Redefining Founder and Family Success, with SaaS Unicorn Founder Robert Imbeault

What if the greatest measure of success isn't the company you build, but the life you create?

In this inspiring episode of Unapologetic Leadership, Cory Dunham sits down with Robert Imbeault, Founder and CEO of Backboard.io, serial entrepreneur, investor, bestselling author, and former co-founder of Canadian SaaS unicorn Assent Compliance, to explore what happens when you redefine success beyond revenue, titles, and exits.

After building and exiting one of Canada's most successful technology companies, Robert realized that true fulfillment isn't found in working longer hours. It's found in being fully present for the people who matter most. Together, Cory and Rob discuss entrepreneurship, fatherhood, leadership, mental health, childhood trauma, personal growth, and why the best leaders intentionally design lives that align with their values.

About Robert Imbeault

Robert shares lessons from building high-growth companies, investing in AI and emerging technologies, mentoring the next generation of founders, and creating healthy boundaries that allow both business and family to thrive. From his memorable "orange juice" family rule to his commitment to never missing life's most important moments, Rob offers a refreshing perspective on balancing ambition with purpose.

As the Founder and CEO of Backboard.io, Rob is building AI infrastructure that provides a stateful memory layer for generative AI systems, helping shape the future of artificial intelligence. His experience as a founder, investor, and community leader provides practical insights for entrepreneurs and leaders navigating today's rapidly changing world.

Whether you're building a startup, leading a team, or striving to create a more intentional life, this conversation will inspire you to rethink what lasting success truly means.

Because your greatest legacy won't be measured by the business you build.

It will be measured by the people whose lives you impact.

Connect with Robert Imbeault

Substack: https://robimbeault.substack.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@robimbeault/
X: https://x.com/RobImbeault

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Unapologetic Leadership. If you felt stressed, overwhelmed, wrestling with the imposter syndrome, wondering if you're just not good enough, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Corey Dunham.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hello and welcome to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, where I have Rob Mbo, who's a serial entrepreneur, most notably founding the SAS Unicorn Ascent. He's an angel investor in technology, AI, and biotech. He's now the founder and CEO of Backboard.io. He is also a critically acclaimed best-selling author and father of two. Welcome, Rob.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Thank you, Corey. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yes, you're welcome. So tell us what do you do and then how do you serve the world?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Okay, that's a big question. Professionally, I with Backboard.io are just helping the next generation of technology builders. So a lot of students and engineers get to the next level quicker. Personally, you know, I'm a part of men's groups, active volunteer in the community. I wrote the book that you just mentioned, and all the proceeds from that book goes to helping childhood trauma survivors.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Awesome. And what's the name of your book?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

It's Before I Leave You, a memoir on suicide, addiction, and healing.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Very nice, very nice. I think that's a great topic because there's so many people who have dealt with so many things in life, but they haven't had an outlet or other resources that can help them. So I think that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah, I think sharing is a big part of it. I felt like it's giving other people permission to share as well and to really lay the groundwork for healing.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Now tell me, when I was reading your bio offline, just that you've been in, you know, you've dealt with mental health, SaaS founder, I think agriculture, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. So so tell me about, I guess, your life. How did you navigate through all these different areas and land up on you know SaaS and helping the next generation continue on with them developing tech products?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Right. Well, it's a bumpy road. Okay. In the beginning, chasing what I was curious about, even when I was 14, I was programming the late 80s. And I think learning as that evolved was it just always fascinated me, technology at that level. I yeah, became an engineer in 2003, and then I think I just wanted a job at that point, and I got one, and it was great. You know, kind of I went into massive credit card debt to buy out that business because I thought I could do a better job, which is very cheeky. I was very lucky it worked out and built some other projects. And one happened to hit, and that was Ascent, which is supply chain transparency, very boring in nature. But a part of that we was building the teams. You know, we built we have like a thousand local employees here, and yeah, and I exited that in 2019 with the birth of our first daughter, she was six months old, and I hired my successor, and that was that actually went well. She's still there, she's uh vice president at that company now. And it's funny because like the Monday after I quote unquote left on that Friday, the Monday after that my daughter crawled for the first time, and I was and it was like I did the right thing. I had no business leaving at when we did because like we couldn't afford our lifestyle. So we like we literally just sold everything and went to Southeast Asia, the three of us, for a year. Kind of we'll call it backpacking, but uh and yeah, just discovered the world with her. So I'm sure she won't remember, but I think it's good for her soul to have yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Ooh, I love how you said it's good for her soul. And tell me about why you say you know your daughter just walked the Monday after. What was your lifestyle, or what are you saying was happening before that?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

