Building with grit: lessons from Ontario founders

Ask any seasoned founder what carried them through the hard years and you will rarely hear about a single breakthrough. You hear about persistence.

Grit is unglamorous. It is answering support tickets at midnight, redoing a pitch for the tenth time, and finding a way forward when the obvious path closes.

But grit alone is not enough. The founders who go the distance pair it with a support system: mentors who tell them the truth, peers who understand the grind, and a community that shows up.

That is what we hope the Expo can be for you. A place to refill the tank, borrow some belief, and remember why you started.