Real Solutions to Real Problems: Inside the Business of Funding Transformative Innovations with Francois Lamoureux

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down real solutions to real problems inside the business of funding transformative innovations. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought to Francois Lamoureux and EO Fire Studios. Francois is the CEO and co-founder of CXC, which funds real solutions to real problems, drawing on a Grammy-winning creative career bridging art, science, and entrepreneurship. And today we talk about real solutions to real problems, music to science, creativity as a curse, avoiding revenue, and oh, so much more.

0:40John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Francois and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself.

1:19John Lee Dumas:Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. Francois, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, John, it's a pleasure to be here. Hey, Fire Nation. You know, something people disagree with, I think before we can even answer that question, we need to figure out what the success mean to you or what does it look like to you? Because if you don't even know that, you don't even know what people can disagree with. So my definition of success may be different than yours, but mine centers on being around purity of intent.

1:59And I believe if your purity of intent is there, things will follow. Whereas people sometimes put the cart before the horse or the horse before the cart. I really believe that it's purity of intent drives the game, not the money.

2:10John Lee Dumas:Francis, while we're talking about real solutions to real problems. You know, we want to go inside the business of funding transformative innovations. Now, let's talk about that because CXC, it's all about funding real solutions to those real problems. And I love examples. I love case studies. Give me your favorite one that brings this to life. Well, you know, it's like your children, right? I can't, I love them all. And it's like songs, which is your best song you've ever written, right? I like them all. But I'll give you a really quick example. So, yeah, we patent and protect real solutions, because if you find real solutions to real problems, you don't patent and protect them.

2:52Then you've just, you know, become a very generous donor to humanity. And it's not necessarily the best business model. So what we decided to do, we looked at a big addressable market like skincare. Skincare is like six hundred billion dollars. Right. Well, guess what? The creams don't work. If they did, people wouldn't get Botox all the time. so you have these sort of pissed off customers realizing the cream don't really work then they realize it's petrochemical base and then they realize microplastics oh my god it's in my brain it's in my placenta it's in my sperm what do i do how do we solve this well the solution had been known for like 40 years it's natural biopolymers nature's plastics that make up trees you know mushrooms shrimp and everybody knew this but you couldn't use them because they were non-soluble in water, which makes complete sense because trees don't melt in the rain.

3:39That's what makes them cool. So what we did is we actually found a way to use nature's plastics and replace petrochemicals and microplastics and get better performance. But don't worry, John, I'm not, we actually don't sell to consumers. So I'm not going to, you know, 1-800-CXE. We actually don't sell to consumers, but what we did do is solve the Botox issue, meaning we can get creams that have anti-aging results that are close to Botox without the injections. So that's a really big, big solution.

4:09John Lee Dumas:Man. And I kind of love that visual of like, yeah, you're right. Trees don't melt in the rain. In fact, we just had some rain here in Puerto Rico. I looked out and I was just like, you know, that tree is not melting. It is standing there and there's some water running off of it, but it's not melting. And I want to talk about music to science because I mean, listen, Francois, you've had a long, long successful career in music. And a lot of people just keep kind of banging that same drum, you know, for lack of a better analogy. What led you to pivot into science? There's a short story, the long story.

4:41I'll do the medium, like three minute story. So basically, I didn't want to go to hell is the answer, right? Because I remember being in Catholic school, you know, and the teacher reads the Bible and she says, hey, the guy that has one talent but develops it will go to heaven. but the guy that has a lot of talents and doesn't develop all of them is going to hell. So I'm 10 years old and I go, I'm pretty good at a bunch of different things. If I don't work on, do I go to hell? She said, yes. So I'm exaggerating, but I was always good at music. I was good at science, but, but, but science was interesting, but music, I got my first royalty check at 13.

5:19So for me, it's like, wow, you know, I wrote a couple of songs. I got some royalties. So I decided at the last second, not to go into chemistry and go into music. So I had a really nice career as you said i still do you know i worked with all my heroes as a kid you know from the who to rush the harry connick the slipknot the you know dead mouse to whatever working on you know grammy award-winning emmy award-winning things but the science was always in me and as the music business has changed uh and i didn't do everything i wanted to do but i was i was really happy with where i was and i got back in touch with my school my alma mater my university mcgill in Montreal.

