Bob Graham is a classic entrepreneur who started his first enterprise mowing lawns and teaching guitar in his neighborhood. After a succession of jobs, Bob realized he only had one life to live. A chance encounter led him to found Airwaves Music and grow it into Canada’s leading DJ company.
“All businesses are people businesses.” Bob Park, President & CEO, Fincad
Bob Park is an entrepreneur who has overcome numerous challenges and changes in the twenty-five years since he co-founded Fincad. Bob and his original partner started the business in 1990 in the early stages of the modern over-the-counter financial derivatives business. Coming from the brokerage industry, they saw that there was a tremendous imbalance between what the derivatives experts in the big banks knew and what their clients, mainly non-financial companies, knew. As a result, the corporate treasurers and CFOs of those customer organizations were making costly mistakes or even being cheated. Bob and his partner set out to level the playing field by providing the customers of the banks with the knowledge and technology needed to deal in the derivatives markets in an informed way. Bob started with almost no money and has weathered stormy periods to reinvent himself and his company.
Even after thirty-five years of business, I still get excited when I have the chance to meet someone in person that I’ve only met virtually before. In the old days, I would communicate by telex, fax, and telephone before meeting people for the first time. Today, it is often through this blog or Twitter than I interact with people.
There is a big world out there and many entrepreneurs that I meet start their thinking of nothing but their local market. In Canada, it can be a stretch to get business people to look at the US. For American entrepreneurs, it can be a struggle for them to consider Europe or Asia.