Has podcasting become the new “can we meet for a coffee” networking ploy? Max Spence thinks it has. An up-and-comer in the podcasting space, he realized after leaving college that trying to chat with people for career advice – the good old fashioned “can I pick your brain over coffee” call-out – was becoming harder and harder to nail down.

But when he created the Max Spence Business Podcast – there were no shortage of takers to fill the slots of his three episodes per week format.

Crafty!

Fast forward a year, and he’s recorded hours upon hours of practical, informational interviews about what it takes to run a business, be an owner or startup founder, or even, like himself, to be a budding entrepreneur still in the throes of just trying to figure the whole thing out! He’s particularly interested in people whose path to success has been anything BUT a straight line. 

This might be a generational thing (the kids are alright!), but I especially loved how open Max was in retelling some of his major fails when it comes to figuring out which direction his path should be taking. It’s refreshing to hear someone be so bold and blunt: “Yup. Totally wasted about $15 grand with that venture!” (I’m paraphrasing, but not by much!), because it’s my opinion that people need to hear the bad, along with the good, when it comes to being an entrepreneur. We all start out somewhere – and that somewhere is usually small. Lessons learned are what lead us to our eventual successes. Or, as I like to call it, that “the real-life, boots-on-the-ground, MBA!”

A graduate of Algonquin College’s Business Management Entrepreneur course, prior to that Max spent a few years as a teen in Britain, and was a member of the British Army Foundation, a program that “…plays a vital role in providing basic military training and developing future leadership. It offers a mix of military training, personal development, and education for under 19s that provides them skills to succeed in the Armed Forces, and their lives beyond the military.”