From Lab to Leader: Guillaume's Unexpected Entrepreneurial Journey

[00:00:00] Appreciate you joining the Pathways in Life Science podcast. My name is Pat. I'm your humble host. And, uh, for this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Guillaume. Him and I have known each other for many years now. And I've always admired his sense of entrepreneurship, starting Biotech Connect, which is a company that organizes life science shows across Canada.

[00:00:33] In universities, research institutions, and biotechs as well. What I really appreciated about Guillaume in this interview is his honesty, his willingness to show vulnerability, and uh, his candidness about the challenges and obstacles that he's faced for eight years since starting Biotech Connect. And I think it's really important, obviously you learn more.

[00:00:55] With your failures and challenges, then your wins. And so I think it's hugely important for people to understand what an entrepreneur in the life science. industry goes through. He's offering something unique. There's not very many companies, especially up here in Canada that offers this service and actually not a lot in the U S as well.

[00:01:15] So without further ado, here's my interview with Guillaume. Enjoy.

[00:01:22] I'm fascinated with how you got to where you are. Obviously you're the founder 2014, that was really refreshing. So that was a really unique service that you were offering manufacturers and distributors in the industry, because back then, unless you were a distributor, you're doing your own shows, but if you're just a manufacturer and you weren't in on it, or you weren't being distributed by that company, you were pretty much out of luck and you had to kind of, uh, fend for yourself.

[00:01:50] The idea was to bring a solution to a problem like we like to do. And in general, in science, there's several companies doing that kind of service, life science exhibition. Much before we started, but in Canada, companies were by themselves, they were bigger companies, more organized, more getting together to do those kind of small events, to gather people, to talk about their product, their services, their solutions.

[00:02:17] It's much easier with a company specialized doing that all day long. Getting all the good contacts, getting all the equipment, all the logistics, solely concentrated on doing that to help the companies. You can come, nothing else to organize, to think about, just come to the show and talk to the customers.

[00:02:38] My first job after my PhD, I was working for Midimaps. This is a Montreal based company specialized in antibody production. I was hired there as a postdoc researcher. I have been put on a research project trying to get some more interesting tools in the cancer, uh, domain, you know, in cancer research, basically.

[00:03:02] But it was not too long before I've been tasked to also do some sales for the company. Being a small company, I could not do only research, spending money. I had to find some money for the company as well. So I was on the road trying to talk to researchers. It was really difficult. My manager was asking a bunch of PhD, shy people, really geek, really smart people, but not really skilled with the social interaction.

[00:03:29] She asked us to. customers and it was really difficult for us. Yes. Wow. I was in charge of selling all of those antibodies we did. Uh, we had a catalog of antibodies and we still need to sell them to new customers. So I was on the road and I was not happy with cold calling, like I said. Yeah. I tried something else.

[00:03:51] I was more comfortable going to university. Of course, I started by University of Montreal, where I did not only my PhD, but also my master, and before that, my back. I spent 10 years there, so I knew a lot of people, so I started there, was easier, and I bring some donuts, I bring some coffee, and a book, a conference room in the biology department, the biochemistry department, the pathobiology department, microbiology, name it, each of them, and I was inviting people to come visit me, Talk about antibodies.

[00:04:25] Guillaume, even back then you already had the natural instinct to gather people together in one room, like you're doing now. Or it was maybe my way for surviving. Sometimes we say laziness is the mother of ingenuity, but sometimes I was just too shy. So I was inviting first people I knew and then snowball effect.

[00:04:44] I was doing bigger and bigger events. And it was really interesting, not only that, but I was meeting or seeing some other companies in the university corridor. And of course, as part of the research of Medimabs, we were getting a lot of sales rep also selling us product. So I was in contact with them and I was also still in contact with some vendors.

[00:05:07] From my PhD, I decided to sometime invite one or two companies to share the cost with me of the coffee, the donuts, and it will be more interesting to invite companies, not only to see mini maps, but also non competitive companies that are selling things that are more. For the lab, it was attracting more people this way.

