EW 066 – How To Pivot At The Right Time So You Can Build Many Profitable Businesses – Winning With Nicole Janssen, Founder of Diffusion Advisory

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.132)
Nicole, welcome to the show.

Nicole Janssen (00:03.812)
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Gordon Sheppard (00:05.804)
Well, it is just so lucky to have you here for our audience because of the pedigree. You've been through such a wide variety of sort of entrepreneurial ventures through your time, and you've been in many success stories. So you know what it takes to be whatever, in the tough spots, but you also know what it's like to be successful through the career that you've had. And we're going to learn a little bit about that here as we go along. So we're just grateful to have you here because so many leaders are going to learn from you here today. But if you had to introduce yourself, what would you say?

Nicole Janssen (00:37.082)
That feels like it changes a lot, but I would say I'm a serial entrepreneur. And what I'm currently passionate about is enabling Canada to achieve its full potential with AI.

Gordon Sheppard (00:52.704)
Enabling Canada to enable its full potential with AI, we need you more than ever. Like when, you know what I mean? When we think about it and you're like a, I don't know, like you're long in the tooth in AI world. It's not that you're a hundred years old. It's just that in the AI world you were in early and you've been able to sort of do some real world pieces with it here along the way. And that's your sort of piece that you're trying to do and have that.

Nicole Janssen (00:59.354)
It

Gordon Sheppard (01:17.474)
big bold idea for when you introduce yourself. That's great. Take me back a little bit on the timeline for historically what gets you to this moment to be able to say that out loud in a sense. at the beginning of it, would it be the beginning of your entrepreneurial time that we can sort of check in on and just get a couple highlights along the way? Go ahead.

Nicole Janssen (01:34.106)
Absolutely. I've always followed the path of opportunity and it's taken me to some interesting places. So first that started as a real estate broker of a property management company and then into association management and then off into digital media, which led me into AI and the digital media to AI.

jump was an interesting one because we identified that our business would likely at some point be put out of business by AI. That was back in about 2015. We knew the technology that existed that eventually became chat GPT was being researched and what was possible. And when you're in digital media and you make money off of people coming to your website,

and the serving the ads to them, the, you know, the recognition of this is really going to disrupt our industry. So maybe we should determine if we can generate all of our content algorithmically. And then that would change the game for us. and so we went down that journey. It just, we didn't realize that we were going to need, you know,

hundreds of millions of billions of dollars to build that. But it showed us what the technology was capable of and the talent that existed here in Alberta that were studying under some of the greatest minds in AI that frankly I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even know about until that point. And when we got exposed to that, we decided we needed to pivot.

and we needed to start divesting from our digital media properties and get into AI. And so I like to joke that I started in AI and what I knew was it stood for artificial intelligence and that was about the extent of it. And now I'm on Canada's AI Advisory Council for the Government of Canada. So there was a bit of a trajectory there that I like to say

Nicole Janssen (03:55.264)
Anybody can learn about AI. You don't have to have a technical background. This is something that everybody's capable of being involved in.

Gordon Sheppard (04:04.344)
We're hearing a little bit about you and your disposition. You're not afraid to pivot at all. You're not the entrepreneur who gets stuck on a dream. You're like, nope, time to change. got to change that. where's the puck going? Where's that trend? How can we follow it? And then through being part of AltaML, you had a real success story there that you built up through there and now leading even to this one. then how many more funny, I don't know how much more space LinkedIn's going to have to have there for all the different things that you're going to do.

along the way as you kind of do your thing, which is to be agile, adaptive, entrepreneurial, and then having that ability to not get stuck and move with where things are going and help to be an influencer there. Wow, we'll get a good sense of sort of that pedigree and history. And again, I hope people go to look up, you know, all the wonderful big things that you've done along the way, but we get a good sense of you there. That's great. It always leads me to my first question in this type of interview. And I say, you know, if you had to describe your biggest win, what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Nicole Janssen (05:01.774)
You know, I think my biggest win is that I'm able to identify opportunities and pivot because it takes agility. It's not the, know, humans don't like change typically. And so being able to look at something you've built and be proud of it, but also recognize it's time to move on. I think that is probably my biggest win.

