With people buying things increasingly online the back end logistics required for not only shipping product out to consumers but then receiving back returns can be a nightmare for SMBs – that’s where ReturnBear comes in. This Canadian company helps sellers manage their product returns; with central product drop depots in shopping malls and much more – including product sorting and re-packacking to speed up the path to resale.
For this, the 45th episode of StartWell’s podcast, Qasim Virjee sits down with Robert Domagala – the Head Of Business Development & Marketing at ReturnBear.
In a rush? Here are some highlights from this conversation
- Career growth and industry evolution in tech. (2:31)
- Customer product returns and their impact on e-commerce brands. (5:28)
- Making returns more convenient for customers. (11:55)
- Commercial real estate and retail partnerships. (14:57)
- E-commerce fulfillment and returns in Canada. (17:24)
- E-commerce returns and their impact on retail. (23:31)
- Retail frustration with Apple store experience. (27:47)
- Retail return experiences and in-store technology. (31:06)
- Optimizing logistics and return processing for e-commerce. (37:49)
- Optimizing return shipping and processing for e-commerce. (40:28)
- Streamlining return process for e-commerce brands. (43:53)
- Childhood memories of mail-order shopping. (50:38)
- Building a successful e-commerce brand. (53:46)
Spend time with this conversation - here's the full transcript
Qasim Virjee 0:27
All right. Welcome back to this the 45th episode 45 I had to confirm that number with Poncho, our producer right now, which is crazy. That's almost I'm not even that old. I'm almost that old. So there's something in my brain there. But yeah, the 45th episode of the start well, podcast we're back on King Street in our broadcast studio for this episode, which I am so happy to be joined in studio four. With the lovely and magical man in front of me, Rob de Mugla. Da Mugla.
Robert Domagala 1:04
dama Gala.
Qasim Virjee 1:05
There you go. Don McGann, I'd have to do that again. takes a while for me, man. I was just in Rome a few weeks ago, you know, so I have become a racist. While Yeah.
Robert Domagala 1:15
Everybody wants to do that, you know,
Qasim Virjee 1:17
just your whole life. I got plagued by your Italian heritage.
Robert Domagala 1:20
While it's not Italian that Well, there you go. It's funny. I had a conversation the other day with another chap that I was doing an interview with. I was fortunate to chat with and he's Italian and that's how he led off to he was like, I gotta know, are you right? Are you Italian? Like I am? And I'm like, No, I'm not. I'm actually polish. It's a Polish name. And so apparently, those who are more fluent in Polish culture and language than than I am, they easily identify it. Okay, which is amazing. So so there you go. You won't hear it too often. I'm happy to be Italian today for you chasm and happy to join you for this milestone. I've just already fifth podcast
Qasim Virjee 1:58
elevated your polish Mr. Smith status. Regardless, I'm sorry, I messed up your name. That's okay. One more time, please. dama Gala. dama. Gala. It's a pleasure.
Robert Domagala 2:11
It's a pleasure to Great to see you again. Sorry to be in the space. Yeah,
Qasim Virjee 2:14
it's so funny. So for our audience, a little bit of back history as we know each other through the company that you're with before your current position, which we'll be talking mostly perhaps about in this conversation, a company called TWG TWG was a What would you say? TWG. Was the working group is what it's an acronym for?
Robert Domagala 2:35
Yeah, it was called the working group. And there was a reason for that, that actually predated predated me joining the company by TWG was a software studio, it was you know, and I'm confident in saying it was probably one of Toronto's or even Canada's, you know, like most successful modern software, design development strategy agencies, and had a fantastic run, helping to grow that business and building the team there and working and learning from a lot of great people at TWG. And that's exactly how we met. Right, and and how we go back. And
Qasim Virjee 3:10
then our friends at Deloitte acquired that company. Yep. And after that, a little ways down the road, you found yourself in the pandemic.
Robert Domagala 3:19
Yeah, just like everybody, well, I guess the pandemic was in full swing. And then, last March TWG, was acquired by Deloitte to become part of part of the product design and strategy and development org, there, again, you know, a very, very potent combination of of strategists, consultants, you know, product designers and things like that. And that was around the nine and a half year mark in my tenure at TWG, as well, yeah, exactly, had been a long growth journey. I joined in 2012, I think I was employee number 12, a TWG. And, you know, businesses were just starting to think about, you know, digital transformation and an extremely nascent way back in 2012. And you had, you know, I mean, geez, back then Shopify had only just raised its be round, you know, like, it was early days in a lot of the industry that's accelerated so rapidly. Oh, yeah. And so yeah, TWG became part of Deloitte. And, you know, I think a lot of people, they're doing a lot of great work still.
