AlterClimate Co-founders on Who Are These Startups

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1. 00:00:00Welcome to Who Are These Startups? podcast shorts featuring founder interviews of Canadian startups.
2. 00:00:06Welcome back to Who Are These Startups? I'm the startup coach founder of Fronto Starts and with
3. 00:00:11me today is Cedric and Kevin, co-founders of Alter Climate. Welcome Cedric and Kevin.
4. 00:00:16Thank you. Glad to be here.
5. 00:00:18Yeah, thank you very much.
6. 00:00:19What does Alter Climate do?
7. 00:00:22We provide investors and asset managers with the ability to assess the cost of physical climate
8. 00:00:32risks on their assets. So in other words, we look at what is the impact of physical climate change
9. 00:00:38on the real world assets and we estimate what kind of value may be impaired as a result of these
10. 00:00:46effects or climate change on their assets so that they can better manage their portfolios and better
11. 00:00:51foresee and predict the cost of climate change down the road so that they can be better investors.
12. 00:00:57Who is Alter Climate for? You talked about investors and portfolio managers. Is it a specific
13. 00:01:04industry, a specific size of portfolio or investor?
14. 00:01:07Good question. Definitely for investment managers and asset owners. So it could be for a REIT,
15. 00:01:15it could be for a company that invests in the real estate sector, it could be for asset owners
16. 00:01:20that have diversified strategies and portfolios, size not really. As long as there's exposure to
17. 00:01:27physical assets in public equities and private markets, I think our product speaks and talks to
18. 00:01:33these people. What is your startup story? I'd say Alter is born out of an idea that we had as a
19. 00:01:43consultancy and a year ago, Kevin and I met through one of our partners in the venture
20. 00:01:49and he brought in this whole technology side that we could possibly explore with him.
21. 00:01:55We pondered were we going to be an integrated technology solution or basically cast out this
22. 00:02:01software as a service tool. After about six months of exploring together, after formally
23. 00:02:08starting to work together, we decided that the pathway was pretty clear and the relationships
24. 00:02:14were good. The background was quite similar and we had a destination in mind and the rest is
25. 00:02:19really history. Since then, we incorporated the company and we started developing the product.
26. 00:02:24We've got a live MVP and onwards and upwards. I like to say that only an entrepreneur will work
27. 00:02:3380 hours to avoid working 40. What drives you? That's a good question. I'll take this one.
28. 00:02:42My goal is to build resilience in our world to the climate change threat. I'm driven by
29. 00:02:48environmental sciences and I've been driven by business my entire career. I've been an
30. 00:02:53entrepreneur and today, if I look at as I move forward and think about a legacy, I would like to
31. 00:02:58leave behind a tool that enables the world to build resilience to climate change as it
32. 00:03:03tries and fights through adaptation to becoming a low-carbon economy. That's what drives me as an
33. 00:03:09individual. Kevin? I think I'm aligned on the mission and it's why we decided to launch this
34. 00:03:16company together for sure. If I go on a more personal point of view, I cannot do something
35. 00:03:25halfway. For me, walking 40 hours for someone else and then having the other part of my life
36. 00:03:32when I'm starting to think about something, it's not possible. The only explanation is not even a
37. 00:03:37choice. It's more like I need to be 100% walking, thinking, exploring something specific.
38. 00:03:45Entrepreneurship is the only way to do that properly.
39. 00:03:50How do you define success? I define success as me achieving the goals that I set for myself as
40. 00:04:00an individual. That translates to the goals that we've set collectively as a team within this business.
41. 00:04:06I also define success as the success of the people that surround me. For us, I think as
42. 00:04:13partners, we have an objective and we won't be successful until we've met this objective of
43. 00:04:19building a tool that's going to be found in the hands of a large set of investors, investment
44. 00:04:26managers, asset managers, asset owners to help de-risk their investments in the face of climate
45. 00:04:31change. That's how I would define it. Kevin? It's so hard to make something useful and for more
46. 00:04:38than ourselves. Anything we can do in that direction would be already a success. It's
47. 00:04:45even harder now to find something that could be actually helpful to what we are facing now
48. 00:04:53in terms of human kind. Achieving that would be a success for sure.
