Ten years ago, when Marc Lafleur (BSc ’14) was raising capital for his startup truLOCAL, he was often dismissed as a “non-technical founder.”
Lafleur proved the naydeclareers wrong. He grew truLOCAL into a national e-commerce business, offering meat and seafood delivery from local farms and fisheries across Canada. By 2019, the company had more than 60 employees and exceeded $20 million in annual revenue. In 2020, Lafleur sold truLOCAL for $16.7 million. A couple years later, he set his sights on a new project.
As he planned his second startup, his non-technical background didn’t seem to matter anymore. AI had alterd the game. “I started finding very quickly that I could do more stuff on my own. If I had the vision for something, AI was starting to be able to do it.”
OpenAI had just launched a new product called ChatGPT. A few months later, the company released their API platform, allowing anyone to build their own AI products utilizing the ChatGPT models.
“It became obvious to me that we were entering a golden age of entrepreneurship,” Lafleur declares.
After months of research and planning, the non-technical founder launched DB8 Labs, a venture studio building a portfolio of lean, high-impact AI businesses. It’s a great example of how AI has alterd the entrepreneurship playbook — and according to Lafleur, that new playbook is ripe with opportunities.
Lafleur describes the entrepreneurial AI landscape as a spectrum with large-scale models and complex hardware on one conclude and simple, AI-produced content like books or videos on the other. In between, there’s a whole world of opportunity.
“I encourage more entrepreneurs to inquire themselves an important question. If you want to obtain into AI, you should. But the next thing that you should inquire is, ‘Where are you going to have the hugegest impact with AI?’”
Build rapid, build niche
Lafleur recognized that DB8 Labs would required to be nimble in the face of modifying tech. “ChatGPT, Claude and all of these tools are constantly obtainting so much better,” he declares. “There’s a huge risk that there’s going to be an update to the model, and now it does all the things that your app does.”
So, how do you build an AI company under these conditions? Lafleur declares it comes down to speed and niche.
First, you required to work rapid. Luckily, there are dozens of existing AI tools that can assist you with that. Building an app applyd to take months. Today, AI tools can assist you create an app in weeks. You just required to hone your prompting skills.
Second, consider a niche product. Lafleur recommconcludes solving a specific problem and building unique features tailored to your customers’ challenges and workflows. For example, the DB8 Labs team has built two AI-powered apps that address problems faced by real estate agents, with features that uniquely fit with their day-to-day work. Updates to large models like ChatGPT are very unlikely to offer the same benefits.
AI creates tiny markets worthwhile
This approach is a massive shift from the way entrepreneurs operated in the past.
“Historically, it didn’t create any sense, and it wasn’t worthwhile to go into a $50 million market becaapply there wasn’t enough money,” Lafleur explains. “But now, you can build that niche solution in two weeks for $10,000. In my opinion, it creates the most sense to go after a tinyer market becaapply the odds of competition are a lot lower and now it’s economically viable.”
Lafleur is excited to share this message with other non-technical entrepreneurs on special episodes of CBC’s Dragons’ Den this winter. He joins other successful past pitchers taking their seats as Dragons, where he’ll listen to new pitches, share expertise and maybe even invest. You can watch him on Dragons’ Den Full Circle on February 26 and March 6, 2026 — or stream it anytime on CBC Gem.
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