Tools for Success: ECSW Brings Advice for Fredericton Entrepreneurs
FREDERICTON–Planet Hatch hosted a panel discussion on building and nurturing business relationships as part of the East Coast Startup Week’s (ECSW) Innovators’ Jump Start Program event Monday afternoon.
The panel was made up of executive director of the Pond-Deshpande Centre Karina LeBlanc, president and CEO of Springboard Atlantic Chris Mathis, executive director of 21Inc Vanessa Paesani and realtor and small business owner Richard Bragdon.
The panelists addressed audience questions and issues concerning how to build relationships with fellow business people and how to recover when things go wrong.
“The best businesses have the best relationships,” LeBlanc said. “Even moreso now than ever, trust is becoming a currency in our economy. The better you are at it, the more likely you’ll be able to succeed compared to your competitors because it really gives you a competitive advantage.”
Stephanie Edgel is an attendee at ECSW and talked about how the discussions are helping her understand how doing business is different in Canada from her home country Nigeria. She’s an entrepreneur and student at UNB.
“I find it beneficial because I’m an entrepreneur. I have an event service company in my country and I’m also planning to start up something in IT. Considering the fact that I’m from another country, the laws are different, business relationships are different so I feel this talk will help me get a bit of understanding about how to do business in Canada,” Edgel said.
Amir Akbari is the co-founder and CEO of WEnTech Solutions, a waste-to-energy technology company in Fredericton. He says he hopes the East Coast Startup Week events will help his company progress through their development phase and protect their intellectual property.
“We’ve developed a beta version of our tool and we are trying to create and develop the main platform,” Akbari said. “That’s the reason we’re in the phase of protecting that. Once it’s developed, we want to market is so we don’t want to market before protecting it.”
East Coast Startup Week continues with events in Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton throughout the rest of this week. Event listings can be found on the ECSW website.