Gordon Sheppard (05:31.118)
probably an unusual thing I think entrepreneurially. People fall in love with their babies in a sense. How did you, how have you managed to be mature about it and know when to sort of, when it's time to move on? What is, what would you say about yourself that you have that internal fortitude really to make that occur?

Nicole Janssen (05:51.108)
think part of it for me is really about impact. So if I am, you know, continuing to follow the opportunities and paying attention to the industry and the way things need to change, then that means that I can continue to grow my impact. I can grow my impact on the staff that we hire. I can grow my impact on, you know, the clients that we work with. You know, but if you

sit and let, you know, stay in love with a baby that is slowly dying, your impact will continue to shrink. And the impact is what's most important to me. And I think that's why I am able to make those pivots.

Gordon Sheppard (06:38.114)
and you're able to see these opportunities and find them. And that's a huge win. And obviously, you've been able to demonstrate that over and over again. It's not like you've gone through one pivot. You've been through multiple and industry shifts and following where that trend is going. That's great. It gets us into the anatomy of the win. What is the strategy? Work plan, people, operations, and results behind this win. And if this win is finding opportunities, strategically, you've touched on it a little bit. Like your vision, your mission, your values, you want to make an impact.

You have goals that you would have along the way that would evolve as things evolve. Any sort of, when you think about the strategic highlight of getting this win, how would you describe it?

Nicole Janssen (07:16.122)
The strategic highlight probably, I think, you know.

Struct honestly strategy is the thing that I fell in love with. And everyone always asks what's your your superpower in business strategy is mine and and I think continuing to focus on you know that I love the playing to win model of strategy and focusing on how will we win at what we want to achieve not just how will we do it.

or how can we be successful, but how will we win? And I think that focus also allows you to see when pivots are needed. It allows you to see when there are opportunities that maybe you didn't recognize before, because if you're trying to win, that's a very different game than just playing the game.

Gordon Sheppard (08:14.976)
Interesting. How will we win? Do you have a moment where you've sat, I don't know, in a board room or in tears or whatever it is where you're like asking yourself that question, how will we win? And you've gotten it to pay off for you. Is there sort of a moment you can take me to when you've asked that kind of question?

Nicole Janssen (08:31.706)
I mean, I ask that question every day. and that's that's part of it. because if you're not, you're not going to see those opportunities. but I, you know, even my most recent pivot to diffusion advisory, the, you know, it was really about, it's about Canada winning this time. and knowing that

Canada is falling deeply behind in AI, even though we developed this technology. because my mind is always, it really loves that strategic thinking, I can see where our gaps are. And I know some of the things that we need to do to actually really change this trajectory. So I can either continue to run

AltaML and just build that company and build that success or I can say, hold on a minute, I have the potential to make an impact on Canada. And that's an impact that I want to make. And so I made a big shift recently and stepped away from AltaML operationally so that I could work with organizations, public sector, post-secondary.

the same, we need to make some really big moves and we need to be bold. It's not impossible, but we better start or we're really going to fall behind and we aren't going to be competitive as a country. so that, that, you know, that strategic thinking, that desire for impact, all of that really was a bit of an aha moment. As I looked at, we're building this company,

And the sales cycle in Canada is 18 months, but it's four months in the US. So why would we continue to build in Canada? And that breaks my heart that it's so hard to build an AI company here and the adoption is so low. And so that's why I said, no, I'm not letting Canada continue on this path. I'm going to pivot.

Gordon Sheppard (10:54.671)
Wow. That's just, um, thank you from all of us. Right? It's, uh, cause that's not, uh, golf clubs and you know what I mean? And, sort of taken off and sitting on your laurels that you've got an investment in Canada. You're reminding me of, I've been asking this question a lot. I often, I, in many conversations, I often say, what do you want Canada to be? And I don't care what side of the political spectrum people are on. I just want to say, what do want it to be? Like what's it, if, and I think we've

not done a good job in Canada from my perspective. I love Canada and I've lived, I'm born in Quebec and I've lived in, my kids are born in Alberta and you know, I've lived in Ontario and I've lived, I'm just amazed that there's this sort of glue that holds it all together. The what do want Canada to be? It's just remarkable to me to be meeting someone who's not only asking the question, but doing something about it. Like this is not like a little ha ha cafe conversation. You're actually gonna be getting in there using your leverage and sort of capital as a.

business person where people will listen and you're going to be able to stitch this together and start to make a dent on what's such an important time like you've identified. And the what do you want Canada to be? I can hear you want it to be a better place in this case, in this industry to be built out and we should be globally competitive in this area. And that's a great piece of that overall puzzle as I think about that bigger one where we need that eight hour podcast right now to go in.

have that full conversation. So I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing because it's another, it's that next opportunity that you see. You know your superpowers in the game. You know that you need to apply those superpowers. There's something that's compelling. What is compelling you to take on a big idea like this? Like, it just, what's the, what's the urge? Like, what are you trying to do?

