The Power of Starting

Starting something new always comes with feelings: excitement, doubt, fear, overwhelm, eagerness, renewal, daring, courage. The truth is two things can be true at once: I can have all the confidence in the world to start, and still feel the edge of a spiral asking, can we really pull this off?

I know I'm not special in this. It's a shared human experience, starting something new always brings the feelings. Maybe right now it's the start of a new school year, the shift from summer into fall, a new job, a new career, entering your retirement era. Starting brings on the feelings, no matter what it is.

How Sapling Kitchen + Events Began

Starting Sapling Kitchen + Events certainly came with feelings, for me and for my partner in both life and business, Sumit. As we built evidence in our minds that we could pull this off together, the only way to really prove it was to start. I'm writing this now as our space is full of food entrepreneurs making their product, in between packing up food bundles and meal prep from our kitchen for the week and giving tours to future clients this afternoon.

I don't want to turn this post into the full history of where we started, but I think it's worth sharing a little of it.

Sumit came into this with 15 years in the culinary space and a mindset of giving every position everything he's got. I came from recreation and education, with that same eagerness to help something grow, no matter how long it takes. That shared mindset is what made us know, early on, that we wanted to build something together. To be honest, Sumit saw the potential in that a lot faster than I did, but I'm very glad I got convinced.

For a while, we were happy running our first business together, The Broken Ice Company, on weekends while working full time. But after we pulled off 40 events in one winter season, we realized it might be time to start something bigger, something full time.

Building Momentum Through Starter Company Plus

Looking for a way to start that still felt within reach, I found a program through the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre called Starter Company Plus. They were running a food-company-only cohort, and it felt made for me, I wasn't coming from the food industry, and if I wanted to keep up with Sumit's expertise, I needed to build my footing fast.

I was so excited to get accepted. The program gave me mentors, insights, and stories from local food entrepreneurs that built real momentum. It gave me the time and structure to turn what had been a weekend side hustle into an actual business plan, and the confidence that we understood something real about what food entrepreneurs in Waterloo Region needed.

I have stories that could fill books from the first eight months of 2026, building Sapling Kitchen + Events while still growing The Broken Ice Company, finding the right kitchen space, building it out, balancing the demand for our own food with the entrepreneurs who wanted to rent the kitchen. Some days it was deeply fulfilling. Other days it was just exhausting.

Your Own Version of Starting

But none of it could have come to life if we hadn't started. I think back to the summer road trips we would take together where 90% of our conversation was about what a future business together could look like, and how hesitant I was to start, because insert self-doubt here. The power of starting is what built the momentum and the confidence to keep going.

The Starter Company Plus program was a big part of my starting, and it's a genuinely great resource for entrepreneurs in Waterloo Region. Their fall cohort applications are open now until September 17, 2026, if you're sitting in that same hesitant, excited, doubtful place I was, applying might be your version of starting too