From BlackBerry to Danby: Jim Estill’s Playbook for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Jim Estill of Danby Appliances is a Canadian technology entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist. Jim started a computer distribution business from the trunk of his car while in university. He turned that modest business into a company doing $350,000,000 in sales before selling to SYNNEX in 2004. He then became CEO of SYNNEX Canada and grew sales from $800,000,000 to $2 Billion over five years. Jim is active on various boards and was a founding board member of Research in Motion/Blackberry, before the company went public.

In 2016 & 2017 Jim made the news Opens in new windowfor his sponsorship efforts to settle 58 refugee families. The Financial Times, Guardian, and Life all covered his story. You can follow Jim at JimEstill.com Opens in new window, which documents his philosophies on leadership and time management.

Jim was awarded the Order of Ontario, the provinces highest honour, in 2017. He is also a multiple recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Get a look Behind the Business in Waterloo Region with Ian McLean, President & CEO of the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:35 Guest Introduction - Jim Estill
• 1:20 Part 1 of Interview
• 6:47 Gore Mutual Sponsorship
• 7:16 Part 2 of Interview
• 44:02 Closing

Transcript

Ian McLean: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Behind the Business, presented by Gore Mutual. I'm your host, Ian McLean, President and CEO of the Greater Kitchen Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. This podcast is recorded on the traditional territory of the neutral Anishinabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. Each week I sit down for candid conversations where we go beyond the boardroom and behind the business to uncover the real stories of Waterloo Region's business community. Today's guest is Jim Estill, entrepreneur, innovator, community builder, and the CEO of Danby Appliances. Jim has a long track record of turning bold ideas into thriving businesses, but his story isn't just about business success, it's about impact. He sponsored over 90 refugee families in Guelph, created an entrepreneurial culture at Danby, and lives by the belief that leaders have a responsibility to their communities and to the planet. In our conversation, Jim speaks about his journey as a serial entrepreneur, the lessons learned along the way, his unconventional but effective monk mode experiences, and what he sees as the future of business innovation in Canada. Join me in this episode as we go behind the business with Jim Estill of Danby Appliances. Well, we're excited to have you here today, Jim. I want to thank you uh for joining us in our new podcast studio. You're our first guest for in this space, so thank you for joining us and uh and and uh and coming down to to be and share your story with our with our uh listeners. Well, thanks for having me. And listen, you know, we've known each other for a lot of years, and and I've followed your career, and you it covers the gambit of of uh of a lot of things. One of the one of the references uh that others make of you is you've been called an unstoppable entrepreneur. And so let's rewind a little bit uh to you know from where you are today, but let's rewind to the $2 billion company you started as a as a student at the University of Waterloo. Uh share the story of that business and and what initially sparked your interest in in entrepreneurship. Because not everyone's suited for it. Some people are. You are obviously one of them. Tell that story.

Jim Estill: 2:18

So I was in university, fourth year systems design, and I wanted to design circuit boards and I needed a computer. And back in that era, computers were very expensive. But I found I could get a better deal if I bought two of them. So I bought two and I sold one, and then someone else wanted one, so I bought one, and then someone wanted a printer, someone wanted a disk drive. We needed to upgrade the memory. And so pretty soon I'm buying and selling computer hardware, software, peripherals, and that's the business that grew ultimately. Um, partly I was in the right place at the right time because computers were just in their infancy. This was before everyone had a computer. Matter of fact, the question would be well, do you have a computer? Oh, well, okay, then I won't talk to you. Now, like, how many computers do you have? Like it, it's it's kind of like, well, you have a television, you don't need another television. Yes, you do. Um my interest in entrepreneurism actually started younger than that. I was um a camp counselor, and I, but the camp I worked at was only open for a month, and so I needed a job for the other month, and no one would hire anyone for a month. And my dad had me painting a fence, and one of the neighbors said, Oh, could you paint something for me? And then I painted that, then I went and started Jim's painting. So when I was in high school, I had this taste of having my own business, riding around on my bicycle, quoting jobs. I hired my brothers, I hired my friends. So I had a college pro painter business before college pro was a thing. And uh and that was just the taste of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship that I could do it on my own. Wow.

