Founder's Story
Louis Bélanger-Martin Spent 8 Years Building—Then He Revolutionized Air Travel | Ep. 196
Fri, 04 Apr 2025
Today’s guest is Louis Bélanger-Martin, the visionary co-founder of DTI Software, the company that pioneered the in-flight entertainment systems we now take for granted. From the first flicker of a boring flight to Washington D.C., Louis saw an opportunity where others saw nothing and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar industry. His entrepreneurial journey didn’t stop at takeoff. Louis is also the founder of Groupe W Inc., a Canadian private equity firm that helps businesses scale globally with smart capital and real-world experience.In this episode, Louis shares:How a dull flight became the spark behind a global innovationWhat it takes to build a category-defining company over 8 long yearsThe biggest challenges and rewards of B2B enterprise sales to major airlinesHis transition from entrepreneur to investor—and why he rarely backs startupsThe one trait he looks for in every founder he fundsWhy clarity, simplicity, and knowing your audience are critical in a pitchHow Canadian private equity is evolving in 2025Louis also gives founders actionable insights on how to stand out in a crowded capital market and how to approach private equity with strategy, not just ambition.📩 Connect with Louis:Email: louis@winvestments.caLinkedIn: Louis Bélanger-MartinOur Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://www.avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Notion: https://notion.com/founders* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Chapter 1: Who is Louis Bélanger-Martin and what did he revolutionize?
Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Louis Belanger-Martin. You are the co-founder of DTI Software and you revolutionized the in-flight entertainment, which we are going to go into. For me, it's been critical because I fly so much and I always judge an airline based on their in-flight entertainment.
You are also the founder of GroupW Inc., which is a successful Canadian private equity. And we're going to dive into all things private equity in North America. I'm very interested about what is the pulse of Canada. But before we do that, we'd like to kick it off here on Founders Story as to why did you become an entrepreneur? And then also, why did you get into DTI Software as the company?
Chapter 2: What inspired Louis Bélanger-Martin to create in-flight entertainment?
So entrepreneur usually comes from an event, from something. And I remember the first flight I took, I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. And the first flight I ever took was a flight, short flight from Montreal to Washington, D.C., And as I'm sitting down on the aircraft, I'm looking around and there's not much happening.
And I was so, my level of expectation was so high in that I was actually flying. I was going from point A to point B at 40,000 feet up in the air. And I was extremely disappointed in that. I said, well, this is an opportunity. This is, you have people sitting down and they're looking at,
the front seat and there's nothing, let alone later, a few years later came the idea of putting screens and putting all sorts of different things. But the experience was so ununique and there was nothing to call my mother about that I kind of took it upon myself to say, well, there's an opportunity here. So not sure how, when, But I really want to change this.
I really want to put my brain into how can I enhance passenger experience. So it came from a flight that was uneventful, took off probably on time, landed probably on time, but there was nothing happening. And so from this, I...
Chapter 3: How did DTI Software transform the in-flight experience for passengers?
co-created with a friend of mine a business that we took upon us to literally use the flying time having all these people all over at first it was all over north america but eventually it was all over the world and what can we do what can we bring for the journey on the aircraft to be
a bit more dynamic, a bit more interesting, a bit more entertaining, and was created the industry of in-flight entertainment. So the cross of media entertainment and flying. And so... And so we started by saying there has to be a way that you can watch a movie in a different capacity than looking at a drop-down screen or if you remember in the early 90s you had like
kind of the cinema type of experience where you had one screen, everybody was watching the same thing, you had one channel, and then it didn't matter if you wanted to talk to your colleague or friend or fellow passengers or go to the restroom or nothing was, everything was broadcasted. Nothing was personal.
And so I believe it's in 1992, or I can be corrected, but in the early 90s, first airlines have started installing in-seat video. And so that created a world where you could have a more personal experience. And so DTI's first innovation was to create software that allowed a movie to pause. And so even with in-seat video, every seat we're watching the same thing at the same time.
Now you had a better viewing experience, but you were not able to pause, fast forward and rewind what we take for granted today as video on demand. The software that powered those seats in order to create a video-on-demand experience was made by DTI.
And so, interestingly enough, this was the springboard or this was our creation of our own runway in creating software that led into many different directions. And this because every year we tried, I tried, we tried. My team was constantly thinking about innovation, constantly.
And I think that's what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur or a good entrepreneur is the ability to think outside the box and the ability to defy what is deemed impossible and doing it. and bringing it.
And so we thought about seat-to-seat communication and we thought about, and at the time, one of the crazy thing or the crazy trend that we were trying to create is that what if the airline has aircraft that are connected? What if the airline, you're able to watch news? Because news and sport are the components that are better watched live. I mean, you can watch, I love ice hockey, for instance.
