Terminal Member Spotlight: Jonathan Ducharme
We catch up with the Montreal native that’s helping to make Hims one of the fastest growing consumer products companies ever.
The Montreal tech scene has experienced unprecedented growth over the past 15 years and Terminal member Jonathan Ducharme has had a front-row seat the entire time. The 35-year-old French Canadian engineer grew up nearby and earned his computer science degree down the street at École de Technologie Supérieure. His career began when he dipped his toes into corporate life at Erikson, but it quickly changed once he experienced startups. After that, there was no going back into those frigid waters. No more red tape. Working with small, fast-paced teams keeps him feeling alive. Even after suffering from a rough break up with his former startup, Jonathan wouldn’t trade the accelerated learning environment of startup life for any corner office in the market.
For this month’s member spotlight, we caught up with Jonathan to ask him about his new role with Hims, his appreciation for good beer, and to learn more about how the startup life suits him so well.
Terminal: In Office Space terms, “What would you say that you do here?
Jonathan: I’ve been doing analytics systems forever. The tech community decided to call it a data engineer at some point in time. It’s trendy at the moment, but essentially, I have been doing that since I got out of school.
Why, after the ups-and-downs that you’ve had in your startup career so far, do you still like working at startups so much?
Chaos.
There’s gotta be more to it than that? :)
Right before I started with Hims, I worked at a larger company for a short time. It’s basically a Canadian version of Spotify. I felt like just a number there. There was a lot of red tape, too. I know that may not be the case for every large tech company, but it’s not the kind of environment for me. Let’s be honest — I doubt an engineer at Google can walk up to Larry [Page] or Sergey [Brin] and say “What’s up dude? Let’s talk.” I get to do that where I am now and I think that goes for all Terminal members. Also, If you want to train to be an executive someday, I think the best way to learn how to do that is to be close to those decision makers. At every level, you have to manage chaos. So why not put yourself in a position where you have to manage some of that chaos yourself and work right next to the executives that are having to do that on a whole new level?
What’s going on at Hims? Can you speak to some of the accomplishments there so far that you are excited about?
So as some people in the community know, we recently launched the brand Hers. That’s a whole product line for women. It was really great to launch that, but what made it really special was that we also changed our EMR, which is essentially our online physician platform, and changed the marketing platform — All on the same day.
On the same day?!
Yes. Whoever made those decisions thought it would be really cool to do it all at the same time. I remember thinking, “This is crazy — this is completely crazy.” But as far as the launches go, it was near perfection. I tip my hat to everyone involved because it was a beautiful launch. It’s a good feeling. It makes you look at our team and say, we have a lot of potential here if we can make something like that happen all at once.
What’s it like working in the Montreal Workspace?
The Terminal office in Montreal is really great. It’s a beautiful space. The location is great. It’s well managed. I think my take on it has changed as the community has grown. We were the only team in here to start. That had a few advantages. At Hims, we deal with a lot of sensitive data, so if you don’t have anyone else around, you don’t have to worry as much about how you communicate in the office about that information. Once you bring in another team, you do have to worry about that, but you also get a more active office environment. When you bring in other people and devs from other teams, you have more rubber ducky around.
Wait, what’s rubber ducky?
Well, a rubber ducky is a rubber ducky, but in engineering, it’s about solving problems or debugging by explaining your problem. When you describe what the code is supposed to do and observing what it actually does, you can start to visualize the fix. With more engineers around you when you work, you have more rubber ducky opportunities.
How about the Hims team itself? What’s that dynamic like?
It’s a very young, fun team. I’m 35 and I am the oldest out here in Montreal. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Quentin, our VP of Analytics, did a great job recruiting. I think we’ve hired with the highest potential in mind and that’s what is most important to me. As someone on the team that is a bit more senior, I can’t teach attitude or potential, but I can teach skills. You either have potential or you don’t. Everyone on this team has the right attitude and brings the right level of maturity to the office. All of these guys can pick things up really quickly. Sure, on paper, some of the guys look junior, but you wouldn’t get that through conversation with any of them.
Hims is based in San Francisco. How do you keep the teams connected?
Honestly, it’s really hard, and we still have some work to do there. However, the executives are very good with transparency. When I ask them a question, I get a straight answer. They are open to talking about anything and that to me really helps narrow the gap. In general, remote teams are amazing because they give you the opportunity to grab talent from all over the world. There’s a huge benefit there because of what you can learn from each other, but on the flipside, the leadership teams need to be really good at communicating with remote workers. It’s not something that can be bottom up. It needs to be top down. I think we can always be better, but the executive team is very open and that’s huge for me.
What do and don’t you like about Montreal and its tech community?
There are a lot of reasons why you have to like Montreal. It’s one of the oldest cities in North America, yet it’s a trendy city, especially when it comes to startups. There are good angel investors. There is a good community effort here and good foreign companies. For example, Google and Amazon are both here. It’s one of the best places in the world for AI and gaming and special effects. And it’s multicultural. The food is great. There are 7 universities.
The cons?
Winter. Cold. There’s no getting around that season.
If Money weren’t a thang, what would you do?
I think I have to start by just saying that I love my job and my profession. I wouldn’t say I am a good CEO because I’m not a visionary. I’m a builder so I think I am more of a CTO or COO. If money weren’t a thing, I think I would still do something similar and launch a startup with friends and stay in tech. If it weren’t tech-based, I would open a brewpub. I love beer. I love gin. I could see myself opening up something like that for sure. But if you think tech is hard, that business is extremely difficult!
What are some of the books, podcasts, resources that you love and that inform your work?
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