originally published: 2022-04-25 11:00:39
Patrick McGuire (00:00)
Hey, it’s Patrick. Before we start, at the time of this recording, we went through a bit of a name rebranding from RIC Center to Altitude Accelerator. With that in mind, we hope you enjoy the following interview. Welcome to the Startups Transform Podcast. I’m Patrick McGuire, your host, board member, and advisor at Altitude Accelerator, where we help startups scale to new heights. We chat with phenomenal tech business leaders who’ve climbed their way to success within their industries. Our guests delve deep into the lessons they’ve learned along the way so that you can get a head start on your next big idea. When it comes to fintech and finances, a lot of us don’t really want to talk about it, but we all know that we got to do it. And I really like what’s going on right now with Andrew. Andrew just has a good attitude and good outlook at delivering something a little bit more innovative than just numbers. So, Andrew, before we get started, I just want to say thank you very much for coming onto the RIC Center podcast, and I can’t wait to dive into what you’re doing and doing it with Justwealth.
Patrick McGuire (01:12)
So thank you very much for coming on, Andrew.
Andrew Kirkland (01:15)
Well, Patrick, thank you very much for having me. And hopefully people can see the passion that I have for it. I totally appreciate that. Finance, investment, it’s not something that is super interesting to a lot of people, but what we’re trying to do is make it a little bit more easily to understand and get people help that they probably need at a cost that they can afford.
Patrick McGuire (01:34)
Absolutely. And I probably need Andrew’s help more than I admit it. Like most people, we just don’t know where to turn, we don’t know what to do, and we need advice of the pros. But who do we trust and what new technologies can we take advantage of? That said, Andrew, help me understand. Where did you come from? What are you doing and why the heck are you an entrepreneur?
Andrew Kirkland (01:54)
It’s interesting. I kind of laugh when you say that. Why am I an entrepreneur? I never envisioned myself to be a prototypical entrepreneur. You see, I’ve been in the investment industry now for close to 15 years, and up until five years ago or six years ago now. Before I started Justwealth, I was actually at one of Canada’s largest independent asset managers. So started literally out of University. I remember I went to University of Gulph and they had a career fair and I went to the career fair and I just went up to a booth and I put my resume into this one company’s envelope slot. And then sure enough, I got a call from that company. And then I finished school in April and I was starting at that company in June. I was under the impression and I kind of always thought that I was going to be at that company for my entire career. You see, my parents, my mom was a teacher. My dad worked for the City of Mississauga, and they were career employees for those respective institutions. My dad worked 35 years of the City of Mississauga, and I just kind of felt that I had that same kind of path.
Andrew Kirkland (03:01)
Right. You kind of follow what your parents have. And then when I got into that role at the company, I started to go up the corporate ladder. In the matter of ten years, I had four different roles. I got to a very senior level. My job was to go out to financial advisors, talk to financial advisers about the products. And we were selling mutual funds that we had manufactured in hopes that they would recommend them and sell them or put them in their client’s portfolios. Right. So I was going out there traveling all across the province. I remember being places like North Bay, Timmins, Hearst. What I was noticing was that there was a ton of travel. Right. I liked the role. It was entertaining in the sense that I really liked investments and I liked financial services. But when it got to the point was I figured, like, okay, there’s a lot of avenues in the way people can get advice. And this was one of them. The other way people can get advice in the investment world was they could literally do the research themselves. Right. Either you go to a financial advisor or you do the research yourself and you implement it yourself.
Andrew Kirkland (04:07)
If you go down a financial advisor route, you got to go to that person’s office, you got to sign all the paperwork, and there’s high costs associated with that. Right. The other avenue was if you do it yourself, you’ve got to have the discipline to do it yourself. You’ve got to have the time to do it yourself, and you’ve got to give yourself that education. The good thing about that was that the costs are relatively low. Right. Because you were doing it all yourself. There was nothing kind of in the middle. There was nothing using what I felt an efficient way of delivering that advice to the general public. So when I was traveling all around the province, there was something going on inside me where I was like, there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way. And I remember one time I was on a flight, I was going to New Orleans for this conference, and we were flying down there, and there was a bunch of Canadian financial advisers flying down to New Orleans, and they were going to have a fun week out in New Orleans.
