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The AMI-tv show highlights products by disabled business owners
Amy Lockwood had a new business (handcrafted toys made from locally sourced hardwood) and demand for her product (24 hours after launching, she had sold out and recouped her initial investment). But she wanted some guidance.
“What I needed help with was how to grow and scale,” she says. As one of the entrepreneurs from Toronto’s disability community profiled in a new AMI-tv series, “Mind Your Own Business,” she received just that.
Lockwood has since sold toys all over the world and, with advice from the show’s hosts and mentors, recently started wholesaling to independent retailers across the country.
She has a rare hypermobility spectrum disorder that affects her connective tissue, but it wasn’t until her son was born four years ago with the same rare genetic condition that she was inspired to take action. “It became even more important to fill our home with positive disability representation,” she says. A search for toys based on mobility aids came up short. “[I] was appalled at what I found,” she says. “The few options were plastic and had very outdated and often offensive designs, and all of them had parts too small to give a toddler.”
She started Lockwood Toys in November 2020 after her designs, which include a Big Wheel Little Wheel wheelchair toy, took off on Instagram. Viewers can watch how Lockwood — and others — grew their businesses at Wednesdays at 8 p.m., when the show airs on AMI-tv, the first network to broadcast all programs with open-format described video and closed captioning.
“They gave me so much great guidance on manufacturing, production, insurance and safety, accounting, marketing and overall best practices,” Lockwood says of hosts Kevin Shaw and Purdeep Sangha and mentors Jasmin Ganie-Hobbs, Karen Wong and Henny Yeshanew. “Even when the camera wasn’t rolling, they never stopped sharing nuggets of wisdom.”
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Sangha, an entrepreneur and professional coach, was in awe of the show’s guests. “Very seldom do I come across entrepreneurs who are driven and are also battling accessibility challenges,” he says.
In developing the concept for the show, Shaw — who has been blind since 19 — wanted to avoid “putting capes on everyone and talking about their disability as some sort of heroic struggle, with their business being a footnote.
“I wanted to ensure the show was story-based,” he adds, “and not just a 22-minute commercial for a product or service.” To that end, each episode introduces viewers to an entrepreneur’s story. Mentors then coach them through strategic next steps — cold-calling sales leads, starting a TikTok account or hiring their first staff member — and check in a month later.
“Each one,” says Sangha, “has a challenge that is stopping or slowing their (expansion).”
The businesses impressed Shaw with their potential to fill a need. “I find that entrepreneurs who face challenges often want something to exist to help them overcome the challenge or make it less difficult or daunting,” he says. “This is where true entrepreneurship begins.”
That was the case with Denise Justin. Diagnosed in 2012 with Stargardt disease — a genetic degenerative eye affliction resulting in the eventual loss of central vision — Justin launched Say Hello 2 Blindness Accessories, she says, “with a goal of creating conversation and awareness for the vision-loss and blind community.”
Justin started her line, which includes bags, caps, toques and jewelry marked with her logo “Say Hello” (“Dis Salut” in French), accompanied by Braille, in 2018. She appeared on the show for exposure, she says, and to “dive into something completely out of my comfort zone.”
Lockwood says entrepreneurship is a great career option for those with disabilities or chronic illnesses. “With a little creativity, you can design processes that can support an unpredictable body and accommodate your own unique needs,” she says. “I’ve designed my workshop to be fully accessible for me. I use stationary power tools, so I only have to manipulate small pieces of wood for each toy.” She hopes the program shows “how capable, inventive, and creative the disability community is.”
For host Shaw, it was all about the entrepreneurs: “They made the show inspiring. Every single one took the approach of being the change they wanted to see.”
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