I have been a lifelong entrepreneur. At the age of 18, I opened a specialty sports retail store. Over the next 17 years, I grew that business into a five-store retail chain. With the increase in online and cross-border shopping, the writing was on the wall. I figured if you can’t beat them, join them, so I closed my stores. Then I co-founded one of Canada’s first private e-commerce websites. We offered insider pricing on premium outdoor action sports gear.
This led to the appearance on CBC’s The Dragon’s Den and although we received offers, we could not secure a deal on the show. Undeterred, I continued on with the business and later sold the company to a private equity firm.
After that, I was left with the question… What’s next? Having never worked for someone else, I knew I was virtually unemployable. My wife and I were in the midst of building our second house and our second child was on the way. During this time, I helped my wife build her interior design business. She focussed on multi-family residential builds and worked with a lot of developers, who I got to know throughout the years. I remember meeting with my accountant that year and he asked me what I would do. I told him I was thinking about selling Real Estate. He told me it was a good idea because I was “good-looking and made people laugh.” He had other clients that were grumpy and ugly and they did very well. He figured it was a good fit.