[00:05:30] Oh yeah. It was complicated to share the cost. And this is where Simon Hadoop, he was mostly doing business kind of organization. Yeah, exactly. For us, we were interacting a lot in the lab and he told me. Guillaume, we have this idea. I said, what? You can start a company doing just that, organizing shows, getting companies to pay for the logistics.

[00:05:54] And you are giving them a turnkey event when they can meet their customers. I said, Oh, I never thought of that. Yeah, exactly. So he was the, the business wise guy. And I had all the contacts and all the information and mostly the scientific knowledge. We, we decided to leave Midimab. I, so it was a small company, maybe five employees and two left together.

[00:06:17] It was a shock in the company, but we, we, we started Biotech Connect. After the big shock, we stayed friends because I was the marketing and the sales of Midimabs. They were my first customer at the end, so they needed my help. And finally they gave me a chance and Midimab was among the first five companies to do shows with Biotech Connect.

[00:06:40] Wow. That's awesome. You never want to burn bridges. That's a great lesson there. I'm really fascinated about this part of your story, because as you know, I started Northstar Scientific not too long ago, April of last year, and just starting on your own, there's a lot of challenges, a lot of fear, a lot of doubt.

[00:06:57] So tell me about that. So you and Simon, you got together and say, okay, we're doing this. We convinced each other that it was a good idea. I don't think, to be honest, by myself, I would not have done that. And also what I'm telling a lot of people when they are asking me, how did you build the courage to leave a job that was secured and was paid regularly to be your own and to start your own company where it's mostly uncertain, mostly at the beginning.

[00:07:26] You know, I was not by myself, first of all, and we were two really geek guys having a lot of ideas. It was difficult at first. The money was from our own pocket, me and Simon. It was not much, but we each put 5, 000. And it was the max that we could afford. And this 5, 000 was the little saving that I had.

[00:07:47] Same for him. And from this 10, 000, we tried to get some more funding from different environmental agencies. We got some money from Laval Technopark. We started from that. So like a little grant for Yeah, exactly. We got some loan that we add to reimburse and we got also, which is a governmental loan without the interest.

[00:08:08] For the first two, three years from that, we started to buy some equipment. It's not that much. We don't need a lot of things, but also we needed money in advance to book all those rooms because we would be paid right before or after. Finance upfront. So exactly. But it was a, you know, day to day, I was paying some rooms and getting the money from the week before.

[00:08:30] I could not say I had a strong, uh, uh, bank account at the time. My personal account was better, but still. The company money was going down, like you saw my events right now, we got 15. Sometime we have 20 vendors and my most interesting event is the Mars with 42 companies. But back then, I was doing events with three to five companies at a time.

[00:08:55] So, uh, sometimes I was not even breaking events. So I went up to. Customers happy with the service and eventually being profitable. That's amazing Guillaume. Yeah. That's, I really admire you going through those tough times in the beginning. I think it's a crazy stat. I think it's something like over 80 percent of startups end up folding within the first three years.

[00:09:18] The majority never make it. Yeah, I heard some numbers, you know, the first couple of years for sure are the most difficult. And in my case, it was like this up and down because after we became successful, I don't know if you knew that, but we got our first few shows in the Mars building, where it's one of the shows that you did for sure.

[00:09:38] I remember you at the Mars. So basically, the first two were in 2015, and we got noticed by these companies from Ontario, LabX. This is a media company. It's a Canadian company that made their business into reselling used lab equipment. They noticed me. At the time, it was one of my biggest shows. It was maybe nine, 10 companies at the Mars and they saw us and they were really aggressive.

[00:10:06] They give us an offer to buy us. They wanted to buy Biotech Connect, but we said Biotech Connect is not really a thing you can buy. It's me, Simon. We are working. We don't have any offices. We don't have any much of equipment. This is our knowledge. So we cannot sell you this. You will need to hire us. And so they decided to give us a certain amount of money to buy the concept, the name of Biotech Connect.

