52. Helping Canada Upskill with Melissa Sariffodeen

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Transcript

Eric Morse 

You're listening to the Entrepreneur Podcast from the Western Morissette Institute for Entrepreneurship, powered by Ivey. Ivey alum Deniz Edwards will anchor this session.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Melissa Sariffodeen has a number of roles and titles on her profile. One of them is lifelong student. And it's definitely fitting. As co-founder and CEO of Ladies Learning Code, and Canada Learning Code, lifelong learning is integral to her founders journey. Since 2011, over 700,000, Canadians from all walks of life have had the opportunity to learn critical skills, and build up the confidence to become builders, not just consumers of technology in an increasingly digital world. In this episode, we talk about her story and her passion for entrepreneurship, education and technology.  Well, thank you again, Melissa, for joining us today. It's so awesome to have you here. And I know that the students are really excited to kind of hear about your journey and everything that you've done with Canada Learning Code. So I'd love to kind of hear from you... yesterday, we were talking a lot about with the students really just starting from the beginning with entrepreneurship. So what was it for you that really encouraged that entrepreneurial spark? And what was it that kind of started you down your journey?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, well, first off, thanks for having me. Thanks. Great to see so many of you to talk about my favorite topic. For me, I, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that moment was, but I... ever since I was young, I always just wanted to build and create things. So it was often like, you know, crafts to begin with. And then it was a newsletter for my street where I was charging, like 50 cents for an ad, you know, then it kind of became here on campus actually started a franchise, I bought a franchise in the US, here was involved in clubs. And so we just always wanted to make things that didn't exist. But it took a long time to realize that that was actually like a career path that you could follow. But I think for me, it was just really driven by this idea of like, wanting things that that weren't around me that I wanted to look a particular way. And, you know, he also was really driven by, you know, this idea of, you know, creating impact and scale and, you know, just contributing something meaningful if it really motivated me and was really, you know, it still does to know that people are impacted positively by the things that I'm you know, contributing? So yeah, it was like, from the earliest things I can remember, I've always had this entrepreneurial drive in me.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yeah, I've met with a lot of students that started out with a paper route or a landscaping business or something. So that's really awesome that you kind of had that. That was the start for you. And so you kind of mentioned a couple of different things that you did there. And so walk us through how you kind of got from that to how did Canada Learning Code, previously, Ladies Learning Code, get started? What was that creation? And what did that story look like at the beginning?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

You know, like I said, I, you know, started a newspaper for my street made, you know, 50 cents a month doing that, in, you know, elementary school started a school canteen. But also around that time, in elementary school, I taught myself to code. So I was building websites, and like, really basic applications, and I see the Women in Technology back there, and AI. So I know, there's good representation here. But I, again, I was really driven to build something. So I taught myself to code made these websites made a guestbook for the kids in my class over the summer. Okay, so I'm a little bit older than probably most, if not all of you. So we didn't have really like, well, I don't even know if your MSN is, but we didn't really have instant communication tools. So the way that we would communicate over the summers through these guest books, these like basically really simple websites where you could leave like asynchronous messages, kind of like a form on Blackboard or Kirkus or, you know, any of the platforms you'd use. And so I built one of those, you know, really enjoyed creating, you know, went into high school took computer science, I wasn't encouraged to take it beyond that first course, even though I quite liked it. And I think I did quite well. But I wasn't encouraged. And so I ended up going, you know, to university here, obviously went to business, but those skills were still really relevant along the way. I was actually still using them. So I co-directed the OHM fashion show, which I think is still on campus, you know, and it was involved in tweaking the website, whatever, you know, project, I'd sort of created an HTML website for it. So I was still building and using those skills. Even after I went to Toronto, I worked in accounting for a bit I worked for a bunch of early stage startups. But I you know, then at one point, kind of realized the work that I was doing wasn't fulfilling, and I wanted to Yeah, to want it to kind of really, really fulfill that purpose and me, so I quit that job that I was in, in accounting, I started getting involved in the tech community realize that, you know, my skills. And although I had taught myself to code, were really quite out of date. There, you know, technology moves very quickly. And so I wanted to learn how to code again. And that's really where, you know, I met the other three co founders who started the organization together. And we just like, we wanted to learn to code. So we just created workshops to help us learn to code and people really liked them. And 11 years later, here we are, we've taught almost a million people in Canada, we've taught Justin Trudeau, we've had really incredible people support our work, like the CEO, Shopify, Toby (Tobias Lütke) was on our board for a period of time. So we've just really created this national movement, all really driven around this problem that we wanted to solve that we had in ourselves.

 

Deniz Edwards 

That's such a interesting story. And I love that you shared because I've talked a lot with students about how it's often students will get a job after school and you get some industry experience. And that entrepreneurial bug will kind of catch afterwards. So that's really interesting that you did go on and kind of work at an accounting firm, and different startups and things like that.

