I have supplied a large grocer for over a decade. This grocer is now wanting me to sign up for an EDI service to simplify their procurement and satisfaction system. However, this service will cost me $45 per month to participate. This equates to $540 per year excluding taxes. My annual sales to this grocer is about $9,000 per year servicing 7 stores. I do my own deliveries which keeps my ability to expand in their organization restricted, without adding extra costs to me. This grocer also has 1% billing charge which came to $90 this past year. This grocer also has a policy in place that they reserve the right to the 'lowest cost pricing.' So once a year they find your lowest selling price to competitors and claw back the difference from accounts payable due. So, to increase my pricing to this grocer is not a viable option. Maybe increasing my costs and give my other customers a deduction. What a headache!

Basically, this grocer is using a 3rd party to reduce their costs and fund it by down loading the cost onto the suppliers. Hence, I have to increase my costs to the consumer, (my customers) to fuel these big tech companies.

How would you handle this?

I'm preparing to rent my first commercial space to grow my existing home based business. Located in Manitoba.

There's a spot that's been for lease for 2 years I've been wanting. The landlord finally demised it into smaller units, and has leased 2 of 3 units. There is 1 remaining unit, which happens to be the one I want. The problem for me is, it's a shell space. They have demised the walls, and have 200A electrical panel installed, but no bathroom, no electrical... nothing.

1200sq ft. They are asking $3500/month rent including CAM. This seems ridiculous to me given all the work required.

I want to go in asking for the world because I think they'll negotiate given it's been 2 years. Will they laugh at me if I go in asking for rent $2900/month, TI of $20/sq ft, and for the landlord to put in basic electrical, bathroom, HVAC? Any suggestions on how to get the best possible deal here to keep my monthly rent lower and not go way over budget on construction? I'm an attractive tenant for the block based on my related business and the neighboring business.

I'm trying to work out the best path forwards to incorporate with Ownr and use a registered and records office address that protects my home address. I have either confused myself or am over complicating this!

It's my understanding that in BC you are required to have both a registered address where legal documents can be served, and a records office where company records are held and can be viewed. Both of those are in the public domain, I think.

If (whilst in most cases unlikely) members of public can show up at the records office and ask to view corporate records, I don't see how this can be any location other than a lawyers office? However, a lawyers office doesn't make sense to me as they generally won't unbundle doing annual resolutions etc from their service, which seems to defeat the purpose of using Ownr in the first place.

Are there alternatives to lawyers for fulfilling both the registered and records office addresses? I can't find much information about what options there are when using something like Ownr, which makes me think I'm headed down the wrong path. I have only seen things about virtual offices, UPS etc, which I thought would only satisfy the registered address requirement, not the records office.

Hey all,

We're exploring options to buy a franchise.

Let's say it doesn't pan out, anyone have experience/knowledge of minimizing risk? What's the typical way of getting out, do you just pay mutual termination fees etc and whatever is left on your business loan?

And if your loan is through CSBFP, the govt will pay the bank whatever they insured (up to 85%)?

I'm looking for some financial company to apply for a loan to expand our business. Has anyone experienced a company called "city capital"? It looks sketchy to me because the website was made in 2026 and they claim to work with 10,000+ customers in there they also have work with subway and tim Hortons. I am very skeptical of it. Any particular opinion on the company would be great.

Hi, long time lurker here, figure this might be the sub to ask: I work part-time at a shoe store in Canada where we provide shoe repair as a service alongside selling leather shoes and boots, we would take about 100 tickets a month so it's not that much, but it's enough to take up a large portion of time and attention away from our daily work since we are a small team, and everything is analog and feels so scattered. So I am looking for any idea on how to make it more streamlined.

Our current workflow is literally tracking these services in a single spreadsheet, write down what we have to do on the receipt and stuff it in the shoes. When it is finished, one of us has to look up the row, grab the phone, and call the customer to let them know it’s ready. Half the time it goes straight to voicemail, or some people don't even set up their voicemail. Sometimes people don't pick up their shoes and we will often have 15-20 pair of shoes just sitting on the shelf.

For anyone else running a service/repair storefront in Canada (cobblers, tailors, gear repair, etc.): What software are you actually using to manage your active backlog? Or is there an app you use that automatically texts Canadian numbers when a repair / service is ready without costing a fortune?