[00:10:35] And then they hire us as a director of the department, which was a new department for them, the event department. Okay. So you kind of your rights to the, the name was held to them. The website was sold to them. Uh, all the small equipment, all the tables were officially theirs. It was strange because they paid us in part money, part shares from their company.

[00:10:58] Long story short, we decided to go because they were offering a, uh, paid job and a better salary than what we used to get ourselves. For almost two years, from 2016 to 2018, we worked for them. We got someone working in the art department, helping us with our flyers. The content was now doing our bookkeeping.

[00:11:23] Because the first two years we were doing all of this together by ourselves. Yeah. They even got us each an assistant. So myself, I had an assistant and Simon as well. Wow, that's luxury. It's a lot of people working. We were. Two people working on one salary before that. So after two years, they realized we were not making enough money.

[00:11:48] It was not the right formula. They started too big, too quickly. So basically, after two years, they said, Guillaume, we want to meet you. I am too busy. I'm more effective working from home. Guillaume, you should come to Midland and meet us. I don't know. I really am in a rush. Okay, Guillaume, we will say it on the phone.

[00:12:05] If you don't want to come, we fire you. Oh, After buying my company after two years, they fired me. So I said, can I buy back my company? And they said, Oh, why not? We cannot make money quick enough with this. So basically I bought back my company with some. Of the money that they gave me to buy my company. I had nothing to spend from my own pocket.

[00:12:30] I bought back the company for less than the money that they give to my share, to my half of the company. But of course, I could have kept this money and find another job. But I decided it's better for me to be my own boss, have my own company. I have the idea. I know how to push it. I know how to grow it.

[00:12:50] And I don't regret this. What drove you to make that decision? Because obviously you spent a lot of time reflecting. Was it because you got reminded of the time you did work for someone? You really didn't like it. You didn't want to go back or was it something? That's the first thing I reminded. Maybe I'm not meant to work for something, someone else.

[00:13:08] And not only that, but add a lot of conversation with a lot of my friends. And some are entrepreneur as well. Those guys, all of those that are working for themselves that I know, they all told me the same thing. You're better with your idea, your own company. You will have no limits contrary to working for someone else.

[00:13:28] This way you have a really good idea. You're mostly alone in the market. If you have the money to start it back. And I was more comfortable money wise then. At the first launch, I could have started from scratch a new company doing the same thing, but I decided to buy back the name BiotechConnect from them.

[00:13:48] Yeah, well, because it has equity. It had equity in the name already, right? Exactly. So, even some of the customers during those two years, they were still calling us BiotechConnect. It was, again, another couple of difficult year because from. 2018 to 2020, I got a friend of mine working with me and the money was really tight since it was an employee, it was my priority to pay him before paying me.

[00:14:16] So some months I could not pay myself. And then the pandemic struck. Like a lot of businesses, that must have been a huge challenge for you. So how did you survive that? Cause that's your whole model is to get out there and meet people in person. It was impossible. I remember I was in Concordia University.

[00:14:34] And in March, 2020, when Quebec government announced that they are restricting any social gathering, this mean my old business model, what will we do? I, we finished this show. Everybody was talking about this and I had to cancel all the rest of my year. So back then I was. will organize that at the beginning of the year in January, I was publishing the all year of shows.

[00:15:02] I had to cancel all of those. I tried to do a podcast for a couple of months to stay connected with my customers, the companies that used to be exhibitors. So I did that for a couple of months. It was not lucrative because I was just losing money, not making any. After a couple of months, I got a call from one of my good friends.

[00:15:23] I studied with him, undergrad, with Dr. André Sfinzi, who is now Principal Investigator at CRChem, working on HIV. He called me because he needed my help. He needed someone trained for cell culture and protein production. STAT. I said yes. So I got a job as a research assistant there. And for two years, I went back doing cell culture, protein production, protein purification to help him work on SARS CoV 2.