Nicole Janssen (12:34.754)
Well, I mean, part of it frankly is driven by the fact that I have teenage kids and they love Canada as much as I do and I want them to see opportunity here, not a place that they probably have to leave in order to be successful. I want them to be able to, you know, go on their career trajectory here in a way that is beneficial to them and they learn and they grow to be the humans that they want to be.

But AI as an industry, there's so much capabilities in Canada, but really every industry has to be AI enabled in order for us to compete. This isn't just one industry, AI is a horizontal enabler and we can completely change our entire country if we leaned into it.

Gordon Sheppard (13:31.608)
I love it. Handshakes and scotch that drove the oil industry or whatever it was for many, many years and some still in paper. Funny enough, as we think about these adoption moments as we go forward and here you are saying, no, no, no, here's where we can go. Let's go together. By the way, I'm going to show you the path because you've lived the path through your work. You've proven it out on the client side. You've proven it out on the revenue side so that when you go to speak and Dr. Richard Sutton, is that who you're referring to as part of this legacy that we have here in the AI side?

Nicole Janssen (13:59.896)
Yes, yes, and all of the researchers that study under him are, you know, incredible, incredibly talented. We have the top reinforcement learning research team in the world, Aaron Edmonton.

Gordon Sheppard (14:13.783)
In the world in Edmonton, love, and I talk about the upper bound conference. I know as sort of one sort of nice moment in time that happens here at the conference side as a global big moment in time that people have an opportunity to learn about it. And again, I'm just peripheral there in terms of understanding on the way in, except I know in the work that I do on sort of the advisory small business nonprofit side, trying to get AI even into the conversation to some sort of awareness level.

is really, really tough. But I'm glad to hear you're talking about that piece, especially with that post-secondary access thinking that you're doing. And again, the way you're going to problem solve this, because you've problem solved through so many other areas and we're learning so much about your leadership style through there. So win, identifying opportunities, taking advantage of them, being a really truly visionary and mission driven person, not only for you, but for your kids and our kids. Cause that Canada thing that you're wearing so proudly is a really neat moment in time.

Super. So we know the strategic piece, if we think about the anatomy of a win. On the timeline, so if we go back to identifying opportunities, when did you first get in that real estate? What year was it that you were in the real estate play? And how many years did it take to get from there to here? Like, what year was that first entrepreneur kick?

Nicole Janssen (15:22.81)
Real estate, I think, started in 2000 and I was the youngest real estate broker in Alberta.

Gordon Sheppard (15:34.638)
Right, of course you were, because of your thinking and your approach and your work ethic and whatever you were able to do. And here we are, we got this 25-ish, 26 years in to that and we hear those moments along the timeline that you were identifying. I was in this sector, then I shifted, then I saw that it was going downwards when we thought it was this, then we made a pivot, then we changed again, and now you're making a pivot out to go to this bigger idea.

because you've put yourself in a position to be in that conversation as we go. And I don't mean to dig in too much because you've mentioned so much along the timeline. So we've got strategy, work plan. There's always people involved in getting a win. How would you describe your own attitude from 2000-ish on this journey? If we had to mark those moments on the timeline, is it easy sailing along the way or is it been peaks and valleys? How would you describe your attitude?

Nicole Janssen (16:22.842)
I would say there's definitely peaks and valleys as you go through that. mean, it's every time you pivot, there's a little bit of like, is this gonna work? And you know what? Sometimes it doesn't. There's absolutely some companies along the way that, wow, I wish I'd never started.

But I definitely learned from that experience. And so I think that, you know, the first start of any new company, building a company, trying to figure out what do you offer that resonates with clients? How do you need to check your own biases and ego at the door and listen to what people are saying and take that feedback and make shifts?