Jim Estill: 3:57

Um in the company that you built, because I'm I'm interested, but people start a business. I mean, there's lots of things that go into that in every it eventually grew to being a large company. When you first got started, how did you finance it? Like that's one of the things people start a business, they where's the capital to even get started to get your two computers, and then and then you, you know, obviously if you're selling those things, you need inventory, you you have there's a variety of things. Talk a little bit about some of some of those things to get started because a lot of our members would be new businesses starting their own, you know, a second career or or or vocation that they that they're really interested in. There must have been some things in there that you had to, you know, some of those hurdles that you had to navigate. So I did what many entrepreneurs do today and went out and approached people and tried to raise money and say, uh, Ian, will you invest in my business? And the answer from everybody was no. You have no experience. You're a kid, we don't trust you, we don't think you'll be successful. So, but that actually helped me because it created a frugality. And uh, okay, I'm not going to um have be able to buy this trade show booth. I'm going to make the trade show booth. I'm going to take the kitchen table and put a drop cloth over it and uh and and whatnot. So I didn't have money, which limited my growth in the early days, but that wasn't bad because I wasn't uh it gave me time to learn how to run a business. So I did 450,000 the first year, then a million and 79,000, then 2.6 million, then 4.6 million, then 5.6 million, then 10 million, then 20 million, 1 million. So I I I just grew um where if I jumped straight into doing $50 million, I probably didn't know how to run it. And I would have not known how to manage people or whatnot. As far as cash goes, I learned how to collect money from people before they got their product. And as they got delivery, I learned how to pay people later. Yeah. And uh so largely it was uh managing your cash flow, right?

Ian McLean: 6:07

Money in and then stretching out your payables and exactly.

Jim Estill: 6:10

And um being in the computer business and inventory, because I had to go lean on inventory, that turned out to be a genius thing because technology, if I said, Oh, I've got this uh computer, and by the way, it's been in inventory for three years, you're gonna say, well, that's not worth anything. And so um turning your inventory fast, um, I figure in the technology business, inventory can devalue like 4% per month. Like it's it's huge devaluation. So um it served me well that I actually couldn't have built a huge warehouse and filled it with inventory.

Ian McLean: 6:46

The Behind the Business Podcast is made possible through the support of our title sponsor, Gore Mutual. Proudly Canadian, Gore Mutual has stayed true to one purpose for more than 185 years: insurance that does good. It's the reason they exist. They believe that when we focus on being good, doing good, and spreading good, we all thrive together. We're grateful for their continued commitment to our local communities and the positive impact they make every day. For more information, visit goremutual.ca. So let's switch a little bit. You you know, you've you have mentored and invested in many companies along the way. So from you, though that was your you know, seminal kind of learning, learning stage. But I mean, when I when I and you're now running Danby and doing very successful there, but I when I first heard your name, it was in the tech space. You were a tech guy. Um you've mentored and invested in many companies, including you're a founding board member of Blackberry. I remember those early days. Uh, I had every BlackBerry from the time it was uh pager all the way through, but I remember those those early days. Based on your experience, what are the some of the common traits uh or approaches do you see in leaders and companies that succeed in you know and innovate in in such a fast-paced tech-driven environment here in Waterdo Region? Because that that's that was one of the things. Things were once once the tech UFW and all of those the the BlackBerry era started, there were a ton of companies. Things were changing really fast. It really got to warp speed. What are some of those those common traits and approaches for in that fast-paced uh environment?

Jim Estill: 8:27

Well, it it's strange combinations of persistence and knowing when to let go and knowing when to change direction. So the pivot is a fundamental. I I I mean, I even pivoted in my business, my my first business. I wanted to design circuit boards. That was what I wanted to do. But I pivoted to buying and selling computer products because that's what became profitable, and that is what became the the big business. So I I noticed one success characteristic is the pivot, the ability or the willingness to let go, but at the same time, the persistence and the speed and the sense of urgency. Sense of urgency absolutely wins.

Ian McLean: 9:06

Yeah, you know, it it's uh it's fascinating in this community um that there that there is that we've we've been through a bunch of different uh you know traditional businesses like farming and insurance and sort of manufacturing, and then we've gotten into you know high finance, if you will, and and and technology. And and there are some of those common traits that go through to be successful in business. So appreciate that. Listen, 2017, and this is this is the pivot point when I when you know for for some who will know you more for Danby than they would for your for your tech career, but you joined Danby as the CEO. Um, and and you know, I think it was probably seen as those were the days when manufacturing was on a was on a low rev. Um I mean, everything everything was um whether it was in car manufacturing or uh assembly and and and um and auto parts, there was there was a lot of disruption in those days. Um and Danby was, and or at least manufacturing in North America was probably seen as being um an established brand, but in you know, sort of past its prime. Um, how did you breathe new life into Danby as a comp as a 70-year-old company in an environment where manufacturing was was a tough place to be in North America. So there was a lot of things that were that were being manufactured or assembled in in other parts of the world, Asia uh amongst them.

