Louis Bélanger-Martin Spent 8 Years Building—Then He Revolutionized Air Travel | Ep. 196

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Louis Belanger Martin. You are the co founder of DTI Software and you revolutionized the in-flight entertainment, which we are going to go into. And for me has been critical because I fly so much and I always judge an airline based on their in-flight entertainment. You are also the founder of Group W Inc., which is a successful Canadian private equity. And we're going to dive into all things private equity in North America. I'm very interested about what is the pulse of Canada. But before we do that, But we'd like to kick it off here on Founder Story as to why did you become an entrepreneur?

0:46And then also, why did you get into DTI software as the company? So entrepreneur usually comes from an event, from something. And I remember the first flight I took, I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. and the first flight I ever took was a short flight from Montreal to Washington, D.C. And as I'm sitting down on the aircraft, I'm looking around and there's not much happening. And my level of expectation was so high in that I was actually flying. I was going from point A to point B at 40 ,000 feet up in the air. and I was extremely disappointed in that I said, well, this is an opportunity.

1:36You have people sitting down and they're looking at the front seat and there's nothing, let alone later, a few years later, came the idea of putting screens and putting all sorts of different things. But the experience was so ununique and there was nothing to call my mother about that I kind of took it upon myself to say, well, there's an opportunity here. So not sure how, when, but I really want to change this. I really want to put my brain into how can I enhance passenger experience. So it came from a flight that was uneventful, took off probably on time, landed probably on time, but there was nothing happening.

2:23And so from this, I co-created with a friend of mine a business that we took upon us to literally use the flying time, having all these people all over. At first, it was all over North America, but eventually it was all over the world. And what can we do? What can we bring for the journey on the aircraft to be a bit more dynamic, a bit more interesting, a bit more entertaining? and was created the industry of in-flight entertainment. So the cross of media entertainment and flying. And so we started by saying there has to be a way that you can watch a movie in a different capacity than looking at a drop-down screen or if you remember in the early 90s, you had like kind of the cinema type of experience where you had one screen, everybody was watching the same thing, you had one channel, and then it didn't matter if you wanted to talk to your colleague or friend or fellow passengers or go to the restroom or nothing was, everything was broadcasted, nothing was personal.

3:40And so I believe it's in 1992, or I can be corrected, but in the early 90s, first airlines have started installing in-seat video. And so that created a world where you could have a more personal experience. And so DTI's first innovation was to create software that allowed a movie to pause. And so even with in-seat video, every seat were watching the same thing at the same time. Now, you had a better viewing experience, but you were not able to pause, fast forward and rewind what we take for granted today as video on demand. The software that powered those seats in order to create a video on demand experience was made by DTI.

4:28And so interestingly enough, this was the springboard or this was our creation of our own runway in creating software that led into many different directions. And this because every year we tried, I tried, we tried, my team was constantly thinking about innovation, constantly. And I think that's what makes an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur or a good entrepreneur is the ability to think outside the box and the ability to defy what is deemed impossible and doing it and bringing it. And so we thought about seat-to-seat communication. We thought about, and at the time, one of the crazy thing or the crazy trend that we were trying to create is that what if the airline, as aircraft are connected, what if the airline, you're able to watch news?

5:28Because news and sport are the components that are better watched live. I mean, you can watch, I love ice hockey, for instance. You can watch an ice hockey game that you haven't watched or rewatched it. But most people, or if not all people, they want to watch it live. News, you don't want to know. You want to be exposed to news that just happened, breaking news and so on. You don't want to watch the news from two weeks ago or a month ago. And so how do you connect the aircraft? And how do you make the experience in flight a more entertaining and leaving passengers with something that they will bring back either home or at destination and say, I had a good experience.

6:12And so that was the vision is how do we turn something that is basically almost boring into something that passengers or users of commercial aircraft would be like, wow, this was something that I really, really want to live again. And so starts thinking about your journey and start thinking about your experience on board, even more so than the destination. So I used to say in executive committee meetings, my dream and my vision is that passengers at some point will be not forgetting, but it will be blurry where they went, but they will enjoy telling the story about what they lived on the aircraft.

6:58So imagine yourself, if I tell you, Danielle, last winter, where did you go? And you'll be, oh yeah, we went to Japan. We went to ski at Mount Fuji or something similar. And if I'm telling you, what did you fly? And you'll probably say, I don't really know. I think we connected somewhere and it's a bit blurry. so the vision was to reverse this and to say Danielle where did you go uh last uh last winter and saying where did I go but I flew on a triple seven and you know what it was connected and I was able to send the kids postcards I actually saw the premiere of a movie while I was flying isn't that amazing it's pretty cool that the last James Bond was broadcasted and offered in flight whereas it It wasn't even offered in different areas of the world.

