Dave Macleod

The health care or education sector—which could use more help in solving problems? If you’re Dave Macleod, you tackle both at the same time and do it from the small Kootenay resort community of Rossland, B.C.

Macleod is the CEO of Thoughtexchange, a technology company that provides powerful collaboration tools to large institutions like school districts and health boards. He made his first sale five short years ago and has guided the company to where they now regularly sign multi-year deals worth millions of dollars across Canada and the United States. At his core, Macleod enjoys helping large groups solve problems. That will serve him well as his company continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

How did you come to choose this line of work?

I’ve alway loved working with groups of people. I spent quite a few years as an outdoor guide and then worked as a community consultant where I spent most of my time creating ways for people to share thoughts, feel heard and consider new points of view. I ran events like World Cafes, Open Space meetings and worked with people to invent all sorts of ways to solve problems by hearing from as many people as possible.

In 2009 I ran into Jim Firstbrook who had an idea to use the Internet to gather the wisdom of crowds. What Jim was building in software was incredibly similar to what I was doing in rooms but I of course realized software had the advantage of hearing from all the people who don’t or can’t come to meetings. My career in software began shortly after I saw Jim’s earliest alpha release of Thoughtexchange.

What is it about your work that has you excited to get out of bed in the morning?

As a business we send more than one million emails every month to communities across North America and we've inspired hundreds of thousands of people to share thoughts and then consider other points of view. That’s pretty cool. So far we’ve mostly worked in health and education so we have done a lot to help solve all sorts of problems that arise when public leaders need to make big changes. In the last year we have helped our customers raise over $1 billion for education improvement projects and we see messages every day from appreciative participants sharing how happy they are to be able to share their thinking and learn from one another while decisions are being made.

All to say, we are pretty lucky as a company. We have really awesome staff (over 70 now) who are building a really valuable thing that helps do really meaningful work. So getting out of bed is pretty easy actually. Always lots to do during the week and (especially this year) lots of powder on the weekends.

What’s your focus for 2016?

In 2016 we are working on a pretty exciting new Thoughtexchange product for teams while continuing to sell and support our existing large organization product. Both of these projects are huge challenges, and we are aiming to double again this year. Our software and services are now used by public leaders in almost every province and territory in Canada and we are working in 22 states so far. By the end of 2016 we are planning to have a lot of growth and a new product we will be selling into new markets. And we are hoping to hire more staff here in the Kootenays in order to do so.

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur in the Kootenays?                

About four years ago we made a decision to have our head office here in the Kootenays because we felt we could attract and retain incredible people around here who like to work hard and play hard. Turns out we were right. We have been able to hire many talented, passionate, world-class staff with really strong skills in technology, community engagement and business management. The Kootenays attract awesome people and it is a great place to have a company.  That said, we are not exclusively a Kootenay company and we also have staff around B.C. Along with our local head office in Rossland, we have one in Port Moody and are about to open one in downtown Vancouver.  Currently we have about 70 staff all around B.C. and just over 20 have been hired here in the Kootenays and we plan to hire more soon. We all keep in touch using technology and it works great.

On a personal note , my wife and I grew up in small towns in the Cariboo region and we now have three boys aged three, four and six. Being able to have a career in tech while raising my kids in a small town where they get to know all their neighbours, walk to school, feel safe, avoid endless traffic and ski on Red Mountain is a pretty great balance. I know other local staff feel the same way. I think the world is ready for lots of innovative companies to thrive in small towns.