ABOUT BLOKS
Twenty years.
Three companies.
The same people.
We’ve spent twenty years trying to help people do their jobs better. Then we realized we were solving the wrong problem.
Bloks is the Un-CRM for financial and insurance advisors. We founded it in 2021, in Gatineau, Quebec, after two companies and two exits together.
Gatineau, Quebec. Most of us have worked together since 2014, some since 2006.
Our story
1
We built the tools. We sold the companies. We did it again.
The team behind Bloks has been building productivity software together for over two decades. We’re not first-time founders with a theory. We’re repeat builders with a track record, and hard-earned lessons.
Our first company was Tungle. We pioneered what you now know as the calendar scheduling link, the “book a time with me” experience. We grew it to 500,000 users and sold it to BlackBerry in 2011, where we went on to lead their productivity suite: email, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos.
Then we did it again. Our second company built a task and communication platform for retail teams, used by CVS, Whole Foods, Nike, Victoria’s Secret and LVMH brands. We sold it in 2021 to WorkForce Software, a division of ADP. Same crew. Same fire. A third time.
2
The insight that changed everything.
After two exits and decades of building productivity tools, we asked a harder question: why doesn’t productivity actually feel better?
The answer surprised us. We had been chasing efficiency: faster processes, cleaner workflows. But efficiency without connection is just speed in the wrong direction. The people who truly thrive don’t have better tools. They have better relationships. The better the relationship, the better the result. Every time.
So we asked: what if we built for that?
3
The CRM problem nobody wanted to admit.
We looked at the primary tool for managing relationships: the CRM. And we couldn’t find a single person who loved theirs. People tolerate it. Avoid it. Feel guilty about it.
Because the CRM was built to record your work, never to do it. It demands constant input, notes, updates, follow-ups, and gives back a database. That’s not a relationship tool. That’s a filing cabinet. We knew there had to be a better way.
4
The people who care most.
We didn’t want to build for everyone. We wanted to build for financial and insurance advisors: the independent ones, the portfolio managers, and the practices and networks they work inside.
The ones who play the long game. Who remember the details. Who build trust over decades, through market cycles and the moment a family’s money changes hands. Who know the best outcomes don’t come from the pitch, but from the relationship that existed long before it.
These are the people who deserve a tool built around them.
5
We’ve been trained to act like robots.
Over the last two decades, knowledge workers have been conditioned to do work machines should have been doing all along. We write notes. Update CRMs. Copy data between systems. Hours every week on work that creates no value for clients, only for the record.
We’ve accepted it. Built habits around it. Even felt productive doing it. But that’s not the work. The work is the relationship. The conversation. The human moment. The ability to be fully present.
AI will eliminate the robot version of the advisor. AI will make you more human.
Efficiency without connection is just speed in the wrong direction.
This is why we built Bloks.
Bloks is the invisible layer your practice runs on. It doesn’t wait to be fed. It feeds itself. The record stays current without you touching it. The follow-ups are there without you writing them down.
Not so you can do more. So you can be more present for the work that actually matters: building the relationships that build everything else.
In 2026 Marc joined Mila, the Quebec artificial intelligence institute, as a Founder in Residence, and Bloks was named one of ALL IN’s Top 100 Canadian AI startups.
The people building it
In this industry, who is behind the software is how advisors decide whether to trust it. So here we are.
Chadwick Carlson
Cofounder & Head of Client Success, Product
Jean-Philippe Lespinasse
Cofounder & Chief Architect, Security and Privacy
Rian Robertson
Cofounder & Head of AI and Relationship Intelligence
Philippe Tardif-Michaud
Head of Advisor Growth
Lucas Silva de Andrade
Lead Software Engineer, CRM Integrations and Data Migration
Claudio Silva
Lead Software Engineer, User Experience and AI Workflows
Where we share
Marc’s podcast with advisors, on AI anxiety, the wealth transfer, and the admin that fills their evenings.
Writing for Canadian advisors on admin, compliance, client records, and the CRM that was built to record your work, not do it.
What we ship, what we learn from advisors, and what the team is up to.
We’ve spent twenty years making productivity tools. Bloks is the first one that starts with people, not paperwork.