The local tech community gathered Tuesday morning at Catalyst Commons in Kitchener for the latest Communitech Breakfast, held in celebration of International Women’s Month.

The event featured Stephany Lapierre, CEO of TealBook, who shared her inspiring and often challenging journey.

“I’m definitely a born entrepreneur,” she said. 

Lapierre comes from a long line of business owners. Her grandfather started a Pepsi franchise in Quebec and delivered bottles door-to-door. After he passed away, her grandmother took over the business while raising three children and staying active in the community. 

“My dad took over the business and my mom has been an entrepreneur,” said Lapierre. “All my friends from high school, weirdly, are all entrepreneurs.”

Looking to earn her own living and take control of her career, Lapierre started her first company at 18. Later, inspired by working in the pharmaceutical industry, she noticed that suppliers often pitched “innovative” ideas, but most of them didn’t live up to the hype.

“I would say 98 per cent of the time, they were not that innovative,” she said.

She also saw firsthand that many companies didn’t have reliable data on their suppliers. That insight led her to launch Matchbook in 2006, a matchmaking service for companies looking to connect with suppliers.

“I started seeing these companies had no way of purchasing what was really efficient, so I pivoted to building procurement functions for these scaling companies, and that gave me a lens into information about suppliers,” she said. “It became so apparent how big this opportunity was.”

That opportunity eventually led her to launch and lead supply chain software startup TealBook Inc., which helps companies get better, more accurate information about the suppliers from which they buy products and services. Its platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to collect data from different sources and keep details about suppliers up-to-date.

Because of this, big companies have started using TealBook to track and report on their goals around things like sustainability and social responsibility, especially when it comes to how they choose and work with suppliers.

However, Lapierre said funding the company was a challenge from day one. 

“My first investment, my husband gave me $50 thousand from his business to get started,” she said. 

Later, a fellow mom she met at her daughter’s soccer game offered to invest $1 million after hearing about what she was building.

“She was a true angel. She’s one of my best friends now,” Lapierre said. “She made lots of money, so she’s very happy.”

But raising money from institutional investors wasn’t as easy.

“I had no idea how to raise capital,” she said.

Lapierre said she reached out to hundreds of people on LinkedIn and ended up meeting with about 200 investors. Most of them told her she was too early, too late, or didn’t have enough data.

“One investor was a tough guy,” she said. “He looked at me and said, who are you? You’re a woman, no offence, you’re French Canadian, you have this funny accent, you have three kids, you didn’t go to Stanford and you’re building a company?”

She said the investor went on to tell her that no one would give her money because she was “foreign” and “high-risk,” and asked her, “What happens if one of your kids gets sick? How are you going to give me confidence that if I give you five million, you’re going to give me 10 times that?”

“He actually put a mirror to my face on how investors were perceiving me,” said Lapierre. “I was asking for money because my company needed to grow. Investors don’t care about that. They want to give you money because the opportunity is so amazing.”

That conversation changed everything for Lapierre.

“The gift was that I needed to find what worked for me, and that was in confidence and changing the narrative,” she said. “It’s less about gender, and more about the risk profile.”

TealBook eventually completed six funding rounds and has secured a total of about $73 million to date, which included a Series B round on Dec. 14, 2021 that raised $50 million. Lapierre has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Women in Supply Chain.

Even with all the success, Lapierre said the journey has been stressful, and that’s why she’s made wellness a priority.

“Mental health is really important for founders,” she said. “I workout every day. You’ve got to find time for yourself. You have to train yourself to be healthy.”

She also makes it a point to take two weeks off with her family every summer when she tries to disconnect.

“Not eating well, not sleeping, not exercising and going 180 at all times is not a good recipe,” she said.

When asked about a moment that helped her shift her mindset, she reflected on something she used to say.

“In university when people would say ‘How are you?’ I would say ‘I’m tired,’ and at some point, I was like why do I say I’m tired? I promised myself I never want to say I’m tired again,” she said. “If you’re having a bad day, sometimes you have the power to change how you feel and how you act. That, to me, is one of the tools I use the most along this entire journey to stay sane.”

The event began with opening remarks from Allison Mitchell, Program Manager of Communitech Fierce Founders, which supports women and non-binary tech leaders from equity-deserving groups through its Bootcamp, Intensive Track and Uplift programs, which offer mentorship, funding opportunities and community.

Cathy Tracey, AVP at Sage, also took the stage to deliver the Tech5, five minutes of insights from a tech leader. Tracey spoke about the importance of speed and clarity in decision-making, especially in fast-moving markets.

“So if you’re a SaaS company, a startup, or already on your journey, the ability for you to make informed decisions today quickly will determine your ability to grow and scale and be resilient as the market changes and that is so, so key,” said Tracey.

“If we’ve learned anything over the last number of years it’s the ability to pivot with clarity and speed.”