Jim Estill: 10:38

And at that time, and even now, Danby has a lot of products assembled in Asia and Mexico and uh Bangladesh and Malaysia and wherever. So um partly what what I tried to do in is to impart the sense of urgency and the speed in a smokestack business. So just take the technology speed, and uh so when I got into it, the the inventory example was an example. You go in and they say, Oh yeah, we've got nine months of inventory. What do you mean you have nine months of inventory? We need to turn this every 30 days normally, or else it's gonna be obsolete. They oh no, it's not obsolete. Your air conditioner is the same last year as it was the year before, as it was the year before. Um and then uh I have always been looking, I always look at niches. What are the areas that we can do well in? Um, part of the key in business is actually to pick the right size business opportunity for the right person. So you're gonna have an entrepreneur listening to this that says, oh, AI is gonna be big. Great, you're gonna be the next AI. Uh, and you're gonna be what Google and Microsoft and whatever. Well, really, is that it? But maybe you can be AI for dentists, doing implants, especially uh in the upper mouth. I'm I'm just so so what I did, what we do at Danby is we have a few niches, and it's multiple niches that we uh go after. I always look for competitive advantage, I always look for utilization. How can we utilize our um our what we have better? Um, Danby has a reasonably large air conditioner, window, and a portable air conditioner business. And uh so that of course is summer weighted. That's why we bought Arctic Snowplow, which is winter weight. Yeah. And so that means that when one company doesn't need the resource, the others can uh use the resource. But business is a matter of tiny tweaks as opposed to a major, you know, ripping things out or changing, in my experience.

Ian McLean: 12:39

You you talked about uh turnover of product and how much you have so that you can you can be responsive to your customer when they need it, but you're not sitting on too much because extra product is just money sitting on the shelf and it's not being put to good use. Um as as you in in your experience with Damby, just in time delivery is a thing, certainly in the auto space of you know, getting parts that you need for assembly in in different plants. Is that part of the model that that every manufacturer has to have now? Is is that dance or that that choreography of getting what you need to do your part of the business to get the finished product? I mean, or or is that unique to larger businesses?

Jim Estill: 13:18

So uh it it was everything was heading to just in time. Then COVID happened. Right. And what happened in COVID is all of a sudden you couldn't get the parts. Right. And all of a sudden the supply chain was broken. Then all of a sudden said, I wish I had 60 days of parts sitting here because then I'd be able to ship something. So um the supply chain changed from just in time. The other thing, as far as niche goes and Danby, one of the niches that we decided was we wanted to have some inventory. Um, because what happens is large companies like Home Depot, they will order um containers from China. But then all of a sudden they find out, oh, we're out of freezers. Well, for in COVID, they're out of freezers. Hey, well, we've got them sitting in our warehouse. So the local um having local warehouses in North America with product, it became a little bit of a a niche. That said, you've got to watch your working capital, got to watch your uh storage cost money.

Ian McLean: 14:15

So is there actually, I mean, that's an interesting question because COVID did it it it it it really exposed cracks, whether it's in the social side of our communities, whether it was in business of of some of the things that that were needed to be rebalanced. It is there a new and you just touched on it, is there a new sort of post-COVID uh equilibrium there about saying it's not just in time, but it's also not having you know huge amounts of inventory? How do you is there a new balance that businesses have have had to strike?

Jim Estill: 14:48

I think that that there is definitely a new balance relative to uh um having inventory, but it the other part is it's more subtle than that. It's okay, what are the critical parts that you're not gonna be able to get? What are the the few parts? Um and uh I mean we got good at substitute selling. So you you want a uh a 10 cubic foot fridge. Oh, great. Well, that means uh you could take a nine cubic foot because we've got those in in stock. Um, the the current tariff in the United States is creating a um an opportunity to move any slow-moving inventory because uh maybe the black freezer didn't sell well. Well, you want a freezer, well, you can buy a black freezer and it doesn't have the higher tariff on it. Uh um so uh, but things definitely changed, and I think businesses realized they needed also multiple sources. So uh pre-COVID, you'd in many cases you'd sort of solidify your buying clout and say, I'll take a million of these or five million of these pieces and give me the lowest price for five million. Now it's kind of okay, we'll we'll take you can have four million, but I'm gonna buy a million from somebody else just because you gotta have just in case.