[00:15:52] That saved me because basically the company could stay inactive without spending any money. But myself, I needed an income. I have two kids and a wife. And since this guy was a good friend, he knew that the second the pandemic was done, the second I was able to go back to do shows, I would leave him and go back to my company.

[00:16:15] Yeah, there's understanding there. Wow. I think so far it's been a really interesting journey. A lot of. Ups and downs and challenges, but opportunities just seem to materialize for you just around the corner when there is a challenge and then you have enough confidence in yourself to go and grab that opportunity.

[00:16:35] What I'm getting is that when you have that entrepreneurial spirit in you, it's just your instinct and you're just so natural to try to find solutions when you have a challenge like COVID. You're always trying to find a way to move your company forward. Okay. You'll do a podcast. If it doesn't work, that's okay.

[00:16:51] It doesn't matter. At least I tried it. And then another door opens. And to be honest, this podcast is still available on the YouTube and Biotech Connect channel. You can have a look at it, but I was not natural like you are to host that kind of a podcast. No, no, you're really good, Pat. Well, I, well, I thank you.

[00:17:08] I appreciate that. But that's not the point I was trying to make. The point is you actually did it. You try it, I tried, I got at least I think 10 episode and it, to be honest, I had fun doing that. I was so blessed. Uh, when I got back from the pandemic, the first company going back to universities, all my customer were waiting for two years to see their customers.

[00:17:30] So that was the phoenix, this animal that is reviving from the ashes. I got a boom of registration as soon as I was booking any shows. All the companies answered the call and I got full rooms. The room could accommodate 10 tables, I was 10. If the room could accommodate 15, I was able to get 15. So from that time, after the pandemic, I got 100 percent occupancy for my shows.

[00:18:00] Bring more attendees, more researchers. And then again, snowball effect, it was working. And now I can say I'm profitable after all those years. Wow. What a story. After the rain, there's always a sun that comes out, and if you can manage through the hard times, you get rewarded. I think back then, right after COVID, you could probably charge double the price of what you were charging pre COVID, and companies would have still come out.

[00:18:27] Exactly. I think the first year, it was still the same prices. Two years back, and of course, after having no difficulty finding my customers, just sending one email, you cannot imagine that at first I had to call the day before the show, the sales rep, one by one, convince them to come to the shows. And after COVID, I was sending one email with the schedule and everybody was registering.

[00:18:49] It was crazy. People were itching, itching to get out there. A lot of people told me I will never come back as it were. People like to work from home. That's a thing that is not good for the sales rep going in the labs, trying to get their customers. They are not able to meet with the PI. Even the lab manager sometimes is not there.

[00:19:10] The student. When they are doing a data analysis, they are not doing it in the lab computer anymore. They are doing it from home. A lot of the buildings are on lockdown anyways. So the lockdown, the people teleworking, so this is helping me because when I do the show, they will come that day, they will enjoy a sandwich, a coffee with us.

[00:19:30] They like to talk with the vendors. Some, a student. Uh, but when I started to do the shows, some students were doing a master for two years and they never saw one sales rep in their life. So, at the end of the day, they have multiple questions they need answered. And not only that, the other way around, some new sales rep that now are doing shows with me, they never did lab to lab visits because It's impossible in some institution now, but the old guys, people older than me, they all did that.

[00:20:00] And they knew the layout of the university. They knew where it is, which lab, but not anymore. So my shows is the best way for them to meet their customers. Like a lot of really good businesses, you're solving a problem and you're adding value. As long as you keep on doing that. The final perk is I like to travel so I'm visiting all Canada from Vancouver to Halifax So that's really fun.

[00:20:29] So that's maybe someday I will send my people doing those shows and I will handle it from my lair. But now I like to go there. It looks like a lair. Yeah, that's it. I have my foyer, my propane foyer, I have my pictures. I have some old paintings from my kids. So I'm, Hey, even with my hierarchy table, I'm good.