That's always a very challenging dig in long hours type of period. And then, you know, there's other periods where you feel like you finally can take a breath. Things seem to be moving along. And then sure enough, something will come along that'll blow that all up. And, you know, there's just obviously as an entrepreneur, cashflow is.

King. you know, that's always something you're watching and paying attention to consumes much of your brain space. But, you know, I, I do think you have to be a certain personality to enjoy the fact that this is a bit of a roller coaster. I had a very brief stint as an employee, like I in my entire career post

you know, graduating from university, I worked for someone else for six months. And I was a terrible employee. Terrible. I told my boss as the newest person and youngest person in the company that I could see that the trajectory of the company was that it was not going to last. And they needed to completely pivot their strategy in order to survive. Now, I am

Nicole Janssen (18:44.246)
not proud exactly to say that I was right, but I, you know, the fact that I thought it was appropriate for myself, having just joined this company, just a brand new graduate, thinking that, you know, that this would be a positive thing to bring up with, you know, the CEO, it was not the right timing. So I knew that I knew from that six months, I was not an employee kind of a person, and that the roller coaster was one I enjoyed.

Gordon Sheppard (19:11.428)
Well, we could certainly, the roller coaster is your thing and we can hear your attitude through there. It's funny to hear somebody who's kind of done enough pivots that you'd be good at them now. Like this one thing to do the first pivot, right? And then you said, well, and then we did some failures and this and that, but actually to get enough of them under your belt that it wouldn't be a new experience for you, I don't think going through. Would you say that you've gotten better at those pivot moments along the way?

Nicole Janssen (19:36.578)
I've done what I've gotten better at is the.

the, I guess, creating this space where you put so much of yourself in, that if it fails, you see yourself as a failure. That's a hard one to get past, where to me, taking a bet is a win. And even if it results in a failure, it's a learning. And then being able to go out and take another bet, like,

that's something to be proud of. I, so I would say that's what's gotten easier is the, you know, the beating yourself up when that, that bet you took didn't win.

Gordon Sheppard (20:24.24)
I'm always curious when the entrepreneurs can, they don't need a sledgehammer that day, they can just have a tack hammer when they sort of beat on their own brains or whatever that is. And that's what I hear you describing there. That's interesting. There's other people involved. I don't know, we don't need to make a laundry list, but who are some of the other key people, if identifying opportunities is the win that you're talking about, who are some of the other key people that have been, I'm going to say supportive of you, important to some of these things along the way, any other that you'd like to mention that are a big part of that journey?

Nicole Janssen (20:50.298)
Absolutely. mean, my parents had entrepreneurial part of their careers were entrepreneurs, and I watched that and that what had a big impact on me. My co founder of both the digital media business and Altan now or he was pivotal in making this happen. We did that together and but honestly, every person that

works for you in a company makes an impact on it. And so while there might be some main people that drove you, you can't accomplish any of these things without the people who are on your team. And the, you know, those team members are what made it happen. You know, you know, whether it was myself or Corey and I together, having a vision and a strategy and an idea.

It doesn't happen without the rest of the team. And so I think everybody has to be acknowledged to be a part of that path for however long they were part of that path.

Gordon Sheppard (22:00.848)
And of course, if we went on the laundry list here, we'd hear about clients and we'd hear about moments in time from whatever it is, bodies of grant funders or things, moments, all these kinds of things that we hear along the way too. Thanks for giving us some insights into yourself and some of the people that have been involved. Strategy, work plan, people. Anytime we have a win, we've got to operationalize it. So there's something to you that, something about you that is able to operationalize an opportunity when you see it.

And we've heard about the clearing yourself out of the way. There's the not getting stuck on something. That's sort of some internal voice. Any other pieces that you sort of would identify operationally that make, you you see an opportunity and then you can go get it?

Nicole Janssen (22:40.202)
I think the biggest thing is seeing the opportunity, but you're not operationalizing it yourself. You're operationalizing it through a team. And so the ability to both inspire and explain where you're trying to go and get buy-in to that, you can't just hand over a plan and hope people just execute on it.

you have to bring them along through that process and feel that they're a part of that plan and they can see themselves in that plan and see how they are contributing to that overall vision. And I think that's just a really key part. The idea is great, but if you can't actually get everyone to get in the boat with you, it's not going to happen.

