Queen's Return on Innovation Podcast: Recent Episodes
Queen's Partnerships and Innovation
Hear lessons learned and success stories from innovators and entrepreneurs from Queen's University and Eastern Ontario.
Hear about one of the fastest growing companies based in Kingston, Ontario. In this episode we interview MaxSold CEO Sushee Perumal (whom holds an MBA from Smith School of Business at Queen's). MaxSold, with operations across North America, is in the re-commerce space (for customers downsizing their home, for example, MaxSold will photograph contents to be sold via an on-line auction process).
Sushee was an engaging interviewee whom shared the founding story of MaxSold, creation of a minimum viable product, finding product market fit through their recent $16M+ financing together together with plans to continue their corporate growth.
For more information, please follow MaxSold and Sushee Perumal on Twitter (@maxsold and @susheeperumal, respectively).
For Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s, please see:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Hear Peter van der Velden (2x Queen's grad - M.Sc. in pathology and an honours B.Sc. in life sciences), the Managing General Partner at share the story of Lumira Ventures. Lumira Ventures is a North American healthcare venture capital firm with a two-decade track record investing in transformative biomedical companies.
In July of 2021, Lumira announced a $225M (US Dollars) fund, the largest life sciences focused venture fund ever raised in Canada. Lumira also recently launched the Lumira Ventures Venture Innovation Program (Lumira VIP).
The Lumira VIP is designed for a select and highly qualified group of Canadian students from leading academic institutions who want to gain exposure to life sciences venture capital and start-ups, and are committed to pushing the future of life sciences innovation forward.
For more information, please follow Lumira Ventures and Peter van der Velden on Twitter (@LumiraVentures and @Petervencap, respectively).
For Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s, please see:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Hear Neil Wainwright (Queen’s Engineering & Applied Sciences grad and 8x startup founder) share the founding and growth story of Nexonia – a Software as a Service to track and submit expense reports.
Neil shares words of advice on the following topics:
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Incubate as a side hustle, use consulting or other work to support yourself
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Have a detailed focus on customer success
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Be patient, but persistent – building a startup can take many years
Follow Neil on social media: @neildwainwright
For Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s, please see:
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Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
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Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
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Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Hear entrepreneur Peng-Sang Cau describe the journey from day one to building Transformix to 100+ employees.
Peng’s words of advice in this episode:
- Every startup needs to have a strong focus on sales
- Do not hesitate to think globally and go after the best market for your product or service
- Kingston (Eastern Ontario) can be an ideal location to build a business
Peng also serves as a mentor for a Queen’s University entrepreneurship program.
Follow Peng on social media: @PengSangCau
For Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s, please see:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Hear Nadia Tatlow (CEO & Queen’s BAH grad) share the founding and growth story at Shift – a Software as a Service to consolidate email and many other subscriptions in the browser).
Nadia shares words of advice on the following topics:
- Solving a problem team that members were experiencing, initial as a side project
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Defining product-market fit
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Striking the balance between user feedback and addressable market
Follow Nadia on Twitter @NadiaTatlow
Learn more about Shift at tryshift.com
For Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship resources at Queen’s, please see:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
-
Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
-
Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Recorded pre-pandemic, in this episode Alyssa Furtado shares the story of Ratehub - Canada's leading comparison platform for mortgage rates, credit cards, GICs, insurance quotes and bank accounts).
Highlights and key advice from Alyssa in this episode:
- Learn how side hustles can help develop start-up readiness skills.
- The importance of listen and talking to mentors/advisors.
- How to scale a team.
Follow Alyssa on social media: @AlyssaJRichard
Learn more about ratehub.ca: http://www.ratehub.ca
Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
In this episode, we re-play an interview with Sir Terry Matthews recorded during a visit he made to Queen's campus.
Key advice, stories, comments, and insights from Sir Terry Matthews in this episode:
- Give ownership to employees
- Build products customers want
- Write consistent quarterly reports
- Go global – fast (US is local)
- Be persistent – up to half the time a lost contract can become a win
Follow Wesley Clover on Twitter @WesleyCloverInt
Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
In this episode, recorded pre-pandemic, Ms. Anne Vivian-Scott shares the story of Kinarm.
Kinarm is a Kingston, Ontario based company, founded based on research from the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Scott, at Queen’s University that sells robotic instrumentation to help researchers around the world assess patients with brain injuries (e.g. stroke, traumatic brain injury and neurological disease).
Key advice from Anne in this episode:
- How to recruit talent and form a high-functioning team
- Listen to your customers to define your product development and commercialization roadmaps
- Kingston, Ontario is a great location to build a health technology company
Follow Kinarm’s story on social media: @KinarmLab
Learn more about Kinarm: https://Kinarm.com/
Past present supporters/partners of Kinarm: Queen’s University, Ontario Centre’s of Excellence, IRAP, FedDev/ Ontario Brain Institute, PARTEQ Venture Fund, and Queen’s Centre for Neuroscience Studies. Kinarm has been instrumental in providing funding to Queen’s through Ontario Research Fund.
Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s:
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
In this episode, recorded pre-pandemic, we interview Dr. Elsbeth Murray from the Smith School of Business.
Key advice, stories, comments and insights from Dr. Murray in this episode:
- Considerations before the startup.
- Finding co-founders.
- Hear the story of the founding of Evandale Caviar.
- Moving forward and iterating to validate business.
Follow Smith School of Business (Queen’s Venture Network) on Twitter - @QVentureNetwork
Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link
Welcome to the Queen's Return on Innovation podcast. This podcast is about sharing the success stories and lessons learned from experts and entrepreneurs from Queens and Eastern Ontario.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources at Queen’s University
- Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation - link
- Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre – link
- Smith School of Business – Centre for Business Venturing- link