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Vlad Sherbatov: Vaulte is a
Toronto based startup that

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specializes in verifiable
digital signatures. Meyer,

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welcome to the program.

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Meyer Mechanic: Thanks for
having me Vlad.

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Vlad Sherbatov: Why did you
decide to start a company? And

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why did you decide to start
Vaulte?

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Meyer Mechanic: Vaulte started
when me and my co founder

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Demetri. We're having beers one
night, and we're asking

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ourselves the question, why
can't you sign your will,

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digitally, the law said that it
had to be in writing. But all

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these other laws have changed
for digital signatures, why not

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wills? And the more we dug into
it, and the more we dug into

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digital signatures, the more we
started to realize that there

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were kinks in the armor, that
these things weren't as

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protective as we thought they
were. And that if we really

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wanted something that you could
sign your will, with, which is

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you know, all of your worldly
possessions. We need to rethink

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these from the ground up for
compliance. Both of us liked the

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idea of building something for
ourselves. That's kind of

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important, if you want to be an
entrepreneur. It's funny because

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different things motivate you at
different times, when you're

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building a company. I think in
the phase where we were coming

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up with an answer, what was
fascinating to us was the hunt.

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Why didn't this have an answer?
What do we need to put into an

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answer? What can we do? And then
once we had that answer, then

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well there was the next jump
off, is we're going to dedicate

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our full time to it. And that
was, is the opportunity big

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enough? Can we do something with
it? Is this a hole that we want

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to dive down for, you know,
potentially the rest of our

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lives? And all of those answers
were interesting. And they test

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your mettle every day. Because
when you're in the slog of it,

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and you know, something in the
codebase isn't going right, or

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you have a customer who's not
happy with something, you know,

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you question those decisions,
but at the same time, what

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motivates you through is I'm
doing something interesting.

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Vlad Sherbatov: Did you always
want to be an entrepreneur, or

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did this something that you
decided to do right before going

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into Vaulte?

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Meyer Mechanic: I had a very
safe route planned. And I went

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into my MBA, knowing that I had
a safe route plan for when I was

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done with it. A third of the way
through, something happened that

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kind of derailed that plan. And
that pushed me into a world

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where I was able to really
explore, I was suddenly in open

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water. And I really got to open
my eyes to say like, oh, this is

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what life is like on the open
water. And I kinda got the catch

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for sailing. From there.
Building your own boat and

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sailing across the ocean just
seems like the next natural

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step. And it feels great. One of
the things that gets underlooked

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so often when you're starting a
company, is the fact that none

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of us can do it alone. The most
important thing you're gonna get

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as an entrepreneur is your
community. Surround yourself

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with good people, surround
yourself with good mentors,

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surround yourself with good
accelerators. Before I give a

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shout out to any of my
professors, I need to give a

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shout out to my partner Dimitri.
He's our he's my CTO, he's my co

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founder in this. And you know,
the nights that we're up till

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two in the morning, just
discussing how to build this

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thing have been fascinating ever
since. of the professors that

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inspired me that have sort of
gotten me to this point. There

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was Neil Buckley at York
University, who was my game

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theory Prof. Which sort of
taught me about the math behind

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how people think. There was
Francesco Bova, who was my

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accounting Prof, at Rotman, too,
who's answered some of the most

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insane questions for me, even
now. Last year, we were talking

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about blockchain economics on
your balance sheet, which is as

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boring of a subject as it
sounds, but the actual answers,

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they were fascinating,

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Vlad Sherbatov: don't forget to
subscribe to the Smarter Loans

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YouTube channel for more videos
that will help you make smarter

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financial decisions.