49. 00:05:00What is your funding situation? For now, we started our self-funding project. We were lucky
50. 00:05:11enough to both of us on our own sites to already launch one company, make an exit. We are in
51. 00:05:21capacity to self-fund the startup for now. We are planning to raise our first round by the end of
52. 00:05:29the year. What do you wish you knew before you started Alter Climate? I'll let you tackle that
53. 00:05:36one and maybe I tackle the next one. The interesting thing is that for now, it's still a young project
54. 00:05:44and for now, we are not facing really new stuff compared to the first experience we had as
55. 00:05:53entrepreneurs. It's mostly as expected, but you forget that it would be that exhausting.
56. 00:06:01You hide that from yourself. We knew and still it's more exhausted than we were expecting for
57. 00:06:12sure. What's your biggest learning as a founder? I think I'm just going to build on this because
58. 00:06:19I have this bias. You build a business, you know you work hard, you exit once, you're like,
59. 00:06:24right on, I've got a model in mind. It happens that Kevin's done the same thing. As we cross
60. 00:06:30path, we're both thinking a bit of time spans since the exit. Now, we're going to get into this and
61. 00:06:35it's going to be easier. It's going to go faster. We're going to be smarter. We're going to have less
62. 00:06:39hurdles and all of a sudden, you're facing all of this. No doubt the experience pays, but it ain't
63. 00:06:45easier. It is just as hard. It requires just as much heavy lifting and hard work, determination,
64. 00:06:51passion, and perseverance. These are things you can't do without. As a founder, my biggest
65. 00:06:56learning is that a lot changes, but so much is the same. To build up on what Kevin was just saying.
66. 00:07:02We haven't actually cross-referenced our answers here, so this is kind of funny.
67. 00:07:11You both did exits before, so you're serial entrepreneurs. You're going to get ready to do
68. 00:07:16your fund raise by the end of the year. What's your biggest lesson in pitching your startup?
69. 00:07:20The main learning right now we are facing is that our clients know way more than investors about
70. 00:07:27what we are talking about. Until a few months ago and when we actually started Next AI Program,
71. 00:07:33because of that, we were looking for feedback, external feedback. Now we are facing that every
72. 00:07:40day that we need to find a way to explain what we are doing to everybody and investors in startups,
73. 00:07:48which is very different than explaining that to clients and prospects.
74. 00:07:53Yeah, I completely concur. The second thing I would say, that makes us a poor candidate for a
75. 00:08:01pitch competition, because if you want us to throw this in three minutes when we have sophisticated
76. 00:08:06clients, it's hard to tell it like you would tell it to your grandma. It's practically impossible.
77. 00:08:12I said practically. Now, as AI founders, what's your favorite productivity hack or AI tool?
78. 00:08:20I mean, we all know now that we faced a big change last November, December when Open AI released
79. 00:08:32a chat GPT. It became very quickly a daily tool for us. Changing the way we do research,
80. 00:08:42it's changing the way we optimize our code, it's making us rethink our processes for sure.
81. 00:08:49Anything derived from that, it could be a notion AI, it could be GitHub pilot, whatever, but this
82. 00:08:56generative AI, there are limits to that for sure, but it's really a big change.
83. 00:09:03I love chat GTP, but it randomly just makes random stuff up in the middle of like,
84. 00:09:10I'm writing something really big and then it puts something random and you're like,
85. 00:09:13where did that come from? That's not true. I didn't say that. What is this?
86. 00:09:22Like I do it a 30-day program and I'm doing an outline and it's like day seven,
87. 00:09:27you're halfway through the program. I'm like, how can I be halfway through the 30-day program
88. 00:09:31on day seven? Anyway, it's very useful, but yeah, you definitely got to edit just to make sure that
89. 00:09:39it's not making random stuff up. We need to keep in mind that it's a probabilistic model, first of all.
