Many new entrepreneurs are thriving in the Peterborough region \u2014 and the trend is showing no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n
Community Futures Peterborough \u2014 an agency in the Venture North building on George Street, downtown \u2014 offers business financing. Two years ago, it opened a Business Advisory Centre to offer advice and guidance. The centre was busy from the get-go, says Devon Girard, executive director of Community Futures Peterborough \u2014 and two years later, \u201cthis momentum isn\u2019t slowing down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Girard said she\u2019s noted \u201cunprecedented rates\u201d of people coming in for a consultation on how to start or grow a business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe province sets targets for us to deliver 186 consultations a year. We hit that number in Peterborough this year, July 21 \u2014 like four months into the fiscal year, right?\u201d Girard said.<\/p>\n
In the fiscal year 2025\/26, the centre tallied 301 per cent of their provincial target, for consultations. In two years, they\u2019ve done 1,047 consultations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more people are turning to our centre for advice \u2014 and to entrepreneurship as a career option \u2014 than ever before,\u201d Girard said.<\/p>\n
She chalks it up to industrial jobs vanishing locally. People continue to want to live in Peterborough, she said, so they launch a business \u2014 and often see it flourish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always said this: Peterborough has a great team of organizations that support and are committed to small businesses,\u201d Girard said.<\/p>\n
Here are four startups that used the services of the Business Advisory Centre.<\/p>\n
Each one also received Ontario government grants of $5,000 through the Starter Company Plus program, which is managed by Community Futures Peterborough.<\/p>\n
Pies by Zach<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zach Washburn went from selling pizza from his porch to opening Pies By Zach on King Street in Millbrook in November 2025.<\/p>\n
Clifford Skarstedt\/Metroland<\/p>\n
Zach Washburn was a correctional officer for nearly a decade when he needed to switch careers. Diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Washburn says he left his job in Calgary to come home to Peterborough.<\/p>\n
He needed a creative project. As a youth he\u2019d worked in a pizza shop, he said, so he started making homemade pizza as therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cPizza was my purpose, I guess,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout getting too cheesy, it really was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washburn started posting to Instagram about pizza, which lead to pizza sales every Tuesday from his porch on Water Street (he regularly sold 50 \u201cPorch Pies.\u201d)<\/p>\n
He also started catering. Following one particular catering job, it was suggested by the client that he apply for a grant and grow his business.<\/p>\n
With his Starter Company Plus grant, Washburn bought an enclosed trailer for use as a mobile pizza operation. When he parked it outside Lost Cannabis in Cavan, he found himself selling out regularly for weeks.<\/p>\n
One sleepless night, Washburn said he was up reading when he spotted an ad for a storefront for rent in Millbrook. He said he wasn\u2019t looking for a storefront, but the notice was enticing. The next morning he viewed the shop in person.<\/p>\n
Pies by Zach has operated from that location, at 16 King St. E. in Millbrook, for nearly a year. He opened in November 2025. Now he makes and sells 100 to 120 pizzas daily. And he says Millbrook suits him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Peterborough, but Millbrook and the community has been honestly such a blessing. It\u2019s just the cutest little town. The locals are all super nice,\u201d Washburn said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to make a good life for myself, and I\u2019m blessed that I can use pizza to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kayla Le Franc Photo<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photographer Kayla Le Franc inside her Studio 5 business in the Commerce Building in Peterborough.<\/p>\n
Clifford Skarstedt\/Metroland File Photo<\/p>\n
Kayla Le Franc was born and raised in Peterborough and lived in Hamilton for about a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then COVID hit and I became a mom,\u201d said Le Franc (her son was born in 2020). \u201cSo my priorities really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She and her husband and son then moved to Peterborough to join family in her hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I moved here, I started working in my field, which was social work and developmental services,\u201d Le Franc said.<\/p>\n
But she also had professional training in photography from Mohawk College in Hamilton, and had done photography work there \u2014 wedding photos, for example. When she started doing photography here in Peterborough, in addition to her other job, she found the side hustle had momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started picking up so much that I was working more doing my photos than I was working my nine-to-five,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that\u2019s when I knew it was time to make the switch.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her Starter Company Plus grant \u2014 and help from the Business Advisory Centre \u2014 Le Franc got a studio space downtown in the Commons Building in spring 2025. She has since moved to another space in the same building, on Hunter Street at Water Street, that she shares with fellow photographer Heather Doughty.<\/p>\n
