On the TechTO & TechVancouver stages ×3
Jeff Booth of BuildDirect presents Getting to the Other Side
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TechTO Together — Jeff Booth
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Jeff Booth (Co-Founder, BuildDirect) at TechVancouver
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on the TechTO & TechVancouver stages in 2017. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Jeff ↗
In their words
This is what it starts with: have a dream so big that to achieve that dream, you have to become a different person.
So I did what is probably insane, again. I went to my board and I said, we got to blow it up. Completely blow it up — blow up a half billion dollar company.
If you can actually get out of that fear mode, take a step back, you can actually make some really great decisions as a company that allow you to use this opportunity to really win on the back side.
The world isn't just moving faster, it's moving exponentially faster, and it will continue at that rate.
You should always be looking for information that contradicts what you believe. In a world that's moving really fast, the advantage goes to people who can do that.
Around the web ×2
Quick answers
What is Jeff Booth known for?
Co-founding BuildDirect in Vancouver in 1999 and running it as CEO for 18 years, and writing 'The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future', published in January 2020. He is now a founding partner at Ego Death Capital.
What does Jeff Booth do now?
He is a founding partner at Ego Death Capital, a venture firm that invests in companies building on the Bitcoin protocol. Its other partners include Nico Lechuga, Andi Pitt and Lyn Alden.
Why did Jeff Booth leave BuildDirect?
He resigned as CEO in October 2017 after failing to see eye to eye with the debt holders behind a roughly US$30-million financing. As he put it to The Globe and Mail: 'Their understanding of growth is different; their timelines for return are different; their appetite for risk is different.' BuildDirect filed for creditor protection days later and emerged in March 2018.
What did Jeff Booth talk about at TechTO?
In 2017 he walked through what BuildDirect looked like from the inside — the 2008 collapse from $55M to $18M in revenue, the rebuild to $120M, and his decision to blow up the model at a half-billion-dollar valuation. In April 2020 he talked about deflation, debt and making decisions out of fear.