Innovating Beyond Borders How Nic Beique is Reshaping Canada’s Fintech Landscape

Episode Overview

Nic Beique is a visionary entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Helcim, a Calgary-based fintech company that has carved out a significant niche in the competitive world of payment processing. His journey into the fintech space began at a young age when his family’s move from Montreal to Calgary came with the promise of a new computer, sparking his lifelong passion for technology. By high school, Nic was already honing his technical skills, working as a freelance web designer and developing e-commerce sites. This early exposure to the challenges of online payments planted the seed for what would eventually become Helcim​ (Avenue Calgary)​​ (Avenue Calgary)​.

In 2007, at just 23 years old, Nic launched Helcim as a reseller of merchant services, partnering with large, established financial institutions to provide payment solutions. Over the years, he recognized the limitations of being a reseller and saw an opportunity to innovate in a market dominated by legacy players. In 2020, Nic made a bold pivot, transforming Helcim into a full-fledged payment processor with its technology and financial services. This strategic move allowed Helcim to offer more competitive rates and a broader range of services, from online and in-person payment processing to a suite of business tools designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses​ (CCI)​​ (Avenue Calgary)​.

Nic’s leadership and vision have been instrumental in Helcim’s success. Under his guidance, the company has grown exponentially, processing billions of dollars in payments annually and raising significant venture capital to fuel further expansion. Despite its growth, Helcim remains committed to its Canadian roots, with Nic advocating for a more innovative and open financial landscape in Canada. He has been recognized for his contributions to the tech and fintech sectors, including being named one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2019. Beyond his professional achievements, Nic is also a dedicated mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs and a new father, balancing the demands of leading a fast-growing company with his personal life.

Episode Transcript

Kevin Rosenquist: Hey welcome to Pay Pod where we bring you conversations with the trailblazers shaping the future of payments and fintech. My name is Kevin Rosenquist, and thanks for listening. Nick Beake loves geeking out about payments. He’s also well versed in leadership and has strong opinions about how monopolies in Canada are stifling innovation. In his mind, Canada is going to fall far behind unless the playing field is leveled to allow for new minds to come in and help spark innovation. His company, Helcim, offers an alternative to the larger payment processors and POS systems, boasting better rates and a better level of service. Joining me now from Calgary, Alberta, Nick Beake. First and foremost, congrats on the new addition to your family. Welcome. Welcome to the Fatherhood Club.

Nic Beique: Thanks. It’s, , it’s quite the change, but, you know, kind of adapting every day, but it’s pretty exciting. Healthy boy. Can’t ask for more.

Kevin Rosenquist: Awesome. I can tell by, , reading your, your, , your posts that you’re a very proud papa.

Nic Beique: Yeah, I think, I mean, it’s it’s it’s just it just completely transforms you overnight. And I think you hear that all the time, but, you know, it. It takes it for happen, you know, for it to happen to you. And all of sudden you’re like, oh, yeah, that does happen. You do. Your brain kind of gets rewired, just like immediately. , so it’s pretty exciting times and it keeps rewiring.

Kevin Rosenquist: I have a three and a half year old and you just you figure it out, you roll with the punches, and it’s just it’s quite the ride, but, that’s awesome, man. I’m really, really happy for you.

Nic Beique: Well, I’m just waiting for that smile. You know, I think we, you know, you got to wait five, six weeks. You have to get a little bit of, like, positive reaffirmation that you’re doing something right. So I’m just crossing my fingers for it to arrive.

Kevin Rosenquist: Oh, no. Now you’re just you’re in the shit right now. So it gets it does get better. But that early part is, , it’s. And I didn’t know anything about kids. I don’t know about you, but I know nothing about kids, so it was all shocking to me.

Nic Beique: Yeah, definitely. , but, I mean, it’s one of those things where everybody says it gets better, so you just kind of hoping for it to, .

Kevin Rosenquist: Yes. But to your point, like, you can read all the books, you can listen to friends, you can go to classes and all that stuff. But yeah, until it happens, it’s just hard to it’s hard to understand, truly.

