Business Centre Guelph-Wellington is continuing to offer its summer co-op program to support young entrepreneurs.
Pandemic or no pandemic, Kristel Manes, executive director of the BCGW says entrepreneurs must be agile, creative, thoughtful and quick because nothing will ever go according to plan.
“We could teach you how to plan for things, we could teach you how to strategize, we can teach to be ready with your business plan and business model and something is going to go wrong,” said Manes to the young entrepreneurs at the official virtual launch of the BCGW summer program.
“That’s the life of an entrepreneur.”
While the organization usually offers grants to 11 local students with a business model, applications for the program this year were low and the BCGW chose five applicants.
While it may be an odd time to start a business, she said many people don’t have a choice after they were laid off or lost their jobs and feel they have to do this for the livelihood of their families by developing new skill sets to survive.
“Now they’re looking at small business ownership as a way to survive. So now they have to create jobs for jobs that didn’t exist,” said Manes.
“We’ve actually had an increase in the number of consultations we’re doing and we’ve had steady increases in the participation of the workshops that teach people how to run businesses.
This year’s entrepreneurs include Angela Miller, who runs a personalized dog training business called K9 Training, Emily Oakes's organic compost company called The Ponsonby Compost Company which consists of pure horse manure in bags, Laura Natalizia Campagnolo’s baking kit business called Laura's Little Kitchen, Justin Gauthier’s lawn care business called Bpro LawnCare and Artur Karapetov’s online business which sells STEM-related online courses called 4P ACADEMY Inc.
Oakes said as food insecurity increased as a result of the pandemic, She noticed a lot of people show interest in gardening.
“This business is really well suited for the pandemic,” said Oakes.
“Compost is a great way to boost productivity in a garden. Also the setup of the business itself with the bag being at the end of our driveway, it was already well suited for the social distancing protocol.”
Karapetov said he worked on developing his business for five years and developed the website in May during the pandemic.
“I did multiple test runs for advertising which gave me confidence that this will work,” said Karapetov.
Manes said 80 per cent of the organization’s funding comes from the ministry of economic development, job creation and trade that pays for operation costs of the centre and grant money that is invested in the small businesses.
“90 per cent of Ontario’s economy is actually generated by small business revenue,” said Manes.
“That’s why it’s vital that we support you in this journey,” she said to the entrepreneurs.
The program has helped many businesses go on to be incredibly successful such as Sandbox Software Solutions, a web designing company founded by Devin Gauthier and Mark George in Guelph.
“They started in the summer company program, they were going to university and built this business model and today I think they have maybe 10-12 employees,” said Manes.
“They’re pillars in the community in terms of the work that they do and the volunteer work that they do and they started here.”
“Our services have never stopped here at the business centre,” said Manes.
She said for the pandemic, services went fully online and advisors began working at an emergency capacity to develop resources to help businesses on all levels that were frightened.
“We’re telling our entrepreneurs that they have to be agile and move to digital platforms and we need to do the same,” said Manes.
As part of the mayors’ task force councils in Guelph and Wellington County, BCGW has also been advocating on behalf of small business owners who are struggling with rent, acquiring funds for PPE, and adapting to the virtual world. With two hours and five-week seminars, Manes said the BCGW is doing as much as it can to help local entrepreneurs.
“We’ve been lobbying very hard through both municipal and federal governments,” said Manes adding that she has seen tremendous help from leaders representing all three levels of government trying to help.
