Entrepreneurship rarely follows the exact path you expect.

When Lin joined ACTI Class 132, her original plan was to build a non-profit daycare. She came into the Self-Employment Program with an idea, a direction and the determination to create something of her own.

Then the path changed.

Recently, we received a message from Lin that began:

“It’s Lin from Class 132! Not sure if you remember me — I was the one who wanted to set up a daycare. Well, things took a bit of a turn and I ended up opening a restaurant instead!”

That “bit of a turn” has become Kinton Ramen Windermere, located at 1217 Windermere Way in Edmonton.

On Saturday, September 19, Lin invited us to the restaurant’s Friends & Family Day. Walking into the finished space was a reminder of something we see again and again at ACTI: the business someone ultimately builds is not always the business they first imagined.

And that is not failure.

That is entrepreneurship.

Ideas change. Opportunities appear. Markets tell you things. Circumstances change. Entrepreneurs learn, adjust and sometimes discover that the opportunity in front of them is very different from the one that first brought them through our doors.

What matters is that they keep building.

Kinton Ramen Windermere is now a real place with a kitchen, a team, customers, bowls of ramen leaving the counter and all the hundreds of decisions that turn an idea into an operating business.

For us, one of the best parts of working in entrepreneurship training is getting to see what happens after the classroom.

A business plan is important. Cash-flow projections matter. Marketing, operations, pricing and understanding your customer all matter.

But eventually someone has to unlock the door.

Someone has to serve the first customer.

Someone has to put their name, money, time and reputation behind an idea and say: we're open.

Lin did.

Her story is also why we are launching a new way of recognizing entrepreneurs who have come through ACTI.

BUILT

AT

ACTI

“Built at ACTI” is not meant to suggest that ACTI built these businesses for our entrepreneurs.

Quite the opposite.

They built them.

Our role is to provide education, coaching, tools, structure and people who can help along the way. The entrepreneur still has to make the decisions, take the risks and do the work.

Lin’s journey from a non-profit daycare concept in Class 132 to opening the doors of Kinton Ramen Windermere is exactly the kind of story we want to celebrate.

Entrepreneurship doesn't always take you where you planned to go.

Sometimes it takes you somewhere better.

Congratulations, Lin.

Built at ACTI.

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