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah. And I think those like foundational skills are so important. And I always tell people, you know, there's some benefit in finding out what you don't want to do, right? So not only do you acquire all of these skills and experiences and accounting is so relevant in running your business like, and I think it's, you know, a big reason why we've been successful and been able to kind of keep money in the bank. But you know, you really also figure out what you don't want to do. So I think you can't really go wrong.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yeah for sure. So one thing I wanted to ask about yesterday, with all the students here, we spent a lot of time and we did a couple of activities and exercises to really hone in on problems and identifying problems that the students were passionate about, because at the core of kind of every entrepreneurial venture is a problem that you're solving. So I'd love to hear from you. What was it the problem? You kind of alluded to it? But what was it that core problem that you had identified that kind of led to the creation of Ladies Learning Code?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, great question. I'll get there, I guess, I'll just underscore how important that is to find a problem that you're passionate about. So again, like circling back to all these different entrepreneurial ventures that I had... one of them, one of my, like, failed ventures, is when I was here on campus, I was in second year, and I kind of stumbled upon this US company that was storing students furniture over the summer in the colleges in the US, and they wanted to bring that to campus into Canada. And I'm like, Okay, I'm starting something, love it, you know, I was connecting with the CEO really inspiring, really interesting. I was like, Sure, let me launch that. You know, so I got going, launched it here, you know, realized, first off in London, generally, I don't know if it's still the case, but there are 12 month leases, if you're not in residence, so no one needs to store their stuff in the summer. So like, didn't really validate that problem. But I also like didn't really have a passion for storing things. So I just didn't really put all that much energy or that much effort. It didn't go anywhere, I don't think it exists. That company, you know, was really successful, it was acquired by U-Haul in the US and, but it just wasn't like the problem for me. And that would be very similar to a lot of the other like failed ventures that I've been part of is that there just wasn't this connection to something that I'm passionate about. So for CLC (Canada Learning Code), it really was this perfect combination of wanting to learn technical skills, but also a problem that was looking to really scale. So when I worked in accounting, even that experience, actually with college boxes, that storage unit, or you know, I worked at Domino's Pizza, and I worked with the franchisees... I had done a lot of I had a lot of experience in franchising, and you know, sort of Chapter model clubs on campus. And so, so there's a problem that comes, you know, the technical problem wanting to learn those skills. But for me, and that, like business opportunity was that this problem to be solved this, you know, need for more women at first to have technical skills really required scale, right. It required us to run experiences to run them everywhere. That's what we wanted to do. That's how we wanted to bring our ideas to life. And so it required someone who had ie that passion around that idea, but also maybe like some experience scaling things. So all of a sudden, all of this random experience with franchising and you know, the college boxes and others really positioned me I think really extremely well to then scale at the time it was called Ladies Learning Code across the country. So pre-pandemic, we were in almost 40 cities across the country. We had these vehicles traveling and it was because I had learned and actually failed a lot you know along the way and all these other experiences that really kind of brought full circle this, you know, the passion and some of the expertise for me to build that idea.

 

Deniz Edwards 

That's really, yeah, that's really awesome. And I love that point that you made about the passion behind it and how you were saying that, like, you didn't have a passion for furniture storage. And I think that's so important. Like, it's one thing, like, sure a business might be viable, it might be successful. But if you don't have that internal drive, that kind of makes you wake up every day and want to keep working on it, then it's not the thing for you. And that's okay, and you can move on. And so I think that's, that's really important. And I love that you kind of brought that up, for sure. And

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

I would just say to like, it can change over time. So at first I wanted to learn technical skills, and coding myself. So I was passionate about that, then, you know, we got to a point in the organization where we were looking to do this and support and help people look like as many people as possible. So then I was really motivated by actually scaling the business, you know, focus on adults. And then a few years after that, I was part of a summer camp. And it was for young girls, it was a girls learning code camp. And this young girl, like first day of camp, like fun summer camp, she came to out of the room crying, and she was saying things like, I'm not going to be good at math, or I'm not going to do it, my parents are going to be disappointed. Like, I'm not good at this coding stuff. And for me, that was then like this third kind of purpose. For me, it was this critical incident where I was like, Okay, if this young girl at this, like really fun coding camp already thinks she can't be good at technology, like we need to fix that. And that was then for me the catalyst to then get my master's in education to focus on youth. So there's like three, there's more, but there's like three examples of where the same organization same business I've like refound my passion for in different ways. And I think that's the one thing I love the most about entrepreneurship is you're creating your, your whatever it is you want to do, right, so the organization has grown along those interests along, you know, community demand. And so I've found lots of different things. I've grown a ton, I keep growing, but I'm motivated at different points by different things. And I think that's just like the best part for sure.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yeah, that's, that's so interesting, for sure. So another thing that we talked about yesterday was about validation, and how entrepreneurship is very iterative. And you have this idea and you have a problem, a solution, and you have to go back, you have to keep going out and talking to the market and getting that validation. So how did you go about validating kind of that initial problem that you had identified? And also, was there a point where you felt like, Okay, I have enough validation? Like, this is something that I know, or there's enough information out there that I should just jump in and run with it? Or are you still validating to this day?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Good question, so yeah, on the college box example, that was a perfect like, textbook example of not validating the problem or the idea. So learn a lot from that. The way that Ladies Learning Code, which was the organization when we founded it, it's not now Canada Learning Code, it actually started through a brainstorming session a month before our first workshop. So it was, you know, built by the community for the community. So validating the problem. And, you know, first off by having 80 people on a waitlist at that workshop, or that brainstorm session, for us, was a really good indicator that there's some people that are interested in this. And then through that, we got their feedback, though, at people that were there about what that workshop should look like, we, you know, looked at other types of workshops that were happening in other parts of the world. And we never stopped doing that. And I think, you know, part of it also, by solving a problem you're passionate about, it can be a problem that, you know, you you're not maybe directly impacted by, by passionate passionate about, in our case, we were like, also our end consumer at the beginning. Because we weren't technical we were, you know, we were learning. So there was this, you know, huge benefit of also building things that would benefit us, right. But then you hit a point where you, you know, you're now too tech savvy, you're no longer a beginner, you know, you are not your customer anymore, and depending on the business you build, you may never be. And so we we really prioritize talking to that learner or that end customer. For us. It's learners, it's volunteers. It's our team, that we do that through, you know, surveys and focus groups and lots of the probably tools you talked about. And so that is like core, we're never done doing that. Throughout the pandemic, we had to pivot a ton, like we are never done iterating we're, you know, we're always looking at what it is that our end user and customer needs. And that changes as quickly as technology does. But that's like, really, really important. And I think the moment you do that, you know, or you stopped doing that. You start you stop being irrelevant, right? So I think it's really, really important. And then to your point around, like, how do you know you have enough? I think in terms of launching a business, in my experience, like you never are gonna have everything, like, you'll never have all the information you need, you'll never have all the answers, you probably never have all the resources. But I think for me, what I've learned is when you start to, like, hear these themes, and, you know, maybe no new themes start to emerge or not substantially, when you feel like you've kind of have a really strong inclination, inclination, things are starting to kind of converge in a direction. That's for us when we're like, okay, like, we feel pretty confident we can, you know, dive in there, because we're starting to hear a lot of similarities. But then we also just keep agile. So we might do that. And then that doesn't work. And then we're really comfortable and just like, scrapping that, and doing something something different. And so keeping really fluid and flexible, I think is important as well,

