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Join Mike Shoss, a visionary leader and President of ShossX, as he navigates the dynamic world of holding companies in "HoldCo Strategy Sessions". Each week, Mike delves into the heart of business strategy, sharing invaluable insights from his current ventures: Epilogue, Milton Innovation, and LiteWorker.
In "HoldCo Strategy Sessions", you'll get a front-row seat to weekly updates from these thriving enterprises, gaining a firsthand understanding of the challenges and triumphs of running diverse operations. Mike's reflections offer a rare glimpse into the strategic thinking that drives success in various industries.
Beyond the walls of ShossX, Mike brings you the latest industry trends, analyzing how they impact businesses at a macro and micro level. From emerging technologies to market shifts, "HoldCo Strategy Sessions" keeps you informed and ahead of the curve.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned executive, or just curious about the inner workings of holding companies, "HoldCo Strategy Sessions" offers a unique blend of practical wisdom, strategic insights, and personal anecdotes from one of the industry's leading figures.
Mike Shoss (00:00.642)
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of HoldCo Strategy Sessions. I'm your host Mike Schaas and today we'll be running through the last week of what's been going on within my holding company. So if you don't know, I'm Mike Schaas, founder and president of SchaasX, which has three companies below it. One is Epilogue, which is a consulting product company.
Mike Shoss (00:30.062)
And the third is LiteWorker which is a AI aggregation platform and research company. This is the second episode of this and we are going to title this one, How Much I Love Halton or Just Love Halton or I Love Halton. One of the three. We'll see when it goes live. Based on some feedback that I got last time, I'm going to run through just my day by day. And of course, these will be coming out every single Friday.
to recap my week and at the end of this, I hope that you will subscribe, but also have the motivation and dedication to do something for yourself, even if it is just documenting your processes like I'm doing. I hope that I affect at least one founder to go and start their business or go take that risk, but at the end of the day, I am recording this for myself and possibly be my great, great grandkids if I ever have any. So...
Today is currently Friday the 19th of January, and let's just run through the week. So first of all, the last episode was actually recorded on Monday. So since the recording has happened, that was first thing in the morning, we have had a quick conversation with a coworking software company to see if their services are able to do what we want. Again, one of the offerings that we are going to be looking at through Milton Innovation,
is possibly the addition of a co-working space. This would be a different company. This would not be run through Milton Innovation due to the completely different business model, but they would be sister companies in the fact that you would have two likelihood of meeting spaces and community go very, very well together. So that was in the morning of Monday, followed up by a catch up with my co-founder of LiteWorker.
I do have a co-founder in this organization and we were going through and just speaking about getting the version 0.7 product up and running. Right now we are currently in a beta phase, LiteWorker.ai, and we are currently sitting at 300 tools, well 275 because 300 comes later on in the week. So we just went through and had a little catch up for what happened over the weekend.
Mike Shoss (02:48.678)
had some good kind of conversations and made sure that we were on track to do a launch. Fingers crossed we'll be this weekend so next time I do one of these recordings that website will be live. Later on in the day just doing some work across the organizations making sure that everything is bundled up and getting a lot ready for the Milton Innovation meetup that is coming. Later on in that day so the last second last thing of Monday was just
coordinating with one of my ecosystem partners, Haltech, to just have a communication about how we can best support each other. They've been a very great partner for us, and we just want to establish and build that relationship long-term. And then at the end of the day, from three o'clock onwards, I just did financial projections for all companies, including personal, to make sure that we are on track for the first quarter, but also set up properly for the rest of the year.
Tuesday was a very busy day overall. I actually vlogged it and so I will put that in the description overall I think this is something that I'm going to do again. Just capturing a different medium as it's going I spent the morning talking. Yeah, sorry. There was a massive snowstorm Tuesday morning So I spent the morning, you know getting out of the driveway and doing all these fun things But going to an angel investment meeting as part of angel one who is an ecosystem partner as part of Milton innovation
We spent the day kind of going through and doing angel investing. If you're watching the video podcast version of this, you will see that I pulled out my notebook. Um, so we listened to four companies pitch overall. Uh, I can't go into specific details about this for companies, but maybe they'll end up on the uncharted business paths podcast. I will link to that as well. There are a couple of episodes that are being filmed and recorded as we speak. And there are a few that are in the pipeline and being done, just not posted.