Ian McLean: 15:58

Yeah. Um we we talked about this at our Innovation Core or event uh the other day. Um, supply chains are are, I mean, I think there is this notion, and we've we've heard from from uh um from government we we can't be as reliant on the US. Uh and not the the trade and tariffs thing has upset the entire global because it's there's tariffs on everyone and how and how it intersects with the US, still the the world's largest economy. Um is there an opportunity in Canada? I think we saw this in COVID, coming back to COVID. It's like, well, we didn't have masks, we didn't have rubber gloves, we didn't have uh we didn't have a lot of the things that we needed on the medical side because all of that was sourced from Asia or other places. We found out that Canadian industry in a matter of weeks pivoted and started like Eclipse Automation started making masks, and there was lots of people that that the innovative um um entrepreneurial spirit struck and everyone said we got we got to deal with this. There is there an opportunity for there to be more homegrown uh Canadian um supply chain that that that uh that serves businesses like Danby?

Jim Estill: 17:12

So in COVID, actually, Danby did did a micro pivot and we made 10,000 ventilators. I don't know whether you remember.

Ian McLean: 17:20

Oh yes, I do I do remember that. I think we talked about that on the radio show or something, yeah.

Jim Estill: 17:24

Yeah, so we made 10,000 ventilators, which was a pivot because uh ventilator's not that dissimilar to making a wine cooler, it's smaller and whatnot. But I was worried I was gonna have to lay off all my staff, and I was worried I was gonna not be in business because that's what everyone thought at that time. But is there more opportunity? There is more opportunity for Canadian made, but what people have to understand is volume is still tough to break.

Ian McLean: 17:50

Yeah.

Jim Estill: 17:51

So if you were to take an example of freezers, 10 times as many freezers are bought in the States as they are in Canada. And the molds and tools and dyes to make a freezer might be a couple million dollars. So if you take that and divide it amongst uh, you know, 100,000 pieces, well, that's $20 more per freezer. You do it to 10,000 pieces, it's $200 more. So there is this issue with economy of scale, which is tough to um do. At the same time, there's high psychology in the public to buy Canadian. Yeah. And so there's an advantage there. Um, and the other thing on that, there's sort of it's a variation of buy Canadian. Like um, if you're buying a screwdriver, you better buy it from Canadian Tire, which is Canadian retail, even though it's made in China, yeah. Or buy it from Home Depot, even made in China, yeah, China. But uh um and the fact is every product you buy, even if it's made in Canada, probably undoubtedly has input. Where'd the screws come from? Where'd the the parts come from? So made in Canada is never never a hundred percent made in Canada.

Ian McLean: 18:59

Yeah, it's uh fair fair point. Uh I think there's almost part of that, if I if I look at it, even in the grocery stores, you go, I'll buy blueberries because I want blueberries, but I'm not buying American blueberries. I'll buy, you know, if I can find Canadian, that's the number one, but I'll buy them from Mexico or I'll buy them from wherever else they're I see on the store shelves. I think there's some of that. It's just um Canadians are angry about what the US has done. It was interesting to hear the the American side of why that was. But anyway, that's a separate conversation um um uh for for another time because we will have you back on I love these conversations with you. Look, um I'm I I I was thinking, what's the boldest decision you've ever made that really changed the trajectory of your journey? Like, was it leaving sort of tech and going to Danby or what's what's the boldest thing you've done either in business or in your career?

Jim Estill: 19:56

Well, the boldest decision was uh when I started my business in university. Yeah. Because even though I started ever so gee, you're successful the first couple of years, you're making no money. Yeah. I could have got a job at Tim Hortons and made more money. That's how um so that was the boldest, but it was a great time to start because I had no overhead. Like I wasn't used to uh a nice, you know, I don't know in the car or anything. You know, it's like I've got a car. Well, that means I need to get someone to boost me to start it. Isn't that how you start a car?

Ian McLean: 20:29

Yeah. Okay. Um we often hear about success stories, and I think there's um um I think every small business owner, every entrepreneur knows that uh uh creativity and and the innovation um comes with that comes a fair number of either mistakes or or learning lessons if you want to put the positive spin on that. Um and I think this is one thing I've been elected office before. We work a lot with with government and on policy, and there's this fear in in government of saying we we gotta work go slow because we can't make mistakes. Business makes mistakes, and business owners, corporations, we they make mistakes all the time, but they learn from them. What role have have those failures or the or the missteps played in um in your career in in terms of how you adapt when you make a mistake or you you make the wrong decision and have to pivot?

