What’s In This Email

• Life After Exit: Entrepreneurial Advice on Selling Businesses

• She Started a Business With $300 After Getting Laid Off and it became a multi-million dollar company

• Kelso Conservation views

• Postmark Hotel

• Notable Spotlight: Art Toronto’s 25th Anniversary

• Notable Plug 🔌

✍️ TAKE NOTE

Life After Exit: Entrepreneurial Advice on Selling Businesses

Sheba Zaidi and Alyssa Furtado are among a new wave of Canadian women entrepreneurs who have successfully built, scaled, and sold their companies, offering valuable insights into life after an exit. Their journeys illustrate the increasing presence of women in the entrepreneurial space and provide a roadmap for others looking to follow in their footsteps.

Key Takeaways

• Leveraging Prior Work Experience:

  • Sheba Zaidi emphasizes the importance of gaining broad operational experience before diving into entrepreneurship. Her background in human resources and finance helped lay a solid foundation for running County Wine Tours.

• Aligning with the Right Buyer:

  • Both Zaidi and her co-founders sold County Wine Tours to a local tourism company that shared their passion for sustainable tourism, ensuring continuity for their brand and team.

• Expanding into New Ventures:

  • Post-sale, Zaidi launched Mahara Mindfulness with a focus on wellness, inspired by her own entrepreneurial journey. Their mindfulness journal has already garnered attention from celebrity entrepreneurs, highlighting the potential of the wellness industry.

• Staying Involved After the Sale:

  • Alyssa Furtado co-founded Ratehub in 2010, expanding the platform to include a variety of financial services. After partially selling the company to private equity firm Novacap, she continues to serve on the board, guiding its strategic direction.

• Finding Balance:

  • Both women stress the importance of balance in their entrepreneurial journeys. Furtado, a mother of three, managed to grow Ratehub while raising a family, offering a real-life example of how women can juggle both family and business.

Why this matters: Zaidi and Furtado’s experiences underscore the potential for Canadian women entrepreneurs to grow successful businesses, make strategic exits, and move on to new opportunities. Their stories offer a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the value of prior experience, choosing the right partners, and continuing to contribute to the business ecosystem after selling.


Read the full article here.

She Started a Business With $300 After Getting Laid Off. It Made $300,000 in Year 1 and Became a Multimillion-Dollar Company.

Bobbie Racette, founder and CEO of Virtual Gurus, started her journey with just $300 after getting laid off, turning a difficult situation into a multimillion-dollar business. Her path is one of resilience, innovation, and a commitment to empowering underrepresented communities.

Key Takeaways

• Starting Small, Thinking Big:
  After losing her job in the oil and gas industry, Racette struggled to find work, which led her to explore the gig economy. Offering virtual assistant services through Upwork, she faced fierce competition but quickly realized there was a better way to serve clients. With just $300, she launched Virtual Gurus in 2016, a platform connecting virtual assistants with companies. In its first year, the company generated $300,000 in revenue.

• Overcoming Obstacles and Securing Funding:
  Despite her early success, Racette faced numerous challenges, particularly in raising funds to grow the business. It took 170 investor rejections before she secured her first "yes." The persistence paid off when Virtual Gurus landed an $8.4 million CAD Series A round, which helped the company grow to a valuation of over $50 million.

• Creating Opportunities for Marginalized Communities:
  A key mission of Virtual Gurus is to provide work-from-home opportunities for underrepresented groups, particularly Indigenous communities. Racette has made it her "north star" to focus on these efforts, providing Indigenous workers with computers, training, and sustainable job opportunities. By 2026, Virtual Gurus aims to hire 5,000 Indigenous workers.

• Leadership and Personal Growth:
  As the company expanded, Racette realized the importance of developing her leadership skills. She took leadership courses at Harvard to become the kind of leader her team needed. "Who I am now as a leader is tenfold different from who I was two years ago," she said, emphasizing the continuous learning process required for effective leadership.

• Inspiring Future Entrepreneurs:
  Racette is passionate about sharing her entrepreneurial journey to inspire others, especially women and minorities in business. She believes that entrepreneurship can be a path to personal empowerment, encouraging others not to let fear hold them back. "The sky's the limit — nothing's holding you back," Racette says, urging others to embrace their own stories and pursue their dreams.

Why this matters: Bobbie Racette’s story exemplifies the power of perseverance, innovation, and the impact of purpose-driven entrepreneurship. From starting with $300 to building a multimillion-dollar company, Racette’s journey is an inspiring example of how adversity can fuel success and how business can be a tool for positive change. Bobbie is also an incredible member of our community, check out our Notable People interview with the Virtual Gurus CEO.

Read the full article here.

@junvoyage

Enjoying the fall colors from a chairlift at Kelso Conservation Area 🍁 ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #canada #fall #autumn #🇨🇦

@jordshore

👀 a #sneakpeak at the stunning 📍 POSTMARK HOTEL which recently opened in #Newmarket #Ontario #hotels #boutique #travel #inspo #travelinspo... See more

Art Toronto: 25th Anniversary

Canada’s largest international contemporary art fair is returning to Toronto this October.

Find out more about Art Toronto.

🔌  NOTABLE PLUG

🎙️ Get Into It: The Haunted Estate podcast. Welcome to The Haunted Estate, hosted by Celina Myers aka CelinaSpookyBoo. When I’m not making comedy videos on TikTok, I’m deep, researching and learning about the strangest, spookiest, and deepest things there are on this earth and beyond. We will talk about the hard stuff, the dark stuff, the stuff that will haunt you and your family for generations. Listen on Apple or Spotify.

📄 Notable Hires: Senior Manager, Lifecycle Marketing @ Loblaws Companies Limited (Hybrid, Toronto)

🎓 Hope This Helps: Skedpal. Seamlessly navigate your to-do list with task-blocking and an automated AI-driven calendar management system.

🌍 Notable Destinations: Toronto to Lisbon ($533 - $1190) Dates: December 1 - December 10. Click on this link to see the flight.

🧠 Today We Learned: that Saltwater Swimming Pools aren't very salty and that there is a widespread misconception that they do not use chlorine. Saltwater pool water is only mildly salty (barely tasteable) and has similar chlorine levels as a regular chlorinated pool.

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ABOUT NOTABLE
Notable Life is Canada for young professionals, entrepreneurs, and culture generators operated by The Notable Group. Notable Daily inspires ideas and sharpens the minds of over 40,000 top-tier professionals in competitive industries.

Disclosure: While we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with certain aspects of content development, all information provided in our content is thoroughly vetted and edited by our team of humans. We strive to ensure the accuracy and reliability of all information. However, we recommend that readers conduct research or seek professional advice to make informed decisions. This email may contain sponsored content.