Episode 6: The Secret Playbook

Hey listeners, welcome to SphereCast, a podcast all about technology, technology advice, technology inspiration, and how real entrepreneurs have used technology to build their businesses from the ground up. If you're wondering how technology can support your business goals, rest assured, our guests have been there and done that.

Hello again. It's Luke with SphereCast. Today, Xenia and I connect with Emile Chouha, co-founder at LunchBox, a Montreal-based digital app all about helping friends discover new restaurants at the lowest prices possible. Founded in late 2016, LunchBox first broke onto the scene through a partnership with the University of Montreal, a deal that ultimately landed LunchBox at the top of the food app charts surrounded by giants like Uber Eats.

Chouha's app is a hype machine for restaurants, allowing them to publicize their cuisine to massive audiences in a relatively short amount of time. Emile is a fountain of wisdom, and his deep introspection calls for a somewhat different podcast format. During the conversation, Xenia and I will actually use a series of social media posts to guide the conversation with Emile. A conversation that touches on productivity and the nature of good work, on the strong tie between passion and motivation, on the humanity of startup companies, and, of course, on his own journey of building something new from scratch. So without further ado, we hope you enjoy this conversation with Emile.

Hi, Emile. Thank you for joining us. Can you describe or outline your typical day for us?

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Xenia, for having me here.

Yeah, for sure. So my typical day starts with what I call the morning miracle in the morning. It's a session where I do proactive things that makes me a better entrepreneur over the long term. So, yeah, so after the morning miracle, where I do some exercises, scribing, meditation, affirmations, and visualization, I kick it off with the team with a morning meeting where my co-founders and I update each other about what we did the day before and what we're going to do today, and where we're blocked, and how we can help each other throughout the day.

And then work all the day through through the day till 6:00 p.m. And then then I try to stop it there. 6:00 p.m. I'm trying to have a hard stop, actually. I used to have just no stop, just like go until forever. But I realized that doesn't work very well. So I'm trying to have a hard stop now at 6:00 p.m.

Interesting.

So how many hours a day would that be that you work?

I didn't exactly calculate, but it must be around like eight hours. I'm actually trying to do maybe less hours. Maybe, yeah, maybe more mindful about less the hours that I put, but more about the progress that I make. So I think that's more important, and I think it's easy to work like 12 hours, easy to do 15 hours, it's easy to just like keep on putting hours. But it's actually just harder to make progress, and at the end, that's the only thing that matters.

You know, it's really interesting that you say this. I typically have some very long days sometimes, and and what I find is if I have Monday to, let's say, first three days of the week really long, I kind of tend to burn out towards the latter part of the week and become a bit unproductive, so I don't see any creativity coming out of me. So I can do some very menial jobs, but I don't see any, you know, impactful stuff coming out of me for the last part of the week. And and then the weekend becomes all and more important for me to recover and and get my juices back, you know, juices flowing again. So, yeah, but what do you think of this pop culture, you know, like I hear a lot of people on various podcasts who are absolutely crazy about working, and they're like, "Hey, if I work an 80-hour week, I'm that far ahead of the curve from somebody who's doing 40 hours a week." What do you think of that?

I'm not sure. Actually, I think I think it's a big responsibility to do 80 hours a week. And what I mean by this is that are you going to do 80 hours of progressive work? I think I think the issue is that a lot of people are are not great at being critical about their work and just just being critical think being a critical thinker in general. And and being a critical thinker about is that work really, really valuable?

Because I do agree with you, the the culture is just like if you can put hours and you put hours, and that's just how it works. But yeah, I'm not sure I'm not sure I like that pop culture about 80 hours a week, and I actually prefer maybe the 40-hour.

The way that I see it is that if you can do valuable work in 40 hours, and you can maybe do more valuable work in 80 hours, then do it. But start with 40 hours, and if you're, yeah, you shouldn't need more. And if you feel like you're making very good decisions and you're making a decision about the work that you should do, and you can put more hours that that can progress you, then put more. That's how I see it.