These days, Le Franc has shifted her focus to marketing photography and professional headshots for many downtown entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran into someone the other day and they go, \u2018Oh, well if it isn\u2019t the downtown photographer,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI said thank you \u2026 If they know me as that, that\u2019s great. Because I want to tell the story of downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lark and Lemon<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kristen Offen, left, and Vanessa Wunderlich from Lark and Lemon started a residential cleaning company three years ago using eco-friendly products they had formulated themselves.<\/p>\n
Nicole Wunderlich<\/p>\n
Kristen Offen and Vanessa Wunderlich say they are best friends who wanted to work together. More than three years ago they started a cleaning company: they did residential cleaning using eco-friendly products they had formulated themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted something that was plant-based and no harsh chemicals, but we didn\u2019t want to compromise on its cleaning power,\u201d Offen said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really like a go-to product out there that we found that hit all of those marks \u2014 so that\u2019s why we created our own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clients loved the cleaning products, Offen said: \u201cThey were asking for us to kind of leave our product behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when they shifted focus: they used their Starter Company Plus grant to buy equipment to scale up production of the cleaning products (their lab occupies half of Wunderlich\u2019s home). Instead of scouring houses, they now sell their popular cleaning products for home use.<\/p>\n
The Ennismore-based business is called Lark and Lemon; Wunderlich\u2019s daughter is named Lark, and the logo of their cleaning business had been a lemon.<\/p>\n
Their products are available for sale online and in 21 stores, including One Fine Food in Peterborough, for example.<\/p>\n
Wunderlich said the staff at the Business Advisory Centre was key to their success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that every time we were there we, they\u2019re just such cheerleaders,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they are really, really, really very good at motivating you, and keeping you on track, and feeding you ideas \u2026 and just keeping the vision really, really clear. So I think that\u2019s what we got the most out of, for sure \u2014 their support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smash Courts<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Smash Courts, founded as a small family business by Jody and Jeff Allen, has grown into a premier indoor pickleball facility in Peterborough.<\/p>\n
Clifford Skarstedt\/Metroland file photo<\/p>\n
Jody and Jeff Allen opened Smash Courts, an indoor pickleball facility, in April 2024 in the former Better Floorz location at 799 Erskine Ave. It had one half-court plus a full court.<\/p>\n
The Allens were new entrepreneurs: Jody was a child welfare worker and Jeff a teacher at Adam Scott intermediate school. At first, they took a self-funded year away from their day jobs to launch the business \u2014 and then the business grew in a big way.<\/p>\n
In December, Smash Courts moved into a new location at 725 Monaghan Rd., next to Global TV. The facility has 12 courts. It also has a pro shop with pickleball equipment and accessories, and it\u2019s an authorized Lululemon retailer.<\/p>\n
Today Jeff still teaches, but Jody said she has switched to running Smash Courts full time.<\/p>\n
Jody said in an email the business grew quickly \u2014 but she always sensed it would. She knew there was high demand in Peterborough for opportunities for people to play her favourite sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had been playing pickleball daily for years, and it was becoming increasingly hard for us to find places to play \u2014 and we were all travelling to get paddles, court shoes and Lululemon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were deeply entrenched in the pickleball community and knew what was needed \u2014 so for us it wasn\u2019t that the business took off quickly, it was trying to build what was needed as quickly as we could. We had incredible support and hands-on help to make it happen. It is a true community club.\u201d<\/p>\n
They received a Starter Company Plus grant, Jody Allen said, and did business training sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave us a chance to meet other brand new entrepreneurs like us,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Business Advisory Centre has been a tremendous support, from loans and help troubleshooting and persevering through our major expansion \u2026 Our business community \u2014 and us especially \u2014 are really lucky to be able to access this level of support locally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many new entrepreneurs are thriving in the Peterborough region \u2014 and the trend is showing no signs of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[138,336,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-636327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}