The hosts of the new podcast Settle Down know from experience how entrepreneurship demands learning by doing: encountering unexpected hurdles, being unsure, yet finding a way through. Speaking with Atlantic Business Magazine, the four women founders encouraged business owners in Atlantic Canada to seek out other people who understand the challenges, who can offer advice and essential support.

In some cases, they suggested, that mentorship and fellowship can be local but also found outside your local area.

“Especially with places like Atlantic Canada, where isolation can be harder to manage, I think it’s important that people look to community and look out beyond their geographical region in finding comfort and knowing that they’re not alone,” said Mallory Yawnghwe.

Yawnghwe is one of the four hosts of the pod. She is also founder of Indigenous Box, a subscription service and retail outlet, plus a supporter of Indigenous entrepreneurs from a long, varied list of companies like Atleo Designs, Yukon Soaps and KEYA bedding. Atlantic Business Magazine spoke with Yawnghwe together with fellow Settle Down hosts Vanessa Marshall, founder of personal care products company Jack59, and Shani Gwin, founder of Pipikwan pêhtâkwan (pee-pee-gwan pee-tah-gwan), an Indigenous-led and staffed communications agency. Gwin has also founded Wâsikan kisewâtisiwin (wuh-see-gah-n key-su-wat-su-win), an AI company featuring an assist targeted to non-Indigenous people writing for and about Indigenous Peoples. The digital tool is to check for expressions of racism and unconscious bias in text and is “developed by and with Indigenous People.” The trio is joined in each of their podcast episodes by Felicia Dewar, founder of Miskamâsowin Foods Inc.

The podcast episodes have featured a roundtable format to date, as though listeners are getting the rare chance to sit with the group of women of First Nations and Métis backgrounds for a coffee chat. The hosts share their own experiences in entrepreneurship, with a window into their personal lives. Along the way, they include thoughts on what they feel newer entrepreneurs and Indigenous entrepreneurs too often stay quiet about.

On the idea of connecting to others, Marshall recounted for Atlantic Business Magazine how she appreciates the difficulty in finding the right connections for your type of business and your context. She founded her company, Jack59, in 2015 and spent about five years as a solo entrepreneur. “It was really hard to build that community. At the time I wasn’t really aware of the ladies in my city (Edmonton), never mind Canada. So I kind of really was working with myself (…) I found some other companies I could work with. Eventually I met Mallory,” she said, expressing thanks. She credited Dewar with ultimately bringing together the full quartet for the podcast.

“That really is our goal with Settle Down—to create a world and a community where newer entrepreneurs can come and listen; first-of-all feel connected … and also get some tidbits,”

—Vanessa Marshall

Along the way to finding the right connections, in what Marshall believes is a common experience, she encountered not just frustrating unknowns but predatory people in business. There were hard lessons she wants to share.

Marshall said Jack59 expanded rapidly around the time of the COVID pandemic, following a new movement in self care. She’s entered store retail and added to her team, continuing to learn through the company’s growth spurt.

“That really is our goal with Settle Down—to create a world and a community where newer entrepreneurs can come and listen; first-of-all feel connected … and also get some tidbits,” she said.

Gwin echoed the hope of sharing lessons learned.

Her own experience includes the uncertainty of moving from a full-time commitment to a company of her own. She said she had a job and then was working off the side of her desk for a few chiefs before considering launching her own business in public engagement and communications. There were detailed conversations with family but excitement, she said, once the choice was made. It’s a simplified telling of what was an intense time in her life and career.

“I just wanted to see what it would be like to actually live by my own values and insert that into my communications work,” she said.

“I took that leap, and I haven’t looked back,” she said, making it clear that doesn’t mean it’s been without times of uncertainty.

Settle Down has an essential message for all Canadians—and Canadian media—around the need for commitment to Reconciliation, extending into business. Yawnghwe described her business as also being a commitment to community. She’s taken time to help Indigenous entrepreneurs find their footing, understand shipping and logistics related to their local area, even helped with logos and packaging. She hopes the podcast can act as another bit of support.

“Indigenous businesses, we are unfortunately starting at a deficit. We don’t have that generational knowledge built into our family systems that can say this is how you start a business, this is how you build generational wealth, this is how you access the market,” she told Atlantic Business Magazine.

She hopes the podcast group can show the entrepreneurial energy and strength present in Indigenous communities. It will also be a chance to offer up the perspectives of the working mom, the community leader and the sometimes-overwhelmed individual in business just working through the day to day.

“I think people will find they relate to a lot of our challenges, and to our stories, and they will get a lot from it,” Yawnghwe said.

Settle Down is produced by Omar Mouallem at Ninth & Peace Studios. The podcast is available on major platforms including Amazon Music/Audible, Apple podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

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