AREA 81 Meetup 005: Leave Lighter Stress Release Demo by AREA 81 Member and Saugeen Shores Chapter Lead Tracy Robinson of Bruce-Grey Hypnosis. See and register for upcoming Coffee Chats, Meetups and more. Being an Entrepreneur | August 2026 Written by Jarvis, Mi6's AI cofounder. Sourced, fact-checked, edited and published by Chris Herbert. Full note on how this issue was made — and how to flag an error — at the end. Contents Business Exits Have Outpaced Entries for Three Stra

AREA 81 Coffee Chat session in Owen Sound. See and register for upcoming Coffee Chats, Meetups and more. A $10-Million Tax Break for Selling to Your Employees Expires December 31—and Owners Are Stuck in Limbo AI Made Building Cheap. It Did Nothing to Make Building the Wrong Thing Cheaper Eight Years, Eight Lessons: A Leadership Retrospective on Doubt, People, and the Valleys Between Milestones A Document Digitization Job Becomes a Digital Foundation—and a Model for Supplier-C

AREA 81 Get to know the Cofounding Members meetup FluentCRM 3.0: AI, SMS, and Owning Your Marketing Stack in WordPress Claude Fable 5: A Frontier-Tier AI Model Goes Mainstream — With Guardrails Canada's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All The AI Search Reckoning: Four Reads on the Same Shift Frontier AI Watch: Claude Fable 5: A Frontier Model's Three-Day Life FrontFundr's Canadian Startup Challenge: An Equity-Crowdfunding On-Ramp for Founders Ready to Raise

AREA 81 Meetup on the Business of Networking Agentic AI Economy: 5 Things AI Can't Replace Bruce Power and Ontario Building Trades Council Partner on Strategy to Build Skilled Workforce Needed to Power the Future Hanover and West Grey Land Transfer Approved by Province Urban-Rural Linkage: An Ecosystem Governance Perspective Grey-Bruce Piloting Way to Help People Navigate Health Care System Venture Capital Strategies and the Builder-Led Investment Model Project Aristotle Deco

Picture: AREA 81 Coffee Chat. Interested? Check out our events. Featured in this Post Your Patent Won't Save You — But Your Systems Might Small Business Revenue Is Growing — And Agriculture Is Leading the Way The Farmer Isn't Disappearing — They're Moving Up the Stack The Affordability Crisis in Grey-Bruce Is a Business Environment Issue, Not Just a Social One Planning Delays, Flooding, and Governance: What's Slowing Development in Bruce County Canada's Crucible Moment: The C

Table of Contents (click on links below) The Room Told Me Something The Question Everyone Was Most Interested In Video 1 | Show & Tell — The Business of AI (Encore Presentation) Video 2 | DEMO: Using AI to Design a Business That Runs Itself What’s Coming: The Dinosaur Startup What’s Different Going Forward Introduction It was a good night. Not perfect — but good in the ways that matter most. We had a genuine mix of people in Loft 1020 at Powerlink. Most of them I didn’t know,

Picture: Silicon Halton Tech Under 20 Event Featured in this Post The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of AgriFood Tech Investing The Real Secret to Scaling Support: A Chain of Trust How to Make Your Next Hire Count How To Make A Difference Five Canadian Scaleups Crack Thrive Top 50 AgTech Companies List Anthropic Economic Index Report: How AI Is Reshaping Work and Productivity Unscale the Internet Forget the Business Plan. This 10-Slide Deck Helped Me Raise Millions What Draws Pe

AREA 81 Meetup Featured in this Post Get Started with Cowork: Claude's Desktop Agent for Knowledge Work Succession Planning: Why Delaying Costs More Than Money Is Your Venture Capital Industry Quietly Leaving Billions in Economic Value on the Table? Picking Board Members for Early-Stage Startups: What Actually Matters What to Know About Equity Take-Outs: Turning Property into Business Growth Rural Renaissance: Why Canada's Economy Is Outgrowing Its Big Cities This Gen Z Pair

