AMA with Founder & CEO of FETTCH Amanda Dias
By Raman Kang
Amanda Dias is a graduate of the University of Toronto, having grown up in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. She had always been fascinated with technology, data, and business after completing an internship at CIBC and both starting and participating in multiple organizations throughout her university career. Amanda came up with FETTCH in November of 2019 after seeing a real problem amongst her colleagues. Simply put, she identified that busy students in an urban setting do not have time to shop but wanted to connect directly to local retailers without spending hours in stores. She wondered why the only standard for “instant delivery” meant the next day and why. Companies intent on disrupting physical retail were the only ones capable of satisfying the instant gratification consumers require. She decided to shift her focus from international human rights law to entrepreneurship to produce this solution. Amanda has always had a real passion for creating solutions that would change the way people live at a fundamental level. She has always been fascinated with creating solutions that shift expectations, influence behaviours, and improve. With FETTCH, she knew she could create a company whose mandate would revolutionize and transform the way people think about shopping. And she could align technology with retail to expand omnichannel retailers’ capabilities and make shopping more local, tailored, sustainable, instant, and more innovative!
Q: Can you kick us off with a little background on how you've leveraged the Covid pandemic to grow FETTCH and how the idea came to be?
A: Absolutely. FETTCH was initially designed as a solution for omnichannel retailers to compete with big-box retailers and combat the "decline of physical retail.” I endeavoured to provide a mobile marketplace that enabled shoppers to shop via a mobile marketplace from any local brick and mortar store and receive delivery within minutes without spending hours in-store. With COVID-19, our team saw local retailers, both big and small, take an enormous hit. At that point, our solution became more critical. We scaled then to democratize our platform, including smaller retailers across the Greater Toronto Area to allow them to increase sales, leverage our software's algorithms and data insights, and get products in customers' hands instantly.
Q: Hey Amanda! Can you describe/outline your typical day as a founder/CEO?
A: A typical day as CEO of FETTCH looks like a daily morning check-in with the operations and development team as we are in our beta phase. Usually, then it's sort of back-to-back calls with vendors and those we have on the ground while also tracking our numbers and seeing orders in real-time. Usually, it's a bit of everything from hiring to operations to legal and client and investor relations. I can say one thing it's a lot of very, very late nights and incredibly early mornings.
Q: I have many questions to ask. But out of them, two are 1. So far in your entrepreneur journey, something that came as a surprise or shocking, a thing you learnt? Can you please share with us? 2. How did you prepare yourself for this journey?
A: To your first question, one surprising thing I perhaps learned is that your solution is inherently valuable, and its potential for evolution is what will distinguish your company's success. With FETTCH, I began pre-covid when people were shopping typically, and my team could anticipate people would continue with similar spending habits for some time to come.
However, as COVID-19 hit, my team and I expanded our solution to include FETTCH pharmacy. We then realized that the pharmacy vertical and perfecting the technology to allow users to scan their health cards and shop from local pharmacies would give us longevity and a scalable solution and would allow us to include a vertical that was essentially COVID-19 proof. Of course, we are still servicing retailers, but the strength of our pharmacy vertical and the quickness of our team to pivot and think ahead really made me realize that a company's strength lies in its solution. As people change, so too must your solution.
To the second question, that's an interesting one! I prepared my entire life to do something either in law, investment banking, or technology. Still, the new reality of working at a startup and delving into retail technology and smart cities and managing an incredibly talented team of 9 t was not something I could have prepared for.
Luckily I had spent the necessary time before pursuing this company, expanding my portfolio of knowledge and experience and then once I started FETTCH simply learned by doing. It's an iterative process, and while I knew how to be a leader, how to be resilient, how to work hard, how to think ahead, and how to build my solution, there is no kind of preparation I think any CEO (or at least I) could have done to prepare for this journey. I am continually learning and myself growing, but it's incredibly exciting.
Q: Hi Amanda! Are you bootstrapping? Or do you have investors? What has that part of your journey been like so far?
A: Hi Shelley, we've bootstrapped everything so far! We were fortunate enough to receive a few grants, including one from RBC, but otherwise, it has been entirely bootstrapped. It's been inspiring. We received some initial offers but realized we were actually in quite a position of strength. Our initial numbers exceeded our projections, and once we complete the beta test, we'll have the bargaining power to secure the ideal partner (or as close to ideal as possible). The perfect partner for us would be a VC with the connections and experience we need in retail tech.
Q: What are the best and worst parts of being a CEO?
Great question! One of the best parts is probably seeing how your solution takes shape and affects people once it is in the world. Every entrepreneur's "solution" is an attempt to create something which solves a problem. I witnessed a genuine concern amongst local retailers, and it has been immensely gratifying to see them receive the app and convey its utility and how it has filled a real need. Whenever I hear feedback from customers who can now more conveniently engage with local retailers, it reinforces the solution my team and I created. Another great part is seeing my team grow!
One of the worst parts has been making some difficult choices to part with individuals whose goals do not align with the company. It's an unfortunate and ugly reality, but any CEO will discover that partnerships sometimes work against your company’s interest. At that point, a tough decision has to be made to let those partnerships go to move forward. I've had to learn to be incredibly diligent and critical of the partnerships I forge and who I choose to align with the company. To put it simply, it's never a great feeling to let someone go, but as CEO, it is part of my reality.
Q: What’s one (or two) piece of advice you’d give to a woman who wants to start their own biz?
A: My first piece of advice is to do your research and validate your hypothesis. Starting a business involves encountering a decent amount of trepidation and hearing a few "no's.” All you can do at that point is then rely on the fact that you've done your due diligence and you've validated your hypothesis, and you can simply forge ahead in the face of any kind of pushback with the reassurance you yourself have generated. At that point, build it! Don't sell people on an idea. Sell people on numbers. Get your product out there and work with the right team to ensure your solution has its best chance in the market