Who helps entrepreneurs in York Region?

When I set out on my own, I found it difficult to find supporting resources and organizations. Part of the issue was that I didn't necessarily know what questions I was trying to answer, and part of the issue was I didn't know where to find the answers (e.g., which organizations could help). So I stumbled along, tripped here and there, but was fortunate enough to bump into the people I needed to bump into.

Last year when I was helping with Startup Weekend York Region, one of my goals was to give participants something that they could use to further develop their business idea after the event was over. If there were a couple of businesses that were born that weekend, it would be nice to give them a warm transfer into the robust York Region ecosystem to help them continue.

So I went to the websites of the organizations that I knew helped entrepreneurs in the Region, copied content from their sites, compiled it into a document, and v1 of the overview was created. It was 7 pages long, it was shared with all partners (for them to customize as they wanted), and all was good with the world.

A year later, I decided to update the document. The ecosystem had evolved and v1 was outdated.  York Region had seen a couple of makerspaces created, new players had entered the community (or my ignorance of them had been addressed), and existing players had expanded or changed their offerings.

The approach was the same: copy and paste from websites, organize the list around problem statements, give to partner organizations to do whatever they wanted with it. Unlike last time however, several eyes from partner organizations reviewed the document and provided input. And suddenly, the overview not only represented a broader perspective, but it ballooned to 17 pages.

So, for anyone thinking about starting a business in York Region, expanding their business into York Region, already running a business in York Region, or looking to find a place to connect with fellow innovators in York Region, download the overview.

Hopefully this saves you some time finding what you need!