Hey Founder Fam,

Happy February: A big football game just happened. Kendrick and Drake are still fighting. Katy Perry was in Vancouver. Elon offered $97B to buy OpenAI. You still need to order flowers for Valentine’s Day. We’re hosting an AI event tomorrow with WebSummit’s Country Director. Andddd most importantly, thanks to your help spreading the word, LOI received a record-breaking level (!!!) of Labs applications for Batch 14 last week, so Mr. Ryan Holmes owes us sushi.

Brb, just gonna research some Michelin Star Restaurants nearby…

Okay okay, enough jibber jabber, let’s get to our juicy updates of the month….

📰 Opportunities Round-Up

• 🎟️ Trying to secure a WebSummit ticket for May 2025? Lucky for you, we can help. Fill out this form and we’ll message you with what we can offer.

• 💰 LOI Founders looking for legal help: Wanna save $500? Join Erin from LOI for exclusive group office hours with our national legal partner, Osler. Spots are limited to 20 founders per call, and only 5 sessions remain — RSVP now

• 🌮 Vancouver fam: free at 12pm Feb 12? Come to our AI event with a great set of speakers and WebSummit’s Country Director. RSVP here

• ☕️ Wanna join a killer AMA? We’re hosting an exclusive fireside chat with Andy Dunn (founder of Bonobos which sold to Walmart for $310M) Feb 12th, at 9 AM PT. RSVP here.

• 📝 Applications are open for the VFC Fellowship program, apply here. They are doing some cool things.

• 🏆 Know someone who’s been crushing it? Nominate a cofounder or friend for The Peak’s 2025 Emerging Leaders List? Fill this form

• 👀 Looking for cheap tickets to Uniting the Prairies 2025? Email Rob ([email protected]) to get 75% off your Tech Founder ticket.

• 💸 The Forum Business Finance Essentials is a free, 6-session virtual program to help women founders improve their finance skills; applications open until Feb 13th

• 🥁 Ontario Fam: our friends at the University of Waterloo is hosting a killer hacker, demo day for builders with some heavy hitter brands in the room like Notion, Shopify, Vercel and more. Sign up for free and RSVP today

• 🇨🇦 Brice Scheshuk, a friend of LOI and cofounder of WindMobile, shared this cool site where Canadian founders are writing deep dives

📌 Advice From the Founder of Shopify

A little while ago we listened to this killer Tobi interview. If you’ve been living under a rock and been watching too many tik tok trends, Tobi is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a $130 billion business that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Here’s some mic drop lines he said in his interview:

• Everyone has more potential than they realize

• If you’re feeling scared to launch something, reframe it as an experiment. Take the pressure off yourself and simply focus on learning. By lowering the emotional stakes, you’ll be able to take risks and move faster without letting fear hold you back.

• Metrics are important, but they should support your decision-making, not drive it.

• A 100-year perspective helps optimize for lasting impact over short-term gain

• Playing positive-sum games with customers becomes the ultimate growth strategy

• Long-term thinking enables better partnership decisions and helps resist value extraction

• Understanding your source of energy can help you remain motivated through challenges and lead your business with conviction.

• Disagreeing with someone might seem confrontational, but it builds trust when done constructively

Love these sound bites?

Listen to the whole deep dive on your next commute.

*On A Side Note: Would you come to an AMA with Tobi Lutke? Hit reply to let us know and answer the poll below so we can setup a group email for those that wanna join

Swipes of the Week

Keep crushing it amigo

💙 The LOI Fam

P.S. drop us a follow on IG.