There’s a motto I live by: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.
We’re thrilled to welcome Jean-François Côté, co-founder and former CEO of advertising technology company Sharethrough, as our newest Entrepreneur in Residence.
JF was 15 when he launched his first company, teaming up with his grandfather to install hockey card vending machines in Montreal’s southern suburbs. His second entrepreneurial journey happened two decades later when the rise of the digital economy sent companies scrambling for safe tools to advertise online.
At the time, JF had years of experience in finance and was working for Yellow Pages, where he’d conducted dozens of acquisitions and was building a digital marketing services branch. In that role, he had a front-row seat to the online revolution and identified an opportunity for trustworthy technology connecting advertisers with publishers.
He convinced four co-workers to follow him. Together, they created District M in 2013, a marketplace for real-time auctions tailoring ads to users driven by technologies and algorithms. Before long, the company raised capital and expanded in the U.S., where it bought an industry leader from Silicon Valley, Sharethrough. After pausing IPO plans in late 2021 and focusing on scaling organically, JF and his co-founders decided to sell the company to France-based Equativ last year to build one of the world’s top players in the advertising technology industry.
JF’s drive and experience make him a valuable resource to founders looking to expand and scale in the U.S. market. We sat down with him to discuss the pitfalls of diversification, the importance of listening, and why he prefers sports jerseys with no names on the back.
TELL US SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU
I’m a big music guy. My speaker is always on in my office. I enjoy different styles but I listen to a lot of classical music when I work. These days, one of my favourites is Montreal composer and pianist Jean-Michel Blais. He’s fantastic. My wife and kids play the piano. I don’t play it, but I love it.
CAN YOU SHARE ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES OR FAILURES THAT YOU LEARNED FROM?
We started an SMB-focused division in 2018. Until then, our clients were the largest advertisers, Fortune 500 companies, but my co-founders and I wanted to build an offer that could beat Yellow Pages, where we all came from. We invested in this project with passion, love, and ego. And we lost. COVID happened. We shut down the division and lost money.
I learned that you need to be very careful with ego and passion, because they kept us investing in a market that was not a good fit and was not our core business. You need to be highly focused to have success.
WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU RECEIVED IN YOUR CAREER?
“Listen more than you talk. You have two ears, one mouth.”
It came from a CEO I worked for back in the day when I was in my early 30s. And that helped me change the way I lead. It is so important to listen carefully.
WHAT’S A QUESTION YOU WISH PEOPLE ASKED YOU MORE OFTEN?
What’s the most important ingredient of your company’s success? Culture. A strong culture unites people, turning them into a team that rallies together to win. It’s about shared leadership, shared purpose, and a collective identity — logo on the chest, no name on the back, like the jerseys of classic sports franchises such as the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees. Together, we go to battle, win together, and lose together.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU? HOW DO YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF?
The last four years were like running an ultra marathon. I don’t know how I didn’t fall on my knees the past two years, but sometimes I was close. My wife and kids, my co-founders, supported me through that journey. It helped a lot to continue and achieve our common goals together.
There’s a motto I live by: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. It gives me the energy and passion to keep pushing, take action, and seize opportunities, even when success isn’t guaranteed.
IN YOUR ROLE AT INOVIA, WHAT QUESTIONS SHOULD FOUNDERS ASK YOU?
I want to support other Canadian tech entrepreneurs looking to expand and succeed in the U.S. market. Ask me about scaling; I’m obsessed with it.
I would also like to help the new generation of founders avoid blind spots by challenging them. Once you are having some success, it’s easy to think that you can walk on water and then start making bad decisions – I’ve made these mistakes myself. Ambition is a must but with less ego and more humility.