Pro tip: don't trust a VC who says red tape is easy here

Back in March, a Toronto VC told me that getting a money services business license was just a formality. I spent $8,000 on legal fees and 4 months waiting, only to get rejected because of a missing compliance report that wasn't on their checklist. He never even read the final OSFI guidance, I found that out later. If you're pre-seed, don't budget for a smooth regulatory path, assume two rounds of fixes and add 25% to your timeline. Has anyone else hit a surprise regulator delay that almost killed their launch?

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1 Comment

drewgonzalez22d ago

Oh man, this is just like when contractors quote you a "simple" bathroom reno and suddenly you're dealing with permits, plumbing surprises, and double the budget. People always underestimate the hidden layers until they're knee-deep in them.