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Entrepreneurship

Spending Canada day weekend at the cottage I had run out food, and so off I was to the nearby supermarket.  While exiting my car I am hailed by a young man who's just exited the store with his young (2 year old) son in arms (I've known him my entire life).  He's the third generation plumber of a family enterprise.  It was started by his grandfather in the late 60s when our cottage area, although gorgeous, was largely undeveloped -- the motorway ended many miles away, and so to get to this location on a Friday evening often involved more than 2 hours of driving , to far  for most cottage goers.

The enterprise grew slowly but surely as road access improved dramatically during the 1970s, leading to an explosion of cottages in the area.  Moreover, the price of these (and size) also exploded.  During this time this small, well regarded firm grew.  There were ups and down (especially in the mid 80s when things got difficult).  The grandson (my interlocutor) took over the business in 2005 from his father --- who had built the firm and its turnover.  However, as the attraction to the area were its spectacular lakes become more and more populated (and the McMansion replaced "summer cottages" -- the largest house in the area is near 35,000 sq) the volume of work started to ebb.

Grandson was facing a dilemma in that as a family firm, with long term employees (some had started as 16 year old apprentice and are now in the mid 50s) local expansion was impossible (the area is bordered by a national park).  Since the quality of their work was high -- often undertaken for  the CEO of large Canadian firms who owned the cottages in the area, he was able to translate this strong reputation for residential work into  commercial work in Montreal and its suburbs.  Grandson purchased a condo in a norther suburb of Montreal for his workers (to limit the commute time) and was able to grow the business by expanding outside of his zone of comfort.

Today this small but high quality family owned firm has 35 employees and a turnover of more than C$5 million.  Certain changes have been made, moving the parts warehouse away from the cottage area enabled him to reduce inventories by more than 50%, but since he purchased a condo (now three) his working capital has not changed (and he generates capital gains on his "Montreal" based real estate assets).

As a third generation plumber, Grandson could have kept his company small in in our cottage area, maybe reducing the number of staff working for him, and maintaining his lifestyle.  Instead, he took the plunge, used his contacts to grow the business and create well paying jobs for the local population, because although his workers "sleep" in Montreal, the live in the cottage area.  Impressive achievement

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