WE WORK WITH NEW, STRUGGLING, AND ESTABLISHED ENTREPRENEURS IN ALL STAGES OF BUSINESS …
Are you someone who wants to build a business you love, create marketing that sells for you, and live a lifestyle others dream of having?
Do you crave personal, creative and financial independence and dream of owning a successful profitable business of your own? Or do you have an established business that you know could be doing better or one you want to grow or scale to the next level?
Owning your own business puts you in charge of realizing your dreams and securing your future. For instance, you control how much income you make and how you spend your time and life. Ultimate, you’re working to earn the rewards most meaningful to you through your own efforts.
Entrepreneurship is a growth journey like no other. The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately. The grind is optional. The risk of failure high.
What happens in SMARTSTART?
In SMARTSTART, you build your dream business with joy as the first priority. Then, you redefine success, reimagine business, and rethink marketing and make decisions based on what’s best for you. From there, we help you make things your market wants. This is how you win big on the playing field most important to you. And all without losing yourself or your sanity in the process.
STOP wasting your time and money on faux experts and useless guru advice. Choose to be where strategic thinking, data and behavioral science, and modern marketing meet. That way, you build your dream business working collaboratively with expert professional guidance from distinguished leader, accomplished business advisor and generous mentor, Linda Lopeke. She’s with you every step of the way in SMARTSTART. And, when you work with her, you’ll get ideas you probably wouldn’t have come up with on your own. Plus, she makes sure you’re executing with excellence by providing both constructive and instructive detailed feedback on your work.
Who is Linda Lopeke?
Linda is is a trusted authority and distinguished leading expert on strategic business development and reinvention, marketing, leadership and innovation. She’s best known for developing effective growth strategies in uncertain markets and volatile competitive environments, and for radically changing results experienced by struggling businesses and startups. She specializes in helping business owners realize their full potential to succeed in business.
Her unorthodox ideas are widely used by clients and organizations throughout the world. They describe her provocative fresh thinking and direct manner as unfailingly stimulating. Her professional competence, keen insight, and the effectiveness of her unusual coaching methods are legendary among the almost 4,000 client companies she has served.
Linda is a recognized leading authority in six professional management disciplines. Her work has won many awards for marketing, copy and technical writing, video marketing, speaking and web design. She keeps a low profile on social media, and is a highly accomplished extreme introvert. Linda is often described as having one of the most brilliant business minds you’ll likely ever encounter.
Prior to starting her management consulting practice in 1982, she spent the first 10 years of her career as a systems engineer and corporate executive. At 17, she became the youngest person in the world, in the history of finance and banking, to design and lead a major technology implementation. This record remains unbroken more than 50 years later.
After she lost her management job when the company she worked for downsized, she started her own business, a management consultancy. Then she successfully launched it during that recession without the benefit of the internet. Two decades later, she could see the internet was going to change how people did business and knew they’d need help with that! So, she started her second business becoming known around the world as smartstartcoach.
Before age 30, Financial Post selected Linda as one of the top 5 entrepreneurs in Canada. Her work in risk management and her uncommon methods for creating outstanding business results with her coaching appear in Harvard Business Review. Linda is a 2025 nominee for RBC’s Women of Influence award honoring the excellence of her work and reputation as well as for the positive impact of SMARTSTART. Previously, she was recognized in Fast Company magazine as one of the most influential people online.
When was SMARTSTART founded?
Linda began creating SMARTSTART in 2000. It became available online in 2007. It, too, was successfully launched during an economic recession. In SMARTSTART, Linda’s clients say goodbye to guesswork and hello to joyful success. All while elevating their financial footprint with the unequaled advantage of SMARTSTART!
Build your dream business with clarity, confidence and clients without wasting time or money. That way you love your work, sell more stuff, and keep more profit.
SMARTSTART empowers you to secure the future for yourself and your family. Knowing how to build a profitable business is how you create the sustainable income needed to support the life you want to live. Build it once. Build it right. And make bank for as long as you want or need your business to provide predictable income for you regardless of the economy or competition.
