Business Resources in Norfolk County 2022
Norfolk Entrepreneurs, build and advance your business with confidence.
Norfolk County’s Economic Recovery Plan and its Economic Development Strategic Plan identified the need for a robust ecosystem for entrepreneurship as the means to diversify our economy, retain youth entrepreneurs, attract emerging industries, and support the growth of existing businesses.
Business Resources in Norfolk County (BRINC) is a one-year pilot project offered by Norfolk County Economic Development in collaboration with Venture Norfolk. BRINC capitalizes on Norfolk County’s strong entrepreneurial culture by helping to launch and scale successful businesses through access to locally relevant entrepreneurship programs, mentoring and support.
About BRINC
BRINC offers local entrepreneurs three specialized, multi-week, cohort entrepreneurship training programs. Funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs and Venture Norfolk, this cohort training is free to eligible entrepreneurs located in Norfolk County.
- Under BRINC, entrepreneurs operating a business in Norfolk County, or are preparing to launch a new business in Norfolk County, are eligible to apply to one or more cohorts —subject to space limitations.
- For each of the cohorts, applicants will be pre-screened by Norfolk County Economic Development to confirm eligibility. Applications will then be screened by the organization delivering the cohort to ensure that participating entrepreneurs will benefit from the training, will contribute to the cohort, and are committed to completing the program.
- Applicants will be notified of their acceptance into the cohort in advance of the start of the specific cohort.
- Applications from entrepreneurs or businesses not located in Norfolk County are not eligible.
- No, there is no cost for this training. Online training and mentorship support are free for eligible entrepreneurs.
- Program participants are expected to have access to the internet for online training.
- Additional personal expenses, such as travel costs related to in-person support, office visits etc. are not covered by BRINC.
- BRINC training will be provided online augmented by ongoing mentorship and support.
- Each cohort will be structured differently. Timing, number of sessions per week, length of sessions etc. will vary depending on the type of training program offered.
- Most training will involve 8-10 sessions spread across several weeks.
- For more specific course information, see specific program details below.
Click to register for the BRINC program, or to attend the February 3 Launch Event.
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For more information about specific training programs, click on the links below.
Farm to Retail Cohort – Food Venture Program
Accelerating Your Business – Innovation Factory
eCommerce Accelerator – eCommerce Rockstars
Farm to Retail Cohort – Food Venture Program
The aim of this 10-class program is to provide entrepreneurs who may be small or medium-sized farmers and food product owners, the knowledge, skills and networking opportunities to turn their recipes into retail-ready products.
Maximum of 20 participants.
The program will teach entrepreneurs how to:
- Develop the skills and knowledge of how to turn a small-batch recipe into a scalable recipe for large-scale production, for retail sale
- Explore opportunities for and application of sustainable food business practices
- Understand the basics of the psychology of food branding, purchasing behaviour and best practices for building a food-specific marketing strategy
- Understand and apply principles of food packaging and nutrition labeling requirements as per the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Increase understanding of principles of food safety and safe food production techniques
- Learn the methods behind scaling a small batch recipe into a scalable recipe formulation
- 10-day program
- Live 2.5-hour Web-based Workshops via Zoom
- Tuesdays and Thursdays @ 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Accelerating Your Business – Innovation Factory
Launching and building your business is tough, but you don’t have to do it alone. Participate in the Accelerator Cohort and learn from experts who will cover a suite of topics including market validation, sales, marketing, hiring, business strategy, and growth. During the 3-month program, you will gain the skills to achieve intrapreneurship, increase efficiencies, enhance local sales, and/or strategies to grow sales regionally, nationally and beyond.
Whether you are an early-stage venture or a business in-market and are seeking new growth opportunities, apply to take advantage of these intimate, online sessions to learn and ask questions.
Within this cohort, two program streams are being offered and each stream will be open to 8 applicants.
- 8 x 3-hour web-based workshops
- Advisory services and mentorship
- Office hours with experts
- Networking opportunities
- Stream 1— March to May 2022
- Stream 2 — April to June 2022
- Stream 1 — February 18, 2022
- Stream 2 — March 18, 2022
eCommerce Accelerator – eCommerce Rockstars
eCommerce Rockstars provides tactical and strategic guidance for the world’s leading eCommerce Brands. The Accelerator program helps entrepreneurs master the 15 pillars of running a structured, scalable and sellable e-commerce business. This 12-Week Intensive Program provides entrepreneurs with access to the eCommerce Rockstars online course involving 65+ hours of video and written training from Alex Brown, CEO of eCommerce Rockstars and 20 other industry thought leaders. The program includes a dedicated Facebook group involving all participants in networking, collaboration, and ongoing Q&A activities throughout the program and post-completion. Individual coaching calls with all participants provide direct and actionable advice on growing their business and help to prioritize curriculum focus points to maximize short-term & ongoing impacts.
Cohort Size: 15-20 participants
- Online: 65+ hours of video and written training from Alex Brown and 20 other industry thought leaders. Students will be required to complete these training videos on the suggested schedule to permit ongoing review as the schedule progresses
- One 90 minute group coaching video call will be held each week to discuss the curriculum and dive deeper into relevant cases. Participants will be encouraged to ask specific questions relating to their businesses to get actionable feedback to grow & improve.
- August 15 – November 2022