Finding success with a small business in New Brunswick
New Brunswick is a fast-growing community for small businesses. With so much potential for growth, entrepreneurs are flocking to the province to try it out for themselves. We take a look at a few small business owners’ successes in the province, as well as the Business Immigrant Mentorship Program – a free program to learn everything you need to know about starting a small business in New Brunswick and being a successful entrepreneur!
Also watch: Queen Square Farmers Market in Saint John, NB, helps newcomers network
Video transcript:
Renu Dhayagude:
The New Brunswick economy is traditionally focused on small and medium-sized businesses. The sectors are in the Natural resource industry, such as mining, agriculture, forestry aqua agriculture. Also, there are a lot of food processing and value-added sectors included in that. We also have a large trucking sector in New Brunswick. The province now is looking to focus more on the high tech and industries such as, you know, cybersecurity, for example. And also we are looking at growing the agricultural sector in New Brunswick as well. Immigrant entrepreneurs are very important to our economy. Through the New Brunswick Business Stream, the province is looking to attract entrepreneurs to the province who have the skills, management experience, the knowledge to set up a business in New Brunswick.
Cyriaque Kiti:
I feel that it is a province that has tremendous economic potential but is not exploited. That is, there is a lot of space, a lot of development to be done, and a lot of research that is not fully exploited, so the potential is very high.
Christian J. Baudchon:
I decided to start a business in New Brunswick because first of all, that’s what I’ve been doing for 15 years. That’s what I did in France. In France, I was not extremely happy as an entrepreneur. It’s an environment that is not very easy for entrepreneurs. But here I really wanted to keep doing the same thing. I worked in the Internet field in France. Here, what do we need to create a business in the Internet field? And I realized that all New Brunswick is quipped with fiber optics and has an ultra high-speed connection. I have a better internet connection here at the far end of New Brunswick in my Chaleur region that I had next to a city of more than one million inhabitants.
Renu Dhayagude:
We welcome businesses in all sectors. We have seen businesses in the IT sector, the biotechnology sector, and agriculture. We have small farms that are starting through this program also in export, and import, for example, exporting seafood from New Brunswick to China. Through our department, we fund several programs that are geared towards business immigrant entrepreneurs who come to the province. For example, the business mentorship programs. It started with a small program in Fredericton and has now expanded. We now have five programs across New Brunswick. These programs offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn about several things, like regulations in New Brunswick. How do you start a business, networking, finance, you know, all of those different areas that, new immigrants might not necessarily have a good knowledge in?
Adam Luo:
I certainly learned a lot from participating in the Business Immigrant Mentorship program. I learned practically everything to start a business in New Brunswick in that program. So, first of all, I met a lot of people in that program. So, they often organize events, networking events. So I came out, you know, I met all kinds of people, you know, accountants, lawyers, economic development agencies, and other people in the ecosystem. And second of all, through talking to those people, you know, I learned a lot about how to start a business. The legal part of it, the accounting part of it, and the networking, and marketing part of it. We opened three other businesses here, in Fredericton. Most of them are restaurants. We just kept doing it.
Gina Zhang:
The reason we keep opening new businesses in Fredericton is also because we feel this is a place, we can keep growing. Even [though] it’s a smaller population, which means a smaller market, but the support we get is tremendous compared to a big city.
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