You have an idea and you want to get your business up and running as quickly as possible

You can. 

You're going to love the Small Business Academy. You will get an exercise every day of the sprint for you to do in your business. Each exercise builds on the previous ones and takes you one logical step closer to your first customers. 

We take you through a series of projects that you do in your business to guide you through all the work you need to do to get from idea to wildly profitable business.

The biggest challenge in starting a business is in thinking that you have to know and do everything at once. You don't. There is a logical order. 

The first question you get is, "How are you going to market?" You can't answer that until you know who your customers are, what their problem is and how they want you to solve it. 

Marketers will tell you to go figure that out then come back to learn the tactics of marketing. As though you need to figure that out on your own before you can start your business. We believe that is the work of starting your business and it is the work we do here. We will guide you to those answers through a series of exercises.

Join us for the Summer18 Startup Sprint starting on August 8. 

Join now and dive into the Getting Ready bonuses. Time, energy, motivation, productivity, fear, pricing, money and mindset. These are live events and are not recorded. Get in now and start getting ready to dive in!

We are following the first 3 of the 6 Stages to Starting and Growing Your Business. 

The first stage is the Owner's Journey. The projects in this stage revolve around matching your needs with the appropriate business model and type. You build your business for you and ...

...you make your offer for your customers. What offer? What customers? How will you reach them, how will you deliver to them, how will you make them happy? Those answers are different for every business. The second stage is the Discovery Dance. This series of projects guides you through answering all these questions until you have your first customers and the perfect offer.

The third stage is your Official Start of your business, only after you know what you are building and you have validated your idea. This series of projects takes you through the legal, financial and regulatory steps.

For an idea of the program, have a look at the Small Business Academy on Medium

This is a sprint!

With the support you need to make it work for you

You get an email every morning with the day's exercise. If you only do the exercises every day, you will get your first customers and your business up and running by the end of August. You will get out of this what you put in. If you focus, you can get the work done in time to still enjoy summer and check out the beach or meet pals.

You will be up and running so that you can focus on growing your business in the fall. 

You get help when you need it. We are using this platform because it is super at bringing a group together to talk, share resources and it's not Facebook with all the distractions that go with that.

You can ask questions at any time and get the answers you need from the group and from me. We will have popup events on specific topics when needed. These will be recorded and you will have access to them. Several of the exercises require that we work together to be able to discuss your results and your next moves. There are just too many variables for me to be able to cover them all in your email. 

You get resources you need. I have a deep vault bursting with tools, resources, articles, hints, tips, tricks and hacks created and gathered over decades of working with 1000s of small business owners.

You are not dropping into a library of talking head videos with lessons and workbooks. We are working on this together as a group. Small Business Owners are adults who don't need to be told. You work better when we can have a dialogue, when you can talk about your business and hear others talk about theirs.

The community is as important as the program. As much as your family and friends want to help you, unless they are on this path, too, they have no idea what you are going through. You join a community of other small business owners all on the same journey.

This format and platform allows us to be responsive. You get the help you need when you need it (within human capability). We are going to maintain a brisk pace. Some things will be dead easy for you and others will be more challenging. We offer support in smaller groups for those who need it. It's how we can keep a big group moving forward and making progress while recognizing all unique talents and abilities as well as the whirl wind of life.

If you were the type who followed the crowd and loved predictability, you wouldn't be a small business owner. This is different, but built on decades of experience with 1000s of small business owners just like you.

The price? Only US$35/month. Stay as long as you are getting value. 

You will get a message before your renewal comes up and you are welcome to continue with the group if you are getting value, or you can cancel when the Summer18 Startup Sprint is over. 

How can I do this? I'm following the 'do what is unsustainable' principle as I continue to test and build on these concepts. You are getting in early and for the best price. 

Are you an innovator? Are you ready to try something new? The current paradigm has a 90% failure rate. This program was designed to turn that around. Join us for the Summer18 Startup Sprint

You can check out the program we are following here. 

Joe said,  Amazing webinar, Frances! Thank you very much!

Nivin said,  This session was extremely helpful in guiding me to next steps in my business endeavour. Thank you so much Frances.

