Cape Breton

March 27, 2024

What a great week for entrepreneurship in Cape Breton!

CEED hosted a ‘So you Want to be an Entrepreneur’ event for future entrepreneurs.  This was a fun interactive session that allowed future entrepreneurs the opportunity to sit and and chat with CEED and our fabulous partners in the ecosystem.  The speed networking style event included discussions on financing your business, understanding the customer’s problem, setting up and registering a business, understanding of financial statements and other business related issues including human resources and business planning.

 We are so thankful for all who attended.

Conversations have started now we want to help you continue those conversations.

Our goal was to showcase all that is involved in starting a business and we wanted you to  leave this event knowing the questions you need to ask and answer. AND we wanted you to know there are people that can help you.

We also wanted you to know entrepreneurship is hard – there is no easy path – but with the proper work put in at the beginning – and with the help of partners, mentors and supporters you can increase your chances of success.

To further assist, we wanted to provide the contact information for our ecosystem partners who participated:

• ACOA (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency – Canada.ca): Connor MacIntosh email: connor.macintosh@acoa-apeca.gc.ca
• ACOA: Lauren Krszwda email: lauren.krszwda@acoa-apeca.gc.ca
• Cape Breton Partnership (Home – Cape Breton Partnership): Kelly MacKinnon email: kelly@capebretonpartnership.com
• Cape Breton Partnership: Lan Zheng email: lan@capebretonpartnership.com
• CBDC (Small Business Help, Loans and Financing in NB, NL, NS & PEI | CBDC): Patricia MacNeil email: patricia.macneil@cbdc.ca
• CBDC: Bailey MacIntosh email: bailey.macintosh@cbdc.ca
• CDENE (Home – CDÉNÉ (cdene.ns.ca)): Adele Leblanc email: adele.leblanc@cdene.ns.ca
• CEED (CEED | Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development): Craig MacMullin email: cmacmullin@ceed.ca
  CEED: Paul McGinn email: pmcginn@ceed.ca
• CEED: Werner Muller email: wmuller@ceed.ca
• LIU (https://levelingitup.ca/) Ugochi West email: uwest@levelingitup.ca
• CEED Kim Desveaux kdesveaux@ceed.ca
• CEED: Megan MacAulay email: mmacaulay@levelingitup.ca
• CWB (Centre for Women in Business – Centre for Women in Business): Eirinn Fraser email: eirinn.fraser2@msvu.ca
• Invest NS (Invest Nova Scotia | Canada): Wanda MacLean email: wanda.maclean@investnovascotia.ca
• Navigate/ Makerspace (Makerspace – Navigate Startup House): Matt Swan email: mswan@navigatestartup.com
• Nova Scotia Business Navigator (Get help starting a business: Business Navigators – Government of Nova Scotia): Ashley Bowyer email: ashley.bowyer@novascotia.ca
• Nova Scotia Education (Workplace Education | novascotia.ca): Jenna Lahey

We also discussed the following topics:

• Spark Competition: Spark Nova Scotia Competition | Startup Innovation and Learning Program
• CBDC Immigrant Loan Program: Small Business Loans for Immigrant – Temporary Residents – Entrepreneurs in NS | CBDC
• NS Health Wellness Challenge (RBC Youth Health Innovation Challenge Information Session Tickets | Eventbrite)

And I wanted to provide a copy of ‘Talking to Humans.” Download this book here. It is a great resource to guide you in conversations with potential customers as you do your research.

We also have many other incredible ecosystem partners that were unable to attend this week’s sessions but are here to help you. For more info on the Cape Breton Entrepreneurial Ecosystem supports visit: https://entrepreneurcb.com/

If there were others that you met and want to connect to, please reach out to Kim Desveaux and she will be happy to assist.

We encourage you to reach out to CEED and our ecosystem partners. We are here to support you!