Anybody can be a change maker.

It's really remarkable when you

see the power of the individual,

the impact that an individual

can make on the planet, in their

community. You can be a change

maker that uplifts you, uplifts

people around you, and build a

better society, a better

community.

That's Dax Dasilva, founder and

CEO of Lightspeed, a commerce

company approaching a $10

billion market cap. Dax is an

absolute legend, having led

Lightspeed through two

successful IPOs on the Toronto

Stock Exchange and the New York

Stock Exchange. Along with

Shopify, Dax has redefined what

success looks like for Canadian

tech companies. Dax also leads

with purpose and intent. He was

named Innovator of the Year by

the Globe and Mail. He is the

founder of Never Apart, a non-

profit art space, and is the

author of "Age of Union," a book

that serves as a guide for

igniting today's changemaker.

In this episode, Dax shares his

wisdom on what it takes to be a

changemaker and the small acts

of union that individuals can

take to help build a better

society, a better community, and

be better stewards of our planet.

This is Daniel Saks, Co-CEO of

AppDirect, and it's time to

decode the changemaker mentality.

Welcome to "Decoding Digital," a

podcast for innovators looking

to thrive in the digital economy.

I'm your host, Daniel Saks, and

I'll sit down with other

founders, CEOs, and changemakers

to decode the trends that are

transforming the way we work.

Let's decode. Dax, so amazing

to reconnect as always.

Obviously, you've been doing

incredible things, and it's been

amazing to watch you from afar,

seeing the impact that

Lightspeed's had this year and

the success on the public

markets. Also, the impact of

your book is truly inspiring.

Great to have you on the show.

Thanks for having me. Excited to

be here, Dan.

Certainly. This year was a

tipping point for the commerce

industry and for Lightspeed, but

can you tell our viewers a

little bit about what Lightspeed

does and how it's helping

businesses in the digital

economy?

Lightspeed is focused on

building cloud platforms that

help small, medium-sized

businesses run their operations,

do transactions with their

customers, and ultimately, grow.

We focus on the complex segment

of retail, hospitality, and golf.

Those businesses that have

deeper operations, and therefore

we go much deeper in terms of

the tooling that we offer them.

We're like an operating system

for these businesses. There's

about more than 100,000

businesses around the world that

are on our platforms.

That's incredible. This year,

obviously, you've had a ton of

success on the public markets

and doing a lot of acquisitions.

What does it feel like to be

leading such an inspirational

and highly publicized company?

It's interesting because we went

public in Toronto last year.

That's been, I think, a great

graduation for Lightspeed in

terms of going to the next level

in how we operate. Going public

in New York, dual listing in the

New York Stock Exchange in the

midst of the pandemic was

interesting moment for the

company. Obviously, we're

helping businesses really pivot.

We are offering helps businesses

bridge between physical and

digital. Our tools are used very

heavily to manage the operations

of a physical restaurant or a

physical store, but we've given

them full set of omni-channel

tools to be able to pivot to

digital channels. What we

thought was going to unfold over

the course of three to five

years has happened rapidly over

the course of months. That was a

message that was well-received

as we went public in New York.

This is really a moment to

double down on making sure that

these businesses move off legacy

and on to systems like

Lightspeed.

What's an example of a business

that you're helping? Can you

tell me about what they're doing

with you?

Yeah. There's a business that's

in retail and had been very

focused on selling in store. Now,

they're selling on e-commerce.

They're doing things like

curbside pickup. They're using

channels. They're using our

loyalty channel to market and

build relationships with

customers so that they're top of

mind so that customers are

caring about their favorite

local stores as opposed to

potentially ordering off Amazon.

If they're hospitality business

or a golf business, they're

transitioning to new models of

working with our customers. It

could be an OrderAhead app that

lets customers order digitally

and pick up from the store. It

could be delivery. It could be

even offering different

merchandise from the restaurant

on our eCom for Restaurant that

we just released. We are

blending together a lot of the

capabilities. We built eCom for

our retail customers, but now

it's just as important for our

restaurant customers. It's

providing lots of room for

businesses to adapt and get

creative in the way that they

mix and match and blend our

tools to create unique business

models for themselves. They're

differentiated and exciting for

the modern consumer and a

consumer that's transitioning in

this period also in terms of

their habits, that's ultra-

important. We've seen the

resilience of businesses when

given the current circumstances,

businesses have gotten creative,

and we've seen some amazing

transformations.