Andrew Kirkland (05:03)
And I find that I haven’t been on an airplane in a while now, but I find when I’m on an airplane, I can do a lot of really good work because I have no distractions. Right. So when I was on that airplane, I was thinking about all these, what I believe were inefficiencies within the market. And I was like, okay, I’m just going to write down all the ideas on what I think it is to make it better. Right?
(05:23)
Wow. Okay.
Andrew Kirkland (05:25)
So I started to write all these things down. And then as I was writing these things down, I kept it. It was in my BlackBerry notes at that time. That’s what I had, a BlackBerry. Yeah, exactly. I had a BlackBerry at that time. And in my notes, my BlackBerry, what I’d written down, I started to see news articles about, okay, this type of company is popping up. They’re launching this product, and there’s all these kind of new startup companies. They’re all based in the United States. I was like, okay, this is happening.
(05:53)
Absolutely.
Andrew Kirkland (05:54)
I was like, there is potential here. These other people are thinking about this, too. And there’s been some type of reassurance for me. So then I said to myself and talked to all my respected people in my life and my family, and I said, okay, am I going to do this? And then sure enough, I took the plunge and I did it. I left my role and a lot of people thought I was crazy. I think this is with every entrepreneur or a lot of entrepreneurs, for that matter, you find a problem and then you try to figure out a way to fix that problem, make the problem go away. That’s my story. I’m an entrepreneur. So be it.
Patrick McGuire (06:28)
Yeah, absolutely. We all get here in weird ways. It’s pretty interesting how you kind of just stumbled into it. And just like you, by the way, I used to travel a lot, like two, three times a month. I’d be flying to San Francisco a couple of times in New York and Chicago and stuff. So I get the whole plain idea and creative writing. I totally agree with you on that.
Andrew Kirkland (06:48)
Yeah. It’s sometimes good to disconnect, but we don’t have that as much anymore because of covid. But anyways, we’ll get back to that soon.
Patrick McGuire (06:55)
Yeah, for sure. That being said, it’s pretty interesting how you stumbled into it. Did you go with something else before? Did you come up with Justwealth? Did that name just pop out of the sky, literally in the airplane, or was that a long, drawn out process to come up with this?
Andrew Kirkland (07:11)
That’s interesting. I don’t get asked much about the process of coming up with the name, but yeah, it was a very long, drawn out process. One of the first people that we when I say we, I say myself and then my co co-founderfounder, James Gauthier, who is the chief investment officer.
Patrick McGuire (07:29)
Not the corporate we.
Andrew Kirkland (07:32)
Right.
Patrick McGuire (07:32)
Most entrepreneurs have a corporate. We have a great team. There’s two of us.
Andrew Kirkland (07:41)
So James and I, at that time, what we did is we went through this exercise of just literally brainstorming everything. And we were kind of thought, like, okay, what do we want the company to stand for? What do we think we want our customers to get out of it? How do we want them to recognize us? So we were going through this whole process. We must have brainstormed. I think probably at least 50 names. Right.
(08:03)
Wow.
Andrew Kirkland (08:04)
And this was the thing I knew a lot about financial services because I’ve been working on it for ten plus years. But there was so much I didn’t know about business. Right. And my first lesson in that was the name itself. And getting a URL and just getting a domain name kind of pushed us in a direction where we could form our name around. In some cases, we had a name that we brainstormed like, that’s already taken. We don’t have been named for it, so we can’t do it right.
Patrick McGuire (08:31)
Yup.
Andrew Kirkland (08:32)
Asked a lot of our friends and family what they thought of all these different names. And then we decided upon two. We narrowed it down to two. And then we had our graphic designer design what an actual brand would look like. And the other one was called Wealthify. So it was Justwealth or wealthify and wealthify actually made the right choice.
