From Vision to Acquisition: How REfficient grew into a Telecom Recycling Powerhouse

00;00;00;26 – 00;00;48;23
P.O.V. Hamilton
This is the P.O.V. Hamilton podcast, where we’re watching the Hamilton Ontario point of view from businesses and entrepreneurship to life sciences in education to arts, culture, and media. Hamilton is thriving and there are countless stories to be shared of the people, businesses, and organizations making it happen. Here’s who’s point of view you’ll be listening to today.

Hi, I’m Stephanie McLarty and I founded REfficient back in 2010, which was a re-use and recycling marketplace for the telecom industry, and we were later acquired by Quantum Lifecycle Partners in 2022. And I’m now head of sustainability at Quantum.

00;00;48;25 – 00;01;18;05
Stephanie McLarty
So if I think back to when we first started, I actually didn’t plan for this to happen. It was just following a series of open doors. So I went to McMaster and did my undergrad there and then decided I would take a couple of years off to go travel and see the world, which is what I did. I went to Thailand for six months and India for a year and Europe and I decided to do my masters in Europe.

00;01;18;07 – 00;01;43;04
Stephanie McLarty
But at the time I was broke because I traveled so much. So I did a semester of my masters, and then I came home and worked and the job that I got was with a large telecom company here in Canada, and I was hired on to an asset recovery project. I didn’t know what asset recovery actually even meant back then, but I quickly learned.

00;01;43;06 – 00;02;07;01
Stephanie McLarty
I basically drove around a company van for eight months wearing steel toed boots, and I went out to the old sites and physically pulled out the old equipment and figured out what to do with it. And, you know, could it be reused internally? Could another company in the telecom space reuse it? And so by the end of this contract, I had this really niche knowledge of telecom infrastructure.

00;02;07;04 – 00;02;31;17
Stephanie McLarty
Again, something I had no idea about getting started. And my masters, by the way, was in peace and conflict transformation, thinking that I would work for the U.N. or some international organization. So this was not related at all. So I went back to school as per my original plan, and I consulted on the side helping to manage this equipment.

00;02;31;24 – 00;03;05;21
Stephanie McLarty
And I ended up doing that for a couple of years along with a friend and then realized that really a technology-based solution was needed to help match what these telecom companies had coming out of their networks and other companies, what they needed so that we could optimize for use. And that’s when I decided to start REfficient and, you know, looking back, it’s so funny, I guess I didn’t know what I was getting myself into because here I was starting a technology-based company when I’m not technical.

00;03;05;26 – 00;03;36;00
Stephanie McLarty
And when I found out later on that there’s a term called a non-technical founder, it all made sense about like the issues I was having. And it’s kind of funny in hindsight, but yeah, that’s how it all got started.

At the time, the solutions in the space were really ad hoc. There were some companies doing this and where I really came in was I personally have such a big passion for sustainability.

00;03;36;03 – 00;04;00;16
Stephanie McLarty
And so when I saw firsthand that if these companies didn’t know what to do with the equipment or if they didn’t have good solutions for it, sometimes that electronic equipment would end up in the garbage, which is the wrong place for it for so many reasons. So for me it was like we need these solutions for companies. There’s got to be a better way.

00;04;00;21 – 00;04;29;07
Stephanie McLarty
Plus, that was also a time when there was a really big growing movement around corporate responsibility, especially in terms of the environment and, you know, now close to 15 years later, it’s matured so much since then. But I really saw that we could pull data around the environmental footprint and the benefit and give it back to customers so that they could then use it in their own sustainability reports and show the good that they were doing.

00;04;29;10 – 00;04;56;13
Stephanie McLarty
So in that perspective, we were really breaking new ground.

When I was getting started, I literally, as I mentioned, was just following these open doors and walking through them and I had no business training at the time and it’s not like I went to school for business and in hindsight, I probably should have, but it didn’t really cross my mind to be an entrepreneur.

