From Vision to $16.8M Acquisition: What Founders Can Learn from Marc Lafleur’s Journey with truLOCAL
What real startup success looks like
At the recent Black Builders Toronto event on August 30, 2024, I had the privilege of hearing Marc Lafleur share his journey firsthand. As the founder of truLOCAL and a successful Black entrepreneur, Lafleur’s story resonated deeply with everyone in the room. His candor, humility, and unfiltered insights into the highs and lows of entrepreneurship left a lasting impression. What struck me most was his determination to turn his early promises into reality, no matter the odds. Inspired by his remarkable journey from humble beginnings to leading a multi-million-dollar exit, I felt it was only fitting to share his story with you guys on this Issue 7.
It’s easy to romanticize success. We often see the headlines about big exits, the glossy profiles of successful founders, and the final chapters of entrepreneurial stories. But what we rarely see is the long, winding road filled with uncertainty, late nights, and moments of doubt. The reality behind every successful venture is a series of hard-fought battles, personal sacrifices, and the relentless pursuit of a vision. For Marc Lafleur, co-founder of truLOCAL, that journey wasn’t just about building a company or making a fortune; it was about proving to himself—and to the world—that his vision could reshape an industry and create real impact.
truLOCAL, the e-commerce company that started with the simple idea of delivering locally sourced meat to health-conscious consumers, became a $20 million-a-year business. Its acquisition in 2020 for $16.8 million marked the culmination of five years of relentless dedication, strategic thinking, and tenacity. Yet, Lafleur’s story is far from the typical "overnight success" narrative often associated with Silicon Valley founders. Instead, it is a masterclass in resilience, the power of relationships, and the importance of adaptability in the face of uncertainty.
His journey began in much humbler circumstances. Growing up in Cornwall, a small town outside of Ottawa, Lafleur faced the challenges of being homeschooled for much of his early life. When he entered high school, the transition was tough—he struggled with academics, had few friends, and spent most of his time immersed in video games. But it was during these formative years that Lafleur began to develop the resilience that would later define his entrepreneurial career. By high school, he had discovered his first taste of success through small victories, like making his high school football team after an intense summer of training. These small wins began to build his confidence and gave him a belief that hard work, when applied with focus, could produce significant results.
However, Lafleur didn’t always know he wanted to be an entrepreneur. In fact, like many young people, he struggled to figure out his path. His initial goal was to become a dentist, believing that the stability of a professional career would solve his problems. But after failing his first-year university courses, he quickly realized that the traditional career path wasn’t for him. It wasn’t until he was inspired by the $3 billion offer Facebook made to Snapchat that Lafleur decided to try his hand at entrepreneurship. The idea that a simple app could be worth billions sparked something in him. Along with his roommates, he naively believed they could replicate Snapchat’s success. This led to his first venture, an app called Tell, which allowed users to send disappearing messages.
The Value of Failure and Naivety
Lafleur’s early ventures, including Tell and a task-sharing platform called DashTask, both failed. In hindsight, he admits that these failures were the result of a combination of naivety and lack of experience. He and his co-founders had little understanding of the complexities of building a business and vastly underestimated the challenges ahead. “We thought we could do it with just $15,000. We were calling developers on Kijiji, thinking we could get an app built for $2,000,”Lafleur recalls. These early failures were not immediate lessons in business strategy but rather lessons in humility.
At the time, Lafleur didn’t realize how much these ventures were teaching him. Instead of focusing on scaling or building sustainable business models, he was simply trying to make something work, experimenting with ideas in the hopes that one would catch on. This trial-and-error approach might have seemed aimless at the time, but it laid the groundwork for his future success. Each failure taught him something new about market fit, customer behavior, and the sheer grit required to build something from the ground up. “The idea that you need to know exactly what you're doing to get started is completely false,” he often says. “You just need to start. The rest you figure out along the way.”
Quitting the Safety Net: Going All In
truLOCAL wasn’t Lafleur’s first big idea, but it was the first one that he approached with total commitment. For four years, he worked a full-time job in door-to-door meat sales while working on side ventures like Tell and DashTask. When those ventures failed, Lafleur took a hard look at why. He realized that part of the reason for his earlier failures was that he was treating these startups like side projects. “I was holding on to a safety net with my job. It wasn’t until I decided to quit and go all in on truLOCAL that I started treating it like a real business,” Lafleur explains.
Quitting his stable job was a pivotal moment. It marked the point where Lafleur fully committed to his vision, sacrificing financial security and personal comfort to build something bigger. His experience selling meat door-to-door gave him unique insight into consumer behavior and the meat industry, and it was this combination of experience and determination that helped him craft the idea for truLOCAL. He recognized a gap in the market: while there were many meal kit services like HelloFresh and Chef’s Plate, no one was focusing exclusively on protein. Lafleur saw an opportunity to connect health-conscious consumers with high-quality, locally sourced meat through an online subscription service.
