Small Business, Big Lessons

Peter Severinson | Image: Jeremy Maude | Published: June 01, 2007

The blue chips grab headlines, but it’s the small and medium-sized businesses that make B.C.’s economy buzz. Compared to the rest of the country (per capita), B.C. has the fastest-growing small business sector and the second-largest number of small businesses. The sector provides the biggest proportion of private-sector jobs, and it makes the biggest contribution to the GDP (based on 2005 figures from BC Stats). Driving that sector are the genius, ambition and blind courage of B.C.’s entrepreneurs. BCBusiness heard the stories of a few standout small-business people whose innovations are being felt around the world.

It’s nice to celebrate their success, but what we really want is to learn from their stories…

Go global

Rashid Ahmed doesn’t believe in starting small. From the company’s inception four years ago, the president of Vancouver-based Optima Health Solutions International knew he’d sell the company’s back treatment to customers around the world.

“You’ve got to have a global plan when you have an idea like this,” says Ahmed, whose customers currently span Europe, Asia and North America. “Back-related conditions are worldwide.”

Optima sells a treatment process developed by CEO Aslam Khan that uses sound waves to adjust the spine. The company licenses the use of its technology and sells support services to hospitals in Germany, China and Taiwan. It’s launching expansions into the United Arab Emirates and India, adds Ahmed, and it’s also in talks with hospitals in Malaysia and South Korea.

The company broke even last year with revenues of roughly $1 million, and Ahmed expects to double that by next year.

DO: Match your business plan with your product
Khan has worked as a chiropractor in B.C. for 10 years and the company has performed more than 20,000 treatments in Vancouver since 2005, but the management team has always known the Canadian market was too small to support its business,
Ahmed says.

The team started wrestling with regulations and chasing certifications from the start, as it searched for global partners, Ahmed explains. This way, it was able to get its products past bureaucratic hurdles fast when it connected with a keen partner in another country. (The team also became expert at plowing through paperwork.)

“We were doing things concurrently, and that’s the best way because part of our philosophy was to get something out there fast,” Ahmed says.

DO: Chase contracts that boost your reputation
To spike interest, the management team knew it had to make a big

splash, so it pushed hard to get into countries that Ahmed says have rigorous medical standards, such as Taiwan and Germany. A big step was getting the product into the Peking Union Medical College, China’s foremost medical centre, he says. While difficult, this strategy gives Optima invaluable credibility with medical pros around the world, Ahmed says: “You’ve got to pick centres where validation really happens.”

Once the good word gets out, all kinds of benefits follow, he adds. Investors are more generous, suppliers are more flexible and highly skilled people are attracted to the company.