Michele Romanow and I discuss the creation of Clearbanc (a $400 million VC firm), working side-by-side on your business with your romantic partner, her experience on the hit show Dragon’s Den and the best and worst companies that she has seen pitched on the show, why market research is a fatally-flawed ancient method, and how different personality types either thrive or struggle while working from home.
Find more about Michele at her company website https://www.clearbanc.ca and on Instagram @micheleromanow
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Shownotes:
[0:00] Introduction and Michele’s first several businesses
[2:00] Joining Dragon’s Den and the idea behind Clearbanc
[4:00] Using Artificial Intelligence to decide upon and find unconventional investment opportunities
[8:00] Michele co-founded Clearbanc with her boyfriend Andrew D’Souza and how to run a business with a loved one
[11:30] “When I get in those moods… I always think Michele, don’t bet against yourself. You can bet against a lot of other people in this world, but don’t bet against yourself.”
[14:00] The worst idea Michele saw on Dragon’s Den – A revolutionary facelift…
[17:00] AirBnB for RVs may be the best she saw. Shoutout to rvezy.com
[18:30] How does Michele know what to invest in?
[21:30] “This journey [entrepreneurship] is mostly things not working.”
[26:30] Michele looks at work/life balance completely differently
[29:00] The unconventional benefits of working with your romantic partner
[33:00] Mercury poisoning
[39:30] “Think about your life in terms of reversible decisions and irreversible decisions […] almost all of your decisions are reversible decisions. You should actually make reversible decisions very quickly, and then just fix them if you made the wrong choices.”
[41:00] How many projects can one human or organization work on at once?
[45:00] Forget market research – just ask the internet if they are interested in a product.
[0:00] At the beginning of the COVID lockdown, we saw a ten-year growth in e-commerce in less than 12 weeks.
[53:00] Extroverts trying to work from home
[55:00] The Snake Diet episode