So good kind of pieces overall there was a drone company like a commercial drone company Not like a DJI drone, but like a commercial drone there was a company that did diabetes, but for What's in bananas? Potassium there we go, which I found out if you actually have too much potassium in your system. It can actually kill you So it's actually very
Mike Shoss (05:04.034)
something that you should be testing for. Your body can generally regulate it, but good to know. The next one was a home management platform end to end. So from, you know, buying your first house, to having lawyers, to having real estate agents, contractors, stuff like that. And then the last one was a company looking for a bridge round. So we had previously invested in them before as part of Angel One, and they were just coming in to look to about doing a bridge round. They were cutting some...
cutting some staff, cutting some finances in order to extend their runway. They're looking to raise a certain amount of money for 12 to 18 months worth of runway, focusing on getting their current product out into market. So that was that overall. So that was my morning. Going later in the day, later in Halton. So that was at Angel One, which is at TechPlace. Again, vlog is down below. Or in the show notes for those who are not watching this video, who are just listening.
I went to the Halton Small Business Pitch Competition. So very much just a small businesses, brick and mortar services, not tech related. Halton Small Business is a partner of ours in Milton Innovation. So I just wanted to go out there and show my love for not only the team that put on this great event, but also show my face in the community, go get out there and connect. So good event overall. Five companies won $5,000.
and then every other company won $500, which was a last minute kind of surprise because they did a little bit extra fundraising overall. So that was super exciting to see. Some good networking opportunities came out of that and some good connections. It's always good to go to these events not only to show your face but also to try and find the people who you've been talking to via email and put a face to a name. After that I went back to TechPlace where we hosted the Angel1 meeting to...
finalize some details for a sponsorship for the Uncharted Business Paths podcast. Finalize that, so that will be coming out later this year. Trying to figure out a few of those details. While I was there, one serendipitous moment happened. I talked to the women who run this OCI, so the Ontario Centre for Innovation, and they actually came on board for Milton Innovation to be a ecosystem partner. So there's gonna be a lot of ways that we can help businesses, entrepreneurs who are in Milton.
Mike Shoss (07:25.666)
to be able to go and get access to funding or grants or anything like that. So we're building out that process together. And that was just a good ecosystem. I happened to be there while that person was there and really, really struck up our conversation and made sure that they were aware of what we were doing overall and what they were doing. So super cool partnership. One of those serendipitous moments, super, super intriguing. That was basically all day Tuesday. It was very fun day overall. Got to network with a whole bunch of people. Got to spend a lot of time in my area. So Halton is...
Beautiful and that was all taking place in Burlington and Oakville and stuff like that. So very exciting Wednesday went and did some consulting work. So I spent the whole day heads down Also, if you do know me you also know that I am looking for a possible full-time job as well So spend some time in the job market. See what was out there. See what's going on. I'm jumping into the Or jumping into a role that is right for me. Not just any role, but just the right role for me
So going through, I have some consulting clients that I'm doing work for, and then just spent Wednesday just heads down doing that and poking around the job market. Thursday, again, the morning was meeting with a consulting client to just talk about our contract, talk about what's next steps. They're in the middle of launching the version one of their product, so just making sure that we're aligned about their needs. Very exciting conversation overall. The company is doing very, very well.
And I think there's a rocket ship that's about to happen. So we were just aligning to make sure that we were on the same page for the expectations. And that was good. Spent the rest of the afternoon, or spent the afternoon going through and, spent the afternoon going through and just doing, again, more consulting work, just try to make sure that all of that was figured out. And then doing some prospecting, trying to reach out, trying to figure out if there's new clientele that we can work with.
Epilogue is currently looking for one new, or two new clients. So if you are a client who needs business consulting needs, needs product management, either theoretical or hands-on work, feel free to reach out. I am your man. And myself and my team will be able to suit your needs. Quick sync also with my co-founder of LiteWorker again. We try to touch base two times a week, just to make sure that things are on the right track. We talked a little bit about things that were going on still on track, just good to catch up overall.
Mike Shoss (09:46.726)
And then later that day, actually going to talk about the Milton Innovation Center that was shut down and turned to 555 in Milton, 555 Industrial Drive, I believe, which is now owned by Laurier. So I just wanted to go talk to the town and get some learnings from there. Obviously, one of the things that I or Shousex is looking at is a co-working space. And I want to get all of the learnings for why that space is no longer exists, what the market was, what the clientele was.
if there was a need or demand or anything like that. So just trying to go through and get all that information, which was good, kind of a good system and meeting overall, wonderful. So this morning, so now we're onto Friday. So we've touched on a whole bunch of things that have happened across multiple different organizations. I'm just gonna go through here and make sure that I don't have any other notes that I've missed out on. Okay, cool.
