Content Warning: this episode contains references to family illness and death. Sabrina Fiorellino knows what it means to beat the odds. Having started her first company at 18 alongside her single mother, she’s worked at some of the most prestigious law firms in Toronto, making countless sacrifices in her personal life to move at the pace she wanted. But when several close family members suddenly faced severe health issues during the pandemic, Sabrina’s world turned upside down. Fueled by an eagerness to fix an imperfect health care system, she started Fero, a revolutionary new venture that builds modular units to aid in disaster relief and rapid response. Katherin and Sabrina talk about the incredibly dark time for her family during the pandemic, how she’s drawn from those experiences throughout Fero’s development, and what her mother and grandfather taught her about the value of hard work. They also discuss growing up in multi-generational households, and the ways in which their families’ clashing perspectives shaped them as entrepreneurs.
Content Warning: this episode contains references to family illness and death.
Sabrina Fiorellino knows what it means to beat the odds. Having started her first company at 18 alongside her single mother, she’s worked at some of the most prestigious law firms in Toronto, making countless sacrifices in her personal life to move at the pace she wanted. But when several close family members suddenly faced severe health issues during the pandemic, Sabrina’s world turned upside down. Fueled by an eagerness to fix an imperfect health care system, she started Fero, a revolutionary new venture that builds modular units to aid in disaster relief and rapid response.
Katherin and Sabrina talk about the incredibly dark time for her family during the pandemic, how she’s drawn from those experiences throughout Fero’s development, and what her mother and grandfather taught her about the value of hard work. They also discuss growing up in multi-generational households, and the ways in which their families’ clashing perspectives shaped them as entrepreneurs.
Learn more about Fero.
Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "CGI Snake," "What True Self- Feels Bogus, Let's Watch Jason X," "Is This the Spirit Everybody Keeps Talking About," "I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor," "Short Song 012023."
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
[00:00:00] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Hi, I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos. (Breath) Starting my own venture wasn't easy.
After a decade working in the corporate world, I realized that so many things were out of my control, like layoffs and changes in direction. I didn't like the instability. I didn't want that to define my whole career and professional story, and so I left. I started my own company and achieved more than I ever imagined.
Now I'm on a mission to share stories from extraordinary entrepreneurs who are changing the world and who never gave up on their vision.
In the description of "And So, She Left," we talk about beating the odds. As entrepreneurs, our paths are unpredictable. We run into unexpected challenges every day, but the way that we face difficult situations determines how far we go in the long run.
We can't talk about overcoming impossible odds without talking about Sabrina Fino. After starting her first company at 18, Sabrina left the world of entrepreneurship to pursue a high profile law career in Toronto, working at some of the city's prestigious Bay Street firms. It was a move that wasn't well received by her family, whose perspectives have often clashed as a multi-generational household. But severe health issues in her family during the pandemic forced her to pivot. It was a dark chapter for Sabrina.
Instead of giving into her anger over her family's situation, Sabrina founded Fero. It's a groundbreaking new venture that's building modular healthcare units to aid in disaster relief and rapid response. In this episode, she talks with me about the personal sacrifices she's made along the way, how she stayed hopeful during a period of hopelessness, and how to keep going when life throws everything at you at once.
Hey, Sabrina. Hi. It's such a pleasure and I was really looking forward to this, uh, discussion all week. So I'm really happy to have you here today. First, I, I just wanted to, um, get you to give me a bit of a background on how you got interested in entrepreneurship at such a, a young age.
[00:02:15] Sabrina Fiorellino: So a little bit of background on me.
I would say I've been an entrepreneur my entire life, uh, or at least the better portion of my adult life. And then went to law school and practiced law for quite a while. Uh, and then I left and went back to entrepreneurship. I was an entrepreneur, like you mentioned, from a young age. Started my first business at 18.
It was, uh, an interesting scenario. So my, my mom was in, uh, construction, design, build, et cetera. At the time I was in and around the fashion world, I was a kid. Uh, and I thought, oh, I'm gonna do this forever. This is easy. And one of the big fashion labels approached my mom in saying, would you distribute our furniture for us?
