ACCELERATOR LOOKS TO HELP BUSINESSES EXPAND

ORGANIZATION PROVIDES PROGRAMMING AND MENTORS TO LOCAL COMPANIES

Many who have chosen to retire in South Georgian Bay bring with them a successful business pedigree.

The Georgian Bay Accelerator is looking to use this intellectual capital to help businesses in the area grow and expand.

Peter Heinke is executive director of the accelerator, which is a partnership with Community Futures South Georgian Bay. He said they offer coaching and mentorship and work with businesses to develop a plan.

To date, they've worked with 11 companies at different levels.

"We're getting companies that have an idea, doing some programming with them," Heinke said. "We assign these coaches, go through the business and do a deep dive and find out what does this business really need. We might have

technology businesses, we might have production companies; all of them have to have some element of technology or innovation in them."

With the help of the accelerator, one company,

Rappid Design, worked with a United States company that does all of the COVID-19 testing for production studios. Rappid has recently added about 10 employees.

Heinke said they also

helped company Shop Solar — a Meaford-based company that is one of the largest e-commerce sites for solar products in North America. He said they had a mentor work with them on how to grow their company. Gillian Fairley, general manager of Community Futures — a company that helps businesses secure funding — said many of the mentors have a wide variety of expertise and are more than willing to share.

"We have an excellent entrepreneurship ecosystem in this area," she said.

Heinke said the accelerator will also assist to help companies secure funding to grow. He said the goal is to help create a more diverse economy for South Georgian Bay.

"I wanted, if my kids want to work in this area and stay in this area, they can have a career. It will increase those choices for those kids," he said.

For more information, visit gbaccelerator.ca.