[00:20:49] You're in your happy place. At what point in your journey did you finally tell yourself, okay, I can actually do this full time. Like I can actually do this for the rest of my life. I'm confident. This is it. It was progressive. I think to be honest with you from the beginning, it was my dream and wish. So I never stopped having this as a dream and as a wish.

[00:21:15] Uh, of course, sometimes it was really difficult and, uh, I was about to drop everything. Even, there's this funny story that my wife likes to share with some friends. When I got COVID for the first time, uh, a few years back, I was so tired. I was so stressed about, oh, in about three weeks, I will need to go back to do a show because the shows were started again.

[00:21:37] So it was. around 2021. And I told her it's too difficult. I will drop everything. I don't want to do anything else with that. It's too much for me. But it was COVID speaking. It was the lowest point for me. But other than that, um, I was also really always really positive. But the first time I was really confident that I would make some money from it.

[00:22:03] It was right after pandemic when my calendar was fully booked, could not accept any new vendors. So there, I felt that not only I can live from it, but I might even be able to get a decent salary because before that, it was not a PhD, I was not a PhD salary yet. So having started. 2014. So that's what, like eight years, about eight years later that you've, you have the confidence saying, okay, it's going well now, but for eight years, when I was selling it was facade, it was, Oh, it's going well.

[00:22:43] I'm holding, but I'm comfortable enough to be honest. I did a bump up my own salary and I got an employee full time for the first time since 2018. Congratulations on success, even if it's eight years later, it's good to see that you stuck with it. And you've had that internal driving. I think we're all.

[00:23:04] Thank you for giving me this opportunity because this story I cannot tell to all my customers. I like this opportunity to say that it was really difficult to get there. This is not something that you can do out of the first year. This is why I'm charging for those shows because it is really difficult to get a room or to book.

[00:23:23] People are difficult to bring to the shows. So I'm happy you've made this opportunity to. Talk about my story a little bit. Oh, no, I'm happy. And hopefully it inspires other entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs to get into the industry. That's what we need. It's a small world, small industry. So I think the more variety and the more new ideas that come in, the better.

[00:23:45] I'm not encouraging anyone to be your competitor or anything, but you know what I mean? Well, if they ever listened to this next time, one of your vendors sees you at a show, they'll know the amount of sacrifice it took for you to get to this point. And hopefully they appreciate it. I appreciate that just from an entrepreneur's point of view.

[00:24:03] You don't have an ego. You're willing to do whatever it takes for the company, even to go back to the lab and do some cell culture for your buddy there for a short period of time. Just keep it going, right? You need to, to, to have a, not a too big ego to be trained by a master student after a postdoc being president of your company.

[00:24:24] Well, I mean, it's that perspective and attitude that. I'm got you to where you are today. I wish you nothing but the best. I mean, your events have been really good value to us, especially a company like Northstar, where we're just starting with a new kid on the block. Nobody knows us. So it's really important exposure to get out there and talk to customers and explain our company, explain our partners.

[00:24:46] And you're doing exactly that. Looking forward to see where you take this company into the future for the next eight, 20, 30 years. Let me know, uh, 10 years later. Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. That is a deal, my friend. That's a deal. Really appreciate you, Guillaume. Looking forward to seeing you in person, shaking your hand in person.

[00:25:07] A couple of weeks. Sounds good. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks Guillaume. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that. Hope you enjoyed his French accent as well. Guillaume does have a special place in my heart, me being from Montreal as well. We actually started the interview in French and realized five minutes in, Oh crap, we probably better switch to English for clarity purposes for the majority of the audience.

[00:25:33] It was fun talking to him and catching up. By the way, for those of you who don't know, this podcast is sponsored by North Star Scientific. If you want to see a visual representation of this podcast, definitely go check us out on North Star Scientific on YouTube. But if you just type in Pathways in Life Science on YouTube, you'll see the, uh, episode so far.

[00:25:50] This is the number three and, uh, hopefully many more to come. Hopefully I'll see you there. Thanks.