Consistency beats intensity when networking. Mario Meyer showed up to three or four events weekly for years. His biggest contract came from a referral from someone he met at an event two years earlier. The compound interest on relationships is real.

Referrals are gold in North America. Cold outreach works. But warm intros shorten the sales cycle and help you leapfrog the trust gaps you'll face as an immigrant entrepreneur. Nida Ateeq built her entire marketing consultancy this way.

Your network is everything in Canada. Roy and Dev left established legal careers in India to start over. They learned that building the right connections helps you understand the nuances of the business landscape in ways that no amount of research can replicate.

Networking serves dual purposes for immigrants. Katherine Li discovered that networking after a certain age can also be an opportunity to make new friends. We all know how hard it is to make friends as adult immigrants. Business relationships and personal connections can grow from the same soil.

Find your community early. Marcelo Ribeiro found local resources like city programs, community forums, and accelerators invaluable. Especially because immigrant entrepreneurs often lack the traditional social safety nets that native-born founders take for granted.

Spend time understanding the business culture. Learn the nuances. Ask questions. Join communities that expose you to these cultural subtleties in a safe space. Mario Meyer stressed this again and again.

Think global from the start. Yes, you should start with your local market. But who says you can’t scale to international markets? Marcelo Ribeiro sees the senior protection business as addressing a global market of approximately one billion seniors. Build with that in mind from day one.

Talk about your ideas early and often. Treat your community as a sounding board to pressure test your ideas. You gain nothing from keeping your ideas secret. Execution is everything. You're better off aerating your ideas and validating your business model in the process.

Start making noise from day one. Nobody would talk about you if you don’t talk about yourself first. A perfect product doesn’t exist. Kingsley Madu was emphatic about this.

Focus on product-market fit over passion. Asli Kahraman tried about 30 different business ideas before she hit on Operations Mavenue. Her lesson: traction matters more than loving your concept. If people aren't buying or engaging, move on regardless of your emotional attachment to the business idea.

Your accent can work in your favour. Asli Kahraman’s “broken English“ and foreign accent allowed her to close more deals. Prospects saw her authenticity and commitment as proof she believed in what she was selling.

Authenticity beats imitation. Stop trying to sound like native-born entrepreneurs. Your unique perspective and background are what differentiate you in the marketplace.

The resilience you built as an immigrant is transferable. The same determination that got you through the physical and mental chaos of settling into your new country can become fuel for the challenges that come with building a business. The muscles are the same.

Your past is important but don’t turn it into a crutch. Many immigrants show up with a sense of entitlement based on their past successes. Roy and Dev were clear that to succeed, you must be receptive to the new ecosystem’s expectations while understanding that you are starting fresh.

Grants can incentivise the wrong behaviours. Ben Su made this point really well. When startups can get money without proving market demand, they never learn if customers actually want their product. We can’t be rewarding skilled grant writers over getting punched in the face by the market.

Network effects compound in unexpected ways. The best founders want to be around other great founders. When the best talent congregates in one ecosystem, other countries lose both human capital and growth opportunities. This explains a lot about the Canada-to-US brain drain. That might be changing now. What do you think?

You can’t out-entrepreneur government policy. Once a system rewards certain behaviours, they become self-reinforcing cycles that are difficult to break. Some companies can succeed despite these limitations, but systemic change is what we actually need.

Canadian investors are too conservative. Roy and Dev observed that Canada’s investment scene often acts more like lenders than partners. An investor who only wants to join after you’re revenue-positive for five years isn’t an investor. They’re a lender with extra steps.

Accelerators and funding don’t always come together. Kingsley Madu went through major Canadian accelerators. He received mentorship and connections. But zero investment dollars when it came time to write checks.

The bad days are not forever. Don’t mistake the moment for who you are. Bad days will pass, and they’re not your normal. Katherine Li reminded me of this.

Name your inner critic to control it. Katherine calls hers “Randall” and actively works to quiet his voice when he keeps yapping that she can’t succeed. Give the doubt a name. Then tell it to shut up.

Entrepreneurship is a search for yourself. What we build is a vision of how we see the world. The “more” that drives entrepreneurs is really the search for meaning and self-discovery through creating something new.

Accept you’re not special. Drop the expectation of overnight success and accept that progress might seem average sometimes. Asli Kahraman found this mindset makes the entrepreneurial journey more sustainable.

Fall in love with the boredom. Success often is just consistently doing the same things over and over again until they become second nature. Roy and Dev observed that the most successful people have fallen in love with the boredom of their process.

There's no end to the entrepreneurship journey. With each passing day, the journey gets longer, not shorter. Kingsley Madu believes this is where most would-be entrepreneurs miss it. They think they’re running toward a finish line. There isn’t one.

If you need balance, maybe you aren’t having fun. Kids never seem to get tired of playing. Why? Because play is fun for them. If you’re asking for balance from work because it’s stressing you, ask yourself if you’re on the right path.

Quality over quantity. Blocking out time for “family hour” doesn’t matter if you aren’t fully present. If taking your kids to school every morning and picking them up means you spend that time wholly present with them, do that instead.

Immigrants are a new source of supply, not just demand. Supply of ideas, innovations, and products. Marcelo Ribeiro sees Canada as sitting on untapped potential. We just need to unlock it.

Not every immigrant will make a great entrepreneur. Nida Ateeq offered this reality check. The immigrant entrepreneur's journey demands more than courage. It demands planning, community, cultural literacy, and a willingness to start fresh without abandoning what you learned before.