What motivated you to start your business and what is your vision for the future of the company?

Josh (owner) started working on garage doors with his dad when he was in high school. For the last decade Josh continued to work as a garage door technician while he figured out what his career goals were. Fast forward to the last few years, Josh’s dad sold his company and Josh continued working for the new owners. It was during this time that Josh realized how much he valued the way his dad ran his business. Josh continued to bring those lessons from his dad on “old school business” into his everyday interactions with customers. The desire to live out those values led to Josh and his wife Haley to start Monashee Garage Doors. Josh and Haley were raised in working class families and know the kind of work ethic it takes to achieve your goals. They were also raised in a time in history trademarked by the internet and convenience. Understanding these two worlds has been the key in their success. From our family to yours, we hope that you will join us on our journey in taking the local garage door industry to the next level with our “new school business.” We are a new business, with only one year under our belt. Our hope is that Monashee Garage Doors Ltd. will continue to get enough work to support our employees. We don't want to franchise or grow an empire. We want to have a company that remains small enough for us to ensure the quality of our work we provide and ensure we quality of life for our employees. We would like to be able to invest in benefits for our team and continue to increase their pay as the cost of living continues to rise. We also want to live out our vision to be recognized as a community leader through how we provide service in this region and continue to give back to the community. Community is important to us. When we think about what makes our work day meaningful, it is all about connecting with others and fostering positive interactions. We hope that on an individual level, we can bring meaningful interaction into every customer experience. On a community level, as we grow we want to be able to give back by donating time and money on behalf of Monashee Garage Doors, to show that we are not just for profit, we are for people.

Why do you deserve to win the Best Youth Entrepreneur Award?

We deserve to win the Best Youth Entrepreneur Award because we have worked incredibly hard to start this business, hustle everyday to live out our values and use this platform to build community. We have overcome many personal challenges over the years, things that should have stopped us in our tracks. But through pure grit, dedication to each other and determination to not give up, we have created a small business we can be proud of. Furthermore, instead of simply creating a profit machine, we have been incredibly intentional about how we can use this business to have a positive impact in our corner of the world. Through our business we have been able to connect with other local businesses in our community and build them up through sharing knowledge, encouraging them, and promoting their businesses. We are big believers in supporting local. Whenever we have the opportunity, we highlight great businesses in our community; for example we are always posting about community events, making reels about other people's products and promoting our little town. We also have made it a practice to do a social media giveaway every quarter where we pick a local business, buy their products, and collaborate on a social media post highlighting their company on our page. In addition, we had our team participate in a local fundraiser called "Coldest Night of the Year" and were able to raise over $1000 for people in need in our community. Lastly, we lead by example by incorporating Indigenous land acknowledgments into our business practice, which is not the norm in our community (in fact, city hall just started doing land acknowledgments at meetings in the last year and there is nothing on our city's website). We also are intentional about posting accessible educational information during National Indigenous People’s Day and Truth and Reconciliation Day. We are proud to be Indigenous owned and want to invite our community to learn more about Canada’s first people. All this being said, we are barely into our first year, meaning that we do not have an excess of capital. We are very excited to continue to grow and have more capacity to give back. We are very thankful for Small Business BC, their webinars and resources are the reason we were able to make our dream a reality. In some ways it feels odd to "brag" about the good work we are doing, however, we hope that by sharing our intentions, we will encourage others to do their part within their circles of influence.