NEXT Canada - GRIT Ed. 8 | The Relentless Pursuit - Magazine - Page 13
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“I thought we would get there, and I still think we’ll get there. We
haven’t yet, and it hasn’t been easy.”
It won’t be easy going forward, but the journey is the fun part.
Accomplishing something of this magnitude takes a village, and
Flashfood is building a powerful one as they continue to scale across
North America.
BUILDING A MORE AMBITIOUS
AND COMPETITIVE CANADA
According to the National Zero Waste Council’s research on
household food waste in Canada, almost 2.2 million tonnes of edible
food is wasted each year, costing Canadians over $17 billion.
Since its launch, Flashfood’s competition has grown in the U.S. and
Canada, which in turn has helped familiarize more consumers and
businesses with the practice of food redistribution.
“We’re currently focused on scaling across the U.S., expanding our
existing partnerships into more locations and adding new partners
to make Flashfood available from coast to coast,” Josh says. “As we
do that, we’re exploring opportunities to further our impact across
the supply chain and will have some exciting news around that in the
coming months. We know that retail food waste is a global issue and
the category potential is as staggering as the size of the problem.
Solutions are urgently needed, and ultimately, we’re building a
company to solve the retail food waste problem at a global scale.”
Most entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs know fear holds
them back. When Josh started his entrepreneurial journey, he put
everything he could into building Flashfood. At the end of the day,
if they couldn’t find grocer partners, couldn’t fundraise at the right
time, had trouble finding users, or ended up failing, he was going to
be okay, as long as he tried everything he could.
“IF YOU’RE EVER IN A FIGHT AND YOU’RE NOT
AFRAID TO TAKE A PUNCH, THEN YOU NAVIGATE
THE FIGHT A LOT DIFFERENTLY THAN IF YOU
WERE LEANING ON YOUR BACK FOOT.”
When we think of what it means to be an entrepreneur, the initial
thought is someone willing to risk a loss to make money. It carries
an additional connotation of far-sightedness and innovation. The
answer, perhaps unsatisfyingly, is that it can go in either direction.
Josh considers himself naive enough to forge ahead when the
path was highly improbable, which is likely the same for most
entrepreneurs. The founders who successfully elevate their business
SAVE MONEY
AND FIGHT
AGAINST
FOOD
WASTE.
850+ entrepreneurs launched. 250+ ventures scaled.
And counting.
> SEE OUR ALUMNI
to a level that others like to write/talk about are
those whose end goal is not limited to achieving
financial success.
“All that you can do is all that you can do.”
Josh expressed that it’s essential never to get too
optimistic or hopeless about your endeavours.
You’re never as smart as you think you are, and
you’re never as dumb as you think you are.
Remaining even-keeled in times of pressure is a
superpower.
When put in a position to make a difficult decision,
most people often wait until they have more
information to make the right decision more
evident to them. When building a startup with
finite resources and time, you don’t have the luxury
of waiting for more information. The founders
Josh finds inspirational are the ones who have a
knack for making significant decisions with the
information they have, acting decisively and willing
to change course when they have new information.
Josh believes that is the way to move quickly and
remain focused.
Josh’s Definition:
Entrepreneurship
[än-trə-p(r)ə-nər-ship]
noun
:The best worst career path you
can take lol
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MARCH 2022 | NEXTCANADA.COM
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GRIT | THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT
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