When you say, "Okay, let's work less, start on less and see if you can increase your capacity." So that that kind of links in with what you said about your morning ritual, so which is quite important to you from what I understood. You you mentioned that you have your meditation or exercises, physical exercises equally important, then meditation and the affirmations that you do in the morning. So I personally, you know, I can have a good week if I am flowing through work and work becomes really easy for me to to, you know, it's all about how happy or let's say distressed I am when I'm working. So do you feel like I mean, when you were working very long hours, how was the feeling? Like, were you happy with the generally in life like, or was there some, you know, distressful situations? I don't know like if I'm asking you this question correctly. Maybe you can shine some light on this.

Yeah, it's a very good question. To be frank, I I didn't I wasn't that happy, actually. I wasn't that happy. And when I did some introspection, I was like, I've been working a lot of hours for the past 12 months, but really, like in all those hours, there might have been like just a little few moves that helped me progress.

And and what was what made me anxious, I'm like, well, all those all those other hours were actually useless. And and overall, like when when I did that that introspection, I I wasn't really happy. I wasn't really happy because I was like, I'm I'm putting a lot of hours, and I'm not progressing. So no, I would say I would say that a good balance is actually very, very important.

I agree. It's work in progress, and I think any work is is kind of a mixture of difficult periods and then good periods. And, you know, you go through those cycles. So, yeah, I think I'm going to start observing this more. You know, introspection is important, so definitely going to look into it.

Xenia picked a tweet, you know, from your account back in 19, 2019. So in that tweet, you said, "In a startup, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger goal while giving attention to those little hiccups on a daily basis." So do you think these little hiccups are are probably the things that kind of take up your time and make you work longer, and you kind of you can lose sight of the bigger goals? But you also said sometimes those hiccups lead you to the parts that actually that could actually change the bigger goal as well.

Yeah. So I guess I guess what I meant by that is is that I'll start by explaining what what I meant by that. I think that a startup is is a science experiment, and and you're trying to prove something with statistical significance about a certain type of customer that wants your product, and you're proving a big causality towards the value that you're providing to that customer. And and that should be your only focus.

But then, when you do that, and you do that at when when you do something that we did like with LunchBox, for example, my big mistake was was doing that in in like half-half. So we we scaled and we got 20,000 users, but we were also trying to prove causality and value that we're offering to the users. Because once the causality and the value is proved, what you want to do is just like scale rapidly. But when you're trying to prove that causality in users and you're playing with with a batch with a sample size of 20,000 users, you get stuck in a lot of operations.

And your time goes from like stop discovering and stop proving value to users, and and much less around like the insights that you're providing to the users, but more around operating. So customer support, answering clients, answering restaurants for in our case. So we were just like running LunchBox and not making progress. And and and we did that, and we just ran, ran, ran, ran, ran. And at this and at the time, we lost sight of like what we're trying to do. We're trying to we're trying to prove that customers are loving our product. And we stopped doing that, and then we we started like just operating.

And what what is mind-boggling for me is the the number of startups that are actually functioning in that way that stopped proving insights or stopped proving secret stuff that secret stuff what I mean about secret stuff is is is value that they they know about their about their customer. They stopped doing that and started operating a business model that is that is flawed. So that that's what I meant by that.

Yeah, and and what I meant about the second part, which is the goals can change, I I didn't mean it in a good way. I meant it as in in, you know, in a local maximum. I I meant it in a local maximum. I meant it like your your goal was was this thing, now you're doing so much customer support that now you're optimizing customer support. You're you're creating a software for customer support. Who cares? Who cares about that customer? So and and now you're creating another software for like customer support for restaurants, and now you have all those little things that like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what what you need to helicopter here. Like, you need to like like see the bigger picture here.

I see. I see. I see. I mean, I I I misconstrued it completely, so, okay, so you you meant like not in a good way. You can lose sight of your strategic goals and just be focused on day-to-day running, and and you trying to improve those things and lose sight of what you were trying to do originally when you had this idea. Okay.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I I Interesting. Okay. Xenia, sorry.

Yeah, I have a follow-up. So if you could go back in time and change something about that project, what would it be?