00;04;56;13 – 00;05;29;07
Stephanie McLarty
So there was a lot of learning. And I remember when I first started REfficient in those first three months, I had probably a handful of nights where I hardly slept a wink, and that is so not like me, but I was just so anxious and worried about like, what did I do? And thankfully at the time I was young and single and, you know, fancy free, if you will, without some of the commitments like being a mom like that I am now.

00;05;29;09 – 00;06;00;17
Stephanie McLarty
But I was really like it really was something that I really didn’t know if I could do. And I remember about three months into the journey having this realization of actually, I can do this, I am doing this, and there’s some initial validation that it’s going to be okay. And then from that point forward, I just relaxed into it and started to really believe in myself.

00;06;00;18 – 00;06;29;22
Stephanie McLarty
It was also a time when there weren’t very many young female entrepreneurs, and especially in this space of, you know, telecom. And so it was rather novel at that time. And thankfully it’s changed a lot since then. And there’s so many more women entrepreneurs than there was back then. But yeah, I had to get over some some self-doubt and some limiting beliefs.

00;06;29;24 – 00;07;01;29
Stephanie McLarty
One of them was that at the time I had created business cards and I called myself president and I was so worried about giving up my business cards because I, I literally thought in my head like, what? What would they think? Like, who am I to say that I’m president? I’m a 30 year old woman and, you know, new in this space, I’m almost like scared and maybe even ashamed to, like, even hand out my business card, which is so ridiculous.

00;07;02;01 – 00;07;29;06
Stephanie McLarty
And one time it’s crystal clear I gave it out to one of our big clients. And I remember him looking at it and being like, Wow, that’s so cool. You’re president. That’s amazing. And it made me realize in that moment that he’s got no issue with this, that like, you know, the person and like the type of people that I’m worried about, it’s me in my own head that has an issue with this.

00;07;29;08 – 00;07;50;14
Stephanie McLarty
So from that point forward, I thought, I’m just going to own this and I am president. Thank you very much. And I’m going to step into this leadership. When you think about it and the fact that I was afraid to hand out my business cards and really put myself and put the company out there, how many lost sales opportunities were there?

00;07;50;17 – 00;08;16;12
Stephanie McLarty
Right. Something you don’t necessarily think about when you think about your limiting beliefs, but it literally can hold you and your business back up. So early stage, I would say my biggest challenge sure was around like believing in myself that I could do this. And pretty early on I connected with the Innovation factory, which at the time was just starting out.

00;08;16;12 – 00;08;50;25
Stephanie McLarty
I think that we were among the original clients of the Innovation Factory, and it was so amazing because for the next few years I really got the support and that wisdom of, you know, here’s what to worry about. Here is what not to worry about. And pushing me to think beyond what I thought was possible. And my my business advisor at the time who became such a great business mentor, he also introduced me to my husband, which is cool.

00;08;50;25 – 00;09;21;15
Stephanie McLarty
He was a matchmaker. He once said to me when I was worried about, you know, I was stuck in my head and just worried about the small stuff. He once said to me, Why should anyone else believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself first, you know you’re expecting someone else to say like, good job, but you need to believe it here first and in order to like get others to follow long suit.

00;09;21;21 – 00;09;40;00
Stephanie McLarty
So it starts with you and you can do it. And so that was one of those moments too where I’m like, okay, I need to think bigger. I can think bigger. It’s okay to put out a big, audacious goal because if we don’t, we’re never going to reach it anyways. So that was one of the big shifts early.

00;09;40;03 – 00;10;15;28
Stephanie McLarty
And then as we as we went along and as we grew, one of the big challenges was the fact that I wasn’t technical. So it was filling in some of the gaps and I started the company by myself and continued to own it by myself the entire time. And so I ended up finding people to help fill in the technical knowledge, and we hired a few developers on staff so I could sort of like piece together the solution of dealing with some of the the areas where we needed to increase our knowledge.