Patrick McGuire (08:53)
I’m just going to cut you off on that one.
Andrew Kirkland (08:55)
Yeah. Well, the whole thing about there was this, like, Spotify Shopify, like all these things. There was all that Wealthify yourself or get wealthy.
Patrick McGuire (09:04)
That one’s there. Andrew, most of us don’t realize that, but that would date you to a matter of a couple of years and be like, oh, you were founded in 2019 because you recall, if I right, you’re like, yeah.
Andrew Kirkland (09:19)
So what he did, he did kind of a brand concept for us, and he presented both on Wealthify and Justwealth. As soon as we saw everything that had to do with Justwealth, we knew we knew it was the case. And a lot of people don’t understand the reasoning for why we’re called Justwealth. But a lot of people think it’s Justwealth. Like we just manage wealth. But it’s not that. It’s been far too long where Canadian investors are paying some of the highest costs in the world and getting a product that isn’t necessarily best suited for them. And in fact, a lot of the times, it’s best suited for the person who’s selling it to them via the financial advisor.
Patrick McGuire (09:55)
Interesting.
Andrew Kirkland (09:56)
So the just in Justwealth is for justice. And every day when we come to work and we speak to a client, we’re on a mission to provide justice to the Canadian investors. So it’s always rooted in that component. High integrity, high morals, and always looking out for what’s best for the client. And I think that’s hopefully one of the reasons why we’ve seen success over the last few years.
Patrick McGuire (10:17)
I absolutely love it. That just took a whole new spin on what I thought your name meant to me. And for anyone listening, call it out. This is the justice for wealth in Canada. We’re one of the best places to be, and yet we’re paying the highest, what I might call extortion rates in various taxes. And now we hear from Andrew in the investment world, too, and he’s making a difference and bringing justice to the wealth world for people like you and me. So this is really awesome. I had no idea Andrew that was behind it. And that is super cool.
Andrew Kirkland (10:53)
Yeah. The other thing about it is that in the whole concept of what we’re doing is we’re delivering investment advice, providing that justice and high integrity, always keeping the client’s best interests at heart. We have a fiduciary standard from our regulators that that has to happen so we can’t put our own interest in front of our clients, which is huge. But the other thing is that the fact that we’re able to deliver it to anyone in the country. Right. Using technology is quite startling. And the fact that you could be in Northern BC or you could be in the Southern tip of New Brunswunswick, you could have access to high quality, low cost investment management delivered in a way that is best suited for your needs and only your needs. I sometimes sit back and I’m like, wow, I hear those words that I’m saying. And I’m like, I’m really glad that I’m not necessarily the person who is one of the people behind starting it, but the fact that Canadians can actually get access to it is quite amazing. And as a customer, but also as a founder, I’m extremely proud and happy that we were able to do this.
Andrew Kirkland (11:59)
And then the fact that Canadians are listening to this and helping us deliver more of this message to more people, that’s pretty cool.
Patrick McGuire (12:06)
I love the fact that you get it out to all Canadians, make it available for anybody, delivering sound advice and opportunity to do better with our finances. Help us understand from the time that this idea came, the ideation kind of the RIC Center. Right. Research ideas, creation, the ideation to creation to where you are today, fruition, I like to call it, because you’re not an acquisition stage, you’re not leaving stage. Right. But from ideation to creation, when did you get this idea started and when did it actually really get to market and where you’re at today?