Nic Beique: Well thank you.

Kevin Rosenquist: You got it. You got it. So being that I host a fintech and payments podcast, obviously I’ve talked to a lot of people from payment processing companies, but I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone who founded their company as early as you. , you back in 2006, did I read that right on LinkedIn? Yeah.

Nic Beique: So, I mean, the way to look at us is that there’s really that was the old payments business. So I started, , in a more kind of traditional way. So I have a technical background. , we would program our own kind of payment gateways. , but we were a reseller. So, you know, the payments world, you have the term ISO MSP. , we were an ISO, a reseller of a large, , legacy acquirers. And that was my first payments business. And I built that over a decade. And that’s, you know, that wasn’t a venture backed startup, that wasn’t a, you know, super scaling organization, but that’s how I really got my teeth into payments and kind of started understanding the space. And I took all that knowledge and all those relationships and decided, okay, let’s do a massive pivot. And then that took many years behind the scenes. And ultimately it’s how we launched Helcim in 2020. So there’s kind of like the old reseller business of, you know, learning the, the industry. And then there would, you know, all added up to us launching about just shy of four years ago.

Kevin Rosenquist: Okay, okay. Then the new and improved Helcim.

Nic Beique: That’s exactly it.

Kevin Rosenquist: So you offer POS systems both online and in person payment processing CRM, inventory management. This is a very crowded space with a lot of industry specific solutions. For example, I’m actually opening a bar this fall and we just signed on with toast Obviously a major player in the restaurant industry. How do you stand out in this crowded environment? What makes Helcim great?

Nic Beique: Yes, I mean, the payment space is fascinating. I mean, I’m obviously biased, but if you think about it as a spectrum of payments providers, right? So we look at the market in a little bit more uniquely. So you have if you look at a square, you know, square is fantastically successful. They have really kind of changed the game of payments. Yet they only have about 2% of the market, but they’re $50 billion market cap company. And when you hear those two numbers together, you go, okay, wait a second. This is a much bigger space on a much bigger sspectrum than than you thought it would be. So if you look at providers like Square, they’re really, really focused on Micro-merchants. And you see a lot of that in pay facts, you know, that that emergence of the pay model and enabling for small business, that’s really kind of focused on the kind of micro merchant space, you know, farmers markets and, and, , restaurants and, and or quick order restaurants and, and kind of barber shops and so on.

Kevin Rosenquist: But the small, the small guy at the craft, like, you know, convention or something that you’re selling something. Yeah. I totally know what you mean.

Nic Beique: That’s exactly it. But the reality is that the market is so much bigger than that. So, you know, square does try to go up market in the restaurant space. And they’re really there’s a lot of there’s a lot of blood in that water with toast and others. , you know it’s a crowded space. And, and if you look at the complete, let’s kind of swing to the complete opposite side of it. You have the stripes of the world and the bad ends of the world. And really they’re focused on more, you know, giant marketplaces and, you know, they’re looking for the next Shopify and they’re chasing themselves to fortune 500. Right? So but the way that we looked at the world is like, wait a second. There’s actually this really, really interesting middle of more traditional businesses. They’re they’re bigger. They’re still small businesses that are much more established. So this is you know, you have like health care and chiropractors and dentists and optometrists and accountants and lawyers and wholesalers and, you know, there’s there’s just a whole world of it, which is actually where, you know, it represents about 40% of the payment vole, but 70% of the margin. So if you think about all the the legacy processors out there, you know, the global payments and miners and first data, you know, they’re actually in this middle and a lot of the new fintech entrants have actually been on the edges, either on the really, really big enterprise space or on the kind of micro merchant space.

