The Mindset Project 2026

How do you compare with other Nova Scotia business owners? Take the 2026 survey and find out what the findings mean for your business, and for your life.

Take the 2026 Survey For Nova Scotia business owners

About the project

Take The 2026 Survey

Entrepreneurs are driven to build, grow, and succeed.

Behind that ambition are real pressures that often go unseen.

The 2024 Mindset Project surveyed 352 Nova Scotia entrepreneurs and revealed a significant disconnect between business ambition and personal well-being.

Why it matters

The economy runs on people who rarely get asked how they’re doing.

Most economic data measures businesses. Very little measures the people running them.

Business owners decide whether to hire, invest, expand, or hold on. Those decisions are shaped by more than revenue. They’re shaped by stress, access to capital, the people around them, and whether the business is giving them what they started it for.

When we understand what motivates Nova Scotia’s entrepreneurs and what wears them down, the organizations that support them can design programs, funding, and policy around real needs instead of assumptions.

$16,000

Annual productivity gap per person between Atlantic Canadian companies and their U.S. counterparts, and it has widened since the pandemic.

2×

Employees in entrepreneurial firms turn over twice as quickly as those in other sectors.

45%

The share of their potential financial and operational capacity these businesses are operating at.

Context figures as cited in the 2024 Mindset Project findings.

2024 Report Insights

View the 2024 Report Insights

2024 findings

What 352 business owners told us.

90%

Rated business growth as highly important.

Growth is the single most important factor for business owners. Ambition isn’t the problem.

69%

Reported declining mental health since starting their business.

And 70% reported a decline in physical health. The cost of building something often lands on the builder.

44%

Felt they weren’t getting what they wanted from their business.

Another 40% weren’t sure. Only 16% felt confident their business delivers what they set out to achieve.

76%

Say they don’t have access to the capital they need to operate or grow.

Cash flow is a constant concern regardless of business size, and financial stress was the most-cited source of strain.

Why 2026

One snapshot shows a problem. Repeating it shows a direction.

The 2024 results raised as many questions as they answered. Running the survey again lets us see what has changed, what hasn’t, and where support is reaching people.

Each round uses a similar set of questions so results can be compared over time. The more business owners who take part, the clearer and more representative the picture of Nova Scotia becomes.

2016

The first Mindset survey: 437 entrepreneur respondents.

2024

352 Nova Scotia entrepreneurs, surveyed in late summer.

2026

Open now. Your answers set the next benchmark.

What we hope to learn

Has the strain on mental and physical health eased, held, or grown?
Are marketing, pipeline, and access to capital still the main barriers to growth?
How has AI adoption changed since 65% of owners had yet to use it?
Which kinds of support are entrepreneurs actually using, and which are missing?

Add your perspective

Behind the research

Who built the Mindset Project

Project lead

Ralli Marketing

Ralli works with business owners on the problem they named most often in 2024: finding the right strategy to reach the right customers.

More than two-thirds of respondents cited better marketing, a healthier prospect pipeline, and steadier recurring revenue as their main barriers to growth. Ralli runs the project to understand the person behind those numbers, and shares the findings openly so anyone supporting entrepreneurs can use them.

Growth strategy
Brand & positioning
Pipeline & lead generation
Marketing leadership

See how Ralli works with business owners

Co-founder

Michael DeVenney, WorkInsights

Michael is a consultant, researcher and mentor with more than twenty years in organizational development.

His work focuses on how people work together and how mental health shapes productivity. Through WorkInsights he helps organizations such as Construction Safety Nova Scotia, Digital Nova Scotia and the Canadian Mental Health Association understand what is happening, why, and where to go next. His study of entrepreneurship and wellness started the Mindset Project.

Talent retention
Leadership alignment
Mental health & productivity
Generative AI at work

Visit WorkInsights

Your experience
can shape what’s next.

Help us better understand what entrepreneurs need to thrive in business and life.