5:57And that's when I saw that I actually had transferable skills into science and my science force was still with me. So we decided to invest heavily in fundamental research to bring it to the masses. And so it was really getting back in touch with my alma mater. It was just a crazy circumstance.

6:13John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, that was the medium-sized version of the story. Because I can tell you, there's about a 15-minute one that gets into a lot more stuff that Francois maybe will have a bonus episode about, but creativity. Let's talk about that for a second because creativity can be a curse. I mean, you've been known to call it a curse, which is not something that you hear every single day. So what the heck do you mean by that? What do you mean by creativity can be a curse? Creativity, I really believe is a curse, but it could be a very positive curse. What do I mean? Well, true creativity, when you look at the time and the centuries that have gone by, it's actually pretty rare, true creativity.

6:57Some people like to say that all kids were born with creativity and that we actually beat it out of them, which may be true. But the fact is, is that true creativity at the end is really rare. And if you will, here's the curse part. If you avoid dealing with it, you're in trouble. You have to face the dragon. So let's pretend you're really good at, I don't know, painting these crazy paintings or, you know, playing writing these great songs and you choose to not pursue that at some point in your life that's going to come back and you're going to have to deal with it maybe i could have should whatever so if you have that creative bone in you or bones i believe that you have to face the dragon you have to give it your best shot doesn't mean you have to stop one or the other but you must not let it go because at some point you're going to have a regret that you didn't try it because you knew you had those superpowers.

7:48So you have to face that dragon. If not, it's a curse. And if you do face it, and it doesn't work out, at least you tried it. So that's what I mean by it's a curse. You have to face the dragon.

7:58John Lee Dumas:Can you give us an example of maybe how you've done that in life? So I discover I'm actually good at writing music, you know, and I'm good at doing these things at a very young age. Got my first royalty check at 13. You know, that's pretty, it's pretty rare. I found a way to game the system as a young guy in the 80s, you know, a little 13-year-old snotty kid. But I was actually pretty good at it. And I could have just gone. I'd finished my grade 12 chemistry, and I think I was 15 years old. So I could have just done that and probably done well. But it was always going to linger. So I actually made the switch to go full on in the music.

8:34And people say, Francois, are you crazy? You could be this great chemist. You could be a doctor. Whatever. And I chose not to. And I took 100 steps back and I go, well, I'm going to go for what moves me. And I faced the dragon. And now I'm really content with myself because I've done well. And now I can actually, you know, go into science again. So for me, it worked out okay. But for some other friends of mine, they didn't do that. And they're later in life, they're in their fifties and saying, man, I could have, I could have maybe done that too. And I say, well, he had a great life and they did.

9:10But for me, I actually faced that dragon and I know it can be vanquished. Did I become Rihanna or did I become Pete Townshend? No, but I had a really nice career. You know what I mean? Like, am I Eddie Van Halen? No, but I still had a really good career as a musician.

9:23John Lee Dumas:Ooh, Eddie Halen, a little bit of a foreshadow there, Fire Nation. You'll have to stick around for that for sure. And by the way, I know this is only an audio only show and there's no video, Fire Nation, but I want to tell you, Francois, he kind of looks like a chemist. I'm just going to say it. I don't know if you ever heard that before, Francois, but you kind of look like a chemist. By the way, You also kind of look like a rock star, but you also look like you could definitely be holding a beaker of some kind. I don't know. We'll figure it out later. But Fire Nation, we have a lot more to talk about.

9:49John Lee Dumas:Transversal knowledge, avoiding revenue. Well, I mean, what the heck? And again, we'll get to Eddie and Halen when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer, but you are not getting enough quality sales calls on the calendar, Nexus Install is exactly what you need. This is a custom LinkedIn client acquisition system built to help you connect with the right prospects, start real conversations, and turn those conversations into booked calls. Here is what makes it different. We do not just hand you a bunch of theory and tell you, good luck. We build the system with you.

10:22John Lee Dumas:Dial in your audience, sharpen the messaging, run the outreach, and aim to book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month. Then once the system is proven and installed, we train you on how to run it yourself so you are not dependent on another agency forever. If you have a strong offer, a clear result, and are ready for more quality conversations with real prospects, email my team at john at eofire.com and then we'll set up a call to see if Nexus install is the right fit for you. Simple, focused, and built for predictable, long-term quality lead flow. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom.