Jim Estill: 21:31

So uh I believe in having a culture of failure, meaning you don't zap people for failing. And one of my expressions is fail off and fail fast, fail cheap. So the but the key is you need to do all three. So the companies that fail don't forget to fail cheap. So we I undoubtedly we're introducing products next month. One of them is going to fail, but it's fail off and fail fast, fail cheap. So, how can we make it so it's a cheap failure? Well, we'll sell the thing at cost, we'll we'll sell it at a 10%. Like sell we'll sell through the failures. The other thing I say to people and entrepreneurs is having a failure does not make you a failure. And people remember the the good stuff. They don't rem like you, you talked about Blackberry. So Jim's a genius. He did Blackberry. I did 150 companies, 25 of them exited. So there was, you know, well.ca and myovision and clear path and um, you know, a bunch of successful ones, but a hundred of them went bankrupt. And so no, you're not saying that, hey Jim, you invest in this company that went bankrupt. Yeah, I did. Um it's but it's fail off and fail fast, fail cheap. Um, and uh I always find that you you you don't put enough in the winners uh that you invest in, and I put too much in the losers. Um but partly as an entrepreneur you need to um move forward, shake it off and not dwell on any stuck on it, yeah. And the same thing can happen actually on successes. So sometimes you'll see an uh Olympic athlete and they are living their life because they got a gold in the Olympics uh 28 years ago. And is that, you know, you can't totally live on past glory either.

Ian McLean: 23:20

Yeah. Well, that's it, that's interesting. Um recently, and I I found this interesting getting ready for this. You spent three weeks in the woods for what you refer to as uh in monk mode. Uh, you completely disconnected from technology and electricity, living completely off the grid, which is uh harder than one might might imagine, I suspect. What did you gain from that experience and how does it shape your business thinking? And and I'm not sure if you do this often, but you certainly did it recently. What how did that affect your business thinking uh when you came back from being totally off the grid?

Jim Estill: 24:00

So I try to do it every year.

Ian McLean: 24:01

You do it every year.

Jim Estill: 24:02

Well, so I do it uh repeatedly. Um there's a few things. I am a digital addict. So you weren't here when I got here, and well, that's okay. I'll just check and see an email or text, and and so I'm a digital addict. I will go work on a computer at home and then or at the office and then drive home and check my my my email and then my news and my stock prices and um and whatnot. So you I I'm a digital addict. I went to uh I go to a place where there is no internet service. So I even if I want to, I can't check my phone. Um so being disconnected it slows me down. It gives me an appreciation for the little things. Like um making uh making tea is one example I use. Like to make tea, you have to go take the water out of the lake, you have to put it through a filter because it's not clean to drink, you have to go find some wood, cut it up, make a fire, uh, right, and half an hour later, maybe you'll have tea 45 minutes later. So everything's slow, everything's physical. So I like the physical. Um from a business point of view, I I have a journal and I come back with a lot of ideas. But I think time and and Yeah, and I but I at the same time I have to be careful. I don't want to come back and then t tell you have the team, here's my eighty-one ideas that all need to be done on Monday. But it's very helpful for my team because it means my business has to be able to run without me. And I believe in business that's strong businesses can't be me making all the decisions and waiting for me to make that. So um people in the company they rise up, they start making decisions, they start doing things. So when I come back, um I actually have a little bit more time because they found out oh, they could deal with this. So that's um that's healthy, but it's it's just healthy for me. Like I my optimism goes up and I I it's healthy.

Ian McLean: 26:06

I well and I I probably fall into the same category. I'm always checking emails and and what's next. I think one of the things that probably would do some good for folks out there that are listening is if you're disconnected, you're also not seeing all the negative. So I think you can come back and say, Oh, here's some new ideas and come up with, as you say, that optimism. Uh, because when you do stay connected electronically, email, social media, news, there's not much of it that's particularly positive. So so it it it does sap that that sort of uh excitement for what what could be uh when you're when you're seeing the reality of the day.

Jim Estill: 26:47

That's right. I I am a news junkie for sure. It's actually one of the things I like about this type of show is uh it it's more focused on the positive, yeah. Because people actually click on the negative because they want to hear about the the mass shooting and the earthquake and the um disasters. They don't want to hear as much. And everything's an echo chamber, right? So once you click on once, you you you get you get it from one news source, then another, then another.

Ian McLean: 27:15

Well, we'll have to have you on business to business, uh, because that's what we try and do on that show on a weekly basis, is try and tell some more positive stories about successes in business and how it's helping the community. Uh, because there's not enough of that uh in in media as a whole. Listen, one of the things that I've I've followed your career, I've admired your career, um is is but one of the things I do um admire is your belief in doing the right thing as a person, but also as a company. And um, you know, and and it for the community and for the world. And and of course, um I've been involved with the immigration partnership of Waterloo Region around getting newcomers, getting them settled, and a sense of belonging and finding work uh for the 15 years I've been at the chamber because it's important. It's it's our it's it's the talent force of of of our future collectively in this part of the world. Um, and so I I you you've been an advocate for sustainability, um, but also you're a humanitarian. You you sponsored, and I thought, and I think this was this was incredible. Um, you supported over over, you have supported over a hundred refugee families. Um and I don't know, was it was it Syrian? Did it start with a Syrian refugee?

