Margins are tight. Inventory is expensive. Customer acquisition costs keep rising. And in Canada, raising venture capital for consumer products is almost impossible.

In this episode of The Profit or Pivot Podcast, I sit down with Dani Kagan, co-founder of Mave & Chez, to discuss what it really takes to build a premium consumer brand from scratch.

What started as frustration during pregnancy became a luxury slipper company backed by investors, featured on Dragons' Den (getting a deal with 2 Dragons), and built around premium manufacturing, thoughtful branding, and obsessive product design.

We also discuss one of the most overlooked parts of fundraising: choosing the right investors.

We cover:

• Why consumer startups are so difficult to build
• Why founders should be careful who they take money from
• Dragon's Den behind the scenes
• Building a luxury brand customers actually trust
• Building a business while raising a family
• Why Canada is such a difficult place to build startups

Whether you're a founder, investor, or simply interested in how great brands are built, this episode offers an honest look at entrepreneurship beyond the headlines.

THIS IS NOT SPONSORED by Mave & Chez but they graciously offered a promo code to our viewers:

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Roman Baber was excommunicated from the Conservative movement in Canada because he stood up to COVID related government tyranny in 2021. He was kicked out of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and spent several years in the political wilderness.

In hindsight, his stance was measured, appropriate, and necessary, during a time of fear, mass delusion, and government lies.

And fortunately, his story doesn't end there.

He was elected to the Federal Parliament in 2025 as the Member of Parliament for York Centre. Not only was York Centre the only Toronto riding won by the Conservative Party of Canada, but he also successfully flipped the seat from the Liberals.

Roman is one of those rare politicians that acts from principal rather than political expediency. And in this conversation he doesn't hold back:

• Carney's failed economic agenda
• The rise of anti-Semitism
• Immigration
• DEI

And many other important topics...

Watch on YouTube

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ABOUT ROMAN BABER

Roman Baber is the Member of Parliament for York Centre, located in North York. He is a member of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Roman previously represented York Centre in the Provincial Legislature from 2018 to 2022.

Roman is a lawyer, called to the Ontario Bar in 2006 and until his election to the Provincial Legislature in 2018, practiced commercial and insurance litigation. He attended high school at W.L. Mackenzie, obtained a B.A. from York University and graduated law school at Western.

Roman was born and lived in the Soviet Union until age eight. He moved with his family and lived in Israel until age fifteen. In 1995 along with his family, Roman immigrated to Canada, directly to the heart of York Centre at Bathurst & Sheppard. Roman is an avid fan of the City of Toronto, subways and the Raptors.

https://romanbabermp.ca/

After October 7th, everything changed.

Not just on the ground in Israel… But in the digital battlefield where narratives are shaped, distorted, and weaponized.

In this episode of The Profit or Pivot Podcast, I sit down with social media superstar Hillel Fuld to break down what’s really happening. Hillel built his career advising startups and telling stories in the tech world. But after October 7th, he shut it all down to focus entirely on Israel advocacy, bringing his understanding of media, distribution, and narrative to a much bigger fight.

⚔️ What We Get Into

• Why Israel is losing the PR war
• Why facts don’t change minds anymore (and what does)
• Where criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism
• Why antisemitism keeps resurfacing across generations
• Why Hillel believes things could get much worse for Jews in the West
• His perspective on figures like Donald Trump and shifting global alliances
• The story of being banned from Australia for 3 years
• Why Israel punches far above its weight in startups
• The cultural mindset that drives innovation
• Lessons founders everywhere can learn:

🎧 Watch on YouTube

EPISODE PARTNER - pulsefx.com

PulseFX is a Canadian foreign exchange and global payments consultancy that helps private clients and small‑to‑medium businesses move money across borders more efficiently. The firm focuses on reducing hidden FX costs, improving exchange rates, and helping clients manage currency risk when dealing with international real estate, suppliers, or global revenues. PulseFX combines modern payment technology with hands‑on, human guidance so clients can make better decisions when moving large sums internationally

Get 25% off your FX today by visiting my link: www.thatfxguy.com

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ABOUT HILLEL FULD

Hillel is a technology journalist, global speaker, and startup marketing advisor. Forbes called Hillel, “The man transforming Startup Nation to Scale-up Nation”, and Hillel was also named Israel’s top marketer, and among the 100 most influential social media personalities worldwide.

For over a decade, Hillel helped technology companies on their journey from idea to revenue and collaborated with leading companies including Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and many others. Hillel also wrote about the Israeli technology ecosystem for publications including TechCrunch, Inc Magazine, FastCompany, and more.

On October 7th, all that changed, and Hillel made an immediate decision to shut down his consulting business and refocus his time and energy on defending Israel online given the atrocities of that day and the spike of antisemitism that followed. Since October 7th, Hillel’s content has reached several billion impressions across his various platforms on which he has hundreds of thousands of followers.

