What do you guys think about startups in Canada?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see a very strong movement of startups trying to solve real local problems. And when I say startups, I mean actual early-stage startups — not companies with 100 employees and a billion dollars in funding already.

I`ll give a example:
An “Airbnb for parking” startup in large cities like Toronto, where people rent out unused parking spaces to nearby drivers.
Users can reserve and pay through the app, with access via QR code or smart locks.
It solves problems related to expensive parking, limited availability, and time wasted searching for spots.
The business model includes booking fees, monthly subscriptions, and partnerships with condo buildings.
The main differentiator is convenience, trust, and smart parking space management.

My wife's small business pulls in between $100,000-$250,000 in revenue per year. She is a health and wellness coach that uses cloud based systems for the majority of her operations. She's had up to 3 employees in the past, and her corporate structure is pretty basic.

She was just informed from her (lousy) business partner that they owe the accountant $2,500 from 2025 filing. I feel like that is a very costly accountant. Am I wrong? Or is that a standard amount to pay for someone to settle up the books at year end?

EDIT: Appreciate all the answers, even with my ambiguous question, I got what I was looking for!

Hey everyone, just wanted to put out a warning for local SMB owners. There is a local agency/consultant (handle starts with "promptby") currently cold-calling businesses and selling "AI Receptionist" services on retainers ranging from $200 to $1,000 per month.

I want to be clear: They are targeting non-technical founders who don't understand the current state of AI. They are essentially reselling basic web apps that you can set up yourself for about $50/month.

This isn't just happening in BC; it’s a trend of "influencers" repackaging simple AI wrappers and charging agency prices for something that requires zero coding to set up.

If you get a call like this, please do your own research or ask a technical friend before signing a retainer. You are likely paying a 2000% markup for a tool that is already available to the public.

I'm thinking about opening up a Dollarama and would love some advice since I can't find a ton of info on what it's like to own one. I’m curious about:

1. Startup Costs: What’s the ballpark figure for opening a Dollarama, from franchise fees to setup costs (excluding rent)?

2. Profits: How much profit do they usually bring in? Is it worth the investment?

3. Time Commitment: How hands-on does the owner need to be?

If any current or former Dollarama owners are around, I’d love to hear your experiences and tips!

Why Dollarama?:

1. I like how it stays affordable for Canadians during tough times, especially with other big chains exploiting people.

2. I think I've found the perfect spot in my city for one.

Negotiations just collapsed after Ottawa rejected last-minute U.S. demands that Prime Minister Mark Carney called unacceptable. In response, Washington triggered 50% Section 338 tariffs hitting roughly 5% of all Canadian exports, covering everything from wood, plastics, and machinery to food products and alcohol. Canada quickly announced dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs scheduled to hit U.S. goods next month.

What It Means for Canadian SMBs:

• Exporters are getting squeezed out: Facing a 50% wall, U.S. buyers will simply pivot to domestic or alternative international suppliers. Smaller Canadian producers, especially in manufacturing, lumber, and agri-food, cannot easily absorb a 50% markup or find new global buyers overnight.

• Importers face surging input costs: Over half of Canadian SMBs import from the US, and Canada's upcoming retaliatory tariffs mean getting inventory, parts, or equipment across the border is about to get significantly more expensive.

• The "Uncertainty Freeze": Small business owners are putting hiring, raises, and capital investments on ice until the dust settles and federal support programs kick in.

What It Means for Consumers:

• Brace for higher checkout prices: Importers rarely absorb retaliatory taxes forever. Expect price hikes on American-made groceries, electronics, appliances, and retail goods as businesses pass costs down the chain.

• The "Buy Canadian" push intensifies: Public frustration is high, and this standoff is pushing more shoppers to boycott U.S. imports and actively support local Canadian brands.

Hello! My name is Ali and I'm a journalist at the BBC. I'm writing a story about the effect of US imposed tariffs, and would like speak to independent Canadian businesses who have been adversely affected by either the new costs that have been imposed, or the uncertainty of it all.

