This interview was conducted with Dominik Loncar, an entrepreneur-in-residence who provide mentoring to applying entrepreneurs, as well as conducting webinars and hosting several interactive workshops coming to Newfoundland in March.
What is your organisation’s mission?
Our mandate is to help young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18-35 launch their business with the help of a loan and a mentor.
How long have you been operating?
We’ve been operating for over 20 years. Originally, we were known as Canadian Youth Business Foundation, but we changed our name to Futurpreneur Canada about four years ago
Do you have any upcoming events?
We have several webinars available, the
next one premiering next Wednesday (January 30th) at 4pm
Newfoundland time.
Next March, I’ll be hosting a 3 hour “boot camp” interactive exercises, which
are open to everyone, of how to put together a good business plan and the
process of starting your own business. These will be hosted at the College of
the North Atlantic campus’ in St. John’s, Grand Falls, and Corner Brook.
Can you tell us some of the businesses your organisation has supported? Is there a specific type of business that seems to be prevalent?
We don’t have specialization or any prevalent business we support, we get all kinds of different businesses applying for our assistance, although they are usually one-person operations. Most of our applicants are small business, larger ones like restaurants may require extra fund. We assist with professional services, product/food businesses, online businesses, etc. Our mandate is to help someone get up and running in the first year.
Is there a criterion that applicants must meet in order to be approved of?
The main criteria are to submit a
polished business plan and that the applicant have a relatively good credit
rating. Many of our resources are available free online for anyone.
We provide interested applicants with access to our webinars and mentors, as
well as the ability to create their own business plan. People are able to
create and save their business plan through the Business Plan Writer on our
website at www.futurpreneur.ca, as well as a cashflow template.
What tools do you use to support entrepreneurs in starting their business?
Our main resource is our business mentors which help the applicants figure out the next step in their business plan. Also available are the webinars which are available on our website. We also host interactive workshops throughout the year, and in Newfoundland we have a business involvement manager named Scott Andrews who’s more than capable of mentoring local beginning entrepreneurs.
How many applicants on average apply for your support?
We receive about 1000 business applications a year for funding and mentors.
Any advice you might give to an entrepreneur who’s interested in getting support from you?
My biggest suggestion is to stay
focused and find your niche. It’s not enough to have an idea, you need to
figure out your starting point, and then find your execution, what are you
going to do next for your business. Futurpreneur is more than willing to
provide assistance to up and coming entrepreneurs, but some businesses require
more experience, and applicants need to be open to feedback.
For example, if you were to open a bookstore, you’d need experience working in
that same environment, you’d need to find the right location, figure out what
kind of books you’d like to sell. In these early stages there’s not much point
in applying, applicants need a clear image of a business, feedback from
potential customers of what’s the best thing to sell. After that early stage,
they need to move from the idea stage to development to prelaunch, for example
doing the necessary research of what niche the business can fit.