Nic Beique: And we took a different look at the world and said, what if we were a grown up square? What if we offered, you know, a very kind of seamless digital first payment service with all this great software built in. But we went to a more established small business. And really, you know, I think that a lot of the legacy players take this space for granted. And that’s where they keep generating all this, this, this cash, which said, you know, I think these businesses actually deserve better and we can bring a much more modern payment service. But to the middle that nobody’s really going after, it’s very fragmented. , the businesses are a little bit more demanding, like, yes, they’re a small business, but they actually care about their fees. They don’t like 2.9%, and they actually care about how fast they’re getting their deposits, and they actually care about interchange plus pricing. So you have to kind of take a little bit more of a serious approach than a lot of the fintechs, but still bring a very kind of seamless experience. And we gave ourselves this huge challenge. And that’s ultimately what we when we launched in 2020.

Kevin Rosenquist: One of the things that I read about you guys, that you to boast is being able to get the fees down, as you said, the lower percentage fees, how are you able to do that?

Nic Beique: I mean, personally, I just hate 2.9%. Like, I don’t know, that number came out of the paper.

Kevin Rosenquist: Pretty sure that’s what I’m going to be paying, right? It’s like this industry standard, right?

Nic Beique: It came out of PayPal, you know, 25 years ago. And somehow everybody’s just accepted it. And you see all this, you know, quote unquote innovation in payments. Yet everybody charges 2.9%. And you’re like, why is why are businesses accepting that? If you think about the restaurant space and you know, you’re opening a bar, you know, this is a kind of cutthroat margin business, right? So if you’re at like 10% margin in your space and then you’re giving 100 basis points of extra margin to your processor, well, that’s 10% of your profits, right? So it’s like we think that small businesses deserve better. So back to your question. What we decide to do is we decide the only way for us to go and be able to build this from scratch and also compete on pricing, like really being able to drive down rates, because that’s where we think our customers deserve, is we have to build the entire technology in-house. And I like to describe it like an iceberg. So you know what you see above the water are all the merchant tools. You know, we have our smart terminals, we have our point of sale systems, we have our invoicing. You have all the kind of tools that our merchants can expect from a modern processor, but we also have to build everything underneath the water and a lot of fintechs, unless you get to a certain scale, kind of shy away from that because, you know, it took us four years behind the scenes.

Nic Beique: It’s just you have to buy it off a lot and try to chew through it. And that’s the the fraud system, the settlement systems, all the kind of the acquiring systems behind the scenes. But we said if we build that all in house, we can then really compete on margin, because what happens in payments that if you if you outsource a lot of that, you know, you’re giving $0.02 here and $0.10 here and a little basis points there and a little monthly fee here, and all of a sudden you’re you, you get right back to the 2.9%. And then you haven’t really solved that core problem. And I still think that while merchants want speed and they want great customer service, and they want data and they want software, ultimately pricing is the number one decision factor behind their decision. And you have to be able to find a way to compete on it. So we just went mad essentially. And and for four years, you know, did this giant waterfall project. And we were like, we’re going to build in a car from scratch. But if we can do that, then we can go to market with some pretty aggressive rates while still maintaining enough margin for us to be able to operate our business. And that’s what we did.

Kevin Rosenquist: And then you also offer the point of sale system, which you actually even have hardware as well. So you’re not just, , you’re not just a payment processor. Talk about your, your POS offering. And, and, you know, are you able to provide the services and the, and the bells and whistles that, that the other larger players are.

Nic Beique: Yeah. So I mean, when we looked at the market, again, if you think about like, let’s just pick a dentist, right? If you go to your local dentist, you’re not going to see stripe and you’re not going to see square, despite the fact that they’re the most kind of innovative players in the space. Right. And it’s like, why is that? Well, it’s not ultimately, it’s not a, you know, a lot of processors don’t decide to invest in the hardware. And we thought, hey, this is really important for us to do. So in order for us to kind of service the more traditional businesses. Yes, we can do their online, their online and their recurring business, but you kind of start the conversation with a great in-person payments offer. So you got to do that. And then if you think about other players that do provide hardware, they’re just not bringing it at the right price. So then if your dentist, you’re thinking, okay, I’m opening a new clinic where I go, well, you look at your peers and they go, well, they’re not going with any of the PayPal’s or the Square’s of the world. They’re going with the traditional players. Well, those players are kind of still take those businesses granted in the services and great. So we said, okay, let’s go for it. So yeah, the hardware journey was quite , we didn’t realize how, you know, there’s a reason why you see a lot of new payment entrants in the space, but they kind of shy away from hardware, especially to the first years. And we’re like, oh, right. Okay.

