About Marc
Marc Lafleur had holes in his shoes at sixteen. He was homeschooled up until high school, where he struggled to fit in as the only Black student in his small hometown. He was a troubled kid whose teachers and peers counted out. His entrepreneurial journey didn’t begin until he heard that Snapchat turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook. That’s when everything changed. In 2016, at age twenty-five, he co-founded truLOCAL— an online marketplace for consumers to connect with local farmers and producers. Over the course of five years—as cofounder and CEO—he grew the business to over sixty employees and expanded across Canada. Following a string of successes, including a successful pitch on Dragons’ Den and then landing the cover of the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, truLOCAL’s story culminated in a $16.8 million dollar acquisition in 2020. Three years later, Marc published his first book with Forbes, ‘True Founder: What No One Else Has The Guts to Teach You About Starting Your First Business’, which quickly became an Amazon best-seller. Today, Marc is the CEO of DB8 Labs, a prompt engineering firm specializing in custom AI solutions for businesses. Marc’s passion lies in speaking with entrepreneurs and first-time founders and mentoring young people.
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