Qasim Virjee 4:26
And then so return bear is where you are now, what's, what, what, what attracted you to this? Yeah,
Robert Domagala 4:34
no, that's, that's a great question. Again, after nine and a half years, working with the folks at TWG, which was, which was gonna say, like, transformative for me. And I think for a lot of other other people, you know, we had been building a lot of software products and customer experiences, user experiences, front end back end, for so many different businesses, like startups, like well, simple and Uh, you know, coin square and other emerging companies, and then also helping traditional enterprises make some of those pivots into more, you know, a more software driven culture more, you know, design driven culture and things like that. And so variety is the spice of life for a great deal of that time, you know, getting to work on FinTech, you know, telco e commerce, you know, fashion, and just keep looping through this, these really interesting ebbs and flows and categories. Yeah. But, you know, coinciding with that merger with Deloitte, I thought, you know, my next learning opportunity would be would be focused, focused at a product company, you know, we had been building so many businesses, I had seen so many interesting ideas come in, from a founder or from a small, small team, that was just like trying to get their MVP developed or, or getting just post MVP and needing the, the lift the sort of collaborative lift that we were able to bring to them. And, and I decided I wanted to go deep in that respect to like, you know, shift from consulting to like, the application of those skills, day in and day out, you know, with one brand, one team trying to build one great thing. And, you know, that's one of the downsides of consulting is, you know, you you, you go in for a bit, and then you decouple and you learn something else, and you did tolerable, but you don't get to you don't get to nurture those relationships, or those products, you know, in perpetuity, right, and maybe, maybe, you know, for some protracted amount of time, but your purpose is to help pump that innovation into the other orgs DNA, your purpose is to help stand them up, your purpose is to help them build teams, even build culture, you know, in some cases, and so but then you don't get to do that for yourself for their product, and I got attached to a lot of these products. So it
Qasim Virjee 6:53
takes, it's like, it takes 24 months to get your client pregnant. And then you don't get to hear the word Papa,
Robert Domagala 6:59
every I know exactly. So that's a that's a great analogy. So So I wanted to I wanted to focus in sort of the next leg of my my professional development in the product space. And then, you know, the last few years that I was at TWG, I was also lucky enough to to be leading the development of the sort of the branding and E commerce side of the business. And so we were a Shopify Plus agency partner, we started to try to contribute to like the again, like the ever growing wave of demand from both established and new brands that were that were trying to connect with customers through through E comm. And that was a function that we didn't really have a TWG when I joined. So the last few years, I did a lot of work with E commerce brands across all sorts of different categories. And you know, I'm pretty passionate about the customer experience. And so when the opportunity to join return bear came up, I sort of could instantly empathize with the the consumer and merchant pain point that it was trying to solve, as well as the environmental opportunities for positive impact. And, and then also, it's E comm adjacent or that's actually it isn't econ adjacent, it's like, it's very critical to econ function for any brand. And so, so it felt like a really natural fit. And I was able to, I was able to join the team close to a year ago. And, you know, I'm heads down working on that sense. So
Qasim Virjee 8:23
let's Okay, so tell me a little bit, I have my own kind of assumptions about what return bear does. But they're, they're very shallow. So return bear, you help companies solve their problems with customer product returns? Yeah,
Robert Domagala 8:40
exactly. So, you know, imagine this, you know, Shopify democratizes, the accessibility to e commerce technology for so many companies. And we see, we see on on that stack, but also on other platforms, like new brands emerging in a way the last five years that they couldn't 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, right. And so there's more commerce happening online, there's still lots of commerce happening offline and brick and mortar experiences and on the high street, right. But these, this growing class of Challenger brands and the online ecosystem in particular, they don't have real world physical touchpoints to, to engage with their customers. And one of the most sort of critical moments in the customer journey is that moment of anxiety where you accidentally got sent the wrong size, you ordered the large and they sent you the medium, and that's an accident that can happen or the product comes damaged. Again, these are these are natural things that happen or that it's
Qasim Virjee 9:35
very rare that you actually get something better than you ordered. That actually happened this week. My wife ordered a bunch of stuff from desigual Okay, clothing label, and they're all the clothes all their stores retail, had 50% store discounts all over the world we saw. We were in Rome a few weeks ago, when we saw this store was going out of business. We didn't have time, because we had to get an ice cream across the road with my daughter and the store closed and I was like you just buy it online. I'm sure it's online. She did a bunch of shopping online, got that massive box. Very excited, everything came out of the box on the floor in the living room. And there was this massive blue winter jacket. Okay, now, it wasn't necessarily better, but it was probably 10 times the price of the like shirt that she ordered, you know. So that was one pleasant surprise, but it's never otherwise happen. And it's certainly not from, you know, people like Amazon, at least for us, we order a lot from Amazon, we never get mistakes. Yeah,
Robert Domagala 10:26
I mean, so these things happen anyways, right. And so and so you know, the customer has a pain point in that journey, where they're consuming more with these brands that don't have physical solutions. And so they're being asked to necessarily, like print more shipping labels, repack, items, take them to Canada Post, you know, maybe wait in line at a Shoppers Drug Mart and then wait with some amount of ambiguity, there's this big pregnant pause, when you're waiting for your your package to go from British Columbia back to Atlanta, Georgia to some fulfillment center. And you've exchanged value, right, you made that purchase, you spent a couple $100 potentially on some items. And for whatever reason, it's not necessarily the brand's fault, something just didn't work out. But the customer is left sort of carrying like the the delay, and in many cases carrying the cost of like the return shipping, it's good to finally realize their value. And so in Canada, this is, you know, like, this is a challenge for all sorts of brands, of course, because our geography is vast, our population density is spread so thinly across the major metros, and no one, you know, to the best of our knowledge has yet you know, wanted to try to fill that white space with some sort of, you know, new or better options. And so, you know, the problem that we're trying to solve is sort of has, you know, we look at it through three lenses, we're trying to make online returns, and maybe in the future physical retail returns to if you're not close to the store, from whence, you know, you purchase the products. But, you know, we're trying to make those online returns more convenient for customers. So I mean, I don't know about you, but I did all my, my orders used to come to the office, my my, my return label printing used to happen on the office printer, and there was a post office like pretty close to the office was easy for me to get to these 1000s. Now, as a customer, like I don't have a printer, like every time I buy one, I use it for a bit, the ink dries up and then I recycle it or something. So you know, you have to ask the neighbor to print a shipping label for you. Now, you know, maybe you were a little too keen, and you throw it throughout the packaging on recycling day. And so I've
Qasim Virjee 12:30
got a $200 pair of shoes sitting in my office right now. We will foot size, are you?
Robert Domagala 12:35
I'm probably a lot depends on 1112. And this is the product. The shoes. Yeah, that's just it you don't know, right? As a consumer, you don't know. So we want to make, yeah, we want to make it easier for you to to make that return. Yeah. And in doing so, you know, actually have a better experience with that brand. You know, it should be convenient for you should have more choices. So as a Canadian, you should be able to do those mailings, of course, or you should have, you know, these new options like packaging, label free drop offs. And that's something that didn't exist in Canada until we started to roll it out. But we've seen in other markets
Qasim Virjee 13:07
a rewind, what's that package and label free drop off, right? So I got I got my shoes, I throw the cool Han box, you know, because I was so excited. And then there were the wrong, you know, size. So I would take it to a return bear place and just like put them in a box. Well,
Robert Domagala 13:23
so if Cole Han was was a return bear customer Kohan was using our services, then you as their customer, should you go to do a return you would have seen an option in your you know, in their return policy to do a drop off return had one of our locations. And so if you select that, as the customer when you request that, that return will give you a QR code, you'll bring those shoes at your convenience, preferably with the box. And to be clear, I don't want to make promises I can't keep. But you'll bring those shoes to our drop off location at the Eaton center, for example, or up at Fairview or Sherway gardens, whatever is closest to
Qasim Virjee 13:57
you. Yeah, shopping malls for a non Toronto audience. Yeah, exactly. And
Robert Domagala 14:01
the far beyond the shopping mall in short order, I assure you, but you'll bring that with your QR code that we're going to email to you to to our kiosk in one of these locations. And the staff at the kiosk will scan your QR code, they'll confirm that there's these two Chohan size tents that you've got. And they'll do you know quick visual QA to make sure they clearly haven't been worn out, you know, they're not covered in dirt and grime and we'll we'll collect them from you, we'll approve your return on the spot and you can walk away knowing that it's taken care of. So we've removed that ambiguity in theory, and we've met you ideally where you are on your lunch break. We've met you while you're doing birthday shopping for your daughter at the mall. And we've given you a new way to just take care of that problem. So those shoes don't just sit here and you eat the loss. Yeah,
Qasim Virjee 14:47
is that okay? So it's just really cool. And I got a number of questions for you came. The first thing is okay, so return bears a startup. Yes. Meaning that how There's a company,
Robert Domagala 15:00
the company was, you know, incubated as an idea by a venture accelerator called co roo that works with the Ontario teachers pension plan. And the idea for return bear was sort of dreamed up through through partnership between co Rue and Cadillac Fairview and otpp. About
Qasim Virjee 15:18
so that's a kind of a real great Cadillac, Fairview, are they technically a reate?