 

Deniz Edwards 

for sure, yeah, definitely easier said than done. But it's great to hear that you guys are still validating, I think that's so important. I think all companies, even big corporations, they're always kind of collecting information and data to make sure that they're always iterating, and innovating and all of that stuff. So switching gears a little bit yesterday, we heard from a lot of students that are very motivated by a social impact. And I've talked with so many students more and more every day, I think that's such a driving factor for students these days. And I find that so inspiring and so amazing. And so obviously, Canada Learning Code, you are a not for profit, and there is kind of that social impact aspect to it. So can you walk us through how you decided to go that direction and kind of went that not for profit route? And what was that meaning of that social impact for you?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

A really good question. We, I don't think any like myself, any of our founders, we ever thought we would have a nonprofit or charity. I mean, I don't think we even thought we'd have a for profit. You know, we when we started, we were really a loose collective of people's trying to solve a problem. But then I think you realize, okay, this, there's something here and you need to put structure in place, the way that I've come to think about it, because we've questioned at different points, whether you know, when we are nonprofit, if we should become a charity, if we should be something different. So the way that I think about it is like what is the right structure to solve the problem that you want to solve? So for us, we wanted, you know, our workshops to be everywhere in Canada, and maybe beyond that, but we'll have to rebrand. We wanted to be everywhere. And so we knew, though, that also that core to our experience, was this really high ratio of mentors to learners. So we every four learners in our workshops, there's one person, one mentor working alongside you, which is like unheard of, right. But that's not what we see in traditional classrooms. So we knew that if we wanted to create this experience, and this experience, and that mentor ratio was so core to the impact we wanted to have, and we have this like theory of the change we want to create, and this is really core to it, there's research around it, that's, you know, there's, you know, a lot of research around, you know, having people teaching you or mentoring you who look like you. And so just based on all of these things, it requires this like high number of mentors and volunteers. And so as we talk through the different opportunities, and the different ways that our business can be formed or grow, we realize that it needs to be a structure that it supports, and, you know, helps the volunteers thrive, because we could never afford to pay that many mentors in a kind of formal way. We just, we couldn't figure out the math on that as much as we did it. And that's where counting was helpful. So then what we talked through what we learned was, as a nonprofit, and sort of a volunteer focus, social impact type of of kind of structure would help us solve the problem best, because we knew that that was so important to how we wanted to solve it. So that's really how we ended up as a nonprofit and a charity was just picking a structure that solved the problem. I think there could have been lots of other ways. And now in Canada, there are lots of other organizations that are different types of structures for profits that are doing what we're doing, but they're doing it a little bit differently. And that's great, it solves a problem differently. But we really, really focused on, you know, what is the right structure? And I think any type of structure can have a social impact. You know, and that's really the purpose and how you do it is what's more important than maybe the way that it looks, you know, so I wouldn't, you know, you might there might be considerations about what structure to choose to help solve the problem. But my advice would be just focus on solving the problem best and if you focus on that, like the other pieces will start to fall into place and aren't as important and shouldn't be the main driver but how you think about building the you know, the business, the vision that you have.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yeah, for sure. I think we talked a little bit about this yesterday for you guys that were here yesterday about kind of the the viability of a business idea and how the different paths it takes. But at the end of the day, is it a viable business? And can you support the activities that you want to do? So I love that you kind of touched on those points. And it all kind of drives back to the problem, right? The problem that you've identified and how best can you solve that problem, and the structure kind of falls out from there. So that's, that's really insightful. So I'd love to hear about your time at Western because obviously, you were here at Western, you are an alum. I think you talked a little bit about some of the things that you did while you were a student here, but was there anything that really sticks out to you of things that you got involved with? Or different activities that you did that really helped you to get where you are today?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, well, I loved I loved being on campus, especially during homecoming, I, I think the most like, significant or the things that I think about the most, I mean, lots of friends, I'm still in touch with more definitely getting involved in clubs. And I'm not just saying this, because they're around the room, like literally, that is like the most important thing I take away. And when I actually talked to some of my peers from from, from university, they often like, talk about that mean, you know, they're like, Oh, I wish I did what you did, which was get involved, right, and like, you know, have that real life applied experience and running something and building something. Because if you aren't interested in entrepreneurship, I really feel like it's such a good sort of low stakes, no cost way of building the skills that are necessary. So I was involved in a variety of different clubs, you know, one that I mentioned was the the OHM fashion show, co directing, I was focused on the business side of it, I'm not artistic, I can't sing, I can't dance model. But I was focused on sponsorship revenue, like the revenue side of it costs, procurement, venue booking, like for a really large production relative to anything I had done before. And so those types of skills negotiating asking for money, you know, balancing your books, like there was such a good opportunity to learn. And I did that quite a lot. So that's, I think the what I took away the most was just having, you know, tons of opportunities here on campus to do that, that you wouldn't otherwise. And so, you know, I definitely encourage if you are, you know, looking to get experience coming up to things like this being part of different programs being part of clubs. I wish there was like things like this when I was on campus, but there's lots of ways to get that experience that doesn't cost anything, because it does cost you down the road. You know, it's it's a good, it's a good way to learn, but actually get skills that are useful.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yes, definitely. And that was not a planted answer for sure. So yes, I'm so happy that all the clubs are here. So I really hope that you guys take that to heart because there's so many ways to get involved. And all the the the entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial mindsets are definitely very transferable. And you can learn them in so many different ways, and apply them in so many different ways. So that's, that's really great. So another question about your entrepreneurial journey is that, obviously entrepreneurship can be quite lonely. I know, you said that you had three co-founders. So you were fortunate to have a team with you. But it can be very up and down process and lots of highs, lots of lows. And I just would love to hear about what kind of support mechanisms or who did you reach out to to help you kind of, especially in those early days,