Kevin Rosenquist: I can imagine that would have been a little tricky. Yeah.

Nic Beique: Oh, I mean that everything from the PCI pin certifications, the key management, the EMV certifications, you know, the just the manufacturing process itself. We went through a couple of different partners. , we had at some point found one that we thought was, you know, was okay for us out of Hong Kong and then, , started using them as our manufacturing partner. And then , Stripe bought them because they wanted to get into this space and kicked us out. And we said, okay, you know, back to the drawing board. And ultimately we landed on the, , on a new partner. , but it just really shows how, , cutthroat that space is and how hard it is for a new payment company to bring hardware to market. And ultimately, now we feel like we have an amazing smart terminal. We’re super happy, super happy with our manufacturing partner. But it took a number of years of just, you know, false starts and grinding this to get to the right spot. It’s tough it’s a tough space.

Kevin Rosenquist: Is that a little bit new for Helcim. The POS portion.

Nic Beique: We always deal when we when we launched four years ago, we always had a piece of hardware. When we started with was a more kind of smaller card reader. If you think about a square like kind of device. Right. And we quickly realized, wait a second, that that form factor doesn’t work for that middle of the market. It doesn’t work for those more traditional businesses. They you know, we tried for the long we tried for three years to convince them they didn’t need a printer. And it went finally when we decided to put our smart terminal together. , you know, our we work with our manufacturers that you want a printer and we’re like, yes, absolutely. We lost that battle. Merchants love their receipts. It’s not going away. , and we ultimately had to bring a form factor that merchants it has to be modern the smart terminals. Great because you kind of can deploy software on it, you know, instantly. But it’s still a form factor. They understand and that’s, you know, the payment space. I find it fascinating because it’s so vast. But the form factors are so traditional and merchants just know what they know. And you kind of have to find a way to bring innovation on top of it through the software, yet bring them a service that they are just very familiar with. If not, it’s just too much of a leap.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that’s a good point too, because like I go to, I go to get my hair cut and she has one of those little square things, you know, that you just tap on, but you can’t you can’t do that at a bar or a restaurant or a lot of other places. It just doesn’t really work.

Nic Beique: That’s exactly it. And I think that’s, you know, one bet that we’re making and we’re going to be launching in July are tap on phone offers with our partnership with Apple. And we think that, you know, we think it’s an amazing technology. We think that, you know I think the term is called soft pos. , you know, essentially be able to accept cards on your, on your phone. And we think it’s going to have a place in the market, you know, especially for businesses that are on the go. If you think about it like that, that plumbing fleet, you know, they don’t need to buy a bunch of equipment. They can just they all have cell phones in the field and they can just use that. But we don’t think it’s going to replace the traditional terminal anytime soon because the reality again, I don’t think a dentist is going to have their iPhone at the front desk to accept payments. They’re going to want a more traditional device that they understand with a built-in printer and so on. So it’s really interesting to see what’s the shift that’s happening in this space. And I think there’s going to be room for innovation. But I think the traditional form factors are going to stay for a very long time.

Kevin Rosenquist: You wrote a piece for the Future Economy called Breaking Monopolies and Supporting Fintech Innovation. It was a really fascinating read for a US based guy who’s all about Canada and stuff. And you talk about how Canada has a ton of talent and potential, but just sticks to the status quo when it comes to when it comes to banking and finance. , relying on the big players or even US financial institutions. I want to read a quick short excerpt. If Canada doesn’t create a level playing field that allows innovation to thrive from within, then not only will we not prosper internationally, but we will face external challenges that will outcompete us in our own market. Why is there resistance to domestic innovation?

