All eyes on entrepreneurship

By Ryan Jones

Entrepreneurs are becoming the key curators of jobs in the city of Windsor.

Windsor’s unemployment rate was sitting at 5.6 per cent in September 2016. According to Statistics Canada, this has climbed to 5.8 per cent since last year. Despite the increase of unemployment in Windsor, it is a time of celebration in the entrepreneurship community.

According to an article on yourbusiness.azcentral.com titled How Does Unemployment Affect Businesses?, unemployment actually emboldens entrepreneurship. It states that labour departments push laid off workers towards starting their own business – if they cannot find a job, why not make one?

Nicole Anderson has been the program director of EPICentre and an instructor for Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor for eight years. Anderson said she is part of a family business herself and growing up, always enjoyed the business aspect. She said she agrees with the article, that unemployment does indeed aid in the growth of entrepreneurship.

“When people have difficulty finding jobs but need employment, they tend to find appropriate means to do so. They often do start businesses, not only because they want to, but because of necessity,” said Anderson. “This is exactly what happened with our family business – our family was on welfare, which forced my father to start his own business. Twenty-eight years later, it is a multi-national corporation.”

For some entrepreneurs, the want outweighed the need. Eugenio Mendoza is 22 years old and a full-time second-year advertising and marketing student at St. Clair College. Outside of school he works at Level 3 Vodka Emporium, Bull and Barrel and also juggles his own business, DREVMZ. Mendoza said he has been an entrepreneur since September 2016 and said he found inspiration for his business from his hobbies.  

“I do a variety of artistic things through a variety of mediums. From painting murals to taking and editing video, to designing stickers and my clothing brand, which is about to drop its fifth release next week,” said Mendoza.

He said 90 per cent of his effort is put towards his own personal projects, leaving 10 per cent for clients, such as friends who need work done.

“I can’t do a good job on a project I don’t genuinely believe in, which means I say no to a lot of projects from strangers. I’m more concerned with DREVMZ making the right impression than I am with it making money,” said Mendoza.

Mendoza said his clothing release in July is what really kick-started the success. He said he has been selling clothes for three months and all four releases sold out within a week. Mendoza said his goal is to give Windsor an image it would be proud to represent.

If you have an interest in entrepreneurship visit EPICentre, Windsor-Essex Small Business Centre, WEtech Alliance and  the Downtown Windsor Business Accelerator for more details.

“Windsor is a blank canvas that’s been waiting to be painted,” said Mendoza.