So you’re ready to start a business in Calgary? Good for you!  Happily, you’re not alone – Calgary is reputed as Canada’s most entrepreneurial city. As a business owner myself, and having helped hundreds of other entrepreneurs start businesses get started in Calgary, I thought I’d give you the inside track to how business in Calgary is done.

How to Start a Business in Calgary – Launch Resources

Here are some handy resources to start a business in Calgary:

• Work at getting an original name – and then register it. Try to get a cool, fun or memorable name – this will help people remember you and spread word of mouth to their friends.  (Check out these tips for developing a brand name).  Once you have some good options, you’ll want to visit a registry to get your name registered. In Alberta, these are independent private businesses that help you interact with provincial government for services like licenses. Since there are lots of competitors, you can find them easily accessible in every quadrant of the city. While you’re at the registry, check out their little books on how to start businesses; there are some with handy forms and sample templates for things like contracts and proposals to get you going.
• Get the right address. Calgary has lots of business centres where you can use their business addresses, boardrooms, and telephone answering. If you want to, you can also rent individual offices. Search for “secretarial services” or “virtual offices” and you’ll find many options.  For $100 – $500 a month (depending on whether you include phone answering – and yes, they can answer calls and then forward the caller on to your cell), your business can appear much more well-established than if you use a home address for your business.  If you really want to focus on oil and gas, downtown is the place to be; many people walk to meetings all day – even in winter – because there are plus-15 (15 feet above street level) walkways over the downtown street. Locating your business downtown does really help you connect with the major energy companies.
• Get a professional graphic and or web designer to create your logo, business cards, website.  A first impression counts, and if you do it yourself or use an online tool, you might end up with something cheesy, and then get stuck with it for years. Get a good writer to edit all the your other materials, to ensure the language, grammar and spelling is smooth.  Or, our expert team at Tenato offers all these services.
• If you need to know where to start a business in Calgary, the city can help.  The City of Calgary has maps and demographic summaries of every neighbourhood in the city – they are listed HERE, just scroll down the page.  If you open those PDF documents for each of the 200+ communities, they tell you the income level, age, education, and even the ages of the houses.

Business Culture in Calgary

In Calgary, business is often done by handshakes, or at least very simple contracts.  But here are a few cultural tips.

• Don’t copy the competition. People in Calgary shop online and do a lot of comparisons before making a buying decision. So if copy a competitors’ web site, you’re just going to be found out.  It will also make you look like a “me too” business instead of something original.  If English is a second language, get a local person to edit your website, signage, and everything else – it’ll greatly improve your credibility. Simply search for “writers and editors in Calgary.”
• Don’t undercut. Decide whether you’re as good as your closest competitor. If your quality beats theirs, price a little higher than they do. If you’re still learning, price a little lower. If you price too low coming out of the gate (more than 15% lower), your clients won’t take you seriously. Remember, you can have a higher price, and use an “introductory discount”. In Calgary, a higher price generally means you have a better offering, and there plenty of wealthy people here willing to pay for the best.
• Keep your reputation clean. The Calgary business community is a small network of people who know each other. Most of the industries here seem to have evolved something like this: There’s an industry leader, and there’s a runner-up generally started by people who left the leader, and then there are many other competitors who have been trained by the larger players, or are from other places. There is no room for burning a bridge by hurting, insulting or not paying someone what you owe…word just spreads around too fast. If you have to walk away from some money to save your reputation, it is probably worth it. When selling, it’s fine to say how you are different, but do not bad-mouth your competitors. If people come to me saying they had a bad experience with another marketing firm, I’m actually more likely to suspect there is something wrong with the client than with the other marketing firm – unless there is a really clear wrongdoing on the firm’s part.
• You must treat your vendors as well as your customers. Sometimes vendors are even more important than customers. Pay them on time and treat them well. It can take years to cultivate a vendor relationship to the point where they will work until dawn for you without charging you rush fees…but it is worth having the relationship there when you need it. I’ve found price to be one of the least important factors in choosing a vendor. Yet still I see businesses choose cheaper vendors and flip vendors constantly, forgetting that the best-reputed vendor would have been the one to actually help them out of a jam.
• Be prepared for the swings. People here make a ton of money when energy pricing is high, and then crash when things get low. Make sure you save during the high times, and prepare to deplete your savings when the low points hit. There are work-share programs you can access. Or, work to diversify outside the province so that your client base isn’t completely dependent on the economic swings.
• Never wear business attire during Stampede week. That’s the spirit of this town. The beauty is that all the business people “seem to disappear” because they all look like cowboys and rodeo queens. Even just blue jeans and boots will do the job; but if you really want to impress, get an authentic western shirt, a Smithbilt cowboy hat, Alberta Boots, and a nice belt buckle.  There are tons of places in Calgary to get good Western Wear (even the thrift shops!). Don’t talk serious business during Stampede week, just go socialize with your clients and make them LIKE you! And don’t book a meeting downtown on parade day (the first Friday morning of Stampede), because you won’t make it anyway – downtown gets shut right down!