Nic Beique: Canada’s a really interesting market. I mean, for us, we operate in both the US and Canada. But you know, our headquarters are in Canada, where we’re primarily a Canadian team. But we’ve always found the US market to be more open, both in terms of our banking partners and as well in terms of just kind of merchant adoption. Canadian. The Canadian market is really interesting. There’s a Toby from Shopify recently said, you know, Canadian Canadians go for bronze. It’s not always a great attitude and entrepreneurship. I think that there’s this false dichotomy in Canada that, you know, our banking sector is quite stable. And, you know, people saw that in the 2008 financial crisis, but they kind of associate that stability with the monopolies, like, oh, it’s stable because of monopoly. So let’s not disrupt the monopolies. But the reality is it’s stable because of some of the regulations that were in place in the country as opposed to to some that were missing in the US to what caused, , ultimately the financial meltdown. It’s not because of monopolies, but there’s this weird mindset that keeps, , happening.

Nic Beique: And even with us, in terms of us becoming our own, our own processor, we ultimately partner with a US bank to do that. The Canadian banks had no interest in opening that up. So there’s a very close monopolistic mindset in the country that ultimately needs to change. And what we find interesting, even as we became a fast scaling startup and we started raising capital. , the only, you know, the big condition with us raising capital was that we were successful in the US because I think a lot of venture capitalists, partners, , get worried about Canadian businesses that are only servicing, servicing the Canadian market because they know that it’s such a tough grind that ultimately the way to attract capital is that you have to be you have to prove that you can go compete, you know, elsewhere. But it’s a tough market. I think that there’s a wonderful amount of Stem talent and, and young people in Canada that really can make a difference. , but the way that the market is structured , ultimately people go look abroad for opportunity. And that’s unfortunate.

Kevin Rosenquist: Do you think that’ll change in the near future?

Nic Beique: I think that it will, but it will take time. I think that the reality is that there is I think it’s a it’s a perfect caricature of the problem with the market is I sit in my office downtown in, in Calgary, and there used to be, you know, there’s only a few telcos in the market in terms of the, the cell phone providers. And, you know, one of them is Rogers and one of them was Shaw. And I would sit in my office and I would see one building on my left that literally had a Rogers sign and one as a Shaw sign, and ultimately the government allowed them to merge. And now I literally see a building that says Rogers and another building that says Rogers Rogers. So sometimes you see a trend like that and you’re like, oh, I don’t think it’s going in the right direction. I think it will change, but it’s it’s going to take a lot of, a lot of effort from the populace to go and try to drive that mindset shift.

Kevin Rosenquist: Are you are you a flames fan?

Nic Beique: , I, you know, I grew up in Montreal, so I think the abs are ultimately, , you know, the ones in my heart, , there when I, when I moved to Calgary in my teens, there used to be a tradition, , where the, the flames and the abs would, would, would, , play against each other on New Year’s Eve. And that was always the greatest game. So that’s cool. You can see your hometown and you could be with your new town. So yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Kevin Rosenquist: That’s that’s really cool. I, I knew a guy who was a big flames fan and he was very frustrated. So I was just curious. I was wondering if you were as frustrated as him. He’s just like, oh, we keep losing all our good players and blah blah blah. So yeah.

Nic Beique: They it’s it’s they’re going through a tough grind right now.

Kevin Rosenquist: It is. They kind of always seem like that. So yeah. Anyway, that’s that’s for another podcast. , I feel like as technology advances, smaller players might have more opportunities to disrupt industries in general. You know, when I was a kid and my younger adult years, it seemed like every industry was dominated by the big guys. You know, like I remember, you know, visa, Mastercard, maybe American Express, Discover, AT&T, Sprint for home phone. I feel like we have more options now. Do you feel like technology allows for more competition for smaller players, or is that just my perception? As I got older.

