PLANTING A SMALL SEED IDEA IN 1997 When Botanical PaperWorks was a startup, Heidi and her mom, as co-founders, went to a seminar at the Women’s Enterprise Centre called “Starting A Business.” When asked where they saw themselves in 10 years, Heidi imagined that they saw their handmade paper company issuing its first IPO. The audience thought that she was joking. She laughed along with the audience because it did look impossible to grow a startup to be publicly traded. Nevertheless, she was determined to become a self- sustaining and thriving business in 10 years. Heidi was very honest about her dreams. She mentioned that the next 10 years were pure hard work, even to the point that it made her unwell. She said on her website, “I wasn’t a slave to the dream as much as I was a slave to the investment that we’d made in Botanical PaperWorks. To start a manufacturing company from scratch, one in which we were often inventing the equipment, was a huge, all-consuming challenge. A solid support system became vital. My parents, my husband, and my team were all committed to the task.” “Over the last 25 years, we have created a company that employs over 40 people, makes a product by hand, uses waste inputs to create a product that leaves no waste, ships it all around the world, hires people from the local community, many who are newcomers to Canada or have barriers to employment. Botanical PaperWorks does it all profitably, year after year, within the context of a strong, stable, thriving company—Doing the impossible is fun!” Heidi shared with me about her entrepreneurship journey—a joyful one.
333
Powered by FlippingBook