Ashley-Rose Machendagoos, an Ojibway woman who sells beaded earrings and beading kits, says she struggles with all the technology required to have an online store.
“I know there’s YouTube videos and whatever, but … I would rather talk to a person and be like, ‘okay, am I doing this right?’” said Machendagoos, whose online business is called Zhawenim Designs from the Ojibway word for “unconditional love.”
“Because even with my Shopify site, that’s something that I had somebody helping me with boxing up my stuff and saying, ‘okay, this is what you need to do here. And I learned better that way,” said Machendagoos, who lives in Wahnapitae, Ont., east of Sudbury.
Machendagoos is not alone in wishing she’d had more help getting her business going.
According to a report from the Indigenous Prosperity Foundation, Indigenous-owned businesses contribute $30 billion to Canada’s economy yet they face significant digital barriers.
In a survey, 57 per cent of respondents said they lacked digital training and 39 per cent said they had no mentorship and digital business support.
The report also found that 91 per cent of indigenous women entrepreneurs face financial constraints and experience harassment, an additional challenge online.
That’s what the Indigenous Prosperity Foundation is trying to address for indigenous entrepreneurs.
Executive director Michelle Okere says the organization founded in 2024 offers a variety of resources including Launchpad, an online 12-chapter guide with the first four chapters covering introduction to entrepreneurship, business idea exploration, business structure and financial management.
Those in the program can also access additional support including mentorship matching those in the program with Indigenous entrepreneurs in the same field.
“For those entrepreneurs who want to pursue it, we do have mentorship as a key component … because we do know that that’s really important,” said Okere, who is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta.
“So, (the mentors are) folks who’ve actually been through this before, who can provide that kind of one-on-one support for you as you move through that process,” she said.
The organization has been also offering a physical and digital game called money smarts to encourage money skills, reaching individual goals and building community.
Launchpad started in December to help potential and current indigenous entrepreneurs who are in different stages overcome digital barriers, Okere said.
These are the types of resources other Ontario Indigenous entrepreneurs feel they could have used in their business.
Tessa Pizzale, a Moose Cree woman, based in North Bay, Ont., who found it challenging to get her business going and create her website, says having resources and guidance would have been a big help.
“I have a hard time finding grants, or finding people that can … help me to that next step, you know. Because I would love to have that next step of, ‘okay, we’re at this point — maybe we should do this with our business,’ you know,” said Pizzale, who started making leather regalia belts for Indigenous communities and the public three years ago through her Instagram business called Muskwacreeations (Muskwa is the Cree word for bear).
Despite challenges she continues to find joy in her business. She says that seeing people wear her leather regalia belts locally as well as unwrap them online is a great feeling for her.
“I wanted custom boxes, which I started doing this past year. And just adding my art to the boxes has helped so much with people recognizing it. I’ve had so many videos of people opening their boxes and I’m like, ‘That’s my box,’” said Pizzale, who partnered with Adaawewigmen, to have her belts sold in Ottawa when she first started her business.
She recalls seeing a video of a 16 year old girl open one of her leather regalia boxes for her birthday.
“She saw it and she just started bawling her eyes out and she’s like, I can’t believe it. It was just such an awesome feeling. And like I remember just sitting there and like … this is why I want to keep doing it. It’s because of these girls.”
Machendagoos echos this sentiment.
After moving from foster home to foster home in her youth and experiencing intergenerational trauma she wants to share beading with the younger generation all the more, and through it continue growing her business.
“I was one of the lucky ones where I can actually take a step back and look at it and going, ‘okay, what can I do to make things better? What can I do to influence the younger generations?’ And that’s why this is so important for me to pursue. I do want to become successful because of the things that I went through,” Machendagoos said.
She says she is currently revitalizing her business using the funds acquired from the Robertson superior treaty settlement to re-design her eco-friendly packaging.
Machendagoos says that the resources the Indigenous Prosperity Foundation provides could have helped expand her business achievements if she had access to them in the past.
“If it was there, you know, eight years ago, I probably would have been a lot more successful by this point,” she said.
She now sells her beaded kits at Spirit Berry Craft Supplies, which replaced Beaded Dreams when they closed last year.
The Indigenous Prosperity Foundation will open an early-stage entrepreneurship program in April to equip business advisors and organizations with cultural and digital tools so they can be able to provide them in-person to Indigenous entrepreneurs.
Okere says she hopes the resources will help more Indigenous entrepreneurs to emerge and succeed.
“I just think the opportunity is really endless when you think about what our mandate is and what where we’re heading as a nation, as far as like economic reconciliation and the focus on indigenous business right now,” Okere said.
“And you think about procurement to some of these other opportunities, I think the time is really now for indigenous people to take their place within the kind of national economic ecosystem.”
