How A Business Starts
  

This is our 20th anniversary of The 50 Fastest-Growing Companies Survey. It is always an interesting voyage as we search the business landscape for companies to participate in this edition. The information they offer illustrates our economy close up with the names of real people doing significant things to earn money and create jobs.

Since we dont count faceless national corporations with branches in Winnipeg, the survey gives us a refined picture of what Manitoba-owned companies are contributing to our province.

This year our No. 1 company Jordan Mills Inc., grew in a synergistic way. The company was started from scratch, but it had a strong attachment to an existing company, Delmar Commodities, with a successful track record and an entrepreneurial leader in Martin Harder.

You can read more about the story further on in this edition.

Another example of entrepreneurial skills is kisquared, a customer satisfaction survey company started by Katherine Devine nine years ago. Devine started the company in her apartment. Its a story of drive and energy. From her expanded offices in the Exchange District, the company now has clients such as Travel Manitoba, Autopac and the gaming industry. The staff has grown to 54 employees and income has grown more than 50 per cent in the past three years.

When clusters of these types of companies come together they create a culture where good things happen. Theirs is the kind of personal entrepreneurial drive and visible success needed in this province to bolster the economy and make Winnipeg vibrant, hopping and where people want to be.