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Really good question. Yeah, it's definitely lonely. It can be for sure. And then, you know, even I had co founders, and it was awesome in the early days, for sure. But even then, as the organization grow grew, I ended up taking on the role of our Chief Executive Officer, which kind of put me at the top of this hierarchy, so to speak, which just does it does mean, you know, and you you hear things like it's lonely at the top. And as like, as that can sound like there is this element of you know, as you're you build a business where you, you know, that the things that you are the issues you have, you probably shouldn't and can't maybe share with everybody or the people around you might not know or your you know, your friends, your roommates, your partners or like, I'm done listening to you talk about these issues. So it can be tough for her. And I think that's actually very, very valid and something to prepare for. I really focused on building a network around me of people doing similar things. I kind of beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, post graduation, I really would go to networking events, and I would think, Okay, let me like reach out to the most senior person in the room, you know, and think that's who I want to talk to, right. But then I actually started realizing that people who were like just a little bit further ahead, in whatever they were doing, were actually the most valuable. The people who have like, made it, they've got lots of great advice like and you know, definitely have been there and you can learn an immense amount and I have those people in my network as well. But you know, those that had just done it, you know, six months ago a year ago, like They have real deep understanding and appreciation having just done it. And so I found in that way, like looking at networking or looking at building my kind of mentor base, I really focused on people at different points in the journey. And really, you know, seeing everybody as as an opportunity to learn something from so that was always really important. As it was like setting boundaries, I wasn't great at that, I'm probably still not the best at that, you know, especially when you love and you're passionate about something like, it's hard to not turn your brain off, like you are constantly working through it. And I think that's also, you know, a real reality for a lot of entrepreneurs is like everything you see in the context, like I came here, and I was like, oh, Women, Technology Society, like I should chat with them about doing a workshop, you know, like, everything's in the context of my of work. So just making sure you set boundaries, whether it's working out watching TV, hanging out with friends, like just really, really prioritize doing that, and trying to turn off is really important as well.

 

Deniz Edwards 

Yes, I think that's a message that often gets lost with entrepreneurship is because there's this big glamour of like, pushing yourself and working all the time. And I think that, that self care and taking care of yourself is definitely most important.

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

And it's a marathon, not a sprint, even though like it can feel like a sprint all of the time. And there are milestones like it is a marathon. And the problems that you're passionate about, I'm pretty confident are like long in nature, like long term like, so I always say kind of play the long game as well. And, you know, for me trying to transform education, that's not going to happen, you know, in the next, you know, two five to ten, you know, decades, maybe, you know, the way that I would love to see that final vision, so you can't sprint every day, or every week or every year like you really do you have to see it as an endurance, you know, opportunity.