Why SMARTSTART?
In SMARTSTART we prioritize joy first. From there, you build an asset-based business and use strategic marketing to deliver qualified leads every day, sales and referrals every month, and grow your audience every quarter. This creates near effortless growth, achieved without compromising your values, health or personal relationships.
Our approach increases your chance of business success so you can live the life you want to have with the greatest ease and joy while doing work that matters, for people who care, in the best way for you. This is a direct path to earning more and working less!
You can get the results you want, but don’t have and change the results you have, but don’t want in SMARTSTART.
Sound good?
Start your business dream with an unequaled advantage. Join our SMARTSTART community of 277,655 members rewriting the rules of business and life.
Is Smartstart right for you?
SMARTSTART’s Business Success Accelerator clients are all-in on building a successful dream business for themselves. Apply to join us if you are someone who wants to:
REDUCE risk and eliminate your fear of failure.
INCREASE your probability of achieving business success.
BUILD a scalable business that grows with you.
CREATE marketing that does the selling for you.
PLAY your best game and win on the playing field most important to you.
ENJOY sustainable, predictable, and unlimited income for yourself.
SUCCEED on your own terms.
MODEL possibility for your children.
LOVE your work and live your best life by design.
Wouldn’t that be an awesome legacy?!
OBSCURITY, not the economy or competition, is the biggest threat to your business. The best time to apply to SMARTSTART was yesterday; but the second-best time is NOW!
SUCCESS STORIES
287 corporations
2,757 entrepreneurs
935 startups
CLIENT PROFILE
23% professional services
58% coaches & consultants
19% authors, speakers & makers
COMMUNITY PROFILE
15 – 88 age range
51% female / 49% male
93 countries
Which situation best describes you?
Be honest with yourself. Do you want to earn more while working less?
SMARTSTART benefits new, struggling and established entrepreneurs committed to succeeding in business. We help you create a strong foundation and position your business so it really takes off without sacrificing your freedom and flexibility.
People come into SMARTSTART at all different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.
Some have a cool idea for a product or service, but don’t know how to bring it to market and build a profitable business around it.
Many have a business, but haven’t been able to make it work. Others want to make a change, but don’t know the best way to go about it.
Several need expert help to reach a next level or go after new opportunities for growth and partnership.
Whatever your stage, our goal in SMARTSTART is to have you moving forward on your own with clarity, confidence, joy and ease, and as many clients as desired, as quickly as possible.
This way, you’ll experience all of the joys of business success sooner rather than later (or not at all).
Where are you at right now?
Starting a business?
When starting a business, you don’t know what you don’t know. Or you know what you don’t know and feel overwhelmed by everything ahead of you. You might even feel like an imposter and anxious about the possibility of failing to succeed with your business.
There’s a contagion of faux experts online ready to exploit your vulnerability. Still, no matter how well packaged and marketed, bullshit is still bullshit.
SMARTSTART is your no-bullshit option. You move your business forward with clarity, confidence, and paying clients. And stop wasting time and money on non-productive guesswork.
Changing direction or rebranding?
Many SMARTSTART clients have a business already, but aren’t happy with it. If you’ve tried everything and nothing is working you may have lost close to losing hope and wanting to quit and get a job again!
Don’t struggle with an under-performing business that has you working too hard for too little. In SMARTSTART, you can get help turning it completely around so you can realize your dream.
In SMARTSTART you build an asset-based business and strategic marketing campaigns based on timeless principles of business development. This way, you do the hard work once and benefit from it year after year as you develop your business and increase your skills.
Seeking next-level options or bringing in investors?
You may be ready to grow, expand or scale your business. Some clients also seek venture capital financing. Others have investors whose unexpected demands are simply overwhelming.
You must be prepared, physically, mentally, and emotionally, for what these entail. Otherwise, you can fail harder and faster than you ever thought possible. Sadly, many do not recover from such an experience. Others take the hard lessons with them and start over again.