Jim Estill: 28:30

So you started with Syrian, but now I keep doing Afghans, yeah. Uh and then when the Ukrainian thing happened, they're not technically refugees, but we did a lot of Ukrainian.

Ian McLean: 28:39

So, how did you bring that sense of responsibility and purpose into the way you lead your teams? Because, you know, and your company uh culture of building, because you've brought in and made um made the accommodations, and there are some accommodations to bring in people from other parts of the world that are part of your of your Danby workforce now, and and and personally, but also uh within Danby.

Jim Estill: 29:03

Well, the original do the right thing, I was not thinking do the right thing in the world. It was more that was just our that was our company manual. Yeah. So how do you treat your co-worker? How do you treat your customer? Do you ship a substandard product? It's like do the right thing. That's a simple screen to put everything through. As far as um um integrating people into a workplace, and for what it's worth, most of the refugees don't work for me. So I've been just helped um bring people in and place them in something that's more appropriate for them. We can't hire all of them, but we already were very multicultural, we already were the United Nations, we already um have that, and the the one thing is uh I'm I success in refugees. There's uh four pillars. One is people working, speaking English, some degree of integration, and giving back. So that's the four pillars. Um the speaking English is maybe a little bit of a focus because you have no future. If you can't speak English and uh whatnot, tough love of working. And I I find often people who are trying to make a new life work very, very hard for their um for their families. But for we're basically you're looking to have good Canadians. That's what I'd say. We bring in good Canadians, right?

Ian McLean: 30:20

Yeah. And and it's it's been a real success story and and uh and and something that in for those that are working with newcomers to Canada, it's a it's a real uh it's a story that people like to tell because it it's it's from the heart. You know, you started from it personally, but it it has become uh a business, uh, a business um um, I would say success for Danby as a leader, but but it's it's helped uh it's helped your company. Um we've been fortunate to have local businesses with thought leaders, and there's lots of them in Waterdo region who make a difference uh in not only locally, but you know, provincially and across the country. Um in your experience, what's what's the most effective way business leaders should work with the communities and government and other other organizations like not-for-profits to make a meaningful impact? Because we all have a role to play. I mean, you know, one of the things that we've, you know, the the our chamber, the Cambridge Chamber, Waterdoo Economic Development Corporation, uh, Explore Waterdoo, and Communitech have collaborated together as best Waterdo, the business economic support team of Waterdo Region, which started during COVID, but we've kept that going now. Um, because we see this community is growing, will be a million people in Waterdo region within 20 years. There's lots to do, lots of housing's needed, LRT, new hospitals, 100,000 new jobs that need to be created. Um that's not happening just with business, it's not just happening with with government, it's not happening with civil society and not-for-profits. It takes everybody. Um, what how do you kind of see um the role that you can play and and that and that business leaders can play in in that uh in that you know complex dance?

Jim Estill: 32:10

So one thing I say is do your piece, whatever your piece is. So I happen to be doing my piece around refugees. I've got a furniture bank which uh recycles furniture. If you've we take your mother's estate and we uh redistribute it for free to those in need, that type of thing. That's our piece. But you can support the food bank, you can support uh cancer research, you can support the hospital, you and I and we do support hospital and hospice and whatnot, but um and so I never fault anybody for doing any of that. Um as far as politics go, I don't do politics, but I often I'm opinionated, so I often share my opinion as to what they could do, but I but I always try to look for the greater good. So I'm not saying, okay, we should pass legislation that everyone has to have uh three refrigerators in their house. That's not uh I'm not just saying you must buy you must buy DMB. Actually, that's a good one we should put forward. Um but uh um so I try not to look at just my good. And as a business person, I always try to find ideas that are not um that don't cost much or anything. So um around housing, I'm a big believer in accessory apartments. Yeah, I I'm not gonna live in an accessory apartment and I could put one in my basement, but the fact is that's one of the best sources of housing because most of the struggling middle class needs the income of uh and the infrastructure's already there. You're not gonna dig up the roads and put more sewers in. All houses can do it. That and you're already heating the houses best for the environment, you're not building on green space. That's one simple example that I've been a advocate of. Let's encourage accessory uh housing if we can. Yeah, yeah. And uh, and so I I do kind of lobby around that. Another one that doesn't cost the government anything is speed doesn't cost anything. So speed around permitting, like it costs the developer mu interest to have a proper to have a property waiting to be built. And if it costs it takes another three or four months, they've just added three or four percent to the cost of that uh house to no benefit of anybody.