A lot of things. I think it wouldn't be about the project. It would be my about myself. It would be about the the mind state. When when when I started doing that project, as an entrepreneur, I I was scared. I was scared because I I was scared of of not fitting in. So I wasn't looking for not fitting in as an entrepreneur, so I was I wasn't looking for a real validation, really. I was mostly looking for a confirmation that like I was providing value for consumers. So I wasn't being real with myself, and I think that that mind state slowed down my learning as an entrepreneur.

That was one of my other questions. How do you ensure that you are, you know, not stagnant, that you're continuously learning and expanding your horizons and your career? Because there's also another quote on that we found on on Twitter, "I like to measure my learnings by the number of paradigm changes I get in a month. When my views of things stay constant for too long, I know I'm not learning enough."

Yeah, absolutely. So, first of all, I think the the biggest the number one confirmation about if you're making progress remains like for startup is is revenue. It's it's like that's blatant and true, and if your revenue is the same for like the past three years, you might have not made enough progress as an entrepreneur yourself. You you didn't you didn't understand how to provide more value for people. So that doesn't lie.

But the other thing I I guess is is very subjective, the paradigm shift. Yeah, I guess it's something that I actually believe. I I think like like, yeah, the the more paradigm shift you have, the more you're seeing through different lenses. You don't have to agree with all those paradigm shifts, but just the fact that you can at least see how people see life in different perspective, you're you're you're kind of learning. Yeah, I actually I actually really believe that.

You know, Emile, this particular tweet, when I came across it, and thanks, Xenia, for highlighting it, I really got upset. So it really upset me, and I I'll be honest, because I think it just made me question a lot, like a lot of the things, and I I believe, yeah, I'm I'm kind of maybe resistive to or resistant to change. And and yeah, so it made me go inward a little bit, so to to understand, "Hey, Luke, you're not moving, maybe." So, yeah, upset in a good way, not in a bad way. But I really liked the the view here, so what I'm thinking is one of my, you know, as one of my own KPIs or goals would be now to have a board. So I've got a whiteboard in my room, in my office, and I'm going to see on monthly basis how my thinking is changing. So if there's any new perspectives coming in, I would need to just, you know, you don't I don't have to agree or disagree, but I will just keep a note and see if I'm noticing that there's different ways of solving a problem, different ways of looking at an issue or a person maybe, you know? So I I I I will definitely take this learning away from just just by researching what you have done. So, amazing. Thank you.

It's a it's a pleasure, and I so much encourage you to do so. Like I I think if if you have a whiteboard and you're you're just working on a problem, the way that I see it is that you never like fix a problem one shot. It's always like a canvas. It's like you're you're it's a painting. It's a canvas. You brush like you you take your brush, you you do a few strokes, and you kind of design a a little thing. But then you come back to it the next day and and you're you're seeing something additional, the first day that you couldn't have seen, because what you wrote on your whiteboard the first day is a seed that that is just going to blossom in your head. And but the second day, you're picking up where where it's blossomed.

So I totally encourage you to do so. I think I do that through scribing, and I think that is maybe my single best exercise ever.

How often do you do it, every day or?

Daily.

Nice.

Yeah, for sure. I think it helps a lot.

Emile, you're a serial entrepreneur of Resto Supply and LunchBox. How do you stay motivated? How do you keep generating new ideas daily?

So, it's a good question. So I think motivation is a consequence of of of finding your passion. I I I don't try to stay motivated. I I I I just don't try. It's it's I I found my passion in entrepreneurship. In tech entrepreneurship, I feel I touched a nerve. And in there, my and I feel like it's a space I really like. So motivation just comes naturally at this point. Basically, I cannot see myself doing something else. It's it's that would be hard.

We also understood that you were of the opinion at some point that passion is overrated, and let me just read this tweet out to you. So what I've understood from your tweet is that you said, "Passion is overrated, and preparation is underrated." So could you explain that in light of this comment that you made just now?

Yeah. So so my initial thought about like my first paradigm shift was like, "Oh, you found your passion, that's it. Like you're it's going to work out."

The other thing is that once you found your passion, treat it like you're an Olympian. This is the Olympics. You're an athlete, and you got to prepare, and you got to prepare physically, mentally to compete. And I think a lot of people skip that part. I think, "Oh, you find your passion, that's it. You're you're on on it and just do it."