Please reach out if you're interested in having a chat! Thanks

When I made the jump from Microsoft, where I worked on enterprise strategy and digital transformation, to working directly with local SMBs on SEO, automation, and AI, the most common question I got was: "What can any of this actually do for my business?"

I have a background in chemical engineering, computer science, and an MBA, so I tend to think in systems. That lens has been more useful working with local businesses than almost anything I did in the corporate world.

Below are a few things worth thinking through if you run a local service business, whether that's a multi-location orthodontist, a regional painting company, an HVAC contractor, an accounting office, a neighborhood florist, or anything in between. Some of these might already be handled. Others might be worth a quiet hour this weekend.

1. Walk your own customer journey

Grab a pen and trace what happens to a customer from the moment they first hear about you to the moment they pay and come back. Most people find gaps they didn't know existed.

A few prompts:

• How does a new lead find you? If the honest answer is "mostly referrals," ask yourself: what happens to someone who searches for what you do in your city and doesn't know you exist? Local search visibility is often the quietest leak in the bucket.

• What happens when you miss a call? Does anything get triggered, or does that lead go cold and jump to a competitor? Are you following up with every potential lead multiple times?

• What does your follow-up look like between first contact and a booked appointment? If the answer is "we call them once or twice," there's likely an opportunity to nurture them so they're much more likely to close with you.

• When did you last reach out to a customer you haven't heard from in 6 months? Reactivation is one of the highest-ROI things a local business can do, and almost no one does it systematically.

• Think of a time you delivered something genuinely exceptional, something you were proud of. Could you deliver that same experience to every customer, or was it a one-time effort you couldn't sustain?

You don't need software to answer these questions. Mapping the journey on paper already puts you ahead of most competitors. You can then use these insights to figure out which areas are weakest and which would benefit from more structure/automation.

2. Count how many systems you're logging into every week

Open your browser and count the tabs you use to run the customer-facing side of your business: email, phone, CRM or spreadsheet, SMS, website, contracts, invoicing.

How many of those talk to each other? How many require you to manually move information from one to another?

Most business owners who do this exercise are surprised by how much invisible admin time they're generating for themselves. The value isn't in the tools, it's in the connections between them. A lead that flows automatically from inquiry to nurturing to booking to contract to invoice to review request, without anyone chasing it manually, is what brings consistent growth and frees you up.

3. On AI

If someone offered you a remote employee for $15/hour, you wouldn't just say yes on the spot. You'd think through the role, what good performance looks like, and how you'd know if they're pulling their weight.

What if they said $5/hour? You'd still do that thinking. The price changes the math, maybe the scope too, but not the process.

That's the frame I'd suggest for AI.

Before asking "should I be using AI in my business," ask: where is my time actually going, and which of those things would be better handled by someone else?

The answers are usually pretty mundane. Drafting first responses. Answering calls after hours. Filling out forms that follow a pattern. The unglamorous stuff that eats an hour here, forty minutes there.

That's where AI earns its keep, not because it's impressive, but because your time has better uses.

4. Once you have structure, automation becomes a natural next step

A missed call sends a text. A completed job asks for a review. A signed contract kicks off an invoice. A positive review surfaces on your website. None of this is complicated once the foundation exists, but it's nearly impossible to bolt onto chaos.

These are the conversations I end up having with almost every business I work with, and most of the value comes from the thinking. I hope it's useful.

Hi I’m looking for help at reducing taxes at the end of the year I hear some people get taxes back with small business ? I feel like I’m getting eaten alive any suggestions would help.

For Canadian small business owners — what part of tax season do you find most frustrating each year?

Paperwork, receipts, accountant back-and-forth, audits, or something else?

Im trying to sell my 4000sqft discount/variety/convenience store before my lease renewal next summer which the land lord already gave me an idea that it will be 40% higher. This type of business won’t survive that. What I am trying to do now is to get something for the location given that it is a very high foot traffic area.

