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

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

The owning couple, who live in Saguenay, believe the project started as a hobby before transforming into a livelihood.

“Since 2012, when I finished my baccalaureate at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, my project has been to build a guitar amplifier,” says Guillaume Parent, technical manager at Pedals GUP Tech. It started a little bit like that, but I was already playing instruments, I was already playing guitar.

Mr. Parent explains that he has always been interested in understanding how instruments work.

By word of mouth, the few repairs he did on a whim quickly turned into “friends and friends” deals.

“In the region, there aren't many places that do this,” he continues. I quickly developed a reputation at that level and we added pedals.

Guillaume Parent, however, became a victim of his own success because he could no longer meet the demand.

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

“Guillaume told me: it's going well and he suggested I make it my main job,” says Emily Harvey, who takes care of graphics and marketing at Pedals GUP Tech. I said: We will try.”

Although the pandemic and subsequent measures have slowed down many areas of economic activity, the founding couple claimed success thanks to the crisis.

“It blew him away. People had time. Young people approached us on the Internet. The fact that we were almost selling online really gave us an opportunity,” explained Mr. Parent.

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