Almost half of Canadians -49 per cent to be exact- have experienced mental health issues at one point in their life, according to a new national survey by Sun Life Financial Canada.

From work-related stress to living with depression, mental illness has affected a whopping 63 per cent of millennials, 50 per cent of Gen Xers and 41 per cent of “late bloomers” Sun Life says in a news release.

It should come as no surprise that mental health issues affect a broad swath of society. However, the increase of mental illnesses has costed the Canadian economy more than $50 billion every year. For businesses that means a total of $6 billion in lost productivity, which works out to almost $1,500 per employee each year.

Unfortunately, one-quarter of Canadians have never discussed their mental health problems to a professional. And a new generation of startups are stepping up to solve that. These entrepreneurs see the issue as a chance to make a difference and lucrative opportunity to truly innovate an underserved (and oft forgotten) market.

Canadian startups — like Inkblot, WellCalm and Newtopia — are building new solutions that can prevent, diagnose and even treat mental health issues across Canada. Of course, working in the space is no easy feat. For a long time mental health was rarely discussed, often underfunded and a burden placed on our overstretched health system. Today’s health gamechangers are working to solve that.

Making a difference and making money

 
There’s no cut-and-dry solution to fixing the country’s mental health woes, but technology can help, explains Jeff Ruby, founder of Newtopia — a health and wellness company that raised $10 million in Series A funding to expand its health management and coaching offerings.

It can play a role in connecting people with the tools they need to take charge of their overall health, although it isn’t the ultimate solution most people want it to be, he emphasizes.

“Innovators who are hoping to play a bigger role in the space need to think about solutions pragmatically,” Ruby advises. “I think there’s an important role for technologies to play, but there’s also a caution. Technology alone is not the sole answer. It’s a combination of technology-enabled services that have a human component. Solutions (like wearable devices or apps) aren’t the answer alone.”

WellCalm founder Samira Ramzy couldn’t agree more. Since co-launching her wellness business that offers massages and mental health workshops in 2015 the company has seen a bevy of startups enter the health and wellness space all looking to hit it big.
“It’s not an easy money-making industry to get into,” she says. “We have to work twice as hard to educate consumers and help them understand that mental health support isn’t a weakness and then provide the services that they need. You can’t just start a business and then expect people to line up around the block to access it”

Of course, despite the hurdles Ramzy and other entrepreneurs like her experience, for those that make it there are several opportunities to grow . According to CB Insight [link], health and wellness tech startups saw a record number of investment in 2017.

Some of the biggest deals include a $40 million Series B investment for Quartet Health [link], one of the largest mental health tech deals since 2012 that featured heavyweights like Google Ventures , OAK HC/FT Partners, Polaris Partners, and F-Prime Capital. Not too far behind was a $37 million Series B deal with Headspace [link] and a whopping $35 million deal for Lyra Health.

The entrepreneur effect

 
72 per cent of entrepreneurs are dealing with mental health concerns, compared to a mere seven per cent of the general public, according to a study from the University of California. This has lead to the term “Founder Blues”.

Between 2011 and 2015 “Founder Blues” have led to several high-profile suicides in the startup world, including the death of Austen Heinz, a biotech entrepreneur and the founder of Cambrian Genomics; Aaron Swartz, the co-founder of Reddit; and Jody Sherman, the founder of Ecomom.

“Being an entrepreneur is an emotional enterprise. There’s a lot of unknowns… their companies become their identities,” say Dr. Arash Zohoor, family physician, co-founder and CEO of Inkblot, an online therapy platform. “Their level of anxiety when it comes to running out of money, meeting investor expectations, the reality of marketplace… they all are very difficult.”

So how would an entrepreneur know when it’s time to seek help with their mental health? Are these online mental wellness platforms the answer to the stigma found in the startup ecosystem? And how does Dr. Arash balance the stress of being an entrepreneur while helping treat mental health issues in his patients? Take a listen to Robert Gold, host of BusinessCast, interview Dr. Arash Zohoor, family physician, co-founder and CEO of Inkblot.

Make sure to also visit our official iTunes page.

Elizabeth Yin has spent years mentoring, managing and meeting with top entrepreneurs from across the globe. Her personal rolodex includes contact details for innovators at today’s biggest companies and since graduating from Stanford University and MIT in the early 2000s she’s helped founders raise millions in venture capital.

Some of her most notable accomplishments include cofounding B2B advertising platform LaunchBit — that was later acquired for an undisclosed amount — joining Google as one of its marketing managers, overseeing 500 Startups’ accelerator program and most recently starting her own pre-seed fund called Hustle Fund.

What are some of the biggest business lessons she’s learned throughout her career? Entrepreneurs should focus on the facts during investment meetings, understand networking is crucial for success and make smart hiring decisions.

