For the last decade-plus, Canadian founders have been taught to chase the Silicon Valley model:
👉 move fast, scale aggressively, raise venture capital, worry about profits later.
But what if that model doesn’t actually fit Canada?
In this episode of Canada Now, I’m joined by Arman Mottaghi, founder and CEO of Properate, a climate technology company operating at the intersection of housing, energy, health, and public policy. What begins as a conversation about home energy assessments and indoor air quality quickly becomes something bigger: a reframing of how Canadian companies can — and maybe should — be built.
TUNE IN! ▶ YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | + more
💡 Properate: Innovation That Starts With Real Problems
Properate’s work is deceptively complex. At its core, the company helps homeowners understand how their homes perform — from energy efficiency to indoor air quality — and what improvements actually make sense.
But behind that is a deeply systems-level approach: aligning homeowners, contractors, utilities, and governments so everyone is working from the same information.
As Arman explains:
“Today I’m so happy that we are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, providers of energy assessment for homes in Canada.”
Properate’s tools are now licensed to over a million homes, white-labelled by governments, and used across multiple parts of the home upgrade ecosystem. Importantly, the company didn’t grow by chasing hype — it grew by solving real, often overlooked problems.
🏘 Homes, Health, and the Next Trillion-Dollar Opportunity
One of the most eye-opening parts of this conversation is Arman’s breakdown of indoor environment quality — and how little attention we pay to it.
We talk about how air quality affects cognition, sleep, childhood development, and long-term health. We talk about why Canadians often assume clean outdoor air means healthy indoor spaces (it doesn’t). And we talk about why this entire category is still massively undervalued.
As Arman puts it:
“When you look at the size of the healthy food industry, bottled water, water filtration — these are trillion-dollar industries. I think that’s the kind of opportunity we’re looking at when it comes to indoor air.”
This is climate tech, yes — but it’s also health tech, housing tech, and economic infrastructure.
🎧 Tune In to the Full Episode
Canada Now | Episode 12: Building What Lasts: Climate Tech, Cash Flow, and a Canadian Model of Innovation
🇨🇦 The Case for a Canadian Innovation Model
The conversation really sharpens when we step back and look at the broader startup landscape.
Arman doesn’t mince words about what happens when Canadian founders are trained exclusively on Silicon Valley logic:
“We have been spinning our wheels for 15 years teaching founders to focus on the Silicon Valley innovation model… When you make a Silicon Valley company in Canada, where does it want to go? It wants to go to Silicon Valley.”
The result? Founder frustration. Brain drain. Companies optimized for investor narratives rather than customers.
Instead, Arman argues for something far more aligned with Canadian realities.
That philosophy shows up clearly in how Properate was built: bootstrapped, revenue-driven, employee-aligned, and designed for long-term durability.
It’s time for us to refocus towards a model that’s native to Canada — one that focuses on reliability, the people who work in the company, and the customers.
🎯 Bootstrapping, Trust, and Saying No
One of the most practical parts of the episode is Arman’s take on funding and decision-making.
After years of pitching investors and building hockey-stick projections, the breakthrough came when the company became cash-flow positive. From there, everything changed.
“Bootstrapping became obvious. Why was I making up numbers three years into the future when we were already making sales?”
That shift allowed Properate to:
prioritize customers over investors
build auditable, trustworthy technology
resist hype cycles (including AI-for-AI’s-sake)
give employees meaningful ownership
For Arman, the lesson for founders is simple — and hard:
You have to learn to say no. What you say no to is more important than what you say yes to.
🍁 Final Thought
This episode isn’t anti-innovation. And it isn’t anti-ambition.
It’s a reminder that Canada doesn’t need to copy someone else’s playbook to build world-class companies. We can build differently — with patience, credibility, revenue, and trust — and still scale meaningful impact.
Properate isn’t just a climate tech success story. It’s a case study in what Canadian innovation can look like when it’s built to last.
👤 About the Guest
Arman Mottaghi is the Founder & CEO of Properate, a Canadian climate technology company focused on improving home energy performance and indoor environment quality. He has been recognized as a Canada Clean50 Emerging Leader and has served on the board of the BC Sustainable Energy Association. His work sits at the intersection of housing, health, energy policy, and technology — with a strong emphasis on long-term, systems-level change.
Learn more:
Arman on LinkedIn | Properate - Company Website | Properate on YouTube
✏ Episode Show Notes
📌 Topics Covered
Why indoor air quality is a hidden health and climate issue
How Properate scaled by aligning homeowners, contractors, utilities, and governments
The risks of importing Silicon Valley startup logic into Canada
Bootstrapping vs. venture funding
Building durable, trust-based companies
Why Canada needs its own innovation model
🎥 Episode Chapters
(Jump straight to the parts you care about.)
⏰ Timestamps
00:00 – Why Canada needs its own innovation model
01:03 – Meet Arman Mottaghi & the mission behind Properate
02:24 – From building science to climate tech founder
04:22 – Why homes are one of the most underestimated climate levers
07:09 – Scaling impact: homeowners, contractors, utilities & government
09:18 – Why home retrofits aren’t just about ROI
12:24 – Aligning incentives across systems
15:19 – Explaining a complex business model in plain language
17:08 – Indoor air quality & the hidden health impacts in our homes
20:11 – Why air may be the next trillion-dollar industry
22:08 – Talking about health, homes & awareness without fear
24:06 – How homeowners can start improving indoor environments
27:12 – Why Europe moved faster on building science than Canada
29:15 – Missed innovation opportunities & economic upside
31:27 – The Canadian startup landscape at 30,000 feet
33:04 – Building for the long term vs chasing trends
36:03 – Why Properate didn’t follow the Silicon Valley playbook
38:29 – AI, trust, and why reliability matters more than hype
41:48 – Bootstrapping, cash flow & rejecting showman entrepreneurship
45:18 – When revenue changed everything
47:27 – Stability as a competitive advantage
49:35 – Why importing the U.S. startup model hurts Canada
52:13 – Advice for founders: learning to say no
55:22 – What Canada should focus on building next
56:39 – Where to learn more & closing thoughts
If you’re a fan of Canadian innovation and curated Canadian content, check out some of my other favourite newsletters on Beehiiv! 🐝👇
— Ashley Smith (@ashleysmithnow)