Find Your Own Path Advises Entrepreneur Jason Goncalves

A self-described stubborn individual, Goncalves' interest in science started in high school and led him to do his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at McGill University in Montreal and pursue his PhD at the University of Toronto. Goncalves was convinced his career path was to do medical research and become a professor.

As he pursued his studies, this self-taught programmer created software to help him with his research, which led him to bioinformatics, the analysis of biological data. His dogged pursuit of this new area, almost led him to quit the University of Toronto graduate program, which wasn't supportive of the burgeoning field in the late 1990s. A trip to Taos, New Mexico to present his research and meeting his now -mentor Joe Sorge led him to create his first company, Iobion and leave the world of academia.

"The MBA experience gave me time to figure out my next move and helped me decide on pursuing acquisitions," says Goncalves, "I never finished my PhD and I wanted to fill in the gaps of my knowledge which an MBA would do." He now understands the whole picture a lot better. "I know what questions to ask, whether it's regarding the accounting department or operations."

During his MBA studies, Goncalves began to focus on acquisitions, looking for a small or medium-sized Toronto area business that wanted to grow and needed more than just an investor. Creating Tario Ventures Inc., a holding company, Goncalves found and acquired Perma Brands Corporation, which is a distributor of personal care and giftware. His current challenge is expanding the distribution of one of Perma Brands leading products – Razorpit .

My first angel investor and mentor Joe Sorge. In 1999 I met Joe Sorge at a research conference in New Mexico. At that time I was a Ph.D. student in the field of bioinformatics. Joe was founder and CEO of Stratagene, a biotech company. That meeting lead to my first big break. He offered me a job in San Diego. I turned it down, but countered with a start-up proposal and asked Joe to become an angel investor. He took a day to think about it, and then decided to back me. While the financial backing was the catalyst for me to take the entrepreneurial plunge, it was also his confidence in me that allowed me to be successful.

My goal was to create a revolution in a small market. At the time, bioinformatics was new and exciting, but still a very small market. I wanted to create a product that totally changed how information and science came together. For me, the ultimate goal will always be to find the perfect combination of making a big impact, having fun and making money.

How have your goals changed?

Now I'm more interested in creating smaller revolutions in a bigger market. For the entrepreneur, it always goes back to identifying new opportunities and taking advantage. My current strategy is to pursue new opportunities in the context of a stable operating company. At Perma Brands, we have a company generating cash flow, which allows us to find these interesting new products to bring to market while leveraging the existing distribution channel – all without having to bet the whole farm on one idea.

What is a major obstacle that you've faced?

There are really two obstacles we've had to overcome:

The first is getting past the product adoption chasm. When you have a new class of product it's a lot of work to educate the market on what it is, and create a level of confidence that it really works. In some ways finding that great idea is the easy part – it's what you do next to break into the market that will really make or break you. The great news is we are living in an interesting time to be going to market with a new product – social media and the web provide so many great venues to reach your audience.

The second obstacle was the recent recession. Nobody discusses how an entrepreneur really needs to have mental resilience to face the challenges that a recession will bring. Like most companies, we faced more conservative customers and smaller orders when the economy started to go downhill. In tough times more than ever you need to keep making investments in new products and the entrepreneurial ideas that will lead to long term success. We have and are seeing opportunities that we didn't even know existed before the recession.

Define goals for yourself that provide direction. But be wise enough to realize that it's okay for those goals to change.