Summer Company program boosts young Windsor-Essex entrepreneurs
CBC
As the summer draws to an end, some young Windsor-Essex residents are reflecting not just about their good times this season — but about their personal business ventures.
The Summer Company program run by the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Centre of Invest WindsorEssex is aimed at helping local students explore their small business ideas.
"Networking with people, like-minded young people... That's one of the main things that I found in Summer Company," enthused 19-year-old Sarim Ishtiaq, one of this year's beneficiaries.
To qualify for the program, applicants must be between the ages of 15 and 29, enrolled in secondary or post-secondary education, and have a full-time independent business plan.
Successful applicants receive entrepreneurial training and mentorship and up to $3,000 in grants.
The program had 15 recipients this summer, with business ideas ranging from crochet crafts to vehicle detailing.
Ishtiaq devoted his time and grant money to developing an app called Kterings inc. (a play on the word "catering").
"You could call it DoorDash for homemade food," Ishtiaq explained.
The app is meant to connect hungry customers with home cooks selling their dishes as meals on delivery.
Ishtiaq said he's so far made arrangements with about a dozen cooks — offering such South Asian dishes as biryani (mixed rice), aloo paratha (flatbread with potato filling), and halwa puri (fried bread and sweet paste).
Although Ishtiaq said his efforts this summer resulted in only 25 completed sales, he's pleased with the app's progress to date and has great ambitions for it. "My goal for the end of the year is 100 (sales) per month," he said.
"We want to go globally... This is something I want to focus on and I want to grow. I've committed to it."
Meanwhile, program beneficiary Afiya Islam, 18, said her party equipment rental company — Party Crashers Rental — landed just one customer this summer.
"Do you know the round hoops that people put the balloons on? Basically, it's like a backdrop," said Islam, 18. "[The customer] rented that out."
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