New entrepreneurs get a boost
When Maureen Brand started her reusable cloth business, she made just enough to get her fill of her fabric habit.
After earning a grant from Starter Company Plus on Thursday night, Brand can now start to make some money off her business.
The Buckhorn resident was one of seven grant recipients to split $25,000 to further their companies.
Starter Company Plus is a program that provides training and grants to aspiring and established entrepreneurs who’re 18 and older and haven’t had their business for more than five years.
It’s run through the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development’s Business Advisory Centre (BAC) and funded by the Ontario Government. After five weeks of training, seven grant recipients were selected from the 15 entrepreneurs who took the program.
The recipients were announced Thursday night during BAC at the Bonfire at Elmhirst’s Resort near Keene. The event offered entrepreneurs a chance to share their experiences and also check out the recipients’ businesses.
Brand’s table was filled with her piles of her cloth-based reusable products, such as menstrual and incontinence pads, bamboonursing pads, bibs, and training diapers.
She came up with her business, Garden of Eden, after seeing someone else doing it online. “I pulled out scraps of fabric, made some and said ‘I’m never going back,’” Brand. said
She started selling her product online, at craft fairs and to friends, not really caring too much about the money.
But after completing the Starter Company Plus program, which gave her a business mind, she’s changed her tune.
“Before it was supporting my fabric habit, but now, I think I could really make some money off it.”
Through the five week program, Brand learned how to make a business plan – and that’s been a game changer for her.
With the money she received, she’ll be able to buy a larger amount of fabric at once, instead of gathering funds after each sale to buy small amounts.
“Now I have the power to buy in bulk, so I can stretch that dollar a little further.”
Meanwhile, Lisa Torre isn’t quite ready to launch her business just yet, but she’s now equipped with the tools she needs.
The registered homeopath wanted to do more to help the community have access to the alternative medicine.
Homeopathy is a system of medicine created 200 years ago. Medicines, which are Health Canada approved, are known not to have side effects.
“Homeopathy is not something that’s popular in this area,” said Torres.
The city resident had a lot of ideas of how to help, but didn’t know where to start.
“I wanted to do something but it was all a very big fog,” said Torres.
The Starter Company Plus helped Torres hone her ideas into a business plan to create Access Homeopathy, a walk-in and virtual health care service offered by a registered nurse and registered homeopath.
While the funding is an added bonus for Torres, the meaning behind the cash is what matters more.
“What the money does is it provides a very tangible vote of confidence and support in all the work that we’ve all done,” she said.
NOTE:StarterCompanyPlusruns three sessions a year. It’s now accepting applications for its last session of 2017. To register, entrepreneurs must first take a Starting Point workshop. It’s offered Monday and Sept. 25 from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce on George Street. For more information, go to www.peterboroughed.ca/startercompany-plus