MARC LAFLEUR had holes in his shoes at sixteen. As the only Black kid in an all white Catholic school, life was tough. His entrepreneurial journey didn’t begin until he heard that Snapchat turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook. That’s when everything changed. By 2016, at the age of twenty-five, he 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 the country. Following a successful pitch on Dragons’ Den, truLOCAL became a runaway success culminating in a $16.8 million acquisition in 2020. Marc was thirty years old at the time.

Today Marc shares his unique perspective on business from the lens of someone who nobody thought would make it. He has been asked to share his knowledge with the likes of Lululemon, Google, FedEx, and various academic institutions. Marc is currently doing keynote talks at conferences across the United States and Canada