Robert Domagala 15:24
I'm not sure.
Qasim Virjee 15:25
So is it real for all our listeners who are kind of, again, foreigners or are unfamiliar with commercial real estate? Cadillac, Fairview is a massive company that owns across Canada. And also I think in the States, a lot of real estate that is commercial real estate geared for retail. So shopping malls, particularly some high state High Street properties, strip malls, stuff like that. They've also done developments from what I know, in terms of mixed use and some residential perhaps,
Robert Domagala 15:52
yeah, that's, that's exactly right. They own and operate most of the sort of Premier malls and the major, major urban centers in in Toronto, for example. And, I mean, whether they're technically a real I'm honestly not the right person to ask about that. But they're, they're a great partner for acid return bear and, and so about a year and a half ago, like the the idea for filling this white space in Canada, to begin with, anyways, was dreamed up. And and then, you know, the the company like properly launched came to market around October, so almost a year ago. And and we're, you know, full steam ahead since then.
Qasim Virjee 16:30
Nice. So notable clients that you can mention, like, what kind of brands or retailers are you working with? Or their distributors as well?
Robert Domagala 16:37
Yeah, I mean, primarily, this is, this is right now, this stage working with brands that are selling direct to their, their consumer in particular EECOM, right. So you know, we're managing their own stores. Exactly. And the online store is their is their primary store, that's the primary location, they may not have yet opened up a brick and mortar store on Queen Street or something like that. So we're working with a few really interesting scaling Canadian brands, some women wear a women's wear brand called numi, for example, who's just seen continued growth the last couple years. Another lovely, a men's and women's brand called Frank, we're working with international brands that that needs to solve this problem for their Canadian customers. case with shoes, for example, palladium boots, the Swiss Yeah, case back in the day, I remember well, absolutely. But it can be today for you as well. chasm so so if you, you know, if you buy a pair of K Swiss shoes in Canada, and these happen, you happen to get the wrong size, you can absolutely absolutely use, use our return method to just make life a little bit easier for
Qasim Virjee 17:37
yourself, why is up Kohan case Swiss is eating your lunch. That's what that's that's
Robert Domagala 17:41
what we hope for all of our brands, of course, and, and, and we're exploring some really some really exciting, you know, like bigger enterprise relationships, but we want to make this level of returns and reverse logistics accessible to more brands, though, too, right. And so like, you know, historically, you know, warehousing is extremely, like cumbersome and complex, and it's expensive. And the amount of real estate that you know, you need as a three PL to operate on behalf of brands or as a brand. If you want to own your own facility. Language, you have to name it huge footprints and logistics is really complicated. And again, Canada doesn't make it any easier, just by the nature of our geography and our population spread. And so we want to make this sort of robust reverse logistics that maybe only like a Zara or an h&m would have had access to in the, in the sort of current world order, we want to make that accessible to brands that are even just getting started. Even if they're dealing with two or three returns. They're offering as robust and convenient policy as possible to win customer trust at checkout and to drive more sales and loyalty. And so, you know, we're trying to ensure that we work with like a really exciting spread of brands helping smaller brands grow and helping bigger brands adjust to like the the pain point of growing volumes.
Qasim Virjee 18:55
So you guys take all this product through your distribution network, you sort it and pack it and warehouse it for redistribution back to the suppliers.
Robert Domagala 19:04
Yeah, exactly. So in a nutshell, that's what happens. Brands starts working with us, we'll take receipt of all of their mail and returns because that's still the understood the most widely understood return paradigm in Canada right now, if you order online, you probably have to mail it back in. And that's the consumer expectation. We're trying to shift that of course, but we'll receive all of those mailings at one of our processing centers will also obviously receive that growing amount of drop off returns at our drop off kiosks. And we collect those on a regular basis and bring them back to the same processing centers. And then we're purpose built to deal with the returns. So no longer do these packages, sort of wait at the back door of the warehouse or the three PL that's prioritizing all of the outbound supply, which makes sense. Yeah, I
Qasim Virjee 19:48
want to ask you about that. Yeah. Like okay, if you take a kind of like a 10,000 foot view of the E commerce fulfillment landscape in Canada because that's where you guys are operating. Why is it not feasible for no matter what scale you are, but for your kind of like product supply chain, or fulfillment operator to also handle returns. While
Robert Domagala 20:21
it is feasible, I'm not going to pretend that it isn't, and some, some three pls will do, will do or at least claim to do the return processing as well.
Qasim Virjee 20:32
But what is three PL stands for? pick, pack. And something
Robert Domagala 20:37
else, oh, man, you can see I'm still I'm still learning you where's
Qasim Virjee 20:41
the jargon everywhere the jargon.
Robert Domagala 20:46
Pick pack and post I believe, right. So a three PL would be where, you know, you and me when we start our new start well, swag line and things like that, if we don't want to warehouse that here in your lovely studio, and we don't want to deal with shipping out the orders as they come Yeah, we will establish a relationship with a three PL third party logistics, pick pack post order fulfillment company, an order fulfillment company, and they will take our supply, and they will follow our operating procedures. And they will, you know, grab the items off the shelf and send it to the customer that does the order. And again, yes, some of them will also take the returns. But when you think about like the idea of starting a brand, or selling to a customer, you start with that thought I'm selling to a customer, you don't start from the opposite direction, you don't start like I'm I'm going to deal with stuff coming back, you know, from the customer. And so, you know, I would say, you know, from my perspective, and again, I haven't been I've been in software and product design and branding for the last 12 years, I haven't been in logistics to be very transparent. But, you know, abstracting myself from that looking, looking at that 1000 foot view, like you said, it stands to reason that these these more traditional operators, established businesses to take product and get it out the door, right? That is the current Mo and that's the, that's the bigger volume here, right?