And my mom said, sure. So I mean, I look back and I think I had no idea what I was doing or getting myself into, or how hard it was or what anything meant. I didn't know, I, I'm not sure that I even knew what money meant at the time, really. And so we started with the one brand. We did a show in New York, um, and there was another brand that was exhibiting across the hall from us.
And I said, Well, mom, why don't we distribute for them too? And she said, Well, what are you gonna do? Just go there and talk to the president? And I said, Yeah, why not? Like, what's the problem? And so I did. And so then we distributed for them. And again, I look back and I think, I had no idea. I don't know that I would do that today.
I mean, maybe now at 40 I would, but I think part of it was I didn't know enough to know, uh, how impactful what I was doing was, and so it made it easier. So I, I look at a lot of successful people. Um, and some of them really understand the risks about what they're doing, but I find that there's a lot of people who are successful who don't really understand the risks, and sometimes that works to your advantage.
And at that age, that was what was working to my advantage. Now I fundamentally understand every risk, almost every risk for sure. And so, uh, the caution kicks in a lot more, which I don't think is always great.
[00:04:17] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And you go for it at that age, you don't know any better. It's this blank slate in front of you. You have no clue what's coming up, so I'm gonna go talk to the president.
I'm gonna do whatever I think is necessary, and you just go, there's no mistakes yet. What happened in, in that time when you were in law and you were working for these high firms, what made you decide, Hmm, I need to switch out of this.
[00:04:42] Sabrina Fiorellino: So I, I started practicing, I was in my early twenties. I was one of the youngest lawyers at the firm when I started.
Uh, and I was in around eight years later when I left. So, so I think I knew from the very beginning, I think, part of the scary part about being an entrepreneur is you don't really ever know where your next paycheck is coming from, whether or not the business is gonna be successful. And so it's a leap of faith.
And with a Bay Street law job, it is super secure. So you know when your paycheck's coming, you have benefits, things are I would say easy from that perspective, it's, there's no added stress from a financial perspective. And so ultimately, um, I had a few members of my family get sick. I didn't have enough time to help them or care for them, and I wanted some more flexibility.
My heart was always at entrepreneurship, and it kind of, I think, was the impetus to propel me out of a safe career to something that was a little bit more risky.
[00:05:45] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah, I think that's the story for many people. They're in a very secure job, but it's not the job they want. And then it's always the question of when do I jump?
When's the leap of faith gonna happen? Is it because I don't, you have to acquire enough money and have that as a nest egg or like, you know, a little thing to keep you secure? Or is it really when you've can't handle the job itself anymore? There's so many factors. And in your case, I think you were in a good position.
Do you remember feeling anything in particular when you were going, okay, I need to get out of law and get into my, my own business.
[00:06:18] Sabrina Fiorellino: I, I would say I loved practicing and I loved what I was doing. Uh, but I knew I could give more, give more to the world. I could do more on my own. Uh, and so it was a struggle, an internal struggle of I really wanna leave, but I feel bad to let the partner down.
I'm working for, I feel bad to leave, you know, mid-transaction. And so it was an internal struggle about when, and so when just kept extending and extending and extending until, uh, the conditions were ripe for me to go. So, you're right, Katherin. Part of it was I felt financially secure to leave. You know, I, I had no choice but to leave in some ways because otherwise I couldn't help my family health issues.
Um, and then I think I was there for long enough that I felt comfortable, uh, to say, I've done it. I know how to do it. Uh, I have no regrets for what I did. And so it's time.
[00:07:11] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned your, your family. Do you wanna tell me more about your family and your relationship with them?
[00:07:18] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, absolutely. So, so we are a small family.
My mom was a single mom, uh, growing up. But, uh, we have a very interesting family in that I grew up in a house with four generations, so it was me and my brother. My mom, uh, my grandparents and my great-grandparents in the same house.
[00:07:34] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh wow.
[00:07:35] Sabrina Fiorellino: You can imagine the diversity of thought in in that household.