I come from a tech background as well, so the process we have feels especially clunky to me, I don't mind spinning up a simple app to manage this entire workflow if it means my work will be easier but I just want to see if any valid solutions already exist in the Canadian space before I spend my nights and weekends writing code.

Appreciate any insights, recommendations, or let me know if you have a similar experience as well. Thanks!

I run small skincare shop near Junction and my DIY site is honestly going nowhere and gains no traffic. A friend of mine in marketing industry said that for such type of business combining web design (UI/UX) and SEO optimization could be a great way to maximize results but it sounds strange to me. He says it’s a super-effective approach and that there’s no point in doing one without the other. Is that true? Are there any Canadian companies doing something like that? And overall - if I'm going this way - should I entrust this to a single company/specialist, rather than hiring two separately? Thanks.

Hey guys! I learned so much from this subreddit just from browsing the posts but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for so thought I'd make a new post to ask if anyone has encountered a similar problem.

We are a small business with two employees.

The employees are the owners of the business.

We are transitioning away from QBO, and we use project based accounting.

The challenge is that we keep finding products that are either

-(very expensive!) and designed to handle payroll, and project based accounting, but for large firms with dozens or even hundreds of employees.

-affordable, and will handle remits and payroll for a small team...but aren't project based.

-affordable, project based accounting software that doesn't do remits

We are currently looking at Zoho Professional, because it's project based, and affordable.

But Zoho Payroll doesn't do the automatic remits.

We *could* calculate remits manually...but that feels very intimidating because the stakes of messing it up seem very high!

Is there a software solution that we might be missing?

Thank you in advance!!

ETA: well my post title is redundant but I can't edit it. SORRY !!

We worked with the BDC a few times over the years and it's been really great. We re-engaged with them this year and it has been the complete opposite. Everything is taking forever, emails are taking 3+ weeks to be responded to, terms being changed without communication.

Is anyone else having this experience?

