By Joel van der Veen
A Moose Jaw-based entrepreneur has taken business succession planning into the social networking age.
Alison Anderson, founder of SuccessionMatching.com, describes her website as a cross between “Internet dating and Facebook,” a portal designed to match entrepreneurs with business owners looking to retire and sell their enterprises.
“So far there’s been some really good response,” she told the Times-Herald on Friday. “There’s a huge niche for succession planning in Canada and this is kind of the first of its kind so everyone’s really jumped on board.”
It’s estimated that more than 100,000 Canadian business owners will soon be faced with the task of retiring and passing the baton to the next generation, whether through transition to a family member or selling the business to another owner.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs or investors often struggle to find established businesses looking for new owners. Anderson’s site is designed to bring the two sides together, using unique software that offers privacy and confidentiality for both buyers and sellers.
She launched the site about a year ago, and has grown the enterprise through working with corporate partners, including RBC, which has started promoting the site to its client base.
“We hit the ground running, but we can only talk to so many people,” she explained, adding that partnerships like these are “really huge” and a great boost in growing the site.
“There is a lot to work through with business succession planning,” Ed Kaulbach, RBC regional vice president for Saskatchewan South, said in a press release, “from how you’re going to transition your day-to-day management, to who you are going to transfer or sell your business to.”
For more information, see an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
