BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Women's Business Center at Canisius University is launching a new program this fall designed to help women entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into reality.
The inaugural "Launch Lab" is a 15-week boot camp course built to support both product- and service-based businesses. Enrollment is open now, and the deadline to register is Sept. 29.
Lauren Jenkins, executive director of the Women's Business Center at Canisius University, said the program is focused on more than just the basics of starting a business.
"Forming your business, figuring out your sales channels, understanding who your audience is, building your website, understanding how you would function as a CEO, a big part of this too is around building the CEO that's going to be leading this business," Jenkins said.
Jenkins said she is particularly excited about who will be leading the program.
"I'm especially excited because Mercedes Wilson is going to be facilitating this, and when I say I fangirl everything that she has done, she is a serial entrepreneur, she is a media personality, she has done this, she has been in these shoes, and she is an educator and author," Jenkins said.
The program's potential impact is already evident in the success of past participants. Janna Willoughby-Lohr, founder of Papercraft Miracles, is a graduate of a similar program at the university. She has been working with a team since 2018 and now owns a physical shop on Niagara Street in Buffalo.
Willoughby-Lohr said the skills she gained through the program proved critical when her business faced rapid, unexpected growth.
"Our company got a really huge contract in 2021, where we had to scale from 2 employees to 70 employees overnight and because of things that I had already learned about in this program, I knew that I needed to get an outsourced HR manager to help with the hiring and make sure I had all that paperwork in place properly," Willoughby-Lohr said.
For those considering the program but still on the fence, Willoughby-Lohr had straightforward advice.
"Do it. Just do it. You don't know what you don't know. And you also don't know when you might need that information, and the time to get that information is before you need it," Willoughby-Lohr said.
Jenkins said the program's mission is simple.
"Helping women to be able to bring that dream into reality," Jenkins said.