Qasim Virjee 22:06
This is the thing that people don't realize is that from an operator from from a store operator perspective, or CPG, not a CPG because that's packaged goods, but whatever, if you're selling shit to people, you're you kind of definitely are focused on sales. And it's only really, I think, in the last five years that returns have become a necessary consideration for managing the relationships with your customers. Because a lot of this, especially in the last two years, buying mentality and the freedom of purchase as promoted by programs like Amazon Prime. And the no fee returns policies that companies have had to kind of like undertake have kind of shifted, at least here in North America. So if anyone's watching this listening to this, elsewhere, we're these sorts of like the logistics for the supply chain are less robust. And cities have less access, you know, then here even though Canada's big company, a country, you know, our infrastructure is pretty good. So it's unique in this try before you buy mentality. Like before we turn on the cameras today, I was talking about how Starkville studios embrace black magic in the last little while. And the 10s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars that we spent on studio equipment across campus in the last couple of years. Never was purchased with this own. No, it has to work for our purpose. And if it doesn't work, we can't return it and we're locked into it. You know, which, which was just a few years ago, that was the mentality, it's like, you buy something, you got to use it. If it's a functional product, you know. So it's very interesting for me to see the kind of try before you buy mentality being enabled by E commerce transcend from kind of like residential retail up to commercial as well. You know, and that's a fascinating thing, because yes, now the responsibility on facilitating returns as part of the purchase flow is going to be larger than ever.
Robert Domagala 24:09
Yeah, of course, I mean, the reality is the consumer expectation has changed, but what what is what is driving that is like, the consumer possibility has changed, right? So you used to have to go to the mall, and you used to have to do a brick and mortar shop. And so that inherently included like touching things, trying them on making decisions like that. And so I think everybody, you know, 510 years ago, as EComm started to become more and more impactful and ubiquitous. Everybody was okay at first with like some of the inherent you know, unknowns and the risk in that it was exciting to try shopping these new brands, you know, it was exciting to get a box of, of curated products, you don't even know what's going to come you know, and you had a little bit more. I suspect customer patience with a new process. But now, we you know, when we take out our wallet like we're willing to put just as much money down that EECOM channel as we are at a club Monaco store in the Eaton center, for example. And so we started to look for parity in the experiences. And you know, so that's why you know, brick and mortar wants to find ways to be as like fast and timely and tech not technologically empowered to keep up with E commerce e comm now needs to think about things like try before you buy more optionality, and and added conveniences to convey, you know, this product story that, you know, that has to happen exclusively, digitally, right, you don't get a chance to try the thing on or feel it or see it smell it right. And so and so you need to look for tools to at least enable the closure of the gap between those those offline and online worlds, right. And again, that's part of the reason for our existence. It's
Qasim Virjee 25:46
super interesting that you're kind of patron partner is Cadillac, Fairview, the kind of landlord of shopping malls for some of the brands that I would assume would become customers of you because has Cadillac, Fairview promoted the use of return Barrow, amongst us retail customers as retail tenants is a means of streamlining their retail operations. Absolutely.
Robert Domagala 26:09
So CF has been a great partner for us to launch with, and a strong supporter of ours. You know, you can, you can imagine, though, a traditional brick and mortar retailer has, like, in many cases has a preconceived notion of what their relationship with their customer through the journey should be. And so some of them have done a really good job of like acknowledging that digital orders are part of that experience, and enabling like, swift return of them to physical locations. And so if you're a brand that that can do that, well that take online orders back in your brick and mortar location, yeah, buy it online, take
Qasim Virjee 26:45
it to the store, if you
Robert Domagala 26:46
have to, some of them can't, can't handle that because of the way inventory is allocated or processed. Or, or the the, you know, the differences between assortment even between brick and mortar and online, a lot of brands that have gotten to know their customers online really well will actually promote different product lines will have online exclusives. And then when those starts showing up in stores, you know, it can be an ordeal to you know, get it from running store all the way back to a national like a sorting hub to get it back to the online inventory in a meaningful way. So that that product doesn't get orphaned on a rack in the store that that doesn't have a true place for it or purpose for it right? Even
Qasim Virjee 27:22
if, even if they've got their system super tight, and the brand experiences like programmed to be synonymous between the E commerce and the retail experience. Because retail is necessarily involving people and things you can touch and feel, and store hours. You know, if you bought something with the freedom sitting on your toilet and ordering it, and then you have to go and wait. And this happened to me I wasn't on the toilet when I ordered it. Okay, I was in my office, but like, I ordered, I don't know, like $5,000 of Apple Computer Products, okay the other day. And then it was like shit, I didn't look at it properly, I got the wrong power plugs for all our laptops. And I got this and I wanted this. And so I was like, okay, a bunch of returns. Now I can I forget what the flow was for returning it. But the courier option was a terrible one. It was like I had to pay money out of my pocket or I had to go on a little journey. And if I'm going on a journey, I'm gonna go to the store. So I took all this stuff carried a box over to the Eaton center, I went to the Apple store had to wait for like half an hour for like, you know, Jim, or whoever to come and meet me over at that table over there. Meanwhile, Jim went on break, for other people came to try and help me no one knew anything. And there my relationship with that brand suffered because I was sitting there as a customer who has already spent 1000s of dollars in their retail shop thinking this is way worse than online. And totally the opposite of my purchase experience. And yet apples got all the logistics in there, like digital systems to be able to just take that thing back from me scan the code. They just couldn't have the person who knew how to do that. Yeah, even though they had so many staff on the floor, like you know, that was one of those experiences where retail can frustrated Well,
Robert Domagala 29:08
that's a great point because the staff on the floor and we I think we can all agree like Apple typically does an extraordinary job of this too, right? The staff on the floors is is trained and educated and optimized for that in store transaction. And again, so what you did is you you threw a wrench into that plan. And you see this in big department stores and
Qasim Virjee 29:29