Hillel has also spoken to audiences around the world about topics including Israeli innovation, marketing, entrepreneurship, and most recently, about the war and Israel’s ongoing military and geopolitical challenges.

You can read more about Hillel at HillelFuld.com and follow him across social media at the screen name @Hilzfuld where he shares his take on various topics pertaining to Israel and the future of western civilization.

Anti-Semitism is an evil and accelerating phenomenon around the world.

I break down my thoughts on its root causes.

Every founder wants to raise money.

But few understand what they’re actually competing against. In this episode of the Profit or Pivot Podcast, I sit down with Jeffrey Fidelman to break down what really happens behind the scenes in venture capital and why most founders never even get a shot.

Here’s the reality:

Top firms are reviewing thousands of deals every year. One fund alone can see 5,000 applications annually and only focuses on the top fraction. Most are rejected in minutes. Not because the idea is bad, but because the founder didn’t know how to present it.

We get into the mechanics of fundraising, what actually gets an investor’s attention, and why most founders lose before the first meeting even happens.

We go deep into:

• What actually happens when your deck hits a VC inbox
• Why first impressions (deck + outreach) decide everything
• The 3-slide framework every pitch deck should follow (and why most get it wrong)
• Why unrealistic market sizes instantly kill credibility
• How VCs think about market size, growth, and scale
• The biggest mistakes in cold outreach (and how to actually get responses)
• The real reason most founders never get funded

Jeff also breaks down something most people ignore:

Fundraising isn’t a side task. It’s a full-time job. Done properly, it requires structure, consistency, and hundreds of touchpoints, not a few warm intros and a pitch deck.

If you’re a founder trying to raise capital, break into VC, or just understand how competitive this game really is, this episode is a reality check.

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About Jeffrey Fidelman

Jeffrey is an investment banker & entrepreneur with 10+ years of experience advising early-stage companies and emerging investment managers. He is the Founder & Managing Partner of Fidelman & Co., a strategic advisory firm launched in 2015 to help founders & fund managers prepare for & execute capital raises with discipline, clarity, & data-driven strategy. At Fidelman, Jeffrey has advised hundreds of startups & emerging managers across technology, fintech, healthcare, & consumer sectors. The firm specializes in fundraising strategy, investor targeting, financial modeling, valuation, and execution support through its Fundraise as a Service (FaaS) platform, which combines structured processes with real-time investor intelligence.

Prior to Fidelman, Jeffrey held senior roles at Morgan Stanley and HSBC, where he gained experience across capital markets, portfolio management, & revenue strategy. Earlier in his career, he was involved with venture investing, providing him with an operator-level perspective on early-stage growth and capital formation. Jeffrey graduated cum laude from Harvard University & is frequently sought out by founders for his practical, execution-oriented approach to fundraising and investor readiness.

Connect with Jeff:

Linkedin

Fidelman & Co Website

Fundex

Jeff's Services

Fundraise as a Service (FaaS) is a structured, execution-driven approach to raising capital. It replaces ad-hoc outreach with a disciplined framework—covering investor targeting, messaging, materials, and follow-ups—so founders can run a repeatable, professional fundraise while staying focused on building their business.

FundEx is a purpose-built fundraising operating system that powers modern capital raises. It centralizes investor intelligence, outreach workflows, pipeline tracking, and performance analytics into a single system of record. Designed to bring structure and accountability to fundraising, FundEx enables founders and fund managers to manage their raise with the same rigor as sales or operations—turning fundraising from a fragmented process into a measurable, scalable operating function.

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Ever wonder how someone becomes a venture capitalist?

Winter Mead is the founder of Coolwater Capital, the YC for VC funds. He's invested in over 90 funds and has helped launch hundreds of VC firms. Venture operates in circles of trust. Those circles aren’t arbitrary, they’re built over decades. Ecosystems compound relationships the same way companies compound capital.

But the deeper insight is this: VCs are also fundraisers.

Every venture firm answers to limited partners. They raise funds, demonstrate performance, defend strategy, and differentiate in a crowded market. That means every investment is not just a bet on a founder, it’s a bet that must be defensible to institutional capital.

Founders who understand this dynamic immediately gain an edge.

In this episode, we break down how venture capital actually works. If you’re building a company or allocating capital, this conversation will sharpen how you think about incentives, access, and positioning.