Have a Vision, Not Just a Product
When truLOCAL launched in 2015, e-commerce was booming, and food delivery services were rapidly gaining popularity. But Lafleur didn’t want to create just another generic food delivery service. Instead, he focused on a specific niche—delivering high-quality, locally sourced meat to health-conscious consumers. “We weren’t just selling meat,” he says. “We were building trust. The brand had to mean something beyond the product.”
For Lafleur, building a brand that resonated with consumers was about more than offering a great product. He understood that the success of truLOCAL would depend on building a brand that consumers could trust and rely on. This meant paying attention to every detail, from the sourcing of the meat to the user experience on the website. In the early days, he and his co-founder handled everything themselves, from packing boxes in a retrofitted mechanics shop to delivering meat to customers.
What set truLOCAL apart was its focus on sustainability, transparency, and quality. Lafleur wasn’t interested in quick wins or flash sales. He wanted truLOCAL to be a brand that stood for something meaningful, and that meant focusing on long-term value rather than short-term gains. Too often, founders get bogged down in the excitement of launching a product, losing sight of the larger vision. They think, “How can I get people to buy?” instead of asking, “What value am I truly offering? What experience am I creating?” Lafleur didn’t fall into that trap. truLOCAL wasn’t just about meat—it was about convenience, trust, and quality.
Expect to Pivot, and Don’t Apologize for It
Here’s another truth most people don’t want to talk about: the business you start will almost never be the business you end up with. Lafleur understood that truLOCAL couldn’t stay in its initial form if it was going to thrive. Originally, the company positioned itself as an online butcher shop. It was simple, clean, and effective—but difficult to scale.
By paying attention to consumer behavior and market trends, Lafleur saw a bigger opportunity. He realized that instead of just being an online butcher, truLOCAL could become a platform, connecting local farmers to consumers directly. This pivot allowed the company to scale faster, expand its offerings, and eventually become a technology-driven business that provided digital storefronts for farmers. This shift transformed truLOCAL into a Shopify-like platform for local meat producers, allowing them to sell directly to consumers through truLOCAL’s infrastructure.
In the startup world, pivots are often discussed in hushed tones, as if they’re a sign of failure. But Lafleur embraced pivoting as a natural part of the entrepreneurial journey. “The initial idea is rarely the one that succeeds. What matters is your ability to observe, learn, and adjust,” he says. Pivoting in business isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign that you're learning, adapting, and getting closer to product-market fit.
Resilience is Your Greatest Asset—Learn to Use It
Every founder will tell you that the ability to bounce back from failure is crucial, but resilience isn’t about just keeping your head down and pushing through. It’s about learning from setbacks, adapting, and growing stronger because of them. Lafleur knows this better than most. “When you’ve come from adversity, when you’ve been told ‘no’ more often than not, and you’ve been counted out, you're not scared of hard work,” he says.
Lafleur’s journey with truLOCAL wasn’t smooth. There were logistical challenges, financial strains, and personal sacrifices along the way. In the first two years, he didn’t take a salary and had to sell personal assets, including his investment property, to keep the company afloat. He and his co-founder would spend hours packing boxes and making deliveries, doing everything they could to ensure the business survived. “There were sleepless nights and moments where we didn’t know if we’d make it,” Lafleur recalls. But instead of being disheartened by the challenges, he embraced them as part of the process. Each failure or setback was an opportunity to learn and improve.
Focus on Relationships, Not Transactions
Contrary to the myth of the solo genius founder, Lafleur’s success with truLOCAL was built on relationships—with local farmers, customers, investors, and his team. “We worked hard to create partnerships with local farmers who believed in what we were doing. Without those relationships, truLOCAL wouldn’t have been able to scale,” he explains. Building trust with suppliers ensured a consistent, high-quality product, and fostering relationships with customers helped build a loyal community around the brand.
For Lafleur, it wasn’t just about closing sales. It was about creating a seamless customer experience, built on trust and transparency. Customers weren’t just buying meat—they were buying into the values truLOCAL stood for: sustainability, quality, and supporting local farmers. This focus on customer relationships translated into high retention rates, a crucial metric for any subscription-based business. Lafleur knew that offering an excellent product was just the beginning; building long-term relationships with customers would ensure steady growth.
Lafleur’s approach to relationships extended to his investors as well. When he pitched truLOCAL on Dragons' Den, he wasn’t just looking for capital—he was seeking a partner who could help him navigate the challenges of scaling a business. Securing a deal with Michele Romanow provided not only the funds to grow truLOCAL but also the mentorship and networks needed to take the company to the next level. “Michele’s experience was invaluable. She opened doors I wouldn’t have had access to on my own,” Lafleur says.
