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Helen, a former school teacher, and Jim, a former member of the P.E.I. legislature, expanded on the lobster pound's product line a couple of years after buying it, and by 1986 they'd opened a 40-seat seafood restaurant. That modest operation has since expanded to 240 indoor and more than 110 outdoor seats – now housed in spanking new quarters since Hurricane Juan eroded the ground beneath the original building in September of 2003.
When they first looked at started up an online presence, including the e-commerce "seafood market", Internet development costs were still quite high. A consultant recommended they seek financing under the Canada Small Business Financing Act, and they were able to secure a government backed loan of $37,834.
The costs of the initial marketing study and website development were about double the amount of the loan, says Helen. But having the loan made the initiative that much more feasible.
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startup New Business Startup
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Busy mom gets busier yet
$13,000 grant helps launch successful graphic arts business
Paisley, Ontario's Jennifer Harris is blissfully overwhelmed by the early-onset growth of her graphic design business, Keylime Creations. Originally dreaming of launching a new career as publisher of a children's magazine, Harris shifted direction thanks to a business plan she had to prepare as part of a government program directed at budding entrepreneurs. It was a sound move. She launched Keylime this March with a grant of $13,000, and realized first-month sales of $12,000. Not a bad kickoff for this work-at-home mom who is expecting her second child in January.
Her advice to anyone starting a new business is to take their time. “I thought I would have time to set up my books, organize my office, do some marketing—but I don’t even have a website yet. I had clients lining up, waiting for me to get going. Looking back, I should have given myself a few more weeks. It’s really hard to go back to do those things you should have taken care of in the first place. It was six weeks before I even had a business card. Time management was definitely my big bugaboo.”
Still, Harris’s success is far from serendipitous. She’s a serious planner with an innate instinct for niche marketing and prospect networking. A graduate of the graphic design program at Humber College and of the Computer Technology Institute, Harris worked for a Toronto ad agency and developed an interest in promotion and publishing. But when she and her husband decided to leave the city with their young son and return to their rural hometown -- where farm and service-industry job ads dominate the classifieds -- self-employment presented itself as a necessary but exciting solution.
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