So you had people who were born in the 19, early 19 hundreds and then, you know, all the way up to us, me and my brother being born in the 80's. According to my great-grandmother, I was not desirable because I was 17 and unmarried. So, you know, it was, uh, completely, I would say different thought process than what you or I would, would think today.
Uh, and then obviously then my grandparents' generation different than my mom a little bit on the old school side. So different and then us. Uh, so it was interesting to grow up and then, Uh, my fam, a lot of members of my family have autoimmune conditions. Uh, and my mom eventually, uh, got sick and needed a double lung transplant, uh, very close to the time that my grandfather also got sick.
And so-
[00:08:29] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh my gosh.
[00:08:29] Sabrina Fiorellino: They had quite complex health issues at the same time.
[00:08:33] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I totally relate to what you're saying about the multi-generational. I did the same thing. I grew up in a household. My parents and my grandmother, and they all came here, and I was born here, first generation, and my grandmother, when you consider it, she was born in 1912, and so you're being raised by the mentality of people who lived in another land.
They bring all that here to the new world. So to speak. And it, it informs a very strong bond as well, because that is your nucleus. These are the people that you can rely on the most. Tell me more about your relationship with your mom and your, your granddad and their health struggles as well.
[00:09:09] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, so, so I would say for me, uh, my mom's a mentor.
She was a woman in construction at a time when it was impossible to be a woman in construction. And so I think about my struggles today and they probably pale in comparison to what she went through. And so when I told her I was leaving law to be an entrepreneur, uh, I think she wanted to kill me. I think that was part of, you know, her thought process was, are you crazy?
Like, no, you're not doing this. Uh, and at the time I didn't understand, and you know, again, being old school, you know, she maybe didn't want to speak about things openly. Like our generations much more open, I think, than previous generations before us. I think previous generations are more, oh, don't say anything.
People don't need to know anything about you, et cetera.
[00:09:57] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Don't share what's happening at home with others. Yes.
[00:10:00] Sabrina Fiorellino: That's the, the common theme there, and I think she did a good job raising us, a great job raising us. She's a single mom. We beat all statistics for children of single mothers, and so I think, well, she did it and like she had a lot less resources, a lot less help.
It was a lot more difficult time really. She was trying to protect me from what she had suffered, but she never communicated that to me. So at, at the time that I left, I was so confused. I said, Why is she bothering me so much? I'm doing the same thing that she did in another field. Like, I'm an entrepreneur, she's an entrepreneur, she's my inspiration and she's mad at me.
So, um, you know, it took a lot of years of reflection to understand that without her communicating that to me. But, uh, I always look up to her and I always think, I don't know how she made it at the time she made it. Uh, and so when she got sick, it was a big blow for me.
She had stage four sarcoid in her heart and lungs, uh, and so was on high flow oxygen for quite a long time. And like I said, she ended up needing a transplant. She actually went into respiratory arrest. Flatlined, was on life support and in a lot of ways, a lot of the hospital staff who were with her call her a miracle, that from a statistical probability she shouldn't be alive. But she is.
[00:11:19] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah.
[00:11:19] Sabrina Fiorellino: Uh, my grandfather also had an autoimmune condition. My grandfather was my best friend. I was around him all the time. He would sit with me even in university while I was doing my homework and tell me, Oh, I know more than any other lawyer. My brother's a doctor, so any other lawyer, doctor, uh, in Toronto, because I read your textbooks. So, but really.
[00:11:42] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh, that's beautiful.
[00:11:43] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah. Really, he would sit next to me just for company and fall asleep. But it, it was someone there who I know is supporting me. And so, uh, I felt good no matter what that there, there was somebody there who I knew who cared enough to sit with me while I was up all night studying,
[00:11:59] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And that's a very special relationship with a grandparent who helped raised you.
It's completely different than the parental one for sure. They can be your friend. They can have little insight jokes with you and make you feel better when you need that extra support.
[00:12:13] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, I, I totally agree. My grandfather like it was unconditional love it. It didn't matter. My mom was a parent for sure. She was strict and she was a parent and I loved her, but she was like, you know, really strict.
