How to Start a Small Business in Ontario
It can be easy to talk yourself out of the idea to start a small business in Ontario, especially if this is something that you have been considering for a while. You’re probably already familiar with the common excuses, the economy could be better, you can seem to find the right location, or maybe you’re not 100% sure that your business name is good enough.
Starting a business is almost always going to be a big task to complete. However, at some point, you’ll need to rise above your fears and get started, otherwise you will never know whether or not you’ll be successful.
While yes it’s true that there are many start-ups in Canada that don’t make it past their first few years. You should understand that there’s more successful business than you might think, studies have shown:
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- In Canada, 77% of new companies with between one to four employees survive for at least three years
- 86% of new companies with between 20 and 99 employees survive for at least three years
- 63% of new companies survive for at least five years
- 43% of new companies survive for at least 10 years
These are pretty good odds, this includes the fact that many of these start-ups that make it are nowhere near as well-prepared as you might think before they have even unlocked their doors and put up their OPEN sign.
When you take the time to think things through and get yourself prepared as much as possible, you’ll be giving yourself a better chance to have short and long-term success with your business.
To help your research, we created this full guide on how to start a small business in Ontario, as a new entrepreneur. A variety of things will be discussed that you’ll need to know to give yourself a better chance to make your business last 3, 5, or 10 years or more.
So let’s get started!
Brainstorm Ideas for Your Small Business
According to a small business study, at the start of 2026, there were 1.14 million small businesses that existed in Canada. At that time, more than 407,000 of those small businesses were in Ontario.
Even though that may be a big amount of businesses, that does not mean all of the good ideas are taken. There are plenty of opportunities for you to capitalize on and start a small business, whether you’re improving on what businesses are currently doing now, or you’ve discovered a brand new idea that nobody is doing yet.
What Type of Business Should You Start?
Typically, small businesses will either be providing a service or selling a product. It can usually be better to start with either one or the other, but there are a few small businesses that can do both, you can then decide to migrate into the second area as you build a solid business foundation and start to grow.
- Services: Providing a specific set of expertise or skills to another person or business that will need it is a service-based business. Since they don’t have to keep any product, service-based businesses aren’t very complicated. There are also not many start-up costs needed to get a service business up and running.
- Products: Selling goods that you have purchased from somewhere else and sell for a profit or items that you make yourself are a product-based business. You will need to be able to determine how you will deliver your products to your customers, either in person at a brick and mortar location or via shipping, as well as figuring out where you will be storing the inventory when you are selling products.
You will need to decide on what type of business is the best fit for your specific set of skills and level of interest to focus on the best ideas for that type of business.
Networking
It might be a great benefit for you to talk about your idea and discuss the process of starting a business with other entrepreneurs that have gone through the same thing when you are trying to come up with a small business.
You may be able to locate other start-ups in your local area that you can get in touch with and see if they are willing to give you some help with determining a business idea through your local Better Business Bureau.
You can also use social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or other sites and try to network with other small businesses in Canada.
Determining the Best Way to Get Started
When thinking up some ideas, you may want to start considering how you will want to start the business.
- Full start-up: Going this route will mean that you are starting everything from scratch, which includes developing your services or products and getting clients.
- Buying an existing business: You will already have the work done to get everything started when you buy someone else’s business, you can then start focusing on giving the business your own personal touch. You will be able to achieve success faster than starting from scratch, but it will also be more expensive.
- Buying a franchise: This route gives you the best of both ideas that we just discussed. When buying a franchise, you can use the business idea and branding of a business that already exists, you will also receive the benefits of the parent company’s marketing efforts, but the hiring and finding a location will be up to you. You will also have to follow the parent company’s standards that they will give you.
Offline vs. Online Business
What type of business do you want to start? Are you looking for an online-only business that you can run from home with no physical location, or do you want to have a physical presence where customers can come and visit? Both brick-and-mortar and offline presence may be needed by some businesses.
Building an Online Presence
You are going to want to consider having an online presence regardless of whether you are planning to build a brick-and-mortar offline business, an online-only business, or a combination of the two.
It’s not likely that new customers are going to visit your business or make a purchase online from you without researching your business online.
A professional-looking website is an easy place for you to start. The site should look clean and professional while also give visitors information on your business, explain what you’re offering, and give them a way to get in touch with you.
The website that you build will be your storefront if you are selling your products online. So potential customers or clients will go to your website to hire your services or order your products instead of having a physical store location.
Building a Following on Social Media
Creating your social media following is a huge aspect of marketing for either an online or offline type of business. Potential customers will expect to be able to learn more about your business through social media when they are using their mobile devices.
Social media is a great format to use a contest or discount to gain new customers. Social media can also be used to encourage customers to come back on a regular basis.
You can also inform customers about new services and products while also keeping them entertained on social media. A potential customer can feel like they are an important part of your business when you share videos and photos. You can drive repeat purchases and visits by creating a positive emotional connection between your business and customers.
This is a great way to stay engaged with customers because some of them will want to provide feedback and ask questions about your business performance on social media as well.
You should always be prepared for some feedback that is negative because if a customer had a bad experience with your company, they are more likely to go on social media and let other people know about it. Use this as a chance to show your customer problem-solving skills and make yourself aware of any problems in the flow of your business and attempt to fix any problems that a customer may have experienced, your audience on social media will then be able to see how your business handled the situation.
Online Development Help
It will be a good investment to hire someone to help you with running your social media campaigns or build and operate a website. Obviously, some small business owners are going to be able to do this themselves while others can’t or simply don’t have the time.
You can never overstate how important it is to have a professional and strong-looking presence online when you’re running a small business. Customers will more than likely never consider your business and you will never know why if you don’t have a trustworthy presence online.
Hiring someone to handle the updates to your social media and to the website to ensure customers stay engaged with your business and have a reason to stick around can be a huge benefit.