How Sissiboo Coffee Roasters Found Their Perfect Match Through the Western REN Connector Program

Good coffee brings people together. And sometimes, the right program connects exactly the right people at exactly the right moment.

Sixteen Years, One Tiny Hallway, and a Dream Worth Funding

If you’ve ever sipped a cup of coffee in a café, hotel, art gallery, or farmers’ market stall across Nova Scotia, there’s a real chance it came from a small roastery tucked into a beautiful old building in Bear River. Since 2009, Sissiboo Coffee Roasters has done what it does best: roasting exceptional coffee, building community, and proving that rural Nova Scotia is a genuinely great place to build a business.

Erin Welch and her husband Jon started Sissiboo the way so many great rural enterprises do: with love, guts, and a leap of faith. They’d spent time in British Columbia, where every small town had its own coffee culture, and they believed Bear River deserved the same. They bought a building that had sat empty for years, picked up the smallest commercial roaster they could find, and set up a table at the Annapolis Royal Farmers’ Market.

Sixteen years later? They supply over 100 customers across Nova Scotia and the Maritimes, serving high-end hotels, art galleries, grocery stores, and neighbourhood cafés. They’ve grown from one market table to two brick-and-mortar café locations plus a thriving wholesale operation. The manufacturing arm of the business is operated in what Erin describes as a “teeny, tiny little skinny hallway.” It gets roasted on Sunday. Monday the bins and bags fill with coffee. Then by Friday the hallway empties, just in time to restart the process.

The little hallway in Bear River was running out of space.

A New Space, a New Need, and a Very Smart Idea

After years of what Erin laughingly calls “mental gymnastics”, debating commercial lifts, vacuum systems, and every other creative workaround for their cramped space, the Welch’s finally landed on the obvious answer: they needed a new, purpose-built manufacturing facility. By late spring, they had secured a new property in Annapolis Royal with real, linear, light-manufacturing infrastructure.

They had the building. The vision was clear. What they needed next was capital, and a smarter way to raise it than going back to the bank.

That’s where the Founders Campaign came in. Rather than taking on more traditional debt, Erin and John designed a tiered crowdfunding campaign built around something they already do extraordinarily well: selling great coffee to people who love it.

The idea is elegantly simple. Supporters pre-purchase coffee credits in exchange for becoming founders of the next chapter of Sissiboo’s story. Entry-level contributors receive a mystery merch grab bag. Step up to the Roastery Founder tier at $500 and receive $600 in coffee credit. Join the Founder Circle at $2,500 and receive $3,000 in credit. And for the truly devoted, the “Decadent Decade” tier at $5,000 gets you one pound of Sissiboo coffee every single week for ten years. (Or you can brew through it in five. They don’t mind.)

If every tier fills, the campaign could raise up to $450,000. Even at half that, Erin says they’d be roasting on their new machine by fall.

It’s a brilliant concept. But a brilliant concept still needs someone brilliant to bring it to life.

Amy Paradis and Erin Welch

Enter the Western REN Connector Program

Running a growing coffee business doesn’t leave much room in the day for launching a complex crowdfunding campaign. Researching platforms, designing visual assets, building out a rebrand, coordinating point-of-sale systems, managing the entire communication strategy: it’s a full-time job on top of a full-time job. Erin needed what she herself called “a mastermind behind the project.”

That’s when she crossed paths with Shelley Bellefontaine, Connector Program lead at Western REN (the Western Regional Enterprise Network), at a local entrepreneurship symposium. The conversation that followed was the kind that tends to happen organically when the right people get talking in the right room.

Shelley listened to what Erin was trying to build and quietly thought: I know exactly who she needs.

The Connector Program is built precisely for moments like this. It connects established business leaders and professionals with emerging talent: people with skills and drive who are looking for the right opportunity to put them to work. It’s not a job board, and it’s not transactional. It’s relationship-based matchmaking, grounded in the belief that the best professional connections start with a real conversation.

Erin Welch, Connector Program Lead Shelley Bellefontaine and Amy Paradis

Erin hadn’t heard of the Connector Program before that day. What she discovered is that sometimes the most valuable resource is the one you didn’t know existed.

The Match That Made It Click

Amy Paradis brings a background in communications, marketing, and graphic design. She’d recently been laid off as the labour market shifted and remote work began returning to cities. She’d been thinking seriously about launching her own communications and design business, recognizing that rural businesses like Sissiboo still need skilled specialists, even as traditional employment structures change.

Shelley had already been talking to Amy over the winter. She knew Amy’s profile, her energy, and her capabilities. When Erin’s name came up with her very specific campaign needs, Shelley did what any great connector does: she spoke to both women separately, felt confident about the fit, then brought them together.

There’s a lovely wrinkle here, too. Erin already knew of Amy. They’d moved in overlapping circles in the small, interconnected world of Western Nova Scotia. Amy had been involved in the region’s bid for the Congrès mondial acadien, and Erin kept hearing from a mutual friend about the brilliant ideas Amy was contributing. Amy had even shown her art in the rotating exhibit at Sissiboo’s café the previous summer, Punks! a playful show that drew over a hundred visitors.

They were already in each other’s orbit. They just hadn’t yet made the connection that would put them to work together. Shelley made that happen.

A Perfect Fit from the First Phone Call

Amy came on board with an easy yes. Her job is to research and recommend crowdfunding platforms, figure out point-of-sale solutions that won’t add stress to café staff, develop comparison charts so Erin and John can make informed decisions, and ultimately give the whole campaign a polished, cohesive visual look. That includes working with the exciting new packaging coming from Sissiboo’s upcoming rebrand.

Erin describes their first phone call with a laugh: she was in the middle of city deliveries, running on coffee and adrenaline, and all she could communicate was some variation of “help.” Luckily, Amy said yes.

“It’s a huge relief,” Erin said, “to have someone taking control of all the strings of the project.”

For Amy, this isn’t just a contract. It’s a chance to do the kind of work she loves, for a brand she genuinely admires, in the region she’s chosen to build her career. And that’s the Connector Program doing exactly what it’s designed to do: connecting the right skills to the right opportunity at the right moment, so both sides win.

More Than a Campaign: A Community Becoming Founders

What makes the Sissiboo Founders Campaign especially moving is what it represents beyond the funding goal. Amy says it well: Erin and Jon have spent sixteen years building a loved and respected brand. This campaign isn’t asking for charity. It’s inviting the community to become part of the story.

Founders’ names will go on a wall in the new roastery. Erin and Jon plan to bring all the founders together for a celebration. They designed the campaign to feel celebratory, not desperate: a “come join us” rather than a “we need help.”

These people are investing in a company, but that also gives you that feeling of ownership. You’re pulling for it.

At a time when larger corporations absorb so many small businesses, there’s something genuinely hopeful about a 16-year-old rural coffee roaster choosing to grow on its own terms, funded by the community that made it, expanded with the help of local talent, and guided by programs designed to strengthen Western Nova Scotia’s economy from the inside out.

What the Connector Program Can Do for You

The story of Sissiboo and Amy is a perfect example of what the Western REN Connector Program was built for. Whether you’re a business owner who needs a specific skill set you can’t find on your own, or a professional looking to put your expertise to work in the region you love, the program creates space for exactly these kinds of meaningful introductions to happen.

Good things start with a conversation. And sometimes, the right conversation changes everything.

Are you a business owner looking to connect with emerging talent? Or a professional ready to find your next great opportunity in Western Nova Scotia?

Learn more about the Western REN Connector Program and take the first step today.

Find out more about Sissiboo Coffee and the Founder’s Campaign

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