Young, Stubborn & Naive

Joelle Parenteau
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

In 2010, I graduated from Carleton University with a degree in International Business. Has this helped me in the real world? Of course. I learned Spanish for my year abroad in Spain — which actually came in kinda handy in LA. Otherwise, honestly? No not really.

I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew what I didn’t want to do: government. Despite my parents urging me to consider the pay and ‘security’ I knew that would never work. I make a terrible employee.

Lacking inspiration I fell into financial planning. I hated it. But, since I was self-employed it served as a good training ground for what was to come. And there was a silver lining: this led me to discover a problem — one that annoyed me enough to drive me to build my first business: Epic Perks.

The problem was I couldn’t actually really do much for my small business clients because they were small — and small means no buying power. Duh, simple math. So I had the [seemingly obvious] idea of grouping these little guys together until we collectively had equal buying power to the big guys — aka buying group.

Everyone loved the idea. At least until I said ‘I’m doing it!’. How quickly their commentary changed: “Oh. That won’t actually work. You need the big guys, and they aren’t going to listen.” Classic chicken and egg. Good thing I was young, stubborn and naive enough not to listen to them. Watch me.

This was shortly before Christmas 2012. I decided I would launch my business on January 18th 2013. It was a short time frame and ambitious date. Many asked me why so soon? Why not give myself a bit more time? They didn’t understand. Irrationally I told myself I had to launch my first business before I turned 25. My birthday is on the 19th.

So I jumped way outside my comfort zone and networked my ass off [very tough for an introvert]: I stalked speakers at conferences, cold messaged high level execs on LinkedIn, asked people for coffee and then for intros to whoever they knew.

I shared my vision with all of them. Somehow they agreed to give me a shot. I negotiated deals with the big guys: Dell, Staples, Esso, VIA Rail, hotels, restaurants, insurance companies — even RBC who claimed they had never ever before closed a deal with a startup like this.

I didn’t have a plan. And I sure as hell didn’t follow the rules. Instead I made up my own: just ask and see what happens. And funny things did happen.

For instance one day I thought: athletes get sponsored, why not entrepreneurs? (Right?). So I asked Porter Airlines if they would sponsor me and my startup. And it worked! I put their logo on my site and in return got free flights. Win!

So then when discussing with Dell I asked the same thing. They paused and said they don’t do cash sponsorships but “would I take laptops instead?” Free laptops? Ok fine.

I eventually also found a great software developer to work with me, but I didn’t have much extra cash at this time to pay him. One day he mentioned he really needed to get a car. I realized my ex and I both had a vehicle and I didn’t really need my Nissan Sentra. So I made him an offer: he works for me and give him my car. He said that was great but he still needed some cash for rent. That’s when I realized our basement was also not really being used. So he moved in there for a while. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Epic grew as small business bought memberships to access our exclusive deals. But it was slow to go after one business at a time. All of a sudden groups such as associations and chambers took notice and started to reach out asking if they could share our perks with all their members. This was better but ultimately I still needed more scale. Hundreds of small businesses wouldn’t do. I needed thousands, tens of thousands. Or else I’d move on.

Then I was approached by Canada Post — who just happens to have 250,000 small business customers. They also have the Preferred Small Business Solutions loyalty program, to which they wanted to add more value. Like perks. And guess who already had all the perks…

We closed the deal. They would use my perks, distributing them to hundreds of thousands of small businesses, while paying me an annual fee. That year I won a Best Ottawa Business Award and the 40 Under 40. I gave my mom the trophies — they make her happy.

Epic now pretty much runs itself and provides nice passive income. Somehow I ended up in a 4 hour work week a la Tim Ferris type scenario — except probably more like 1 hour work week.

But it wasn’t long before I got bored

)

Startup Founder. Poker Player. Street Food Addict.

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