(1) Who are you and what do you do?
I am Francois Gand, the Founder and CEO of NURO. At NURO, we specialize in Communication by Brain, instantly and without any surgery.
(2) In two sentences or less, describe how you participate in the startup ecosystem.
I have been a serial tech entrepreneur for the past 27 years and NURO is my fifth start-up. NURO is part of the highly-respected Waterloo start-up ecosystem and has been a cohort member of 5 key tech and life science accelerators both from Canada and Silicon Valley.
(3) What are you currently reading right now and would recommend to others?
With my deep focus on Neurotechnology, I consistently read a massive amount of scientific papers yet, for relaxation purposes, I would recommend ‘Tartine Bread’ by Chad Robertson who is the co-owner of San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery. It is literally a bible for bread lovers and it definitely talks to my French DNA !…
(4) What makes you stay in the startup ecosystem?
The Challenge. As an entrepreneur, you need to constantly be challenging yourself from a multi-disciplinary perspective and push yourself well beyond what most can tolerate. With the right team members and a supporting personal ecosystem, it is achievable yet certainly not for everyone.
(5) What drives your passion for the startup ecosystem?
The Innovation. My mind is constantly processing a very large amount of information and I sometimes refer to it as a palette of ever-changing paints and colours which allows me to create, innovate and fine-tune brand new development, in this case at the convergence of neuroscience and technology with a humble touch of art.
(6) Where do you see the startup ecosystem in 5 years?
I think the pandemic has drastically affected numerous dynamics including the start-up ecosystem. On our end, we first worked via ZOOM across multiple continents actually so this did not affect per se how we had been operating but for early stage companies that did not have that capability, I can see how this can drastically change their organization today and in the future if they are not able to adapt. Fundamentally, there is also been a geo-political shift in terms of global collaboration and this could prove to be extremely challenging for start-ups which might have been in the need of critical suppliers and partnerships located in other countries. That said, there are also encouraging trends and a thorough awareness amongst the younger population and I think more and more entrepreneurship is now being adopted much earlier than in the past as a full-blown career rather than choosing the security of a standard 9 to 5.
(7) How has failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
I think the expression “apparent failure” is appropriate as, after 27 years building companies, you have to look at every challenge you encounter as an absolute source of learning and in fact motivation. I have experienced many of those but what I can share is that if your gut feeling tells you to continue in a certain path, then so should you as long as you are in sync with yourself and fully aware of what you are able to do or cannot as well. No regrets like they say… I have had mentors telling us that NURO would never be able to get our first product done when in fact we did. If I would have listen to them, we would have never had the ability to literally change the lives of these non-communicating patients.
(8) What is one of the best worthwhile investments you’ve ever made (could be financial, time, energy, etc.)?
As a child and teen, I always felt that entrepreneurship was my destiny and as such North America would be the place for me to achieve such dreams. I left loving and supporting parents and a brother in France when I was 17 and the rest is history. It was a tremendous sacrifice in a lot of ways yet it allowed me to follow this path, something I might not have been able to do so well at the time in Europe.
(9) What do you do to refocus yourself when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused?
I love water and swimming or any other sports where water is involved will literally transform me. If not close to any body of water, gardening or cooking some fine meals for family and friends will usually do the job.
(10) What’s one piece of advice you would give someone trying to break into the startup ecosystem?
Hang tight, learn fast, never give up and surround yourself with the right people, smart(er) ones preferably.
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