I'm gonna flip this me flip it on UK. It goes two ways. Because I took that stuff you're right, they weren't necessarily add up and figuring out how to handle the kind of like digital purchase. But then it got even more interesting and I think part of that is also because Apple particularly trains its staff in store on like the two main use cases and their assumptive customer profile is a first time customer and whether that means first time per SKU First time per brand, it's always first time. So if you come in and you're like, I know all this stuff, don't teach me Do not teach me right now I just want to buy this thing. You realize the Apple Store is not a store, right? It's like a brand experience center. And that's why they have the education, I would literally while I was there, they have their little empty theater, you know, where people are teaching people things, because they've replaced or moved the Genius Bar. And now it's like, you know, you can learn things there. They have dropping classes, to the point where there was someone giving a lecture on how to do a particular thing on your iPhone, with absolutely no one in the class, but he had to fill his slot as a staff member. So he's teaching and really creating noise for the whole store. No one can focus because this guy's teaching you how to swipe left on your iPhone. And no one cares, no one's paying attention. But he had to teach his class and look engaged, you know, because probably being recorded, I don't know. So that was happening. And then at the same time, I decided on a whim, oh, you know what, the screen that we're editing footage on in this one editing bay here, it's terrible. It's terrible. You know, we need to replace it. So look, I'm going to lay down how many 1000s of dollars is it for the new Pro Res whatever monitor, I'll either buy an iMac for my editor, or I'm going to buy that screen. So I told the salesperson when they finally came or the customer support person, I want to buy one of those things. And they told me the funniest thing, they were like, we start going through color selection. I'm like, I don't care. Just give me what you have in stock. I don't care if it's blue or black. Just give it to me. It's for the office, man, you know, it's not for my daughter. And then he goes through each color to check availability. And then finally he's like, oh, there's none of those available. And I'm like here in the store, or like in the world, like, can we just use your thing? Or can I use my phone right now to order it online? Now that I'm in your retail experience? Can I just use the web? AD? He said, Yeah, it's always easier with Apple products to order them through the website than it is to order them in the store. Because get this due to supply chain issues with the pandemic. Our store at the Eaton center is not stocking any product outside of the small consumer good stuff that flies off the shelves. Okay. So I'm like, Okay, well, I don't how do I know that as a customer? Right, the assumption. So this is my point, aside from the fun anecdotes, the point is also, the assumption as a consumer, that the catalog of products on offer online is the same as in retail is a very real assumption, you know, and it goes two ways to you're in a retail, you think I can just go home?
Robert Domagala 32:41
Because, excuse me,
Qasim Virjee 32:42
I used to think I could just go home and buy it, you know, like I saw it. But often cases retailers are not setting up their shops as showrooms, some are some are hip to the scene, and they're like, look, we don't really want to deal with the mechanics of transaction because it's cumbersome, in or out of the store. But if people come and experience the product firsthand, then they can order 10 times as much product at their convenience, but they'll have they'll know what they're buying. So some brands are doing that. Right. Yeah, I
Robert Domagala 33:12
think you know, that model is certainly like an interesting one the the human factor that it I think it does miss though even though it can be the right the right solution is almost makes you feel like your car shopping like rarely do you get to drive a car off the lot you have to order and wait six months if you're ordering an electric vehicle, who even knows when you're getting it because the chips don't exist anymore. But you know, one of the joys of shopping is the utility whether it's serotonin or whatever, but the rush you get from like handing over your money and leaving with the bag with the thing in it like I want to go if I'm gonna buy a new computer, I want to go home and then play with it, I want to set it up, I want it to be clean and crisp, I really don't want to have to wait three weeks. So I might as well just personal opinion, I might just do that from my desk at home. Rather than be teased. However, there's a huge benefits to that show room experience where you do maybe especially with higher ticket items, you get to understand what's going on you acknowledge their current supply chain, you know, problems and then you know, a week later or five days later or two days later hopefully you know as quick as they can you do get the gratification of receipt of your product. But but no that's that's a super interesting anecdote and you know some some some of the brands you know that are that are traditional in mall retailers that that sell you know, in in the malls that Cadillac, Fairview operates, you know, see the potential in having an alternate overflow for those returns. Sometimes it's driven by like, you know, this discrepancy between assortment and the true ability to accurately reconcile and online return to the in store environment. In other cases, it's seen as a customer service when, where return traffic it can be pointed nearby but outside of the store potentially. And all of the throughput of the in store traffic can be optimized for serving like The customer that's ready to transact. So, you know, in a scenario that plays out like that I don't get stuck behind too cumbersome returns online where they can't reconcile the online order with, you know, with the in store inventory or the process to do that, and I'm just trying to buy my shirt, I want to get out from behind these people, I, you know, those returns might be able to go to one of our kiosks, right? You know, but then, you know, the discerning brand might say, but I've lost that return foot traffic now I sort of, I don't want them to get in the way of those interest. I don't want them to get in the way of those consumers who who my associates are working with, who needs to check out. But at the same time, I am sort of precious every every bit of foot traffic is important, every opportunity to reengage customers important and I think, you know, we're exploring some some unique, you know, some unique ways to, you know, see the realize that maybe the drop off return happening elsewhere, but calls to action and unique incentives to then drive an active purchase now that the return has been solved, you know, so get that traffic back to the store. Yeah, I
Qasim Virjee 36:02
mean, fundamentally, certain types of retailers may see benefit if the service was offered and having an integrated experience for return bear in store, right, it is like a Well, exactly like at the Hudson's Bay Company or something, there's returned bear handles all returns for that store. Yes,
Robert Domagala 36:19
scenarios like that would be amazing. You know, we'd love to, we'd love to work with some partners like that, where they do have this challenge between between like, the convergence of online orders and like the offline, offline return environments, and certainly our software is set up and you know, you know, you're getting ahead of us but like we're we're exploring these sorts of relationships, where our technology can be used in the traditional brick and mortar environments to create that alternate line, so to speak, and very quickly, handle returns, in you know, in a in a faster manner. But let me just jump in one more point that's clear and important to make right is, is that, you know, Cadillac, Fairview, two, again, as a mall operator, like will always have tenants in their environments, whether they're full time tenants or seasonal pop up tenants, there's there continues to be unique experiences to, you know, in line in a mall hallway, engage with customers, and so, online brands that don't have a physical footprint, like have no way to, like very quickly solve this problem for you. And so, that's why we see, you know, more immediate adoption amongst like this emerging DTC brand. But it's, it's an opportunity for new foot traffic to come into these drop off locations, right. And so all of a sudden, you know, where there's no, there's no case with store in line at Fairview mall, in Toronto, that case was customer that return might still end up in, in the, in the mall in the store ready to engage in that environment. Right. And so, I think as our drop off network grows, and new partners come on board, there's a, there's a great opportunity for, for other businesses to start having these, these relationships with, with customers that they didn't have before and find ways to, you know, make that return journey part of their brand development, too. And so we're, you know, we're excited to grow the network and you know, sort of push that sort of traffic to some of the new brand partners or the new network partners will have in the future. What
