Creating More Pathways to Build in Canada

There has never been just one way to become an entrepreneur. But today, the possibilities are expanding.

For a long time, entrepreneurship followed a familiar narrative: come up with an idea, start a company, build a team, and grow.

That remains an important path. But it isn’t the only one.

A Canadian professional can acquire an existing business and become its next owner. Someone with deep expertise can build an independent business around what they already know. A student entering the workforce can bring an entrepreneurial mindset into a growing company and help it solve meaningful problems.

At Venture for Canada, we see enormous opportunity in creating and strengthening these different pathways. Our role isn’t to prescribe one version of entrepreneurship. It’s to give more Canadians the skills, confidence, networks, and opportunities to build, contribute, and create economic value.

Building Something of Your Own

Our new Solopreneurship program is one example.

Building a business on your own isn’t new. What is changing dramatically is the scale of what one person can build.

AI is giving individuals access to capabilities that once required more time, specialized resources, or a larger team. A solopreneur can use it to support research, develop marketing, organize customer relationships, streamline workflows, and manage parts of their operation that might otherwise require additional capacity.

That’s why Solopreneurship isn’t simply teaching people how to use AI tools.

Participants learn the fundamentals of building a sustainable business while creating an AI-powered operating system around it—one designed to expand what they can accomplish as a team of one.

But there is an important distinction.

The goal isn’t to automate the entrepreneur out of their own business. It’s to give them more capacity to focus on the things where human judgment, creativity, expertise, and relationships create the most value.

Another Path to Ownership

For others, entrepreneurship may not mean starting something new at all.

Entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) offers another pathway: finding an existing business, acquiring it, and taking responsibility for its next chapter.

That requires a very different entrepreneurial skill set.

Aspiring owners need to learn how to recognize a strong opportunity, evaluate a business beyond its headline numbers, understand financing and deal structures, navigate the transition from seller to buyer, and ultimately lead an organization they didn’t create.

That’s why our ETA programs aren’t simply about teaching people how to buy businesses. They’re about helping Canadians develop the knowledge, judgment, and network required to approach ownership thoughtfully—and to be prepared when the right opportunity emerges.

Starting a business and acquiring one are different journeys. But both create pathways for Canadians to become builders, owners, and leaders in our economy.

Using New Technology Responsibly

We’re also thinking about pathways for Canadians who are just beginning their careers.

This summer, we’re expanding our Responsible AI Adoption Challenge, bringing students and Project Partners together to solve real business problems using AI.

Responsible is the important word.

AI can create enormous value, but its adoption also raises legitimate questions about privacy, accuracy, bias, security, and human oversight.

Preparing people for an AI-enabled economy therefore can’t simply mean giving them access to the technology. We also need to develop the judgment to understand how, when, and why to use it—and when not to.

That’s particularly important for young Canadians entering the workforce today. The ability to use AI may become increasingly valuable, but so will the ability to question it, verify it, recognize its limitations, and remain accountable for the work it helps produce.

More Than One Way to Build

Solopreneurship, ETA, and the Responsible AI Adoption Challenge may look like very different initiatives.

But they’re grounded in the same belief.

There should be more than one pathway for Canadians to participate in entrepreneurship and help shape the future of our economy.

For some, that pathway will mean starting something from scratch.

For others, it will mean building an independent business around a skill they’ve spent years developing.

It may mean acquiring an existing Canadian business and becoming its next steward.

And for others, it may mean bringing an entrepreneurial mindset into an organization and using emerging technologies to help it adapt, innovate, and grow.

Canada needs all of them.

Technology will continue to change what individuals and businesses are capable of doing. Our responsibility is to make sure more Canadians have the opportunity—and the preparation—to participate in that change.

If we can create more pathways into entrepreneurship, ownership, and innovation, while equipping people to use the technologies changing our economy thoughtfully, we can give more Canadians the ability not simply to respond to the future of work, but to help build it.

Steven Wang
CEO, Venture for Canada