Gordon Sheppard (23:34.95)
I love it. I don't know. So I'm just thinking like it's Tuesday morning at 1038 and you're standing by somebody's desk and this thing for you to be able to inspire them in that moment. There's like thousands of these little moments along the way. Like you said, with all these team members where you're having to play, call it cheerleader, explainer, whatever, stop from screamer, whatever these things that you got to kind of do to make these things happen. That's really interesting that you know your role in your leadership role with the vision.

and the strategy and these pieces, you're certainly acknowledging, again, getting people to come along in your boat and pick up an oar and pull that thing forward too. That's great. Any other operational highlights before I jump out of that one?

Nicole Janssen (24:17.05)
I think the, also have to be ready to change how you approach these things as your company grows. Because how you do this with a 10 person company looks very different than a 150 person company. You know, you can't just go into the kitchen and mention something to somebody at the coffee machine and know that pretty much everybody will know it within 10 minutes. that.

Sometimes that, know, when it's, you know, the company is much smaller, that becomes, it's very easy. And then later you have to be very thoughtful about your communication and that you're ensuring you're actually reaching everybody. Whether they're, you know, and then as we had offices across the country, knowing that you're reaching people that you're not physically present with all the time.

and then remote work and all of those things. How do you keep shifting to adjust to continue to reach that goal of getting everybody in that boat?

Gordon Sheppard (25:23.761)
Well, and interesting to hear about your journey and ability to adapt along the way, because you know what it's like to have, there's one, there's two, then there's 10, then there's hundreds. Like you've been through those things and to want to be the leader at hundreds is remarkable because the dollars are scaling, the people are scaling, and this, but you're still saying you're keeping your eye on that communication need, which you know is as critical as it was when there was 10 people and you've had the ability to invest in making that happen. How did you do it?

Nicole Janssen (25:51.451)
Honestly, I would say the hardest part for me, and I describe it as the tipping point of when you know if somebody's grandma in the office is sick, you know it. And then there's all of a sudden a tipping point where you have a number of staff that goes beyond that. And it's not possible for you to have that knowledge. That for me was the hardest part because it, I...

could feel if I was resonating with people. When you're with a team that you know that well, you can pick up on that. But as you shift that, it's not the same. I'll remember those days vividly where I'd find out through somebody else that someone's grandma was sick. And it was like, how did I not know that? How did I miss that? And it was just really...

being recognizing that you have to adapt and do things differently. And keep checking in to see if your approach is working and be honest with the feedback and don't excuse the feedback away like, well, that's probably that one person that probably isn't the right fit anyway or whatever it might be.

It's easy to take some of that negative feedback and come up with excuses why you shouldn't listen, but really check your ego and pay attention to what's being said and listen to those trends and try to make adjustments.

Gordon Sheppard (27:33.404)
so much ego checking along the way. I've got to let go of my cool ideas. I've got to go make sure I don't know that somebody's grandma's happening. mean, there's just, anyway, we're really getting a good sense of you, your leadership style, and again, part, a big piece of why you've been successful to find an opportunity and execute on the next one, you know, as your wins along the way as we go. Strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, there's results. There's quantitative and qualitative results we like to talk about. Quantitatively, you've built a few companies.

You know what mean? there's like if we had to sort of add up some of those things. What are some of the other quantitative highlights that you'd like to mention along the way when you're talking about this type of win?

Nicole Janssen (28:10.498)
You know, it's interesting. You had mentioned to me that you're going to ask about quantitative results. And I thought about that and the automatic thing to go to that investors ask about that people in the market ask about is, is your financial results. They want to know, you know, either a how many employees you have, or what's your revenue? What did you sell for all of those things?

And I feel like those numbers don't tell the story. That to me is the story of my journey. And so the I picked out three quantitative results that I felt were more important to me than those other numbers. One was that our employee net promoter score was over 60 every year.

at AltML and that's unheard of in the tech industry. Usually, anything over zero for an ENPS score is high in tech. And so 60 is just not, it just doesn't happen. And then the average tenure of the employees was over three years when I was at AltML and that

That also is unheard of in tech. And then the other one was that on average, we would get a score of 9.5 out of 10 from our clients on the work that they did with us. And so those three metrics felt to me like they told the story a lot better than how many employees we had, which frankly isn't really a number anymore with AI.

that anybody should be paying attention to since Silicon Valley is chasing the first unicorn with one employee. the revenue, the how much have you raised, all of that, all of those numbers are numbers I'm proud of, but they don't tell the right story.