Nic Beique: I think it’s I think it’s a bit of both. I think at the edge of the market, if you will. Right. You have a lot more competition because you have especially say, in the fintech space. You have a lot more banking partners that can enable fintech businesses. And you have a lot more technology providers that can enable fintech businesses. So you have you’re seeing more options. But if you go just 1 or 2 layers back, it’s still down to just, you know, you say the visas and the mastercards and, , you know, the few core banks that are kind of providing these services. So if you think of even about in terms of like, think about how how vastly integrated visa is with any it doesn’t even have to be credit card processing, whether it’s the issuing side, whether it’s mobile wallets without, you know, it’s it’s ultimately just a few key players that are in the background. , it is nice to see that they, they are opening up their network to be able to bring more option at the edge. But ultimately, I still think it’s dominated by just a few key players that are really running the whole rails behind the scenes.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. It does become kind of a bit of a perception because, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of people on here that focus on alternative payment methods and that has it’s obviously a lot bigger. I don’t not not quite sure where it is in Canada, but other countries out, you know, across the pond and stuff have a lot more alternative payment methods. I feel like do you see that continuing? Do you see more alternative payment methods popping up and does does helcim do you guys work towards trying to accept as many of those as you can?

Nic Beique: Yeah, I think that we so in Canada, we have a system that’s been around the 80s called interact. And that has been, you know, you see all the news in Brazil with pix and their kind of real time kind of P2P transfers. And the mark has actually had it for quite a long time. And their interactive transfers is a huge part of the market. Right. Yet credit cards are still a huge part of it too. And so is ACH and EFT. So I think what happens is that the adoption of digital payments is only growing. So it’s fortunate to be in an industry that ultimately is kind of moving up and to the right. So I think it’s less of a everything shifting to one set of rails or another. I think that the market is adapting to what makes the most sense for this type of transaction, this type of business, this type of speed. You know, real time payments are fascinating. And what we’re working behind the scenes right now is to try to leverage that so we can kind of pay out our customers much faster versus the traditional T plus one T plus two kind of model. But ultimately, sometimes slowing down payments actually has its place. You know, there’s you’re seeing the rise of fraud in what real time you know, real time is is really exciting until you realize somebody can kind of drain your bank account in real time. So I think that I don’t see the market swing for just that’s exactly it. I don’t see the market swinging to just one payment method. I think ultimately it’s just going to be a yes and conversation of just, you know, all of them kind of growing towards what makes the most sense for that purpose.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that seems to be the biggest thing with those instant instant ones is the is the security is the, the fraud and the security is that I mean, I feel like people are bullish on the fact that they can get there with the fraud and the security instantaneously. Do you see that happening soon?

Nic Beique: I think that if you look at it, there’s a lot of those instant payment methods. They are really their push systems. They’re not pull systems. Right. So it’s you know, almost all of them throughout the world are really they have to be initially, you know, initialized, but by the, by the payer. And that has its place. But if you think about how, if you, you know, take a look at your bank statement and your credit card statement, how much of it is push and how much of it is pull, right? How much of it is like kind of recurring prescriptions and so on. Right. And I think that until you see innovation in the poll, I think that you’re still going to see the dominance of credit cards. And ACH, because they are admittedly, they are poll systems and they do they do that fairly well. And I think that being able to do poll instantly without authorization, that gets a little scary, because all of a sudden you kind of as a conser, as a as a payer, you kind of lose that control. So I think there’s still a lot of obstacles for people to kind of overcome and think through before that becomes the dominant.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that’s a good point. The poll pole versus the push. You’re right. Yeah I mean look at my statement. It’s almost all auto auto pay stuff. Yeah. So I want to talk about leadership a little bit because you’re a mentor for the, , founder Institute of Western Canada, or you were. Are you still doing that?

Nic Beique: Yeah, yeah, on and off. On and off.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, yeah, when you can. I mean, when you can.

Nic Beique: As a starter. You as a, as a startup founder, you kind of, you try to carve out a bit of time for, for the ecosystem as well.

Kevin Rosenquist: Well you’ve also got something else going on now that’s going to take up some of your time here and there. Exactly.