90. 00:09:46Absolutely. It's not thinking. There is no thinking behind that. It's the probability of something
91. 00:09:54follow what you're saying, what you're looking for. Therefore, all those thinking approaches that
92. 00:10:02could be very simple for a very young human, actually very, very difficult for this model.
93. 00:10:09Then the other way around, like creating stuff, getting ideas, reading long documentation and
94. 00:10:17articles to provide values, it's very, very powerful for that.
95. 00:10:21You are part of the Next AI program. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience?
96. 00:10:28We are really proud and happy to have been selected to this current corral.
97. 00:10:37It's a great way for us, as I said before, to get out of our environment, just being among
98. 00:10:46ourselves and with our clients. It's providing a lot of feedback, point of views, learning,
99. 00:10:51teaching, ways to meet people. We are going to talk on Thursday for the Venture Reveal,
100. 00:10:59which is a great event, a great opportunity to exchange and expand our minds. I'm very happy
101. 00:11:07about that program. Do you have any tips for founders? I have one. If you plan to have runaway,
102. 00:11:16which you should do, you should think about multiplying the runway needs by 1.5x to make
103. 00:11:22sure you've got enough runway, because it's all about managing cash. It's all about managing cash
104. 00:11:27flow and progressing against that cash management. It's never to sit comfortably without a strong
105. 00:11:35conservative factor into your cash flow projections and your financial needs.
106. 00:11:39So you need to build that capacity to see in the longer run. Things take longer to do, to complete.
107. 00:11:47Things are, you run into issues, you have to plan for that uncertainty. So I would say that's my biggest
108. 00:11:54tip. That's a tried and tested tip. Yeah. Do not overlook the weight of
109. 00:12:04entrepreneurship on your personal relations. Be very clear with your life partner what's going
110. 00:12:08to happen. And because if you're not supported there, if you cannot support also your friends and
111. 00:12:16families, it's going to be way harder. So yeah, it's a life choice. And if you're not alone,
112. 00:12:23you're not making this decision by yourself. That's a good girl.
113. 00:12:30What's one book every founder should read? Slicing pie. Mike Morier. Now, how to work through
114. 00:12:36an equitable equity split that rewards effort, consistent investments, cash, time. It's really
115. 00:12:45a thin little thing that really puts a mindset around how to walk in and walk out of adventure.
116. 00:12:54Yeah. On the non-story, non-fiction books, I love the most would be Thinking Fast and Slow,
117. 00:13:00the Kenman. He wrote even other books on uncertainties and biases. And it's very,
118. 00:13:08very important, I think, to think about your own biases because you cannot correct them,
119. 00:13:12but you can actually acknowledge them. That's most of the way to manage them properly.
120. 00:13:22As AI founders, what is your reaction to the current call to pause AI development
121. 00:13:28and the general fear around it? It's achieving its goal, which is talking about it. The fact that
122. 00:13:34you're asking this question is the proof of it. Obviously, it's not going to happen in
123. 00:13:40terms of let's take a pause. We don't know about that. But talking about the risk, the impact on
124. 00:13:45society and on work and the risk regarding information in general, it's key. So having to
125. 00:13:57talk about it, it's part of the solution. Yeah, I concur. Where can our listeners connect with
126. 00:14:03you and alter climate online? Find us on LinkedIn. And our emails are pretty easy.
127. 00:14:10Cedric@altoclimate.com and Kevin@altoclimate.com. That is alterclimate.com, obviously.
128. 00:14:17I really appreciate you both taking the time today to be part of Who Are These Startups.
129. 00:14:22Thank you very much. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for your time. It's great to be here.
130. 00:14:26This has been Who Are These Startups. Find out more at WhoAreTheStartups.com
131. 00:14:31and check out our live events at toronto-starts.com/events.
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