Q&A: Helping newcomers to Edmonton who dream of starting their own businesses
Starting a business can be a daunting task for newcomers to Edmonton. Trying to navigate an unfamiliar system comes with its own set of unique challenges.
But a new event called Edmonton Newcomer Entrepreneur Forum aims to inform newcomers on how to overcome those challenges and realize their entrepreneurial dreams.
Happening today at the Edmonton Expo Centre today, the forum is hosted by Business Link, a government-funded, non-profit organization that supports small businesses in Alberta.
The forum is organized to answer questions about starting a business and help budding entrepreneurs get familiar with processes such as business registration and licensing, and how to access financing.
It’s also a networking opportunity, and will feature success stories from other newcomers.
According to Immigration Canada, Edmonton saw more than 30,000 immigrants in 2023, with another 40,000 expected by 2025.
Many newcomers look to starting their own businesses; Business Link says they make up 20 per cent of the organization’s inquiries.
Abdalla Mohamed, manager of immigrant entrepreneur services at Business Link, immigrated to Canada last year from the United Arab Emirates. He spoke to CBC’s Edmonton AM on Friday.
LISTEN | Supporting newcomers to become successful entrepreneurs:
Edmonton AM8:08Supporting new Canadians to grow successful businesses
Local non-profit Business Link is helping immigrant entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Abdalla Mohamed is the manager of immigrant entrepreneur services at Business Link.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us about your professional journey.
I’m a telecom engineer. I have an MBA as well. My professional journey started two decades ago. I was in corporates for a long time in different diverse roles; in sales and marketing, business development, management and leadership. I’m also a trained coach, so that helps with being a business adviser at Business Link.
Edmonton has many immigrants involved in business. What kinds of challenges do they see?
One is just the fact that you know when you’re coming into a new country, right? So there are language barriers, which is very obvious. I think one of the most important things is to have a general idea about the market that you’re venturing into. We offer free secondary market research at Business Link, so that helps navigating and understanding what’s the potential venture or business they want to start.
Other barriers might be the financial system. Some newcomers come from a very cash-based society and then they come here to more of a credit-based system. So getting that kind of understanding is also important.
They might not want to borrow money?
Yes, and even if you do need to borrow money you have to make sure that you understand the credit-score system. So that’s also something that they need to consider.
I would also say when you’re coming into a new country, one thing that you always need to adapt to is the cultural norms and the Canadian business way of doing things, so business practices and so on. And you’re also faced with a limited network, so that’s very obvious.
For a newcomer who has thought about going into business, would you say tomorrow at the Expo is a good place to start?
The forum tomorrow is going to be a set of panels with industry experts and they’re going to cover topics that we think are essential when you’re looking to start a business. For example, one panel will be about business licensing and registration. We’ll also have a panel on planning on how to plan for a business. And obviously accessing finance; we’ll have a panel on that.
But what’s more important is that we’ll also have some inspiring stories from some newcomer entrepreneurs who have been there and done that. And I think that’s important just to give our audience that kind of insight, that it is possible to realize your dream.
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