I mean, it was startup life, it was 85-hour weeks. That was just my life, and I think uh my wife was just used to it. Like I just I'm up at 4:30, I'm you know, I'm meditating, I'm working out, then I go to work, and sometimes I'm working till 10 that night. And I think that's was just a part of it. Always working, always and trying to learn at the same time. I'm always a lifelong learner, just always curious. And then after that trip or during that trip actually hit, and I landed in San Francisco and became an angel investor because I still loved being around founders and I loved being around that energy and that idealism and that you know that positivism. They just think they can change the world because and then they do. I love being a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

That's really cool. Yeah, I love that. And yeah, and going back to the as you said, for your daughters, it's just good for her soul, and it puts you guys too, I mean, your whole family in that whole area of taking care of yourselves internally or intrinsically, because I can't imagine. I mean, we've never been a founder, but I grew up in my dad's family marketing business. He started in 1980, and I've been a part of that business and now own it with him. I've been a part of it for 40 years, but it's 46 years old this year, which is almost a decade before the internet started, that he started that business, which is pretty incredible. So I've been around just the whole idea of entrepreneurialship, but never in that space of I think being a founder and working 80 plus hours a week. I think I've hit maybe 60 hours at times, and really just because of all the business we had going, but I felt like, oh, I need to be there and I need to make money. And that was my only focus was making money. So I think I did have burnout, and I also messed up things in terms of being able to help my wife once we started having kids, and I was still working those long hours and the first kid, second kid, third kid, and then didn't realize it till later when my mother-in-law still tells me, and I've been married 26 years, and we have three young adult kids, 18, 21, and 23 right now. But even my mom, my mother-in-law tells me today, she's like, Corey, remember back in the day when you were gone all the time? And Stephanie, my wife, would have me, you know, my mother-in-law coming over all the time, like, well, I don't remember because I was out working and doing other stuff and then exercising and doing stuff that was fun for me, not realizing the sacrifice commitment that my wife had. And she's a wonderful woman, and I'm starting to understand that now over the last several years of just trying to have the values that are family focused. And since I'm a Christian, what God would want me to do and how he wants me to serve other people. So, yeah, so thank you for sharing that. That's really good.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Yeah, I know that that's incredible. It's funny how that works, where yeah, it's hindsight. Yes. You know, you see you're looking in hindsight and you're looking at, oh, I could have spent my time here. And then as we get to be our age, you start realizing that we actually choose where we are. And I came back as a founder, and I joke I'm fully authorized to do so with my wife because you know the girls are in school, there's two of them now. Those girls are in school, so I have that time. But it looks very different for me, and my why is really it's just I have to build. I love building, and I need to model behavior. You know, I can only stand on so many speeches. I have to show them how to fail, how to get back up, how to be ambitious if that's what they want to be, right? I think all of those things, it's all interconnected, right? Like everything, like I say, everything is personal. I'm in the office 30 hours a week, and I make no mistake, I'm always working, as my wife would show show up. Um, I actually have a rule in the house that so my eldest is eight years old, and if she long story, but if she says orange juice, I have five seconds to put my phone away. Oh she'll count and she'll count down. Sometimes I'll go and answer an email, or I not thinking I'll have it in my hand. And I hate having it in my hand when they're around. That's just the thing that I don't want them to see. But like, yeah, and it's normal, it's gonna be a part of our lives for sure. But if she's trying to get my attention, she says orange juice, five, four, and then I have to put it away no matter what I'm doing. Um it actually turned into a fun game at the same time while honoring her time, and yeah, and even now, I'm just like I had them when I was a little older to realize those things. And my rule is I don't miss, I don't miss recitals, I don't miss school assemblies, I don't miss sporting events. You know, we kind of insist that they're a part of two sports at all time, and like as coach, coach basketball, like just it's a fun balance, I guess we'll call it for lack of a better word.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, no, that's cool. Yeah, we found with our kids being in sports, they learn teamwork, they learn how to work with their peers, they learn how to listen to another adult who's not us, and so they listen a little bit more to them than they would us when they were growing up. But what is your reason for having them in two sports? Is that the same kind of thing that it allows them to learn in different ways or stay productively busy?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I think I don't want to forfeit any potential with our because we did so much traveling, how to swim very, very young because we were more of a fear. And they're just fish. Like I have this video of my daughter swimming to the bottom of our 10-foot pool when she's three. Like she just got it. We spent a lot of time in Hawaii and in Indonesia and like surfing, and like she just stood up and then she knew how to manipulate the board. It was just like blowing my mind, and it just sort of got me thinking that like we're born with a lot of these things, and if she's gonna have the potential to swim, and I was I loved basketball, so I'd throw basketball and she would be able to catch it at 18 months, like a full-size basketball. I'm like, Yeah, let's just play and let's learn. And then, yeah, definitely the other side of it is yeah, teamwork is a huge thing. And eight is very young, but she's starting to realize that yeah, she wants playing time, that she wants to score or she wants to bring up the ball. She recognizes how to get open and how to feed her teammates so they can score and what that means for the team. So, like, yeah, those are life lessons. Every single one of those things is life lessons, and it just so happens she has like hand-eye coordination as well, which is fantastic. Um, and the other one is pivotal, so she's actually soul, so she's out there alone, and that's a whole different, I think, set of values and skills that she can translate to the real world.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Oh, that's very cool. I love that. And it sounds like, yeah, you've uh like when you took the year off, Southeast Asia, I believe, you had said that you included the family with some of that learning that you were writing in your book, you're authoring, and just including everybody, like you said, you might work all the time, but you have values that include not just the business side of things or not just the personal side, but everything's intermingled and kind of working and learning together as a group. So I think that's pretty awesome. And in terms of you being a founder or helping develop and then an angel investing, kind of what does that percentage look like, or what do you do on a regular day-to-day basis when you're helping other people? Unless that's all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, it always is. Like I always shy away from the like the idea of work-life balance because especially at this stage of company, it's zero to one time. It requires a lot of and a lot of interaction. I prefer face-to-face. Um, so I like to be in the office. It's surrounded by whiteboards and a big mural of Kobe Bryant and Terry Fox. And my listeners can go look up who Terry Fox is. Uh it's a kind of kind of a Canadian legend. Um I actually invested in a personal assistant who is overseas, and it's been fantastic to manage my email and my calendar and stuff. And it's funny because you get to step kind of pan out and look at what I am spending my time on. And my like people are trying to get into my calendar a lot. And you know, part of our go-to-market with this company is hackathons, where these university students are building these projects, and part of what they win is some time with me, which we're you know, it's hard to keep up with that. But it's my opportunity to a like mentor these young people who are like hugely ambitious. A lot of them are like they're building in a weekend what it would have taken me years. Like they and when you put them in frame, like I think in technology, we think we build on the shoulders of giants. Right. We're building on the learnings of others, and these kids are the next giants, right? And so I tell them that. I'm like, act accordingly, like you are the next giant. So, like you're gonna further along technology, gonna further along your life, you're gonna learn a lot, be curious. And a lot of them just want to learn how to pitch an investor, or what's next steps, or you know, how do you hire, how do you decide the things that you need to decide from day to day? How do you balance your calendar? And so I can help share that where I can and be a value to them. And it's we're hire, we're doing this in like intern program. We're we're hiring like 12 of them. Um it's all gonna be everything they build is gonna be open source, and so they're gonna like build their portfolio, build like open source projects that are gonna be out in the world, they're gonna learn a ton, and it's gonna be high pressure and heck of a lot of fun because I wouldn't do this if this wasn't fun. And and you know, and I want to you know satiate their curiosity and see where they are. So yeah. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