You can watch an ice hockey game that you haven't watched or rewatch it. But most people, or if not all people, they want to watch it live. News, you don't want to know. You want to be exposed to news that just happened, breaking news and so on. You don't want to watch the news from two weeks ago or a month ago. And so how do you connect the aircraft?
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Chapter 4: What were the challenges and achievements in selling in-flight entertainment to airlines?
And how do you sell that idea to these large corporations? Because we talk many times about like B2B sales and it's mostly like small Somebody selling a product to a small company, maybe something that's $20 a month.
It's a very small item, but you're talking about something major and you're selling this in idea that you have that they might not even understand the value when you're so early on and you're so first into something. How did you sell this idea, this concept to these major corporations and really get them excited about it?
That's interesting because we're all passengers and folks that work for an airline. There's a reason why they work for an airline. And I found out over the years, after 20, 25 years, that airlines have one of their largest retention factors. Why? Because whoever works for an airline flies for free. So that means you have the world at your disposal.
You're able to dine in New York and sleep in Paris and come back home in San Francisco. And so... that were all curious and were all explorators at a certain level. And so it took eight years, Danielle, to literally convince those large airlines. And the way I did it is that the messaging was constant.
The messaging was what I'm offering is something, is a dynamic experience, is something that will that will help get away with boredom, that will help flying will seem so timeless. Flying, so an eight-hour flight, which is the average flying time, now will seem like a two-hour flight.
No matter if you fly in first, business, premium economy, economy, I wanted to, everybody on the aircraft would have something unique and something that they would be able to interact with. And so to be able to offer this in no matter, and that was one of, because DTI was innovation, but it was also highly technical or highly, there was a lot of high tech in our offering there.
in that we were able to, no matter the type of aircraft, no matter the type of system, we were able to offer a commonality of environment. And so an airline that, I think the only airline in the world is Southwest that only flies 737s, but think about Almost all the airlines, they have different aircraft type.
They have different systems, different screens, different resolution, different network speed. And so we were able through our innovation and software packages to offer the same environment, be it more legacy system and more advanced and so on and so forth. And so that's another secret behind the success of DTI.
So eight years to evangelize the fact that, listen, we have a golden opportunity to make flying fun, to make flying something that will be memorable, something that you will bring something home. And in your next decision of saying, am I flying? Am I boating? Am I driving? No, I'm going to be flying because this was something unique and I want to relive this over and over again.
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Chapter 5: How did Louis Bélanger-Martin transition from entrepreneur to investor?
So my business partner in DTI is also my business partner at Group W. And we highly complement each other. And I think we pride ourselves that because we've built a business from ground up and went through, again, the eight years of what it took to bring it to profitability and then to different other levels,
I used to say that a startup requires a very, very specific skill set and more resilience than anything. And so you have to have the ability to pivot and you have to have the ability to see if there's a wall. And if you sense there's a wall, you have to... And so all of these different skill sets usually don't translate very well to the next level.
So the profitability to the $20 million business, and then there's the $20 million business to the $100 million, and then sky's the limit, and hopefully there's no limit. And so I've lived through all of these different stages of building a company, and I think that that skill set and that... that corporate memory serves every single investment that we're doing. So innovation is one thing.
Scalability is important, but more so it's leadership. It's the ability to identify if you have the right leadership and if you'll be able to grow with them. And that's very often you can fall in love with a business, you can fall in love with an industry, you can fall in love.
But if you don't have the right leadership, stories, at least my experience, is that it's going to be extremely difficult to succeed. And so we've invested in different sectors. I think the private equity in Canada, there's more demand than offer. So there's good projects. And so I think that we're in a place where we have a lot of choices for companies and projects and even entrepreneurs.
But the best one always gets funded first. And so you have to find an equilibrium. I don't really like doing startups. So we haven't done a lot of startup with W other than our own. So it's investing in your own company and your own self. I'm more like at inflection point or at growth mode. I've tasted twice being the CEO of a publicly traded company and I love the stock market.
It's not for everybody. There's pros and cons, but I find more, I find a lot of joy in being in a publicly traded environment. I've used a special purpose acquisition company back in 2012 to shift the listing. I was listed on the Munich Stock Exchange and we shift the listing from Munich to
to nasdaq and it was it was a beautiful beautiful transaction and so all of these different components of my toolbox that's what i'm bringing into group w and we invest so for instance i make sure that the governance is there i make sure that
If ever there's things that are lacking in the business that we feel and we know that the leadership is strong and is going to be bringing the business to the next level, then we complement it by our expertise and experience. So, for instance, I've done business in most places in the world, if not probably everywhere. almost every countries. And so you got to be patient.
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