Qasim Virjee 38:17
about the warehousing side of the story, so I could see benefit to return, were partnering with the order fulfillment companies to say, you'll, you got the square footage, you're probably dropping the ball and a few things to do with the return side of the business. Why don't we co locate and partner? Yep,
Robert Domagala 38:35
I think that's that's a smart idea. We're having conversations like that, of course, currently, you know, we have our own processing hubs and we're trying to do this in a true startup fashion you know, we're part software company right we have a lot of technology that powers the various you know elements of the customer journey of course like from online return handling a return request to you know, the the merchants back office to our drop off applications and things like that. But we're also a logistics business right. So we handle products, they come to us, we open packages, we solve the customer problem, you know, trigger the response the customer wants to whether it was the exchange the store credit or the refund, and then we repack we refold we retag we prepare ready to sell inventory. So we sort of straddle both worlds and so applying startup thinking to this you know, and maybe some leaner thinking then then has been done in the in the category in the in the past while we're trying to really you know, create a logistics laboratory almost which sounds a little cliche or cheesy but instead of going out with you know, mad and say that, yeah, max square footage, and you know, huge football stadium warehouses, we're trying to optimize our throughput you know, per square foot and like the smallest amount of space so what
Qasim Virjee 39:56
are the typical sizes of your of your What did you call them? Not three PL, that's not human processing
Robert Domagala 40:03
hub
Qasim Virjee 40:04
you're processing? So yeah, how big are they typically? Yeah,
Robert Domagala 40:06
you know, when we were just getting started, we're trying to see how much volume you could do out of 300 square feet using our technology. You know, and we're, we're expanding and growing. But what we believe has to be retail, right? Well, no, the processing hub is behind the scenes. Right? That's, that's where we do our work with these packages. Yeah, a drop off kiosk because I'm talking mitosis. Well, yeah, so Exactly. So I mean, again, processing remember, mail in orders from brands are coming to us. And we again, we open them, we solve the customer pain point, we prepare those items, so that when the brand gets them back, it's received goods, it's no longer a return, they don't have to fiddle with it anymore, they can scan it right back into their inventory. And then as we recover, the items that have been dropped off, we do the same thing, again, at a processing hub. And so our idea is, how little space can we use to process the maximum of items? How long should we collect items before batching them back to brands, and we're really working on this recipe. The idea is let's start from as little space as we can, and then expand as required, as opposed to making, you know, maybe traditional assumptions about item assortment sizing, and the time of disposition, the time of getting it back. And so we're, you know, we're doing we're doing able to do 1000s of units and 500 square feet, and
Qasim Virjee 41:22
are those 500 square feet units at the pickup point places like in the malls, they will be,
Robert Domagala 41:28
we currently have an off site off site facility in downtown Toronto, and then our plan is to work with Cadillac Fairview, to to actually use the space in the malls to do more processing on site. And that's one of the benefits of our partnership with them. They have a lot of space. And it's a great use of some of their some of their physical physical space as a landlord. And so if we're able to our thesis right is that if we're able to optimize the throughput of items across a smaller footprint, we can distribute more, call the micro return processing centers, that's a mouthful micro processing hubs across the country, right. And again, really interesting when we're talking about the Canadian geography being like really, really hard to set up shop like mailing a package from BC, like with a hoodie to Toronto, a Toronto warehouse, costs you 18 $20 If you're the brand or the customer, but warehouse space and real estate's super expensive too. So what can we do using a shared network, whether it's with Cadillac Fairview, or as you said, you know, co locating or partnering with traditional three pls. But, you know, using the idea of, of shared services and a shared network that everybody can benefit from, so that we can distribute processing activities across the country, I get excited, and I think a lot on our team get excited about the environmental impact that can come from that too, you know, if every package, you know, right now was warehoused in in Brampton, or in Mississauga, or something like that. But they're being shipped all the way across the country. And then, you know, 10% 20% of returns all the way back, they're coming all the way back, then to go to the next customer. These are huge journeys with a really brutal carbon footprint over time, right. And we all understand that like, the more we shop, the bigger and environmental impact this is probably going to have, but if we can have, you know, our little warehouses, our micro processing centers spread across the country, then, you know, if we have one in Calgary, anything from the Yukon BC, Alberta, you can just go straight there, we'll drive down the cost of the mailing label, if that's a mail in return. And then if we're if we're gathering, gathering goods from drop off centers in the region, they can stay sort of regional. And we can save money on those shipping labels and we can reduce their overall journeys and then when they do need to be consolidated to go somewhere you know, there's there's the benefits of consolidation to like move them back to a final destination. Yeah, or there's the opportunity for us to fulfill the next order regionally. So giving brands access to like a distributed forward fulfillment network without having to like own warehouse previously used or not even previously used remember we're going to fully QA that item we're going to repack it in the brand's materials, put it in their recyclable polybag reinsert you know, the, the branded postcard that goes in with let's just say retag it, it's, it goes back to the brand's fulfillment center, ready to sell, it could just go to the next customer potentially. And so all of a sudden return product, you know, sold by an American brand in Canada that warehouses in Pennsylvania, let's just say doesn't have to be shipped from Pennsylvania to BC back to Pennsylvania back to the Montreal customer. It can reside in Canada. You know, until a point that it is it hasn't been sold, right. And so bringing this sort of distributed network, I think is going to be you know, one of the one of the future the future wins in in sort of modern logistics, especially if we continue to see growth in online Online brands emerging, right?
Qasim Virjee 45:01
Super exciting, I think is super interesting. Talking real quick, I've got a couple things before we can wrap this up in a nice tidy bundle this conversation, but the questions I still have are about the differentiation between the seller profiles, you know, like you've got your kind of Etsy style people, maybe people that either they're creating the products or people that have limited amount of sales, they're just getting started as E retailers, unique products. And then on the other hand, you've got obviously these big people that may have may or may not have retail presences. Dealing with so many different types of I would think e commerce platforms, you mentioned Shopify a lot. So I'm thinking that's probably currently what most people are using to sell. Yep.
Robert Domagala 45:53
Obviously Shopify is ubiquitous, especially amongst emerging brands, for sure.
