Jeff Booth Archives - Frank Yang

October 18 2015

The Pacific Club – Jeff Booth, the Founder of Vancouver highest profile tech companies

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Date: October 15, 2015

Name: The Pacific Club – Jeff Booth, the Founder of Vancouver highest profile tech companies

Presenter: Jeff Booth

E-commerce is becoming a trend in many industries. Moreover, entrepreneurs must realize the advantage and incorporate to their current business operations. The Pacific Club is Vancouver’s most contemporary speaking and social club. The club invites Jeff Booth, the CEO and Founder of BuildDirect, to share his entrepreneur journey. In addition, Jeff Booth will discuss his insight on raising capital and the future of E-commerce. Entrepreneurs will learn the mindset behind Jeff Booth’s entrepreneurship, and they will develop stronger concepts to enhance their businesses.

Jeff Booth is the CEO and Founder of BuildDirect. With his leadership skill, Booth manages to turn BuildDirect into one of the fastest growing E-commerce building supply retailers. Booth has been voted Person of the Year at 2015 BCTIA. Booth creates new online channels and distribution methods in home improvement product industry. Booth is also a speaker and has the passion to share his thoughts to young entrepreneurs. As a member of Young Presidents Organization and a board member of Costal Contacts, he contributes his time and give back to local communities.

Jeff Booth mentions he got into real estate industry after college dropout. When he sold his house to invest in his real estate business, he started a building company. The first house he build is his own home, which created attention for other investors. The company expanded.

In Booth’s career perspective, he looks for biggest solution. He believes what makes consumers feel, which is empathy, will help him do differently than any of his competitors. Booth mentions success is not always look like what market says; in fact, his perception is different. Success comes from hard work and excitement. Money is not the primary factor that keeps Booth continue his career. Even though Booth has no idea what comes next, he will build it simpler and better.

Booth emphasizes building relationship is important. BuildDirect had significant growth until the Finance breakdown from 911. Booth needed to lay off employees and rethink his approach. Booth managed to create strategy to bypass the channel from Costco building materials. With hard work, people started to trust him. Revenue started to go up.

“Keep on going, keep on figuring it out”

Booth states that when entrepreneurs go fast, they will hit the wall faster. In order to sustain further growth, entrepreneurs need to upgrade their teams to see in advance. In addition, if entrepreneurs only drive by themselves, thy can only reach certain point. They need others to drive with them.

Sometimes when entrepreneurs approach one direction and see others go to different direction, Booth encourages entrepreneurs to keep going. This will lead them to become the best. When power is increasing, the immunity will increase as well.

When entrepreneurs get knocked down, Booth believes it is their responsibility to stand up and understand what they learn. There are too many people make excuses not to stand up; instead, they should look at what they can do differently. Entrepreneurs should not blame the market condition; otherwise, they will become the victim.

“Best company always come out from the worst”

Booth does not have mentor, but he is an active listener. He has the habit of trying to learn from everyone. Moreover, he feels he is in service for everyone else.

As for the future of BuildDirect, Booth wants to create a movement. People unite for a common cause to do something great. Booth believes in 10 years, stores will not be the way they are now. Store is a storage for people to pick up. Traditionally, production used to be close to the vendor, which creates the existing steps through different channels. Booth indicates only consumers should be in stores. With the power of users, they have the ability to lead market, not experts anymore. This kind of pattern starts to go on to different industries. Therefore, E-commerce is the new evolution.

Many companies in E-commerce tend to have short business life cycle because it is difficult to find the sustainable values. Booth recommends entrepreneurs to be aware of this issue.

When technology advances, services should stay the same. Process of business growth remains the same, which is identify the problem, fix the problem, and repeat the process.

When companies set free users for people, they are gathering people to one location. This attracts buyers and sellers. Afterwards, everyone will start to go there. Booth considers this as network effect. Public stock market is facing a situation where there is no significant growth from public companies. Since investors could not make money in public market, they will go to private sector. Investors will feed into company before IPO. This shift is another example of network effect.

