Neil Cawse & Geotab: The Billion-Dollar Company That Never Raised a Dollar

Neil Cawse is the founder and CEO of Geotab, one of Canada’s largest privately held technology companies, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.Geotab processes over 100 billion data points daily from more than 6 million vehicles. Neil built the company without raising outside venture capital.In this conversation, we talk about South Africa, the 1994 election database story, moving to Canada, building Geotab without VC, ruthless transparency, low ego, AI, and why Canada can be a serious place to build.Chapters(00:00) Introduction and Geotab’s claims to fame(03:00) Growing up in Johannesburg(07:00) Starting Vircom(09:00) The 1994 election database story(15:00) Moving to Canada(17:00) The reseller strategy(21:00) Landing Orkin(24:00) Engineering feedback loops(26:00) Transparency and family dynamics(32:00) Checking your ego(35:00) The ELD mandate(38:00) Samsara and the 2018 dividend mistake(41:00) USPS and government contracts(45:00) Altitude and smart cities(50:00) AI and the future of work(53:00) Canada vs. the US for founders(59:00) Ruthless transparencyRead the written version of this caseSubscribe to Not SorryOne minute a day: The Daily Cold Call, on Instagram at @notsorrybryan