 

Deniz Edwards 

For sure. So this is my last question that I have. And then I'm going to kind of open it up to you guys, what is the biggest piece of advice that you would give for any of the students here, they're all just kind of just starting out, they maybe have a kernel of an idea. They're super excited and passionate about entrepreneurship, what would be your advice to them?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Usually, like just start, but I don't think that's enough. Like that's probably based advice, the thing that I would say, and maybe it's like, where I'm at right now in my life is like to not be afraid to challenge the way that you see yourself or the narrative that you're telling yourself. So that's probably like the most difficult piece of advice that I've ever received, but the most like, significant and the most kind of like pervasive piece of advice I ever give. So I'll give a little bit of story to kind of add context to this. We were in kind of 2017, we were at CLC, had this opportunity, we've been working really hard, we just had Justin Trudeau code with us. And we had this opportunity to get a significant amount of money from the federal government like 10, plus millions of dollars. And we were going to invest in this fleet of code mobiles, which exist around the country. And I remember talking to one of my board members, really prominent, like runs one of the biggest companies in Canada. And I remember talking to him, and I was saying things like, but I'm nervous. Like, I'm an accountant, I'm so risk averse. Like, I don't know if I can do it. Like, I don't know, if I can, you know, if I can, like, get the org to a place where it needs to go. And I kept saying things like, I'm an accountant, right? And he stopped me and he said, Listen, stop for a second, right? Like you would never be here quitting your job launching a company scaling to 40 cities across the country, getting into a position where you have an access to that type of investment, if you were risk averse, right? That's a narrative that you are telling yourself; a story, you're telling yourself about someone that you think you are based on your education, your work, experience, your family, your background, you know, maybe who you were two, three years ago, but that's not who you are. And that's not how people see you. And I find that, like, I'm constantly up against that, like, all the time, you know, I hold on to who I might have been. But we changed so much. And I think especially in university, and as you enter your career, you're going to change a ton you're going to learn, like the amount that you learn in like a semester is like just overwhelming. And so that is like I would say, the biggest thing to think about is like, don't let u be in the way of you. If you have an idea or problem. It's not too big. You can shift your perspective and don't be afraid to challenge that. You know, and get that critical feedback about who you are. Because ultimately, I think often we're our worst enemy, right? And we're the one standing away of the greatness that we can become. And I think that's just so important to question and keep a pulse on always.

 

Deniz Edwards 

I think that's just great advice for everyone in general, not just entrepreneurship, but just good, great life advice. So yeah, that's awesome. Okay, I want to open it up to you guys. Do you guys have any questions? Jake, why don't we start with you?

 

Student Question 

How did you go about hiring and scaling a team? Did you start with your friends, co workers or just other people in your network?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, that's a good, really good question. Have. So we're 11 years in, I've had probably 200 full-time staff over that period of time and 1000s of volunteers. So I've learned a lot and have been a lot of mistakes, a lot of learnings and lessons, I think we really focused on in early days on, you know, really sort of entrepreneurial, passionate folks who were filling gaps that we might have, you know, and we did hire some friends in our network. I think that's tricky. I mean, this might be controversial, but I have had, like, not the some amazing like our, like our co founders, but not always the most amazing experiences, like, I think that the advice I got once is like your business partner, might be the most important partner relationship that you'll ever have, like, over your spouse, or, you know, in the reason is because ultimately, at some point, like money gets involved, and you want to think that that's not going to change things. But like, in my experience, it can. And so I'm really focused as much as possible to hire amazing people who are filling gaps. You know, maybe there are people, you know, referrals in our networks. But, you know, now I would really caution away from hiring, you know, like, at scale, like family and friends, until you're at a point where you can have that, like, objectivity, you know, and maybe have, you know, HR and other things, but really focus on what are those gaps that you have? What are the skills that you need, in order to do in order to scale and grow?

 

Student Question 

Did you do online job postings?

 

 

LikehHow do we did that? Oh, so yeah, we did a little bit of that. A lot of, you know, we focused a lot on kind of broad awareness for our work, you know, public relations and things like that. So we would have a kind of an always on place on our website, where people were like, coming inbound. But a lot of events like this, a lot of networking, career fairs, basically, any way we could find really great talent, we would do it, we've done all of those things. What's most successful, it really depends like on what you're looking for to, you know, there are definitely some job boards that are like more curated, there are some communities that are more, you know, if you're looking for like someone who is really skilled in AI, you know, there's certain places you could go to find those folks. But I think all of those things, and the more creative you can be about it, I think the probably the better the outcome as well.

 

Student Question 

Thank you. Okay, so what made you like decide to switch your target market for your like business? And also like, how did you in general, like feel about that? Like, was it stressful or...

