Career Planning
Two win awards for establishing innovative buinessesNever too young for successThe success stories of young entrepreneurs Colin Davison and Jodi Sinden, winners of Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) provincial Business Awards, prove that with the right idea and the right approach, you're never too young to start a business. SHARON ASCHAIEK -- Special to the Toronto Sun |
|
|
Colin Davison, left, runs a firm specializing in noise and emission reduction technology.
Davison took the entrepreneurial leap in 2006 when, at the age of 30, he started Stealth Acoustical & Emission Control Inc., a company that specializes in noise and emission reduction technology.
Having worked in the industry for a number of years, and observed increasing government regulation in these areas, the Calgarian saw a ripe opportunity to offer a unique service.
"There were consulting firms and manufacturers, but no one combining acoustical and emission design and engineering with manufacturing," Davison says. "We saw an advantage in being able to offer acoustics and emission manufacturing in a turnkey solution."
Before starting his business, Davison connected with CYBF, a national charity that supports youth age 18 to 34 who have a great business idea but can't access funds through traditional sources. Through CYBF, Davison received both start-up funding and the ongoing support of a mentor.
GOOD ADVICE
He says his mentor, the owner of an oil and gas services company in Alberta, offered him key advice on everything from hiring the right staff to managing growth to minimizing overhead costs.
"It was invaluable to be able to be able to discuss things with him and ensure our business was on track," Davison says.
He says a driving force of his business model was to hire highly skilled individuals with experience in different sectors, which has enabled Stealth to serve a broad range of clients, including energy, utility and telecom companies.
Before completing its first year of business, Stealth achieved $1 million in sales. Today, the company employs 40 people, has additional offices in Winnipeg and Denver, serves hundreds of clients in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, and expects to generate $5 million in sales this year.
Davison says what is really fuelling the success of Stealth (www.stealthacoustical.com) is old-fashioned hard work.
"I work my butt off!" says Davison, whose business recently won CYBF's National Best Business Award. "I'm a very driven person. There's no way you can be an entrepreneur without being self-motivated."
Hard work is something Jodi Sinden also knows a lot about. The Torontonian is the brains behind Homebox, an innovative filing system for organizing life's myriad paperwork (see www.sindenhome.com). It's a concept she developed after experiencing her own missing documents crisis.
BIG BREAK
"I had a medical emergency in my family and I had to organize different medical documents, and I couldn't find them. It led to such a panic that afterwards I got organized and decided that would never happen to me again," says Sinden, 35.
She thought her idea was solid and worked out the concept for Homebox, but as a non profit-sector worker, she had no idea how to bring her product to market. Her considerable business learning curve included figuring out how to develop a blueprint of Homebox, and finding a suitable manufacturer to create it.
Once she had a prototype, she applied to CYBF and received a start-up loan and was matched with a mentor. Her big break came in May of last year, when she participated in a stationary trade show in New York, and Homebox won the Best New Product, Desk Accessories award.
"It was my first time at the show and I was in the farthest back corner, so it was very important that I won. It brought a lot of people to my booth," Sinden says.
After the trade show, Sinden appeared on CBC's Dragons' Den and struck a deal with the show's investors. However, months later she backed out of it, because she was continuing to generate tremendous sales from the trade show.
That momentum picked up further when Chapters Indigo agreed to carry her $30 document organizer in its stores nationwide. Then, The Shopping Channel in Canada and its American counterpart, QVC, picked up Homebox.
Currently, Sinden employs 12 people on and off who help her ship Homebox from several warehouses she operates in Canada and the U.S. She estimates she sells a few
thousand Homebox kits per month.
"What I like is that I have made something that didn't exist before, and it's helping people," Sinden says.
"Getting a paycheque for something I've created is a lot different than getting paid by an employer -- it feels
really good."
sharon@summitmediagroup.com
Do you have you a bad boss?