Raising capital is only a band-aid

Thanks for having me, Culas.

Yeah, I was a 20 plus year commercial banker for Canadian and US banks. realized that wasn't totally excited about the nature of where banking was going, and decided to form a partnership with an accounting firm and a law firm. did that for four years and then realized that I still wanted to do more for clients. And so th I needed to develop a platform to do that, and so left. the partnership with the accounting and law firm and started Hyperion Business Solutions two years ago, with the intent of bringing the best resource, best one stop place for resources for b for this SME business market, in one place. And that's Hyperion.

Trying to get me in trouble here, Mick.

No, listen, you know, technology was changing and and I just found more and more banks were moving to in the box type of lending. And so you had to mi you had to check the check the boxes. And if it checked all the boxes, then you moved forward with the client and gave them credit. And where my historical value to financial institutions had been in is I have some kind of crazy creative way of mitigating risks and those usually don't fit within a box. So as the banks push more and more towards staying in the box, I was leaning more and more away from the box. But when when I could talk direct to credit committees and and influence the decision, I had a great deal of success both from a business development perspective and my brand in the markets, dr drew in business for the banks I worked for and in the value to the clients that we worked with as I created the creative solutions. So as I couldn't do that, you know, and I hate to use this expression, but I felt almost like a monkey could do the job and that I wasn't really adding much value to the process anymore. and so I wanted to go somewhere where I could do that. And so my first company was called HGA Finance, and I basically helped companies with dealing with their banks, dealing with credit issues they had, solving problems, raising capital. And what led to Hyperion was that in that process eighteen to twenty-four months, I was often seeing the same clients coming back with a need for capital again. So what I had done is raised the capital, slapped a band-aid on them, got them going again, and then left them to their own devices. And often we didn't solve the problems that were within the organization. And so that's why I was seeing them again in, you know, eighteen to twenty-four months. And so Hyperion was the n l logistical or logical, I should say, next step of helping them to make sure that they didn't need me again in the future and building out the systems and and operating processes they needed to make sure that that occurred.

I mean, every situation is so different. and that's where the need to be creative and and draw correlations to other things you've seen in the past come into come into place. So I've raised capital in Bogota, Columbia, I've raised capital across the US and I've raised capital in Canada. Different industries, different challenges. I get referrals from bankruptcy trustees who believe the company's salvageable and they don't want to put them through, you know, the chapter 11. and I get referrals from banks who are declining clients, but think again that they're, you know, the client should be able to get capital somewhere else. And so they reach out to me. I guess I've kind of become the fixer and that's kind of my my brand reputation. Hyperion and trying to change that in that I don't directly involve myself in many of the files, but I use fractional CFOs with public capital raising experience, IPO experience, SME market experience, helping solve problems within the organizations. And I lean in on about fifteen to twenty percent of that as a support, but don't directly involve myself anymore as much as possible.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know about the platform, but expectations on why they should get credit, how easy to get that credit it should be, why people don't see things through the same lens that they do, why they don't understand the risks that an institute financial institution might see. I have a I have a saying that I repeat often and it's ego's not your amigo. and I find with founders and business owners, you know, they have to They have to be willing to accept that some things they can't rationalize through through their perspective and they just have to take certain steps in order to make their business look healthy and look attractive to a lender.

Sure. I mean, you know, for probably decades now, you know, cash flow is king has kind of been a statement that's been made. And when it comes to standard lending, I would say that continues to be the big driver. You know, a debt servicing covenant will be involved. You need to meet, you know, one two five, one three one five whatever the debt servicing covenant is that the institution's gonna put on you. So liquidity and and cash flow still remains to be king. Now, when it comes to technology, throw that right out the window. many of them aren't even profitable and raise billions of dollars. So that's a whole different lending game than than you know your traditional SME business. But yeah, I would say stability, cash flow, stability is probably remains to be one of the biggest things that you need to focus on. there's other things like leverage, but if you can't cash flow it, the leverage won't matter.