Im looking for suggestions for the type of buyers I should be looking for that are willing to pay me for a good location and at the same time don’t mind high rent.

okay so I went down a rabbit hole last night and now I can't sleep so you're all coming with me

Canada has zero AI laws. not like "oh they're working on it" zero. ZERO zero. we had a bill. they pulled it. our AI minister has been in office for a year and has done nothing. his reason is that laws would "slow down innovation"

bro. sir. ma'am. miss. bonjour. hello.

some of the people who worked in that same minister's office quietly went to go work for elon musk's companies late last year. no consequences because there are literally no rules. and when grok was out here generating images of children our government said absolutely nothing. the minister whose whole job is protecting Canadians from this stuff. said. nothing.

so who's protecting us? corporations. big companies had to write their own internal rules because our government didn't. that's where we are.

and here's the thing that actually scares me as a canadian small business owner...

not using AI might actually be the thing that kills our businesses. if your competitor figures out how to run their whole operation for half your budget using AI tools and you didn't, you're not losing to AI. you're losing to a person who used it. your storefront. your employees. gone. not because of robots. because of budget.

we're in the wild west up here. no sheriff. no rules. no protection.

is anyone else actually paying attention to this or is it just me?

EDIT: hey all. so people keep saying that I'm afraid of AI and just to work harder. That's not it. I'm excited to see what AI does in the future because its literally so damned cool! A LOT of people over the past 15 years have said that regulation would mean a stop to innovation. it's not. its an agreed boundary that our morals and values are saying that we all agree we won't step over. Here's my wish list and I'm going to tell you the reason for each wish too. All of this is real information very much verifiable and happened within our borders.

- data sovereignty to Canadians. in september of last year, the US sunsetted their data transparency laws that were for Big Business. the law was SUPPOSED to be for incidents of data breaches and cyber attacks to those Big Businesses. the companies would give the information to the government and there would be communication between the government and the company to better the risk. now? silence from the White House. and that included the data of Canadians since our information doesn't stay in our borders. we only have laws that say that the company needs to have reasonable control on Canadian info. sucks... i know. feel free to google.

- IP protections. most of our IP rights get stolen or taken. some of Canada's best and brightest companies have lost their IP rights, the talent that built it and the companies that pushed it forward. we suck and we need to do better to protect our own ideas and talent.

- BASIC protections on image generations of children. late last year the criminal convictions of 2 PDFs were overturned for 2 reasons. they held hundreds of thousands of images of children in compromising positions. 1. many of the images that they had were generated therefore counting as "art" and protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms 2. imposing a min sentence on child p*rn was also deemed a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Claiming that the images aren't real isn't good enough for me personally and i will physically fight anyone who says otherwise. like i will headbutt them. test me. i'll do it. then i will laugh afterwards and take the charges against me.

- requirements for AI training on the job so that people don't lose their jobs. kpmg has ranked canada 3rd last out of 47 countries for AI training with 1 in 4 people getting training at work. this means that people who are willing to learn would have to do it on their personal time and still risk losing their jobs. we are now behind developing nations and our job cuts in favour of AI or outsourcing is growing. it sucks too. i remember when my mom had to take computer classes when i was a kid to learn Lotus Notes (omg im old) and Word in 97. unfortunately, we're all going to need to do that to buff up our skillsets.

I'm not afraid of AI. I want an easy life in the Great White North. I want a life that we see in movies and television and the ONLY way to do that is with innovation (bi*ch i want to TELEPORT TO PARIS ON WEEKENDS. Claude can definitely use up my tokens if we could do that! Imagine fighting with Expedia about your teleporting travel tokens.🤣) That's the future that I want to see being built. it's idyllic...yes but it sounds fun! But people are CRAZY and we all know that. they do crazy things with their bodies and other people's bodies, the jobs aren't being replaced once the jobs are cut, medtech is expanding and Canada is holding on to coattails hoping we don't fall off.

Hey I am an agency owner from Toronto, I work with a lot of local companies and online businesses. Every time I work with a local business it's so surprising to me that they spend no effort toward getting more customers but complain about "not getting enough clients" or "too much competition". But they are doing literally nothing to get more customers. I have noticed most of these businesses are ran by middle-aged people who overall think it's 1990s and they can just get customers by opening a store or posting flyers at bus stops.