Will Amazon ever be profitable? Booth comments that when a company has enough cash flow in their assets, profitability is not their concern anymore since they do not need to do anymore financing. Booth believes the key element that drives the success from retail is to look into supply chain. If goods do not go through supply chain, it does not make sense to go through the same channel anymore. Therefore, the existing supply chain management is not working and entrepreneurs need to fix it.

Booth gives young entrepreneurs a valuable advice. If they know what is ahead, they will not know if they even want to start. Therefore, they should always jump in and go for it. Young entrepreneurs should always believe in their ideas because no one else would.

Vancouver startups are wild. Many Vancouver companies pave the way and pay it forward. It takes ambition for entrepreneurs to start a company because nobody will believe in them at first. There are many amazing talents in Vancouver and there will be a breakout in future for Vancouver.

“It is not up to others, it is up to the crazy one to start”

Booth provides many tips for raising capital. It is important that investors need to know entrepreneurs believe in themselves. People will invest when they see the trend. Many investments offer common shares equity. Booth believes there are too many entrepreneurs chasing what success look like from other people’s view. Entrepreneurs need to understand the vision of their success. Eventually, the right investors will find them.

“Sales are like outputs. The logistic will break the components from outputs, which allows customers to get information faster and reliable”

Wisdom comes from mistakes, and success comes from many mistakes. When entrepreneurs encounter the problem of having too many advices or suggestions, Booth suggests entrepreneurs only listen to people who actually perform the action.

Most people think entrepreneurs are high-risk taker, but Booth believes they are actually asymmetrical bets. This means they have unlimited upside and limited downside. Entrepreneurs who put all in are worth more than they were before. They look for bets that are hard to lose.

Most companies in Vancouver choose not to go IPO. Booth believes the reason is because they are afraid of lockdown. People tend to sell at IPO instead of buy. If companies have the same valuation in both private and public sectors, there is no point of rushing into IPO. In future, companies in Vancouver will eventually go IPO. This is a timing thing.

April 13 2015

GradusOne x Technology Tech panel

ftyang Archive, Business Seminar Adrian Duke, BCTIA, Business Seminar, GradusOne, Jayesh Parmer, Jeff Booth, Sarah Lubik 0

Date: April 9, 2015

Name: GradusOne x Technology Tech panel

Presenters: Sarah Lubik, Adrian Duke, Jayesh Parmer, and Jeff Booth

Technology is a huge trend in Vancouver and all leaders need to understand where the potential opportunities are in the market. Moreover, the evolution of technology is increasing the competitiveness in technology market. This panel presentation is hosted by GradusOne and BCTIA. Moreover, Manny Padda, the Managing Director of New Avenue Capital, will moderate this presentation. This presentation invites Sarah Lubik, the Director of Technology Entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University, Adrian Duke, the Co-founder of Skyturtle Technologies Ltd, Jeff Booth, the CEO of BuildDirect, and Jayesh Parmar, the CEO of Picatic. Furthermore, this presentation will benefit young entrepreneurs who are looking for inspiration from technology sector.

In order to keep up the technology trend, Jayesh Parmar looks at the new product line. Jeff Booth looks at the greater landscape. Adrian Duke focuses on things that will impact daily lives. Moreover, Sarah Lubik looks at the needs from the people who will merge their lives with technology.

The panel describes their defining moments that lead their career in the technology sector. Duke believes many classical games are outdated with their current technology. Due to technology trend, it is an advantage for young entrepreneurs to improve the classic. Lubik shares while she was integrating the current systems through co-op at university, Lubik was inspired from the research that takes scientific fiction to reality. The defining moment for Booth is when he was motivated to create a system in his company that will increase clients’ satisfaction. Parmar suggests young entrepreneurs to get outside and figure out their passion and their challenges.