My grandfather, while he expected us to behave properly, uh, he would go above and beyond for us. Like he knew I was studying and he would just put food in front of me and it wasn't an expectation that he was gonna do that, but he knew, oh, she's gonna eat in another three hours, so really I should help her.
And so he was very, very kind. So, very kind.
[00:12:45] Katherin Vasilopoulos: What did he ex, like in, in his mind? Did he even care what career you were gonna go for?
I don't think so. I don't, I, and
[00:12:53] Sabrina Fiorellino: I don't know that he really understood what we were doing or how, or what it meant, uh, the ins and outs of it, but he just wanted us to be happy.
And for him, he always put the family first and no matter how, how things were or how hard his career was or how hard he worked. He always made time for us and always put the family above all else. And, and that was a lesson that, you know, stuck with me. That and the fact that he worked so hard, like there was a period of time where he was working three jobs and he would tell us like, you don't skip school and pretend you're sick.
You don't call in sick at work. Like, you have to dedicate yourself and work hard and that's how you succeed. Not, uh, you know, working hard is the answer. There's no magic.
Yeah.
[00:13:39] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yes, I would've loved to meet him. He sounds amazing. It's right up, uh, right up my alley. That hardworking ethic that comes from the previous generations who always woke up and showed up.
That's that's what I remember. They woke up and they showed up and they did what they had to do. There was no complaining. They just really worked hard, and they showed us by example. Unfortunately things took a turn with his health. And then you saw firsthand what happened in the Canadian healthcare system where you were, and I completely understand that you're not, um, complaining about the, the healthcare system because God knows how difficult it was during Covid for everyone to withstand that level of pressure constantly for all the healthcare workers.
But you saw stuff and your family went through things. And I want you to tell me more about that experience.
[00:14:28] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, sure. So, so I always say I love the Canadian healthcare system. At the end of the day, the Canadian healthcare system saved my mom's life. And, you know, I'm treated by the Canadian healthcare system, so is the rest of my family and I believe in accessible healthcare.
So in my grandfather's case, uh, I stayed with him during every one of his hospital admissions. Uh, until Covid and then Covid hit and I couldn't stay with him, and I obviously got worried. He wasn't a great advocate for himself. English was a second language for him, and while he was fluent, he just didn't understand some medical things.
Um, and he wasn't a good communicator when he was in the hospital. So obviously, you know, he's not well. So I would stay in the hospital with him and help advocate, uh, for him or take care of him. Um, and so when Covid hit, you couldn't visit, but my brother being a doctor, uh, had access in some ways to some of his charts.
And so the doctors at the hospital where he was at were telling us he was fine. And my brother was looking at the chart saying, Look, I don't think he's gonna make it based on the numbers and stats I'm seeing. Like we, we'd like to come see him just in case. When we showed up there, I think I had a meltdown.
I'm not gonna lie, he, uh, didn't even remember me. He didn't know my name. He didn't know anything about me and a few weeks earlier, you know, we were sitting in the same house talking to each other, so it was a big blow for me. And then what we had discovered is he hadn't been fed or given water, or no one brushed his teeth for several days. And so, even for my brother as a healthcare professional, I think both of us were really thrown off. Um, and it was really hard for us. And so we got a litre and a half of water down and then all of a sudden he remembered me and things were fine. And he was a little bit more conscious of what was happening around him.
Uh, but I FaceTimed my mom and I said, Mom, you've got to say goodbye because he's not gonna make it. It's not, it's not gonna work here. And you know, we are not here and we can't help this or fix this, we, they're not gonna let us stay here. Uh, so I don't see it. And it was the first time I really believed he wasn't gonna make it.
My grandfather was another miracle patient in that he'd be at the brink and somehow make a full recovery the next day. And, you know, people couldn't understand how he kept doing that. Um, and we all knew it was a matter of time because you can't do that forever. Um, but when I saw him in that moment, I knew, I knew and, and he did pass away a few days later.
He was one of the most social people I knew.
