New businesses weather the storm of COVID-19

Owners of new businesses opening after COVID-19 are entering a unique and challenging time. 

While the pandemic has closed around 158,000 small businesses in Canada alone as of July 2020, new entrepreneurs in Windsor are making the most of it. 

Delna Buhariwalla and Trishauna Linton are owners of Cook Up Inc., a food business incubator that helps women start their own food-based businesses. Both Buhariwalla and Linton were also employees of Women Working with Immigrant Women, an organization providing immigrant women with help and services to establish themselves in Canada. According to their website, Cook Up aims to remove the challenges for female food-entrepreneurs to begin their business. Their clients have opened three food booths at the Downtown Windsor Farmer’s Market this summer.

“Cook Up essentially provides business services, particularly for food entrepreneurs,” said co-owner Linton. “We are focused primarily on women of colour. We provide business coaching, access to a commercial kitchen space and market opportunities.”

While managing to open in these times, Buhariwalla said their start was not easy. 

“I would say for April, we really took a step back to say, ‘How are we going to continue this?’ And for a very short glimpse there, it was a bit scary,” said Buhariwalla.

Some industries have profited greatly from demands created by the pandemic. These include e-commerce, food delivery and online education. 

Examples of growth within these fields across North America include Amazon’s hiring of 175,000 associates, DoorDash seeing a 110 per cent increase in sales in May and TAL Education providing online classes to over 300 public schools.  

Debi Croucher, executive director of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association, said some long-term changes include doing business online. 

“Having a combination of e-commerce and bricks and mortar, I think that really helps the members and we’re going to see that a great deal more going forward,” she said.

Among new challenges, small businesses may never be the same. With 20 per cent of startups failing in their first year before coronavirus, the post-pandemic world could completely change what it takes for entrepreneurs to launch a new enterprise. 

Those interested in setting up businesses during this time should start by discussing it, Linton said. 

“Just share your idea with a couple friends, a couple strangers if you can, and not to take anything so personally when you do share. But share it to get feedback about what it is they might say,” Linton said.