But I feel there's the the whole preparation step before. You got to change your paradigm shift sorry, you got to change your perception and see yourself as an athlete when you found your passion. And I I feel that applies in whatever domain, but specifically in entrepreneurship. It's such a competitive space that you you got to be top notch mentally, physically and be ready to compete.

So passion is just the tip of the iceberg. It's what you do with it after you've found out what your passion is, how you prepare every day for the war, or let's say, for the hard, you know, grit that you put into it. Okay.

Absolutely.

Okay. Another tweet misunderstood by us. Apologies.

I might I might not be that a good writer.

No, I think when you provide the context around it, it it makes a lot of sense. But I I really like that you leave things out in the open. It's you know, when it's better to have something that you can see from different perspectives and open to, you know, different interpretations. So, yeah, I really have enjoyed so far reading your tweets.

Okay. So we wanted to learn more about, you know, the the two companies. Well, there's there's probably a third one as well now, which we can talk about, but I wanted to know between Resto Supply and LunchBox, which one came first? If you can shine some light on perhaps the the problems you found, and maybe there was a there was a paradigm shift as well while you were working on these applications and something, you know, clicked and you switched or pivoted. So pivoting business models always, you know, is an interesting one that our audience can learn from. So how how how that happened, how you got there, and what's next?

So we started LunchBox. At the time, it wasn't called LunchBox. It was called Spinnit. And it was a terrible idea, terrible, terrible, terrible. It was like we're like people are going to like going on their phone, clicking on a wheel of restaurants, spinning it, and deciding on a restaurants and going to it.

And that's an example of like not validation. We're like, "That concept makes sense, cuz I think it makes sense, so it's going to make sense for everybody." So so that's how we validated it. We're like, "That's going to work."

So what we did is, from that point, with little validation, one of the big mistakes, we went into directly building a very big software, which, at the time, we outsourced, and we we so we we were we were getting help from outsiders people to help us complete our software, which took a lot of time. And at the time, we launched that. And when we launched it, what we realized is nothing happens. There's no users, there's nothing.

So our face our first immediate big challenge was finding users. That was like we realized that cuz when you're launching an app, like the immediate reflex is you have that that that bias of thinking that, yeah, you're just going to tell your friend, and he's going to tell his friend, and you just email a couple of people, and you're you're just going to get downloads. After a couple of months, we realized that it's not it doesn't work like this. Like there's no activity, and and that was the hardest part. It's it's it's about getting downloads.

So what we did at that point, it was our first very, very good partnership, and at the time what we called a growth hack. We're like, "Okay, so we have that app, and there's no one on it, and we're downtown Montreal, and there's a lot of schools, and students like to save money." So we're like, the best partnership we can do right now is a partnership with the student association. Go to them, tell them, "That's a software we made for you. You can put your brand on it and distribute it to all your students."

And at the time, they're like, "That's amazing." They're like, "We can put our brand on this?" We're like, "Yeah, just put your brand on" Like we so we control the the back end and the database and everything and the transaction, and they would be the front-facing. And that was our first deal. And for them it was amazing because they would get to put they would get to look like techie, and they would help their students get a discounts. And from our side, we we would get just a lot of users.

Yeah.

So that was our first partnership, and we called it CASA Deals. And it was a partnership with university here, downtown Montreal. And with that partnership, it was a win-win where we got thousands of of users using it like literally like almost overnight. And they got, from their side, an app that helped them look better towards their students because they were also providing a service to their students. They were they they allowed their students to save money. So that was a win-win partnership.

And at that time, I understand the value of like the the power of making deals and good deals. So we got like we went from zero to a lot of thousands of users like literally overnight with that partnership.

Is that is that the period when you guys were beating like probably, if I can say you use this terminology, world's leading brands in the in in the in this particular space? True or not, or can you share with us more information what happened there?

Yes. So so that was our first growth hack. We got thousands of users, and we continued that model for a little while. But but then we realized the other thing is that we realized that restaurants that we were dealing with, they were hiring us really the the job to be done that we were hired to do was marketing. But we did we never really, really want to face that. We were like, "No, we're a transaction app." But for some reasons, I don't know why we we never accepted facing that.

