The ubiquity and scale of startups is impossible to ignore these days. From humble beginnings, companies like Airbnb or Uber have become household names, and very quickly. Apple and Amazon also began modestly – both were launched in garages only to become global giants.
But despite their undeniable success, it is interesting to note that many of these forms – Apple is a notable one – were launched by people without advanced degrees. Startups founded by PhD holders are the exception, not the rule.
Research suggests only about one in ten tech company founders hold a doctorate, and far fewer in other startup domains. And even among those, many eventually hand off the CEO role to someone else.
That’s why when it was announced that Nathan Hordy had been named CEO of McGill spinoff Anomera – a company he co-founded in 2016 – the news raised eyebrows. A PhD co-founder leading their own company is a rare sight.
Hard work pays off
During an interview at the company’s headquarters in downtown Montreal, Hordy had a very simple explanation for how this all came about: “The hard work paid off,” he declared.
“Personally, the hard work over the years to help build the company, to learn finance, to learn manufacturing, to learn business development, to learn sales and marketing, all of this paid off because now I’ve become CEO and I can put all of those different skills together,” he added.
And pay off is indeed the correct expression. Since he assumed the mantle of leadership, the company’s quarterly sales rose 500%, with product being delivered to over 25 customers worldwide. “2026 is looking to be a breakout year,” Hordy affirmed.
Now that he is the boss what is his management style? “I like to let my team do their work. Trust them. But also, trust but verify,” he said. In real terms, at weekly team meetings, he checks the progress on each team member’s self-identified tasks. “Having that verification every week puts the accountability on them to make sure they get done what they say they're going to do, and to think about when they're saying what they're going to do.”
Management style, new priorities
It’s a simple approach honed after seeing a few others run the show. “That experience of over ten years of watching different leaders, different styles; some good, some bad. You learn from both, and you take what makes sense to you and reject what you can't do,” he summarized.
In terms of what changed when he adopted the new title, he was crystal clear: “Sales is my number one goal. Before, I had to run the R&D, then work on the scale up, and then get the manufacturing operational. But now, every day is sales.” Given the dramatic increase in figures, he has been taking this task very seriously.
But there is also the road ahead to consider. The company is still small – less than a dozen employees – so growth is not just about profits. It’s a question of survival. To make this possible, the company is developing new products in addition to its current use as a replacement for microplastics in cosmetics (for a refresher, check out this article on Anomera’s platform product). One of the recent avenues for commercial success is as a performance enhancer in paints and coatings, but there are also possibles for use in bioplastics, adhesives and cement.
“Every day we find new benefits that the product can bring,” he said. “It's a platform nanomaterial that we produce, and we can tune it in different ways. We are seeing how we can tune it to provide the best benefit to customers and then be able to showcase those benefits.”
Given this versatility in application, the road ahead for Anomera seems clear: develop new products and find new customers. But looking back, Hordy was reflective on what brought him to where he is today: “People ask me about the path to get this far and the one thing I always tell them when they're starting off is: don't do it because you want to get rich. Do it because you want the experience. You learn so much every day. It's not just some theoretical exercise. You know that everything that you do matters…it's hard to put a value on that.”