On this week’s show, I had the immense pleasure of talking with a long time colleague, François Arbour @ Arbour Investments.
François is a true entrepreneur. He founded his first company at the age of 19, before going to work in marketing for Bell, as well as several major agencies, including Cossette and Sid Lee, on major accounts such as Adidas, Cirque du Soleil, GM, Molson, SAQ And Sony. He then founded Premiumbeat in 2005. PremiumBeat is a production music library for television, movies and other media. In a few years, PremiumBeat has become the world leader in its market and counts among its customers: Facebook, Apple, Google, Tesla, GE, Microsoft, BMW and even Barack Obama. In 2015, François sold Premiumbeat to Shutterstock and served as vice president products until 2017. Today, François is an active investor and mentor in the startup community.
We spoke about a wide range of topics:
- How and why he’s invested in 17 startups so far and what he’s planning next
- Why he doesn’t like SAAS investments
- The joys of angel investing (as well as some of the heachaches)
- The myths around customer acquisition (as well as its importance). Interesting conversation around the difficulty of customer acquisition today.
- When he realized that PremiumBeat had become more than a hobby
- The supply and demand model of PremiumBeat.
- How bootstrapping was instrumental to building a sustainable business
- How he chooses his investments and entrepreneurs
- The death of Flash!
Francois was generous with his time and wonderful insights. I learned a ton about not only investing but also what it takes to have a successful exit. I hope that you learn as well.
Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at nectar@thepnr.com