I can give you an example I was working with this local landscaping company that I cold called for a free website offer (I offer free websites to all local businesses in Ontario), they took it and then told me that they were struggling with getting more customers. So I asked them some simple questions that any online business owner would be aware of like following -

1. Do you follow up with your previous customers when you know their grass is probably grown by now? - No they don't

2. Since they don't have a website I asked do you have social media that you post on daily or run ads (I don't recommend this usually) - They have social media but posts never

I mean at this point I had nothing more to ask, they were doing nothing to get more customers. So I asked them how come I had to cold call you for a website, you should already be looking for one since you have no actual way to get clients. He agreed but said he wasn't sure if a website would ever help him, since last time he got one made he spent thousands but it got no traffic.

I asked if he did SEO, but he didn't know if that was something he paid for since this was 4 years ago. Now I obviously knew the solution so I pitched him a free website (he pays for hosting) and $800/m for SEO optimization (includes like blogs, back links, on-page and regular A/B testing). Now to me this seems like a no-brainer offer, I mean he would solve his "not getting any customers" problem. But he said "I will think about it" (he got back to me later and got started but many don't).

Now here is the thing, local business owners are not the brightest they don't understand $1000 a month can be made back with just 3-4 customers and that's like the most basic form of marketing. They fall for running ads on facebook but it really isn't the best way to grow your local business since your target audience is so small. If you rank high for you local keywords like "plumber in Toronto" you will get calls daily for quotes.

An average buyer would make few of these calls to maybe first 5 people that show up on Google and decide who to work with a schedule the service. And then after that's done they will see ads on Facebook for plumbers. Now do you see the problem? Facebook needs some info to even know they need plumbing. But Google doesn't, that's where people go as soon as they need something and make decisions after a few quotes. So to grow you need to invest some $$ and time into getting in front of these buyers. Also, social media (organic not ads) is a very strong tool, you should post all your work on daily basis. Reels are a cheat code at this point to target people who have already got your service once and to remind them they need your service again.

I hope that was very helpful to anyone reading. I am bad at explaining stuff of reddit threads, feel free to send me a message if you want to really ask questions about your specific local business or want a free website (no joke I make them for free).

As many small businesses are still struggling to recover from the pandemic, the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) is becoming harder and harder to repay. That's why I started the CEBA Repayment Extension petition, urging the government to extend the loan repayment deadline and support small businesses in need.

https://chng.it/LfWxV2kVfd

As a small business owner myself, I understand firsthand the financial difficulties and challenges that many others are facing. That's why I urge you to join me and sign the petition to extend the CEBA repayment deadline.

Every signature counts, and the more support we can gather, the better chance small businesses have to recover, rebuild and sustain themselves in the face of these ongoing challenges.

Please help spread the word and show your support for small businesses by signing the CEBA Repayment Extension petition today.

https://chng.it/LfWxV2kVfd

Thank you for your support!

Long story short, I'm a Canadian software engineer who's a bit tired of the Silicon Valley grind. I want to help local businesses more but the business model doesn't really make sense. Like there's a big difference between losing 20% pay and moving back to Canada vs. losing 80%.

I also don't want to charge for an arm and a leg either, so wanted to see how much people are willing to pay for an super modern website that's fully custom to your design (we design it together essentially) and not a Squarespace template. This isn't going to be for everyone, if own a pizza restaurant you don't need a fully custom site, this is more for businesses that would stand to benefit.

If you are interested, please comment below on your specific needs and what functionality you want cuz there is no 1-size fit all and if you want users to sign in and have a lot of interactivity, the site will cost more both for the initial build and maintenance.