So when we accepted to face that, well, we're we're doing marketing for them, and we and when we embraced it, we started doing marketing deals with restaurants. Like, "Hey, I'm going to get you a lot of users today to your restaurant, and you're going to pay me that much." And and that that was the typical exchange. And when we worked in that fashion, where we were totally aligned with restaurants, we also got very, very good deals out of them for food for one-day promotion, where they would get a lot of people walking into the restaurants, and we would be able to market it.

And when I say a lot of people, like I'm saying like 400, 500 people like in maybe like three, four hours. Like you'd get like line-ups in front of the restaurant, and that would be pretty crazy when it happens.

So we were off with LunchBox, we were offering the ability of like if you're a new restaurants and you're coming in in the area, coming with come with LunchBox, and we'll help you get like 400, 500 people to discover your restaurant. So that was our value proposition.

And there was that one day where we did that with so we launched like three events at the what we called events is a launch like this where we get like a lot of users to the restaurant. There was that one day where we did it with three restaurants at the same time and in downtown Montreal. And at that time, there was so much traction around LunchBox that it was in the top 10 food apps in our country, Canada. And it was, I think, number seven or something, but it was right next to Uber Eats, DoorDash, SkipTheDishes.

And and what was funny is that we were operating just from like a few blocks radius, but they were operating countrywide. And and just for us to have our our app next to them was like, man, we're we're doing something that's working so much because we were just like in in six streets and they're like in thousands. So we were just like so much more concentrated and focused that at the time it was for us it was like pretty impressive, cuz we stayed there for a couple of days, but then for sure we went down. But, yeah, that specific day was was incredible for us.

That's an amazing story. Yeah, thanks for that. Thanks for sharing it. I know you mentioned it in our previous conversation, so I thought I'd broach this up.

So, Emile, what key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs to invest their time in?

Spirituality. Spirituality, I think, should be up there, like up like I know that my accelerator, Real Ventures, actually is very proactive about this and is now teaching their their cohorts about entrepreneurship uh sorry, about spirituality. But I think it's a hidden gem. If you can up your mind state with spirituality, you'll be such a better entrepreneur. I think spirituality is top of my list here.

What do you use for it? Is there an app or a book that you can recommend?

Yeah, for sure. A couple of books: The Power of Now, The Art of Living is another book. The Daily Stoist, I think, or The Daily Stoicism, I'm not sure what it's called, but by Ryan Holiday.

I think it's Daily The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, yeah.

The Daily Stoic, yeah. The Daily Stoic are amazing books. Like all those three are amazing books. But The Daily Stoic is is really cool because it's it's a very consumable format where it's like it's a page a day. So that's very that's very easy just to get into it. I would totally recommend it.

But yeah, I guess I guess just doing casual research about spirituality and and getting into it is is is what entrepreneurs should do, because at the end like my my philosophy is like startups is different from Wall Street. Like a startup is more human. Wall Street is more is is more savage. It's it's just like screw it. If I can if I can sell like that bond to like that family that doesn't need it, I'll sell it. That's that's Wall Street, and there's no place for spirituality in that place.

But if if like but but for

What an example!

Yeah. I don't have friends in Wall Street. But startups is different. Like a startup is doesn't lie. You're you're you're creating value for another human, and that process is is has a lot of attributes that you learn from from spirituality, like compassion, empathy, listening. So all those skills, I learned from spirituality, and it helped me tremendously as at being a a very good entrepreneur.

You know, interesting you say that. So my my view on on let's say the corporations or a startup is like this. So, you know, when you do yoga, you you actually or or let's say, you know, when you do workout where you are using your whole body, body weights, so you do something literally Most of the exercises you do as part of it are working on almost 70, 80% of the muscles in the body, right? So that's yoga, because it's it's like one organization, there's a there's a soul to it. There's a spirit.

And then you have your corporations, so it's like going to a gym. So, you know, when you go to a gym, and you see this guy sitting on this bicep curling machine and only working on biceps, and people with odd shapes that they have huge massive upper body, huge biceps, but very small legs. So I I see that kind of difference, and it's it's very unorganic or unnatural just focusing on one particular area, leaving the others.

