LeapIN 2020 is finally here! We are so excited to have our favourite program up and running again. Due to COVID-19, our program looks pretty different this time, we are 100% virtual and have cohort members spread out around Ontario as they participate in this program. We pushed the program back into July with the hope that we would be able to meet in person by now, unfortunately, that was not to be, instead, we build an amazing online program!
We have 12 sensational companies joining us this time around! Our cohort is listed below.
Tyler from Celebration
Sharelen from Real Model Mom
Jared from JR Welding
Swaraj from Taxably
Christine from Qualia Hub
Kelly from Studio KVR
Aaron and Omar from Fastrack
Jesse from The Hot Sauce Co.
Maxwell from Face Two Face Vintage
Chintan from Greenovation - Eco Dinnerware
Kristen from Soul Runners
Chris from Bernese
**You can find more about them on our social media @leapjunction!**
Day 1: We started by welcoming our cohort to the program! We had Annette Markvoort, Manger of Innovation Village, and Darlene O'Neill, Director of Employment and Student Entrepreneurial Services at Fanshawe College welcome our new team! After everyone introduced themselves we took a tour of our online platform (more information on that coming soon!) and signed everyone up on our GrowthWheel system. We are very excited to build a respectful, open, and growth-focused online community so we spent the last part of our day reviewing Zoom etiquette with Andres and Professional Practices with Kelsey. After a long day, our team was all onboarded and ready to dive in tomorrow!
Day 2: Today was all about our goals! At Leap Junction, we fully believe that goal setting is crucial to your success. Setting your goals and recording them help you understand when to take advantage of opportunities and help you see your growth. Kelsey kicked off our day with a workshop which allowed us to set some goals in our lives and our business, we learned about SMART goals and the values of regularly checking in on those goals. Next, Braden Hill from the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business joined us for a dynamic presentation on the values of design thinking and life design! Braden helped us understand contingency planning in our goal setting and to focus on the little things that matter most to our customers. Finally, our good friend and former LeapIN participant, Marley Harris of Rose Designs lead us through a Dearmlining and Manifestation workshop all the way from Australia! We wrapped up the day by spending some time individually setting goals for our business and preparing for tomorrow!
Day 3: Why do you do what you do? Today we took a deep dive towards understanding the motivation and impact in our business. We started the day by getting zoom bombed by some of our LeapIN cohort members from 2019! Lliam, Alex, Shannon, Kelly, and Jake joined us to encourage us to stay motivated in the program and to share some of their favourite parts about the program! As we got into the workshops, we were joined by David Bilson and Brian Foster of the RH Accelerator. David and Brian lead us through a workshop to help us clarify our purpose; sounds like it should be easy but it brought up some really big questions for a very rich discussion. In the afternoon, Coach Dave led us through the Happy Start-up Canvas where we were able to explore our purpose and our motivations behind our businesses. It was a big day full of reflection and we all emerged from the day more validated in our choice to be entrepreneurs and to build businesses with purpose.
Day 4: One of our favourite sessions of LeapIN is our Brag & Drag! In Brag & Drag, we bring in an established entrepreneur to talk to us about their successes and failures and lead us through a discussion reflecting on the last week. For our first week, we welcomed a past LeapIN participant, Ryan Kelly of Ascend Applications, and The Atrium Project. After we wrapped up that discussion, Jesse and Tyler lead us through our first Skills Share! Skills Share allows each leaper to share a skills they have with the whole group which we can use in our own lives! Our first workshop of the day was lead by our guest speaker, David Moreland, Coordinator of the Entrepreneurship Certificate Program at Fanshawe College. David led us through some valuable lessons he learned from his first business and engaged us with his storytelling format. Lastly, Coach Dave took everyone through a quick business model canvas workshop and gave everyone time to map out and discuss their models with each other. Our favorite part of this workshop was sharing our canvas with each other and getting feedback from our fellow entrepreneurs.
After a great first week, we reviewed some of our key deliverables and reflected on the week with our Vlogs! Excited, exhausted, and a bit overwhelmed, we parted ways for our weekend; excited to see each other on Monday!
Are you interested in meeting us and learning more about how we can support you on your entrepreneurial path? Book a virtual appointment! Feel free to send us your questions and comments at leapjunction@fanshawec.ca.