Jul 20, 2020
Meet the Heroes of Small Business Matters Series One.
Each week, during the darkest days of COVID-19, we produced a podcast featuring a small business owner, and three thought leaders who help them get to where they need and deserve to go. All made possible through the incredible support of RBC. We went remotely across Canada to explore many sectors of our economy. We talked to startups, established businesses, first-generation Canadians to family-owned companies that spanned decades. Every one of them inspired me with their resilience, resolve, and ability to reinvent.
In this podcast, I revisit each one to pay tribute to these heroes and to share what I learned along the way.
Small Business Matters series, presented by RBC.
Traci Shepheard
(01:41)
Traci Shepheard's lifelong dream was to be an entrepreneur building
a health and wellness business. She invested her savings and
purchased an Airstream Trailer, retrofitting it to create a 'rock
star' experience. MeditationWorks is launched. As
she starts the ignition, her wheels fall off when COVID-19 stops
everything in their tracks, especially a studio where people
meditate inside a trailer, even one as beautiful as Traci’s.
Paul Hemburrow (04:14)
Paul and
his partner buy a profitable business that rents TV sets to
patients in hospitals and then reinvents it to offer
a suite of innovative tools that patients can access at their
bedside while benefiting the hospital and healthcare. Health Hub Solutions finally
get the breakthrough they need but COVID-19 arrives and no one is
focused on the future, just surviving the day.
Lisa Taylor
(06:08)
A powerful insight leads Lisa Taylor to
reinvent the future of work. Many people were satisfied at work,
but not fulfilled. Lisa left the security of a great job to launch
the Challenge Factory,
a research-based, process-driven consultancy that helps companies
create productive cultures where people work with a higher purpose.
She moves from the uncertainty of a startup to the complexities of
leading a growing business, only to have today's economic
uncertainty, turn her business upside down.
Joe O'Brien
(09:11)
Joe O'Brien is a gifted entrepreneur operating his tourism
business, O'Brien Boat Tours,
from St John's Newfoundland. He captains his guests to
the edge of the world, with whale watching, giant icebergs, and a
wild bird sanctuary, mixed in with the songs and spirit of
Newfoundland and Labrador. are on offer. Joe shares his story of
growing up in a fishing village and having to reinvent when the Cod
disappeared. COVID-19, requires Joe to reinvent once again.
Kristi Knowles
(11:01)
Kristi
knows that the company needs a rebrand if they are going to battle
international food giants for market share. Mother Raw is born, and the legacy of
the Founder, and her mission of 'Good on Good' is woven
across every consumer, retailer, and employee touchpoint.
Manufacturing in Canada and in 5000 locations, can Kristi finance
this growth and get the attention she feels Mother Raw
deserves?
Carly Shuler
(12:49)
After a five-year stint with Sesame Streets Labs in New
York, and getting her Masters in Education at Harvard, Carly returns to
Canada and creates Hootreading.com. Why? Carly knows
that kids who love to read will spend a lifetime loving to learn.
Hootreading matches students with real teachers, and with Carly's
proprietary technology and teaching methods, her business takes
off. Her concern is that she might draw the attention of
multinationals who will go after her market share with their deeper
pockets.
Jennifer
Menard (14:29)
Jennifer
Menard’s life has been about reinvention, regardless of her
circumstance, openly sharing her life story growing up in a broken
home, but persevering to become a successful entrepreneur. Finding
her path through a mentor who employed her and then subsequently
encouraged her to buy the business she helped build. Jennifer
rebrands, brings in a partner and Staff Shop is born, staffing events
across North America and the Caribbean. Her business is all is
promising until COVID-19 cancels every event.
Ernesto Gomez
(17:12)
Ernesto Gomez is a first-generation
Canadian who fell in love with food watching and then helping his
mother and grandmother prepare meals in their kitchen. Curiosity
led him to explore Chinese and Italian food and travel the world,
feeding his mind with possibilities. A chance meeting in Vancouver
kick-starts Ernesto’s latest venture - Nuba Restaurant. Armed with a war chest,
they set their sites on a new location in Spain and then COVID-19
attacks in more ways than one. They have to shut down their
restaurants, and Ernesto catches the virus.
Francois
Theriault (20:04)
Surmesur, an innovative,
personality led tech-enabled made-to-measure men's wear retail
chain. Francois
and his brother Vincent understand customer service better than
most. Instead of selling a made to measure suit, they train their
staff to sell into a moment that someone wants to own. They combine
this insight, with a personality led shopping experience, and state
of the art technology. Their skills as entrepreneurs lead them from
one store in Quebec City to expansion across Canada and into the
United States and Mexico. Then COVID hits.
Sheena Russell
(22:07)
Sheena
Russell is the co-founder of Made with Local. Sourcing local
ingredients and working with social enterprises to employ people
who have barriers to the mainstream workforce, Sheena achieves
B-Corp status, When COVID
hits, the government orders this 'high risk' segment of the
population into isolation, leaving Sheena with a ton of orders to
fill and no one there to help her. Sheena makes a trademark
entrepreneurial move - she jumps in with her family to bake, make
and ship products, and fast-tracks a new product that is perfect
for these times.
My Closing
Thoughts (24:15)
Despite the challenges they faced, entrepreneurs find a way to get
back up in the horse to ride again. “They don't just find an
opportunity. They create it” They create our economy and our jobs.
These entrepreneurs inspire not only their children and their
employees, they inspire all of us to make our destiny a matter of
choice, not chance.
Links and References
MeditationWorks -
https://meditationworks.com
Health Hub Solutions - https://healthhubsolutions.ca/
Challenge Factory - www.challengefactory.ca
O'Brien's Boat Tours - https://www.obriensboattours.com
Mother Raw - https://motherraw.com
Hootreading - Hootreading.com
Staff Shop - http://staffshop.ca
Nuba Restaurant - https://www.nuba.ca
Surmesur - https://www.surmesur.com
Made with Local - www.madewithlocal.com
RBC Business page – https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/business/index.html
RBC COVID-19 Financial Relief page - https://www.rbc.com/covid-19/business.html
Future Launch - https://www.rbc.com/dms/enterprise/futurelaunch/index.html
Follow Tony
Chapman
Website - https://chatterthatmatters.com
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