These guides are written for people starting a company in Burnaby who want to get the early decisions right without paying for advice they don't need yet. Each one is practical, uses worked numbers you can replace with your own, and links to the official sources for every government step. Read them in the order your launch needs them.
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Starting a company in Burnaby: the launch sequence, step by step
Test demand first, then choose a name and structure with professional advice, register through BC Registries, confirm zoning before any lease, get your City of Burnaby licence, and only then build your public presence.
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Choosing where to open a new company in Burnaby
Choose a location by working backwards from your buyer: where they are, how they find you and how often they visit. Then check rent against your margins and confirm zoning before you sign anything.
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Setting a launch marketing budget for your first 90 days
Work out what a new customer is worth, decide how much of that you will spend to win one, turn it into a cost-per-enquiry ceiling, and then test two or three channels against that ceiling for 90 days.
The Burnaby launch sequence
Starting a company in Burnaby: the launch sequence puts the setup steps in order, from testing demand and choosing a structure with your lawyer and accountant, through the BC name request and BC Registries, to zoning checks, the City of Burnaby business licence, tax accounts and your first online presence.
What you'll learn:
- why demand testing comes before everything else
- how the 56-day name reservation affects your timing
- why zoning and open permits must be checked before a lease
- which decisions belong to professionals, and what to ask them
Choosing a location
Choosing where to open a new company in Burnaby helps you compare a Town Centre unit, a village storefront, a home base and an industrial or flex space. It starts from how your buyers find and use you, then tests rent against realistic revenue and checks the legal fit.
What you'll learn:
- how Burnaby's area types suit different kinds of company
- a simple rent-ceiling calculation with a worked example
- what the City's home-business rules mean in practice
- how your location changes the way you appear in local search
Budgeting the first 90 days
Setting a launch marketing budget for your first 90 days shows how to calculate what a customer is worth, how much you can pay to win one, and how to turn that into a limit every marketing channel has to beat.
What you'll learn:
- how to calculate first-year customer value from margin, not revenue
- how to set a cost-per-enquiry ceiling from your close rate
- how to pace spending across 90 days and when to stop a channel
- what to put on a one-page weekly scorecard
How to use the guides with our services
The guides are free and complete enough to use on your own. If you would rather have the work done with you, each guide maps to a service: the sequence guide to the setup roadmap, the location guide to the launch plan and market check, and the budget guide to the opening campaign.
For costs, see pricing. For questions the guides don't answer, the FAQ covers contracts, ownership and the limits of what we do.
Who the guides are for
They are written for first-time founders and for owners opening a new Burnaby location: people starting a café near Metrotown, a bookkeeping practice from a home office in North Burnaby, a studio in the Heights or a supplier in Big Bend. If your company is already trading and you need growth advice rather than launch advice, the questions change, and these guides will feel early.
Each guide ends with a short checklist so you can turn reading into action the same day, and each points to the related areas page section where location matters. None of them asks for your contact details, and none hides the useful part behind a call.
A note on sources and accuracy
Every government fact in these guides links to the official page it came from: the Province of BC, BC Registries, the City of Burnaby, the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. We checked them in October 2026. Where we couldn't verify a detail, we left it out rather than guess.
Rules, fees and processing times change. Treat the guides as a map, and treat the official pages, your lawyer and your accountant as the final word.
Frequently asked questions
Are these guides legal or tax advice?
No. They are planning guides from a business and marketing consultancy. Each one links to the official government sources and tells you which decisions to take to a lawyer or accountant.
How current are the government details?
They were checked in October 2026. Fees, forms and rules change, so confirm every detail on the official page before acting on it.
Which guide should I read first?
If you haven't started setup, read the launch sequence. If you are looking at properties, read the location guide. If you are about to open, read the budget guide.