I was told I had to go to business school to succeed. I gave it a shot, but eventually dropped out to bootstrap a restaurant with just a Visa card and a $20,000 line of credit. Everyone told me restaurants were hard work (and they were right! I have so much respect for anyone in the restaurant business). I ran the restaurant for two years, sold a franchise, decided to change paths, and sold the whole operation at a modest profit.

HootSuite never had a big launch. We were lucky to even have office space.

Everyone told me you can't build a major tech company in Canada. There just aren't enough investors or engineers or top-level managers. Each day, I'm driven to prove them wrong.

I'm motivated by solving new and challenging problems, especially ones that people say can't or shouldn't be tackled.

You can run a sprint or your can run a marathon, but you can't sprint a marathon.

When I was in high school, I loved paintball. I saved up my allowances and started my own paintball supply company. Everyone thought I was just some obsessed kid, but today the company is one of the biggest paintball suppliers in Canada.

Email is familiar. It's comfortable. It's easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today.