Some people learn best in the classroom. Other people learn better in the boardroom. Ryan St Germaine is a proud Métis serial entrepreneur who started his first business in landscaping at 17 years old and hasn’t stopped learning. Since then, he’s started many more, including tech companies and job boards. He wasn’t a strong student but has found alternate paths to success…the first one started with a lawnmower. Now, he is an executive in residence at a few companies, mentoring Indigenous founders, and working with a cohort through New Ventures and with Raven Capital. He works in the world of funding startups, teaching how to do startups and advising companies.

When St. Germaine was just six weeks old, his grandfather who was his connection to his Métis side of the family was murdered. In recent years, he has been interviewing family members and getting to know them and more about his Métis heritage. He founded a group called the Indigenous Tech Circle which includes 300 Indigenous tech professionals across Canada and the US. He founded it when he started looking to connect with Indigenous tech professionals and was told there weren’t any. “There's the story you hear, and then there's the truth and I really want to celebrate the successes that we are having,” he explains.

The group’s mission and values were recently solidified and they centred around equitable outcomes for Indigenous people through technology. That looks like knowing and lifting each other up in the industry and creating opportunities to mentor and guide the next generation to infiltrate and create an underground network to create representation on boards and access to funding. With 0.004% of funding currently going to Indigenous-led businesses, there is a need for change that St. Germaine hopes can come from a group like the Indigenous Tech Circle.

“There are opportunities for the next generation to get into tech to start companies and you don't need anyone's permission”

Supporting entrepreneurs was a natural choice for St. Germaine. “I just love startups. For me, it's a way of learning. Whenever I've started a business, it's been, what do I want to learn?” he beams. As someone who didn’t enjoy what was being taught in school, he preferred entrepreneurship and started many businesses which he confides failed more often than succeeded. While he took some courses at BCIT to learn skills like HTML and marketing, he hasn’t completed a full credential yet. He hasn’t ruled it out yet for his retirement days but for now, he’s happy to learn new skills here and there. When his job board network was purchased by a private equity firm, his life changed. “I really want to share that with others and to show people how they can create wealth, how Indigenous people can create generational wealth and can create freedom for themselves through entrepreneurship,” he continues.

When it came to barriers, St. Germaine didn’t face many of the same barriers Indigenous entrepreneurs often face. As someone who had a family who went bankrupt in the 80s but rebuilt their finances enough to be able to provide him with seed capital, he was able to build his business through his family and by bootstrapping. Given many businesses get their early funding from friends and family and that isn’t always available to Indigenous business owners, St. Germaine asks the question many Indigenous entrepreneurs face, “how do we be scrappier so that we can still succeed and then, how do we push against those barriers and make change?”

Another example of bootstrapping outside of his own story that he’s seen was Bobbie Racette of Virtual Gurus who was laid off from the oil industry and built her company to $2 million before she received venture funding. Other companies funded through Raven Capital have similar origin stories, he offers.

His advice for Indigenous students considering entrepreneurship is, “Go out there and make a mess. Just have fun. Business is supposed to be fun. Learning is supposed to be fun. If there's something you want to try, try it.” He recognizes that accessibility can be an issue but encourages youth to seek out resources and local entrepreneurs willing to share their experiences. “As far as tools go, if you do have access to the internet, there's a bunch of free resources that can do just about everything that you need to do in the beginning. You can start a business for $0 and you can start to generate revenue without having a huge bank account or resources behind you,” he confides. St. Germaine encourages youth to ensure they are meeting their responsibilities and doing no harm but says otherwise there’s no reason they couldn’t get started today.

Looking to the future, St. Germaine borrows from Jeff Ward of Animikii and says that he wants to hear people talking about Indigenous tech entrepreneurship and innovation to say “Indigenous people are amazing at that, and they excel and surpass everybody else.” He has personal travel to Portugal planned and professionally he plans to keep doing what he’s doing. He wants to keep increasing funding to Indigenous-led companies, something he’s excited to do every day.

In closing, to inspire Indigenous youth, St. Germaine wants to tell them, “Go for it. Our minds are going to tell us that we can't do things for whatever reason. It's okay to have those thoughts and those feelings and then ignore them, and then keep moving forward, one step at a time. You will be amazed before you know you’re 5-10 steps through, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish and what you learn each time. It's not pass or fail. It's ‘What are you learning today?’ Anytime that you hit resistance that's just more information that's going to help you in your future.”

While some people learn best in the classroom and others learn more in the boardroom, Ryan St. Germaine exemplifies that what matters most is you never stop learning wherever you go. Building companies from scratch and helping others do the same, he’s also nurturing an Indigenous Tech Circle to nourish Indigenous tech talent on the rise. With his eyes on the future and armed with lessons learned along the way, this scrappy, supportive serial entrepreneur has a mind for startups and a heart for lasting relationships.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.