We are expanding our home care franchise system to the United States. In doing so, Ken and I met with a lot of very successful entrepreneurs to have them share their learning lessons and tips in doing so. For some reason, in Canada, our culture is one of fear of doing business in the USA. Its like the Americans are more aggressive then us when it comes to business, and it scares many Canadian companies from expanding.

Brian Hill, founder of Aritzia, Brian Scudamore, founder of 1800 Got Junk, Joe and Lorne Segal, a legendary entrepreneur in BC (The Segal School of Business), Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon Mike Drever, founder of Expedia/Cruiseship Centres were some of the great entrepreneurs we were lucky to meet with.

So we listened to all of their advice, and built our plan of expansion to the US. So how did our plan change after listening to so many great entrepreneurs?

It didn’t. The truth is. Business is the same. I did my undergrad at Cornell University, I started my career in the U.S, we both did the Birthing of Giants program at  M.I.T  and most of our entrepreneurial peers are in the U.S. So we know the U.S pretty well. In meeting with these great entrepreneurs, our plan didn’t change, but it certainly was confirmed. Start slowly, start regionally. The U.S is a big country, and the different regions act like their own countries (For example, the Southwest is a pretty different place to do business then the North East.)

So we are starting in Washington State, Arizona, Texas and a few other States that are strategic to us. We will hold off on California for the first year, as it is the size of Canada itself. Slowly but surely.  And when we do this right, it won’t be long before we can go a little faster.

P.S I am often asked why we just don’t cover the entire USA fast. It sounds glamorous, and we could if we really wanted to. But it wouldn’t be the right decision. We don’t want to become an ordinary home care franchise system, like many of our competitors. We just simply couldn’t become great in any particular region. Short term it would be great. Long term not so much. And we are in this for the long term. That’s why.

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Posted in Entrepreneurship Franchise by admin 3 Comments