This week I had the opportunity to interview Mimi Boyer, Founder of Happy on Mondays.

Happy on Mondays is a movement Mimi is bringing to life to inspire people to do what they are passionate about. She is kick-starting it by hosting monthly meetups in Toronto as well as growing a network of like-minded individuals.

Paolina: What has been your hardest experience dealing with your business and finance and what did you learn?

Mimi:

I started my journey as an entrepreneur with a strong business plan, detailing my financial projections for the first year and the expected revenue generated. Unfortunately, there’s a difference between being employed and thinking about your business idea and actually quitting your job and starting from scratch. What I hadn’t captured in my financial projections was the fact that I would be paralyzed by fear and impostor syndrome for the first 3 months. What happened is that I had work to do on the personal side before I could even consider hunting for paying customers. Therefore, having the magic thinking that I would find customers quickly was a mistake on my part that added a lot of stress in my life. I learned that it’s really important to save money and make personal sacrifices in order to have flexibility for a few months before the financial stress starts kicking in. The less you stress about money, the more you are able to be creative and bring your business up to speed.

Paolina: What advice do you wish you had gotten about finance when you were first starting your business?

Mimi:

I would have liked to understand before launching my business that you must not base
your business on the money you think you will be generating, but more so on the impact
you want to have in the world. If you base your efforts on creating something that brings
value and makes you happy doing it, then you’ll know there’s a value to it. Happy on
Mondays is based on a strong “Why” that I personally care deeply about, but I have to
admit I had a few changes to the actual way I would make this movement alive. Also, as
I’m still at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I would love to have someone
that would coach me on how to set up a book keeping system and better understand what expenses are eligible for business purposes or not. I’m the careful type, so I’m probably not taking advantage of all the deductions associated with my business because I don’t want to get in any problem with the government.

Paolina: What topics would you want to learn more about when it comes to finance and your business and why?

Mimi:

I would love to gain extra knowledge on the pros and cons of incorporating a business as
well as having an expert talk to me about the declaration of my business under the
Ontario government. As the information provided on the government website is quite
dense and complex, I am still unsure of when and how to charge taxes, what are my
responsibilities towards publishing tax documents for my business. It would be great to
have a simplified guide that helps navigate through it all.