Off the Ground Blog
Industry Overview: Wedding Planning
For engaged couples, staging a wedding can be both exciting and stressful. To help manage the process and to ensure a picture-perfect (stress-free) wedding, hiring a wedding planner is a smart idea. Wedding planning is an ever popular industry and one of the most searched guides on our website. As such, we want to provide you with a current industry overview, trends and challenges, as well as provide some research resources for those interested in the wedding planning business.
Vendor Tips for Holiday Markets
Last year, we posted about Ten Holiday Markets in British Columbia. This year, we thought we would cover our top tips for vendors to make your craft fair or holiday market experience a success.
Industry Overview: Nonprofits
The non-profit industry is a diverse industry composed of entities focusing on technology, education, health, the arts and many other areas. There are several terms used to refer to non-profits, such as charities, not-for-profit and social enterprise, making it somewhat confusing to figure out how your non-profit idea should be categorized.
Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation
In September, the Small Business Accelerator librarian, Adena Brons, attended the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundations's 2017 conference, "Different by Design." She traveled to Nelson B.C. for two days of learning and discussing the themes of workforces of tomorrow, our changing environment, creating connections, and communities of opportunity. Rural entrepreneurship is dynamic and innovative, as rural small businesses and entrepreneurs create their own solutions and new ideas for the challenges of the 21st century.
Focus on...Small Business Week 2017
As the days get shorter, we celebrate Small Business Week 2017 with our partners at David Lam Library at UBC. Business Librarian Irena Trebic has picked a list of business books that can help guide you, whatever stage your business is in. Business Start-up in the Digital Age by Learn2succeed.com Inc
Top Growth Industries in BC [Infographic]
Growth is happening in British Columbia, but where? This infographic covers the top 5 growing industries based on the British Columbia Small Business Profile 2016 Click the image below to see a larger version.
Help UBC Library support your venture!
Call for British Columbia participants in UBC Library entrepreneurship research habits and information needs study!
The Sharing Economy
Taking an Uber home from a night on the town, booking a cutesy cottage on Airbnb, and even signing up for some freelance tasks on Upwork. What do these three things have in common? These increasingly popular actions are all ways to participate in the growing economic model known as the sharing economy. What is a Sharing Economy? According to Entrepreneur.com, a sharing economy is an economic model that “connects individuals who need a particular product or service with other individuals who have or can render that particular product or service”.
Industry Overview: Tourism
The tourism industry in Canada is growing, and British Columbia is no exception. 2016 saw an increase of 12.3% in international visitors and tourism is now one of BC’s leading business sectors (DestinationBC, 2017). Local tourist treasures have also been winning accolades including:
The Best of #SBALibrary 2017
Our #SBAlibrary summer reading challenge was a great opportunity to delve into the world of business reading. With help from community members and organizations, we featured books that help entrepreneurs keep up with trends, build important skills, and be inspired by innovation. As we wrap up #SBAlibrary for the year, we want to take an opportunity to spotlight some of the most outstanding business reads that we featured this summer.