Nic Beique: You know, a newborn and that’s , that’s something else to build, just like a business. Right. So I got two kids now.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. I wonder which one’s gonna end up being easier for you. , so when you sit down with a new founder and look for advice, what’s the first thing you ask them or say to them?

Nic Beique: I think the biggest advice I wish I had earlier was about, I know it sounds cliche, but it’s around networking. So, you know, I built a lot, a lot of the beginning of this business. Kind of like in a cave, right? I have a technical background. I coded a lot of the original parts of the business, and I think that there was this weird, there’s this weird sense, you know, the business is not big enough. I can’t go network. I can’t talk to anybody yet. I have to kind of get it to a certain place. It’s, you know, I like to compare it to if you think about, you know, you grow up in magazines that kind of age me. But, you know, you know, there’s kind of beautiful celebrities and you’re in good company here.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah.

Nic Beique: Yeah. You know, there’s there’s beautiful celebrities in these magazines and, you know, they can create this unhealthy expectation of what you need to look like, lifestyle and so on. And I actually think that the tech space is actually guilty of that. If you think about like, you know, tech crunch and so on, all you see is these, you know, the 1% of the market, you know, raising fantastic rounds and having all this growth. And then as your startup founder yourself, you’re going, well, I’m not that’s not me yet. I must be doing something wrong. And, you know, I think that creates this kind of unhealthy expectation of what your startup needs to be day one and what it can do to people is it can make them not want to network, not want to kind of put themselves out there because they don’t feel like their business is at the stage yet of where kind of it warrants, you know, it’s not good enough yet. Right? And I think that was my mindset. And I ultimately I think that when I finally started networking and meeting people, I’m like, oh my God, there’s all these amazing entrepreneurs and, and and mentors and partners out there that I could have, like shortcutted a lot of hard lessons and learned so much from them. And I should have done that earlier. And I think that’s the nber one advice I give to kind of young founders is get yourself out there, you know, network, meet people. Don’t be afraid that your business is not to the size that it is yet. Just meet people and it’s going to shortcut a lot of lessons on the way.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, I think we obviously have a lack of patience a lot of times, , these days too. , so, you know, you’re right. You see all this stuff of all this funding and round this and round that and and all these millions of dollars going to these places, and and you’re like, man, why not me?

Nic Beique: That’s exactly it. I mean, for us, you know, we we launched this version of Helcim four years ago, and we’ve since raised, you know, almost $50 million in venture and have had a ton of growth. But and I tell people, yeah, but there’s a ten years that’s another business behind that. That took another ten years of kind of false starts and kind of making our way through the dark to try to figure out how you even kind of make a dent in this industry. So I think it’s easy to see the, the success story, but not understand how much of a grind went behind it. And and it’s okay. It’s okay to have a false start. It’s okay to try and fail and then try again. That’s the only way for you to help me find the success. I mean, you look at the news right now with like Nvidia just, you know, being absolutely on fire. Well, indeed. Indeed, Nvidia has been at it for a very long, long time.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah.

Nic Beique: But you know, sometimes it’s you know, overnight success takes ten years in the making. I know that’s a cliche, but it’s absolutely true. In every space.

Kevin Rosenquist: You said you’re you’re you have the tech background. How important is that when trying to found a fintech solution. Do you think you need to have that tech knowledge? Can you just hire the right people or do you need to be able to do it on your own?

Nic Beique: I am a firm believer that if you’re doing a if you’re if you’re starting a technology company, either yourself or your co-founder have to be technical. I think I would compare it to, like if you’re to start an auto mechanic shop, you better know how to work a wrench. If not, you’re always going to be. It’s not like you can’t do it. Sure, you can hire some great mechanics, but ultimately you won’t be able to really understand, you know what efficiency is, what performance is, what makes sense, who to hire, what to look for. Unless you or your co-founder have that technical ability. I think you’re always going to be at a disadvantage.

Kevin Rosenquist: Did you have a mentor when you were getting started?