Lu said   I really enjoyed it and was very grateful. Frances is knowledgeable!

Violetta said  Thank you Frances for an informative and great webinar!  I will promote your website, so others can gain value from it as well.

Sherry said   Hi Frances, Thank you for this informative meetup. It was cool that it was online. I have some great tips that I plan to utilize in my Business.

Ashwin said  Was really good discussion and I enjoyed it very much. Would like to hear about any upcoming events on the same

Kee (one of our speakers) said Thanks everyone for showing up! Fantastic group of people. Loved every discussion we had! ☺️

Jude said   Good energy, and valuable information and insight. Thanks Frances.

Sylvia said   Great webinar and lots of useful information from someone who has tons of experience. Thank you Frances!

I am a serial entrepreneur. who has helped 1000s of small business owners at every stage of business in every industry. I can help you

I owned one of the first enterprise computer sales outlets in Nova Scotia selling a wildly advanced computer with 40 mg of hard drive. People said you’d never fill it. Boy, I’m dating myself there.

I started a bidding company helping homeowners assemble bids for construction projects. It was an innovative business model of having the contractors pay to join the service and the projects came in for free. Right at a time when the construction industry was just beginning to peak after a boom.

I’ve consulted at various times around business models, structure, social enterprise and profitability.

I owned a drafting service, construction project management firm, did building science studies for the government, was a general contractor and landscaping company. We planted 130,000 trees one summer.

I had a homestead and sold in farmers’ markets, helped start and grow farmers markets.

A couple of times I did bookkeeping for small businesses when I needed to pick up some quick cash. When I was pregnant with my second child, I picked up my first customer in what grew to be Crystal Clear Bookkeeping Ltd, that I ran for 15 years.

It was in this business I got to work closely with 100s of small business owners. I treated it like my own personal lab and shared what I learned by speaking and writing about business, organizing conferences, Lunch & Learn series, workshops and teaching SBOs how to do bookkeeping and read their financials. 

As in any population there is a normal distribution of SBOs: some doing very well, some struggling and most doing okay. I brought my science and engineering background to bear. I had to know why and what were they doing differently.

I took everything I learned and wrote my first book, Your Effortless Business. 

I worked with Small Business Support organizations to design and deliver programming to help SBOs. 

In all this the accepted statistic was that 90% of Small Businesses fail within 5 years. Which sounds about right when you look at how difficult it is to start a business. Except, I was up close and personal with this group and I got to see the devastation of a failed enterprise that you had put your heart and soul into. I also experienced it first hand. It didn’t sit right with me.

It brings up a number of things. Like is it our culture? Other cultures don’t experience that level of failure. What is a failure? Not all are the same. What responsibility do we have as a community to help and support the people who bring us the goods and services we need to make our community better?

The biggest question of all for me was: Are we giving our SBOs and entrepreneurs the best advice and support to help them succeed.

The deeper I looked the more the answer to that question seemed to be a resounding NO!

Starting a business can feel overwhelming. I know, I’ve started 15 businesses. Some lasted months, some years and one 15 years. One was incorporated, some were registered sole proprietorships, a couple were registered partnerships and many were just run under my name. All were legal and appropriate for what I was doing.

I have helped 1000s of people start small businesses in every industry, of every type and growing to every size. I have done this informally for friends, through my bookkeeping business and in partnership with small business support organizations. 

I have helped with legalities, structure and accounting. I have helped with product/service design, offers and business models, I have helped with marketing and sales. I have helped with business strategy, process and procedures. I have worked with business owners at every stage from thinking about an idea to succession and inheritance. I have helped small business owners through business and life: marriage, children, divorce and death. 

I have a deep and profound understanding of what a business can be and what the long term implications of every decision are. I know how your business can give you a great life or tear your life apart. People who have it ‘made’ didn’t get there by accident. They did it by design and they worked hard to make their business support them in the life they choose.

I can help you build the business that gives you the life you crave and deserve. I have your back, I won't let you make decisions without letting you know the long term implications.

Join the Summer18 Startup Sprint and get your perfect-for-you business up and running with your first customers.