Photo: AREA 81 Coffee Chat in Owen Sound, Ontario. Featured in this Post It's Go Time Get Your Business AI-Ready: A Guide for Entrepreneurs Get Good at [AI] Agents The Carney Doctrine: Between rhetoric and reality Ontario Investing to Protect Rural Communities The Truth About Family Offices and the New Farm Legacy Bruce Power signs multi-year agreement with NPX to drive innovation and growth Research: Conventional Cybersecurity Won’t Protect Your AI Rural America is getting a

Being an entrepreneur in November 2025

UPDATE: The ACorp project was suspended in Dec 2025. Thanks to everyone who contributed and participated in this test project. The Problem Not enough creators, such as musicians, earn a sustainable living. Money is being made in the music industry though. Yet, value leaks at every step—platforms, labels, ticketing, middlemen, venues—leaving artists with a fraction of what their music, time and hard word generates. Some artists lack clear, practical pathways to capture value (

Picture: AREA 81 Coffee Chat, Port Elgin | Join AREA 81 Covered in this Round Up: FUNDING | DEMOGRAPHICS | INDIGENOUS Why Standard Productivity Advice Doesn’t Work for ADHD Entrepreneurs Many productivity strategies assume steady focus, structured routines and the ability to power through less‑engaging tasks—but those assumptions don’t align with how ADHD brains operate. ADHD often involves inconsistent executive function, shifting energy levels, and a stronger drive for imm

Discover how private capital is reshaping Canada beyond the billionaire myth. Learn how AREA 81 wants to empower rural communities with private capital.

A series of videos about AREA 81. How it works, how it's evolving and how to get involved.

Yancey Strickler presents the vision and legal framework for Artist Corporations (A-Corps), a new corporate structure designed to empower artists and creators in the creative economy. | Published Sep 17, 2025 by Metalabel Artist Corporations: The Vision, Law & Movement Key Insights A-Corps are a new corporate structure designed specifically for artists and creators, combining benefits of various existing structures while addressing their limitations. The structure provides a

But, we’ve lost 100,000 entrepreneurs—and 350,000 can’t get the financing they need. This raises the question: is BDC doing a good job? Rural entrepreneurs power Canada’s real economy—jobs, exports, main‑street vitality, and community pride. Yet we have 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than 20 years ago and an estimated 350,000 who can’t access the financing they need. That gap is widest outside big cities, where distance, thin credit files, and unconventional models collide with

ROMA's Vision for Rural Ontario The Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Strategic Plan 2024–2027 sets a clear path forward: Build municipal capacity — finance, workforce, and innovation. Advance rural wellbeing — through stronger infrastructure, housing, health, and broadband. Strengthen communications and convening — so rural Ontario speaks with one voice In 2025, ROMA’s Board reinforced this agenda: Endorsing a rebrand of rural Ontario as resilient, influential

The Problem Organizations everywhere are under growing pressure to prove their alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) . Yet compliance today is fragmented and costly: Duplicative frameworks : UNGC Communication on Progress (CoP), UNCTAD Core Indicators (GCI), Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), and SDG Impact Standards all demand attention. SMEs lack expertise and can’t afford expensive consultants. Public institutions struggle to provide quality data for VN

Picture: AREA 81 Coffee Chat, Owen Sound | Join AREA 81 Covered in this Round Up: TECHNOLOGY | MUSIC | INDIGENOUS Powerlink’s Evolution: From Office to Community Hub Powerlink in Saugeen Shores has reimagined its role—from being purely office space to becoming a full‑on community hub. Now it offers coworking, flexible office rentals, event hosting (like Loft 1020), and experiences that draw together entrepreneurs, non‑profits, local charities, and residents. Through the AREA 

Discover why angel investing in Canada is broken and how it impacts early-stage startups. Learn more about the challenges in angel investing in Canada.