[00:17:10] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I'm sorry for your loss.
[00:17:10] Sabrina Fiorellino: Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, he was one of the most social people I know. Probably one of the most loved people I know. And so for me, the biggest tragedy was he died alone. He died alone. And for me, that was a tragedy that like, there was no one around him when that happened.
So, uh, really sad. The only thing that sort of gives me some comfort is I think he probably didn't know. He was sick enough that he wasn't fully aware of his surroundings. And so, uh, you know, I hope that he didn't feel alone when he passed.
[00:17:47] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yes. And it's a, it's a sad story, but it then it makes you angry. It makes you feel stuff. You start to have emotion. And tell me about what that moment meant to you and what that propelled you into the next phase.
[00:18:05] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, so, so I would say for the first little while I was distraught and I wasn't prepared for it.
Um, and so it took me a while to get out of the funk related to it. Uh, but then I said, yeah, you're right. I got angry and I said, Something's wrong with the system. It can't be that. Um, you know, 10 years earlier we had SARS, uh, like another sort of pandemic, not pandemic, but very similar set of circumstances.
No one's dealing with this. Like, we didn't learn from our first mistake 10 years ago. And so, like, we have to do something because pandemics, natural disasters, all these things are becoming more frequent and more severe and we are ignoring them. And so I thought the healthcare system can't respond when things go sideways.
And I said, oh, I'm gonna singlehandedly fix this. Obviously this is a little bit too ambitious. Probably not, uh, a rational thought process at the time, but I thought, okay, I'm gonna do something to fix it. I have to. And so I built an ICU, which again, is probably not what most people would do in a crisis, but it's what I did.
And then I engaged with the University Health Network, which includes Toronto General, top four hospitals in the world, uh, to help assess what we had built and to help us with workflow and all of these things. And so that was the birth of my current company.
[00:19:28] Katherin Vasilopoulos: There's a saying where anger is the strongest catalyst for change, and I think that's describes exactly what you went through.
And not just anger, but all the emotions of the, the disappointment. And then you're like, I have to find a solution to this problem. And that's what we do as entrepreneurs, as business people. We are a solution providers to the people who hire us. And in your case, you developed an entire business out of this.
What is it called?
[00:19:56] Sabrina Fiorellino: Uh, so my company's called Fero, and we are a modular healthcare builder. So our focus is on building healthcare capacity, and whether that's for hospitals or long-term care, wet laboratories for remote communities, for military, for disaster relief. If you think of, uh, you know, Turkey and Syria or war torn regions-
[00:20:17] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yes.
[00:20:17] Sabrina Fiorellino: Like the Ukraine, uh, we, we feel that we can impact.
And the whole idea is to create flexible spaces that can be available really quickly when there's infrastructure crisises.
[00:20:29] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And they're built in... containers if I understood correctly?
[00:20:34] Sabrina Fiorellino: So we build multiple ways. So we do do container builds, and those are, uh, primarily for disaster relief. So if they need to be shipped quickly, it's very easy to ship that footprint because containers are obviously shipped all over the world.
Uh, but we do do traditional builds too, we're working on a current build that's, uh, 5,000 square foot outpatient clinic, and those are really large modules. What, what I would say is we do what's called volumetric modular building. So, uh, a full module that's turnkey and gets delivered and then just stitched together on site.
[00:21:10] Katherin Vasilopoulos: So can you give me an overview of what it was like for you to go from that moment of conception, then to building this slowly. And how do you scale up?
[00:21:19] Sabrina Fiorellino: Every big business starts somewhere, and if you look at even a business like Facebook, it starts in someone's house and it's a multi-billion dollar business today, and it's no different than the businesses I built in the past and this business.
So when I started, I didn't know we were gonna build a real company around it. At first I thought, oh, maybe I'll build this ICU or a few, I'll donate them. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. And then I realized, no, like we could really create an impact with this business. Uh, so, you know, we started to scale, hire people.
So it's quite a process and I would say every business grows differently and at different levels. Um, but I've scaled businesses quite quickly in the past, and so my hopes for this businesses eventually will be able to be manufacturing in every continent across the globe.