Gordon Sheppard (30:22.469)
This screams to you as a leader. It's thank you so much for being so thoughtful about that. And funny enough, I would hope that the NPS score alone is highly investable. What do you mean you're the type of leader that in our industry created a condition like that where you can hear then that if turnover impacts a project, do you know what I mean? Like that type of thing, you would have been not having that same level of impact as you're going along. You knew a lot of grandmothers.

to make those things occur, right? You created a culture and of course we hear the culture eating the strategy for breakfast depending on which side of that sort of phrase you want to put yourself in. That really speaks to the way you lead and it really speaks to the way that you take advantage of opportunities along the way. And qualitatively, how's it feel to say, you know, the wind's opportunities and you got to this point and you've got this big idea now. Qualitatively, how's it feel at this point in time for you?

Nicole Janssen (31:16.986)
feels great. I look back and feel the impact and see the impact that I've made along the way. And I'm also inspired to continue to, you know, try and grow that impact. But, you know, one of my favorite impacts is the people that I've, you know, had the honor of working with on my team and the seeing them grow and

You know, one of my superpowers, I would say, is also identifying strengths in people that maybe they don't see in themselves and helping giving them the opportunities to showcase those strengths. to me, that's one of the biggest honours I've had as a leader is that I've been able to do that.

Gordon Sheppard (32:10.553)
Interesting. So you've got the ability to look into someone and see the things they can't see themselves, put them in a position to act on those things to the benefit of them raising up the opportunity. And I don't hear dozens. This is hundreds of times, right? Whether through like that you've done this for the employment that you've created at a national scale and these types of things as well. Wow. That's just so wonderful. This is just a terrific interview because we're hearing a, I think you're in a unique.

I've interviewed over 60 people, certainly on this podcast. And I hear in your, the pieces that you've put together are very much a reflection of you. We'd have to go dig back in the psychotherapy that sort of, you know, what boiled all that up in terms of getting you to that moment where you then started to be able to act on that. But to be able to pivot successfully once is a big deal to do it, what half a dozen or more that you've done along the way and then find success being able to do that along the way. That's a real capacity builder that many, we haven't, Cheryl Watson was on from junior achievement, Northern Alberta. Cheryl talked about.

the deficit of entrepreneurs that we have in upcoming in Kansas. It's a, it's a wave of missing. That's a huge gap that we're doing. And here you are saying, no, I'm going to put a dent in that through the area where I can make an impact. You've got something about those kids that's inspiring you. And, you know, I think about my kids, kids, they will have my 25 and 22 year olds and think about what's that world, what's that Canada going to look like. And I can rest a little bit easier knowing that you're going to be in that moment, leading a charge in your area at a

important time when Canada has a chance to level up. It's not lip service that you'll be paying to, we should diversify and we should do these things. You're gonna get her done and there's gonna be again another big things happening as you pull those voices together. that's incredible. Whenever I get great leaders like you on the show I always like to say you know if you had a few sentences for other leaders maybe they're looking for their next opportunity or their pivot or whatever they are. What are those sort of few sentences that you like to pass along to them?

Nicole Janssen (34:04.314)
Well, this is actually one that is not my own, but I had the honor of spending a week at Necker Island with Richard Branson. And it was something he shared with me that I've lived by. And he said, if an opportunity presents itself that excites you, say yes, and then figure out how to do it later. Don't let the figuring out how to do it stop you from saying yes.

Gordon Sheppard (34:35.131)
That's gonna knock out all the perfectionism in those perfectionists, right? In terms of them sort of getting that moment right and then that's gonna allow them and enable them. And how nice to hear it from someone again who's also earned his place to say that, that you could then say, yeah, that makes a ton of sense, that's great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be so well-prepared for this interview. Thank you for the big idea around Canada and helping Canada at this moment in time and just really sharing a lot of insights into

your leadership style and why it's led to the impact that you've been able to have. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Nicole Janssen (35:10.212)
Thanks for having me.