Reza Satchu and NEXT Canada: Building the Nation’s Next Generation of Founders

Canada has no shortage of smart, ambitious people with great ideas. What’s harder to find is the kind of early support that helps turn those ideas into real companies. For many first-time founders, the biggest obstacles aren’t creativity or drive, but uncertainty and inexperience. Solving that problem is what Reza Satchu set out to do when he created NEXT Canada, an initiative designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs move from thinking about building something to actually doing it.

Satchu has plenty of experience founding and selling companies and has taught entrepreneurship courses at the university level for years. Through his experience, he developed a view about what aspiring founders need most: the ability to make decisions when information is incomplete and to keep moving forward even when the route is unclear. “You’re never going to have perfect information,” Satchu said in an interview with Exeleon Magazine. “Any idiot can make a decision with perfect information. People always want more info before they leap… Most people never commit because they think the next option will be better.”

From Classroom Idea to National Program

The seed for NEXT Canada grew out of Satchu’s experience teaching The Economics of Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto. His students were bright and ambitious, but many struggled to move beyond theory into the real work of launching a venture. Satchu did not take a salary for that class and instead funded $5,000 scholarships for top students. What he learned from those early interactions guided his thinking about founder development and how he would address the issues they faced.

He ultimately decided to create a program where young people would be expected to test ideas, confront obstacles, and learn by doing with real accountability. As he later explained on LaunchPod, a NEXT Canada podcast, the goal was to have “something substantive where I could have a real impact on a few people, and then, those people would inspire many more over time.”

Designing NEXT Canada

In 2011, Satchu and his colleagues launched The Next 36, a program that continues today within NEXT Canada. The program identifies high-potential students and recent graduates, brings them together for an eight-month experience, and pairs them with mentors, investors, and operators who have built companies themselves. Participants form teams, test assumptions, and learn what it feels like to make decisions with real consequences.

The program’s intensity encourages founders to develop resilience and practical judgment. Those who complete it leave with experience that is closer to real entrepreneurship than most classroom courses offer.

Lessons from Life and Experience

Satchu’s personal history also played a key role in forming his perspective on opportunity and effort. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, he moved with his family to Toronto at age seven under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s policy welcoming Ismaili immigrants from East Africa. His parents worked hard to build a life in Canada. That period taught him lessons about persistence and adaptability that he now shares with aspiring founders.

In his teachings as a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, where he leads two self-created courses, The Founder Mindset and Founder Launch, he often returns to the themes of judgment and commitment. “A founder has to make decisions, and you’re just hoping there are more good ones than bad ones,” Satchu told Exeleon Magazine, emphasizing that developing judgment comes from practice and accountability.

Giving Founders a Chance

NEXT Canada measures success in the experiences and capabilities its participants build. Alumni have gone on to start hundreds of ventures and raise capital for their businesses. What matters most to Satchu is that founders learn to act, adjust, and continue forward when conditions are uncertain.

Entrepreneurship rarely follows a straight path. Through NEXT Canada, Satchu has created a program where aspiring founders learn to navigate that reality with support, real expectations, and a community fully invested in their growth. For many founders, that early push of being around others who are serious, show up, and expect something of you is what turns “maybe someday” into action. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to get something real off the ground.