The Charlottetown-based entrepreneur hub Startup Zone closed its doors on Tuesday, and some of its former clients are wondering where they’ll go to get the same kind of support for their businesses.
Jordan Patterson said his startup at the time, called Forestry.io, was one of the Startup Zone’s first clients back in 2016. The resources the Startup Zone offered filled a real need for beginning businesses, he said.
“A big thing is space,” Patterson said. “For small companies, renting office space is difficult. But beyond that, just like mentorship and support for new entrepreneurs… having those resources can make or break a company.”
“There’d be a lawyer that would come in and do office hours once a week, once every two weeks, whatever was needed. There’d be an accountant, there’d be an HR person, things like that.”
He said it was also helpful to rub shoulders with other companies, some of whom were dealing with some of the same issues he was.
“I call it my entrepreneurial home,” said business owner Nathalie Arsenault, who also used the Startup Zone.
“Really, at the end of the day, it was a physical space and a hub where you have these synergies that wouldn’t necessarily happen if you were working from home, or if you had your own office that was separate from other entrepreneurs.”