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Rebranding from Ladies Learning Code to Canada Learning Code? Oh, that's a good question. That was a ... took a year, it took a year to actually rebrand. And it took about two years from the idea that we wanted to why we did that. A couple of things like one we started as Ladies Learning Code, and we wanted to focus on increasing the number of women in technology. But then we realized that diversity in tech is beyond just gender. And I think that kind of coincided with a broader conversation that was happening in society research that was coming out that helped educate us about about that, right. So part of the reason that we wanted to rebrand or evolve, I like to say is because we just realized that we had a kind of maybe too narrow view of the work that we wanted to do. And then the other thing was more of a bit of a, like a marketing problem, so to speak. And, you know, so if you can think of a brand, I would say it's like a bucket, right? Ladies Learning Code as a bucket like we get filled really quickly, because it's focused on a very, like targeted, very specific audience. So we have this, like really big vision still do that all people in Canada will have the skills and competence to harness the power of technology that's big. So the marketing bucket of Ladies Learning Code was too small for the vision that we had. So we like from a marketing perspective, we needed a bigger bucket that we could use to promote and to build awareness for our work. So there's kind of two things that were happening in that two year period. And it was very controversial. So it took a year of talking to our community, our learners, our volunteers, our funders, our partners, to finally get to a point where we brought people on board with that journey. Because as you can imagine, people, lots of people were at our organization because they wanted to focus on helping women access careers in tech, right. And so all of a sudden, you know, we're rebranding people were like, well, do we not do what we are here for? Like, are we not here for the same thing anymore? And so it was very controversial, and it took me I was, you know, in communities talking to people very regularly to bring people on board with this bigger bucket and bigger vision. And then by the time we launched, it was like a non event no one said anything. It wasn't exciting at all, but I thought that was a huge success, because it could have been like really bad.

 

Student Question 

Did you sort of do any planning before doing that like any anywhere Are you like sort of scared? And how did it like pay off in the end?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, tons of planning. So yeah. And again, going back to like validating the problem or getting user research, like, you know, this was, again, we were we were hearing this consistently from our community as well, we had lots of parents who had, you know, children that were, or weren't women weren't ladies, we had ladies who said, that's something like an antiquated term, you know, or didn't identify, you know, lots of non binary learners as well. And so we were hearing that getting that research and that validation, to be able to make that decision along the way. And then again, I think, because by the time we rebranded, no one really had anything to say it, it was a success. You know, and, you know, our work we've grown, we've grown exponentially since we were ladies learning code. So I think it's also a testament to this bucket that we have, and, and like people buying into and being part of a bigger vision that fits better with Canada Learning Code, I think now,

 

Student Question 

what's the biggest disappointment that you've had to face with running the company and things like that? And how did you navigate pushing through and still going on with your vision?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Oh, yeah. I'm like, Ah, like, some days, it's like, every day, there's something like, you know, but again, every day, there's something amazing like it, that roller coaster, like the highs are highs and lows are lows are totally entrepreneurship. Some days and like, 99% of this day is horrible. But like, 1% is so amazing that it like overshadows all of the other 99%. Like, that is totally my experience with entrepreneurship. It's, you know, I know, it can't be like 100, 110% worth it. I don't know if you can be more than that. But yeah, it is, I think some of the things that were it's been really, really challenging, certainly leading and building an organization for the pandemic, I think that was hard, we did have to at the beginning of the pandemic, restructure and let some people go off our team that was hard, like, people are, why we are here, our team are like, everything. That's why we're here like i as I'm talking and, you know, leading the ship, but it's nothing without this team. And so moments like that are really hard, and you know, you like you don't ever really get over them. You know, but I, you know, you do what you can and so in those moments you help people navigate land, people have landed, you know, in different places, but I think, yeah, there is this reality, you know, the people part of it. So, you know, this is our people. And so as complicated as we all can be during like a global pandemic, really, really hard. And if I think back to before that, all of the like lows, you know, most of them, there's times where, you know, funding or other things didn't come through the way we wanted to, but a lot of them do relate generally to, to people, you know, and that, for us is just the biggest part of our business. And you just work through you do what you can you show up every day with the same character and integrity and the same values, you know, you put people first and, you know, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. But what I have also learned is that it's never really that decision, or, you know, the way that people see that decision isn't in that moment. It's like all of your interactions before that. So I just focus on showing up like to be authentic and, you know, caring about people every day and helping navigate through those tough moments in that same way as well.

 

Student Question 

So back to HBA 1 life. Do you think that LPO courses and communication courses really contribute to entrepreneurship? Or not?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

So leading people and operations? Is that where you are? Or just any course...

 

Student Question 

It's Leading People... Yeah, Leading People and Operations.

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, I mean, I think that yes, like, I think that the case method as well, in general, I mean, I'm biased, and I love it. And I think it's helpful to just give you scenarios and like to think through how you might approach something. In my experience, like entrepreneurship, there are lots of, you know, books that you could read you, there's lots of scenarios, there's lots of people you can talk to, but no one's done what you've done as you in this point in time, and we're all sort of figuring it out. So I think the more that you can get that practice without having to, like, make the real mistake in your business, and it will might cost you financially is great. So I think you can learn a lot. And I think you can learn about the bleeder you want to be the leader you don't want to be when I think about some of the jobs I've had out of, you know, university, like I've worked for amazing leaders and not so great leaders, and they've all been amazing experiences in the end, because it helps you hone in what you want to do. So yeah, and I think also a variety of topics and skills is also helpful. Like I would sort of characterize myself a bit of a like, what people have said is like a bit of a Swiss army knife in the sense that I've done a little bit of this, a little bit of that a little bit of this and so that helps you just think about like problems with different perspectives. So that's another thing in the book question. Some advice. I also once got, which I really value is, if you read a traditional type of book often, like go to the same bookstore, or wherever you purchase books, and go to a section that you would never read, you know, and it's just about framing your perspective a little bit differently. So if you always read, you know, books about mechanics or business, like go read about art and design and like, go do something totally opposite. So it's all helping just perform inform your perspective. So I think it's really valuable. Yeah.