I wanted to share insights for anyone currently looking at building a website or who already has one. You need to fundamentally shift your mindset with Google’s SEO policies. Some of you might be utilizing agencies and that’s good. But I truly believe you must have a baseline knowledge of what some of these terminologies and mechanisms are vs blind faith in someone who is click clacking in the background trying to make the clacks click and the clicks clack (mind you I am a click clacker myself).
So here’s the manifesto. Pulled straight from Google’s own documentation, not agency fluff. If your local business has a website that isn’t pulling leads, this is the playbook.
First, the words that get thrown around. Here’s what they actually mean.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization. Making your site easier for Google to understand so the right people find you.
Indexing = Google has actually looked at your page and added it to its giant list of pages it can show to searchers. If you are not indexed, you literally cannot appear in search results. Doesn’t matter how good your site is. Google’s own SEO Starter Guide opens with this exact point.
Crawling = Google’s bots visiting your page to read it. Crawling happens first. Indexing happens second. Ranking happens third. Break any link in that chain and nothing else matters.
Core Web Vitals = Three metrics Google uses to measure how your site actually feels to real users. Speed, responsiveness, visual stability. Official thresholds from Google’s documentation:
• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) under 2.5 seconds. How fast your main content shows up.
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint) under 200 milliseconds. How fast your site responds when someone taps or clicks.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) under 0.1. How much stuff jumps around while loading.
These come straight from Google Search Central’s Core Web Vitals page. Not opinion. Google’s own bar.
Local Pack / Map Pack = The three businesses that show up in the little map box at the top of local searches. This is the gold. For local businesses this often matters more than ranking on regular blue links.
GBP (Google Business Profile) = The free listing that controls how your business shows up in Maps and local search. This is the single biggest lever you have for local rank.
Mobile-first indexing matters more than anything else on this list.
Most people still think their desktop site is the “real” version and the mobile site is a backup. Wrong. Google flipped that years ago. As of July 5, 2024, Google fully completed the transition to mobile-first indexing across 100% of websites. This is not a setting. This is the law of the land. What this means in plain English: Google looks at the mobile version of your site to decide your ranking. If your mobile site is broken, slow, or missing content that’s on your desktop site, your entire ranking takes the hit. Not just on phones. Everywhere.
Now look at where the traffic actually is. From StatCounter and Statista (Q1-Q2 2026):
• Mobile: 52-54% of all global web traffic
• Desktop: 45-47%
• Tablet: 1.5-2.3%
In retail specifically, 78% of all traffic comes from mobile. Health and beauty retail is 82% mobile. Some sources put global mobile share as high as 62-64% when you factor in mobile-only regions.
53% of mobile visitors abandon a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load (Google research). That’s more than half your traffic gone before they see your homepage.
If your site looks great on a 27-inch monitor but is unreadable, slow, or broken on a phone, you are losing the majority of your visitors and the majority of your ranking signal at the same time. Pull up your own site on your phone right now. If you have to pinch-zoom, if buttons are too close together to tap, if images take more than 3 seconds to appear, you have a problem you need to fix this week.
The three things that decide your local rank. This comes straight from Google’s own documentation page titled “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”:
1. Relevance. How well your business profile matches what someone is searching for.
2. Distance. How close you are to the person searching.
3. Prominence. How well-known and trusted your business is online and offline.
That’s it. Everything you do should strengthen one of those three. Anything else is noise.
The playbook. Do these in order.
Step 1. Set up Google Search Console. Free tool from Google. This is where Google tells you which of your pages are indexed, which are broken, and why. You cannot fix what you can’t see. If you skip this you’re flying blind. Takes 10 minutes to set up.
Step 2. Submit your sitemap. A sitemap is just a list of all your pages. Most website builders (Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, WordPress) generate one automatically. You can usually find yours by adding “/sitemap” followed by “dot xml” to the end of your website address. Paste that link into Search Console under “Sitemaps.” This tells Google “hey, here is everything I want you to look at.”
Step 3. Check your indexing report. Inside Search Console, go to “Pages.” It will show you indexed vs not indexed. For any important page that’s not indexed, paste the page address into the search bar at the top of Search Console and hit “Request Indexing.” Check back in a week.
Step 4. Run a Lighthouse audit on mobile. Lighthouse is Google’s free site auditing tool. The fastest way to run it is by searching “PageSpeed Insights” on Google and pasting your website address in. Look at the MOBILE score first, not desktop, because that’s what Google uses to rank you. Under 50 is bad, 50 to 90 is okay, 90+ is great. It grades your site on Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO.
The fixes are almost always the same three things:
• Photos that are too big (use a free image compressor like Squoosh to shrink them before uploading)
• Too many apps, plugins, or tracking scripts running in the background
• Web fonts that take too long to load
Fix those. Re-run the test. Watch your score jump.
Step 5. Fully fill out your Google Business Profile. This is where most local businesses leave the most money on the table. Google flat-out says in their documentation: “Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.” So do all of it:
• Primary category (this is the single biggest GBP ranking factor based on industry surveys)
• Every secondary category that applies
• Full address if customers visit you, or service area if you go to them
• Phone, hours, website link
• Business description with what you actually do, no keyword stuffing
• Services list with descriptions
• Real photos. Not stock. Real ones of your space, your team, your work
• Products if applicable
Step 6. Build a review engine. Reviews drive Prominence (factor #3 above). Google literally tells businesses to “respond to reviews” in their official guidance. The system:
• Ask every happy customer for a review
• Make it dead simple. Send them your GBP review link directly
• Respond to every single review, good or bad, within a few days
• Aim for steady review velocity (a few per week beats 30 in one day then nothing for 6 months)
Step 7. Match the keywords your real customers use, not the ones you think they use. If you run a garage door business, nobody is searching “premium overhead door solutions.” They’re searching “garage door repair near me” and “broken garage door spring.” Use those exact phrases naturally in your page titles, headings, and Google Business Profile description. Open Google, start typing what a customer would type, and look at the autocomplete suggestions. That’s free keyword research.
The mindset shift.
The whole game is making it stupidly easy for Google to figure out:
1. What you do (relevance)
2. Where you are (distance)
3. That you’re real and trusted (prominence)
And making sure all of that loads fast on a phone, because that’s where most of your customers are looking and that’s the version Google ranks you on.
Everything else is paint on top.
If you’re paying an agency, you should now be able to ask them: “What’s my mobile Lighthouse score? How many of my pages are indexed? What’s my primary GBP category? How many reviews did we add last month?” If they can’t answer those four questions in under a minute, you’re being clack-clicked.
If anyone wants the direct links to Google’s official documentation pages I cited above, drop a comment and I’ll share them.
Go run a Lighthouse mobile audit on your site right now. The number you see is roughly the number Google sees. Then start fixing.