Why Canadian entrepreneurs should stay home

 
For years, Canadian entrepreneurs were told that to grow their company or find investment they had to relocate to the U.S., and in particular Silicon Valley. That’s not technically true anymore says Yin, who credits Canada’s ever-growing reputation on the global stage for the change.

“Before you’d have to trek down to Silicon Valley for one to two months to network, but now VCs are coming up here … take advantage of that to get to know them and network at events.” Elizabeth Yin, cofounder of @hustlefund

“Here’s the dirty secret about staying in Canada,” she explains. “VC schedules are really busy with back-to-back meetings in the Valley. It’s really hard to get a meeting with them there, but when they’re up here their schedule is a lot more open. They’re here to learn about the ecosystem, mingle with startups at places, like the DMZ, and open to spending more time just talking.”

And, that’s not all. The high cost of living in Silicon Valley can be a detriment to bootstrapped startups. Why? Because they’re forced to spend most of their money on day-to-day living costs. A recent report by CNBC backs up this claim. It found startups in the San Francisco area are having a hard time recruiting tech talent because of high living costs.

“The cost of living — compared to San Francisco — is better here [in Canada] … you have access to grants that U.S. citizens don’t have and because more VCs are starting to come up here there’s more potential to network without having to spend money.”

Ask employees the right questions

 
Regardless of product or company, every founder needs a team of dedicated employees. Of course, onboarding new employees can be one of the most stressful, yet rewarding responsibilities for an entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, that also means hiring new employees can easily go wrong and cost entrepreneurs a lot of time and money. In an industry where startups are expected to scale as fast as possible, one bad egg can set a founder back years. For example, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh estimates bad hires have cost him approximately $100 million.

“Your first couple of hires solidify your company culture, which sets the tone for the rest of your company,” explains Yin in her blog. “And most entrepreneurs tend to look at candidates purely based on skill. But looking at a person based on just one axis is a huge fallacy.”

Hiring the best people means analyzing their personality. For instance, like how they’ll operate under stressful situations or go above what’s expected.

“The people with the best skills for the job can be your worst performers if the environment isn’t a good fit for them.” Elizabeth Yin, cofounder of @hustlefund

A Harvard University paper found that even highly sought after employees who engage in harmful behaviour can hurt a business’s long-term prospects. Bad hires, it states, lower productivity, negatively impact employee morale, and can cost up to $12,000 due to employee turnover.

What entrepreneurs should know to survive in tech

Passing the investor smell test

 
While at 500 Startups, Yin worked with a variety of tech startups. One thing she noticed during that time was that investors all too often would fund companies that looked great on paper or spoke a certain way. However, those characteristics didn’t necessarily correlate with success. What did matter in the end was execution. This is why at the Hustle Fund, Yin does most of her early investment conversations via email. It helps her focus on a startup’s figures, success and more.

“When I’m doing due diligence I’ll ask a lot about execution and timeline. I want to understand what the velocity of this startup is. Is there some signal these companies are doing something worthwhile and moving fast enough?” So far, Hustle Fund’s innovative process has produced interesting results. In 2017 47 per cent of its portfolio companies had at least one female founder.

She also looks at how fast a startup is scaling. “Are you doing customer development in three days, three months or three years?” Yin adds. “Every business is different. If it’s taking you longer to reach certain metrics than others in the same industry that looks bad.”

“I’ll ask questions about unit economics. Do I think, based on how you’re approaching your business, that the cost to acquire a customer is going to be less than what they’re worth in the end?” Elizabeth Yin, cofounder of @hustlefund

At the end of the day not finding investment isn’t a sign to quit. “If you read TechCrunch it looks like everyone is getting funded, but it’s just not true,” she says. “The good news for [Canadians] is it’s easier to bootstrap here because your costs are lower and you can survive longer to acquire customers and reach a profit without running out of capital.”

Interested in learning more? Check out Robert Gold, host of BusinessCast, interview Michael Gord, the founder of MLG Blockchain about how he grew his business, the power of bitcoin and how he’s changing the tech industry.

The technology boom that disrupted key industries — like transportation, teaching and the media — has found a new target. Tech-savvy entrepreneurs are creating A.I.-influenced tools that make it easier for both lawyers and the clients they serve to navigate the legal system.

Everything from drafting new contracts to discovery and due diligence is evolving at a record pace. More and more companies are choosing to offload so-called grunt work once performed by interns and junior associates onto sophisticated machines.

Of course, this has huge ramifications for entry-level professionals. New lawyers and paralegals learn the ins and outs of the profession by working on smaller tasks that computers can now do in half the time.

The future is now

It’s not hard to see how influential A.I.-tech has become. In China, officials are using new tech to run the world’s first ‘cyber courts’. These online systems preside over internet-related legal cases, which free up traditional courts to deal with other, arguably more important, issues. 

