Thursday, January 9, 2020
VOLUME 2 I ISSUE 28
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
StartUp restarts in new location GEOFF LEE
WRITER
.................................. StartUp Lloydminster, which helps new and existing businesses grow, is living up to its name by opening in a new location. The doors opened at 4B 4010-50 Avenue next to Community Futures on Monday, with some touchups and unpacking to do before it’s business as usual. “So far, we’ve got a lot of setup to do to get organized, but for the most part, we’re move d in , ” s a id b u s in e s s coach Holly Andony on the first day. “We’ll be setting things up, getting things organized putting things in their place.” The relocation is in keeping with a decision by the City of Lloydminster to decommission the Community Services Building where the non-profit organization was located. “We were forced at that point to start looking for a new location,” said Andony. “We were able to find this sooner than we needed to be out of there, so we left early.” Andony describes the new space as bright and fresh. “It’s a good move for us and we’re excited,” she said. There will be a grand
Geoff Lee Meridian Source
StartUp Lloydminster moved into their location next to Community Futures on Monday with lots of unpacking to do for Rhiannon Greening, office administrator, left, and Holly Andony, a business coach. StartUp helps entrepreneurs and existing businesses grow.
opening once all of the finishing touches are complete and the office is running smoothly again. The new location has lots of room and sitting space for clients to work in to get their businesses going and two soundproof phone booths for private calls. There are also two meeting rooms, one a little more formal than the other, and two
3D printers. In addition, there’s a coffee area and access to the Internet, phones and a printer. The new space adjoins their Community Futures partner with a shared interior door. “We partner with Community Futures on a lot of ventures and hope to continue to do that and possibly on
even more projects. It will be a very nice working partnership to be close by them,” said Andony. “It will be fantastic for our customers, for our clients to be right close, so we can make introductions face-toface as opposed to sending e-mail introductions.” Andony says they can open the door and take their clients directly over and intro-
duce them to the business analyst. She says StartUp helps entrepreneurs explore business ideas and develop business plans to turn a business idea into an actionable venture. “We can connect them to mentors and coaches and professionals in different fields to answer their questions for them,” explained Andony. StartUp Lloydminster also works with existing businesses. “We can help them develop a business plan; we can help them to connect to a patent lawyer, for example,” she said. Andony says the overall goal of the staff is to help individuals with their existing businesses or entrepreneurs with new business ideas to clarify the next steps and get moving in the right direction. The StartUp team includes ac t i ng e xe c u t i v e d i r e c t o r Glenys Reeves-Gibbs and administrative assistant Rhiannon Greening with entrepreneur-in-residence Wendy Plandowski. Kara Johnston, a technolo g y d e v e l o p m e nt a d v i s o r with Alberta Innovates also works within the space.