One of the angel investors on the television show Dragon's Den told a crowd of businesspeople Thursday she wished she'd known building a business would be messy.
Michele Romanow was the keynote speaker for a full house at the Sarnia-Lambton Business Week luncheon at the Dante Club.
The 34-year-old studied engineering at Queen's University before launching a few e-commerce related startups.
She said it's important to tell the real stories of how things happen.
"My career has not been a straight line in any way, there was a lot of failures," said Romanow. "I think everyone has innovation, everyone has a dream and an idea that they want to pursue, and so if I can remind people that it's not going to be easy or comfortable, but that they can do it, I think you can spur a lot of entrepreneurship in local communities. Which is where a ton of amazing ideas come from."
Romanow started five companies by the time she turned 33 years old.
"I had done a caviar fishery and then it was a lot of different ideas until we built Buytopia and SnapSaves. Starting businesses is high failure, so you just have to keep iterating to get a big innovation and if you can't get your mind around 'this didn't work today, but something's going to work tomorrow,' it becomes really difficult."
Romanow co-founded Clearbanc in 2015.
The San Francisco-based company provides revenue-sharing solutions to fund new online businesses and will invest $1 billion in 2,000 startup companies this year.
Romanow's net worth in 2018 was estimated at $187 million. She made the list of 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada in 2015.