In your book, Age of Union, you

start by telling a personal and

authentic story about yourself

and how you got to where you

were. I found it super inspiring

and helpful. Do you want to give

just a brief summary to the

viewers?

Yeah. Age of Union, its subtitle

is Igniting the Changemaker.

That summarizes what the books

about, it's a guidebook for

changemakers. That could be an

entrepreneur, like you and me,

it could also be somebody that's

starting a project for social

good. I started a cultural

center called Never Apart. Wrote

a manifesto for that. Age of

Union is a book version of that

Manifesto. Anybody can be a

changemaker. It's remarkable

when you see the power of the

individual, the impact that an

individual can make on the

planet, in their community. This

is the age of the selfie.

There's two ways you can go with

all this individual power. It

can be turned inwards, or it can

be turned outwards. There's

that power of the individual

that can be captured for the

greater good. You can be a

changemaker that uplifts you,

uplifts people around you, and

builds a better society, a

better community. Hopefully, we

work towards better stewardship

of the planet. That's really

what the book's about. There's

four pillars that are in this

toolkit for changemaker. Those

pillars are things that I feel

should be thought about together

and not in boxes. Those are

leadership, culture,

spirituality, and nature. For me

personally, those are the four

things that are pillars for me.

I felt like that was something

that I should share with people

so that I can talk about those

in a cohesive and comprehensive

way, as opposed to having a

discussion about leadership or

the environment that's separated

from something like spirituality

or culture when those are all

the elements that need to come

together in order for us to

think about what we want for

tomorrow.

Tell us about your journey and

where you grew up and how you

came to starting Lightspeed and

then ultimately writing Age of

Union.

Born in Vancouver. My parents

are immigrants from Africa, but

I was born in Vancouver. I made

the move to Montreal in my mid-

20s. I loved the culture, and

energy, and the city. I've done

software programming on the Mac

since I was 13, but in

university, I did study religion

and art. You see that in later

projects in my life like Never

Apart, the cultural center, like

Age of Union. You see the

influence of those studies. I

was, for the most part, a

designer/software designer and

with a real love for visual

design. That's what the first

versions of Lightspeed were. I

started Lightspeed in 2005, and

I built the original software

after doing many consulting

projects and lots of custom

software projects for different

companies, some of which were

retail. Realized that there was

nothing on the Mac that could

run a complex business and more

and more businesses were asking

me to build those custom

solutions. This is around the

time when Apple was having its

major renaissance and major

comeback. There was a real gap

in the market for real business

tools. Lightspeed took off from

the very beginning. The first

seven years, we bootstrapped the

company, no outside investment,

and we built to about 50 people,

about 10 million in revenue,

just on our own sales and from

the initial two years of coding

till 4:00 in the morning, and

crafting the experience at the

software from a visual and UX

perspective. It sold itself,

and we had resellers all over

the world selling it. It became

a part of our bigger family.

That was the early days of the

company, and looked fondly back

on those days, then along came

the VCs and supercharged the

company. That was a great period

too. The next seven years was

backing of Excel partners, and

iNovia, and , and

then this season cut back a lot

of Silicon Valley money and

Canadian investors. That's where

we went into the cloud, and we

still serving the same customers,

still serving that complex SMB

customer, but now doing that in

the cloud because we knew that

physical and digital were going

to meet. They were going to

collide, and businesses that

couldn't combine the two were

going to be competitive. That's

what the investors helped us

evolved into, and then this last

phase, since 2019, is now our

public company phase. It's been

an amazing journey. We

celebrated 15 years in March

just as the pandemic was setting.

This year, especially with the

pandemic, shows the importance

of what we can do for these

businesses and shows that it is

an important mission. It does

allow these businesses to thrive

through any circumstance.

Well, congrats on the growth.

It's been truly impressive. You

talked about the collision of

physical and digital and how

it's become even more pronounced

in the pandemic. How do people

who are living in the physical

world or the on-premise world

make that transition? What are

some of the biggest hurdles that

they go through?

