Transcript review · 28 October 2026
You got the best institutional reaction to the method this company has had, then spent the back half selling the platform. Those are different sales, and only one buyer was in the room.
Philippe did not say “great product.” He said:
“This is the first one that I've seen that so accurately addresses the way people work and how to get people working more intelligently with these platforms.”
Philippe, BDC · 00:26:40
That is a statement about an operating model. Then he told you how BDC buys operating models:
“We've developed methodologies that belong to BDC and that we have delivered through third-party independent consultants from coast to coast across the country.”
Philippe, BDC · 00:29:40
BDC does not buy software for SMEs. It buys methods, packages them, trains a consultant bench on them, and sends that bench out. You were sitting across from the man who runs that factory, he described the factory out loud, and the conversation moved back to a collaboration layer.
The call was good. The follow-up is where this gets won or lost, and right now the ball is in their court with no date on it.
Four things, in order of value.
Strategy and governance (Calgary), and leadership and people (Pat Deester, splitting time between southern Ontario and a few hours east of Vancouver — confirm the spelling before you write it anywhere). Those two own the methodologies BDC trains consultants on. Philippe is a connector; they are the buyers.
Structured questionnaire, same questions for every vendor, results into an internal database BDC staff consult when advising clients. No approval mechanism, no endorsement, no funnel. Worth doing properly, worth zero expectation beyond being findable.
He asked for it twice, unprompted, after describing his own organisation's failed Copilot rollout. That is a buying signal dressed as a favour.
Philippe volunteered it without prompting. Regional development agencies see the same SMEs BDC does and run their own adoption programming. Take it.
“You guys should be pushing or working with somebody like myself to help spread this across the Canadian small business landscape.”
You · 00:24:50
Philippe’s answer was polite and final:
“We're not in the business of picking winners. We are however in the business of providing visibility to Canadian businesses that can help SMEs adopt these new technologies.”
Philippe, BDC · 00:32:22
Translation: BDC will introduce, list and mention. BDC will not distribute, endorse or co-sell. Shape every future ask as visibility or introduction, because those are the two yeses already on the table. Asking for distribution spends goodwill you will need later.
Five moments, each with the repair.
Jad asked the sharpest question of the call: “Somebody needs to extract the conversations they've had with their AI that they deem relevant and they input it into the platform manually, copy paste. Is there some sort of integration, like how do you know which things that employees worked on should go into ZAAS?”
You answered: “One word, it's a prompt.” That answers how the text moves. It does not answer who decides what counts — which is the governance question, and governance is the name of one of the two centres you are about to be introduced to. Then the API was “pretty straightforward” and “not a difficult thing to do.” Jad is completing a vendor questionnaire. “Trust me, it's easy” reads as a gap on a form.
Who decides what is relevant? If it is the employee, say so and explain why: people will not report honestly into a system that punishes honesty. Philippe raised exactly that fear on their own side — “some might have an incentive to hide their productivity gains.” If it is the manager approving the roll-up, say that. Either is defensible. Silence is not, because the next person to ask will be doing diligence.
You dropped 90-10-90-2 in as an aside. Philippe: “Proving out value through a proof of concept, I mean that's not novel, right?” He is right, and the framing invited it.
The canon pilot is 90 days, CA$3–7.5K, credited against year one, never free. That is a client product with a defensible price. The $90K-for-10-SMEs package is a publicly funded cohort programme sold to a ministry, where the buyer is government and the unit is a cohort. Both are fine. They cannot appear in the same conversation, because together they make the offer look like a number you are feeling for.
“I have probably 20 or 30 contractors that we pull in depending upon whatever the requirements are… which then we farm off to whomever.”
To a small business owner that is a bench. To a Crown corporation completing a vendor questionnaire it is a delivery-risk answer. They are about to put your name in front of clients, so the question is not “can you staff it.” It is “what happens if it goes wrong, and who is accountable.”
Philippe: “Sovereignty, as you can imagine, these days is top of mind for everybody… building out a Canadian vendor list.” You said: “I like to keep it in Canada as much as I can.” That is the weakest version of a strong position, and “as much as I can” is an admission that some of it is not.
