If you see a bubblegum pink van with a yellow smiley face in your neighborhood, it’s likely there is a baby around who is benefiting from the environmentally friendly diaper services of Happy Nappy.

This Leduc based business has seen rapid growth over the past several years, spreading across Alberta and into British Columbia and Ontario - with more franchise opportunities underway. They even appeared in front of the Dragon’s Den.

The founders of Happy Nappy, Kate MacEachern and Brent Pederson, a husband and wife team of former nurses, have had such overwhelming demand for their business, they realized that they needed help managing their growth. After being recommended to TEC Edmonton by a mutual friend, they decided to get some advice about what steps to take next with their business.

“We have managed to share our passion with well over 2000 families, however we found ourselves stuck between staying stagnate or growing,” MacEachern said.

After connecting with Hugh Wyatt, the TEC Source manager, MacEachern and Pederson were invited to present their business problems to the TEC Source Advisory Panel, represented by volunteer advisors from a variety of law firms, banks, and accounting services as well as TEC Edmonton staff.

“Often entrepreneurs are so busy working ‘in’ their business they neglect to work ‘on’ it”, said Wyatt. “Our panel can often identify gaps and opportunities that, if addressed, can provide immediate benefit. Kate and Brent not only listened to the advice given, they acted on it and subsequently profited.”

The TEC Source Advisory Panel is a confidential, free, two-hour advice session. The subsequent discussions helped Happy Nappy to increase their market and profitability in ways they didn’t previously realize.

“We were very happy with the quality of the advisory panel,” said MacEachern. “We learned that we were not valuing our business as we should and that some areas of our business needed some fine tuning.”

The panel addressed Happy Nappy’s shortcomings, suggesting improvements such as buying cloth in bulk, charging customers a few more dollars per month, and increasing their franchise fee.

Raj Manek of Odyssey Accounting, a volunteer on the panel, helped the company develop a value proposition to clearly demonstrate to potential franchisees the return on their investment. This produced immediate results on their next franchise sale. Pederson is excited to invest the profits into further growth of the business and new product development.

“We would highly recommend TEC Edmonton to any new or existing business that also might be stuck,” said Pederson.

Recently the Saskatchewan Abilities Council purchased the rights to the Happy Nappy franchise for the entire Province of Saskatchewan. Happy Nappy is ecstatic that the Saskatchewan Abilities Council’s Board of Directors had the fortitude to see the economic and social benefit of integrating the work of their special needs staff with the environmental benefits that come with the Happy Nappy.