Without realizing it, we celebrated our 11th anniversary this year. Slowly, without making a big deal out of it. We still want to take advantage of the end of the year and this post to highlight the best moments and the lessons we learned.
We often talk about corporate culture and there are many things that have helped strengthen ours over the past 12 months:
Highlighting the arrival of 2 new babies .
We’re not beating last year’s record of 5, but with 15 children in total, we can say that we’re lucky to rub shoulders with quite a few #superdads on a daily basis.
Continue to embody a very strong sports culture . We highlight the feat of Olivier and Sébastien who completed 150 kilometers almost independently in Gaspésie during the international raid of Gaspésie. We also participated in different races in addition to having the chance to albania telephone number data support Sam during his first triathlon. Bravo!
A whole year of living without Georges on a daily basis, who divides his time between Switzerland and Quebec. We’ll tell you what’s happening in Switzerland a little further down in the post.
The hiring of top recruits : Érick, Emanuelle, Rose-Marie and Luc.
The incredible work of Olivier, who took over the management of the Quebec office and is now in charge of client development.
Elisabeth’s accession to the position of partner at Spektrum.
A teeming ecosystem
2019 was a little quieter in terms of 5 business findings after two months in switzerland events and we’re fine with that. We went off the web a bit to meet in person and it was very refreshing. We continued with our classics: the entertaining SPK meetings thanks to some great collaborations and our famous caffeinated mornings in the company of inspiring startups, 2 laits 1 sucre. For the blog, we continued to feed it with our thoughts, inspirations and learnings. Thanks to those who contributed to it.
Here are the top 5 most read posts in 2019:
5 business findings after two months in Switzerland
Nicolas, beware of clichés and unique entrepreneurial models
Let’s Demystify Open Source
Work routine: boring or necessary?
Corporate Values: More Than Just Words on a Wall
Last year at this time, we announced the creation of the SPK NPO and this year, we officially introduce our CEO, Luc Tremblay-Forest. Co-owner of GoSoumissions, a startup that is part of Apollo13, he will oversee the evolution of the ecosystem and the development of new partnerships.
Hello Switzerland
Georges spent most of his year in Switzerland to ensure the development of Spektrum’s network internationally. In addition to the fabulous people he met, here are some highlights of his year:
Our first client from Switzerland, a web development project with delivery scheduled for March 2020.
A huge Spektrum + Switzerland business to consumer reviews delegation at web2day, a conference in Nantes, France.
A first Swiss company to enter our Apollo13 startup support program, E-Bikes Swiss Alps. Shoutout to Maxence and Adria!
Establishment of an internship collaboration between Swiss students and A13 startups in Quebec.
Beyond Switzerland, since September 2019, development has extended to Lyon, Paris, Nantes and Chamonix.
As mentioned in the observation , the Spektrum discourse is much more aligned with European values.
The realization that in fact, it was Georges who was the problem, since the Quebec office had a better year than ever 😉
Aiming beyond the moon with Apollo 13
This year at Apollo13, things have been moving quite a bit! It seems that we are growing and maturing. We started by specifying the mission of our support program. Finally, we can say that the program is divided into three main phases: challenge, support and stimulate growth .
Precisely, we have new entrepreneurs who have joined the program and moved on to the second phase. Among them: Guillaume and Hughes from DeLeaves , Vincent and Thomas-Louis from Livsta , Antoine from Atypic , Adria and Maxence from E-Bikes Swiss Alps , Matthieu from Fourwaves , and most recently Valérie and Guillaume from Nordic Rescue .
The year in review is also an opportunity to highlight the successes of our startups, and there were a lot of them this year!
Luc and Jacob from GoSoumissions :
Now in Ontario with GoQuotes.ca and have hired 4 new people to their team
JM and Marc de Lexya : Reorientation and choices which are rewarded by the good news which has been arriving one after the other for several weeks
Guillaume and Hugues de DeLeaves : Big year of travel. Several research institutions located throughout America are interested in what they do. Their greatest success of the year is obtaining a grant from National Geographic.
Matthieu de Fourwaves : The number of events organized using its platform has increased
The guys from E-Bikes Swiss Alps , Adria and Maxence: A very successful first season which is already generating enthusiasm among outdoor enthusiasts from here and elsewhere
We told you, 2019 was a big year ! We decided to think bigger for Apollo13.
François — now dedicated to Snipcart , one of our startups — felt that our entrepreneurs needed support not only in their business decisions, but also in their marketing strategies. So we decided to free up more time on that side: from evaluating opportunities to creating content. Our goal: to help entrepreneurs focus even more on developing their offer and growing their business. The guide for entrepreneurs project is also his idea. So our team hired Emanuelle. Her missions: to find the best of entrepreneurship and synthesize all this knowledge in our guide for startups .
Luc’s arrival, even though it is recent, has also changed the situation. His presence in the team already allows Apollo13 to become more known on the Quebec entrepreneurial scene and to establish partnerships that promote our entrepreneurs.
2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Apollo13. More than ever, our team is prepared and motivated to help more entrepreneurs build indestructible businesses.
Concretely:
a range of events on different subjects: financing, marketing, hiring
more articles available for free online
a printed guide before the end of 2020
a radio column every two weeks
support our entrepreneurs in hiring local and international interns
Having the next generation at heart
One of the missions of the SPK Ecosystem is to raise awareness among the next generation about responsible entrepreneurship, because we believe in their power to make a difference. Once again this year, we have not been idle with these valuable partnerships, including:
To the numerous visits and presentations of our model to schools
To over 300 inspired students
To the 4th cohort of computer science students at Garneau College. We are also fortunate to have two top students from these cohorts with us full-time, including our fourth daughter.
We have a new partner that we cannot announce yet, but who will help Apollo13 startups and others to welcome and supervise competent interns.
The mother cell
We rarely talk to you about customers. Almost never.
But in 2020, we might do it a little more, not to pat ourselves on the back, but to highlight our efforts and the results obtained. We also want to promote the work internally and thank our loyal customers for placing their trust in us.
Among the notable projects of 2019, we think among others of the Umano application, Duproprio, the new website of the Limoilou college, and the ongoing work of Tahiti tourism (which we hope to visit one day!), SuperTeck, Business Families Foundation and many others. Thanks also to the FédéCP, Saumon Québec and Athos, to name a few. Working with you on a daily basis is a real pleasure.
Learn from your experiences
A review would not be complete without mentioning the lessons we have learned.
Learning to live with an independent non-profit (SPK, Apollo13 & Academy) that has an external board of directors and CEO and watching them take flight. Much like a teenager leaving home, it is both difficult and exciting to watch them grow separately.
Remember that developing a business organically can take time. Even if several projects are underway or under discussion in Switzerland, we cannot hide the fact that it is still less than what we would have thought we would do when we arrived here. It is not for nothing that we advocate slowness, and we certainly share this value with Switzerland. We console ourselves by telling ourselves that our future projects will be built on real human relationships.
Seeing that Spektrum’s culture and values have paid off as the organization continues to perform and evolve after CEO and co-founder Georges moved on. This would never have