11:01John Lee Dumas:That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack. a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 days to something execution roadmap, and more.

11:42John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Francois, I want to talk about transversal knowledge. We kind of teased about it a little bit before the break, but you believe transversal knowledge could actually help save our species. I mean, that is a bold claim. You were getting up on a pulpit and you were saying something that's pretty brash. I got to be honest. And for a Canadian, I'm not used to hearing that from Canadians. Come on, break it down for us. Well, I'll start with the Canadian thing. If it wasn't for New York City and Nashville and LA, I wouldn't be talking with you, right?

12:25That's the thing I love.

12:26John Lee Dumas:No, no, I'm very, very, very serious, right? I mean, I've always been a guy that seeks for big things. And it's when I got to New York and I got a chance to really let loose and get opportunity that it changed. So that's the first part. So I'm a bit maybe un-Canadian that way. We're reaching for the stars all the time. But the transversal knowledge thing, yes, saving our species is actually a very good example. Maybe not saving the species, but definitely helping it. It's a guy called Albert Einstein. So Albert was a musician first. And he actually, if you read about him, you can actually find out if you scratch a bit, he actually would say he would think in musical terms and only later would put them into science terms.

13:08There's other people like that. If you think of Leonardo da Vinci, he was a musician first. And if you think of René Descartes, the Cartesian XY graphs, well, he was actually a musician first. And if you go down the list, Pythagoras was working on music, Socrates, Ptolemy, all those people. So that the transversal knowledge between arts and science, if you can get it right, it actually does amazing things. So, and again, if you say, well, I'm very Cartesian, I think in XY graphs, the guy that invented that was actually a musician. So the more we use that transversal knowledge between arts and science and think spatially and think differently is what's going to allow us to find novel solutions.

13:50And that's why I think it's very important.

13:52John Lee Dumas:You know, going back to the Canadian thing, I like to tell all of my friends, you know, I was born and raised in the United States, but I say, listen, you know, my great grandparents, they moved north and they left Canada, they moved north and I became an American because what happened was they were in Montreal, specifically Sherbrooke, moved north, but north of Sherbrooke is Maine, believe it or not. For people that don't believe me, you can pull out a map. And about 40 % of Maine is further north than Montreal. And actually about like 25 % of Maine is actually even further north than Quebecois, Quebec City.

14:26John Lee Dumas:So my family moved north and I became a United States citizen a couple of generations ago, which is pretty crazy. So, you know, shout out to my Canadians out there. And I want to talk about avoiding revenue. I mean, it was something in Francois that we kind of teased a little bit. But a lot of people are like, wait a second, I listen to this show. I tune into Entrepreneurs on Fire to learn how to make more revenue, to improve my business, to get strategies, structure, processes, systems in place. I want revenue. Give me more revenue. The CXC model, and that's Charlie X-Ray Charlie Fire Nation.

15:02John Lee Dumas:The CXC model, it's predicated on avoiding revenue. And that sounds counterintuitive. How the heck does that work? Well, that's a really good question. It starts off with the first part of the model that we wanted to do was really to invest in finding these real solutions to real problems. So let's use the skincare example again. So if you look at the skincare pricing, I mean, some creams sell for$5 ,000 an ounce. Some creams sell for$4 an ounce, right? You can go to the drugstore. You can go to the famous, you know, Sephora and whatever. So you have this giant discrepancy of pricing, but they're all using, they all have access to the same ingredients.

15:46So if I just explained to you that I found a way to completely transform the beauty market, if I make a mistake and I decide to launch a product and I decide to put it in this pricing, I may actually handcuff a future acquirer. The other thing, the reason we avoid revenue, so I want to protect my pricing. I want to make sure that whoever's going to acquire me is not handcuffed by decisions I made. The other reason I avoid revenue is if you're going to make revenue, you better make a hell of a lot of revenue. Because if you don't, they're going to say, well, how much money did you make your first year?

