Getting To Know: Our Operations Specialist

Meet Dom Beaupre, our Operations Specialist. We are actually super late in getting this blog up, (our bad!), because Dom has been our Ops Specialist since October. Dom actually made an appearance in my Christmas letter. I asked Dom what he said when someone asked him what it was like to work with me. To which he replied, “No one has ever asked me that.” Lol, love it. 

Without further ado, here’s my convo with Dom. 

ZS: Dom! 

DB: Zack! 

ZS:  Dom, how did we meet?

DB:  Ummmm….I can’t remember exactly.

ZS:  It was that memorable, huh?

DB:  Well….I somehow ended up at the TNT Happy Hour back in 2019.

ZS:  It was my wife!  You were working with her on this project called Recover.

DB:  Oh yes, that’s right. 

ZS:  And what did you think of the first Happy Hour?

DB:  Ummmm…..I don’t remember much actually. I met you.  I met Tim.  There were those long picnic tables.  Free beer was flowing.

ZS:  LOL – those were those good old days!  I remember them like it was yesterday.  Didn’t we do a project together back then?

DB:  Did we?  I can’t really remember. 

ZS:  Well I’m glad to hear we had such a meaningful first impression!  Yeah, you said you wanted to help out and so you did some research on securities laws.

DB:  Oh yes, now I remember.  We concluded it was too complicated to include non-accredited investors in the Angel syndicates for the summits or to launch a crowdfunding platform. 

ZS:  That’s right!  And then you filmed the very first Pitch Night we ever hosted at Polar Park Brewing back in January 2020.

DB:  Yeah.  That was fun.  I’d never really filmed professionally before so I was trying different things out, like moving around the room to get different camera angles for the presenters.

ZS: Alright, let’s get into the history. You’ve travelled a lot and gone to school in a few different countries, right? 

DB: Yup, that’s right. I grew up in Edson, in French Immersion (called the French Fries by the English kids, lol), and then graduated, and went to MacEwan for 1 semester, and then left to go study in Costa Rica. I wanted to do more travelling, more learning of different cultures, and I got to do that. Costa Rica was lots of backpacking, lots of learning, and doing things like driving down the highway in Panama, on a motorcycle, and narrowly missing a giant manhole with no cover, and cheating death. 

ZS: And then you had your own turn in startup life and running your own company, before you worked with us. 

DB: Yes, I originally was going to get my Masters in Entrepreneurship, yet again abroad, which would have cost me $120K, but I ended up cancelling that because I realized that I would be spending all this money to get a Masters, and still not have a plan after. So I returned to Canada, and used that tuition cash to start Aliud. 

ZS: And the big lessons from starting Aliud? 

DB: Oh God… so many. Since I was developing an app that was basically a virtual storefront that allowed you to buy and sell your side-hustle products and services, I needed a lot of help with coding. I spent the first 4 months and $25K with the first company in India, and didn’t get anything in return. I did the right due diligence in hiring them, but I trusted them too much. For version 2, I hired a team that spent too much time building fancy presentations and PowerPoints that detailed the app, but they didn’t actually build the wireframe or architecture. So I learned not to trust the people who talked the talk, but didn’t walk the walk. And for version 3, I learned the lesson to source locally. I ended up working with Sam, who was doing his Masters in Design at the University of Alberta, and who I could work with face-to-face and with minimal language barriers. We worked on version 3 together for 9 months, started demos, a website, and a data room, and prepped to raise capital. 

But in this journey, I found entrepreneurship super lonely. I joined the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network (ERIN), volunteered for YEG Startup Awards, and started the Neighbours Project with some friends. I think it’s really important to find a network and to find people to bond with and work with during the startup journey. 

ZS: That’s a big journey, man… lots of highs and lows. Alright, let’s finish up with some fun facts that people wouldn’t know about you. 

DB: Ha, ok… hmmm… oh, yeah, fun fact was in college, I made a ton of money trading cannabis stocks. I was early on companies like Aurora and Canopy… bought stock right when they went public (something like 10 cents), and sold them a year later at $50.

I also grew up fixing cars, tuning them up, and doing a lot of construction and renovation work with my dad. And my first job was at Wendy’s. They hired me at 13, and I haven’t stopped working since. 

ZS:  Is that all? 

DB:  LOL – Yeah I guess I don’t know what else to say.  

ZS:  Awesome.  Well, I just wanna say we’re lucky to have you.

DB:   Happy to be here.

ZS:  Do you think you’ll remember this interview?

DB:  No.