Andrew Kirkland (12:43)
Yeah. So the idea phase or when that plane ride, if you will, that airplane ride that was back in late 2014. And then I got working on it and talking to people and started to put wheels in motion kind of middle of 2015. And then I left my job in the summer of 2015, and then I started working on it a full time. So at that point, which is kind of risky if you look back on it. But this is how committed I was. But at that point, we didn’t have any customers. We hadn’t built the technology. Now that I think about it, I was kind of crazy. But yeah, I didn’t have any customers at that time. And there’s a lot of things that had to happen. We had to build the technology to enable us to onboard and have people interact with us and become customers. Because basically, if you become a customer of ours, you can go on our website, you can complete an investment questionnaire, and then you can sign the necessary paperwork to open up your account. So it streamlines the onboarding significantly. And then basically, as soon as you sign your application form, you’re going to be able to talk to your personal portfolio manager and figure out which portfolio that you should invest your money in.
Andrew Kirkland (13:54)
So it can happen very quick. But we had to build the technology, and then in order to get registered as a personal portfolio manager, you have to get your licenses in place with all the different provincial securities Commission. So in November of 2015 is when we got our approval from the securities Commission, and then we actually started managing clients money on the first week of January in 2016. So ever since then, we’ve been working with customers, and it’s evolved a lot since then. At that point, we were dealing directly with consumers. You would go onto our website, fill out an application form, and then just be a one to one type of relationship. It’s evolved now to have not only that one to one connection with investors and Canadians, but we also partner with financial planners who do financial plans for people, and then they refer people to us or the people they build financial plans for, and we’ll do their investments. So that’s seen significant uptick and growth over the last few years. And now we’re also extending into managing people’s, group RSPs and group TFSAs and working with employers and the employee base within an overall firm group, if you will.
Patrick McGuire (15:05)
You’ve gone from kind of just giving people advice to now you’re doing group RRSP programs that clearly says you’ve made your Mark and you’re doing something. Tell me a little bit about that group RRSP thing, and then I’m going to ask you some more hard business conversation questions.
Andrew Kirkland (15:22)
Yeah. So when it comes to the group RSPs, up until this point, if you had a benefit package, you may have had the opportunity to have some type of group RRSP. I know years ago, decades ago, pensions would have been kind of the norm, but those have kind of gone away. And a lot of employers, they don’t offer any form of pension. So the employees are kind of left to their own devices, whether they have to save on their own or the company may chip in some money to help an employee save. Right. So if you put in $100, the company may match or do something. Right. But typically, when it comes to group RSPs. You go to an insurance company or you go to maybe a bank, but a lot of cases insurance company, and they kind of have that market cornered. So they are not being pushed to deliver what we believe is high quality service or deliver a product. That is what we believe competitive from a fee perspective. Right. So a lot of times people are in overpriced holdings or overpriced mutual funds, and the service they’re getting for that is not necessarily the greatest.
Andrew Kirkland (16:27)
So what we’ve done in the last 18 months is really try to partner with different employers and offering our efficient manner of delivering advice using technology at a low cost nature to help people save for their retirement through their group RRSP plan. So, yeah, it’s a product that I think has a lot of room for growth for us, and we’re really excited about it. And we’ve seen some good traction early on and more growth there as more employers understand that it’s important for them to help with the wellbeing and the financial wellbeing of the employees that are working for them and offering them a kind of a high quality, low cost overall investment group RRSP or TFSA.
Patrick McGuire (17:07)
I love it. I think it’s a great idea. It’s something we should all be more aware of, of course. What else? And as a business owner, what else can I do to entice people to come to me? So I use it as a hiring tool, something like Group RRSPs or other benefit plans that might come into play. Or maybe it’s more holidays or paid holidays or whatever it is, but it is one of those things on the bullet check marks of what we do that makes us better and why we actually care and take care of our employees. So I really like that. And Andrew, the other thing I like is you’re not comfy on the couch, let’s say, where you kind of built a product, you got satisfied, you’re like, Yep, that’s it done and dusted. Let’s just hope it takes off. You guys are continuously being innovative and you’re adding new functionality and new offerings to your users, to your end users. And I think that’s a big deal. And the end users being Canadians, obviously, we’re based in Canada. In fact, Andrew and I just found out we’re both living in Burlington, Ontario.