[00:22:13] Katherin Vasilopoulos: What are the, uh, the, the recent needs that you've filled, uh, in terms of providing this service to people?
[00:22:19] Sabrina Fiorellino: A lot of it recently has been around hospital capacity, uh, and space. So we, we talk a lot about the lack of healthcare workers, but we don't talk as much about the lack of healthcare space. Um, and a lot of people say, Okay, there's, there's no worker s what do we need space for? The truth is both are required. In 1997, uh, in Ontario there were 27,000 more beds than there are today. That's a big decrease from what it was a long time ago. And our population is growing and aging, which means the need is getting greater, but the number of beds have gone down. The lack of space is something that people ignore, uh, because all the focus is on healthcare providers.
And then there's lab space. Just in southwestern Ontario alone, there's a 3.5 million square foot shortage of wet lab space. And so without lab space to do research, we can't achieve much. Traditional building, it will take forever to catch up. And so we feel that with building modular, we can do it faster, uh, control the quality better and really impact in areas that that infrastructure is required quickly.
[00:23:35] Katherin Vasilopoulos: That is so well said. And it's true. The, the need in remote locations, there's always a gap. There's a need and you can never scale fast enough to get to that population. And this is an incredible solution. Let me just, um, ask you something that we talked a little bit about before I was reading that, you know, in your professional life, everything that you've done was not easy.
Everything you've done was a little bit of a challenge and difficult, and I think that a lot of people listening to this can relate to that experience, that kind of intensity. You can't sustain it for forever. You get to a breaking point sometimes, and you have to make sacrifices. Can you tell me how that's affected you?
[00:24:14] Sabrina Fiorellino: Just very simply. I have made that, I would say extreme personal sacrifices for the business. And I, I think I'm okay with that. So I, I get a lot of questions on work-life balance, and it's important to reflect on, personally, if someone's happy with their current balance or imbalance. Uh, and I don't think there's a right balance or imbalance for people.
I think that's very individualistic. I often reflect every year or every six months on, I am working seven days a week, 20 hours a day. Am I okay with this or not at this age and stage? And so I would say conversations, for me, change, conversations I have with myself at 27 years old probably change, uh, significantly to today where I'm 40.
And so priorities start to shift and you start to think of different things. So when I was 27, I wasn't thinking, oh, I need to have a family. And today it's a different thought process. And so I would say I sacrificed a lot of. Time with family and time with friends for the business. And there are periods of time when I've been perfectly okay with that, and there's periods of time where I think, okay, I need to shift something around here to, to create better balance.
And I think that's okay. And, and I think, you know, like I said, every, it's individualistic and everybody needs to reflect on that. I think you're right. Being an entrepreneur is hard. You have to give up a lot of things. What people don't see behind closed doors are things like when you're starting the business, when I started my businesses, I always put in personal capital. So I took money, dumped it into the business. That's very much at risk capital. It's not secured. You never know if you're gonna get it back. I've gone in different businesses, long periods of time with no salary and you know, made sacrifices in that, uh, I've given personal guarantees to banks, and so if something, you know, went wrong, in theory, I could have lost a house or all my possessions or something.
And so those are sacrifices I, I chose to make. And the result of it is, I have to work hard cuz that can't happen. So whether or not I fail or succeed is then entirely within my hands.
Uh, and the hands of the team that we're working with, then the sacrifice is almost necessary. There's no turning back and there's no saying, oh, I'm gonna go half in. Because if you're half in and it fails, you're in big trouble. So it's all in or nothing. And then I would say at different stages of the business, the sacrifices change.
So when you're at the very beginning or you're in growth phase, you are dedicating all available time to the business. When the business is in a phase of steady state, things start to calm down and there's a little bit more flexibility. There's more people in place, there's more resources available to you.
And so, uh, thing, things change at different, different times in the business.
[00:27:06] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And so your conversation with yourself at 27 versus today has evolved. And we were having, um, a really nice conversation with, uh, another guest in a previous podcast, and her name was Margery Kraus. She described it as not work-life balance, but work-life integration.