No, no, no, no, no, this is good because it's a great training ground, and I totally believe in when I do my executive coaching, and I've talked to many business owners and executives about really going back to that next generation and mentoring and laying a foundation because I look back at old school, what I called back in the 70s and 80s, where we had more mentoring going on or multi-generational knowledge being passed on because we were interacting with each other, whereas now tends to be people are siloed by themselves on their own device, either scrolling or they're not really having a two-way communication with anybody else face to face. It's mostly just interacting on a one-way device for the most part. So I like that idea of, like you said, being face-to-face and interacting and planting seeds and also giving some life, helping give some life to some of these kids who have this dream, this inspiration to just move forward. And then your whole attitude of it's fun, you know, it's fun for you, which is great, you know, to be able to do that, to be able to create some new awesome things, collaborate, and to be able to inspire some younger people. So I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah, no, there and there are frameworks, and I think how you describe like we are on our phones, and they're all like because of our attention now deficit, like they're getting smaller bite-sized nuggets, but they're often without context and often without the full learning. I joke that you know, and I say this to some of the, I call them kids, but they're in their 20s. I say that to some of the kids, I'm like, what if you had a superpower where you can learn from the best and brightest minds in history? And it's called reading because you actually have that superpower, right? It doesn't have to be the Cole's notes or you know, an Instagram reel. Like, if you actually read the book, you can have access to it. And then building on that, yeah, like you said, like it's mentors, it's humans in your life. There, and more often than not, when you ask for someone for mentorship or for help, they're gonna say yes, right? You get a chance to like mentor somebody, you know. That's you know, it I think that's a it's an opportunity. I have mentors still, I'm 53. We'll have a group of mentors, right? And like the sum, the average of what you become is I guess the average of five people you spend the most time with. And yeah, you can choose those five people. And I actually have a criteria. One, a lot of them have to like roast me, right? Keep me humble in a good way, good-natured way. And like they know that you know, when your friends roast each other, that's yeah, you live longer, you're happier, you're more honest, you're more humble. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I've never heard put that way that you live longer when people roast you.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

