Vincent Cheung's path to entrepreneurial success came when he found himself back in his parents' Winnipeg home with time on his hands during Christmas break.
The Ryerson University team, 2010 Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) National Champion of the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) competition. Photo: Sophie Harrington/ACE
The Ryerson University team, 2010 Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) National Champion of the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) competition. Photo: Sophie Harrington/ACE
Sitting on the bed in his old room, the University of Toronto PhD student decided to play around with the thousands of photos he had on his laptop, thinking maybe making collages would be a good way to share them with friends and family.
After countless hours of what he calls "sweat equity" Mr. Cheung has a thriving online business called Shape Collage Inc. that offers software for creating photo collages in various shapes. He has recently been named 2010 Student Entrepreneur National Champion by the charitable organization Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE).
His outlay of venture capital: $20.
"That was the total amount I spent to register a domain name and secure space on the internet for my company."
What impressed the judges who selected 29-year-old Mr. Cheung at the ACE Student Entrepreneur National Competition held in Calgary recently was the "incredible success his company has had in such a short time while still a student," says ACE president Amy Harder.
"Within one year, Vincent has a six-figure revenue and close to two million downloads. He is also the kind of person you want to hold up to other young entrepreneurs: down-to-earth, really passionate about his idea and yet humble about his success."
Mr. Cheung's victory followed his win at regional competitions in March. He competed for the $10,000 national award against five other finalists from across Canada.
Team award
The 2010 team award went to Ryerson University for its Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) activities.
Competing against 43 university and college teams representing 600 students, the Ryerson group was on top after three rounds of competition involving presentations and what Ms. Harder calls a "gruelling Q&A with a panel of judges that included CEOs from such companies as WestJet."
Rohan Sharma, 21, is the student president of Ryerson's SIFE organization, part of a global program operated by ACE in Canada. The third-year business student oversees a membership of 120 students and a budget of $100,000. For this year's ACE competition, the group presented details of 47 community outreach projects they operated while pursuing full-time university studies.
"The judges were looking for our ability to create economic opportunity," says Mr. Sharma. "Our projects ranged from helping teen mothers learn about budgeting to helping young entrepreneurs with business startups."
In all, the Ryerson team generated more than $3-million in economic activity and had a positive impact on 4,500 people in the community involving thousands of hours of volunteer time outside of school.
Ms. Harder says this data is reported by the student organizations and verified by their faculty advisers and the staff of ACE, who work with them in the field.
"There are over 300 judges who hear the presentations in three rounds," says Ms. Harder. The initial 43 school teams were reduced to 20 for the second round and a final five were assessed by 50 judges.
Award criteria
Criteria for the team award included: understanding how a market-based economic system operates, acquiring education and skills for success in a competitive global economy, developing personal financial management skills for achieving financial independence and making environmentally sustainable personal and business decisions.
For the individual award, judges looked at business fundamentals but criteria also included sections on "lessons learned" and "growth and future plans."
The National Champion team from Ryerson now competes internationally at the SIFE World Cup in Los Angeles in October.
"Ryerson stood out for the sophistication of its operation," Ms. Harder says. "They operate like they're running a small business with a huge focus on entrepreneurship and in making a positive impact on the community."
Both Mr. Cheung and Mr. Sharma say that it's the latter fact that excites them about entrepreneurship.
"When I entered university I was like many other students, unsure of what I wanted to do," says Mr. Sharma. "After getting involved with SIFE, now I know that I want to work where I am creating real impact in the real world."
That might involve law school, but not work as a lawyer in a firm, he says. He's caught the entrepreneurial fever and says he'd like to put it to use working with startups possibly in the charitable or non-profit sector.
For Mr. Cheung, the pace of change he's experienced since starting his business has reinforced the uncertainty and volatility of predicting the future.
"To be honest, I don't believe in the five-year plan," Mr. Cheung says. "Even a couple of months could be too long. My company could be bought out next week and I might start another company. Or I might work at my company until it fades out and I do something else."
Ms. Harder says that the growth of interest on campuses is evidenced by the growth in her organization's membership.
"I've been with ACE for 11 years and in that time we've grown from a handful of schools and one corporate donor to now 54 universities and colleges and support from 30 of the largest Canadian corporate brands."
The ivory tower, she says, is embracing the need for an "entrepreneurial mindset across disciplines, in business and in life. Canada needs young people who see opportunity and go after it. The classroom is not enough; we need to engage students in applying what they learn."
This expansion is reflected in Ryerson's SIFE membership, whose ranks represent not only the traditional business students, but draw from such fields as early childhood education and journalism.
Overall last year, ACE reports its student members created 600 jobs, logged 260,000 volunteer hours, had an impact on 63,000 people and generated more than $40-million in economic activity.
Vincent Cheung: Fifth-generation entrepreneur
Vincent Cheung didn't realize he was a fifth-generation entrepreneur until a family reunion in Hong Kong last year revealed this legacy, dating back to his great-great-grandfather in China.
"I didn't really think I had that kind of entrepreneurial spirit," says Mr. Cheung. "I had always been a good student with top marks and I got enjoyment from the success of school."
Now, he says, he takes pleasure from creating his own projects and enjoys the freedom that self-employment offers.
As a University of Manitoba graduate in computer engineering now studying for his PhD at the University of Toronto, the recipient of the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneur (ACE) 2010 National Student Champion says he's always "liked tinkering with things."
Mr. Cheung's tinkering led him to write software for making creative photo collages when he found existing programs inadequate. The company he started, Shape Collage Inc., is now generating a six-figure income and taking Mr. Cheung in directions he never imagined.
"The interesting thing is that I offered the software for free when I launched my company in August, 2009, but people wrote and asked to send me money. I was getting $200 to $300 a month, even though the download was free. That's when I realized I had something."
With "absolutely no background in business" Mr. Cheung attended sessions in Entrepreneurship 101 at Toronto's MaRS Institute.
He hasn't abandoned his doctoral studies in computer engineering, with a focus on Machine Learning and Computer Vision. "Essentially, I don't want to tell a computer how to solve a problem. I want to write the programs in a way that it can understand images and videos."
His passion for entrepreneurship is two-fold, he says. "First, I like to make cool things that people like. Second, I want to have an impact on people."