Patrick McGuire (18:03)
So this could be offered all across Canada. I know that you could have just launched Ontario, but you decided to keep going across Canada. You kept going province by province, make sure your securities and licenses are all approved. I know a little bit about that stuff. And then you continue to improve the product and you became innovative. And now this group RRSPs makes total sense. I’m really impressed with that. But considering you came through or were connected with RIC Center, how did that come about? Why RIC Center and tell us a little bit about that connection.
Andrew Kirkland (18:33)
Yeah. So that was early on. My first connection with the RIC Center was back in late 2015. They were there right from the beginning or close to the beginning. And I just remember because I wasn’t your prototypical entrepreneur, I wasn’t somebody who had started multiple different entities. I was just trying to do research on, okay, what should an entrepreneur do? Because I didn’t know. I had no idea what an entrepreneur did. All I knew is I knew financial services, so I was just looking for any resources, right? I was just trying to be a sponge and talk to as many people as possible. And at that time I lived in Mississauga, so I must have come across some type of content piece talking about what the RIC Center provided. And then I reached out to them. I remember my first conversation with Geoff Simonett at the time and yeah, we just had a couple of discussions early on and then it was pretty informal initially, right? It was just more conversations. And again, at that time I didn’t really know. We didn’t even have a customer at that time, so I wasn’t even really sure whether this thing was going to take off.
Andrew Kirkland (19:37)
But then as we got launched and we started bringing in customers and we needed more of an infrastructure around us, that’s when I started to lean on RIC a lot more. And in fact, we were a company in residence there for a few terms and just that in itself was huge in the sense of having other like minded people, like other businesses and other startups around us in a close proximity. And then we had these kind of lunch and learn sessions that went on quite frequently and just to talk to other entrepreneurs and just kind of what are they dealing with? Kind of spitballing what we’re dealing with. And being close to Geoff and Pam and the whole team at the RIC was immensely valuable and it offered us the opportunity to kind of have that central base as a team. Like at that point we had started to grow a little bit more. So it was rather than just James and I, we brought in a couple of other individuals, but we were able to kind of have that central base to work together in that space of the RIC and that made it so much more efficient for us rather than having a decentralized type of setup.
Andrew Kirkland (20:38)
It helped us a lot early on. And any time I can speak with the RIC, I can only say good things.
Patrick McGuire (20:44)
That’s awesome. And hey, look, we weren’t looking for that type of a plug people. But that is a great story about why RIC Center does work and it’s one of the reasons why I’m on the board since 2014. As I mentioned, big fan of what the team is doing and the leadership there is fantastic. The entrepreneurs in residence, those are the guys like Geoff Simonett that you mentioned they care. They actually care about the success of the entrepreneur and the startup itself, and they spend their time vetting them out. Not everybody gets to join just because you filled out an online form or a piece of paper or came to one of our sessions in person or online. You’ve got to be vetted. And Geoff’s really good at picking out some good ones. Lots of great people at RIC Center. And obviously, you mentioned Pam Bank. She’s phenomenal with everybody she works with. What are three things that maybe you could have told yourself? Your post. I mean, when you go back 20 years until young entrepreneur, 20 year old entrepreneur, what are the three things you wish you could have told yourself?
Andrew Kirkland (21:45)
So this is an interesting one. And the number one thing that pops into my mind is be patient. So I’ve been doing this now for five or six years. But if you rewind back the end of 2015 and the first day that we could actually manage actual customers money, I was just thinking like, oh, my God, how are we going to be able to handle all these incoming clients? We don’t have the time of the day because you yourself, you should have so much passion for what you’re delivering and so much conviction that you should be like, okay, everyone’s going to come. Everyone’s just going to come. This is such a great idea. Everyone’s going to come. But it takes time for people to get to where you are. Right. And sometimes they won’t get to where you are. And that’s totally fine, right? But it’s all about being patient. And in my previous role, I was in sales and it was all go. And then all of a sudden it came to a halt. And then you had to pick it up and go again and try to get to that again. The number one thing I would say is just kind of be patient.
