Zak Loney is designing websites as part of the Summer Company small business program.
The grade 12 student at Chippewa Secondary School started ZWebsites.ca and is looking to continue with the entrepreneurial venture after the summer.
“I want to go to school for either web development or game development and I plan to run this business for as long as I can to try and help small businesses with affordable websites,” Loney says.
The Summer Company program, through The Business Centre Nipissing Parry Sound, provides students between the ages of 15 and 29 with up to $3,000 in funding to help develop their plan.
Loney says it’s a great program that has helped him quite a bit.
“To help me through getting my socials up and mainly just the actual funding, how it helped me get the servers, the tools and the equipment to start designing better websites, and faster,” he says.
Loney says he’s completely self-taught and has been programming for about five years.
“As a kid, I always wanted to make my own games and then games led into programming in general and I learned how to make websites,” he says.
Loney has already had a few clients this summer, too.
“I made one for a cottage/vacation rental, I made one for a vehicle customization business where they do stickers and subsystems and I’m working on one for a buy and sell business,” he says.
For more information check out ZWebsites.ca or @ZWebsites on Facebook and Instagram.
The Summer Company program also offers coaching and mentoring.
Students enrolled in the program get to keep all of their profits too.
