Optimize Your Time for What’s Important

Co-Founder: Braden

Education: Currently in his second-year at Western University

Hometown: Toronto, Ontario

Start-up: Co-Founder at both W5 and Flare!

What is Flare?

Braden started Flare right out of high school, just over 2 years ago. Flare is an app that resolves a gap in the event space by allowing you to plan and post events that are happening in real time. Some examples he gave, include: hosting a last-minute drop in Frisbee game in Toronto, or setting-up a study session on campus.

What is W5?

W5 was started less than a year ago and has already gained huge traction on Western University’s campus. W5 is an accelerator that focuses on entrepreneurs at the ideation stage; they may have a prototype or they may not even have an idea yet. This past term, they accepted 15 start-ups into their program and provided the networking opportunities and resources the start-ups need to get their idea to a stage they can move forward with. Braden mentioned that “the whole idea was that a lot of accelerators like Next36, DMZ, Velocity, and YCombinator have amazing programs and are extremely tough to get into. At Western, where the ecosystem is very young, W5 is the first point of contact for start-ups and our whole goal is to make entrepreneurship more accessible, so more people get involved.”

How did Braden get started on W5?

Through his experience at Flare, where they were facing a lot of problems, the idea of W5 came about. They set-up some meetings with the incubators and let them know they were doing this. Some of the incubators were not happy and told them to take this project as a student club. However, they continued to move forward, and launched once they had their social media and mentors ready. Within the first month they already had 530 Facebook likes. At the beginning, they were only planning to start with 5 companies, which is why it’s called W5 (Western 5), but they had so much traction and 60 start-ups applied. Braden noted “I had no idea that there were so many [start-ups] on campus!” Each team had multiple members and with the importance of the teams in mind, Braden and his team decided to interview each team. After 30 hours of interviews, they picked a great cohort. So far, some have already raised money, launched a product, while some are currently pivoting.

How W5 came about

W5 came out of Braden’s experience with Flare. He realised that a lot of people want to start companies, but don’t know how to do it. From his own experience, he noted that he really didn’t know what he was doing for the first 6 months. He is hoping that W5 will smooth out this initial phase for some start-ups to get them on their feet and help them avoid early mistakes and to set a good foundation. W5 also gives them legitimacy and has made hiring easier for those start-ups in the W5 program.

What are some issues Braden has come across?

Braden noted that Flare has had a lot of problems and a big reason is because it is based on social media; the more people on the app, the more value the app can bring. Early on, however, a big issue for them was with the team largely because with a start-up, you don’t know if it will succeed. He also mentioned as a non-technical founder, it has been tough, for he’s had to spend so much time recruiting people to do the work. He said that he ended up hiring all his roommates and all the people on his residence floor in first year, which he mentioned was a horrible idea. When things went badly, everyone jumped ship, but when things were going well, they were interested. He noted that he lost a lot of friends that way and mentioned that its best not to start a business with friends, but it is ok to become friends with the people you start a business with. Not only that, the team is what will make or break the idea and you need a good team to execute, and he mentioned that he is very happy with the current team of 10 at Flare, who have been hired from the best engineering schools. He also mentioned that to start a successful company, you need to do a lot of little things right and make a lot of decisions in the short-term, regarding how to increase metrics and what will move the company to the next level. If you focus on the fact that your idea will be worth billions in two years and just focus on the equity split, he noted that you just won’t get there.

How to be a leader

When it comes to leading a team, he mentioned that you need to strike a balance. If you go out, you can’t have too much fun; you still need to be presentable because most people on the team are working for equity. It’s about being confident and knowing where the team is headed. On the other end of the spectrum, he mentioned that sometimes you must let people go and it’s a bit of a culture shock and it can be tough to make a decision like that for the team.

How to manage doing so much

It comes down to optimizing your time for what’s important. Braden noted that a mistake a lot of people make is to try to multitask. It’s not about how much time you spend, it’s about getting what you need to get done and making sacrifices for what you think is important. For Braden, he is trying to read one book per month, that means reading 30 minutes a day and not checking his Facebook every 5 minutes during that block of time. But he also mentioned, its also about the Law of Diminishing Returns. If you took economics in first-year, you likely remember the Law of Diminishing Returns. Essentially, in terms of your time, the more you spend on something without any breaks, the less productive you become. There is a point where you do need to take breaks, and that’s ok! You only have so much time in the day, so make good use of it.

Entrepreneurial influences

Growing-up Braden didn’t really have any entrepreneurial influences in his life, but his parents are both self-employed in the real estate business. He realised the challenges with having your own business, building a client base, and the volatility of having good years and bad years in terms of sales. He did note, however, that he likes to build things and if any kid played Lego to long, it was him.

Get to know Braden!

Books: He most recently read the booked called Hook by Nir Eyal and said it was a fantastic read.

A favorite movie: Birdman – Braden mentioned that he did a lot of acting in high school and thought this was a great movie for any movie buffs.

Nerdy Fact: Braden embraces his qualities as a bit of a workaholic and introvert and has had various career aspirations and is currently finding entrepreneurship and business exciting. As an entrepreneur, he has learned that business is one big game, outsmarting your opponents and maneuvering your strengths and weaknesses, and creating teams to get things done.

Mentors: Braden mentioned he doesn’t necessarily have one specific mentor, but he has a wide network he reaches out to and has helped him along his journey.

Something Braden wish he knew prior to starting

Braden noted that he used to think his idea was the best thing in the world and wouldn’t tell anybody because he thought someone would copy it. He eventually realised how tough that would be and huge companies don’t have the time of day for you until you prove your idea. He also re-emphasized how important team is and the importance of time management. Instead of going to a conference and knowing who would be there, he now realises that it might be better use of his time to stay home and improve his knowledge base to continue becoming a better entrepreneur. Use any chance you can to improve yourself as an entrepreneur!

Thanks Braden! This week, challenge yourself to put your phone away for at least an hour and put all your focus on a task at hand; you might be surprised at how much work you get done. Please check-out Flare and W5 if you’d like to learn more about them, or reach-out to Braden at braden@flarefam.com! If you have any questions for me, please reach-out through social media.