Andrew Kirkland (22:51)
If I could tell myself back in 2015, don’t be so hard on yourself and don’t burn yourself out from trying to get to the massive amounts of business that you need to get to today because not everyone is ready for that. Right? So just be patient with that. And the other thing. So two other things. One thing, it’s going to be an amazing ride. You’re going to learn way more than what you have ever learned before. And anything you’ve done before that. I was in a Corporation. I stuck to my Lane. I understood what I had to do, and I did it. But when you start on your own firm and your own company, you’re doing everything right. You got to embrace that. You got to have fun with it, and it’s going to be a wild ride. But that would lead to the third thing. As much as it’s going to be fun, you’re going to have a great time. There’s going to be times when it’s going to suck, too. You’re going to be down on yourself, you’re going to be questioning yourself. But as long as you’re coming to this business with the passion that what you’re doing is what you really believe in and what you’re really passionate about, you’ll get through those times and everything will be okay.
Patrick McGuire (23:53)
Okay. That’s actually really good. So folks, be patient. Meet people at their need kind of thing. They’ll come. If you’re doing something great, they’ll come. Justwealth is proof of that. Take a breather, take a break. And remember, it’s not always going to go as it’s planned, according to a man, Andrew, who has already figured this out the hard way. Andrew, what is the worst experience you’ve ever had in business? And maybe it’s not Justwealth. Maybe it’s a lesson you learned from the corporate world. But what is the absolute worst experience you’ve ever had?
Andrew Kirkland (24:25)
Oh, Jeez, the worst experience I’ve ever had.
Patrick McGuire (24:30)
And I know it wasn’t New Orleans.
Andrew Kirkland (24:31)
the worst experience I’ve ever had associated with Justwealth and starting a business. That’s an interesting one. And you have to be very vulnerable to answer this question. But I’d say there’s been a lot of things that have happened to me, and it’s not necessarily work related. I remember I used to have this saying it’s like nothing is more painful than regret. And I never regret anything in anything I’ve done in JustWealth. What I would say is take care of yourself when you’re doing this. There’s the aspect of work and pushing yourself and making sure that you’re delivering a product that you believe is the best. Don’t take it away from anything else that you have within life. Right. So don’t let it take away from your family. Don’t let it take away from your friends. Those things are very important. I’m not saying I did that by any means, but just be comfortable with what you have and don’t always think you got to have more. Right. Is what I would get at.
Patrick McGuire (25:28)
So what is the future for you and Justwealth?
Andrew Kirkland (25:31)
Well, years from now, it’s hard to tell, but I can speak to kind of what we’re seeing in some of these trends, but there’s been over the last few years, what we’ve noticed is there’s been this kind of unveiling of our type of service. So we’re known as a robo advisor. Our type of service has been kind of unveiled to the general public. A few years ago, people assumed that only the younger generation were people who would use our type of service because it was a technology type of experience. But what we’re noticing is that the new people who are coming to our service and taking advantage of our service are the more seasoned investors, right?
(26:09)
Yes.
Andrew Kirkland (26:10)
I’m not sure if this is kind of covert related, but more people are more comfortable in dealing with many aspects of their life through a digital format. Right. Kind of forced to by COVID. So I think what we’ve seen here is that older demographic is coming around to using our types of service. And I think that that trend will continue and we’ll start to see more seasoned investors use our service. And in fact, if you’ve been investing for many years, say decades, for that matter, the likelihood of you having more assets in your account would be higher than if you were just starting out. Right. Just time is on your side. So you’ve had time to invest more money.
Patrick McGuire (26:48)
Right.