So you have to figure out a way to integrate those elements, and it changes as you change the phase, as you said, the, the phase of your business and the phases of your life. And I'm sure the conversation you're having with yourself now is a little bit different.
[00:27:40] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, okay, I'm 40, uh, I'm not married, I don't have kids, and it's about time to start paying attention to this because, uh, in reality there's a biological limitation in women and that, that doesn't exist in men.
And that's okay, but I need to understand that there's limitation for me. And so, uh, I really want kids. I always have, and I need to think about that now. My team jokes around saying, if you have a kid, if, when you have a kid, the crib will be in your office and that's what's gonna happen. Uh, and it could be, it could not.
I don't know. I mean, I, I, I think that, uh, I will dedicate everything necessary, uh, to a baby cuz it's just the way I am. Uh, but I would never give up my career either. And so I would have, and you're right, it's work life integration. And how doI integrate those two things at the appropriate time.
[00:28:31] Katherin Vasilopoulos: What kind of rewards do you get from being an entrepreneur, a female entrepreneur in a traditionally male dominated field?
[00:28:41] Sabrina Fiorellino: It's very hard. There are some days where you wanna quit, uh, and you think, you know what? Why am I doing this? Or I should replace myself with a male CEO, it would make everybody's life a lot easier, but then there are days when I look at the statistics, I think I, I love math, I love numbers, and so I look at the statistics and I think three years ago, 3% of venture money went to female entrepreneurs.
Today it's 1.6%. It's going down, and somehow we raise venture money, and so we're doing things against all odds. You know, we, we started as a tiny company. Uh, we did significant revenue for how little staff we had in our first year, and I think this is against all odds. Um, we're in a very bad market and we recently raised more money and I think this is against all odds.
And so I, I have to sit back sometimes and, um, Give myself or the team credit for, for what we're doing in the environment that we're doing it in and-
[00:29:44] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Right. Absolutely.
[00:29:45] Sabrina Fiorellino: I don't think there's anything that could be a, a greater reward than that. Um, just that you're making it despite everything against you.
And, uh, I think that's what drives me. I, I don't think financial reward has ever driven me. Uh, I always think it's, you know, achieving. Something greater than I achieved before, hitting the next milestone. And, and, and that's the biggest reward for me.
I think
[00:30:13] Katherin Vasilopoulos: that's great. Why do you think the numbers are so low?
Why are those stats so low?
[00:30:18] Sabrina Fiorellino: My CFO's also female, and her and I talk about it all the time. Uh, why is it getting worse and not better? Uh, why? Uh, do we pitch so much? And, you know, often we get shut down, which is fine. We get up and keep going. Um, but why do our male counterparts who have really crappy business ideas get funded and, and we don't?
Uh, and so I just don't know. I don't know if it's just institutionally the way it's been forever. And so it remains that way. And it's hard. Like I look at law as a parallel. It takes forever to change anything in law. It's a slow moving beast, um, that usually is behind everything else. And so I feel that way, in some cases, as it relates to finance too. It's just slow to evolve and to change from the way people traditionally do things to something new.
I think even in finance, I look at companies that do SaaS or software as a service, and today in the market, software as a service is tanking. Uh, but the venture community, because of the returns and the formula still invests in SaaS primarily. Uh, and so for me, from a math perspective, I go back to the numbers.
Doesn't always make sense, but it's the way it was always done and the way it continues to be done. And you know, I don't blame anybody for that. There's a formula that makes sense and they follow their formula. Um, and you know, for me, I just keep going.
[00:31:46] Katherin Vasilopoulos: There's an aversion to risk, or people like that comfort zone, or they do what is already formulaic for them, so they don't have to divert from that and create new processes.
So it sounds like there are a lot of factors and something to dig into, I guess a little bit more. But what you're doing is phenomenal, and you're continuously just picking yourself back up and trying again because you really believe in your business. And you believe in this product. And what I find interesting is that both you and your CFO are female.
