In October, the Toronto entrepreneur of Cameroonian origin Gilles Tchianga left the set of the show Dragon’s Den (The Dragons), on CBC, with a prize pool of $600,000… and a thought for all those who didn’t believe in him. Gilles Tchianga sometimes says “we” when talking about his food business, Taltis Foods, but he is the one and only designer of the food products he sells and the only one to answer phone calls. Taltis Foods is Gilles Tchianga.
The entrepreneur went on the popular reality show seeking a $60,000 investment for 10% of his company’s shares, but got way more. The dragons (those business figures who act as investors) have finally validated his years of working alone, he says. Entrepreneur Wes Hall — who invested in his project — became a mentor. “I haven’t often had the chance to have people give me feedback,” he says. The funds will help Gilles Tchianga make his products more accessible on the market by increasing production.
In 2018, some of his friends couldn’t understand his decision to quit teaching — a steady job — to work on a product you couldn’t find in stores. These comments only served to demonstrate that a need existed, he says. Before the pandemic, he launched a line of hibiscus drinks and is now preparing to market sauces for jollof rice, a traditional dish in West Africa. Products that Gilles Tchianga had experienced on weekends when he was teaching.
The francophone who arrived in Canada from Italy in 2008, in the middle of a winter storm, has laid the foundations for his success. “Everything is possible in Canada, no matter where you come from,” he says hopefully. “Just don’t give up.” Gilles Tchianga sees big for his company which has had echoes as far as China since the broadcast of the show. The demand for its products is growing. “We want to conquer the world,” he continues full of ambition.
Long road
Gilles Tchianga has long had an ingenious fiber. As a child, he designed objects to accomplish more quickly the agricultural tasks that his father asked of him. “Every time he gave me a task, when he came back, I had found a way to make it a bit automatic,” he explains. His efforts at school didn’t always translate to good grades, but Mr. Tchianga still finished near the top of his class in high school.
Thanks to the financial help of his father, the Cameroonian had the chance to go to study in Milan, Italy. “Before leaving, I met a guidance counselor and asked him what I could study to help my country,” says the entrepreneur. Most of his comrades who went abroad chose to study medicine or engineering, he recalls. “I said to the adviser, ‘I want to do agro-industry, does that make sense?’ And he encouraged me,” continues the Franco-Toronto resident.
After working about two years in Italy, the Cameroonian immigrated to Toronto in 2008. But when he arrived, even though he had a master’s degree in food technology, “it doesn’t bite” on the job market, he says . He chose to study at a university college to understand the Canadian experience. Noting afterwards that there was a shortage of French-speaking teachers in Ontario, Gilles Tchianga turned to the only profession he never saw himself having. “I understood the saying ‘never say never’,” he says.
Still learning
Gilles Tchianga repeats the saying like a motivational speech. “The thing I learned from Centennial College was to never say no,” he says. His journey since 2018 is proof of his motivation: online courses on management during the pandemic (sometimes with two computers at the same time) and listening to all the Dragon’s Den shows (or its equivalents) broadcast in Canada, the United States and United Kingdom. “When I woke up, I was listening to a program. When I went to work, I listened to a program. »
Last week, Gilles Tchianga sent word to Wes Hall, who believed in him on set. “When you’ve been constantly told you can’t be successful and you’re wasting your time and one of the best entrepreneurs in the country says, ‘I love what you do’, I don’t know what to say. That’s all that matters, and I think a lot of people don’t understand that,” wrote the French-speaking entrepreneur.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.