Limbic Boards get business rolling with professional mentors

Alex Matson and André Aikens will be spending a lot of time this summer in their basement, hand-making skateboards.

The two University of New Brunswick entrepreneurs are co-owners of Limbic Boards and have sold 30, handmade longboards over the past two years.

Matson said the business is still small.

"We have a website and a Facebook page and Instagram and all that jazz but it's mostly friends and friends of friends," he said.

Limbic Boards is one of seven businesses that are part of a summer initiative to help start-up businesses this summer.

The UNB's Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship is hosting a summer institute that will help small trade and craft businesses develop and grow.

The Limbic Boards co-owners are getting help from John Leroux, the institute's designer-in-residence and a well-known Fredericton architect.

Leroux is one of three mentors that Matson and Aikens will have access to this summer.

"Some of it is trying to broaden the mind and being open to great ideas that are everywhere, that are all around us," Leroux said.

Leroux says some of those ideas will also flow between the teams themselves.

"Because from all those different energies and processes, they'll inspire each other," he said.

The program's funding covers minimum wage for the young entrepreneurs for three months.

The goal of the institute is to make sure young New Brunswickers spend their time working on their own products in the province rather than going elsewhere.

"We have tons of ideas and I'm just excited to see where it gets taken this summer," Matson said.