“If I know what I know, I will not start it”

The panel shares what they feel the most important qualities that young entrepreneurs need to be successful in technology startup. Parmar believes young entrepreneurs need the passion of vision, intellect, and without the fear of failure. Booth recognizes young entrepreneurs with curiosity mind, self-awareness, and care for teammates. Duke believes the personality of doers and hustlers, also young entrepreneurs must have the ability to execute. Lubik focuses on passion, commitments, coachable and humble.

The panel shares their hardest parts to break into the technology sector. Lubik shares while she was in the technology sector, she needs to study the technical production to break through the communication barrier. There are many people who know the technology, but they do not speak in engineer language.

Adrian shares the determination is the hardest part to break into technology sector. Many industries are changing due to technology, and the intersection between the traditional sectors and new innovative sectors are getting bigger. Therefore, Booth believes the hardest part is to figure out the passion to improve the intersection.

There are a lot of great ideas, but to find the team to execute the great ideas is difficult. Parmer believes the hardest part is to find a team that can follow the vision. It is important to get the right people and the right market in the business.

“You are doing it for the right reason”

There is a debate of whether business degree is a requirement to be successful in technology sector. Parmer emphasizes many corporation leaders in technology sector do not have degree. They believe in lifelong learning and the ability to figure out the answers. Booth does not believe business degree is important. It is more important to learn on their ways.

“Outside view will never match with inside view”

“If you are not failing, you are not trying hard enough”

Lubik believes education is important. Young entrepreneurs must understand that the degree by itself is not important, but the skills young entrepreneurs gain in the process of getting the degree is significant.

Duke also believes degree is not important. The important thing is to be around with successful people. Education is just a factor in the entrepreneur journey. Degree shows the ability to learn and young entrepreneurs can use education to prepare themselves in the market.

Parmar suggests young entrepreneurs do not afraid to fail. Booth suggests young entrepreneurs not to hesitate on their journey. It is important to jump in and learn to see what others do not see. Young entrepreneurs must believe that they are right and others are wrong. Duke indicates there are many accelerated programs that will help young entrepreneurs to be surrounded by experts who are motivated and driven. Lubik suggests young entrepreneurs to network with people who might be their potential customers.

“Do not assume people will buy it until you build it”

Mentorship impacts the panel in their journey. Duke learned to care for others, the importance of building effective relationship, and to take risk. Booth shares his mentors are his parents. He learned the gift of learning and relationship. Young entrepreneurs can build the level of trust from helping others. Parmer mentions mentorship can help young entrepreneurs to shrink time to get to the answer faster. If mentors do not know the answer, they will refer to someone else. It is important to ask clear question.

The panel shares their examples of their minimal viable products. All their initial designs are not attractive. However, with new modification and upgrades, all prototypes are in the market helping other people’s lives.

Parmer believes volunteering is a great way to find the initial problem. Young entrepreneurs can use the volunteering time to discover what they need to do. While volunteering, Booth recommends young entrepreneurs to act like CEO. Volunteering can satisfy young entrepreneurs’ learning curves. Duke recommends young entrepreneurs to enjoy the moment of volunteering. Lubik wants young entrepreneurs not to work for free; instead, they should think the skill sets they can acquire during volunteering. They need to figure out the initiative, and people will pay.

In technology sector, Lubik believes there is a need of improvement in the Healthcare center. Duke believes the sharing economy will be a trend opportunities in technology sector. Booth indicates the old “command and control” method is gone and empowering is the new trend for the new generation. Parmer asks young entrepreneurs to find the passion that will keep them up at night.

The panel has been asked what they will do if they are not in the technology sector. Parmer wants to be a family member who can create memory for his family. Booth wants to treat every moment with his family to build a stronger relationship. Duke wants to travel and help people. Lubik wants young entrepreneurs to know that jobs opportunities in technology sector will always exist; therefore, they should choose things they believe in it.