EBOOK
Billion Dollar Start-Up
The True Story of How a Couple of 29-Year-Olds Turned $35,000 into a $1,000,000,000 Cannabis Company
Adam Miron(0)
About
It only took five years for two brothers-in-law to create a billion-dollar, award-winning, take-no-prisoners cannabis company called HEXO. How did they do it? That's the story.
From early roadblocks and devastating personal and financial setbacks to explosive growth and some of the biggest cannabis deals in global history, Billion Dollar Start-Up not only recounts the HEXO story but the history of Canada's momentous road to legalization.
In this part fast-paced memoir, part high-octane business book, writer and journalist Julie Beun gives us an intimate look at the life of a start-up and the ferocious entrepreneurial drive it takes to succeed - written in real-time, as the story unfolded.
Throughout history, there have been fewer than 100 Canadians who have started a company and lived to see it become worth one billion dollars. Adam Miron and Sébastien St-Louis are two of them. This is their story. Billion Dollar Start-Up is the remarkable story of how two 29-year-old brothers-in-law took a $35,000 investment and turned it into a billion-dollar cannabis company in just five years. Based on in-depth interviews, research, archival material, and personal experience.
Adam Miron (Ottawa, ON) With at least 20 start-ups under his belt, Adam Miron is a well-known figure in political and media circles in Ottawa and across Canada. Adam is executive chairman and co-founder of the Ottawa-based cryptocurrency company Brane Capital.
Sébastian St-Louis (Ottawa, ON) Sébastien is one of the longest-serving and most dynamic CEOs in Canada's expanding cannabis industry.
Julie Beun (Ottawa, ON) From 2014 to 2019, Julie had a privileged front-row seat to HEXO's remarkable evolution as its publicist, content strategist, and senior writer. As a journalist, news editor, and foreign correspondent, Julie has written articles with a national and international scope in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. She is currently a marketing communications and brand consultant who owns J Beun Media, a marketing communications company.
4:21 p.m., January 22, 2018
Somewhere in Gatineau, Quebec
"Hey. What's up?"
What is up is that Ottawa is in the depths of one of its hellacious blizzards.
Adam Miron is on the speaker in his car, headed down Autoroute 50 out of the Gatineau farmland around Masson-Angers and back to his home in central Ottawa. But, being Canadian and given that a blizzard is a weekly occurrence from December to March, he is on the phone to his colleague Julie Beun, speeding a little in his clapped-out Mazda 3 and doing business anyway. In this instance, however, there's something electric in his voice.
"Yeah. How are you? I'm good. You got a minute?"
Small talk is not Adam's strength when he's excited, so he blows past waiting for an answer.
"Listen, I just have to tell someone. Today is the day we became a billion-dollar company. Any way you cut it... we have 218 million fully diluted shares outstanding at $4.95. That's $1.08 billion. Today is the day."
She can tell he is grinning down the phone.
"We did it."
From early roadblocks and devastating personal and financial setbacks to explosive growth and some of the biggest cannabis deals in global history, Billion Dollar Start-Up not only recounts the HEXO story but the history of Canada's momentous road to legalization.
In this part fast-paced memoir, part high-octane business book, writer and journalist Julie Beun gives us an intimate look at the life of a start-up and the ferocious entrepreneurial drive it takes to succeed - written in real-time, as the story unfolded.
Throughout history, there have been fewer than 100 Canadians who have started a company and lived to see it become worth one billion dollars. Adam Miron and Sébastien St-Louis are two of them. This is their story. Billion Dollar Start-Up is the remarkable story of how two 29-year-old brothers-in-law took a $35,000 investment and turned it into a billion-dollar cannabis company in just five years. Based on in-depth interviews, research, archival material, and personal experience.
Adam Miron (Ottawa, ON) With at least 20 start-ups under his belt, Adam Miron is a well-known figure in political and media circles in Ottawa and across Canada. Adam is executive chairman and co-founder of the Ottawa-based cryptocurrency company Brane Capital.
Sébastian St-Louis (Ottawa, ON) Sébastien is one of the longest-serving and most dynamic CEOs in Canada's expanding cannabis industry.
Julie Beun (Ottawa, ON) From 2014 to 2019, Julie had a privileged front-row seat to HEXO's remarkable evolution as its publicist, content strategist, and senior writer. As a journalist, news editor, and foreign correspondent, Julie has written articles with a national and international scope in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. She is currently a marketing communications and brand consultant who owns J Beun Media, a marketing communications company.
4:21 p.m., January 22, 2018
Somewhere in Gatineau, Quebec
"Hey. What's up?"
What is up is that Ottawa is in the depths of one of its hellacious blizzards.
Adam Miron is on the speaker in his car, headed down Autoroute 50 out of the Gatineau farmland around Masson-Angers and back to his home in central Ottawa. But, being Canadian and given that a blizzard is a weekly occurrence from December to March, he is on the phone to his colleague Julie Beun, speeding a little in his clapped-out Mazda 3 and doing business anyway. In this instance, however, there's something electric in his voice.
"Yeah. How are you? I'm good. You got a minute?"
Small talk is not Adam's strength when he's excited, so he blows past waiting for an answer.
"Listen, I just have to tell someone. Today is the day we became a billion-dollar company. Any way you cut it... we have 218 million fully diluted shares outstanding at $4.95. That's $1.08 billion. Today is the day."
She can tell he is grinning down the phone.
"We did it."