A behind-the-scenes look on Jed Morley, who started his adult career as a lumberjack in Alaska and is now an important Managing Partner of a merchant processing company called Platinum Payment Systems (PlatPay or PPS.)

What was your early career like?

Jed Morley: I didn’t start anywhere near the business side of things, that’s for sure. When I was 18 years old, I decided to move to Alaska. There, I worked as a lumberjack for a while — which is probably not what you’d expect from someone so entrenched into the business-world like I am today. But, I think that it was a much-needed growing experience.

I still believe that I met some of the most hard-working people ever while on that job. Dangerous and formulaic as it was, it taught me a lot about dedication and keeping-on.

What did you use to do before PlatPay?

Jed Morley: Immediately after I worked in Alaska, I moved again, this time, to Argentina. I served as a missionary for my church there for around two years. During that time, I learned how to adapt to an entirely new setting — one where people spoke differently, acted differently, thought differently, etc. it was an incredibly enriching experience.

I also spent time studying for quite a bit. I went to the Utah Valley State College and the University of Phoenix to study business while working several jobs and running my first personally owned businesses.

Then, after that, I spent a lot of my early years as an entrepreneur in the real estate space. I sold homes, both existing and new, I developed subdivisions, hotels, national credit buildings, charter schools, and dozens of other exciting things. You can say that I still ‘exist’ in the real estate space today — I do still own several tracts of land and a property management company, but as you can probably tell from my world-hopping adventures as a young adult, I like to try out new things — which is what ultimately led me to PlatPay.

When did you start working with PlatPay? (What is it like?)

Jed Morley: I officially started my partnership with Platinum Payment Systems (PlatPay or PPS) in 2008. We’ve grown a lot since then, and I’d like to think that we’ve helped a lot of our clients grow too. Our goal with PlatPay, after all, is to help others solve their payment processing problems — regardless of the size of their business, or what they need to do in order to handle risks and balance the different types of payments they receive.

I partnered up with PlatPay as a managing partner — with a heavy focus on encouraging the growth of PlatPay through other partnerships and improved technologies.

Working in the payment processing space, I’ve found, is very humbling. We’ve done our best to maintain and work ourselves up to be smarter (to the point of being experts on the field) so that we can be sure that we can meet the expectations and honor the trust our clients have for what we do.

What book would you recommend for beginner-entrepreneurs?

Jed Morley: A book I enjoyed and learned a lot from, was “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.” by Michael E. Gerber. Highly recommended. Especially if you’re just starting out — but it’s still something to pick up even if you’re more experienced as an entrepreneur. It taught me a lot about how to achieve success by establishing a solid foundation, or rather, a good system, in which that success can be built off of.

Do you have any tips for preventing the dreaded ‘burnout?’

Jed Morley: I have always been, and probably always will be, a people person. I just love people — it’s part of why I enjoyed the two years I spent in Argentina so much, it put me in a place where I could continue to get to know more people.

Anyway, I digress. My method of preventing burnout is to turn away from ‘my’ own work and help someone else with theirs. I make it a point to meet younger, more inexperienced employees regularly so that I can talk to them about how they’re doing at work, how they’re doing on a more personal level, etc.

There’s just something about teaching others that teaches you in turn. And, of course, there’s no denying the level of satisfaction it brings to see someone succeed because of your help. To learn, to teach, and then to learn again — it really is the ‘full circle of business life.’

Interview with Tech CEO Ross Andrew Paquette on the inner workings of Maropost — Canada’s fastest-growing tech company.

What would you say sets Maropost apart from its competitors in the market?

Ross Andrew Paquette: Two, maybe three years ago, our main focus was providing our clients software for email marketing, mobile social media marketing, and cloud marketing — that was what our audience wanted back then. Actually, I remember email marketing being so big that we had one $25 million revenue company making 100% of their revenue through just email marketing.

Of course, things are a little different now in the world of digital marketing. And, to make up for this shift, Maropost has had to change quite a bit.

I think that’s part of what has allowed us to stand against our competitors, actually. Because now, Maropost is all about providing a single customer view. That’s been our main focus – providing a full 360 view on the customer’s overall journey. Basically, we bring all the communication aspects. Things like purchase information, all the service and support, etc. and put it all together to give our clients a simple and incredibly accurate look at their customers.

Where in Canada is Maropost based at?

Ross Andrew Paquette: Maropost HQ is in Toronto Canada. But we also have an office in Chicago and India as well. We’ve separated a lot of our duties between the three offices, so everyone keeps busy.

For our main HQ In Toronto, we take care of HR, finance, and client success — we have a lot of our executive team stationed there, actually. As for Chicago, our team there focuses more on the sales and marketing aspect — which leaves our India office in charge of most of our software development, a lot of system administration, and a little bit of support as well.

When was Maropost officially founded?

Ross Andrew Paquette: I guess it depends on how you think of it. Personally, I would say that it has been eight years since we’ve started. But, the first two years of that was spent elsewhere — I was still working with another company back then, while slowly funding the development of Maropost with a friend of mine from college.

Tell us more about how things started…

Ross Andrew Paquette: I started working right after my first year of University — and just never stopped since. I went through at least three jobs before deciding that there were some serious inconsistencies when it came to the level of innovation I was seeing in the companies I worked with. All of them were more than comfortable with the status quo — so they just left things as is, filling their pockets while their customers suffered through lackluster support.

For a while there, I was working with a mid-sized email marketing provider. And, working closely with such a company made me realize that the infrastructure being used was incredibly outdated — which wasn’t really doing that company any favors. More importantly though, being able to get such a close look at how quickly the digital marketing space was changing back then and how slowly infrastructure providers were keeping up… I saw an opportunity to make some changes, and I took it.