What we've learned is you could

offer digital tools and what

businesses will do with them is

up to their own creativity. How

they implement delivery. How

they implement contactless

experiences. How they leverage

analytics. How they do pop-up

environments or leverage

physical. What we've learned is

we can put out tools, but we'll

always be surprised by the ways

that businesses run with it.

That's the excitement and

vitality of local business and

small businesses. They add the

flavor, and color, and

excitement to our communities.

The mission of the company is to

make sure that those businesses

are on a level playing field

technology-wise. That's ultra

important to us.

When you talk about the

changemaker, we talk a lot about

the digital hero. One of the

things that we recognized is

that every transformation

stemmed down to someone who had

the courage, the tenacity, the

vision to make meaningful change

in the world. When I read Age

of Union, I discovered more

about your concept to the

changemaker. I see that living

true. What I liked about your

pillars is that what we've found

is that when it came down to an

individual, it wasn't

necessarily about where they

studied, or where they came from,

or what role they're in, or what

level in the organization. The

people who made the most change

are ones that were driven by

passion and had a sense of

characteristics and had a sense

of themselves. Would love to get

your perspective on how do you

assess these people who have the

potential to be ignited and to

become these changemakers, and

what advice do you give to them?

You earlier asked a question

about my trajectory into how I

got to Never Apart and Age of

Union. Complete that story and

answer the question, after 10

years of Lightspeed, I felt

burnt out. It was this

crazy ride, and we had just

moved into our new offices at

Garbige, which is a 120-year-old

historical building that was

abandoned. That gave me a bit of

a boost. I also had the old

office. The old office was the

last piece of real estate that

we were able to buy just before

we took investors. It was a

warehouse that was converted by

a film producer into this

beautiful space. Was half his

home, half his production

company, with an outdoor pool. I

decided, "You know what? We're

going to do a cultural center

with this space." That became

Never Apart. At first, we were

not sure if this was going to be

an LGBTQ youth center or what it

was going to be. What we ended

up doing, the initial team, is

realizing that art and culture

are things that can unite people

across lots of different spheres.

You can have social dialogue

that's powered by art and

culture. We started doing

exhibitions, and talks, and so

on. Now, five years later, it's

this real force for good. What

I realized in that project is a

lot of the conversations that I

was having with these emerging

artists and people that were on

the leading edge of social

dialogue, and cultural change,

and to all the things that

social justice, there's a lot of

similarities between those folks

and the entrepreneurs that I was

mentoring that were doing start-

ups. Also, the entrepreneurs

that were opening retail and

hospitality businesses that were

serving at Lightspeed. I'm like, "

There's a changemaker strand

across all of these people that

are making an impact for their

community, making an impact for

something that's bigger." Yes,

they're building something

that's their own foundation and

their own project, or their own

art, but a lot of them had this

desire to contribute, and to

give back, and to grow something

that was going to benefit their

neighborhood, or benefit the

planet, or benefit a

marginalized people. That's

when I realized that my projects

weren't so different, that

Lightspeed and Never Apart

shared the fact that we are

behind those...We try to uplift

and celebrate those changemakers

and give them tools where we can.

That was the connection for me.

I think that anybody can be a

changemaker. It's a mindset.

One of the main points of the

book is that there is no act too

small. I have, at the end of the

book, 40 acts of union. There's

40 things that you can do for

the greater good, but you don't

rank them. They're modeled after

the Jewish idea of the mitzvah.

There's 613 mitzvahs in Judaism

and none of them are ranked.

They're not ranked big, or small,

or more worthy, or less worthy.

Those daily acts that you can do

with intention, that gets you on

the path of being the

changemaker, and you work up to

things that impact more and more

people. It's a mindset. It's a

mindset of doing something with

an intention that's beyond your

own personal benefit. Sometimes,

it is to benefit you so that you

can nourish your own soul, and

then therefore, be better for

other people. Then, you start to

do acts that start to benefit

your city, your community, and

then ultimately, others

everywhere if you can.

What are some examples of your

40 mitzvahs that you're

discussing?