7:49So I had a movie premiere when I was flying. I sent postcards. I listened to a live concert. I actually watched my best and favorite news channel and so on and so forth. And so Daniel is immersed in an experience that allows him to remember his journey. But then what about your destination? Where did you go? And I'm not sure. I think I went somewhere skiing. And so that was the vision. And so in order to achieve this, we had to constantly bring innovation, constantly think about, think outside the box, constantly saying this is not possible. I've never, I love what's impossible and I never accepted no as an answer.

8:33And so when airlines, for example, we don't have enough storage, well, we'll figure out storage. We don't have enough servers, well, we'll figure out servers. And we don't have, there's always a solution to it. And that's kind of what DTI was built upon. And that's why DTI, even though it took a long time to reach breakeven, once it's reached breakeven, it's somewhat of an artistic type of experience as far as DTI growth was concerned. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It reminds me, we had another guest on the founder of Priceline. And he also talked about the, you know, the in-flight experience as his first company.

9:19So I love that you find a need, a problem, you solve it like most successful entrepreneurs, you're solving a major problem. This isn't something small. This is huge. How did you get that? And how do you sell that idea to these large corporations? Because we talk many times about like B2B sales. And it's mostly like, you know, somebody selling a product to a small company, maybe something that's$20 a month. It's a very small item. But you're talking about something major. And you're selling this, an idea that you have that they might not even understand the value. When you're so early on and you're so first into something.

10:01How did you sell this idea, this concept to these major corporations and really get them excited about it? That's interesting because we're all passengers and folks that work for an airline. There's a reason why they work for an airline. And I found out over the years, after 20, 25 years, that airlines have one of their largest retention factor. Why? Because whoever works for an airline flies for free. So that means you have the world at your disposal. You're able to dine in New York and sleep in Paris and come back home in San Francisco. And so that we're all curious and we're all explorators at a certain level.

10:50And so it took eight years, Danielle, to literally convince those large airlines. And the way I did it is that the messaging was constant. The messaging was what I'm offering is something, is a dynamic experience, is something that will help get away with boredom, that will help. Flying will seem so timeless. flying. So an eight-hour flight, which is the average flying time, now will seem like a two-hour flight. No matter if you fly in first business, premium economy, economy, I wanted to, everybody on the aircraft would have something unique and something that they would be able to interact with.

11:38And so to be able to offer this in no matter, and that was one of, because DTI was innovation, but it was also highly technical or highly, there was a lot of high tech in our offering in that we were able to, no matter the type of aircraft, no matter the type of system, we were able to offer a commonality of environment. And so an airline that, I think the only airline in the world is Southwest that only flies 737s, but think about almost all the airlines, they have different aircraft type, they have different systems, different screens, different resolution, different network speed. And so we were able through our innovation and software packages to offer the same environment, be it a more legacy system and more advanced and so on and so forth.

12:30And so that's another secret behind the success of DTI. So eight years to evangelize the fact that, listen, we have a golden opportunity to make flying fun, to make flying something that will be memorable, something that you will bring something home. And in your next decision of saying, am I flying? Am I boating? Am I driving? No, I'm going to be flying because this was something unique and I want to relive this over and over again. So after eight years, it was kind of the word, it was understood. So it was kind of airline started and it's difficult to even tell this because airline were actually calling.

13:20I mean, calling saying, oh, there's this French Canadian that has done all these these conferences over the years. And and he's been evangelizing the fact that passenger experience could be something different, could be something unique, could be something memorable. And so, and I remember 2003 was really the inflection point where the business went kazumba. And we all have at some point, hopefully, in the story of a business for as long as if we're able to sustain it, especially eight years to not being break even. I don't think that I could be doing this now today. But in my 20s, in my early 20s, life was a bit different.

14:05not having that many things to worry about. Like I'm in my 50s now, that I believe that I was, it was poised. It was the perfect storm. It was, I was in the perfect environment to be able to sustain something. And when it did reach inflection point, it's one of the best feeling. It's better than, I'm an ice hockey player. I'm an ice hockey player and when I'm on the ice, I feel alive. But this is way beyond the feeling that you can even think of when you reach inflection point. And then your customers are not only wanting to do business with you, but they're calling you and saying, what else? And we were known, I was known as the innovators in the industry and breaking barriers and creating trends, creating waves.

