With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1505828
SEPTEMBER 2023 BCBUSINESS.CA 39 What's Cracking The Hatch and Hype program has only just launched in markets in Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, so those stats are still pending. But here's the report from the Kootenay/ Columbia Basin region n I always felt we had hedged risk by being a global brand. If there were issues in Europe, we're on other continents and have different ways to keep going. It just wasn't in our business plan to prepare for the entire world to stop travelling. [In 2020] we were on track to do about $7 million; we were going to be profitable for the first time. I remember that fateful day, March 13, when international travel halted. Revenue stopped, no sales. It was a terrifying time—we had a team of 20 people, with payroll and all these bookings. We had a tsunami of refund requests at the same time. Our bank account got completely drained, we had to dip into our line of credit. It was absolutely the darkest chapter of my career and the business. We went from 20 people to four and were just trying to stay alive. It's like boxing in the fog—you don't know what's coming. We thought about how to diversify and serve our customers while providing work for the community and photographers while no one was travelling. We offered more hometown shoots—safely and at a distance—because people still wanted memories. We also launched an e-commerce shop called The Travel Shop. We had travel-themed gifts and merch that people could purchase, like puzzles of Santorini and airport code sweatshirts. We kept two developers on the team and they automated some manual processes in our workflow and booking platform so that when travel came back we could be more efficient. Around March or April last year we started to see recovery. Prior to that, every quarter, something would happen. Oh it's Delta or Omicron, there was never a reprieve. Then travel exploded. We were caught in situation where we had two customer service folks as bookings came back with a force. We called May 2022 "Mayhem." It was a great lesson in codifying your processes for a team that had to hire quickly. This past May, we were fully staffed and ready for business. Had our best month ever—hit a million dollars in revenue. F R O M 1 0 0 T O 0 A N D B A C K A G A I N Before the pandemic, Victoria-based Flytographer—which sets up tour- ists with expert photographers in the city they're in—was in the clouds. Then it came crashing down. Founder and CEO Nicole Smith tells the story —As told to Nathan Caddell n It's mind-boggling how quickly a farmers market can transform an empty parking lot into a buzzy, abundant destination, with crunchy apples, flower-infused honey and mountains of leafy kale lining the tented stands. It's fresh fruits and veggies aplenty—and it's also a vibrant hub for entrepreneurs. "The farmers market is a great place to work out your business structure, especially in economic uncertainty," says Melissa Maltais, membership and programs manager for the BC Association of Farmers' Markets. "It's on a smaller scale, so you can adapt and change as you get feedback, and you've got this warm community that's there to support you and provide you with resources to help." It's true that securing a spot at a farmers market involves less of a financial commitment than, say, opening a restaurant or brick-and- mortar retail shop—but the cost can still be prohibitive to some entrepreneurs. To address this, the association launched a pilot program called Hatch and Hype in 2021. "We really wanted to highlight how farm- ers markets are incubators in the economic development community, and that it really is a great place to launch a startup business," says Maltais. Through this program, small businesses don't have to buy a tent or table (the price to participate varies between markets— some are fully sponsored by nonprofits like the Community Futures Network of British Colum- bia and some have a minimal fee—think less than $50) and have access to low-cost liability insurance, free promo materials, community resources and educational opportunities. The Hatch and Hype initiative began in the Kootenay/Columbia Basin area: in Cranbrook, for example, Bianca Tempel launched her stuffed cookie business, Snickadoodle Summit Bakery, and Kristin Gyurkovits founded her small-batch kombucha biz under the name TruBooCha Kombucha. Recently, the program has expanded to supporting entrepreneurs in Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Maltais points out that programs like Hatch and Hype have become especially essential for the survival of small businesses during the cur- rent downturn—plus, initiatives like these help make the market community more welcoming for everyone. "[Hatch and Hype] really started to expand the cultural diversity of the farmers market, because it was very appealing to folks that are new immigrants or refugees wanting to launch in that space," she explains. "We're breaking down that barrier of entry." –A.H. M A R K E T R AT E A new low-barrier program from the BC Association of Farmers' Markets is giving new entrepreneurs a boost 13 farmers markets participating 194 new products launched by existing vendors 175 new farm and food vendor businesses created 269 total products featured at the markets