But when you do something that's run as as an organism, every part of that particular let's say company, organization is improving at the same speed, everything is working together, the synergies. So that that's how I see it. So, yeah, but I like your analogy there. It was amazing. That was a good one.

I totally agree, actually.

Yeah. So moving on, if you had a magic stick, Emile, which are the three things would you change in the world?

I I hate the fact that right now the world is is divided. I hate that there's personal interests that are being pushed from all sides. I'm not sure how we could fix that, but I I like the way that I see it is that there should be like a I it's it's very extreme, but I I do see it in a way where there should be like a one-country world where everybody's is rooted to the same same direction.

And I feel that could solve like So if I had a magic stick and and we would do that, that would solve like probably like hunger, because we would better distribute resources to countries, wars, and the other thing is is corruption. Like those three things are the things that I probably despise the most.

And I feel like those things are a consequence of having multiple interests split across the world. Like you know like European country have their own interests, and African country have their own interests, and and and North American country have their own interests. But at the end, we're all humans, and and and we're we're we're one race. And I I what I don't see in the world is is the alignment of interests for the human race. I think that is missing, and that is causing those three things to be very, very strong, like hunger, corruption, and wars.

So does that mean, Emile, you I know you're working on a new project right now, so let's say after that project, or maybe some some at some point down the line, you are going to focus on one of, you know, these causes and have some technical solution that will help solve one of these problems in in, let's say, not so well-off countries, perhaps? Is that Is that something you're planning to do hopefully in future?

Yeah, I think so, but I think if you want to do that, you have to control a lot of capital. Like you have to be like filthy rich. Like you have to do It's it's because like it's not problems that are good ROI. Like they're they're hard problems to fix, and there might be better problems to fix as an entrepreneur that are better economically.

You know, I like take Elon Musk as an example. It's stupid to go and and and doing rockets. He could have done a billion other things to make like billions of dollars. It's the if if you try to just from a pragmatic way analyze the decision of of building a rocket company as an entrepreneur, it's it's not good. It's it's it's expensive, it's very dangerous, and there's better ways to make money.

So I I feel like to address those problems that that you mentioned, corruption, hunger, and war, is like it's it's definitely something for sure that's weighing on my conscience, and it's something that I would like to jump into it. But I I feel there's it's a second-level problem as an entrepreneurship that you you see the Gates, the Bill Gates, the the Bezos, the Musk, like they're fixing this later in their career, and there's a reason for that, is because it takes a lot of capital.

Entrepreneurs that try to do this in the early stage might have good reasons, but I would say might have not well analyzed the the conditions to make that that problem a reality and and fix it, making fixing it a reality, basically.

Passion and preparation dilemma, I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, Emile, we're almost done torturing you. The last question that we have for you is: if you were to write a book about yourself, how would you name it?

Oh, wow.

I would name it Better Tomorrow. Yeah, I I would I I would name it Better Tomorrow.

I I think one of the one of the things I I want to help people realize is get unstuck from like the fixed mind state, and like enjoy the process of progress. A lot of people, you know, if they're not good in math, they're not good in math, period. But if you're just mindful about today, tomorrow will be better. But you It's easy to say this, but you you really got to be mindful about it in the moment.

But I I think that idea of of tomorrow is better, next week is better, next year is better, I think that that idea is very reassuring. And I I think that idea could could motivate a lot of people to put a lot of effort in the present moment to change things. So, yeah, I would call it Better Tomorrow.

I think I can resonate with that. There's a Russian saying that things are better in the morning, because if you stress out, you know, the night before, there's something that you have to prepare for, just relax, go to sleep, things will be better in the morning. I can relate to that. That's a great name for the book.

Thank you.

Amazing. Emile, it's been amazing. I think I have really enjoyed doing this podcast. I think so far this is the favorite one. Xenia, what are your thoughts?

I second that. This is my favorite one by far.

Well, yeah, thank you guys for having me here. I really enjoyed it. Was really fun.

A special thanks to our podcast guest this week, and once again to our sponsor, Sphere Partners, for bringing this episode to life.

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