Yeah, I guess if you get to know me and I don't know if this is a topic you're bringing up later, but I also started a charity called Raising Spirits charity event back in 2017 and we're going into our tenth year now in 2027. But you know, some of some of that same theme runs into the First Nations JV partnerships that I set up. I wanted to to help bring opportunity to to them. And at the same time, you know, from a some somewhat selfish point of view, there were a lot of RFPs out there for PPE during COVID. And it was in a lot of cases, it was a race to the bottom. people had either acquired big inventories of masks and then didn't, you know, weren't finding the avenues to sell them that they thought they could, and so were dumping stock. some More so I would say some were bidding on RFPs, but didn't even have landed product in North America. so that also gave us an advantage because we had about, I think at 1.50, 60 million masks in a warehouse in in Canada with my partner that I was working with. So, you know, we had the availability, we had the supply, we had the quality. and then we had the partnership which allowed us to help them to bid on RFPs that were only open to First Nations. And so there was less competition for them to wade into the water with.

Did did anybody during COVID?

Yeah, yeah. So pivoting to raising spirits now. yeah, yeah. I had moved to Calgary and a buddy of mine that I had participated in charity work with in another city now lived in Calgary as well. And we were out golfing and you know, I just said to him, I said, Listen, I haven't found a board that I'm excited about being a part of. Why don't we just start our own event? He agreed. So, you know, we we started raising spirits in twenty seventeen. And like you said, the first, the first fundraising event raised four thousand dollars that we donated to children's hospital and to mental health for kids. and then like this past year we did a hundred right around a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in October last month in in a one night charity event. So we're up around six hundred and twenty-five, six hundred and thirty thousand dollars raised to date. and we're coming up on our 10th anniversary in twenty twenty seven. So our goal is to get to a million dollars donated by 2030. I think we might get there in 2029, but I won't put that on the team. but to your point, like how to how did that it's not it's not a for profit. We don't take a penny out of the funds raised. checks are cut direct to children's hospital. they go direct to the mental health support systems that we're supporting that year. same with The auction items go direct to children's hospital through a platform they have. We don't even touch the money. So we're very intentional about that. I think that builds a lot of trust with the sponsors, knowing that we haven't set up our own not for profit where we have, you know, paid people within the organization. This is all a volunteer board that does it. It's all people in the community that resonate with what we're trying to do and accomplish and they gen they donate their time. We have sponsors that donate food. We have sponsors that donate alcohol. We try to keep it as close to zero cost as possible so that all of the money goes to where it's intended. I think just with that goal, that builds a lot of trust with the sponsors we work with. and we intend to stay that way. And I think if you look at me from that lens that resonates throughout the business I do to my own detriment at times I would say. I always want to help. So I get involved in situations where I'm helping and there's no revenue for for me to be paid. but I want to see businesses succeed. And and so that's at the core and heart of why I'm in the business that I'm in. And and I think I hope that resonates to the clients that I work with.

Yeah, cautious. but excited at the same time. The menial tasks that it alleviates from some businesses is very exciting. when I say I'm cautious, we have a chief security officer, chief chief information CISO, chief information security officer that's worked in the financial institutions in the states that's part of the Hyperion team. So if we're doing an assessment of AI or any technology for a company, he's involved to make sure that we're we're not introducing something that has a negative connotation that they haven't thought through. my concerns with AI right now is there is a zillion different AI consultants in the market that got a certificate from some short program they did. That really doesn't understand the risks and how to mitigate the risks behind an effective AI implementation strategy. And so that's where we're being very intentional and cautious about making sure we involve our CISO and some of our chief technology people, but also keeping it as an affordable solution. We're not trying to compete with Deloitte or someone like that on a price point. We're trying to bring value at a lower price point than the market generally does. so yeah, but from my own perspective, I do use, sorry, my dog just fell over. my I I try to use AI in the business, but again, cautiously, so I won't upload public, you know, private or restricted information into an LLM that could potentially escape the boundaries of my my desktop and and be found by other people. So I do use it, but I'm very very intentional about how I use it.