00;10;16;01 – 00;10;46;07
Stephanie McLarty
And in hindsight, that worked for us and the journey that we were on. My favorite takeaways from an innovation factory were certainly the business mentorship and advisory, which really helped me to to succeed in business amongst some pretty significant roller coasters, especially in our earlier years. But a few other things that have always really struck me about Innovation Factory.

00;10;46;07 – 00;11;23;11
Stephanie McLarty
One is the community. It is an amazing community that has been created here, both the staff at Innovation Factory and the other business owners and entrepreneurs, but also the community champions. And I really do believe it takes a community to really make a business successful, right? You need cheerleaders. And I always felt very at home here in Hamilton that it was a really it’s a it’s like being a big fish in a medium sea.

00;11;23;14 – 00;11;49;22
Stephanie McLarty
As I remember saying it at the time, it’s possible to get to know people like really get to know people and for people to get to know you and to support you. But it’s also not a small city either. So there’s great opportunities within Hamilton as well. And back in those days, 2010, 2011, the city was really starting this like reemergence as like we are a cool place to be.

00;11;49;24 – 00;12;21;24
Stephanie McLarty
And I’m just so fortunate being part of that whole journey along the way, because I feel I do feel like I got opportunities that other people wouldn’t have gotten. The other thing that I really loved about the Innovation Factory and continue to love is Lions Lair. So we were in the second cohort of Lions Lair and we got all this amazing training around pitching and media, and I still use the skills that I learned in my media training back then.

00;12;21;24 – 00;12;47;29
Stephanie McLarty
I still use those today and at the time we filmed The Lion Lair at Cable 14, and then there was the gala where, you know, hundreds of local business people came together. That was a really cool experience and really gave us a lot of visibility back then. And we ended up getting second place. So we are one of the alumni winners from the early days.

00;12;47;29 – 00;13;13;15
Stephanie McLarty
So that’s pretty cool. I felt like Windsor gave us a platform for people, the wider community, to really to know us and to see our potential. And, you know, it happens to me like it happened to me twice in the last month. And, you know, REfficient hasn’t been in existence for two years now that people will be like, I think I know you.

00;13;13;15 – 00;13;45;25
Stephanie McLarty
You used to have that company that did the telecom recycling, right? And like, Yeah, yeah, that’s me. And so it’s funny how it just sort of like it really helped to gain awareness for us. We worked very specifically within the telecom industry. So for us, unless there were telecom companies, there wasn’t our target market. But for any company that has more of a general business market or a consumer type product lines, there is a perfect place to be because you can get a lot of visibility.

00;13;45;28 – 00;14;12;03
Stephanie McLarty
Plus you get all this training as well. And I’ve been fortunate to be a judge behind the scenes judge on last year’s Lions Lair. So I got to, you know, see the pitches in advance and to give them feedback. So it’s really cool to see how not only has it continue to evolve, but it still thrives today. And it’s it’s such a great opportunity.

00;14;12;05 – 00;14;38;11
Stephanie McLarty
Working with Innovation Factory really helped to set us up in the long term. And one of the key things I realized out of working with the Innovation Factory was that raising money in our case was not the best move for us. So in the early stages we had a lot of initial success and I was encouraged to meet with investors and to really see what this could be.

00;14;38;14 – 00;15;06;16
Stephanie McLarty
And I also saw that it was really hard to scale what we were doing. There’s just so many variables in the whole, you know, managing this equipment and different models and different conditions. And it was just it was hard to scale. And so at one point I realized, like, why am I trying to really make this an investment funded business when we’ve got a good operating business as it is?

00;15;06;16 – 00;15;37;12
Stephanie McLarty
And we were fortunate to have that we could just be a company without taking on outside investors. And and frankly, so that’s called a lifestyle business. I pivoted and focused on being a lifestyle business, and in hindsight it was the right move for us. When I became a mom a few years later, it was the best thing for me because I could continue to operate my company but not have to answer to investors and just have that freedom and flexibility.