But like there's some there's some studies out there, and and yeah, yeah, that's I mean, the natures of our you know, long-term friendships, right? You know, I think you know, if we played sports with people, you know, the locker room talk and the chirping back and forth. I think it's a great part of life. Yeah, not often a great part of marriage, but uh right. I have a very patient wife, let's say.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, yeah, you have to be very intentional about that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, and I think some of them should be contrarian, right? They should really push you on their perspective. And I think those are worthwhile. And then you want your cheerleaders, you know, and this can all be the same person, right? The people that roast you and be contrarian and push you can be your greatest cheerleaders. And I think that's like those traits you need in your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, no, that's very good. Yeah, it's all great. You talking about community, the people we surround ourselves with, reading books. And I was actually just thinking about that. I can't remember if that was earlier today or yesterday, but just the whole idea of a lot of people want to watch YouTube videos or TikToks, even some of the educational ones or leadership ones, whatever you want to call them. And then there's books. And I've always been from old school, some of my mentors that have always said, Yeah, make sure you're reading 15 minutes a day. They didn't say watch a video, because maybe that's not where it started 50 years ago, of course. But do you I don't know if you feel there's a difference in reading and learning from these greats? That by the way, if they've written a book or somebody's written a book about them, about someone, you're getting potentially 50 years of learning in one book that might take you a month or however long it takes you, but you potentially are shaving off a lot of time because all of us have a limited amount of time. So, do you feel there's any difference between always watching on video or listening to podcasts or reading?

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yeah, well, I think they're all good and they're all greater than zero. I think there's definitely a spectrum. I think you read the same book at different times in your life, you're gonna have different takeaways. You're gonna need different things, and you're gonna, right? Things are gonna be of different value. Like you mentioned your Christianity. You read the Bible several times in your life, right? My wife's going through it now, and now she's a you know mother of two and potentially three soon. Like it's a different thing. It's a different thing. So I have different takeaways. I like it all. I love podcasts, and I actually like the video version of podcasts. I scroll through things like I think when it comes to social media, I'm very careful. I love X, but you really have to carve out the stuff that you don't want to see. You have to continually purge. And but there are magic moments for me. Like, I love technology, I like the future of AI and robotics. And so sometimes I feel like I'm looking into the future because the builders are there, and some of my feeds were like, oh my god, they're building this, which means they're likely gonna build this, which how is that gonna affect the world? And you really are, you're seeing things happen in real time.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