This morning I've spent time talking to a company that I was potentially going to go have conversation with. Very exciting overall. It's in the health tech space. Very early on startup, they've gone through and are building out a team. So I was trying to figure out how I could contribute. Very exciting overall, honestly, to see if I could come and slot myself into there either as a full-time worker or as a contractor.
And then literally this whole afternoon was just setting up all of the marketing for the Milton Innovation meetup that is happening on January 31st. Seven o'clock Ned Devines. If you're in the area, please feel free to come show up. Link to the tickets will be down below. So spent the whole afternoon crafting Facebook messages, LinkedIn messages, a few private Slack groups that I'm a part of just sending the information out, making sure that everyone's aware there is an email newsletter that's going out tonight with all the proper information, stuff like that.
lot of good learnings are coming from this, trying to see where the community engagement is, where they are, where they aren't, when people are most active, what they most engage with. So kind of get a lot of that information kind of leaning into those learnings across the path, sorry, along the journey here. So yeah, that was really my whole week. Some good learnings is there's a lot of good resources that are out there and looking to just incorporate that more into not only...
Mike Shoss (12:01.426)
you know, LiteWorker and Milton Innovation and Epilogue, but more into kind of my holistic point of view on how to be a mentor as well. I did join a private Slack group. I did pay for a membership. It is the TechTO membership, their insider program. Very, very excited to be a part of that. When I went through and kind of figured, thought about what I want Milton Innovation to be, TechTO was one of those top.
industry leaders that I was really thinking about how did they get successful? How do I replicate that and learn about that? So Jason at TechTO has been very nice to walk me through some of the stuff and kind of invite me into this group and now I'm a part of the ecosystem. I was pre-COVID as well so I joined back in. A big fan of them for the Toronto area overall so very excited to be part of that and kind of get some learnings and see if there's a you know good cross collaboration
the downtown Toronto region with TechTO and Milton Innovation. So super, super exciting across the board. One of the things that was not talked about in here, which I believe was on Thursday, was LiteWorker got up to 300 tools that were added in. So if you're looking for an AI tool, head over to lightworker.ai. We have over 300 tools across our whole platform, which is just the tip of the iceberg. There's thousands that are launched every single day.
to be able to give reviews and feedback about whether you should sign up for any of these tools and spend your hard-earned money or Maybe just jump on a free tool. So we're up to 300 tools now. We're hoping to get to 750 by the end of the quarter So we're on track for that. We'll be launching our new website super exciting overall very happy about the progress. I Think that's it for stuff that has gone on over the next over this week Next week, we got a couple
interesting very interesting meetings which I'm not going to talk about just yet. I will say that one of them is a co-working space that we're looking to do a partnership with. I won't jump too much into that but there we go a quick little 15 minute update for the holdco overall. Very exciting one of the things that I will be talking about next week on the 26th is just our partnership of who we are launching Milton Innovation with. We have signed a long-term
Mike Shoss (14:23.958)
maybe not long term, but we have signed a contract with a sponsor who will be bringing kind of talent and information and venue out to Milton Innovation to help push and grow that ecosystem. So very excited to announce that, but that won't happen yet. My final call out is Milton Innovation is looking for anyone or any business that is looking for a partnership in innovation. So whether we, right now we're looking for connections at Mars.
and Ryerson DMZ, which is now just DMZ, Communitech overall. We really wanna be the catalyst that fuels the whole ecosystem. We want to be able to be that bridge between Toronto and the Kitchener Waterloo area. Halton is positioned right in between. We wanna be able to be seen as that leaders here at Milton Innovation. So striking those partnerships up with all these different places is really what's on the list for the rest of, really the month, the rest of the quarter.
is we want to be able to facilitate, provide the most value to our users, to be able to, again, live up to what TechTO is in Toronto. We want to be able to replicate that and partnerships is the best way. So if you work at any innovation company, whether it's an incubator, a startup, an angel company, a venture capital company, anything like that, please feel free to reach out. Milton Innovation would love to actually work with you, figure out how we can support each other and go from there. So if you enjoyed this.
I appreciate it. Again, I hope this has fueled one person to be able to do one thing one day. That's the dream, to be able to make a little bit of an impact. I would love if lots of people did lots of things every day, but I'll take the little wins. If you found this inspiring at all, I would love if you could subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts or this video podcast as well. Very much would love some subscriptions for that.
So with that, we are going to wrap up this Friday afternoon. I appreciate every single one of you, and I will see you next week. Have a great weekend.