When following the small business playbook doesn’t work
You start your business with a home-run idea. But when you finally get to the plate it seems you’re constantly dealing with curves, brush-backs and bean balls. Unexpected complications are an unavoidable part of small business. Whether it’s dealing with theft, branding or unexpected changes to your business plan, winning is often a matter of adjusting your stance. Here are five knuckleballs that can come at a small enterprise.
How to deal with theft at your small business
Back before the franchising and the Cupcake Girls reality TV series, Heather White and Lori Joyce were just budding entrepreneurs with a single shop on Denman Street. They opened the first Cupcakes in 2002 with a small staff. One employee—a…
Read More >
When it’s time to take your company in a totally new direction
Lauren Mote and Jonathan Chovancek recently sold their 2008 Honda Element. It was a bridge-burning moment for the owners of Bittered Sling, a line of flavoured extracts used in cocktails and recipes. Like many young entrepreneurs they had launched themselves…
Read More >
How much does the name of your business matter?
In October 2013, Traci Myles and Melissa Harris got together to launch a new wedding planning company. Thinking about the entire process of wedding planning from blueprints to realization led them to what seemed the perfect name for their new…
Read More >
The pros and cons of running your business in a small town
In 2007, Christina Platt moved from Vancouver’s South Main district to the Cowichan Valley seeking rustic charm—deer in the fields, hawks wheeling in the sky. "I wanted chickens in the yard," she says. "I was always taking pictures of the…
Read More >
When legal issues threaten your small business
Say this for Kalpna Solanki: the owner of Marvin’s Marvelous has dealt with every change-up and bean ball and keeps on swinging. In addition to theft and a change of products, her company, FX Foods, was the victim of a…
Read More >
