards it. And that's how you get started. If you don't have your own capital put to put in, you need to convince people that this is true. And the process of convincing other people is also going to convince you and make you more aware of what, you know, the project has, the potential that it has, the real potential, and also its flaws and also its gaps. And so you're building this over time. There is definitely one thing that I know for sure, though, you cannot do it by yourself. You need a whole team around you. I've definitely talked about this kind of concept before as well. But even if you're, if you think you're alone, then you're probably not ready to be an entrepreneur. And you're probably not ready even to start a business necessarily. You can certainly be an independent consultant or a solopreneur and kind of manage to do things by yourself. But if you're trying to grow a business, absolutely no way in hell. You need a whole team around you, whether that team is part-time, contract, casual, full-time, mentors, advisors, full-time mentors, advisors, specialists, like you need to develop your whole ecosystem of support. So if you're in Ontario, I would highly recommend, you know, reaching out to your local community futures development corporations or CFDCs, because they have quite a bit of support that might be able to help you. Any kind of economic development agencies, your local chambers of commerce. If you've got a business like Invest Ottawa, it's some kind of accelerator program or incubator program, definitely reach out to those, especially if you're in thinking about a high tech company. But you need to bring people, you need to bring your story to people and you need to bring people along with your story because it's going to evolve. It's going to change like, like pretty much constantly. You know, our, our story has changed so much. Like I thought it's so much harder to do it for yourself too. Even, you know, I'm, I'm a business coach and I help other business owners kind of hone their value propositions and take their product to market sort of where I fit in. But even myself, it's so much harder to do it for yourself than it is to help somebody else do it. So when I was first starting Positivist Group, I did engage a business coach and I'm not, you know, ashamed to say that whatsoever. I think every coach needs a coach, uh, maybe multiple coaches even. So, uh, there's certainly no shame in getting help. Um, and it's okay to help for people to see what the process looks like. Uh, That's just part of having a growth mindset.  So if you think that you have to have everything perfect before you can share with anything with someone, I would suggest that's a very toxic sort of mindset to have if you're in the place of wanting to start and grow a business. You're going to have to get very comfortable with people seeing behind the curtain and seeing the process if you want to be successful. I haven't heard of anyone who's been able to be successful without that kind of support. So I know that those of you are out there, I know because I talk to you all the time. And you know that this is exactly the thing that I preach. So this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's talked to me before. But our experience with Invest Ottawa was really good. It has been good and it's still good. We're not, well, apparently it's like Hotel California. Once you get in, you can never leave. California. Once you get in, you can never leave. And I'm starting to see how that could be true. But we've had so far, I think it's been eight weeks that we've been within the program, within the Ignition program. It's been a very good experience. We've made a few friends. We've certainly sought the advice of many of the mentors that they have available there. And then the beautiful news is that it doesn't end. So once we've kind of aged out of the ignition program, we can begin to take advantage of their other programs, the flex program specifically. So I'm going to actually recite on June 20th. If you're available, you should join us. If you're from the Ottawa area, please join, um, register. I'll make sure there's a registration link in the, uh, in the event, in the event, in the script, the podcast script, I'll make sure there is a link to register for the Ignition pitch competition. So I will be going up there and I will be speaking stream of consciousness for three minutes and not a second more, apparently.  And then there will be an opportunity for both the crowd to vote. So there's a crowd winner. And then they've got a panel of judges as well who votes for the best pitch. So come and, you know, hopefully you can help us win because Sarah, my my partner in crime here, Sarah wants to win both of both of them. So certainly I think we've got the crowd in the bag and it's pretty much up to me. So I'm going to share my pitch with you and you tell me what you think. And if you think that there's anything that I can do to do better, I would love to hear your feedback. So here we go. Disability is part of the human experience. By age 60, nearly half of us will have a disability that threatens to diminish our freedom in the real world. My name is Erin Patchell and the Train to Help team imagines a real world shopping experience where everyone feels welcome. We have a multifaceted solution.  The first part is a membership platform that equips brick and mortar retailers with the up-to-date knowledge featuring the best AODA compliance e-learning on the market. The second part is a website for our members to attract customers with disabilities and their caregivers to their establishments and provide transparency of information. Let me tell you a story about Tim. With multiple degrees, world travel, and even a stint as a model in Japan, Tim's life was vibrant. Diagnosed with MS at 32 years old, he was in a wheelchair within four years. Now as a quadriplegic, his world would be very small without Sarah, his partner, and my business partner, who fights daily to keep his world bigger. But this isn't just for Tim. Currently 27% of Canadians age 15 years and older have a disability, and they spend about $55 billion annually across 141,000 retail establishments in Canada. In the past eight weeks, we've surveyed retailers and customers with disabilities, uncovering a significant gap in understanding. 