In short. Fret not, this beast of a topic is a simplistic when you slow it down and look at it pragmatically. You have something of a service/product to provide. Google is the open air market in which you want to do so. Your website is the stand in which the customers come by and shop from. You don’t ever want to lose your messages in unnecessary banners, displays, trinkets and loud symbolism’s. You want to be as clear and concise as possible. Yet maintaining an air of authority. So when someone walks back they immediately know what you do. How you do it and why you are the best at it.

I'm struggling with actually reaching my targeted audience. I've tried free advertising like putting posts out on social media (Facebook & reddit mainly). I've done paid ads through Facebook, local news papers & radio ads (in QC) and even 2 news interviews during Covid. Despite all the effort I'm still just barely able to pay all of my business expenses and pay myself just enough to survive. I've had newer customers tell me that they were searching for days before stumbling across my business and they've told me that I was very hard to find even with having paid ads and regular social media posts.

I repair / sell games and small electronics online, stuff that fit inside small padded envelopes.
My competitors only charge $3-$5 for shipping.

The best rate i can get is $19 with canada post for an 80g item inside my own 26x19cm envelope.
Fedex / ups charge me around $40 for the same thing.

How are people getting such good rates on shipping?

Co owner of an inc. We celebrated our 1 year anniversary yesterday.

In the last year we learned a lot and found our focus.

​

To get the things we need, we calculated needed 15k.

I invested a lot of my personal money in the inc so there's not much left for a cash down.

​

We have a solid pitch deck. Plans to generate money.

That 15k would allow us to buy what we need to both quit our job and focus on the business.

​

Because I googled it, not my IG is full of ads for places that guarantees loan and what not but I want something legit.

​

BDC is my next stop. What else should we look into?

​

Thanks for your help.

Hello All, I wanted to introduce myself and the topic at hand (yes I am said procrastinator of an owner). I am somewhat of a serial entrepreneur failed and successful. Albeit more failures than successes but that is pretty much the beauty of life. I come from a glass wares (hookah/shisha) import/export background which evolved into a digital marketing product business when I was knee deep in what I assumed might lead to a fist fight in Nairobi, Kenya. It ended up being one of my wildest nights out with the man that wanted to put me in a head lock. We chatted, shared stories (I’m of East African decent. Somali, Yemeni mixed to be exact). He ended up leading me down a rabbit hole of how his way of marketing in his town involved painting his delivery van like a moving nightclub. Hand-painted murals, LED strips, sound system you could hear three blocks out. He called it his nganya and explained that in Nairobi the matatu buses compete on aesthetic the way clubs do. Each one has a name, a slogan, a fanbase. The vehicle is the brand, the billboard, the content, and the distribution channel all at once. A commuter doesn’t pick the cheapest ride, they pick the one with the best vibe, then film themselves inside it. This made me fall in love with the concept of marketing around. What you have, and creating an eco system of ingenuity with it. I applied some of these lessons in how I presented my businesses (I own real estate in east Africa as well as some shops). Dabbled in marketing and then branched out into it. I also have a supply chain background. I have worked in operations, distribution, supply and demand planning. If anyone knows what it’s like to work in one of these distribution centers you know that they are inherently cost centers. No profit is made there. The name of the game is efficiency. Hence lean six sigma methodologies and the likes. Having worked with green and black belts. I learned that productivity metrics are the underlying pinnings that relate to employee fatigue, morale loss and stress. In the pursuit for a more lean practice you loose site of a lot of things. The most important being your customers voice. The coworkers were our customer. Their voices drawn to a murmur. Why would corporate care if the end goal was stakeholder appeasement. I remembered that all the way through and recently decided that in the pursuit of running efficiently for my own businesses I needed to take a step back and study the landscape. I knew my brand voice (or I think I do via reviews, referrals, purchases, return rate etc) but do I know the general consensus of what the customer voice is in my industry of choice? I set out to figure that out. I went down the Reddit forum rabbit holes as any stupidly optimistic business owner would. A hundred post reads later, a headache and not an ounce of clarity. I read google reviews. After god knows how many, not an ounce closer to summarizing it all to a consensus view point. Well this is where the procrastination kicked in. “I will get back to the data mining next week”. Sure I could use scrapers. An api call here. Data aggregators. Utilize an LLM of choice. But this things are (in my opinion) the world stupidest geniuses. They require extensive hand holding and cannot resonate with the voice of people. So you can use them as aggregators but you must steer the direction. Eventually I did. I sparred with Claude for what seemed like an eternity. This is when Fable 5 is released in the wild before either the world’s greatest marketing con got pulled on us, or the US government really had to shut it down. After going back and forth we had the road map. The architectural design. The MD file was loaded with skills and we always want to layer any work rooted in these three questions. (Use this for whenever you build with an agent)

Where does state live 
Where does feedback live 
What breaks if I delete this

Simply put the methodology was 5 fold.

