What changes as your business grows from $100K to $1B
Early revenue often feels like a test of talent. Then the same habits that got the business moving start turning into the ceiling. The revenue milestones below are a map …
Money
Canada’s C$4.2 billion trade surplus was lifted by a tariff rush
Statistics Canada reported on Oct. 6 that merchandise exports rose 2.5 per cent in August, while imports fell 2.0 per cent. That widened Canada’s global merchandise trade surplus from C$787 …
AI’s infrastructure bill is catching up with the boom
As of early October 2026, the AI boom is confronting the cost of turning demand into buildings, chips, power contracts and cooling systems. A recent paper by Columbia Business School …
Google wins AI Overviews case as publisher payment tests raise new questions
On Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta dismissed antitrust suits brought by education company Chegg and Penske Media, whose publications include Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter …
What is seller financing? A practical guide for buyers and sellers
Seller financing can make a deal possible, but it also changes the risk profile. The seller is no longer just selling. They are lending. The buyer is no longer just …
Commercial loan refinance: how to decide before you apply
A commercial loan refinance can improve cash flow, reduce interest costs, or give your business room to grow. It can also move today’s pressure into a longer, more expensive loan …
Deutsche Telekom puts a €2.5 billion target on AI and automation savings outside the U.S.
Deutsche Telekom has put a specific euro target behind its AI program, aiming for about €2.5 billion in gross indirect-cost savings from AI and automation by 2030 in its business …
Small business finance management that keeps you cash-ready
Small business finance management doesn’t have to mean complicated dashboards. Finance management is the system you use to track money, forecast cash, control spending, meet tax obligations, and decide where …
Funding for small businesses in Canada: choose the right money before you apply
Funding gets easier to compare when you stop asking where to get money and start asking what the money needs to do. Before you fill out an application, write one …
Xero price increases put small-business software costs back in focus
Xero is raising subscription prices in several markets and changing how multi-organization discounts apply in some of them. In the United States, Xero’s updated pricing took effect on October 1, …
Global container index falls as Shanghai–Los Angeles rates rise
Drewry’s World Container Index fell 1% to US$4,468 per 40-foot container in its September 24, 2026 assessment, while the Shanghai–Los Angeles rate rose 2% to US$7,838. Shanghai–New York remained broadly …
Million-dollar tanker rates show energy’s new bottleneck is ships
Tanker freight has become one of the clearest signals of stress in energy markets. The latest Baltic Exchange weekly tanker report, published September 25, put the daily round-trip time-charter equivalent …
Google clarifies sale price date markup for merchant listings
Google has updated Search Central guidance with clearer rules for marking sale prices in Product structured data, giving ecommerce sites a more direct way to state when a discount starts …
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s AI argument is really about Hollywood’s leverage
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new AI essay has been read as another warning that Hollywood must embrace the technology. In a 2,377-word essay posted to X on September 23, 2026, Katzenberg said …
SoftBank sets $11.1 billion bond sale to fund OpenAI investment
SoftBank Group has set the terms for approximately $11.1 billion in foreign-currency senior notes to help fund the final $10 billion tranche of its OpenAI investment. SoftBank’s September 24 announcement …
How Quiznos went from around 5,000 stores to Chapter 11
Quiznos once looked like one of America’s great fast-food growth stories. What followed was one of the restaurant industry’s most dramatic franchise collapses. Quiznos began in Denver in 1981. The …
Bank of Canada warns new tariffs could pull Q4 growth below 1%
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem warned that new U.S. tariffs could slow Canada’s recovery and push fourth-quarter economic growth below 1% if they remain in place. Speaking to the …
AI cut eight days from The Third Hand, Goodfellas CEO says
Goodfellas CEO Vincent Maraval has put Michel Hazanavicius’ The Third Hand into the film industry’s AI debate after saying the technology cut eight days from a major battlefield sequence. According …
Why AI compute costs are rising even as models get more efficient
AI cloud compute pricing is moving higher again, adding fresh pressure to organizations that rely on rented GPUs for model training, inference, simulation, and other accelerated workloads. On Sept. 17, …
B.C. pauses Oct. 1 PST expansion on professional services
B.C. businesses preparing for new provincial sales tax obligations on Oct. 1 have a sudden reprieve. The Province of British Columbia said Sept. 18, 2026, that it is pausing the …
Canada’s C$500B investment push puts SME financing in focus
Canada’s first Canada Investment Summit ended with headline commitments approaching C$500 billion. For smaller firms, the practical signal is more specific: targeted financing for defence, dual-use technologies, AI, infrastructure and …
Ottawa’s new mega deduction targets business investment in software and equipment
Canada’s proposed Productivity Mega Deduction could alter the timing of business investment in software, computers, equipment and other capital assets across the country. The federal government announced the measure on …
Record rail fuel surcharges squeeze grain costs at harvest
Rail fuel surcharges on grain shipments are sitting at record-high levels, tightening freight math during the opening stretch of fall harvest and adding another cost pressure to farm margins. The …
Canada gives billion-dollar investors priority access to tax rulings
Canada has moved one part of its investment pitch from conference-stage messaging into administrative process. On September 14, 2026, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that the Canada Revenue Agency will …
Bell’s $52.5B Saskatchewan AI plan puts local infrastructure in the spotlight
Bell Canada’s proposed Saskatchewan AI expansion is large enough to move the story beyond data centres and into the province’s broader infrastructure economy. On Sept. 14, 2026, Bell Canada and …
Be Brave: the AI documentary that never filmed Renzo Rosso
