Let's say you're a young person with a great idea for a business. You probably are not one of the 10% who has a great business plan. You're going to come to us directly or through one of our 250 partners across Canada, youth-serving agencies or economic development agencies.
We're going to help you get your business plan in order. We have an online business plan writer that 30,000 people have used. It's amazing, if you know anybody who wants to start a business. We're going to get your business plan to a point at which you have a good cash flow for the first couple of years and we feel that it's sound. Then we can lend you up to $45,000, $30,000 of it from BDC, with this one application. You're not having to run around seeing lots of different people.
Before you get the money, you're going to be assigned a volunteer mentor, and you will have that person working with you for two years. We have close to 3,000 volunteer mentors across Canada. It may be a restaurateur who is going to help you because you're a restaurateur. It may be a financier who's going to help you because you're an art gallery owner and don't have those skills. Then we're going to provide you with networking and resources and other things to help you get through your first five years.
If you don't have any collateral, we're not looking for that. We're looking for a good business plan and good creditworthiness. If at any time you want to repay the loan, we let you do that, which is novel as well.
I guess the final thing is that if things go wrong for you, which often they do, we don't punt you to collections. We call you and ask what's going on and how we can help you get through this period. It might be a case of changing the terms of your loan or giving you some advice that's going to help you figure out how to get your business back on track.
The end result is that generally in Canada, just under 50% of start-ups are successful after five years. Our success rate is 50% to 60%. These are young people with no collateral, and they repay their loans at a rate somewhere between 80% and 90%, depending on the year. That money then goes to help more young people.