“Presumably you would be able, or your devs, would be able to adapt the platform to the methodology that's being deployed. Like we could co-develop. Or not co-develop, but you could adapt it to the methodology.”
Philippe, BDC · 00:35:00
You said “100%” and then talked about being the main product user.
The question you did not ask: what would it take for the Zorn AI methodology to be one that BDC trains its consultant network on?
Look at what that would mean. BDC has a national bench of independent consultants delivering BDC-owned methods to SMEs. They need those methods to stay current, and AI adoption is a new federal mandate they are still staffing up. A licensed methodology plus a train-the-trainer programme reaches hundreds of businesses through a channel that already exists, and it never requires BDC to endorse a software product.
The platform’s job changes in that deal. It stops being the thing you sell and becomes the thing that makes the method measurable — which is exactly the credibility gap Philippe described in his own organisation: “at no point did we give anybody guidance on how we wanted them to play with it, and to what end.”
That is the co-development conversation. It is worth more than the vendor list, and he opened the door himself.
Whoever writes the summary controls the next conversation. Philippe said: “If you give me the transcript, I'll get it synthesized by AI on our end.” He will walk into the centre conversations holding a summary of your company that a model wrote from a raw transcript, with no knowledge of your positioning. Send your own synthesis first, within a day, and make it the easiest document to forward.
“I'll come back to you” is not a next step. You asked whether you should propose a demo date or wait. He said he would come back to you. No date means nobody owns the next move. Propose two dates in the follow-up. If he picks one, you have a meeting. If he does not, you have a signal.
Jad’s call is a form, not a conversation. Ask for the questionnaire in advance. Arrive with the answers: company facts, Canadian incorporation, data residency, subprocessor list, security posture, pricing bands, two references. Vendors who make the database legible get mentioned. Vendors who make the analyst work get dropped.
Fix the LIFT misunderstanding now. You spent the last five minutes on a premise that was wrong. LIFT is a loan to the client; vendors are recommended after a BDC mandate, not from an approved list. You applied twice over eight months and heard nothing because there was no list to be approved onto. The lever that does exist is the Canadian supplier/integrator designation, which is what makes a client eligible for preferential LIFT pricing. Ask Jad how that designation works. That question is worth more than the last five minutes were.
| # | Action | Owner | By |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Send Philippe a one-page synthesis, the demo outline, and two proposed dates for the week of 9 Nov | Mark | 29 Oct |
| 2 | Ask for the two centre introductions in that same email, by name | Mark | 29 Oct |
| 3 | Request Jad’s questionnaire in advance and send the completed pack before the call | Mark · Jake | 31 Oct |
| 4 | Book the Jad intake call | Mark | 31 Oct |
| 5 | Build the demo as a ways-of-working walkthrough: one persona, one week, twenty minutes, one real weekly-summary artefact | Jake | 6 Nov |
| 6 | Write two one-page openings, one for strategy and governance, one for leadership and people | Mark | 6 Nov |
| 7 | Answer the sovereignty question in writing: data location, subprocessors, access, offboarding | Jake | 6 Nov |
| 8 | Ask Jad how the Canadian supplier/integrator designation works | Mark | Jad call |
| 9 | Follow up on the PacifiCan referral | Mark | 7 Nov |
| 10 | Take the same ways-of-working framing into the Jodie Thomas call; do not demo the platform | Mark | Before that call |
Sell the method to institutions. Let the platform be the proof.
Every institutional buyer in this transcript — BDC, PacifiCan, the ministry, the AI Council — buys methods, programmes and visibility. None of them buys SaaS on behalf of an SME. The platform is what makes the method credible and the pilot measurable, and that is a much better position for it than being the thing you are asking a Crown corporation to distribute.
The order matters. Method first, platform as evidence, pilot as the proof point. You already have the sentence. Philippe said it for you.
Philippe,
Thank you for the time, and for explaining how BDC’s advisory practice actually works. It was the clearest twenty minutes on the subject I have had.
Attached is a one-page summary of what I heard, in your language rather than mine. Three things in it:
Two dates that work on our side: Tuesday 10 November at 09:00 PT, or Thursday 12 November at 13:00 PT. If neither works, tell me what does and I will make it fit.
I will also follow up with Jad on the vendor intake this week.
Mark