The Best Investment I Made This Winter Was Free — Every BC Woman Entrepreneur Should Know About It

I almost didn't apply.

Not because I didn't think I needed support — I absolutely did. Delve was at an inflection point where our build phase was wrapping up and I was trying to figure out what operating a recycling studio actually looked like. I had questions. A lot of them. I just wasn't sure a ten-week peer group was the right place to take them.

I'm extremely glad I said yes. 

The WeBC Peer Mentorship Program paired me with a small group of Kamloops based women entrepreneurs — finance, tech, professional development, land planning. Builders, thinkers, and dreamers. We met weekly over the winter, each session putting one of us in the "spotlight" to bring a real business challenge to the group. The facilitator, John Zubak, held the space and kept us on track.

The weekly mentorship sessions are held on-campus at the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Generator classroom.

The night before my own spotlight session, I sat with a friend over tea trying to get my challenge straight. I was moving Delve into operations, and I thought I needed the group to help me decide which direction to take. I kept trying to frame the question and ending up with unwieldy jumbles.Somewhere in that conversation, I realized I'd already done the analysis. I knew what direction I wanted to go. What I actually needed wasn't help deciding — it was outside eyes on what Delve had become, and what they could see from their vantage points that I couldn't see from inside it.

It felt like a more vulnerable thing to ask for. It was something I genuinely needed. What did they think? 

On the day of my session, I drove the three hours from Williams Lake to Kamloops to be there in person. I'd been joining remotely, which worked but wanted to shake hands and make the connections face to face. I brought products. Combs, hooks, pieces of sheet plastic. Things that used to be someone’s shampoo bottle, a broken laundry basket, or a refillery’s empty soap bucket, now pressed and shaped and smooth in your hand. There's something that happens when a person holds one of those objects for the first time — when they realize what it was before — that doesn't translate the same through a camera.

Lucky horseshoes I found walking across the TRU campus after my spotlight session with the peer mentorship group.

The group observed things I hadn’t. Things I needed to hear. They identified real demand for Delve's programming. They named venues and connections I hadn't considered. They reflected back the value of what I'd built in a way that cut through the noise I carry as a founder. It wasn’t cheerleading. It was a genuine, cross-disciplinary perspective from women who had no stake in telling me what I wanted to hear.

That's what makes a peer group different from encouragement. Nobody in that room knew anything about small-scale plastic recycling. But a person building a tech company understands positioning. A person in finance understands value proposition. A person in professional development understands what makes programming land. The fact that we came from completely different worlds made the feedback sharper.

I got to give that back too. When it was someone else's spotlight — someone working through a challenge in app development, pricing, or growth — I found I had more to offer than I'd expected. No venture exists in a silo. Every project spans disciplines. 

I missed the final in-person session — ended up on the wrong side of avalanche-caused highway closures. I was genuinely sad about it. I was genuinely sad about it. We had planned an afternoon around a campfire at John's remote cabin, and I know John is a great baker and foodie, so there was a lot to be disappointed about. But more than the food and the fire, I missed the chance to check back in on everyone's projects one last time, and to take that next step in the relationships we'd been building all winter.

A group photo from the in-person wrap-up session that I was VERY sad to miss. Photo credit: Sabina Smith

It sounds like we'll stay in touch as a group going forward — and whenever I'm in Kamloops, I plan to reach out for a coffee.

Coming out of this program, the thing that's clearest to me is something I probably already knew but needed to feel: the value of connecting to community, and saying yes to the things that scare me a little. Delve exists because I kept saying yes to hard, uncertain, worthwhile things. This program reminded me to keep doing that.

If you're a woman entrepreneur in BC sitting on the fence about applying — the waitlist for a WEBC peer mentorship group is worth getting on. You might even be lucky enough to land in a group hosted by John. 

 

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A huge thank you to WEBC, our facilitator John Zubak, and my peers in the group — you know who you are. The program was hosted in the TRU Generator space in Kamloops, and I was connected to it through John and the Central Interior Business Accelerator.

• Learn more about WEBC programming and mentorship groups, here. 

• Learn about the Central Interior Business Accelerator, here. 

• Read Johns article about this cohort of the WEBC Womens’ Mentorship group, here.

•  Learn about the TRU Generator, a place to start your entrepreneurial journey, here. 

Want to learn more about Delve Recycled? Visit delverecycled.ca, follow along on Instagram (@delverecycled), or drop me a line at emma@delverecycled.ca.