As a Beedie Ambassador and a frequent viewer of Dragon’s Den, I was excited for the opportunity to attend the event, Arlene Dickinson –Power of the Entrepreneur, presented by the Vancouver Board of Trade, Business in Vancouver and Scotiabank.
As an Accounting and MIS student, I had never attended an event packed with entrepreneurs from virtually every industry imaginable. It was quite intimidating at first, but after having a chance to speak to numerous people, I realized that the definition of an entrepreneur varies. I had the opportunity to speak to an individual who started over five successful businesses, starting his first at the age of 19. To be honest, these businesses sparked from extremely simple ideas, however, he saw the opportunity, and capitalized on it before any of his competition did.
Following conversations with numerous other entrepreneurs, including the Founder of Dougie Dog who pitched his business on Dragon’s Den, we were seated and Arlene Dickinson was introduced. I had a bit of knowledge of the type of work she did, and how she started, what she likes to call, Canada’s first home business. However, I didn’t really know what to expect from her speech.
She started off with an introduction of how she started as an entrepreneur. She went on to explain her journey as a businesswoman in a start-up, and shared numerous stories that had the audience laughing for most of her speech. Overall, I came out of the event with a few specific take-aways.
The first was that Canadians should celebrate the successes of Canadian businesses. Quite often, we get caught up in the news, and really only pay attention to news regarding business fraud, business failure, etc. She communicated that celebrating business successes is important in order to spark the entrepreneurial minds of more Canadians.
Next, she stated the importance for entrepreneurs to share stories of their journeys, just as she did during the presentation. This is important as it teaches upcoming entrepreneurs that they will face failure, but can expect success in the long-term if they are passionate about what they do.
Lastly, Arlene Dickinson commented on her work-life balance. She basically said she did not know what that meant. Not because her life evolved around her work, but because she loves her career so much, but also loves her job of being a mother equally as much, where the two naturally overlap.
Arlene Dickinson was truly inspiring andhas taught me that entrepreneurs come from various backgrounds, but have one thing in common; they are extremely passionate about what they do.