It could be as simple as

something like preparing a meal

for your loved ones. Cooking at

home. It could be as something

as far ranging as supporting

conservation projects. Doing

things for yourself like prayer

and meditation. Can be things

like lending your support to

community groups. There are

things that you can do that lead

you in that path. A lot of

these actions are their own

reward. You eat a vegan meal.

Maybe you're not fully vegan,

but you did something with

intention. You decided to do

something, because you thought

about it. That's the issue that

a lot of us, and I myself, have

realized is we do a lot of stuff

on autopilot. COVID has been an

interesting time to realize that

when you take yourself out of

your regular routine, you

realize how many things you did

on autopilot. If we stop doing

so many things without thought

and we start putting thought

into the things we do, maybe

we'd do different things. Maybe

we'd be more intentional. When

things are more intentional,

then that means that they are

more meaningful and that they

have more purpose. In an era

where it's easy to get lost, or

feel lost, you can have meaning

and purpose all day long by

having actions that are fueled

with intention. That's the idea

is that when you start to do

acts of union or you start to do

these intentional actions, they

fill you with a day of purpose.

It could be everything as small

as choosing what you eat, or how

the packaging that you use

throughout your day, or how you

transport yourself around town.

Or, it could be the things that

you share on social media, or

the things that you read, and

the activities that you plan for

the people around you. It's a

different mindset, as I said,

but it's a journey. I can't

prescribe anybody's journey to

them. It's your own discovery.

That's what's fun about being a

changemaker. You're never going

to find two changemakers that

have the same path.

It strikes me that you're a very

authentic person and that

manifests in everything that

you've done. It's incredible to

see the interplay of Never Apart,

Age of Union, Lightspeed, and

the meaning behind all those

areas. Speaking to intention,

if you went back 15 years and

said, did you have this vision

written down on a map, or did it

happen more organically to get

you to where you are now?

No, there was no master plan.

One thing that I like to tell

people that are younger or just

starting their career is that

there are seasons and there are

things that will build on each

other. I feel like there's many

young people in their 20s that

want to make very deep impact

right off the bat, and that's a

good thing. That's something

that you should keep thinking

about and think about what your

impact ultimately will be. That

doesn't mean that the job that

you're in right now, or the

things that you're working on to

build your foundations so that

later, you can give back in

meaningful ways and you'll have

all the experience, that those

steps aren't important. Not to

be so hard on yourself as you

take those steps and take those

decades to build yourself. I

would not have been able to open

Never Apart, the cultural center

with its mission, without 10

years of Lightspeed under my

belt. I wouldn't be able to

write Age of Union without 15

years of Lightspeed and 5 years

of Never Apart under my belt.

Were a lot of the ideas and the

intentions of Age of Union

present from the very beginning?

I would say yes, but I wasn't

ready to put it into a book form

or open that center until I had

certain experiences of being a

leader, or starting

organizations, or doing

different roles within the

company. You got to trust in

the journey. You got to trust in

that discovery. Don't be so

focused on the end goal. Don't

be so fixed on what you think

that should be.

Where do you see that journey

taking you in the next 10, 15

years?

Every year feels like Lightspeed

just getting started.

That's always exciting. I think

Never Apart is ready to start

having centers open around the

world. Age of Union, that will

evolve into a conservation

project where we will start to

work with conservation

changemakers around the world.

There's a natural evolution

there. With everything in the

toolkit now, I think that that's

a project that's ready for me to

dive into while I can do all

these other things. There's a

lot of work to do ahead, but

it's all stuff that's part of

the path and very exciting to me.

That's amazing. We're here

decoding the idea of a

changemaker, and clearly, your

story has brought to the

forefront what a changemaker

could do. For a lot of the

viewers that, let's say, are

within a large organization and

they're trying to make change,

they're trying to do something

new, they're trying to bridge

the digital divide, and they're

faced with resistance, what

advice would you give them?

People come from very different

perspectives and they have

different pools of information

than you do. You might have an

amazing idea that's going to

make a real impact for the

company, but you may not know

everything about the

organization that somebody else

does. I think bringing people

into your vision, making it

invitational, and then inviting

people to be a part of

developing it, sharing ownership

of it, is the greatest way to

get things going. When everybody

feels like it's their project

and everybody feels like it's

their impact, that's one way to

make sure that you've got a buy-

in and that everybody's excited

about what's possible.