Qasim Virjee 45:58
So how, like, what are the solutions? Is it pretty much you know, what are the solutions that you know, your customers were using previously to handle returns,
Robert Domagala 46:08
I mean, you still you still see this pattern on probably half of every website, you go to, if you go to their if you go to their return policy, and they're not like a high street brand. You email customer service, customer service starts a conversation with you. So very manual process, what's the problem, we sent you the wrong size, there's, you know, the strap on the dress is ripped, can you send us a picture, and that brand sort of creates on there and a return authorization number or just some record that from this order, this product is going to be come back, because we have to help Susan with her order issue. The brand, you know, in many cases would manually generate a return shipping label, sometimes they pay the cost of that return shipping, you know, and that's that's how they compete in their category. One of the ways they compete by saying, you know, free shipping, free returns, easy returns, things like that. And then in other cases, it's like, again, it's really expensive to move product around Canada, a lot of brands are still saying, you know, you the customer are responsible for the cost of that return. And then you know, that that shipping label would be, you know, would be debited to the cost of would be debited from the customers refund or exchange value or something to that effect. There's, there's all of these different, you know, scenarios, but it's like funky, yeah, it's a manual process, it's a manual process. And then there's, you know, there's other software that's emerged as E comm has grown to that, you know, really works on just giving you that shipping label, which is great, you know, it takes some of that customer service lift away from off the team. And hopefully, that growing brand can apply that to other high value activities, whether it's shooting new feature, you know, photos for the product, detail, pages, marketing, whatever, and customer service is streamlined by virtue of that self serve, label generation experience. And so, you know, we obviously do that, but the next generation of that is, is adding the convenient like more options to that customer, the lower cost option of doing the drop off return saving money, and expediting the resolution of the issue because we're, we're actually processing those returns. So, you know, even if, if we still get a customer to a shipping label, because we're purpose built, to then handle that return, once it gets to us, like all we do is open those packages up and solve the customer problem, they get their confirmation that the return has been processed, or their exchange is now on, it's way faster than they ever have before, even if they're doing mail and, but then if they do drop off, it's an instant resolution to their pain point. And the brand, you know, again, has the product back faster, we'll we'll handle it, we'll get it ready. And the brand can sell it again before discounting it ideally, and you know, they didn't have to neither the customer nor the brand last a week or 10 days of transit time, and then a couple of days of of, you know, like waiting for the warehouse to get around to processing it and so on and so forth. So, you know, traditionally the the small brands have to handle this in in a manual way, or then Level Level Up till you know, that automated portal and that label generation. One of the downsides to that though, of course, and, you know, the stands to reason in in sort of the SAS space, is that, you know, if you're an emerging brand who wants to start using software to adjudicate that return request, get the customer their label and relieve some of that manual burden from your team or even from yourself. If you're the founder or you're the creator on Etsy, like you said, you're often paying a monthly SAS fee and you're trying to amortize 500 us, you know, a month in for that software against five or 10 returns, you know, all of a sudden each return is costing you 50 bucks, that doesn't really that doesn't really make a lot of sense, even though it may enhance the consumer experience and convey more trust to a customer who's thinking about checking out you're on the hook for these these high SAS hospitals
Qasim Virjee 49:51
more important to those small operators.
Robert Domagala 49:53
Yeah, and so because we you know, we provide service, you know, really end to end across that journey, we're able to offer our solution in a pay as you go capacity, you know, so if you have no returns but you're using our software, you don't pay a monthly fee if you have five returns, you pay for those five and you know, in the commensurate, you know, processing and things like that. And as you grow up to more and more than again, we're just taking on more of that for you. But your bill is proportional to your volume and so and so we're you know, this is how we're trying to make it more accessible to that smaller that smaller brand by not handcuffing them to to a SaaS fee in the hope that they get as many enough returns to cover it right.
Qasim Virjee 50:31
Did you ever hear or experience this brand called consumers distributing? Of course so was that across Canada when we were kids? I hope we had an Alberta I didn't know if it was an Alberta thing. It was here
Robert Domagala 50:45
in Ontario I certainly hope every Canadian from our era was was able to enjoy you know, I guess twice a year maybe every six months you'd get the consumers distributing Catalog Catalog
Qasim Virjee 50:57
in the mail and then so for the listeners and people watching this that don't know like this was the most exciting catalog it was it was color they had photos ahead all the information about all sorts of different categories of product every category
Robert Domagala 51:11
imaginable fashion, underwear outdoors, lifestyle electronics was amazing. The toy section was amazing. But you got you have to tell tell your your your audience here about like the actual shopping experience. So I mean, here I'll take the first part Yeah, go for we were kids, we would get the consumers distributing catalogs in the mail would be a one stop shop for like anything you wanted to see every new toy would be in it. It's great. You know, board games, Legos, Hitman's transformers, and as a child, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you did this, too. You'd grab a pen, you know, and you would start circling everything you wanted, and pages would just be covered in all the circles. But that it was a unique ordering experience. This is where you should catch everybody up?
Qasim Virjee 51:55
Well, I don't know. You tell me because you don't remember what I thought you had to go to the place. Exactly. Yeah. And so it's like, it's kind of like a for Ontarians. This is like, I don't know, no one really does it anymore. It sounds like but it's like going to the beer store.
Robert Domagala 52:09
It's like going to the beer stores like catalog shopping. So you would take your your book with you, each item had a code, you would go to a brick and mortar experience, which was really just it was like walking into the beer store. Or if you haven't
Qasim Virjee 52:21
been to a beers, like a little room with a conveyor belt and a dude.
Robert Domagala 52:25
Exactly, it was like a bank teller thing. He was a bunch of setups, you know, desks with pens, and with little order sheets, that you would fill out those small little order sheets. And you would indicate like the three item not IDs that you wanted to order, I'd done your skews, and then you would move to the line you'd hand that in, and then you'd you know, you'd walk across to like the receiving queue. And that's where the conveyor belt is. And then after a couple minutes, all of a sudden, the CD player that he had wanted would come out. And you'd be like, that's mine. And then you know, and like the Hot Wheels set would come out. And it was it was just thrilling. But it was you know, that was the next step from just pure mail order, right mail order was like, you know, put some stamps on the thing, right? Those numbers include a check, right? And then wait until stuff shows up. This was the convergence that is like, you know, okay, we can have stuff piled on pallets in a warehouse. Yeah. But we can use direct mail to to convey our assortments to the customer
Qasim Virjee 53:20
don't need to shop in the shop. You have already shopped on the shop counter
Robert Domagala 53:24
book, and then you just came come in, and a couple of minutes later, the stuff comes out of the bag. I mean, it was it was great.