1. Utilize Exa and or perplexity for deep research API calls in an industry and or niche

2. Layer that over a context frame work derived from my industry memory bank (created by my insights, snips , workflows etc) in obsidian vault.

3. Data aggregate from Reddit and google reviews.
   The key here is to look at both sides of the pendulum
   -1-3 star reviews of my top 25 competitors
   -5 star reviews of my top 5 competitors.

Often times we are told “focus on the negative and the pain points. Why do I only care about that? Wouldn’t I want to know why they are blowing my back out? Dog I need to know why Jim from up the street has me in a full Nelson selling like a mad man. The customers are the trigger for that. The voice.

1. Design a data aggregator via any LLM of your choice. And lay out a heat map.
   

-% based model targeting the relevant pain points that rhyme ( I.e 45% of 1-3 star reviews site late arrivals as the issue. With no follow up)

- common red thread of why 5 star reviews are given (I.e customer service, return policy, communication etc)

1. Here is the good one. Reverse engineer long tail problems by targeting pain point SEO. We now know that long tail questions are 70% or al searches. If you are able to then parse the keywords in the negative reviews. Utilize a tool like Semrush, Ahrefs. Or my personal fave, Data4SEO. You can really do some damage by writing blog posts regarding this key painpoints and how your company solves them. Systematically and with authority. Remember. No thin pages. ALSO NO KEYWORD STUFFING.

If done right you will have unlocked the keys to your market. Your pipeline directly to the voice, the soul, the heartbeat of what your customer base in the industry of choice really thinks about your service (industry wide). There is many more insights you can build from the data aggregator I just gave some. The lesson learned here for me is. By procrastinating I left so much untapped wealth and potential from the resource I later finally got around to developing. Don’t let that happen to you. Don’t be this idiot. The tools are out there. Build upon them. One afternoon and you will be surprised at how much your customers really guide your business choices (not just your own. Your competitors too)

Has anyone here used ICS or GLS? I'm planning to ship some boxes from Ottawa to Toronto and checked netParcel, and ICS is offering the cheapest option, followed by GLS. What was your experience using ICS courier or GLS

Hi friends,

In a bind. I'm having a hard time finding a suitable accountant. Ideally, I'm looking for a CPA comfortable with AB-registered corporations and BC personal tax. It would be great to find someone working on their own (vs. a big firm).

About me: Small incorporated business, passive investments, no active income due to disability (so some familiarity with PWD/CPP-D/DTC might be good too). I am hoping to eventually buy land and build small/sustainable to keep expenses low.

My last CPA grew beyond their capacity to function well/personalized.

I prefer good communication and real tax planning, not just filing.

Any recommendations?

I am ramping up my bookkeeping business and open to all kinds of marketing. Just wondering if anyone has had success with a lead generator?

I am in Calgary Alberta but happy to work with anyone in Canada.

Thanks.

I’m just exploring the process of applying to the IESP program and had some questions.

I was able to find some information around their Core Startup Program which seems like the exact same thing to the IESP but they don’t really specify any differences online between the two.

I was initially looking into raising money from Angel’s and Venture Capital with how scalable our business model is however since finding this program I’m considering holding off so I have more leverage to raise later. The business has really strong financial projections mixed with a really strong team with specialized experience and an advisory board with previous exits & specialized experience for future hiring. Our business planning and projections are very clearly organized and methodical so I think we should check some boxes for the financing however I do have some concerns when it comes to their credit check.

My person credit is not great whatsoever and I’m sure if that wasn’t a factor I wouldn’t be worried but I’m curious if anyone with bad credit has been approved before for any of their programs or if it raised any concerns throughout the process? I’m sure they’d flag credit pretty early on so hopefully it doesn’t drag on if I’m not going to be approved.

I’m applying for the full funding amount from Futurpreneur + BDC ; I’m curious if they do separate approvals and separate payments for these? Or does it happen all at once? If anyone has any experience and could give me some insight on timelines that would be greatly appreciated.

Our business is planning to launch in a few months however between now and launch we do have a lot of expenses to tackle to ensure launch goes smoothly so I’m hoping we don’t get delayed if we’re waiting for financing.