100% of small retailers had not implemented AODA training. 100% of employees who were trained admitted to not actually learning anything. 90% of customers with disabilities believed businesses did not understand their needs. 61% did not feel valued as customers. And these retailers actually really care about their customers, but they struggle with how much there is to learn. Sole proprietors especially fall through the cracks of accessibility laws, even though if they're discovered, the fines for noncompliance are extremely expensive. The good news is we're trained to help. Our seven-member team, including three co-founders, brings expertise from engineering to sales leadership. We have the belief, the skills, and the experience to transform the train to help project from a project into a movement. We're preparing for our pilot party in August and we have 15 confirmed businesses and over a hundred employees participating. They will proudly leave with trained to help certificates, t-shirts, storefront signage, and a dedicated member page in our searchable website, allowing people with disabilities and their caregivers to explore a bigger world with more confidence. We have five more spots for pilot businesses. So if you know an independent retailer who'd be great champion for this project, we'd love to connect, or they can join our waiting list for our November, 2024 launch. Together, we're empowering customer service teams, enhancing retail brands, and making every customer's experience memorable in the right way. Join us in creating a world where inclusion is a retail cornerstone, not an afterthought. So what did you think? Honestly, I'm pretty happy with it. But again, if you are confused, it's a kind of a big concept to try to jam into three minutes. It is a somewhat complex solution. So I'm curious to see if it actually spoke to you the way that I hope that it speaks to the judges.  So I guess we'll say that we're just at the beginning here. You know, we're, we're putting our pilot out in August, August 14th. We have quite a few local businesses who are signed up for the pilot and that's very exciting. They're bringing their employees and everyone by the end of the night is going to be all trained up. They're going to be hopefully compliant with AODA and, and more, hopefully using those skills every day to bring a little bit of joy into somebody's life. But it's just the beginning. We have a long road ahead of us, like years, you know? So I'm going to talk a little bit about just like maintaining my own energy through the next little while, because obviously I'm putting out a podcast. We're developing a software company. Positivist group is also running, you know, smoothly and, and humming along. Um, and then I also do quite a bit of volunteer work. For example, I'm on the board of directors with the ICF, the international coach federation, Ottawa chapter. Um, and so, you know, I do grant writing as well for nonprofits for free. for free. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's definitely going to be a challenge to manage my own energy. And I think that's true for all entrepreneurs, right?  So really, I've got to say, what I've really just been focusing on is the basics, sleep, exercise, walking every single day for at least an hour, hour and a half. A lot of the time I'll do that while I'm talking on the phone with a potential podcast guest or potential customer or just a friend of mine. And so I can kind of manage to do some walk and talk phone calls and get some exercise at the same time being productive and, and also taking care of myself. So finding ways to do that. Also, I'll just take a day off if I have to, like on Tuesday, my mother and I are going to go to a spa together for the day. And I'm not stressed out at all about that. That's a lie. So, but sometimes you just need a day at the spa and that's okay too. Um, and then just making sure I'm hydrating. Uh, so sleeping well, eating well, getting some exercise and hydrating. And I know that if I'm doing all of those four things, usually my energy can maintain, um, for the 12 to 15, sometimes hours a day that I need to be working. And in order to, to bring this project to a successful start, it's not even started yet, we're really at the beginning. And so, you know, finding ways to make yourself finding efficiencies in your schedule, and finding ways to keep yourself healthy are going to be really, really important. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I know it's a little bit different. It's our 10th episode. So every 10 episodes, I'm going to be doing a solo podcast. And I think because my life is revolving around this project, I'd love to take you with me on the journey. And so I'm going to be sharing, you know, a little bit about what's going on on the back end and how we're doing and how we're feeling. So if you have any questions about that, questions about, you know, what does it feel like to be a software CEO? I don't know yet. what does it feel like to be a software CEO?  I don't know yet. I don't know how to answer that question because it still feels like a little bit of sort of this doesn't really feel real yet, even though it's very real. It's certainly real financially. So therefore it's real. But it still feels a little odd. So anyways, if you have any questions about that, you've got this twinkle in your eye, an idea that you want to maybe think about, um, let me know, and then we can chat about it. So one quote that spoke to me this week is from Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. And I'm really feeling this one. An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down. Hooey. Yeah, he is absolutely bang on. Until next time, have a beautiful day at work. Don't forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble

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