Nic Beique: I don’t, you know, I think I’m lucky now that I have I’m surrounded by some great mentors. I think when I was younger, it’s something that I crave, but I never kind of found it early. So I think I defaulted to books. I think that you, you know, autobiographies and kind of reading about, you know, others journeys, at least finding some camaraderie through that made you feel a little less alone and especially, you know, Calgary, , for those of you that aren’t familiar, is, you know, it’s kind of like the Denver of Canada, right? 1.5 million people. So it’s kind of up and rising city. But it wasn’t a big city with big. Exactly. And it’s close to it really. Where are you?

Kevin Rosenquist: I’m just outside of Denver.

Nic Beique: Exactly. Right. And it’s one of those things where it’s like Calgary has n’t have this huge tech ecosystem. And so when you were starting a tech business, you know, a decade ago, people kind of looked at you funny and you really didn’t feel like you had that many peers. Right? , but even, you know, reading books and, and, and learning about other founders and other places felt like, okay, my journey isn’t that unique. You know, the ups and downs and the craziness, you know, is is shared amongst others.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. No doubt, no doubt. I talked to enough entrepreneurs. Yeah. And they. Yeah it’s it’s it’s common. There’s a commonality there. No doubt. I’ve known people who are natural born leaders. I’ve also known people who are not natural born leaders. Do you think that the natural ability to lead is necessary to be a founder, to be an entrepreneur, or can it be learned?

Nic Beique: I think that management skills can be learned how to effectively deal with conflicts and not avoid conflict, and hold people accountable and do performance management and look for great leaders. And I think that can be learned. I generally think so. I think that leading in a sense of inspiring people take the lead with you, whether that’s partners or your first clients or the first people you kind of get them to, to take the leap of faith in joining your startup. I think that some people are more natural storytellers than others. I still think it can be learned. I think it’s more about you. So if somebody is not as much of a natural storyteller, then how passionate are they about what they’re building? Because sometimes you can not be a great storyteller. But if you’re so passionate somehow that storytelling will kind of.

Kevin Rosenquist: You kind of come out naturally.

Nic Beique: Yeah, it comes out naturally that, you know, and I think, you know, it’s funny in terms of when we have, you know, we like to take a bottom up approach to our team. So we hire kind of more younger professionals and we try to, you know, accelerate their career. And sometimes that involves, you know, somebody that has never led people to be like, hey, you’re going to be a manager for the first time. And one of the advice I give them is, you know, I don’t know if, you know, I asked them, have you ever kind of babysat for the first time, or have you taken care of a little cousin for those first time? And all of a sudden you went from being the kid to the one that was responsible for, you know, younger ones. And typically there’s something naturally, hopefully in most people there’s something that’s kind of very natural that kicks in to you all of a sudden, you see this, this ten year old, that would be a little kind of menace on their own. But and you say, hey, take care of your five year old cousin for the afternoon. And all of a sudden they they kind of something, something clicks in them and you can see that natural kind of big brother, kind of big cousin kind of kick in. And I’m like, there’s, you know, becoming a leader for the first time. There’s something similar to that where all of a sudden you realize like, oh, wait a second, I’m not the individual contributor anymore. I’m not the one that only asks, hey, how can you help my career? I have to look down and say, how can I help your career? And for most people, that actually does kick in and needs a little bit of a nudge. It needs some tools and some training and some help. But there’s something inside of all of us that when we become caretakers and that’s ultimately, in a way, what management is, there’s a lot of natural part. Exactly. And there’s a natural part in hans that just kicks in and it’s pretty cool to see.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that’s a great analogy for the having to take care of a kid for the first time or take care of, you know, be in charge for the first time.

Nic Beique: That’s exactly it.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, yeah. Well, Nick, thanks for being here. I really appreciate the conversation. And, . Yeah. Wholesome. Wholesome. Seems like a great, great option. And, , so it’s wholesome. Com h e l c I’m correct.

Nic Beique: House com.

Kevin Rosenquist: Awesome. Well, thanks for being here, man.

Nic Beique: Thanks for having me, Kevin