view . spring 2009
9
Opposite page: Prerna Chandak BComm ’07
RIPE FOR
SUCCESS
Chandak BComm ’07
, who is pursuing her certified financial
accountant designation, has achieved accolades on a national level,
and attention beyond Canada’s borders.
“I never take no for an answer,” she says. Chandak divides her
time between Windsor and Toronto, though her companies also
have offices in Vancouver, Halifax and London.
Last year,
Chatelaine Magazine
named Chandak one of 80
Amazing Women to Watch in Canada. The year before, she received
the National Top 20 Under 20 award from Youth in Motion, a leader
and advocate in delivering programs for youth.
Her message to budding entrepreneurs is that they’re never too
young to start by volunteering, meeting many people and making
connections. Be open to the learning that’s all around, she tells them.
Chandak followed her own advice in launching Lemonade,
a micro venture-capital and business consulting firm that helps
innovative small businesses and young entrepreneurs. At the time
she started the company, she was working for RBC Dominion
Securities while studying finance, accounting and economics at
UWindsor, and volunteering thousands of hours as co-chair of the
City of Windsor’s Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee and other
non-profit groups.
A self-starter and learner, she also learned HTML code and a
month later designed her website (
).
Her need-to-succeed instinct leads to making many
acquaintances, asking questions and taking chances. “A lot of
entrepreneurs don’t, and that’s shocking,” she says.
Her company’s name, she says, reflects the fact that it supports
“lemonade stand-types of businesses.” In an interview with CBC
Radio, Chandak gave as one example, a 17-year-old DJ who sold
t-shirts and wanted to set up a print shop in his parents’ garage if he
could fund the purchase of printmaking equipment and find some
startup financing. Lemonade Capital provided it. The company
provides average loans of $5,000 to entrepreneurs, aged 17-
to-25, and offers mentoring, business consulting and personal
development resources. The company also provides consulting
services to small- and mid-sized businesses run by entrepreneurs
of all ages.
On its website, Lemonade says its aim is to “handpick the
brightest potential entrepreneurs with the most exciting and fresh
ideas.” Chandak says those ideas have been coming to her, thanks
to media coverage, public relations and networking, though she
hopes to do more outreach this year through youth associations,
Junior Achievement and various Canadian universities.
However, Chandak – whom the
Globe
described as having
a “mind for money [and a] heart for service” – says she isn’t in
business just for the benefit of others. Lemonade is the only for-
profit company of its kind in Canada, she says, and “I want to see
more businesses succeed, but I can’t do it if I’m not in it for the
money too.”
She started out, however, as what she describes as a “social
entrepreneur”, logging about 800 hours of volunteer work in
Mississauga, where she completed high school in three years.
She continued to focus on empowering youth, women and the
arts when she moved to Windsor and helped start up the Mayor’s
Committee on Youth.
Chandak, who is Indian, though she was born in Bahrain and
grew up in Montreal before moving to Mississauga with her family,
has also helped young immigrants start businesses. “Immigrant
entrepreneurs face different challenges because they need
information on resources and most countries do not make capital
as readily available as Canada does.”
Her philosophy on giving back to the community is reflected
in her new jewelry company, Prerna – Inspired by Jewelry, which
donates a percentage of sales to charities. Chandak pays its
suppliers from India, Hong Kong and Australia above-market
prices for their work. The company has been invited to present
during Fashion Week in New York.
This time, it wasn’t Chandak who designed the jewelry
company’s website. It was her mother, Preeti, who also learned
HTML and helped Prerna launch the company in April 2008.
Like daughter, like mother.
n
v
LIFE THREW LEMONS AT PRERNA CHANDAK. SO
SHE MADE LEMONADE CAPITAL. AS SHE TOLD THE
GLOBE AND MAIL
IN 2007, THE NEED TO SUCCEED
AND THE DESIRE TO MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN IS
WHAT MOTIVATES THIS 21-YEAR-OLD WHIRLWIND.
BY PAUL RIGGI