So that said, I'm careful with it. And it's I try not to have actually have even have it on my phone. But you can learn everywhere. I'm in the new Bill Gurley book right now, which is really diving deep into the thought of do you chase your passion for your career? Or do you chase and I think people have different avenues, but do you chase your passion, your curiosity, your contribution, right? Like what really are you going to base? And the biggest takeaway is that it doesn't have to be absolute, right? Okay. A lot of these young kids are how choosing their career, I'm like, that's okay. You'll likely change it. Plus, the world's gonna be different and the markets are gonna be different, the jobs are gonna be different. So yeah, I guess it is advocating for what is your value? You know, are you gonna chase your contribution or are you gonna chase your passion or your curiosity? And better, like they're they're just different. There, there's no better or worse.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yep. Yeah, and I like how you definitely mentioned the whole idea that you know, 10 years from now, the world's not gonna be the same, careers, jobs, service are not gonna be the same. And so it brings up the point to me of we really all of us as human beings need to really look at what moment in time are we at? Just like when you talked about before you didn't have kids, now you have two, and things are different, and your values are different. So really reflecting on a regular basis to say, hey, what's appropriate now? There's no real wrong answer or right answer. It's just what makes the most sense at this point. Yeah. And yeah, question with your values. How do you determine what your values are, like in this point in your life? You know, because you mentioned to me, and I can't remember because we had some glitches with this recording before, but if it was before this recording or not, but just the whole idea of you will never miss your kids' sporting events or time here, time there. And there are certain things where you've created both boundaries. And you've created values that just aren't going to change for you. And where does that come from when you remember? How did you grow up with that or learn that? That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah, like the two words that are more triggering in a good way. Boundaries is one of them, and integration is another. So I've gone through some you know trauma as a child, and revisiting that as an adult was very hard. And it's those traumas are they're not deletable. You can't go in and delete them, right? That's not what the purpose of therapy is or growing is. You actually integrate them and you can choose how they inform your decisions for the rest of your life. And so I chose that path. So I chose the awfulness of what's happened to inform me being a better father, husband, father, son, friend. Right. So like I can choose that, and anybody can, and you can do that at any time. Um and boundaries are I guess they they're a product of, and I really landed on, and we can talk about like I guess Buddhism and Christianity, which is our household. And there's a wonderful book by Tik Nod Han, which is Living Buddha, Living Christ, which is the overlap of those values. And you know, like my wife is into the Bible again right now, and I really follow the Eightfold Path, which is how to live, like kind of a framework to make decisions to kind of visit how I think with in my like when I'm having thoughts, I'm like, that is not right thought, and that's a part of the eightfold path, right action, right speech, right concentration, right meditation. All those things are all Christian values, but under right there, and even I'll catch myself. I'm like, should I even be thinking that? No, and that's kind of revealed in maybe neural pathways, or it also just releases me from that. I'm like, okay, well, I actually don't even need that in my mind, I can just move on. And those two things, and you know, my wife keeping me honest, obviously, all the time, because we talk a lot about this, and and yeah, how I think once I had that framework, I was able to build the next level. And how does that framework inform how we raise our children? And I wanted to be present all the time. Even when I exited and we traveled, like I always wanted to do something. The nature, I just I build, I was writing how I wrote the book. Yeah. So you know, I got up, you know, I work out, I go right for two hours, I come back, and then I'm fully present. And even now, like with being a founder, it requires a lot of time, a lot of mental bandwidth, a lot of focus. And I just decided, made the decision. I think that's the secret that I won't miss. Like, I just won't. Yeah. And however that means, board meetings can be moved, right? Like, I think we moved our meeting at some point. Like, we figure out what's important and it gets to our calendar, and we get to do it. And if it doesn't work out, I mean life goes on, we figure out another way. But like those are immutable, like those experiences, and what they don't see is they don't see me enjoying it like that. They see me, they see my face, they don't see the other side of a phone. Yeah, so yeah, sometimes to the chagrin of my wife because she wants it recorded. I'm just like, you know how I feel it. And we have friends that are recording it, so we're good.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Right, right, right. Yeah, no, that's great. No, that's very good. Now, getting back, we're winding down here, but let me know what's the best way people can find you? What are they looking for when they're looking to work with you or to be able to be helped by you and your services?

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, I'm very active on LinkedIn, that's just my chosen thing. I just I like it, it's more professional, and I'm opinionated on X as I am in life. I don't tweet as often as I used to, and it's just my name, Rob Bimbo. Okay, and how do you spell your last name? Oh, I M B E A U L T. Thank you very much. Yeah. And uh yeah, that's where my yeah, I'm active online and stuff. And uh feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time just to share your background, your life, your personal side, and your business, and just how you operate when it comes to your values and what's important to you. And I just love the just the differences you talked about, it's the different segments of your life. How you said, okay, hey, this is what's important now. Let's figure out how I'm gonna move forward from here. So thank you again for sharing. Yeah, thank you so much. It was a great conversation. Yes, yes, I really enjoyed it too. All right, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, where it's so important for us to model and be the example for our kids and those who are new founders or those in business. Also, to remember to integrate those learnings from any trauma or any things we think are challenging. Remember, there's a learning lesson in all of those things we can use. And also, too, in terms of communication, it's important that we have great communication with people. And we can have a safe word like orange juice that communicates hey, either we want more time or this is happening. And it's a safe way to just say, hey, I have something that's important to me. Can we both either talk about it or listen or change directions of what we're doing? So thank you very much for being here, and thank you, Rob. Thanks, Corey. Cheers.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

All right.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

So that's it for today's episode of Unapologetic Leadership. Head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Corey Dunham himself. So head on over to Unapologetic Leadership Podcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Corey's gift. And join us on the next episode.