Ian McLean: 34:26

Yeah, I I think that's what that speed always um or lack of speed in government decisions always for for most business people, they just don't get it because you you can't you can't work at that speed in in in business. You just wouldn't be in business. And and I always describe having been on the other side too, is government is not designed for speed, bureaucracy, but somewhere in between what business would like to see and how fast things are going now, there has to be a better, better middle. To your point, uh, we're not getting things done like and and all of this has to happen at the same time, and it's exactly like you're located in Guelph. Guelph has a version of the same issues that Waterloo Region has. Toronto has a has an uh four times the size or five times the size issues that we have, but and it all has to happen at the same time. More doctors, new hospital, filling it, finishing our LRT or transit in your community, 70,000 homes, building creating 100,000 jobs all at the same time. Like that's that is not something that can happen slow. The decisions are kind of built on one another. And I I agree with you. Speed is uh we got to find a way to speed it up, if not to the way to the to the speed of business, certainly faster, and and uh and that's a very good point. Um if if you were mentoring, so as as we kind of wind up, and then we'll get into our rapid fire questions uh at towards the end. Um if you're mentoring, and which you do anyways, but in mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs, what's the one piece of advice that you'd give them to navigate in in such an uncertain or or um chaotic world right now? I'm not sure it's it isn't always to some degree, like it's always uncertain, and there's always do the I'm I I do think that there's a there's this this moment in this last five or six years has been particularly um uncertain. So what's what's the advice you'd give to uh to the next generation?

Jim Estill: 36:33

Well, when my father was alive, he always said these are the worst of times, always. And so that's what we feel. We feel they're the worst of times, we feel that feel they're the most uncertain. The advice is just do it and don't be afraid of failure. I mean, Ian, you're not gonna be sitting there saying, Jim, you you started this thing and it didn't work. You're not gonna care. You're you're the and so uh be flexible, but just do it. I see many entrepreneurs getting into analysis paralysis. So if you want to be perfect and want to know all the data, entrepreneurship is about making decisions with imperfect and incomplete data. That's what you have to do. You have to make the decisions, and uh you have to get comfortable with that.

Ian McLean: 37:20

And and I and maybe, you know, in in admitting, and I think you said earlier, like fail fast, fail off and fail, fail off, fail, fail cheap. You learn from all of those experiences too. I mean, that that's part of the the failure saying, hey, geez, that business, uh I didn't have the right, the right business uh focus, or I didn't didn't do it the right way. But you learn from that. And I think that that that's what's what I hear you saying is in the failure comes the learning and comes the next opportunity.

Jim Estill: 37:49

That that's true. And true wisdom is learning from other people's mistakes. We're not very good at that, but we even tend to not be good at learning from our own mistakes.

Ian McLean: 37:57

So I let I know that this kind of ties in for that next generation. What's the importance of having a mentor? Like you had, you know, maybe it was your parents, or when you got started, you must have had some people that kind of, you know, not everyone, but some people would have encouraged you or given you advice when you asked. Um, I think it's incredibly important for young people to to try and seek out someone who, you know, can be a mentor to them, give them the straight goods, give them some unvarnished uh um truths that they that they may not see themselves. Uh what was the importance of that for you? And and and uh because you do it now for others.

Jim Estill: 38:37

Who why is that so important? So for sure, I did not have a mentor, I had multiple mentors. Right. And I would have multiple mentors around multiple things. So one of my mentors was uh um Frank Hasenfrass Lin and Work Machines, and he uh, of course, ran a big business. So I'd ask him big business questions and stuff like that. But I had so many mentors and they didn't know they're my mentors either. No, so the other advice is buy a lot of coffee or lunches, we'll have a chat and uh and just um go out there. When I was growing my business, I deliberately would say, okay, I'm doing 10 million in sales. How do I do 20? I'd study the people that do 20. When doing 20, study the people do 50, study the people do 100, study the people do a billion. So always look to the next level. And what I learned is it tends to not be what I would need to do to get to the next level. It would need to be what do I stop doing to get to the next level? Because uh, you know, when you're doing 10 million in sales, maybe you're taking all the orders, making all the sales calls, and doing all the work. And maybe when you're doing a hundred million, you need to have a lot of people, which is why I can take three weeks off in the woods and uh they they do all the work and come back with 81 new ideas for your staff.