You spoke to the importance of

diversity of ideas, diversity of

thought, but I know at

Lightspeed and in the

organizations you talk about you

have a unique culture around

embracing diversity inclusion.

Can you speak a little bit more

about that?

Yeah. The original team at

Lightspeed in the early, early

days were all members of the

LGBTQ community, including

myself. We always had this ethos

that no matter who you were and

no matter where you came from,

that everybody should have a

fair shot at Lightspeed. That

everybody's voice was valuable,

and that everybody should have a

chance to do the best work of

their life. From that ethos,

we've invited so many different

kinds of people into the company.

It's been amazing. We recently

just did, as now our public

company is formalizing our

diversity and inclusion, ethos

that we feel is in the company.

We did a little bit of a survey.

9 out of 10 Lightspeed employees

feel that they're comfortable

talking about their culture,

background with their employees.

83 percent of employees feel

like they can be their authentic

selves in the workplace. It

sounds like that. 60 percent of

the company is LGBTQs. There's a

lot of great numbers around

minorities. We still have a lot

of work to do, but I think we're

proof that investing in

diversity and inclusion can have

great benefits to the company.

As we acquire different

companies -- we've just acquired

our 11 -- we're bringing a lot

of diversity of thought, the

diversity of backgrounds,

diversity of talent, and getting

the most out of that, and making

sure that those perspectives are

heard. Everybody can contribute

to something that's bigger that

is the ultimate goal. Ultimately,

with more people at the table,

more perspectives to the table,

you come up with richer

solutions for the customer.

That's part of why this is so

important to us. It's important

to us from a people perspective,

from a social justice

perspective. It's good business.

It's good business to make sure

that we have a diverse board,

that we have a diverse workforce

because it reflects our

customers. Our customers are

everybody. We believe that

commerce belongs to everybody.

It's very consistent with what

we want to see in the world.

Are changemakers born, or are

they trained over time?

I think that changemakers can

emerge from everywhere. We can

be a billion changemakers on

this planet. If we were eight

billion changemakers on this

planet, instead of eight billion

individuals thinking as

individuals, we'd be on a

different planet. Everybody has

that potential. It's an

opportunity for awakening more

and more people. I think that

when people adopt the mindset

and there's joy that's

associated with the

meaningfulness and the purpose

that it gives you, it encourages

other people to get on board.

There's a lot of people that

think that the environmental

problems, the social problems

are too big, not to not care

about. People care about it but

to do anything about, "Can I

really impact it? Does it really

matter what I do?" That's the

biggest challenge that we have,

is that people feel a bit

resigned. That's very natural

because of the scale of what we

face on so many fronts. When

you look at what individuals can

do, when they want to bring

change to the table, it's

remarkable. That is where I find

a great amount of optimism and a

great amount of hope.

How can people learn about Never

Apart or Age of Union?

Neverapart.com. Right now, we're

doing all virtual exhibitions.

Once it's open, I invite you to

the center in Montreal.

Hopefully, there'll be more

centers around the world soon.

Then, Age of Union, ageofunion.

com, you can download the free

book or listen to the free

audiobook. Those are free to

look at and check out, so I

invite everybody to do so. We're

also on Instagram and Facebook.

Amazing, Dax. Thanks so much for

joining us really appreciate the

time.

Thank you so much.

On the next episode of Decoding

Digital.

I think if you're not scared at

all, either you're fooling

yourself or there might be

something pathologically wrong

with you because if you're going

from complete security to

complete insecurity, all humans

will experience moments of fear

of the unknown. That's very

natural and normal. How you push

through that fear and how you

make it useful to you, that's

the part that we all are

training on and trying to be

better at.

Board Member of Procter and

Gamble and founder of an AI

business intelligence platform,

Amy Chang. Thanks for listening

to Decoding Digital. Make sure

you never miss an episode by

subscribing to the show in your

favorite podcast player. To

learn more, visit

decodingdigital.com. Until next