Andrew Kirkland (26:49)
So if you have more money in your account, you’re ultimately the one who is better suited or has more to benefit at this time because you can lower your cost right away. If you have $100 to invest and you lower your costs, that’s good. You’re starting from a low base. But if you had 100,000 or 200,000 or a million to invest and you lower your costs from the current mutual fund rate of north 2% to half percent, that’s a significant savings that someone can benefit from right now. So I think the trend we’ll see the next days, weeks, months, years is more seasoned investors becoming comfortable with our type of service and benefiting from our type of service.
Patrick McGuire (27:26)
That’s pretty awesome. You can almost see the shift within the last two years, possibly within the last twelve months. With the current global situation, at least the Canadian situation, more people are leaning towards, hey, let’s just get it done online. Why are we spending all this extra money? So it’s really awesome to see your business growing that way. So far, I’ve had a great time being able to just get to know more about you and Justwealth and talk about what you guys are doing that is innovative and changing with the times and giving us all opportunities to be better financially, but also learning about your entrepreneurship, your journey. And that’s wonderful. So if somebody wants to learn more about you or your company in the platform, how do we get in touch with you?
Andrew Kirkland (28:08)
Yeah. So we got a couple of ways. Obviously, you can learn about our whole [email protected]. For me personally, what I like dealing with most is people coming to me directly. I love talking to general public about our service and what we could do to help people out. So a lot of times people find me on LinkedIn or they’ll email me at [email protected]. The other thing that we’ve got, we just recently launched a podcast called The Just Word Podcast. We’re bringing on financial experts to talk about many different avenues when it comes to the financial arena and different experts and whatnot. So that’s hosted by Pat Bowl, who’s a former BNN CNBC host. So it’s called the Just Word Podcast. I think we’re on episode six or seven now, but we’re recording this right now. So who knows what it will be like when it drops? But yeah. So check us out there too.
Patrick McGuire (28:58)
That’s awesome. So folks, you can find these guys, find Andrew LinkedIn or email them directly. You can also find them at justwells.com and check them out on their new podcast, just word podcast hosted by Pat Bowl. So that’s really awesome. So Andrew, you probably went through the struggles. You probably went through the ups and the downs and everything in between. Probably pulling your hair at times. Still got a good hair and hair. So I think you’re okay. If you’ve given the chance to do it all over again, to be an entrepreneur again, would you do it?
Andrew Kirkland (29:28)
Absolutely.
Patrick McGuire (29:29)
Absolutely. The answer always is like a non thought process. It’s just yes or no. It’s very simply put. And I think the reality is that most people if they said maybe not, you give them a chance, they’ll do it again because they love it like you do.
Andrew Kirkland (29:48)
Yeah. And believe me, there’s some days you probably asked me that question early on. I’m like, no way I’m doing this again. But I think again, it’s about being patient and just understanding. There’s going to be ups and there’s going to be downs. If I ever had to be an entrepreneur again, I know I would do it differently in some senses because I’ve learned a lot throughout these last five or six years. But would I do it again? Absolutely.
Patrick McGuire (30:13)
That’s awesome.
Andrew Kirkland (30:14)
It’s a wonderful experience, but it can be also awful at times. But overall, it’s a good experience at the end of the day.
Patrick McGuire (30:22)
Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for Justwealth and what you are guys are doing for the Canadian market, for those interested in the financial world that maybe don’t totally get it or maybe those the Uber wealthy that actually should shave a few more dollars off of their expense line and put it to good use rather than just put it away somewhere else. It was awesome talking with you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Andrew Kirkland (30:47)
Well, thank you, Patrick. I appreciate you having me on here.
Patrick McGuire (30:49)
It was fun for all of our friends out there listening. If you want to get in touch, if you want to do a little investing, go to the website Justwealth.com. I’m Patrick McGuire and I just got to say thank you for joining us. Have a fantastic day and enjoy your entrepreneurial journey. Thank you for joining us on startups transform podcast. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed the conversation, a rating or review goes a long way. Recommend the show to a friend. Find us at Altitude Xcelerator.com where we can help you begin your startup journey with access to our workshops, advisors and mentorship opportunities. Be sure to tune in for our next episode. Bye.
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