Services for Start-Ups and SMEs
Collectively, the Ignitia team has over 20 years of experience as entrepreneurs. Our experiences in starting and growing businesses through various stages of their lifecycle in a variety of industries allows us to offer our clients a wide range of services to help start new things or take what they’re currently doing in a new direction. We offer services in the following areas:
Start-Ups
| We have experience building companies from the ground up in a variety of industries such as: hospitality, entertainment, high-tech and new media. |
Starting up a business is not an easy task. There are many aspects of a business that require extensive research and thorough planning. We offer our clients assistance with assessing the feasibility of initial business ideas, developing a business plan and guidance in setting up the proper corporate infrastructure in terms of share structure, partnership agreements, employee agreements and supplier agreements.
In addition to our own mentoring services, we help our clients identify gaps in their company and help recruit additional advisors and directors that can complement the business. As our clients grow, we educate them in effective corporate governance in terms of proper communication and reporting protocols between executives and their Board members as well as succession planning for key team members.
Market Intelligence
| We have helped a number of small businesses find their niche and grow their market share by correctly identifying the right opportunities. |
In today’s competitive global economy, knowing your market is critical. Ignitia leverages our experience in market assessments and helps our clients understand their position in existing markets, identify new emerging markets that can be tapped into, as well as third party validations and customer surveys.
Product Development
| Some of our clients have used our services to refine their offering and their pricing to ensure that their product or service sells as well as possible. |
Developing a world class product is hard enough, but without a proper “go to market strategy” taking your product to market can be an even more challenging task. Ignitia offers our clients a third party analysis of their products/services and assistance in developing effective pricing strategies, market validation and consumer testing of prototypes and concepts.
Sales/Marketing Strategies
| We help our clients identify the platforms and channels that are the best fit with their business and develop customized strategies that can offer our client the best return on their investments. |
With our entrepreneurial backgrounds, our team is well experienced in identifying and establishing effective sales channels. We assist our clients with developing sales strategies, marketing and PR strategies, marketing collateral, integrating Customer Relationship Management tools, implementing customer incentive programs, and social media strategies. As with all of our strategic plans, we don’t stop with the development of a plan. We are ready, willing and able to help our clients execute the plans as well as measure and review the effectiveness of the strategies on an ongoing basis.
For clients with existing sales and marketing strategies we offer an auditing service where we review and provide recommendations for improvements to their existing strategies.
Media
Ignitia helps clients understand and leverage traditional and new media content and marketing trends in order to reach out and engage their target markets. We focus on a variety of media best suited to achieve the goals of our clients, such as: print, film & television, the web, mobile, and social media.
Business Development
It is not uncommon for companies to plateau or hit a road block in any given aspect of their business. Our team is equipped to help clients break through road blocks and reignite growth within the company. Whether it be rebranding a company and its products/services, re-vamping business strategies, rejuvenating growth in stagnant markets, or exploring new emerging markets; our team is here to help our clients grow their business.
Financial Analysis
Most entrepreneurs are intimidated by the financial aspects of their business and thus unintentionally neglect this critical component of every business. Our team has financial expertise to help clients understand the financial components of their business, review current accounting practices, provide recommendations for improvements, put in place key measures and tools to help simplify their financial analysis processes, and understand key measures, metrics, and ratios that can be used on an ongoing basis to evaluate performance of products, divisions, and the company as a whole.
Funding and Investor Relations
| We have helped our clients successfully apply for and receive government grants, NRC/IRAP grants, and SRED tax credits. We have also helped connect and prepare clients for presentations to angel investors and Venture Capital partners. |
Being entrepreneurs ourselves, we are well aware of the challenges of funding a business – especially start-ups. Ignitia helps match clients with potential funding sources. Once appropriate sources are identified we help our clients with application submissions, ongoing reporting required from various funding sources, as well as coaching before pitching to potential investors. Once investors are in place we also help our clients understand how to effectively communicate with their investors and in return leverage the knowledge base these new stakeholders can potentially offer.