What We Cover:

• Why breaking into venture “circles” is hard and why that’s rational
• The role of trust and pattern recognition in writing checks
• Why cold outreach rarely works the way founders expect
• The structural reason VCs favor repeat founders
• How LP dynamics shape every investment decision
• Why founders who understand fund math raise capital faster
• The real alignment (and constraints) between founders and investors

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My link: hiredonna.com/matan

ABOUT WINTER & COOLWATER

Winter Mead is the Founder and Managing Member of the investment firm Coolwater Capital, which exclusively focuses on emerging managers and technology investments. Coolwater is an academy for training, building and scaling emerging managers, a curated community of VC investors and early-stage investment specialists, and an investment firm. Coolwater has helped launch over 300+ emerging managers in the last four years, establishing strong ties and trust with these managers, who form the foundation of the Coolwater community. Coolwater has made over 90 investments into its accelerator ecosystem supporting the next generation of founder investors and new technologies.

Winter is also the author of "How To Raise A Venture Capital Fund" and an upcoming book, "How To Set Up A Venture Capital Fund." Prior to Coolwater, he played a key role in an evergreen investment fund at SAP and co-founded the LP transparency movement called #OpenLP. Winter's extensive experience includes private equity and venture capital roles in San Francisco, institutional fund investments, direct technology investments for SAP, and angel investing. He also served as junior faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, holding degrees from the University of Oxford and Harvard University, and now resides in Utah with his family, passionately solving business challenges.

Connect with Winter on LinkedIn

Learn more about Coolwater

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Everything is degrading in major cities like Toronto.

Violent crime has skyrocketed, homelessness is rampant, living is increasingly unaffordable, and we are paying more in taxes & receiving worse services. In the latest episode of The Profit or Pivot Podcast I am joined by Toronto City Councilman James Pasternak to discuss these myriad issues Toronto is facing.

One story I simply cannot wrap my head around.

A few months ago, a group of ISIS linked terrorists planned kidnappings of Jewish girls for r*pe, torture and ransom. Thank God, their first potential victim was able to escape by yelling for help. Police found weapons such as automatic rifles and plans for various attacks in their homes. And its been credibly reported that at least 1 of them has been released on bail.

Read that again:

A dangerous terrorist caught trying to kidnap girls, who has access to weapons, and a means to carry out attacks has been released. And I bet most of you haven't heard this story.

Its been buried.

Why???

While our discussion is about Toronto, the challenges we face are mirrored in other major cities across the West. James and I unpack some of the underlying causes, and potential solutions.

Watch on YouTube.

EPISODE PARTNER

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ABOUT JAMES PASTERNAK

James was first elected to Toronto City Council in 2010. He was re-elected in 2014, 2018, and 2022. Prior to coming to City Council he served 4 years as a Trustee on the Toronto District School Board. James is known for advancing creative solutions to complex urban problems and has been a leader in fighting antisemitism and hate in all its forms. James was the founding Trustee of the Africentric Alternative School, was the first to bring the concept of participatory budget making to Toronto, initiated the review of the consequences of drone technology and the implications of e-cigarettes. He was the first on Council to sound the alarm of the consequences of tariffs and a potential trade war with the United States. James currently serves as Chair of North York Community Council and has Chaired a number of City Council standing committees. He is a lifelong resident of York Centre.

Jim Ferry, a Partner at Volition Capital with $1.7B AUM, recently posted a VC analyst role and received 2,500 applications in one week.

That number alone says everything. In this episode of The Profit or Pivot Podcast, we unpack what that level of competition really means, why traditional career advice is broken, and how hiring managers actually think when they’re flooded with applicants who all look the same on paper.

If you’re trying to get hired into a competitive role, this episode will force you to rethink your approach. This conversation isn’t about polishing résumés or gaming LinkedIn. It’s about thinking like the person doing the hiring.

We get into:

• What 2,500 applications for one role tells us about the job market
• Why credentials & grades matter less than most people think
• How candidates disqualify themselves before interviews
• What hiring managers are actually screening for
• Common resume and interviewing mistakes
• How to position yourself when competition is extreme

His perspective on investing in the age of AI This episode is a wake-up call for anyone trying to break into competitive roles especially in VC, startups, and high-performance environments. If you want to get hired, promoted, or taken seriously, this conversation will change how you approach your career.

🎧 Listen now and rethink how you stand out.

About Jim Ferry

Jim is a Partner at Volition Capital, a Boston-based Series A / Series B growth equity firm with over $1.7B in assets under management. Volition invests ~$15M to ~$60M in technology startups with a ~$5M+ run rate. Since joining the firm in 2014, Jim has focused on high-growth, founder-owned companies in the internet and consumer sectors. Jim specializes in high-volume transactional businesses across sectors including ad tech, marketplaces, fintech, consolidation platforms, and more, partnering with founders to scale their businesses efficiently.

Connect with Jim

X

LinkedIn

Volition Capital (email)

If you are a high growth startup with a ~$5M+ run rate looking to raise ~$15M-60M, feel free to reach out to Volition Capital:

dealflow@volitioncapital.com