Meanwhile, last year, CaseCruncher Alpha (a U.K. robot) made headlines when it beat 100 of London’s top lawyers in a timed legal challenge. The now-famous bot was created by law students Jozef Maruscak, Rebecca Agliolo and Ludwig Bull. 

As technology continues its inevitable march forward new digital tools will rise to change how lawyers and those in the field work.

Interested in learning about how Canadian startups are changing the legal world? Listen to  Robert Gold, host of BusinessCast, interview Hersh Perlis, director of Ryerson’s Legal Innovation Zone. Make sure to also visit our official iTunes page.

Toronto’s growing tech industry can be an isolating place for people of colour. The city, like other  tech hubs across the country, suffers from a lack of diversity.

In fact, a 2018 report by Innovate Inclusion found that some of Toronto’s top tech incubators — institutions tasked with helping new startups thrive — lacked diversity at several levels. A growing problem, the study says, that’s contributing to a “digital divide” in the province.

“We fundamentally believe the solutions we are creating through technologies must reflect the populations they serve.” @jodilynnkovitz, founder of @Move_the_Dial.

For the industry’s Black workers and other underrepresented groups gaining a meaningful foothold in tech might be especially difficult. While Canadian statistics aren’t available — a telling problem in itself — the U.S. offers a glimpse into some of the problems workers likely face.

Black in tech

 
South of our border, Black tech workers make up only 9.3 per cent of the industry. Alongside Hispanics, they remain underrepresented compared to other private sectors and hold fewer leadership positions. Meanwhile, a survey by the Kapoor Center for Social Impact found two of the most common reasons minorities chose to quit the tech industry was down to discrimination and cultural bias.

Here at home, advocates say Canadian workers face similar problems on the job and more is needed to combat it. Nirvana Champion has seen first-hand how challenging the city’s tech scene can be. Especially, she says, for women of colour who experience discrimination on multiple fronts. Through Move the Dial for Everyone — a subset of the well-known Move The Dial initiative that amplifies women in tech — she’s working to help the industry’s underrepresented groups. 

 “We don’t have the data, because we’re not collecting it yet,” she explains. “Anecdotally we uncover more stories all the time about the experiences of people of colour. When we’re talking about diversity we have to  move beyond just gender and look at intersectionality.”

“Through Move the Dial for Everyone we’re sharing stories and hoping to drive awareness,” adds Dayana Cadet, another volunteer and the group’s co-lead. “We want to show people who may not be familiar with what women of colour [and other underrepresented groups] face to know that there is an issue. [We want to] foster a community of inclusion for those who have previously always felt excluded or unheard.

Why inclusion matters

 
Aside from the fact that diversity has proven over and over again that it’s good for everyone, it also makes economic sense. Diverse companies are more profitable, period.

U.S. companies with higher racial diversity are more successful. A McKinsey report showed firms that place in the “top quartile for racial or ethnic diversity” are 35 per cent more likely to have higher financial returns.

What’s more, a study by Intel and Dalberg found that the tech industry “could generate an additional $300 to $370 billion each year if the racial/ethnic diversity of tech companies’ workforces reflected that of the talent pool.”

“The data made it abundantly clear that there is a significant gap in gender diversity in Canada [but] we found through our work that for visible minorities and other underrepresented groups those numbers are far worse.” @jodilynnkovitz, founder of @Move_the_Dial.

The same study also found the racial makeup of a company directly correlates to higher performance over time and improved efficiency. “For every 10 per cent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team, earnings before interest and taxes rise 0.8 per cent.” 

What’s next?

 
For years, companies spent millions on education campaigns – blaming a talent pipeline for a lack of representation. But that’s just not true anymore. New surveys are finding talent isn’t the only issue preventing diverse workers from joining some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Bias, it seems, plays a big part in preventing both women and minorities from advancing in the industry.

Even when people of colour do graduate with the necessary skills they find it difficult to thrive. Applicants with Black- or Hispanic-sounding names are less likely to receive a callback or be hired. On the other hand, people of colour, regardless of gender, are 3.5 times more likely to leave the tech industry due to harassment. That’s almost double the rate for white women.

Entrepreneurs looking for ways to improve their diversity could look to industry leaders like Pinterest. The photo-sharing platform has increased the number of women and people of colour at its offices. The company went beyond diversity pledges to improve its numbers, which included publicly listing its own poor track record. Microsoft also saw gains when the company enacted a diversity bonus program, which tied compensation to diversity gains.  

Of course, improving diversity takes work and there’s not a clear-cut way to do it. Jodi Kovitz, founder of Move the Dial, and her team aren’t waiting for the problem to fix itself.

Her advice? Take action now to ensure Canada’s growing tech community is more inclusive. Also, work with other groups to start making changes within by seeking out diverse voices. “We won’t make a change unless all voices are represented and really treat advancement of all people as a fundamental strategic component. “