00;15;37;14 – 00;16;02;08
Stephanie McLarty
So for me it made sense. And along the way we were approached for acquisition. The first serious time actually ended up ending in heartbreak for me because it didn’t work out and I placed my hopes in this acquisition. And there’s so many reasons why an acquisition might not go through, but I’d really gotten my hopes up and had put off making decisions about the business.

00;16;02;10 – 00;16;26;25
Stephanie McLarty
And so that was really hard for me at the time. And so I just continued to operate my business, had to make some changes and a few years later, in 2021, I was approached by Quantum Lifecycle and knowing everything that I had learned the first time that I’d been down that path, I was like, Yeah, I’m open, you’re open to talking, but I’m not going to get, you know, my hopes up.

00;16;26;25 – 00;16;52;29
Stephanie McLarty
Basically. Don’t come to me unless you’re serious. And so for the next few months, we, you know, we had several discussions and we got the letter of intent signed. And I think because I was really just protecting myself, I didn’t really clue in until about six weeks before that. Wow. I actually think this is going to happen. And it was well, I had a lot of work to do.

00;16;52;29 – 00;17;17;03
Stephanie McLarty
I got a lot of things like, you know, changes that I start I have to start to think about on my own side. And in those six weeks leading up to the acquisition, it was it was a bit of a rollercoaster because there was so much to do and I’d realize I actually think this is going to happen, but you never know until the day of the acquisition, until things are signed, the money’s in the bank and all that.

00;17;17;03 – 00;17;38;10
Stephanie McLarty
So it was kind of like this was hanging over my head and that’s something I didn’t really think about because I’d never been through this before. And I think that’s important for others to know. And so in this case, it was a great fit. The acquisition happened on the day when we left our location and I started driving away.

00;17;38;13 – 00;18;06;06
Stephanie McLarty
I just started screaming and crying. I was in the car by myself and so like nobody else could hear me or see me, I don’t think. But it was like, whoa. It was all this pent up emotion of I actually did it. And the really cool thing is that it’s turned out to be great. Quantum Lifecycles, the largest electronics recycler and re-use provider in terms of I.T.

00;18;06;06 – 00;18;41;18
Stephanie McLarty
Equipment in Canada and I joined their team as head of sustainability and basically was given like carte blanche to create a sustainability or an ESG program, environmental social governance program. They have encouraged me to follow my strengths and my passions. We have won awards already and it’s actually just worked out so well and I think it’s worked out really well because there is such a good cultural fit and values fit think that all matched.

00;18;41;20 – 00;19;14;03
Stephanie McLarty
And so I can honestly say that that was a big win. And, you know, you never know with acquisitions whether they ultimately turn out or not. I think there’s a stat that about half actually don’t like. They don’t meet the original objectives, but it’s been really good for us. And something that really surprised me about the whole acquisition process is, you know, there is such a build up to it in advance and then like what happened after.

00;19;14;03 – 00;19;47;26
Stephanie McLarty
So we went right into working for Quantum and you know, all of the change there was a lot of change to process, but Quantum is really supportive and about four months later I started to feel myself, feel really foggy. I was struggling to really focus. I felt so unproductive. I didn’t know why. And then one day my boss at Quantum asked me a question and it was a really, you know, a great question about whether I was interested to take on a new project at Quantum.

00;19;47;26 – 00;20;13;10
Stephanie McLarty
And my response yes to him was to cry. I couldn’t say anything. I just started crying and I was like, Whoa. And he was like, Was it something I asked? And I was like, no. I mean, yes. It’s it has everything to do with the fact I’m just really struggling right now and I don’t know how to answer you.

