by Étienne Lajoie
In October, Toronton-born entrepreneur Gilles Tchianga left the CBC showDragon’s Den with a prize pool of $600,000… and a thought for all those who had not believed in him. Gilles Tchianga sometimes says “we” when referring to his food company, Taltis Foods, but he is the one and only designer of the food products he sells and the only one to answer phone calls. Taltis Foods is Gilles Tchianga.
The entrepreneur participated in the popular reality show looking for an investment of $60,000 for 10% of his company’s shares, but got much more. The dragons (those business figures who act as investors) finally validated his years of working alone, he says. Entrepreneur Wes Hall — who invested in his project — became a mentor. “I haven’t often had the chance to have people give me feedback,” he says. The funds will help Gilles Tchianga make his products more accessible on the market by increasing production.
In 2018, some of his friends didn’t understand his decision to leave teaching — a steady job — to work on a product you can’t find in stores. These comments only served to demonstrate that a need existed, he says. Before the pandemic, he launched a line of hibiscus drinks and is now preparing to introduce sauces for jollof rice, a traditional delicacy in West Africa. Products that Gilles Tchianga had experienced on weekends when he was teaching.
Anything is possible in Canada, no matter where you come from. Just don’t give up.— Gilles Tchianga
The Francophone who came to Canada from Italy in 2008, in the middle of a winter storm, laid the foundations for his success. “Anything is possible in Canada, no matter where you come from,” he says hopefully. “Just don’t give up.” Gilles Tchianga thinks big for his company which has had echoes as far as China since the broadcast of the show. The demand for its products is growing. “We want to conquer the world,” he continues, full of ambition.
Long way
Gilles Tchianga has long had an ingenious fiber. As a child, he designed objects to accomplish more quickly the agricultural tasks entrusted to him by his father. “Every time he gave me a task, when he came back, I found a way to make it a little automatic,” he says. His efforts at school didn’t always translate into good grades, but Tchianga still finished at the top of his class in high school.
Thanks to the financial help of his father, the Cameroonian had the chance to study in Milan, Italy. “Before leaving, I met with a guidance counsellor and asked him what I could study to help my country,” says the entrepreneur. Most of his classmates who went abroad chose to study medicine or engineering, he recalls. “I said to the advisor, ‘I want to do agribusiness, does that make sense?’ And he encouraged me,” continues the Franco-Torontonian.
After working in Italy for about two years, the Cameroonian immigrated to Toronto in 2008. But when he arrives, even though he has a master’s degree in food technology, “it doesn’t bite” on the job market, he says. He chose to study at a university college to understand the Canadian experience. Later noticing that there was a shortage of Francophone teachers in Ontario, Gilles Tchianga turned to the only profession he never saw himself having. “I understood the saying ‘Never say never,'” he says.
Still learning
Gilles Tchianga repeats the saying like a motivational speech. “The thing I took away from Centennial College was never saying no,” he says. Her journey since 2018 is proof of her motivation: online courses on managing during the pandemic (sometimes with two computers at the same time) and listening to all Dragon’s Den shows (or its equivalents) broadcast in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. “When I woke up, I was listening to a show. When I went to work, I listened to a program. »
Last week, Gilles Tchianga sent a note to Wes Hall, who believed in him on set. “When you’ve been constantly told you can’t succeed and you’re wasting your time and one of the best entrepreneurs in the country says, ‘I love what you do,’ I don’t know what to say. That’s all that matters, and I think many people don’t understand that,” wrote the francophone entrepreneur.
Source: Le Devoir