 

Student Question 

Thank you. I was really wondering how you kind of had this like startup. And I know, you said that the idea is what matters to a certain problem that occurs where you can see and like, the solution is kind of like your basic startup, like, how did you actually start?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Like, okay, like, like, get something happening? Yeah. So I have two things. I'm going to say there, one. Okay. So I'm actually starting up all the other examples, like you just start somewhere. So in our case, for for CLC or Canada Learning Code, we had a brainstorming session, and we got a bunch of people, 80 people together, and we said, Okay, what would it look like to teach people to code, women to code, and then we just set a date for a month later. And then we just, like, figured out what we would need food. And you know, we need a venue. And we would need a marketing site. And like you just one step at a time, like, quite literally just like work through the different things that come your way, in terms of like, actually starting, I think, there's, you know, sometimes this, this idea that you need to have, like all of these things done and anything, you know, you need a certain amount of stuff done. Absolutely. But you know, things are always going to come up. So just like one foot in front of the other is important. And then the other thing I would say, that I've also come to realize, and I talked with my team often is, like this other piece of advice is just what I say is like fall in love with the problem, not the solution. So you know, and what I mean by that is like you're you the solution, the way that you solve the problem is probably going to change a ton. And it's going to constantly change. And if you're running a really successful business, like you will want it, I think, to change in response to the people that you serve. So for me, like, you know, pre-pandemic we run ever, we ran everything in person, all of our workshops, and I thought if we ever do anything else, like I'm not going to do this anymore. I really fell in love initially with like delivering in person experiences. And the pandemic was this like huge wake up call for me to say, you know, like it realize that actually no, like, I was happy to run live online, I cared about just delivering these experiences to people, I wasn't like, you know, I was forced to not be as hooked on the way that we did it. And I couldn't for my team, we needed to like do things differently. So like I think even more than anything focused on like the problem that you want to solve or the impact that you want to have. And how you get there is going to shift and change along the way.

 

Student Question 

Is there any specific like, event or situation that you were put in? And that kind of gave you that? Like, yeah, you had that slow startup that you're talking about? And it's escalating, of course, but there was like that this one point, and you're like, Whoa, we're actually an organization, we have a plan we have what to do? How did you know it was that point? And how, what did you do right after that point.

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

So for us, it was like our third workshop, it sold out in 30 seconds. And I used to joke that like if sold out fast in the Beyonce concert, like it was like this. So and then we had people asking again, and again and again. And we had just so much demand. So for us, it was like this moment, we're like, oh, like, we probably just can't be a group of people. Just like running workshops anymore. Like we've got money, like sitting here. You know, I had like a ton of stuff. In my home, Laura, one of our co-founders, her car was like completely full of things. We're like, we probably can't sustain this anymore. But for us, we tried as long as we could to like, you know, with this idea of Bootstrap, you know, and really just like be open to what people needed, as opposed to like, formalize it too quickly. So for us, it just, we just knew when like, we needed to put some structure around it, like, you know, when it was taking over our lives, and we were working full time jobs on the side, like we just we just came to that, like we kind of just knew when what was working wasn't working anymore. Yeah. (Thank you.) No problem.

 

Student Question 

What's the biggest challenge you had while scaling and how did you overcome it?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Scaling! Scaling is the biggest problem scaling. Going from like one to two is like, like double but like it's manageable, two to four is manageable, four to eight, okay, and then you go eight to 50, which is what we did. Very, very hard. You get to a point where you just don't have maybe like the structure that you people expected an org that size. Like I think that's probably one of our big learnings is we had, you know, a larger brand than we maybe had like infrastructure for So we were and we were also hiring really talented people from bigger organizations. And so, you know, they would come and be like, okay, like, it's day one, who would I gotta get it, like, get my laptop set up, and I'm like, Well, you're the IT person, you know, we just didn't have that. So that was hard. And so that as much as you can plan for some of those things early on, like plan to scale, I thought we were but not nearly like, you know, just think think bigger than maybe where you are. So if you're thinking about, like, you know, a solution, you know, you maybe you, you need something like medium size now, but you're gonna get really quickly to where you need the larger size solution, like larger enterprise. So think about, think about and plan to scale, don't sell yourself short, because you'll get there way quicker in my experience than you think you will. And then when you get there, you're like, oh, you know, that, like that was just yesterday. And you know, and that's been hard just to like, navigate that.

 

Student Question 

Hi, I'm Melissa, nice to meet you and everyone else here. Fonzo. Hey, Ben HBA 1 student. My question for you is how do you preserve your mental health through the entrepreneurial journey? Because it seems like there's a contrast there, they're almost mutually exclusive. That to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to put in 100 hours per week, and just like grind 24/7? Right. So where does mental health come into play for that?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, that's a really good question. And yeah, definitely, I didn't have like the best boundaries, I think at the beginning. But But I think it was, okay, like, I look back, and I think you just do need to know what you need. And that can change at different points in time. So when I look back the last like, decade or so, like, there were points in time where, you know, I was just, I wanted to, to work, you know, my 100 hours a week or more, I was just passionate about it. But there are points in time where I didn't, and you know, just have to really check in with myself and not feel guilty about it, I think is important. But also Yeah, just knowing Yeah, just really being in tune what you need, like what I need compared to what my co founders needed, or what my partner needs, he's entrepreneurial, as well, are very different. So like, you just have to listen to yourself and set those boundaries, you do not need to work 100 hours a week to be successful, by no means, you know, if you don't want to, but again, every person is different. So that, like, I did my yoga teacher training, I do yoga, I like watch TV, like, you know, those types of things, I used to read a book a week, you know, whatever it is that you you want to do, I think just make sure you put those in place and hold yourself accountable to it. Because the thing is, no one's gonna be like, did you do that? No, like, nobody's checking in on you. So you just really have to have that self discipline to do it.

