THUNDER BAY - With 70 per cent of business owners looking to retire in the next five years, it will be up to the younger generations to take those keys and keep those businesses going in communities across Canada.
A new program that seeks to match business owners looking to transition their business to new ownership is partnering with several organizations in Thunder Bay, including Lakehead University and Confederation College.
“Think online dating for people who are looking to transition their business,” said Alison Anderson, Founder and CEO of Successionmatching.com. “We want to match students and grads from Lakehead University and Confederation College with a lot of these transitioning businesses in the community to keep those businesses alive.”
Succession Matching was first launched in Saskatchewan and Thunder Bay this is the first time it has been made available in Ontario.
Michael Nitz, business centre manager for BDC, one of the partnering organizations, said Thunder Bay is a perfect community to launch a program like this in Ontario because there is a lot of local business ownership.
“We want to keep that,” he said. “The way to keep that is to communicate with the youth of the next generation and make sure they have the motivation and skill to take on a new business.”
One of the biggest reasons people, especially youth, may not want to get involved in business ownership is because of a fear of failure, Anderson said. But the purpose of this project and creating these partnerships is to help people get set up for success.
“Being your own boss is something that is very fulfilling and has lots of opportunities and benefits to it,” Nitz said.
Nitz added that many new businesses fail, so by transitioning into a business that is already established entrepreneurs already have a business plan that has proven to be successful, as well as a market for the product.
“It’s a lot easier coming in with the keys to the store than building the store yourself,” he said. “We want to get that message out there that Thunder Bay is a community that supports its local entrepreneurs and we would love for these students to be entrepreneurs in our community.”
By targeting students and recent graduates, Anderson hopes to get more people thinking outside of the box and teaching new business owners how to mitigate risk and purse the dream of being their own boss, even at young age.
“I think that’s a common misconception that it costs a lot of money to get into business,” she said. “There are different ways of structuring the transition so it is affordable and often times more successful than starting up a business.”
