More than 100 entrepreneurs from around Ottawa gathered at Centretown’s Taggart Family YMCA recently to showcase their businesses for the third annual “Y Biz Expo.”
The event was organized by the Y Enterprise Centre as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The expo showcased everything from artists, to inventors, to translators, and featured Mayor Jim Watson as this year’s guest speaker.
The enterprise centre, which has operated for more than 25 years, coordinates and delivers development programs for individuals starting a new career path. The service offered through the centre, the Ontario Self Employment Benefit program, provides seminars, workshops, and income support for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Andrew Peck, director of the centre, says the expo gives an opportunity to budding entrepreneurs to show off the fruits of their labours and network with the Ottawa business community.
”It’s a chance for people just getting their business off the ground to bring it to life and show it to the world — sometimes for the first time,” says Peck.
Jeri Rodrigs, former Nortel employee and self-described “serial inventor,” used programs offered by the Y Enterprise Centre to help get his business started. The idea for his invention, the Rumidifier, came to him after his children came down with strep throat in 2011 and needed a humidifier in their room.
Rodrigs began working on prototypes for a humidifier that could operate without the need to be connected to an electrical outlet. What resulted was a humidifier that could be placed into the furnace vent, using existing air circulation created by the furnace to humidify a room.
Seeing a business opportunity in his idea, he approached the federal government’s Service Canada agency, looking for programs to help get his business started. Service Canada directed him to the Y. Rodrigs says he received all the support his business needed from the Enterprise Centre.
“All the topics you can think of,” says Rodrigs. “From accounting to social media tools and making it into practice for one year.”
Debborah Evraire, who lost her job in November of last year after it was decided her position was no longer needed, says that the program helped open new doors for her. She has used her experience in the promotional industry to launch a new company, Collage Creative.
“As I look back, I am so grateful for that closed door,” says Evraire. “I found myself in a situation where I had to pull every ounce of courage together so that I could walk through the next door.“
Peck says he is pleased with the success rate of the current program offered to entrepreneurs.
“It’s a gem of a program on every metric,” says Peck. “The people that go through it are more than thrilled with the outcome.”
Peck says that in the last 10 years, the Y has seen more than 1,500 people come through the program, generating a total of $25 million in sales just while in the program.
On top of that, 80 per cent of those who go into the program continue with their business after completion.
Rodrigs’ business has been two years in the making, and just hit the market last month. He says the future is looking very bright for his product, which will soon be expanding to thousands of retailers across Canada, from the slightly less than 50 it is currently sold out of.
As for his clients, they seem quite pleased, as well, given the lack of buyers seeking a refund or exchange.
“Nothing makes an inventor more proud than when the user is extremely satisfied with the utility of the product.”