by Mark Campbell with files from Lori Bauld
Ideas are a dime a dozen. It is really all about execution, methodical approaches to venture building, having the right mindset, and surrounding yourself with the best mentors.
It could have all gone differently for Brice Scheschuk. The year was 1998, and he was working in Boston with the Consulting Advisory Services division of Coopers & Lybrand—now PricewaterhouseCoopers. Just six months into his position, he knew that if he excelled, he could one day become a partner, but a former Coopers colleague called him with a proposition.
“This was someone who was super entrepreneurial, and he said to me, ‘You’re leaving Coopers. We’re starting a company,’” Scheschuk recalls. “I thought about it for a day, and I realized he was right. I had to quit my job and go for it.”
What Scheschuk went for was his first entrepreneurial venture that ultimately led him to Globalive. It was a telecom start-up that he and his business partners grew into WIND Mobile, a scale-up, challenger wireless company. The partners sold WIND Mobile to Shaw Communications in 2016 and then built Globalive Capital, an investment firm focused on technology and innovation, primarily in Canada. Scheschuk believes passionately in Canada’s need for more entrepreneurship and innovation and is an active investor and mentor across the ecosystem.
“Thank God he called me when he did, because otherwise I would have continued on that track,” says Scheschuk, who is Managing Partner of Globalive Capital. “I always had an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. As a kid, I’d look at the stock pages in the Globe & Mail and was intrigued by them. Business spoke to me more than music, engineering, or anything I could think of.”
That interest led Scheschuk to Dalhousie’s Commerce program, albeit through a circuitous route that included a year of university in Regina, Saskatchewan—his hometown—and a stint in the naval reserve that took him to Victoria, BC. “I met people from Halifax who talked about the university, so I looked into it and was impressed by its reputation,” he recalls. “I enrolled, but I was not thinking about becoming an entrepreneur. I don’t remember much talk about it or about innovation. That’s not a reflection on Dalhousie. That’s just how it was at the time. But my Dalhousie experience enabled me to seize the opportunity when it presented itself.”
Now a sought-after speaker on entrepreneurship and innovation, Scheschuk is helping Dalhousie inspire a new generation of students to follow in his footsteps as an associate of the Creative Destruction Lab in Atlantic Canada. “Dalhousie has really gotten the entrepreneurship and innovation religion, and it’s great to be part of all the activity going on there,” Scheschuk says. “I get to talk to students about the fundamentals for success, such as anti-fragility, founder mindset, and how to build a business. But I’ve also noticed that students today are more informed on these topics than I was at their age because they have more access to information through podcasts, blogs, and other tools. They really get these concepts and are approaching them in unique ways.”
Having rekindled his relationship with Dalhousie, Scheschuk is looking to deepen it through a new Founder Skills Institute, which will develop mentors and high-growth entrepreneurs who are well equipped to seize opportunity. “There is this romantic notion that you are in your basement or in the shower and a light bulb goes off and suddenly you are a billionaire,” Scheschuk says. “But ideas are a dime a dozen. It is really all about execution, methodical approaches to venture building, having the right mindset, and surrounding yourself with the best mentors. That’s how you make an innovative idea a success.”
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