Trade Accelerator Program (TAP)

Speaker 1: What is the Trade Accelerator Program? 

Ben Ames: An excellent mentor list. 

James Hashimi: Contacts. 

Andrew Brett: A new network. 

Joanne Torrance: A targeted plan. 

David Dickson: Different kinds of government resources. 

Speaker 1: TAP sessions are designed to help get businesses to the next level to prepare them for international expansion. We help set businesses up on the right foot. Coral 

Ben Ames: CORL is a FinTech company that provides funding to early stage technology companies. Prior to the TAP [00:00:30] program, we were a lean team doing things mostly on an ad hoc basis. The very 

Robert Harbauer: The very beginning, the first four, four and a half years were really tough, marketing something nobody knows about on the planet. 

Shamira Jaffer: Signifi is a technology company. The early years were really tough. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy thing to do. 

Speaker 1: We offer expert coaching and planning. 

Robert Harbauer: TAP has been amazing. Every day there was experts talking to you, giving you guidance of who to talk to, where to go and create relationships that were impossible before. 

David Dickson: The trade accelerator program put pen to paper on [00:01:00] our expert plan. I came out of there with a more enriched understanding of different kinds of government resources. I made great contacts as well. 

Joanne Torrance: We didn't really realize until after we took TAP that this is a process that has provided a targeted plan to give yourself trajectory into five years down the road. It changed everything. 

Andrew Brett: We graduated from TAP with a much more holistic understanding of the resources available to us as a Canadian small business exporting. There's a rapidly [00:01:30] growing interest in curling so it was perfect timing to think about our export plan. The TAP program forced us to really look at resources within our network and especially a new network that TAP brought us, services that we weren't aware of. 

James Hashimi: We had the opportunity to modernize vinyl records. TAP sessions weren't just lectures; there's contacts, notes that I use even today. TAP really helped us focus on scaling and predicting the future so that we could grow [00:02:00] accordingly. 

Speaker 1: We help businesses grow and expand internationally. 

Peter Townshend: We saw 20% year over year growth right out of the TAP program. 

James Hashimi: Within the next 18 months thereafter, we had grown into 10 different countries across four different continents. 

Ben Ames: Since graduating from TAP, our sales in the US markets have increased to account for roughly 80% of CORL's current annual revenue. 

Robert Harbauer: We grew our export from 50% of our sales to 95% of our sales in 18 months. 

Abdul Naushad: We've grown [00:02:30] about 1,500% and we continue to grow at 40% month to month. 

Shamira Jaffer: As a company, we grew up a lot and we're everywhere from Europe to Middle East to the far East. 

Speaker 1: In five years, the Trade Accelerator Program has grown from one location to over 25 Canadian cities, and we are now diversifying to niche sectors and are looking at the global stage. 

Joanne Torrance: Having TAP in our corner now has opened up what the world has to offer.

Speaker 1, Erin Flowers: I have this luxury of working with some of the best part of humanity, which I think are curlers.

Speaker 2, Andrew Brett: We graduated from TAP with a much more holistic understanding of the resources available to us as a Canadian small business.

Erin Flowers: We manufacture product specific to the sport of curling. My dad's run the company since I was young. My grandfather actually started the company in 1967 and two years ago, the opportunity came up for myself and Andrew and Pete to purchase the business.

Speaker 3, Peter Townshend: We've got so much passion for what we're doing.

Andrew Brett: We had a lot of faith in ourselves and in each other.

Erin Flowers: We all really felt that we would take the company to the next level.

Andrew Brett: There's a rapidly growing interest in curling.

Peter Townshend: There's curling starting in Brazil right now.

Andrew Brett: So it was perfect timing to think about our export plan.

Peter Townshend: TAP was just a no-brainer.

Andrew Brett: The TAP Program forced us to really look at resources within our network and especially a new network that TAP brought us, services that we weren't aware of.

Peter Townshend: We saw 20% year over year growth, like right out of the TAP Program.

Erin Flowers: We have grown substantially in terms of personnel, retail stores, more business in countries like Norway, Scotland, Japan. Not only would my father be proud of how we're going to take this company, but my grandfather would be extra proud to see where this has grown.