SMARTSTART helps you meet the challenges of building a team, scaling a business, and taking on partners and investors. We don’t want you to bankrupt yourself financially and spiritually in the process. This is how you reduce your risk of failure while securing your future.
Successful businesses are built on a solid foundation of sound business practice. It does not matter if your business is online or offline — the fundamental principles that drive business success apply to all.
Why are our SMARTSTART clients so happy with our program?
Here are a baker’s dozen of reasons to apply today:
- In SMARTSTART, you build a solid, lasting foundation for your business.
- Collaborative work sessions are delivered in the way easiest for you to learn.
- You can record your work sessions for future reference.
- A partner or virtual assistant can attend your sessions at no additional charge.
- There is no wasted time; you work on your business in every session from your first one.
- Support is also available between scheduled sessions when needed.
- You make fully informed decisions for your business from the best options relevant to your goals.
- Explanations and resources are provided for everything you do and all your questions are answered.
- You receive both instructive and constructive feedback on your work.
- You stretch your mind and grow your skills and your competency along with your bottom line.
- Desired behavior becomes your default behavior.
- You build trust in yourself and grow your confidence as you expand what you are capable of.
- Additional support is available after graduation if you need and want it at the same price you paid when you started with us in SMARTSTART, even if the price has gone way up since then!
Want even more reasons to join us?
Accelerator clients and graduates never pay to take any of our other online programs offered throughout the year including: masterclasses, tutorials, workshops, seminars, sprints. They can attend these as many times and as often as they wish at no cost regardless of the sale price.
SMARTSTART transforms your business ideas and expertise into healthy, thriving ventures and media-worthy success stories, enabling you to live the life you truly desire and shine as a leader in your industry.
NOTE: Admission to SMARTSTART is by application only.
Here’s how it works:
We accept applications to work with Linda in SMARTSTART throughout the year. However, only those with viable ideas are invited to a virtual interview to discuss their business, goals, and challenges further. We’ll explain how the program is structured and your next steps to get a seat in the business success accelerator.
When SMARTSTART is the best fit for your needs, we invite you to interview two participants in the program so you can ask them anything you want to know about their experience. That way, you can make a fully-informed decision to invest in SMARTSTART if that’s what you want to do.
Admission Process Overview
Here’s an overview of our admission process from start to finish:
- APPLY for a seat in SMARTSTART.
- SHARE your business dream and what you’ve tried so far by answering the questions on the application. (There are no wrong answers!)
- INTERVIEW with Linda Lopeke. (For select applicants with viable business ideas only.)
- INTERVIEW two entrepreneurs currently in the program to ask them about their experience and results.
- DECIDE to join SMARTSTART.
- CHOOSE your billing date, day and time for 10 work sessions with Linda to be scheduled over 90 days
- SIGN and RETURN the coaching agreement and make your first payment to have your session dates reserved on Linda’s calendar and receive instructions on how to prepare for your first session.
Only four seats are available in SMARTSTART at any given time to ensure you get the attention you deserve while in the program. You’re encouraged to submit your application as soon as you’re ready to apply. We read them as they come in and you may be selected for an interview.
Procrastination is a thief!
It’s a mistake to wait to apply to SMARTSTART. The majority of entrepreneurs in our program have businesses in the very earliest stages. This is the best time to start!
Many in SMARTSTART come with just an idea or have a startup with no revenue. Most with an established business don’t yet have enough revenue to cover expenses and pay themselves well.
We recommend you apply as soon as you have an idea you are excited about.
We only admit applicants prepared to do the work needed to build a successful business. There are clients who meet their goals in 3 months and clients who stay in the program longer. As long as you are doing the work, and keeping your commitments, we’re here to help you.
We love working with our SMARTSTART clients! Our goal, however, is to have you graduate and not need Linda’s help and support as soon as possible.
Note: If you miss out on an upcoming program because it’s full, apply now to be added to the wait list for the next one.
APPLY NOW