15:07And so that that left me to where DTI became in 2012, 2013, that that all of these different elements allowed the business to really flourish and explode in a in a in a positive way. You are an eight year overnight success. I think everyone looks at things and they say, wow, like you made the success. It happened so quickly. But realizing you had to grind, you had to be in it for so many years just to break even. And like you said, the timing of it, where you are at personally in your life. isn't that it's always incredible to hear these stories like people you know people like yourself where all these things had to happen at this specific moment in their life in order for it to be where it was but you did it and that's incredible so let's go to group w i don't know much about uh the private equity sphere in canada or or so much so in north america i love to hear and understand you've transitioned from being the founder or co-founder, being an entrepreneur, to now being an investor and helping on that side.

16:22How has that transition been? I'm guessing your experience plays a huge part in how you can help other people. And then what is the pulse in 2025 of private equity? So my business partner in DTI is also my business partner at Group W. And we highly complement each other. And I think we pride ourselves that because we've built a business from ground up and went through, again, the eight years of what it took to bring it to profitability and then to different other levels. I used to say that a startup requires a very, very specific skill set and very more resilience than anything. And so you have to have the ability to pivot and you have to have the ability to see if there's a wall.

17:20And if you sense there's a wall, you have to. And so all of these different skill sets usually don't translate very well to the next level. So the profitability to the$20 million business, and then there's the$20 million business to the$100 million, and then sky's the limit, and hopefully there's no limit. And so I've lived through all of these different stages of building a company, and I think that that skill set and that corporate memory serves every single investment that we're doing. So innovation is one thing. Scalability is important, but more so it's leadership. It's the ability to identify if you have the right leadership and if you'll be able to grow with them.

18:11And that's very often you can fall in love with a business, you can fall in love with an industry, you can fall in love. But if you don't have the right leadership, stories, at least my experience, is that it's going to be extremely difficult to succeed. And so we've invested in different sectors. I think the private equity in Canada, there's more demand than offer. So there's good projects. And so I think that we're in a place where we have a lot of choices for companies and projects and even entrepreneurs. But the best one always gets funded first. And so you have to find an equilibrium. I don't really like doing startups.

19:07So we haven't done a lot of startups with W other than our own. so it's investing in your own company, in your own self. I'm more like at inflection point or at growth mode. I've tasted twice being the CEO of a publicly traded company and I love the stock market. It's not for everybody. There's pros and cons, but I find more, I find a lot of joy in being in a publicly traded environment. I've used a special purpose acquisition company back in 2012 to shift the listing. I was listed on the Munich stock exchange and we shift the listing from Munich to NASDAQ. And it was it was a beautiful, beautiful transaction.

19:55And so all of these different components of my toolbox, that's what I'm bringing into Group W when we invest. So, for instance, I make sure that the governance is there. I make sure that if ever there's things that are lacking in the business that we feel and we know that the leadership is strong and is going to be bringing the business to the next level, then we complement it by our expertise and experience. So, for instance, I've done business in most places in the world, if not probably almost every country. And so you got to be patient. You got to know that even though the fundamentals of business, they're the same everywhere, there's nuances because of culture.

20:40There's nuances because of regional markets. There's nuances because of beliefs. And if you're not sensitive to this, it's not because I'm Canadian that I hold the truth about what's happening in other countries. And so you have to be in a learning mode. And that takes time. And that takes usually having to create teams that are local. So a good mix of local, of international, and bringing your savoir-faire, I think it's something that is extremely important. And so for Group W, we pride ourselves to think like the entrepreneurs that we were. And so what are the challenges? And so instead of being in a square table where it's the entrepreneur and the PE firm, it's a roundtable.

21:35Whereas, okay, so how do we make your business a business that will scale and that will be successful and adding the international component? And very often businesses that we've invested in were thinking that international would be the country decide where they were residing. And so when we bring the concept of have we thought about Europe? Have we thought about Asia? Have we thought about Oceania? And so it's kind of not even in the radar of some of those entrepreneurs. And when you bring this, you say, well, your growth potential, you priced it at 100 million or 200 million. What if it's$10 billion?

22:20Because you're opening up the market to almost an extreme. And so that's what we're bringing at GroupW. And as far as what the market is, there's always ups and downs. But I love private equity because when you find projects that are unique and that have a lot of potential and you're able to fund that potential and bring, there's nothing more exhilarating than to having been part of projects that were either meant to go left or right. And because of your injection of capital, but also helping the business and also sitting at the board, sometimes it's advisory board, sometimes it's board of director.