My experience with that email marketing provider is part of why Maropost was so heavy on email marketing in its first couple of years. Still, as I said, I saw early on how lack of innovation can cause a company to stagnate, so we’ve done a lot of development to make sure we grew through the years — going from email-only to taking on the entire digital marketing industry at large!

Last question, how would you describe Maropost’s growth over the years?

Ross Andrew Paquette: Well, I’d say the first year of business was pretty calm. Our goal wasn’t to raise capital, so our ‘first year as a startup’ was far from what you’d normally expect. All we were focusing on back then was the business itself. Also, as I said, I was working another job those first two years, so personally, I wasn’t panicking about how I’ll be keeping the lights on. After that calm though, I’d say our growth was pretty divided. We grew revenue rapidly, incredibly rapidly some might say — but our team stayed small throughout.

For the most part, I’d say our growth is thanks to our loyal client-base — who referred others to Maropost and took us all the way up to $25 million in annual revenue in four years. 

When Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is finalized, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick could earn a $22 million stock bonus if the Workplace Responsibility Committee concludes the video game company’s corporate culture has dramatically improved. According to a regulator filing, Kotick, who founded Activision in 1986, will get the stock bonus if he accomplishes “transformational gender-related goals and other commitments.”

According to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Kotick’s future at Activision Blizzard — he helped successfully engineer the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games in 2008 — is still unclear. In addition, it states that Kotick’s contract could be drawn out 12 months beyond its current March 2023 expiration.

What Is the Workplace Responsibility Committee?

Activision Blizzard’s board of directors created the Workplace Responsibility Committee in November 2021 to monitor progress in implementing and upholding any new procedures, policies, and/or commitments made by the video game publisher to make the workplace a more inclusive, safer, and fairer professional environment.

A Look at Activision’s New Policies

Activision Blizzard’s Workplace Responsibility Committee has the final say as to whether the video game giant is getting on with “appropriate progress” concerning the achievement of its goals.

Those goals included:

• Increasing visibility on pay equity.
• Investing $250 million to fast-track opportunities for diverse talent.
• Abdicating arbitration of individual sexual harassment claims.
• Forming a zero-tolerance harassment policy.
• Raising the percentage of nonbinary people and women by 50% in the Activision Blizzard workforce.

Microsoft’s Plans for Activision Blizzard’s Future

In January, Microsoft announced its plans to spend $68.7 billion to buy Activision. The purchase will help bolster Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division and is expected to improve the workplace environment at the video game holding company, which is based in Santa Monica, California.

Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, said the company will ensure it has the best people in each role once the merger is finalized. “We’re looking to the leadership team at Activision Blizzard today to make culture and workplace safety a top priority every single day, until the day when this deal hopefully closes. And then we’ll take over, and we need to make that same commitment,” says Smith. “There will be some aspects that will change, but it will all be one new team that will work together. And most importantly, we want to see the culture evolve, and we will see how people perform between now and the day this closes, assuming it is approved.”

Microsoft Gaming CEO and future Activision CEO Phil Spencer is expected to take over for the Activision CEO once the merger is finished. According to Smith, their focus is on improving company culture across the board. “We will have the opportunity to make sure that we have the right people in the right position,” Smith notes.

According to the SEC filings, Spencer and Kotick talked on the phone on Nov. 19, 2021. During that call, Spencer told Kotick “Microsoft was interested in discussing strategic opportunities” between Blizzard Activision and Microsoft and asked if he would have time to discuss such matters with Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, the following day. At least four other unnamed companies also contacted the video game publisher about a possible merger.

Entrepreneurs are the passionate and innovative business people who seek to make as big an impact as possible in their chosen industry niche. While anyone can label themselves as entrepreneurs, only the best and brightest shine through to achieve fame and success.

The following will list 5 entrepreneurs that you should be keeping an eye on:

• Amer Safaee,
• Sophia Rowe,
• Grant Cordone,
• Tai Lopez,
• Jack Parsons
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1. Amer Safaee

Amer Safaee is a tech entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Bama Security Group. Bama Security Group, founded in 2005, is a provider of hardware sales, software, and network security based in Kabul Afghanistan. Starting this company in Afghanistan is no small feat, and Amer has a great deal of experience researching, evaluating, and negotiating with suppliers from all around the world. Amer has had to fulfil many vital roles in establishing his company, and everyone should be eager to see what he will do next in the emerging Middle East tech space.

2. Sophia Rowe

Sophia Rowe is an entrepreneur originally from Jamaica she has become a specialist in business development and digital marketing in the United States. While an entrepreneur herself, Sophia shares her knowledge with others in the form of an educational system Sophia Rowe Digital that teaches theoretical and practical skills for people to leverage in the creation of their own successful businesses.

3. Grant Cordone

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCduFByj0Q9/

Grant Cordone has an impressive portfolio worth $1.5 billion in property and has authored over 20 bestselling books. He is a philanthropist, social media influencer, and a public speaker who has appeared as a commentator on programs like CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. He is the founder of Cordone University, one of the most crucial online training tools for salespeople with more than 50 million users.

4. Tai Lopez

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8kFCHfBdUg/

Tai Lopez is a successful investor as well as a respected advisor to many international businesses. When he isn’t helping companies make lots of cash, he is assisting everyday people to improve their wealth and happiness, with an audience spread across over 40 countries.

5. Jack Parsons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zyXcC0-PDg

Jack Parsons is a very young entrepreneur who is passionate about helping underqualified young people who feel they have been created by the system. Having grown up with a difficult childhood and neglect during his education, Jack followed his dreams and in 2017 was able to found his company The Youth Group.

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