UNB Faculty Of Management A Great Springboard For Ambitious, Adaptable Entrepreneurs
The University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Management is a great springboard for startups of all kinds – just ask program graduate Kara Angus. Angus, the founder and owner of Go-Go Group, says UNB’s blend of coursework, mentorship and real-life experience helped her kickstart her gymnastics and childcare business.
“The professors really made me think outside the box and expand my ideas,” says Angus.
They also supported her after she graduated and started her business.
“To this day, I can still reach out. I worked really closely with my professors in Go-Go’s early years. My professors were just so willing to help. It was so awesome to know that network carried with you well beyond the classroom and well beyond graduation,” says Angus. “How often do you get to talk to a bunch of people who are total experts to help grow your business?”
Liz Lemon-Mitchell, the director of faculty advancement and operations, says UNB’s real-life training, mingled with its business know-how and support system, allows many graduates to stay in New Brunswick to start their own businesses.
“It enables students like Kara, to make that transition into being an entrepreneur a lot easier,” Lemon-Mitchell said.
Angus also graduated with a network of fellow students available to help her achieve her ambitions and work with her; they are now employed in various industries, from insurance to web design.
“UNB is so well respected and that helps gain community partners through those opportunities I was affiliated with, to connect with business community mentors to carry this ship forward,” said Angus.
Angus said Faculty of Management mentors guided her as she planned a business model that would eventually become Go-Go Group – an idea to offer recreational gymnastics in a way that suited the average family, with easier access for kids and more opportunities.
Founded in 2006 as Go-Go Gymnastics, her company grew and broadened its scope, now offering after-school and pre-school programs, gymnastics classes, camps and special events with more than 700 New Brunswick kids enrolled. “I wanted to do a better service in the city. The original idea was a brick and mortar (business), but it was my professor who said, ‘That’s not going to fly. You need to be unique, show the city that your value proposition will be in a different way,’” said Angus.
“At the end of the day, it became an idea that I could put this company on wheels, with equipment in a truck, traveling around bringing it to families across New Brunswick, in the city and in rural areas.”
With that idea, Angus began to build her business.
“We ran with it around the time New Brunswick was excited about being more active, understanding that our health scores weren’t as high as we’d like and that our kids needed more activity,” she said.
Angus’ unique business plan won her the $20,000 Top Student Entrepreneurship Prize in the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s Business Plan Competition – prize money contingent on her operating her business for at least a year. It was one of many accolades and funding assistance she’s received from banks, trade boards and chambers of commerce over the years.
Angus started out operating a mobile gymnastics school, but was operating with narrow margins – and drew again on the base of knowledge she had access to, through UNB, to adapt and create new revenue streams.
“It was a tough business model. I remember opening, thinking, ‘We’re only doing this for 12 months, it won’t be long-term,’ etcetera.”
With the help of professors and mentors like educational Consultant Chris Treadwell, Angus researched a more effective business model, finding an opportunity to build a bigger client base by incorporating childcare into her business model – and thus, Go-Go Group was born.
“We found a different option for clients and boom, we were in childcare,” said Angus.
Childcare now makes up 95 per cent of Go-Go’s business, allowing for its explosive growth across the province.
Angus sees the children of her former classmates enrolling in Go-Go’s programs at the 25 locations it has across New Brunswick.
“The community is small, and the network is large,” she says.
Angus had originally planned to be a teacher before she became an entrepreneur. With her Go-Go business experience, she became a part-time instructor at UNB in 2009.
“That’s really neat, I came full-circle,” she says. “I love bringing Go-Go’s story to the classroom to tell my students, ‘You don’t often understand that the opportunities that can change your life forever might be right beside you or in front of you.’”
This story was sponsored by the UNB Faculty of Management.