The Venice Film Festival screened a documentary where every appearance by Diesel founder Renzo Rosso was AI-generated. For brands, creators, and publishers, the trust test is no longer just whether …
Saudi pipeline shutdown makes the Hormuz workaround harder
Saudi Arabia shut its East-West Pipeline after multiple attacks, putting pressure on one of the few routes built to move Gulf crude around the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia’s East-West …
Record oil-tanker freight rates turn Gulf risk into a business cost
VLCC rates from the Gulf of Oman to China have jumped to about Worldscale 450, giving energy buyers and supply-chain teams a clearer warning than oil prices alone. Oil-market risk …
Why two countries wrote a €1 billion check to protect creators from AI
Two of the world’s most influential creative economies just put serious money behind a statement: AI should not replace the people who make art, film, and content. On September 7, …
Shipping through Hormuz fell as much as 95%. Your freight, fuel, and insurance bills are next
Brent crude touched $99.46 a barrel on September 8. A widening Middle East conflict is the main driver, and the Strait of Hormuz sits at the center of it. On …
A cyber incident just moved into Boston Scientific’s earnings outlook
The medical device maker says an August cybersecurity incident disrupted manufacturing, order processing and shipments, and is now expected to affect third-quarter and full-year 2026 results. A cyberattack does not …
FTC says Amazon secretly inflated seller ad costs by more than $20 billion
The lawsuit claims Amazon told advertisers they were in a second-price auction while using hidden reserve pricing that pushed many sellers closer to their full bid. If you sell on …
Why Disney spends billions on theme parks and treats movies like marketing
Disney’s latest D23 fan event looked like a flood of entertainment announcements: an X-Men cast reveal, Lilo & Stitch 2, The Bluey Movie, Tangled, Coco 2, Avengers Campus expansion details, …
Canada’s new procurement rules could put federal contracts within your reach
Canada’s federal government is trying to make public contracts less hostile to small businesses. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the federal government awarded $66.9 billion in contracts for goods, services, …
The gaming industry found a new way to make players pay
The newest warning sign for the games industry is not another console price announcement. It is what happened after the price increases started landing. Circana’s July U.S. games report showed …
Gordie Howe Bridge traffic data shows businesses are testing the new crossing
The Gordie Howe International Bridge opening is old news now. The better business signal came two weeks later, when the first traffic data showed commercial trucks were not waiting on …
The Odyssey’s $1.35 billion playbook: what every business owner can steal from it
A 2,700-year-old Greek poem just became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. No superhero IP. No franchise. No sequel. Just Christopher Nolan, a cast led by Matt Damon and …
Canada-U.S. trade deal could cut auto, steel and aluminum tariffs
Canada and the United States still don’t have a signed trade agreement. But Canadian businesses now have a more concrete view of what a deal could change. The framework being …
Shopify’s August 26 deadline could break your conversion tracking
Shopify’s August 26, 2026 deadline isn’t just a checkout cleanup date. For non-Plus stores still using legacy Thank You and Order Status page customizations, it’s a tracking, attribution, app, and …
U.S. retail sales fell 0.6% in July, but these categories still found demand
U.S. retail and food services sales fell 0.6% in July, according to the Census Bureau’s August 14 advance report. Sales came in at $763.6 billion, down from a revised $768.1 …
YouTube is making new creators work twice as hard before sharing ad revenue
Beginning February 1, 2027, new creators will have to clear a much higher bar before they can share in YouTube’s advertising and Premium revenue. The issue is what happens during …
Canada’s economy is growing again, but should your business expand right now?
Canada’s economy is growing again after a weak start to 2026. That’s the good news. The harder question for business owners is whether that recovery is strong enough to justify …
How to price a lifetime deal without losing money
Lifetime deals have a bad reputation for a reason. The standard warning is never sell lifetime access because you’ll end up supporting customers forever without receiving another dollar from them. …
Upwork’s numbers explain why freelancers say the platform has changed
The freelance platform’s client base has fallen from its 2023 peak, while spending per remaining client and freelancer-facing monetization products continue to rise. Upwork still has valuable freelance opportunities. But …
Canada’s real-time payments rules take effect August 24
Canada’s long-awaited real-time payments system is moving from policy work to operating rules. On August 24, 2026, the core by-law and rules for Canada’s Real-Time Rail, or RTR, come into …
New 50% U.S. tariffs on Canadian products: how businesses should prepare
On July 20, 2026, the White House signed three proclamations that would put a 50% tariff on a broad range of Canadian goods entering the United States. The tariffs are …
How to make money writing in 2026
You can still make money writing, but the market has split. Generic content is under pressure. Upwork’s 2025 platform research found continued AI substitution in lower-value content writing and sales …
AliExpress’s €550 million EU fine is a warning for every marketplace seller
The European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million on July 20, 2026, the largest penalty issued under the Digital Services Act so far. The Commission found that AliExpress failed to assess …
The $2.59 trillion question — why isn’t AI making anyone richer?
Gartner forecasts worldwide AI spending will reach US$2.59 trillion in 2026. It’s an arresting number, but it doesn’t mean ordinary businesses are collectively spending that amount on chatbots and software …
Is digital marketing a good career? Salary, demand, and fit
Yes, digital marketing is a good career if you want work that combines creativity, data, technology, and business strategy. The field has measurable demand, several routes to six-figure pay, and …
Is The RBC Digital Choice Business™ Account Package Right For You?
Choosing the right business account is about more than convenience. It shapes how you move money, deposit payments, and keep clean records. In Canada, a popular option for companies that …