Be Bold in Pricing, but Frugal with Overhead

You don’t need deep pockets to start most businesses, but you need to get off to the strongest start – i.e. be lean and mean (low overhead), but be confident too. That means asking for a decent price so that you can actually survive in the long run. Here’s what we mean:

• Don’t think that because you’re small and new, you can only chase small customers. Go ahead and go after the best possible customers based on the areas and industries you know best. You’re apt to get more attention when you’re new, so chase your most ideal customers who will appreciate your unique qualities.
• Don’t take on overhead unless you really need to. Best to build up a steady stream of work first. Remember, many tasks can be outsourced – warehousing, delivery, specific parts of your process. Shorter term commitments are better, in the beginning. You don’t necessarily need to hire. There are plenty of small businesses in Calgary that price low enough that you can make a little money even if you subcontract and mark-up their services. And some of them will offer you volume discounts for ongoing work. Add some value to the package and it can work very smoothly.

You Want to Start a Business in Calgary – But What Kind?

We’ve worked with hundreds of kinds of businesses in Calgary, and rarely come across a terrible idea.  Generally, success depends on how open-minded you are to input from other people, especially people you want as your target customers.  If you need help acquiring that input, our team here at Tenato can certainly help.  Here are some sectors that seem to do well, consistently:

• Environmental, Engineering, or Industrial Services. Offices  usually locate downtown, but related services (pipe bending, drilling, testing, tech equipment) are in one of the many industrial areas – like Foothills Industrial, Shepard Industial, or many others.  There are several new industrial areas in development as well.  The buildings are usually arranged in bays with big, with office space at the front.  Much cheaper per square foot than retail or downtown office space.
• Construction.   Calgary has always been a boom town, and construction is constant.  If you want to start a business in Calgary, you can likely succeed in any facet of construction – residential, commercial or industrial.
• High Tech.  Thanks to origins in oil and gas, and Calgary has huge numbers of engineers, and good engineering and computer schools.  But there is also money here – and oil and gas makes things competitive.  People are constantly engineering new efficiencies for energy, environmental improvements, telecommunications and more.  Imagine starting a tech company – you’ll find some of the deeper pockets, and thanks to oil and gas, a lot of risk-tolerating ones too.  There are many great tech incubators, such as Platform Calgary and Alberta Innovates.
• Manufacturing. Big or small, there are many kinds of manufacturing in Calgary.  Some are in food and dairy processing, some are more in technical, industrial and electronics.  There are even many contract-manufacturers and engineers in Calgary that can product prototypes.
• Retail. If you’re independent, look to set up in one of Calgary’s BIA’s – Business Improvement Zones, like Inglewood, Kensington, Bridgeland or Marda Loop. If you’re International, consider International Avenue, but really international business can do well anywhere. There are also many suburban strip malls with family services like grocery stores and flower shops, and hair salons. Or, if you’re considering opening a well-known franchise, these seem to gravitate to the shopping malls, such as Chinook Centre (Calgary’s largest).
• Hospitality. Calgary has hotels and restaurants in every quadrant.  Restaurants do well in the retail zones mentioned above, or Macleod Trail, usually.  Suburban locations usually get only the surrounding neighbourhoods.  Malls are usually for franchised food. If you are a major hotel chain, you can locate near downtown, or along the Trans-Canada highway where there is what locals call “Motel Village” – which has been freshly upgraded and now includes some great hotel brands like Holiday Inn, Super 8, Sandman, etc. Motel Village area is about 15 minutes from downtown by car, and the parking is far less expensive.  It’s also easier to bolt out to the mountains.
• Health and Medical Services. If you’re looking to start a business in Calgary, you’ll do very well with anything health or medical related, even if it’s a thoroughly private business. The veterinarians, optometrists, doctors, and even alternative places – like spas, massage therapists, etc, all do well.  Fitness businesses are plentiful, but there is a lot of competition…you need a unique angle.  But the active community tends to generate plenty of demand for these businesses.
• Transportation and Logistics.  Calgary is a great mid-point between Toronto and Vancouver, and it has a beautiful international airport. This makes it a great hub for transportation and logistics businesses.  So if you’d like to start a business in Calgary that offers trucking, warehousing, air charters (popular to reach far-off oil and gas field locations), customs brokering, or any closely related service, it will have plenty of room to succeed.
• Anything else?  Ok, we can never get the complete list, but if you want to start a business in Calgary, there is one more key resource.  The Calgary Economic Development Authority.  This is like the marketing team for the city, and they aim to attract new businesses.  They’ll tell you what the labour pool looks like here, the industry sector growth, and have specific lists of businesses that are in each sector. You can also ask them where to locate – sometimes offering incentives to get your business here.  A must-chat (and please do let us know how it went with them – we like to know!)

Will you succeed if you start a business in Calgary? Our feeling is that if there is so much general wealth here (Alberta is Canada’s “have” province – meaning Alberta is the revenue generator of Canada, and the wealth get clawed out and shared to other “have not” provinces) – that if you can’t succeed here, you wouldn’t succeed anywhere….exceptions being industries or business types that Canadians just don’t understand yet (imported ideas).

But remember – for the first few years after you you start a business in Calgary,  you are generally becoming part of the community, and not making much money. So if you give up within the first 3 – 5 years, you’ve probably have taken only the hard part of what your business had to offer, and given up just before things got profitable.

To start a business in Calgary, you need tenacity. It just matters how keen you are, and how long you can stay keen. You can out-do others based on a longer term commitment, and doing a better job. There’s not a lot of “who you know” here – it’s how hard you work to make it happen. So if you want to know someone, call them right up and impress them. Word will get around, and soon you’ll know all the right people.

All the best in starting your new venture! Please give us a call to learn more about how we can help you, we’ve worked with tons of startup businesses, and just love doing it.

If you’re already doing business in Calgary, or have tried in the past, and want to add your thoughts and tips, drop us a line.