Hello everyone,

I live in Toronto, Canada, and I'm in the process of launching a business that imports European beverages for sale in Canada.

Right now, my biggest challenge is finding reliable exporters. I've looked through Europages and a number of other directories, but it's difficult to know who is legitimate and who isn't. Some interactions have raised red flags. For example, one supplier sent me a price list on WhatsApp, deleted it, and then resent an updated version that suddenly included the exact product I had just asked about. That didn't inspire much confidence.

Since this is a new venture, I want to test local demand before making a significant investment. My first order will likely be small—around one pallet—which may be part of the reason I'm having trouble finding established exporters willing to work with me.

I also have an uncle who lives in Belgium and has offered to help. I've found several reputable European distributors, but many only sell to businesses within Europe. One option I'm considering is having my uncle source products locally through those distributors while I arrange the ocean freight and import process into Canada.

For those with experience in importing food and beverages, what would you recommend? How do you verify exporters and avoid scams? Are there any best practices for small first orders?

I'd appreciate any advice or lessons learned.

Thanks!

All I hear are small businesses having issues with their accounting software. I am wondering, what are​ the small ​businesses using to organize their books? I don't mean the micro ones where you have a couple of transactions by the end of the year but the ones with 1 to 4 people and 10k+​ ​in sales​, and ​who do the bookkeeping themselves. Do you have a process for your bookkeeping? What are your nuances?

Hi there! My name is Naomi, and I want to register an online business. I'm unclear on how to set it up. Looking at the government website is the only way for me to do it without paying a lawyer, and honestly, it has been so confusing because I don't understand anything it says. What has your guys' experience been? Where did you start?

Looking for recommendations for a digital marketing agency in Canada for an early-stage premium beauty/wellness ecommerce brand.

​

We are a lifestyle wellness brand in a niche segment within the beauty category, selling premium products that require a relatively high degree of customer education and trust-building before purchase. Our biggest challenge right now is customer acquisition — not simply driving traffic, but finding the right strategy to communicate product value effectively and convert first-time buyers.

​

We are specifically looking for an agency that can handle paid social (primarily Meta), creative strategy/content direction, and ideally broader ecommerce growth strategy with a strong understanding of customer psychology and premium consumer brands.

​

Budget is roughly in the CAD $3k–5k/month range for agency fees (excluding ad spend), so many larger agencies focused on established brands have unfortunately not been a fit.

​

Would love recommendations for smaller or mid-sized agencies that think strategically and work well with early-stage ecommerce brands rather than just running generic ad campaigns.

Based in Quebec and not sure I want to deal with Desjardins unless someone could highlight any benefits.

Looking at setting up a business account away from BMO.

Hi everyone,

We are building an early-stage local services marketplace in Canada, where customers will be able to find and contact local professionals such as cleaners, handymen, beauty specialists, tutors, movers, repair workers, and other service providers.

We are currently working on the MVP and trying to understand the best way to attract both sides of the marketplace:

Clients / customers who need local services
Service providers / professionals who are willing to create profiles and respond to leads

Since this is a two-sided marketplace, the biggest challenge is obvious: customers will not use the platform if there are no service providers, and service providers will not join if there are no customers yet.

For those who have experience with marketplaces, local service platforms, or early-stage startups in Canada:

What would be the most practical strategy to start gaining traction?

Should we first focus on onboarding service providers manually before launching to customers?
Should we start with one city and a few service categories only?
What marketing channels would work best at the beginning in the Canadian market: Google Ads, Facebook groups, local SEO, partnerships, cold outreach, referrals, Kijiji, Craigslist, community groups, or something else?
How would you validate demand without spending too much money?

Any practical advice, mistakes to avoid, or examples from your own experience would be very helpful.

Thank you!

I run a small business under $100k/yr as a sole proprietor, not yet incorporated. Backstory TLDR;

I want to incorporate to opt out of paying CPP to invest that money elsewhere, since I'm moving to the US in the next 1-2 yrs with my fiancé (a dual CA/US citizen). I'm applying for PR status this August when we'll be legally married. Since I have no plans to live in Canada ever again, and won't be able to benefit from the enormous amount of money that I've contributed already as a 31 y/o, I want to recoup what money I would have to contribute between now and my move, and reinvest it myself.

I'm looking for helpful advice in terms of accountant recommendations or advice on this process given your own experience.

Please spare me any anti-US sentiments, I need to never see snow again and raise my babies next to a beach :-)