00;20;13;12 – 00;20;49;12
Stephanie McLarty
And what hit me was about, you know, these four months later, after the acquisition and I hadn’t actually processed the change and it was like grief hit me. And, you know, nobody died apart from my dog during that time, which was really, really too, if you can imagine. But, you know, this big chapter of my life that I spent more than a decade on was finished, and it was almost as if I was trying to put the new Stephanie and the old box.

00;20;49;15 – 00;21;13;00
Stephanie McLarty
But the old box wasn’t there anymore, and I just hadn’t really processed that. So after my little, you know, cry and kind of that, that was the bubble up point of, you know, I need some help. I ended up getting coaching and felt a lot better. And it was all about, you know, I hadn’t figured out who I was going to be in this next chapter of my life.

00;21;13;00 – 00;21;47;17
Stephanie McLarty
I’d gone from the old chapter right into the new chapter without really without taking any time off, which in hindsight I should have done and just really giving myself the space to process it. And so if there’s, you know, a word of advice to others, you know, going through this process, you know, I would actually definitely recommend getting a coach or, you know, someone to help you through the post side of it because you’re going to process so many changes apart from like, you know, new company, new people, new processes, all that really tangible stuff.

00;21;47;19 – 00;22;21;18
Stephanie McLarty
But there’s so much emotional stuff to process as well. And I’ve spoken to other entrepreneurs who’ve been through this and they’re like, Yeah, it happened for me too. It happens, I think in our own ways, but it can come to bite you if you don’t deal with it. Looking ahead, I’m really excited at Quantum. We have just declared we are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030, so that’s a big, hairy, audacious goal to decarbonize our business.

00;22;21;25 – 00;22;49;28
Stephanie McLarty
And we have 11 locations, ten of which are in Canada, one in Costa Rica. So it’s something really big and interesting for me to really work on. We also have a podcast which I’m the host of called The Circular Future. I get to interview thought leaders and talk about innovation around helping business leaders and managers be more sustainable in their businesses.

00;22;50;01 – 00;23;20;26
Stephanie McLarty
And so that’s really cool. I’ve met a lot of interesting people through that, and something fun that’s also popped up is I’m also an expert advisor at the Innovation Factory now, which happened organically because I have this this knowledge of, you know, building businesses, building impact businesses and the whole ESG side that I’m now able to provide, you know, expertise and give back and to mentor through that.

00;23;20;29 – 00;24;04;23
Stephanie McLarty
And so I’m just really following I can those doors that open. I’m just trying not to force things anymore, but, you know, to listen to my heart and listen to my gut and walk through when that answer is yes. I have definitely grown alongside the innovation factory growing. When I first started, I think there was maybe a handful of staff and thinking about it now, a dozen or more years later, just how first of all, big the staff is and how, you know, everyone’s got their area of expertise and there’s a lot of us expert advisors.

00;24;04;23 – 00;24;34;27
Stephanie McLarty
So it’s really been neat to see this parallel growth of, you know, I grew REfficient, the Innovation Factory has grown and it’s now been full circle back to I’m a part of the Innovation Factory but in a completely different way. And I’m now helping other companies who are early stage. So I feel pride to be a part of it because I know the difference that we make firsthand.

00;24;35;00 – 00;25;14;03
Stephanie McLarty
And just yesterday I was meeting with a company who’s had a bit of experience with other innovation center models, and he said the innovation factory is leaps and bounds beyond anything else I’ve experienced. Like that’s how supportive and responsive and how great they are. And so I’m really proud to be just one small piece of that overall puzzle of helping companies here in this Hamilton region to really thrive.

00;25;14;05 – 00;25;52;16
Stephanie McLarty
The lessons that I learned along the way are probably too many to list, but a few of them are. One is to really invest in yourself and really be your work when you are growing yourself personally and professionally. You know, your business grows, your network grows like it’s all comes back to starting with you and and overcoming some of those those mindset blocks and really being in that, you know, personal growth mode throughout the entire thing.