 

Student Question 

Got it? Thank you. For entrepreneurs, it's pretty easy to find the problem, but how do you make people fall in love with your solution?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Ah, very good question. I think it does go back to like building what people want, right and talking to them. And I think if it is like that, like, if you're really trying to get people to, like, buy what you have or use what you have, I would sort of say, is it really solving the problem for them? For starters, and it may, and there might be other things that are influencing the ability to make those decisions. So think about how you reduce friction in those ways. So you know, is your you know, if you have a software solution, is it not integrated in this area of the business. And so I think that's where, like, just talking to that, you know, your end consumer is really, really valuable, because you might think that it's something to do with what you've built. And it's might not be right, it might be, you know, the approval that their business has, right. And it might be the structure that they have, and they want to use what you have, they love it, it's better than the alternatives. But like, there's some barrier somewhere else in the organization that's limiting their ability to use it. So you're not going to find that out unless you go and ask and figure it out. So it's like, what, what is that? But I think if you're really trying to sell someone something doesn't some thing to someone they don't want then I would question the solution, but then understanding like, what is the friction in this process? And kind of getting to the bottom of that? Yeah, right.

 

Student Question 

So would you say, um, for like finding your value proposition? Would you say that identifying your market is the strongest suit or making sure that your product stands out from someone else?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

That's a good question. And there's probably like a more structured answer, I guess, like find out who the end like end customer really is, I guess, right? Like so in some my experiences selling, you know, let's say to like, you know, and I just been angel investing. So as an example, like one of our one of the companies, we you know, we sell to, to like HR, right, but it actually, you know, the recruiter, we think we're selling to the recruiter, but it actually isn't because they're not the decision maker. And so like, we are building this solution and our sales funnel and tactics around this person who is going to be the one who uses it, but not the one who buys it. Right. So thinking about like a really understanding like who's That decision maker, so it does relate to the value prop. But yeah, I think sometimes like we, we can get confused about who's really like buying the stuff that we're selling. Yeah, that's helpful.

 

Student Question 

That's great. Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna try making it quick because I don't want to like, you know, because reading but like, Okay, I have a couple questions. So my first is, so it's kind of like a theoretical thing. But you know, when you started your business, it was directed towards women. So you were talking about opening the bucket everything. But what if you had made like, you had opened it up, but you had subsections? So one for older people, one or woman? Yeah. Like, did you ever think about that? How do you think that would have affected your success?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Yeah, and we do still have that, like, we do market? Certain, like, to certain audiences in that way. So we do. Yeah. And that, that, again, there's like a bit of a difference, maybe between the overarching bucket and then like, what, who we're communicating to and how, you know, use the example of youth and this is going back to the, the question before, right, like, we used to think that we, you know, when we ran camps, like we were talking to our campers, right, like at the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey, we realized as the parent, right, so our marketing was like very useful for camps. Very useful and very, like kid friendly. And then we're like, well, that's actually not enough information for parent a parent actually wants, who's taking care of my kids. What are your policies in place? When do they stop for lunch? Do you have aftercare right? So this like, kind of learn camp and like, robot stuff, like did not appeal to the actual person that we were selling to? So we do have like different sub brands that are like, catered more specifically to the audience's that we're like, serving? Yeah,

 

Student Question 

Yes, sorry. No, I was, I just didn't know if I know. It's okay. Okay. So also the questions have a physical product do you sell or no, it's a service. It's a service. Yeah. And finally, like, when you were like, you know, and whatever thing did you invest in? What did you use for investing If you did. (Say that again?) Like, when you were in school, did you invest and what did you use?

 

Melissa Sariffodeen 

Like, did I invest my personal money and stuff? For example? To some extent, yes, I wish I did more because it compounds so if you have any amount of disposable income that you can save, save it now 10, 11, 12, 15 years makes a big difference. But when I was back there, I think I like did mostly just like mutual funds and GICs and things like that. I wasn't I didn't have very much invest in the stock market. Now. I do invest as an angel investor in some businesses, you know, that are maybe related to things I'm passionate about, I'm still probably not as aggressive from an investment perspective as some people are. For me, I and this is about kind of understanding yourself too. I'm the type of person who purse I take a lot more risk in my business than I'm comfortable with personally, and it's weird. But I like for me to be successful. I think in my entrepreneurial ventures I like to keep things like really just simple at home so I just tried to like keep my my expenses as low as possible. Keep no frills and like so I just I don't experiment with that. Like I keep that for my business and you know, try to drive that so yeah, that's I've no good advice other than save now. That's my advice.

 

Eric Morse 

The Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Quantumshift, 2008 alum Connie Clerici and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group. To ensure you never miss an episode, subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player or visit entrepreneurship.uwo.ca/podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time,