[00:32:14] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah. So, so, uh, my CFO always says that we run the business with profitable growth and a hundred percent governance and compliance. And so for us, uh, we wanna take the business to a place where we are showing really great returns for our investors. And eventually, uh, when the markets settle and the business is ready, we'd like to take the company public.
Um, when we do so, there's a very good chance we'll be the first female, CEO and CFO in Canadian history to take their manufacturing business public, uh, which is really shocking in some ways that it hasn't been done before. But for us, again, the motivation is we wanna pave the way for others to be able to look at that and say, or other females to look at that and say, it is possible. We can do it because they did it.
So we look at it and we say, no one's done it. Okay. We're gonna take the risk and do it. And so, you know, no mentor ahead of the line for us to look at.
[00:33:14] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I'm actually shocked no one has done this. We're, we're in 2023. Sorry. I mean, we can cut that out, but I am, I am shocked and that yes, you would be the perfect mentor actually, to pave the way for this.
I also have another thing that I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, you've spoken a lot about the, the severity of your experiences during Covid and along that, you know, your family went through so much and, um, it sounds like it was an incredibly dark time that you had to go through, and how did you stay hopeful within all that, and like what did you do to get yourself through those difficult times?
[00:33:49] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, so, so I would say there were periods where I wasn't so sure that I was gonna be hopeful ever again. Uh, so absolutely, and I think a lot of people went through that. I don't think that's an isolated experience for me. Uh, although, you know, was very difficult cause we were just coming off my mom's transplant.
She was just getting better and then my grandfather passed away. Um, and then I sold my previous business and I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? And life is over in some ways. Right? And, and funny enough, I belong to, uh, a group of women. So we have a coach, and we talk about training and food and all these things and, and we have a group chat altogether.
And yesterday one of the women posted, uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational speech in the group chat. And one of the things he said, which totally resonated with me is the most successful people fail more than they succeed. Uh, and, and so you think about Albert Einstein talks about this. Michael Jordan talks about this, like all the greats talk about how many times they fail, but the most successful people get back up.
And I think naturally I'm just a person who gets back up, who relentlessly pursues, uh, the end result that I want and doesn't matter how many times I'm told no, or how many times I'm shot down or how many, you know, blows I get to the ego. I just keep going and I refuse to stop going. And I think, uh, ultimately that's a character trait I was born with.
And that's what pulled me out of the despair at the time when things were never gonna get better, I'm at the bottom of the hole. So for me, I refuse to fail and so that's the motivation to get out of any negative thoughts ever.
[00:35:40] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I hear you speaking, and I can just hear the echo of your ancestors coming through you, all the people that were responsible for raising you and loving you.
It feels like that's what's coming out right now and I may be mistaken, but I see you nodding your head and it's it, it does help to have a support system from your family, it's, it helps to have a strong work ethic, and mostly just a belief in yourself that it's okay to make a few mistakes here and there, and they're not mistakes, they're learnings.
We learn from all those things, and you'll never know how to do better unless you go through those moments. And as a business woman, as an entrepreneur in this space, you have to do it. And it's okay. It's okay. You bounce back.
[00:36:22] Sabrina Fiorellino: Yeah, I, I totally agree. I think that the two biggest factors are believing in yourself and doing the work.
There's no substitution for hard work, and you have to believe that you can do it. Uh, and if you don't believe and you don't do the work, it's not happening. And one of my favorite quotes is something that Walt Disney said. So Walt Disney stood up an empire from nothing, from an idea. And one of the things Walt said is, if you can dream it, you can do it.
Uh, and, and I believe that that's true, but you have to do the work. You can't just, oh, I believe I'm gonna do this, and then sit and do nothing like you have to commit and do the work.
[00:36:57] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Many, many thanks to Sabrina Fiorellino. You can learn more about Fero at the link in the episode description. If you like the show, let us know.
We'd love to hear what you enjoyed in a review on whatever platform you used to listen. "And So, She Left" is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Music by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find all the songs you heard here in the episode notes.
I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.