00;25;52;18 – 00;26;25;21
Stephanie McLarty
I literally could see in the years when I took on more personal growth that the business actually grew alongside it. One of the times when I had probably the most personal growth I had ever experienced, which was during our most challenging year, and that was when we had grown so quickly. I basically lost control of our finances and where we were at, and it was dark for me.

00;26;25;25 – 00;26;51;23
Stephanie McLarty
And then, you know, Innovation Factory in that time was so important and one of the thoughts that occurred to me one day was, what’s the worst thing that can happen? And when I thought about that, okay, the worst thing that could happen is that, you know, I don’t save the business and I shut it down and I could sell my condo and pay off my debts and go find a job.

00;26;52;01 – 00;27;16;06
Stephanie McLarty
Now that I have this really extensive network, you know, thanks to the business and to the likes of the Innovation Factory, like I could get a job. And I realized, you know, if that’s the worst thing that could happen, it’s actually not that bad. And you know what? I would go and talk about it so other people would learn the lessons and, you know, hopefully to prevent someone else from going through this.

00;27;16;06 – 00;27;42;06
Stephanie McLarty
After that, I think I had some like freedom because I wasn’t worried anymore. It was going to be okay no matter what happened. It’s weird, the universe responded. We ended up winning a large contract and then another large contract, and by the end of that year, like literally 6 to 8 months after that, we had had a record year and I had made back everything that I had lost previously.

00;27;42;06 – 00;28;14;12
Stephanie McLarty
It was so weird to like, have this huge swing from one side to the other and, you know, the emotional swing of it, too. But in hindsight, I’m so thankful for that period because I learned so much and I became such a stronger entrepreneur and I learned to overcome my own mindset. BLOCK of, well, you know what? I’m not an accountant, but I know enough and know what to watch such that I can, you know, make adjustments and choices.

00;28;14;15 – 00;28;41;08
Stephanie McLarty
And it instilled in me a love of personal finance. So I started DIY investing after that. And it’s just one of those dark places where I’m so thankful for all those lessons learned and basically growing myself being my work, because it gave me a legacy of like a really cool lessons and enabling me for future. And it’s those kinds of things that I want to teach my daughter, right?

00;28;41;10 – 00;29;22;09
Stephanie McLarty
We’re all going to go through times in life which are going to be hard, but it’s like how you handle them and like what you learn from them. And that only strengthens us as people, but especially as entrepreneurs. My biggest piece of advice that I would give to new and upcoming entrepreneurs is to stay open, stay open to change, stay open to how things evolve, stay open to new ideas, because it’s it’s probably not going to be your first idea, your first iteration that’s going to allow you to be successful.

00;29;22;17 – 00;30;00;18
Stephanie McLarty
You’re going to go through some changes, and that’s okay. And by staying open and by surrounding yourself with good people like the Innovation Factory and all those resources, it will enable you to be successful in the long term. So get over yourself and get over that. You know, you have to be right and I’d really be open to your journey and and how it’s going to go, because you won’t know from the beginning without Innovation Factory, I don’t honestly know if I would have stuck with being an entrepreneur.

00;30;00;20 – 00;30;25;04
Stephanie McLarty
I’m not sure that the company would have survived in the long term. The innovation factory really gave me the awareness around, you know, how I thought and also like the really practical skills of how to run a company, how to grow a company. And it really helped us to be successful in the long term and leading up to acquisition.

00;30;25;07 – 00;31;10;07
Stephanie McLarty
One thing that I’m really proud of is that REfficient was the first certified B Corp in Hamilton back in 2012. B Corp, they’re companies. It stands for Benefit Corp. You’re for profit and for good. And so if there’s any action that I would leave companies with, it’s also think about creating a company that is a great company, but that also leaves a positive legacy on this planet, whether it’s a legacy for people or a legacy for the environment, because in this current world that we live in and the climate crisis, we need companies and we need people that are focusing on solutions. So be the solution.

00;31;10;09 – 00;31;27;01
Stephanie McLarty
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