A new SCENE is taking shape in Sault Ste. Marie—one designed to encourage entrepreneurs to share their experiences and explore new business opportunities.
Launched last year, the Sault Community Entrepreneur Network Exchange (SCENE) is an informal collective of local entrepreneurs who meet bimonthly to exchange ideas and learn from one another. “The concept was to develop some type of forum or platform where like-minded entrepreneurs could get together and just be around each other,” explained Zoltan Virag, a business advisement developer at the Sault’s Economic Development Corp., noting that entrepreneurs come with all levels of experience. “It could be fledgling businesses; it could be someone that isn’t interested in owning a business but has always been business-oriented and still wants to be involved in community.”
In the SCENE, someone can bring an idea forward and other members can contribute their skills and experience to build on that concept, Virag said. An accountant might help with financial tips, for example, while a lawyer may offer legal advice, and financiers could help with investment capital. “That was the whole concept: to improve the wealth of the community by utilizing the skill sets of the community for each other,” Virag said.
Results from an EDC survey of local entrepreneurs showed that businesses were more likely to fail without outside support.
SCENE affords members the opportunity to test their ideas with no pressure to take it further than they want. It’s not a new concept, Virag said, and there are other connecting forums available, but SCENE takes the concept down to a grassroots level.
Often, he said, people understand the hands-on part of the business they want to start, but they lack the business-planning acumen required to get started.
“I find with entrepreneurs, in my experience as an advisor here, that 90 per cent of the time if someone doesn’t move forward with their business aspiration it’s not necessarily because of finance or because they lack the know-how of the hands-on,” Virag said. “It’s the fact that if they’re looking for funding they lack the skill sets to develop a business plan and they’re very afraid of that, so they stop there.” SCENE ideally will break down those barriers, enabling entrepreneurs to move to the next stage of their plan.
The network is operating in tandem with Gangplank Sault, directed by Gerry Kirk, which offers a work space to entrepreneurs who are at the next stage of building their business.
A concept that originated in the U.S. following a downturn in the economy, Kirk is the first to bring Gangplank to Canada.
After entrepreneurs find their initialinspiration through SCENE, they can move on to Gangplank. The EDC is currently working on setting up a small-business incubator in the downtown core for those entrepreneurs who are then ready to take it to the next level.
The first meeting of SCENE proved so popular its attendance capped out at 30 and several people went on a waiting list. Virag’s next step is to take a “social inventory” of everyone in the group to compile a database of what competencies are available in the group and what skills may be lacking.
Virag said SCENE will be a long-term initiative that could even be adapted for use in other communities. With its ‘by the community, for the community’ ideology, SCENE can work for just about anybody.
“We don’t ask for the reason why you’re there,” Virag said. “We just announce that hopefully you’re there to bring something to the table, and also you hopefully want to learn something from people at the table.”
