ABM Plumbing

We are Aaron and Kathryn. Aaron has eighteen years of experience in residential and commercial plumbing and heating. Kathryn is a professional engineer and certified project management professional. 

In April 2021, we decided we were ready to start a plumbing and heating business in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The business would be a partnership with Aaron managing the field work and Kathryn managing the administrative duties. 

During our early Google searches on ‘how to start a business’, we came across the SK Startup Institute website, which had so much useful information and an abundance of resources. The following week, we attended their Webinar on ‘How to Start a Business in Saskatchewan’, followed their Start Up Checklist, and registered our business as a partnership. We downloaded their Business Plan Template, attended the ‘How to Draft a Business Plan’ webinar, received research reports, and spent hours together writing our business plan. The SK Startup Institute website listed a number of events and we attended free business webinars related to taxes, social media, and more. We also made appointments with each SK Startup Institute expert in the areas of accounting, business planning, general business, legal, and marketing, and each expert was incredibly helpful. We did all of this within one month.  

We are both Metis, and through the discussions and information provided by SK Startup Institute, we attended a ‘Metis Nation: Access-to-Capital webinar’. This webinar was hosted by Futurpreneur and Clarence Campeau Development Fund (CCDF). We were both under the age of 40, Metis, and were provided information on how to access financing. We applied for financing, and were approved by Futurpreneur, BDC, and CCDF. We required a third-party Business Plan for CCDF, but found that preparing our own was really beneficial and helped the process. 

The SK Startup Institute website and staff were really the starting point for our business, and were there to help us when we needed it. We are now in the ninth month of operation and things have been going very well. There have been some challenges, but we are really happy that we took the plunge to start our own business and work for ourselves.