Ian McLean: 39:50

Listen, um looking ahead, um, because you I mean your your career would would indicate this. There's always something next for you. I mean, you're standing to be successful. Um, you know, there's there's uh there's but there's always a new challenge out there. What what what do you see the next chapter being for you?

Jim Estill: 40:08

Well, I can see uh you alluded to earlier, I can see there's gonna be more manufacturing in Canada. So I can see that. Um, and so we've bought a couple of companies like Falcon Manufacturing and uh Um Arctic, which so I could see uh more of that. Um I was fortunate because I sold my computer business when I was too young and I was retired and I found I didn't like being retired, so I'm not looking at retiring anytime soon. And the beauty of being an entrepreneur is I I don't have to retire. I could take four weeks in the woods. Yeah. So uh I could still step back and have uh people do that. Um of course I want to solve the problems of the world, and I guess the older I get, the more I feel I will spend a little more time solving the problems, potentially. Yeah, that's great.

Ian McLean: 40:58

Okay, now I ask all these, uh this is kind of our rapid fire. I I do this with everyone who's brave enough to come on the on the on the podcast. Um so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna rip these off because I it's always instructive for me. This podcast is about the business story, but it's also about the leader and leadership. And and so these there's no right or wrong answers here. It's always interesting how people answer these. Uh, what would you tell your younger self if you could if you could go back? Don't be as afraid. That's that's good advice. Um, what or who inspires you?

Jim Estill: 41:34

I I tend to be inspired by uh Mother Teresa and Gandhi and those people, they seem very selfless. Of course, of course, now you read things that maybe they weren't as good as that, but right. So I tend to be inspired by that. I I'm also inspired by people like Frank Hasenfratz, the the people that build it themselves.

Ian McLean: 41:55

Right. Yeah, and that's that's incredible. Um, if you weren't in your current career, what would you be doing? So if you said I'm not doing Danby, what would you be doing?

Jim Estill: 42:04

I would be doing something in charity. So I'd be working with the homeless or doing something uh in that.

Ian McLean: 42:12

We can almost almost hope that you you you've got such a great team at Danby, maybe you do say, because we need we need help on that on that front. So um is there a book that you're reading or a podcast besides behind the business podcast? But is there a podcast, a book that you're reading right now?

Jim Estill: 42:30

Uh yeah, the the one I'm um reading right now is Alchemy by Rory Sutherland, and it's a more marketing book. He's ex- og Ogal V and uh I love marketing. I love psychology. So uh that's a he has very interesting perspective.

Ian McLean: 42:47

Are most of your is it most of your reading or podcasts um like like uh um nonfiction or or business books, or do you do you do you kind of check out and read uh you know John Grisham books as an example?

Jim Estill: 43:01

So most of everything I d do is um business except when I'm on my three-week reading. Oh, except for in that then I then I'll read John Grisham or uh I read a thousand-page Ken Follett book. Yeah. And so I I will allow myself to do that. But when I did that, which is very recently, I said, you know, I probably should do more of that when I'm in real life. Yeah. Like right now, and I feel I need to be focused more on business, but maybe I shouldn't.

Ian McLean: 43:29

Yeah. Well, those and Ken Follett books, I mean, it history and the richness of uh of the past are incredible. Um, what is one of your favorite local businesses in in the region? You know, you're from Guelph, but in in in this part of the world.

Jim Estill: 43:43

Well, the simplest one, everyone likes to eat. I like Diana's restaurant, downtown Guelph. It's Indian food and it's uh uh it's the right price range and it's uh they're good people. And so I you know, yeah, food is just the easiest thing to say.

Ian McLean: 44:00

So I I like that. Okay, and where um where can listeners go to connect with you or your businesses? Because you're involved in a variety of things. If something strikes their their fancy, they want to um you know learn more about Danby or the things that you're doing to help the community, how where can they find you?

Jim Estill: 44:17

Well, LinkedIn is the most obvious, so I'm on LinkedIn and uh you know Danby.com is are the companies, but uh, I'm also reasonably Googleable.

Ian McLean: 44:28

Listen, I want to take uh just a second to say thank you so much for um for joining us. I know you're busy, so we'll let you get on with the rest of your day. But well, we appreciate you uh coming and we welcome you to our new podcast studio, being the first one to be brave enough to come here. Really do appreciate it, and we'll look forward to having you back in the coming days. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Behind the Business, proudly presented by Gore Mutual, insurance that does good. New episodes drop every Thursday, so be sure to tune in next week. You can also visit greater kwchamber.com to catch up on past episodes anytime. We'll see you next time as we continue to go behind the business.