Sometimes laziness is the mother of ingenuity—I was just too shy to cold call.
In this episode of Pathways in Life Science, we sit down with Guillaume, founder of Biotech Connect. Guillaume explains how his hatred for cold calling led him to start hosting coffee-and-donut socials at the University of Montreal, which eventually snowballed into Canada’s premier turnkey event service for life science manufacturers.
His story is a masterclass in resilience. We discuss the $10,000 "leap of faith," the reality of being acquired by a larger media company only to be fired two years later, and how he bought his own company back to rebuild it from the ashes. We also dive into the "Phoenix" moment post-pandemic, where the industry’s hunger for in-person connection led to 100% occupancy for his shows.
00:00:00 - Introduction: Solving the "distribution gap" for manufacturers
00:01:15 - The First Job: Antibody production and the struggle of "shy" sales
00:02:45 - The Coffee & Donut Strategy: Avoiding cold calls by gathering customers
00:03:51 - Genesis of Biotech Connect: Partnering with Simon to build a business
00:05:40 - The Leap of Faith: Starting with $10,000 and zero security
00:07:05 - Growing Pains: The early days of five-company events
00:08:14 - The Acquisition: Selling Biotech Connect to LabX
00:10:42 - The Plot Twist: Being fired from his own company and buying it back
00:12:44 - Pandemic Panic: Canceling the 2020 schedule and launching a podcast
00:14:00 - Back to the Bench: Working as a research assistant to survive COVID-19
00:16:03 - The Phoenix Moment: The massive boom in post-pandemic registrations
00:17:33 - The New Normal: Why working from home has made trade shows more valuable
00:19:32 - The 8-Year Milestone: When he finally felt "confident" as a full-time CEO
00:22:50 - Ego vs. Success: Being trained by a Master's student after a PhD
