Ever since I was born, I’ve been accustomed to the ins and outs of entrepreneurship. My father is a successful entrepreneur who used to have me sleep on his office desks when I was very young at his auto parts store in Montreal. From there, he became a manufacturer and I was exposed to the long hours (and often middle of night calls) when the machines are humming, or stop doing so. So one could say that the roller coaster ride of being an entrepreneur is something that I was exposed to at a very young age and what a gift that was, for I understand that change in life comes quickly and other times comes slower, but it always comes.

So here we are today at renewz, having launched our second phase of life, abandoning the installation of projects to focus on our intellectual property at both hardware and software levels. This new phase is characterized by a bit of old (bruno and manish have rejoined me after spending years having fun together at ICP Solar) and a lot of new (new brand, website, license deal and strategy). It is one of excitement and yet accompanied by the prudence accumulated by our team’s years of experience in the software and hardware ends of things.

The new website launch was yesterday and we’ve already received many compliments on its clarity of purpose, which was a big issue not only with our older website, but also within renewz itself. We knew we had something special with Giulio Barbieri, yet it took some time for he and myself to get comfortable that the partnership had solid legs and was the right path for both. He has opened his information bank to us because we are now aligned perfectly. The direction is similar, the personalities share the same passion and expressiveness, and the vision is aligned.

Bringing Manish into renewz as a principal was one of the easiest decisions I’ve had to make at renewz. He was an absolute pleasure to work with at ICP, and remains so today, yet with years of experience at Office Depot leading their global e-commerce initiatives. Turning renewz into a software-enabled company will be his job. I’m just going to sit back and watch him shine, ensuring to provide him with the resources we need to thrive. Having Bruno at my side feels more like a long lost friend has returned. We went through so much together at ICP, and then he went onto becoming a client. His experiences have brought him to where today he will lead our product development and help direct the marketing of the wares we create.

A time of excitement and appreciation for every step and everyone who was involved in helping us get to where we are. Some had to leave along the way, some have remained, yet the reality is that renewz is a sum of its history to date and will be every step of the way, so only gratitude can be expressed to all those who helped it get to where it is now.