British Columbia Innovation Council

Almost two months after taking home the 2011's BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional second place prize, BCIC caught up with Sarah Doherty and Kerrith Perreur-Lloyd of SideStix (right) to see what they've been up to, and perhaps more importantly, the lessons learned from their experience in the Competition. As we suspected, the duo has not slowed down one bit!

"One of our biggest challenges before entering the Competition was profiling and marketing our company," said Doherty, CEO of the innovative sports crutch for the forearm. "The lessons and advice we took away from the seminars and from our incredible mentors really helped us to focus and get organized to move on to the next step to improve our business."

And the advice and experience stuck with the team. Since the Competition ended, SideStix has improved their technology by incorporating carbon fibre (lightweight and highly durable), managed to get their product into 10 retail medical equipment stores and three hospitals in Greater Vancouver and will soon be facing yet another panel of judges on CBC's Dragons' Den.

"It was actually the judges in the Competition that told us to try to get onto Dragons' Den to help increase our publicity... and we followed that advice!" said Doherty. "There are definitely exciting times ahead for us. While we are not guaranteed to make it on air, we are looking forward to the experience that will help us improve even more in our business."

SideStix is also continuing to expand their target market, awaiting approval from groups like Veterans Affairs Canada to be an exclusive provider, as well as pro sports teams like the Vancouver Canucks and the BC Lions to use their crutch for recovery of injuries for players. In the meantime, they are still very focused on selling their product online and plan to revamp their website to be more e-commerce friendly.

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