Seven new Peterborough Entrepreneurs Get a Boost from Starter Company Plus: A Homeopath Among them

Starter Company Plus is a program that provides training and grants to aspiring and established entrepreneurs who’re 18 and older and haven’t had their business for more than five years.
It’s run through the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development’s Business Advisory Centre (BAC) and funded by the Ontario Government. After five weeks of training, seven grant recipients were selected from the 15 entrepreneurs who took the program.
The recipients were announced Thursday night during BAC at the Bonfire at Elmhirst’s Resort near Keene. The event offered entrepreneurs a chance to share their experiences and also check out the recipients’ businesses.
Brand’s table was filled with her piles of her cloth-based reusable products, such as menstrual and incontinence pads, bamboo-nursing pads, bibs, and training diapers.
 
 
Lisa Torre isn’t quite ready to launch her business just yet, but she’s now equipped with the tools she needs.
The registered homeopath wanted to do more to help the community have access to the alternative medicine.
Homeopathy is a system of medicine created 200 years ago. Medicines, which are Health Canada approved, are known not to have side effects.
“Homeopathy is not something that’s popular in this area,” said Torres.
The city resident had a lot of ideas of how to help, but didn’t know where to start.
“I wanted to do something but it was all a very big fog,” said Torres.
The Starter Company Plus helped Torres hone her ideas into a business plan to create Access Homeopathy, a walk-in and virtual health care service offered by a registered nurse and registered homeopath.
While the funding is an added bonus for Torres, the meaning behind the cash is what matters more.
“What the money does is it provides a very tangible vote of confidence and support in all the work that we’ve all done,” she said.
NOTE: Starter Company Plus runs three sessions a year. It’s now accepting applications for its last session of 2017. To register, entrepreneurs must first take a Starting Point workshop. It’s offered Monday and Sept. 25 from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce on George Street.
For more information, go to http://peterboroughed.ca/starter-company-plus/.