16:21Oh, we made$100 ,000. Great, we'll give you a 10x on revenue. Here's a million bucks in a case of beer. Well, it's worth more than that. Well, we're basing it on revenue. And, you know, but you know what? Maybe it will give you a 15x on revenue. So when you have very valuable patent protected IP, the value is much larger than that. And if you take that revenue away, well, Francois, there's no revenue. How are we going to price this? Well, how about we look at the addressable market? Okay. What's your space in the market? Okay. What's your best skew? Well, Francois, if we do it that way, the price will be really, really big that we have to pay you.

16:55Well, that's kind of the idea. so as soon as you give them a metric to base it on and the other thing it does is you put a lot of resources so again the skincare let's pretend i opened up you know 15 walgreens and uh whatever and and i have 100 doors here 50 doors there if l 'oreal buys me are they going to use my distribution system that i've worked hard at of course not they're the biggest company in the world they don't really care so you get exhausted by trying to get revenue on these things so we we decided we weren't going to do that. We were going to focus on actants and that takes a longer time.

17:29And there's a lot of danger there because if your patent doesn't grant, you're left with sand in your jeans, right? So it's a big boy, big girl decision. And we believe so far it's been, and ag is the same way agriculture, which we're involved with as well. Like if I go take my pickup truck and I have this great new thing and I'm selling to farmers, yeah, maybe I'll get a million or 2 million of revenue at some point, but to get the big boy, big girl money, you need a lot more distribution and it's almost impossible to fight those retailers. So we decided we're not going to do that because it would take way too many resources and we were going to focus on IP.

18:05So that's why we avoid revenue.

18:06John Lee Dumas:Francois, we're going to end with a bang because we've teased it a couple of times already and we need to know what the Eddie Van Halen syndrome is because you coined this term. You coined the term. I did, I did. The Eddie Van Halen syndrome. So in business, what is it And why should Fire Nation, why should my listeners even care? I'll date myself. MTB comes out. I'm 14 years old, 13 years old, something like that. Like 1983, right? Pop-up video. Yeah, exactly, right? So that comes out. By that time, I had been playing guitar for a while. And I was pretty good at it. But then the videos come out.

18:44So all my buddies have a similar reaction. It's called puberty. so I'm hitting puberty right when MTV is coming out and it's the 80s big hair girls right so all of a sudden what happens is all the boys at school want to play guitar because they think it'll help them get girls right so so I explained to my to my buddies buddy guys I play guitar I'm pretty good at it I'm not doing any better with the girls well we're going to do better than you we're going to play guitar so they all start playing guitar to try to get the girls and then they realize it's suspiciously difficult to play like Eddie Van Halen.

19:19So they abandoned the guitar. So what does that mean? Well, fast forward to today. Well, the kids don't want to be Eddie Van Halen anymore. They want to be Elon Musk, right? So they want to, they want to the big money. They want to do this. They want to do that. But Elon Musk and Gates and all those types of guys, they weren't thinking of the money when they were starting out with computers and all these other things. They were thinking they were just geeks that liked it. So it comes back to my first comment about purity of intent. Eddie Van Halen didn't start playing guitar and become the best guy ever because of the girls.

19:50He did it because he really liked to do this. So I believe that if you follow the purity of intent idea, the money's going to follow. Now, it doesn't mean that you're not going to make money if you chase money, but I believe the universe rewards people that have purity of intent. So the Eddie Van Halen syndrome is just an extreme example that you got to do it for the right reasons.

20:15John Lee Dumas:Boom. I mean, listen, I was expecting something to come out of that and it did. So thank you, Francois. And why don't you take us home? Because a lot of people are listening right here and they've heard you talk about real solutions, real problems, music to science, creativity being a curse, transversal knowledge, avoiding revenue, the Eddie Van Halen syndrome. I mean, we've gone through a lot of great stuff today. Value bombs have been dropped. If Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more about what your company has going on, give us a call to action today. If they want to know more about me, go see my website.

20:48No, no, but all jokes aside, you know, cxcip.ca, but all jokes aside, as a closing bomb, you know, I really believe, I can, I'll hang my hat on this, on the have the right aim. So the right mindset is to try to chase things for the right reasons. And the reasons may be different. Well, they're probably different for everybody because you have to define your definition of success first. And success may be to have kids and a long family and have a small business. Success may be, no, I don't want to have kids. I want to grow this really, really big business and give it to charity later on. I mean, there's very different people with different definitions of success.