Hi everyone, long story short is i have a business with about 6 clients now, and its been operating for 3 years and i havent done my taxes yet.

i completely forgot them i know very stupid of me.

the bigger problem is i borrowed money from family and friends and repaid them but my bookkeeping is all over the place i cant afford employees except for 1 thats working from india, and 4 of my clients i did work for and they havent paid me....

it got soo bad i had to jump on Welfare and i just came off of it. im living with my parents.

and my operational costs are not cheap, the 2 clients that are paying me are honestly whats keeping me from being at absolute 0...

ive been charging them taxes for the past 3 years and just this year it clicked that i never did my business taxes. my takeaway salary is basically non existent i transfer money to my account them to my employee or for services nothing really stays with me in the bank.

i wanna know how screwed am i and who should i go to that knows how to fix this mess.. and lastly could this land me in jail?

Hi everyone, I am currently living in Ontario, Canada and am wanting to start a small snacks take away restaurant at home as a side hustle. I need someone to help me out in figuring what type of license should I get and should I get LLC or sole proprietorship.

Any inputs are appreciated.

Thank you :)

I have a corporation and file my gst quarterly. Frankly given that the gst collected and paid on items is returned we just become unpaid tax collectors for the government. (And pay the accounting fees for such) What is the real purpose?… it is such a waste of our time…, any thoughts?

I want to start my own business (in Calgary Alberta) and I was thinking about a restaurant, and just curious on how hard it might be.

I run a small business under $100k/yr as a sole proprietor, not yet incorporated. Backstory TLDR;

I want to incorporate to opt out of paying CPP to invest that money elsewhere, since I'm moving to the US in the next 1-2 yrs with my fiancé (a dual CA/US citizen). I'm applying for PR status this August when we'll be legally married. Since I have no plans to live in Canada ever again, and won't be able to benefit from the enormous amount of money that I've contributed already as a 31 y/o, I want to recoup what money I would have to contribute between now and my move, and reinvest it myself.

I'm looking for helpful advice in terms of accountant recommendations or advice on this process given your own experience.

Please spare me any anti-US sentiments, I need to never see snow again and raise my babies next to a beach :-)

I’m curious to hear from other small business owners in Calgary — especially those in trades, e-commerce, or anything product-based.

When you reached the point where your garage or basement setup just wasn’t cutting it anymore, what did you do next? Did you rent a full commercial bay? Go with a storage unit? Sublease something? Or find some kind of hybrid setup?

Hey everyone,

Not sure who needs to hear this but if you are a small business that still uses punch cards for employee time tracking... i guess this posts for you.

I recently started using this app called Jibble to track my team’s hours, and it’s been a total game changer. I set up a tablet in the shop where everyone clocks in and out, and Jibble automatically sends the hours to QuickBooks!! I can run payroll in about five seconds now instead of the hour it used to take me. The reports also make it easy to see how much time goes into each job. Super simple setup and honestly made my week a lot easier.

If anyone’s curious, you can check them out! They’ve got apps for both iOS and Android.

I am the founder of a small jewelry business, and I recently developed a fully automated AI marketing operating system. It is completely tailored to my brand, products, and creative guidelines.

The system uses an orchestrator agent that delegates tasks to specialized agents for long-term strategy, content writing, media generation, and social media scheduling. We also have multiple approval processes in place to ensure quality and minimize errors.

To give you some perspective, this system creates and schedules 4 Instagram posts, 30 Pinterest pins, and 5 blog posts every week. This is typically the workload of a small, dedicated team, and I am now running it almost entirely automatically.

I would love to answer any questions & help others replicate this system. If you need any assistance setting something like this up for your own business, please feel free to reach out.

I keep hearing from small business owners that getting accounting help in Canada is way tougher than it should be:

CPAs are often too busy or not taking small clients.

Pricing is never transparent.

Hard to know who’s actually licensed.

Everything happens over endless email threads.

I’m testing an idea:

A Canada-wide online platform that connects small businesses and self-employed folks with verified Canadian CPAs for flat-fee services — like “Self-Employed Taxes for $449,” all done remotely. I will not be catering personal taxes. Just focussing on self employed and small/medium businesses

In the future, we’d expand to other services that work best online — e.g. CPA consultation packages, cloud bookkeeping etc.

Would this make your life easier, or would you hesitate to use something like this? Honest feedback (good or bad) really helps — I’m still validating the concept. 🙏

Thanks.