23:12You're able to contribute in a meaningful way that you create value. And eventually those businesses, they either get sold, they have an IPO and you're like, I was part of this. This is like, this is a DTI all over again. This is, this is pretty cool. I imagine if I'm going to take money from somebody, I want it to be more strategic than just the funds. Because we know funds can easily run out depending on the type of company. But having your experience, having the mistakes you've made, the learnings that you've done, having the connections that you've made, all these things can really create much more success for a company than just taking money and then there's no involvement.

23:53My last question is this for because there's a lot of companies and maybe less funding, like you had mentioned, funds have a lot of options now. So when somebody comes to you, how do they stand out? Like, what advice do you give to somebody who's like, OK, I want to get funding from private equity? what advice or tips or what strategy can somebody use to really, really stand out to a private equity fund like yours? So you mentioned it earlier. Is there a problem you're trying to solve? So make sure that your pitch is tight, is easy to understand. So sometimes, especially when you have high tech and a CEO that is an engineer and that I'm an accountant and I don't speak engineer, but if you're able to bring it to a level that is understandable for everybody, you have a lot more chance to connect with a fund.

25:01And so keep it simple. Of course, if it's high tech and innovation and there's jargon sometimes that you need to use and so on, but explain it. Explain exactly what technology is in simple words. So that's one thing. The other thing I think is what is your end goal? So if you launch a business that answers a problem or that is unique or that we always think that we own the holy truth and that, well, I don't understand why he or she is not investing in my business. This is the best business in the world. Make sure that you have a total addressable market that is significant. Make sure that you do your homeworks.

25:53Because if you look, if you're pitching me, for instance, a startup, then you haven't done your homeworks because we're not doing startups. And it's clear if you take five minutes and now with AI, chat GPT and all of those different, use them, use those tools. And so you won't waste your time. And for example, if you're doing highly skilled biotech, it's not something that we're investing in and things like this. So make sure that you do your homeworks in what your audience is and tighten your pitch. Make it so that you have a clear understanding of what it is that you're trying to sell and offer a certain element of an exit strategy, for example.

26:38I think I can be scaling the business up to a point where there's five or six different companies that may be interested in buying it, or I'm having an idea of an IPO, or I'm thinking that this at some point could be interesting to start rolling up my own industry and so on. So make sure that because PEs, they will look at what's my exit. And as much as I love sometimes entrepreneurs, leaders and projects, you want to make sure that at some point there is there is there is an exit. And so keep that in mind. So tighten your pitch. Do your homeworks. Study your audience. Make sure that it is in their sweet spot.

27:24And it's OK to to ask first, hey, Louis, I'd like to just have a quick conversation. What exactly is your sweet spot? What are you investing these days rather than creating a deck that is not even relevant to whoever your audience is? And I like also, there's conferences. You can go to family offices conferences. You can go to PE conferences. It's better to tackle many, many potential investors and having constant one on one. I've done this many, many times, and it can be exhausting to constantly having one on ones, one on one. So sometimes you mix it with having a conference or a group or you can record yourself and put it online and say, this is my this is my business.

28:11This is why I'm doing what I'm doing. And this is what I'm looking for. Wow, that was amazing. I think that was the most tips and strategies we've ever gotten. And I was really curious because many times people talk from the founder getting investment side. But I want to know straight from the investor what they want. Right. If you I think you said it right there. If you listen to them, they're giving you all the answers and we have all these tools. Now, it might never have been an easier time to get funding in terms of the creation with AI, creating these decks, creating all this stuff, you know, making it very digestible for everyone.

28:49to understand, but you have to make sure you're talking to the right person who wants the same company that you're in. But thank you for today. This has been amazing today. The incredible success you've had, I think it's going to inspire a lot of people. So thank you for being here. But if you want to get in touch with you, maybe they have an idea that they want to pitch their company, not a startup, but an existing company, or they want to, you know, they want to learn more information, they need to get you on their show because you're an amazing guest. How can they get in touch with you? I'm on LinkedIn.

29:21So that's, that's number one. So you can find me on LinkedIn and through LinkedIn, my, also my email address is there. So it's Louis, it's my first name, L-O-U-I-S, Louis at winvestments.ca. So Louis at winvestments.ca. And I'll be, I read all my, I read all my emails. I'll be very, very open to get a suggestion or to get Dex, if anything. Well, Louis, thank you so much for all that you do to inspire others through the success and now helping them also be successful. And thank you so much for joining us today on Founder Story. Thank you, Daniel.