If you think that a willingness to empty your savings account of every last penny is the key obstacle to starting your own business, think again: the experience of Bruce Poon Tip, owner and founder of G Adventures, will show that the ability to be an entrepreneur also comes from within.
Poon Tip, who launched his travel company in 1991 — and saw it make Macleans list of the Top 100 companies in Canada to work for last year — says his success took a great deal of hard work, persistence and passion. But he says that it was also critical to understand his own strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur.
“There are different types of entrepreneurs and you have to know where you fit into that,”
Poon Tip says. “You have to make sure you have a lot of passion for your product or whatever you decide you want to start, so that you can convince people that they need it or want to buy it, and you can’t do that unless you are convinced yourself. And you have to have a natural ability to focus.”
In 1990, at the age of 21, Poon Tip moved from his home in Calgary to Toronto to pursue his dream of starting his own business.
It was a struggle, he says, since the world was in recession at the time, and travel was the last thing on people’s minds. That’s where his persistence kicked in, and he got G Adventures off the ground.
Tip had studied travel and tourism, and took a few business courses as well. But he found he wasn’t getting what he wanted out of the latter, “because business courses teach you to read a balance sheet,” he says, “but they don’t really teach you the essence of being an entrepreneur. So he decided he’d have to take matters into his own hands and learn everything he needed to know as he went along.
His business was created to bridge a divide between backpacking and the mainstream coach tours, and today, the $100-million firm offers small group adventures to more than 100 destinations in unique parts of the world, such as the Galapagos Islands, and puts an emphasis on cultural tourism.
Poon Tip will be in Toronto on Thursday at the Sheraton Centre Hotel from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. to speak about becoming an entrepreneur. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students.
For more information, call 1-877-277-1240 or go to www.learningannex.ca or www.gadventures.com.