Qasim Virjee 53:31
What I remember even returns work the same way. You just take the thing back there and they'd say, okay, cool.
Robert Domagala 53:37
I'm not sure Yeah, I don't I don't remember that. But there was definitely that that excitement of you know, as a kid waiting and then seeing the item come down the conveyor belt. It was it was dramatic. It was really dramatic. It's funny, it was sort of like how glossier did their New York store in in Soho, I think you had a beautiful, architected experience walk in walk up to it, I don't know if you've ever been there I
Qasim Virjee 54:00
don't even know glossier is
Robert Domagala 54:04
online online women's beauty brand you know, we're just not women doesn't have to be women's for anybody but it's a beauty brand lip gloss, you know, like eyeliners creams makeups in a really powerful challenger brand of the last 10 years in that category, but the brick and mortar experience was evocative of consumers distributing you got to sample everything it was like the showroom you described at Apple except with stock at the time and who knows maybe they've had supply chain issues too I couldn't tell you but you would tell one of the associates your order you'd pay for it on on their iPad through square or whatever it was or at you know little payment terminals near the the near the visual setups, and then you would wait a minute or two on a plush plush set Hey or something like that. And there'd be a team of staff like bagging these orders in these charming branded like Ziploc bags almost and they would instead of a conveyor linear conveyor belt they did a really cool like Willy Wonka Charlie in the chocolate factory type of type of setup anybody who's gone to like jackets, yeah knows, yeah, it was rad was just really cool. And you'd see your the bag of your items like, and then it's it's down some some chute basically and they call your name and you know, it's it's amazing and it's a testament I guess to like how a brand can be built online but can still, you know, connect with customers in what would otherwise be considered a traditional way. And I think that's an important thing to consider. Like, I don't think there is a people were crying, you know, like pulling fire alarms on brick and mortar for the last couple of years. And the loot the diminishing relevance of those in store experiences, I don't think that's ever going to go away, though, I think we've seen time and time again, people like having the desire to touch, touch the thing, try it out handle it. But customers just want to have both options, right. And so I think it's about optimizing for both experiences when you can, certainly if you start online, you can't just start paying real estate for big stores everywhere, but you can learn about your customer, you can learn about more about your own brand through those interactions, and then you can figure out how to try new, new real world experiences potentially. And, you know, we've seen that work for a lot of brands, and we've seen online brands expand into brick and mortar successfully. And we've seen the others like struggle with it, and the pandemic didn't, didn't really help. But I think we'll continue to see a convergence of both worlds, right, and, you know, building solutions that that accommodate for that and allow for that, you know, support that ebb and flow and that, you know, the different choices, customer's going to want to take at different times in their relationship with the brand, I think, I think that's really powerful. And the most successful ones will find a way to sort of acknowledge all those different beats in the user journey.
Qasim Virjee 56:45
And so, you know, the beginning of this conversation, you were talking about, post TWG, looking for kind of a way to fit into this e commerce and product kind of ecosystem for yourself. And then, you know, just reflecting on that experience as a kid, the energy of that kind of like, consumers distributing vibe. You know, where are you at now, a few months down the road with return bear? Like, is it exciting? Are you having fun? Absolutely.
Robert Domagala 57:14
I mean, it's hard work, of course. I mean, we're everybody, you know, you me, I'm sure that people who hopefully watch this included, like everyone's always busy, you're always trying to do good things and do good work.
Qasim Virjee 57:25
I'm not busy, I'm fulfilled, you're full.
Robert Domagala 57:27
I'm definitely fulfilled too. And I have a little bit more a few more gray hairs over the last year of three years. This is literally less three years. Absolutely, absolutely. But no, no, no, it's great. It's been really fulfilling, you know, for me personally, going spending, you know, 10 plus years in consulting, for lack of a better term, like agency life, it's been great to sort of wake up every day and try to solve the same problem. And again, there's different facets of the same problem, we're constantly you know, going through all of the pain points that any growing startup goes through, like doubt, fear, excitement, you know, that the, you know, parabola, or the ebb and flow of those emotional motions are a roller coaster that, you know, you know, I haven't had for for several years. So, it's, it's challenging in that respect, but it's extremely fulfilling, and the amount of focus is great, and I get great pleasure from, from supporting and enabling consumer experiences, I just happen to like it, it's not to say I want everybody to just shop willy nilly, make bad purchases, return them all, like, like, I want people to shop smart, right, and I want people to make good decisions, and I want to see more brands grow. And one of the most exciting things, most fulfilling things the last 1010 or 11 months here with return there has been like, because of the way we're trying to build a solution that works for the new brand, the growing brand and the established brand all at once, right and treat them all equally. And with the same sort of courtesy and respect. I've been able to meet some some amazing founders that are doing amazing things and you know, from recycling, recycling, used tires in the Dominican Republic and paying a fair wage to artisans to turn that into footwear, you know, to to to you know, fashion brands that are finding new ways to make make their products here in, in Canada, you know, employing Canadian artisans and, and creating products that have a smaller carbon footprint. That's been brilliant. So the exposure to to these other founders that are trying to grow in the same economy that we are like has been has been amazing. And you know, I hope we can we can support hundreds 1000s More of them and see realize more growth, especially for Canadian founders for sure. You know, I'd be thrilled thrilled to achieve that. Nice.
Qasim Virjee 59:39
What was really cool talking about this like journey with return bear and hearing a little bit about how you guys have gotten off to a start and, and I'm excited to see what comes up in the next few years. Man is wicked catching up. Yeah,
Robert Domagala 59:51
thanks for having me. It's great to be in the space, the studio's amazing. The conversations. Fantastic and I hope I can come back and share More updates with you absolutely for sure.
Qasim Virjee 1:00:02
We'll definitely have you on. I'm actually planning an E comm kind of panel discussion for an upcoming edition of Startup Grind because Startup Grind Toronto is now been rebooted here on campus and I'm the chapter director for the city. Awesome. Great to hear. So we'll definitely be in touch about that.
Robert Domagala 1:00:20
Yeah, we'd love to participate. But yeah, always a pleasure to chat. We could talk about this for days. Awesome. Thanks so much chasm, of course. Thank you Take it easy, wicked.
