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Fellow Entrepreneurs,

I wanted to take this chance to share a few useful tips that I have learned from my recent experience working for a start-up. I'm sure that most of you want to start your own business and will get around to it sooner or later.

The following is a list of government entities that offer incentives or help of some sort for start ups. Many of these benefits are intended towards the research and development of new technologies (the company I work for designs solar modules) but I'm sure some of you will find them useful.

1. IRAP: irap-pari.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/main_e.html

It's an incentive offered by National Research Council Canada. They provide a range of both technical and business oriented advisory services along with potential financial support to growth-oriented Canadian small - and medium-sized enterprises. In our particular case, they provided us with funds for prototyping and gave us a monetary incentive for each Ontario university grad that we hired.

2. CSBF: www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/csbfp-pfpec.nsf/en/Home

The Canadian Small Business Fund is a loan that you take with any chartered financial institution and if approved, it is 85% backed up by Industry Canada in the event of default.

3. SR&ED:  www.cra-arc.gc.ca/taxcredit/sred/menu-e.html

This is a tax credit offered by The Canadian Revenue Agency. We have discussed this particular benefit during ENT 730. The government will credit you up to 35% of the first 2 million dollars spent on R&D and 20% of any amount above 2 million.

4. IDF: www.mri.gov.on.ca/english/programs/idf/guidelines.asp

The Innovation demonstration fund is offered by the Ministry of Research and Innovation. Their mandate is to help companies in their efforts to commercialize innovative technologies in Ontario. They will provide financial support for eligible projects.

5. ISCM: www.iscm.ca/contactus.html

The Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham is a partnership between the Canadian Government, The City of Markham, York University and NRC with funding from The Royal Bank. They offer subsidized, and in some cases, free services for start-ups including consulting in all business aspects. They have a series of seminars that are free of charge where they discuss several topics of importance to entrepreneurs and they offer several important benefits through their website.

I hope that some of these incentives are of value to you someday. I know of several others but they are specifically for technologies directed towards environmental sustainability and photovoltaics If any of these are of interest to you please feel free to email me (sebmartv@hotmail.com) and I'll gladly send them to you.

Good luck with your ventures,

Sebastian Martinez