Additionally, Lafleur’s unconventional decision to hire close friends early on is often viewed with skepticism by business experts, but for him, it was key to building a strong, loyal team. “The best thing you can ever do is hire friends. What you really need are people who are going to hustle, people who actually care,” he explains. The dedication of this close-knit team paid off. The first 10 employees were either Lafleur’s friends or friends of friends, and they all stayed with the company when it was acquired.
The Real Meaning of Scaling
Scaling a business is often misunderstood as simply getting bigger—more users, more revenue, more employees. But Lafleur’s experience with truLOCAL shows that true scaling is about much more than growth. It’s about optimizing processes, improving margins, and making the business more efficient as it expands. Scaling is also about building the infrastructure that allows a company to handle growth without collapsing under the weight of its own success.
For truLOCAL, logistics were a major hurdle, especially as the company expanded across Canada and into the U.S. Managing a supply chain for fresh, perishable goods at scale is no small feat, and there were plenty of sleepless nights figuring out how to ensure every box arrived fresh and on time. “Dealing with perishable products is not for the faint of heart. Every step in the supply chain had to be flawless, or we’d lose the trust we’d worked so hard to build,” says Lafleur.
Additionally, as truLOCAL grew, so did the complexity of managing the team. Hiring fast and building a cohesive company culture was as important as hitting sales targets. “You have to trust your team and give them the tools to succeed. It’s not just about you anymore,” he reflects. Lafleur describes scaling not as a marathon but as a series of sprints. “If you’re just kind of slowly and steadily running through this journey, you’re going to get blown up. Instead, I focus on intense bursts of effort followed by periods of rest and reevaluation,” he says.
Through this lens, scaling becomes less about growth for growth’s sake and more about refining processes, improving efficiency, and ensuring the company remains nimble even as it grows. By focusing on sustainable scaling, truLOCAL was able to handle rapid growth while maintaining the quality and customer experience that defined the brand.
Writing, Mentoring, Giving Back and Exploring AI
Since the acquisition of truLOCAL, Lafleur has transitioned into a new phase of his career, pivoting from founder to author, mentor, and investor. His book, True Founder: What No One Else Has the Guts to Teach You About Starting Your First Business, is a candid and practical guide for aspiring entrepreneurs, distilling the hard-earned lessons of his journey into actionable advice. “I wrote True Founder because I wanted to share the things no one talks about—the real, gritty stuff,” Lafleur explains. The book has resonated with readers, offering insights not just on building a business but on the mindset and resilience required to succeed.
Lafleur’s pivot from founder to mentor hasn’t slowed his entrepreneurial spirit. He’s now exploring opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI), with a particular focus on how AI can revolutionize industries the way e-commerce transformed food delivery. “AI is the next frontier,” he says. “It’s like e-commerce in its early days—there’s so much untapped potential. I’m excited to be part of that journey.” His interest in AI is driven by the same curiosity and passion for innovation that fueled truLOCAL’s success, and he’s eager to see how this emerging technology will shape the future.
In addition to his work in AI, Lafleur has become a passionate advocate for underrepresented entrepreneurs. His truLOCAL Equal Opportunity Grant, which provides funding to Black entrepreneurs, is part of his mission to give others the opportunities he didn’t have. “I didn’t have mentors when I was starting out, and I didn’t have access to capital. I want to make sure the next generation of founders has those things,” he shares. Through this initiative, as well as his mentoring work and public speaking engagements with companies like Google and Lululemon, Lafleur is committed to empowering minority entrepreneurs to navigate the often brutal realities of starting a business.
Final Thoughts
Marc Lafleur’s journey with truLOCAL is more than just a business success story—it’s proof of the power of vision, resilience, adaptability, and relationships. It’s a story that demonstrates how starting with humble beginnings and overcoming failures can lead to remarkable achievements. But most importantly, it’s a reminder that success in business isn’t about the big exit or the acquisition—it’s about building something that solves real problems and creates tangible value.
For entrepreneurs looking to follow in Lafleur’s footsteps, the message is clear: don’t just chase success. Build it, nurture it, and when the time comes, know when to pivot and step back to let it thrive. Success is about doing the right things, in the right way, at the right time. And that’s exactly what Marc Lafleur did.
The insights that I have shared are drawn from Marc Lafleur’s session at the Black Builders Toronto event, as well as conversations he’s had with various entrepreneurs and thought leaders. If you want to hear more from Marc, many of these discussions are available on YouTube. You’ll find interviews where he talks candidly about building truLOCAL, his entrepreneurial mindset, and the lessons he learned along the way. Be sure to check them out for even more valuable insights.