On the TechTO stage ×4
Jamie McDonald of Hubdoc presents The Robots are Coming
Watch on YouTube ↗
Jamie McDonald of Hubdoc presents What's My Why
Watch on YouTube ↗
Jamie McDonald of Hubdoc presents Finding Your Why
Watch on YouTube ↗TechTO Together — Jamie McDonald
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on a TechTO stage in 2015. Every TechTO talk is searchable — ask the archive about Jamie ↗
In their words
One of my interview questions to everyone who comes through my office is: what's the meaning of life for you? Or another way of asking it is — think about the moments where you've been intrinsically happy, and what are the drivers of those, and how do you create more of those in your life?
My why is I wanted to build a unicorn — so that didn't happen. I became accounting famous, or I wanted to; that did happen. I can go to any bookkeeper convention in Australia, the UK or North America and I'm famous.
The scenario every entrepreneur needs to do is: what if no one pays me for the next six, twelve months — I literally have no revenue, no cash in the door? How much cash do I have in my bank accounts today, and how can I make it last as long as possible? As entrepreneurs your goal has to be survival. The cockroach mode that we see on Twitter is exactly the right approach.
Around the web ×2
Quick answers
Who is Jamie McDonald?
The co-founder of Hubdoc, the Toronto company that automated document collection for bookkeepers, and now CEO of A2X. He is not to be confused with Alexis MacDonald, VP of People at Klue, who also has a profile here.
What happened to Hubdoc?
Xero acquired it in 2018 for up to US$70M in cash and equity. A year later Xero appointed McDonald to its executive team to lead accounting and global services; BetaKit reported the appointment in July 2019. Xero went on to name Toronto its North American tech hub.
What did Jamie McDonald do before Hubdoc?
On the TechTO stage he described joining Expedia in 1998 when it was part of Microsoft, then coming back to Toronto in 2005 and co-founding Spark Room, an ad-tech business he steered through the 2008 financial crisis. Hubdoc grew out of that partnership.