Canadian Market Entry for International Companies. Enter. Operate. Scale.
Canadian market entry consulting — full lifecycle from assessment and entity setup through GTM and scaling. One team, one accountability, not three vendors.
Full lifecycle · assess to scaleOne engagement, not three vendorsResident-director services availableCanadian network, not a list buy
Entry and scale. Through a Canadian operator.
A Canadian-resident operator with twenty years in-market, not a US firm with a partner desk. We are the in-country leadership while you build yours.
Incorporation through first hire through scale. Most advisory firms hand off at legal set-up. We stay through the first twenty-four months, which is where most entries actually fail.
PE tax exposure, T4 obligations, Quebec-specific labour, cross-border employment structures. The details that look administrative until they become existential.
Five phases. One accountability.
- 01
Intake & scope
Same-day intake call. We confirm the target segments, regulatory surface, and timeline, then issue a written scope within 48 hours — phased pricing by milestone, one engagement instead of three vendors.
- 02
Market & readiness
Sizing, segmentation, regulatory mapping (PIPEDA, provincial employment, Quebec French), competitive lay-down, internal readiness audit. Output: go/no-go with a quantified business case.
- 03
Entity & setup
Federal and provincial incorporation. Tax registrations. Payroll vendor. Banking. Employer of record where needed. First three hires. Resident-director services available from day one.
- 04
Go-to-market
Localized positioning. Channel strategy. Pipeline generation. First reference customers opened through our Canadian network — not a list buy. Marketing, sales, and ops run together.
- 05
Scale & hand off
Managing Director or fractional COO embeds. Operating cadence built. Team scaled. We transition to a permanent Canadian leader when revenue justifies — and exit on a defined date.
Landed in Canada. Scaled from here.
European SaaS Hits $1.4M Canadian ARR in 14 Months
Full-lifecycle market entry — entity, GTM, hiring, ops — for a European HR-tech scale-up.
Global Consulting Firm Launches Canadian Practice
Regulatory setup, resident-director services, and GTM activation for an international firm.
Tech Advisory Firm Enters Canada in 5 Months
Compressed an 18-month entry timeline into 5 months through network activation and fast ops.
We had three vendors quoted for entity, GTM, and recruiting. 1205 did all three under one engagement. We hit $1.4M ARR in fourteen months.
Three free tools to score your readiness.
Fractional vs. Full-Time Executive Calculator · Canada
Free Canadian fractional vs. full-time executive calculator — side-by-side cost, capacity, and 3-year total cost of ownership for COO, CFO, CHRO, CTO.
Canadian Market Readiness Assessment
Free Canadian market readiness assessment — score your regulatory, talent, GTM, and operations readiness, with a personalized 6-month entry plan.
Canadian Market Entry Checklist
Free Canadian market entry checklist — 35+ steps across entity setup, tax, payroll, GTM, and compliance in the order that avoids 18 months of re-work.
From the same family. Often scoped together.
The entry plan. Not the brochure.
30 minutes. We'll size the opportunity, name the regulatory landmines, and outline the 90-day path to your first Canadian revenue — plus the scale plan behind it.