A Saguenay couple took advantage of the pandemic to launch their own guitar pedal business

A small Quebec company, Pédales GUP Tech, is currently enjoying global success.

The owner couple who live in Saguenay confirm that this project first began with passion before turning into a source of livelihood.

“Since 2012, when I completed my baccalaureate at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, my project has been to build a guitar amplifier,” says Guillaume Parent, technical director at Pédales GUP Tech. It kind of started out that way, but I was already playing instruments, I was already playing guitar.

Mr Barnett explains that he has always been interested in understanding how tools work.

Through word of mouth, the few reforms he made out of passion soon turned into contracts with “friends and friends of friends.”

“In the region, there aren't a lot of places that do that,” he continues. I quickly built a reputation at that level and then we added pedals.

However, Guillaume Barnet fell victim to his own success as he could no longer meet demand.

That's when he teamed up with his better half to improve his production capacity.

“Guillaume told me that things were going well and suggested that I do it as my main job,” says Emilie Harvey, who looks after graphics and marketing at Pédales GUP Tech. I said: We'll try it.

Although the pandemic and subsequent measures have slowed down many areas of economic activity, the entrepreneurial couple claims to have achieved success thanks to this crisis.

It blew him away. People had time. Contact us young people online. “The fact that we sell almost exclusively online gave us an opportunity,” Mr Barnett explains.

***Watch the report on GUP Tech Pedals in the video above***