Yeah, that's that's a really great question. I look back and there's mistakes I've had, you know, to be I I try to be humble. So, you know, I'll say this. I've had six figure losses in in investments I've made in private business and I've you know I've had big successes as well. it it would be easy to say I'd go back and not do that deal that lost me six figures, but At the same time, I learned so much from it that it helped me have the business sense that I do today that I can provide to others. And that also forms part of the foundation of the decisions I make today. So for me to go back and say I wouldn't have done something, you know, sometimes I I wonder should I have left banking sooner and and started to be an entrepreneur? But again, I just I did learn a lot through my time in the banks and the in the customers and the clients that I worked with. And so I don't know that even that would be fair to say that I should have left earlier. At the time I left, I felt as confident as I could be that I had seen so much that I had value to bring to the to the business community and the time was right. So I don't look back with any regrets at the decisions I made. I just learned from the ones that didn't turn out positive and and profited off the ones that did.

Yeah, I think, you know, going back 10 years you hardly heard about fractional support. Maybe even five years it was less. Maybe before COVID it was less. and a lot of people pivoted to using virtual meetings and other technology and started to think about being consultants and going off on their own. so yeah, I think as you mentioned, I think we're seeing greater acceptance and adoption of of how to use fractional resources to scale a business, to mitigate risks in a business. one of the things I noticed as a commercial, you know, being in the commercial markets of banking for a long time is a lot of the fraud happened at the C suite level in businesses that impacted them, often CFO controllers. and and so fractional helps can help to mitigate that. What's really unique or different, I think, about the Hyperion model is again, I'm not selling myself to come in as your fractional CFO. I'll have a very specific CFO in mind for the situation because every client's different. That all integrate into the company, but I also remain in, you know, sitting in on 10 to 20% of the meetings and will meet with the owners or the executives of that company separately from the CFO and meet with the CFO separately. So it it helps to make sure the value proposition that you know we promised stays consistent throughout. And that we mitigate any risks to the business. and that everybody is happy and just having someone in between sometime to communicate effectively with both sides helps to helps to bring that communication or make that communication stronger so that the results are there that are expected. so the the CFOs that are implemented, Hyperion stands behind. So if there's a problem, we'll fix the problem. We could bring in a different resource. I haven't had that problem, knock on wood. to date. So you know, hopefully that doesn't become a problem, but I am there to to make sure that things go smoothly and and the clients are happy. the other element of that is we support our fractional teams and give them resources too that they may not have on their own. And so gives them more competence and capability going into the into the clients that we put them into. so yeah, I don't know if that fully answered your question, but I think that's how we differentiate. And I do think the market is adapting and using fractional more or considering considering fractional fractional. one area that I really see it of value is when companies are preparing for sale, especially if the owner did a lot of the work himself, the client relationships, the big decisions. bringing in some fractional support on in preparation for a sale will demonstrate to a buyer that the business isn't reliant on that owner that wants to exit and can help with the multiple that you sell your business for. We're seeing a lot of value there. We're also seeing a lot of value in employee-owned organizations. So if the owner is interested in selling to the employee, we can come in and coach and support the team that's taking over to make sure they have all the skills and and capabilities they need to successfully transition to an unemployee-owned organization. So there's a lot of exciting stuff going on in the fractional world, not just your, hey, our CFO left and we need a temporary CFO and we come in in that position. You know, we're coming in and CTOs, C CISOs, all kinds of different areas that we help organizations in different aspects of their business at different stages of their business.

yeah, we're on all social media, but I don't think that's probably the best way to reach me. My email is Toby at Hyperion Business Solutions.com. my phone number is on the website, the 1-800-188, whatever it is, number. so yeah, I would, you know, Hyperion Business Solutions is you could find us on the web and you can reach me through the website. my name is fairly unique, Toby Couch. If you Google me, there's probably not another one of me in the world. So I'm actually one of those guys that's pretty easy to find. but I am am on LinkedIn as well. So you can find me there, connect with me and and have a discussion. But they can also reach out to you, Mick, and and get my contact information which you have. So if people are seeing your podcast, then you can forward my contact to them.

Yeah, thanks again for letting me ramble and it was great to spend some time with you.