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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is Robert Smigel and welcome to the BC edition of Canada's podcast where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen here in British Columbia.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: Our guest today is Courtney Watkins. From her earliest memories of playing dress up in her mother's closet,
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: Courtney is always loved fashion and finding creative ways to showcase her style or less.
[00:27] SPEAKER_00: She got her start in fashion pursuing a degree in merchandise marketing in Los Angeles, California.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: From working as a celeb stylist to a trend forecaster, she ran and scaled a sawmill to start her entrepreneurial journey.
[00:42] SPEAKER_00: She then went on to create a company that values sustainability, interpersonal relationships and luxury fashion.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: Watkins has nearly a decade experience running Canada's fastest growing luxury e-commerce and retail resale boutique,
[01:16] Speaker UNKNOWN: which is a very important thing to me.
[01:31] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'm also very happy to be here with you, and I'm glad to be here with you.
[01:31] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[01:31] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[01:31] Speaker UNKNOWN: Thank you for having me.
[01:31] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'm very happy to be here with you now.
[01:32] SPEAKER_03: We buy, sell and trade, a curated collection of designer and luxury goods.
[01:39] SPEAKER_03: We have always primarily just done women's, but in the last six months we've started doing designer, kids and men's as well.
[01:50] SPEAKER_03: Most of our business pre-pandemic, about 80% of our business was in store in our physical location.
[01:57] SPEAKER_03: We say we're brick, click and pop.
[02:00] SPEAKER_03: Brick and mortar are online store and we also did one to two pop ups throughout the year.
[02:04] SPEAKER_03: But since COVID, the pop ups have stopped and our online business changed from about 20% up to 50% of our revenue.
[02:14] SPEAKER_00: Are you originally from Vancouver or were you from originally?
[02:17] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I grew up in Maple Ridge, which is about an hour outside of Vancouver.
[02:23] SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not very well.
[02:24] SPEAKER_00: Cool.
[02:25] SPEAKER_03: But I always loved city life, so kind of wanted to get out of Maple Ridge right when I graduated.
[02:33] SPEAKER_00: So your located storefront is in Vancouver downtown?
[02:37] SPEAKER_03: Yes, storefront is downtown Vancouver and then we're about to launch a second storefront location, which will also be downtown.
[02:45] SPEAKER_00: Nice. Okay.
[02:47] SPEAKER_00: Now starting a business like that sounds expensive.
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: Did you need financing to start your company?
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: How do you currently make money in your business now?
[02:54] SPEAKER_00: Is it all online or is it retail?
[02:57] SPEAKER_00: Is it a mix of both? What's your percentage breakdown?
[02:59] SPEAKER_03: Right now it is about 50% online and 50% in store.
[03:05] SPEAKER_03: And to answer the question of sounds expensive.
[03:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, our first quote, you know, we were going to hire these business consultants and they told us,
[03:13] SPEAKER_03: okay, to start this retail business, you're going to need to borrow a million dollars of, you know, you're going to need a million dollars to start it this much for a store build.
[03:22] SPEAKER_03: This much for marketing, this much for branding, and we ended up doing it for less than 50,000 all in.
[03:28] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we just started really small.
[03:33] SPEAKER_03: We didn't have a lot of inventory when we got a 300 square foot live work townhouse.
[03:40] SPEAKER_03: We built it out with our friends and used clothing, you know, used IKEA fixtures off of Craigslist and just really started small did everything kind of as cheap as we could.
[03:52] SPEAKER_03: And then once we realize, okay, this makes sense, you know, we can make money at this.
[03:57] SPEAKER_03: Then we, you know, turn those IKEA fixtures into just slightly nice fixtures.
[04:02] SPEAKER_00: So bootstrapped it.
[04:04] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we definitely bootstrapped.
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[04:08] SPEAKER_00: I want you to give me a key piece of knowledge or information about your industry that our listeners can learn from that they may not know about.
[04:16] SPEAKER_00: Is there anything about your industry fashion or sustainability or anything that the industry you're in that the general public may not know about?
[04:26] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a few things.
[04:29] SPEAKER_03: Just like second hand fashion or like the second hand market is growing like 15 times faster than regular retail.
[04:36] SPEAKER_03: So while regular retail is, you know, companies are kind of dying.
[04:41] SPEAKER_03: Second hand is doing the opposite.
[04:43] SPEAKER_03: So just like a really big difference in trajectory from from from second hand compared to new retail.
[04:51] SPEAKER_03: And that's why, you know, you see like unfortunately a lot of, you know, luxury boutiques and businesses like that are, you know, closing down or shrinking and we are, you know, opening a larger, you know, a bigger location.
[05:05] SPEAKER_03: And another, another just, you know, not great fact is just there's I think the average person throws away it's like 60 pounds of textiles a year.
[05:17] SPEAKER_03: And like all of that can be recycled whether you're donating your clothes, you're selling, you know, you're selling to a secondhand store or even to, you know, you can, you can recycle your sock.
[05:30] SPEAKER_03: You know, they can take it and turn the fabric into new fabric. So really like all textiles should be recycled.
[05:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, some like landfills.
[05:39] SPEAKER_00: I mean fast fashion is one of the issues that I think the world is having, but I think the other issues that is it like the third of landfills are basically clothes.
[05:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, throw away these it two or three times and.
[05:53] SPEAKER_03: And what people are buying a shirt for $5 or $10 they don't value that item and then it's also really hard to sell it because it was only $5 at the beginning.
[06:04] SPEAKER_03: Well, no one wants to resell anything for $2. You're not going to make a profit of it.
[06:09] SPEAKER_03: Just nothing you can really do with it. I mean, you, you can send it to a textile recycler, but you know, people are lazy and it's easier to throw it in the garbage.
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, you're expanding rapidly. What's the long term vision and what will your company look like in the future? Do you see the company expanding into other areas and where beyond Vancouver, BC or even Canada?
[06:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my I would.
[06:34] SPEAKER_03: So this year is Vancouver next year will be opening in Yorkville. So in Toronto.
[06:40] SPEAKER_03: And then I like I used to live in LA and I love it down there. So I would also love to have a location down in LA too.
[06:48] SPEAKER_03: And then a couple other locations, but mainly in mainly in Canada.
[06:54] SPEAKER_00: You must have a lot of contacts in LA as well, right? You've been working down there in the past.
[06:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I used to do a lot of the buying. I used to go down to LA one, you know, good good business trip, you know, right it off.
[07:06] SPEAKER_03: Be able to go see friends and and then also buy product that you couldn't get in Canada over the last few years because the dollar, the Canadian dollar got really strong.
[07:15] SPEAKER_03: It was hard for me to go down there and buy in Canadian dollars and make it make sense.
[07:20] SPEAKER_03: But now that the Canadian dollar is getting a little stronger or the US ones going down. I don't know, I don't know which side is happening.
[07:27] SPEAKER_03: It would again make sense to go down and do some buying.
[07:31] SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've learned a little bit about you as well as your company. Let's talk about doing business in British Columbia.
[07:37] SPEAKER_00: What are the biggest benefits for you and being an entrepreneur here in Vancouver, BC.
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: I want you to give us some of the good points about starting a company here.
[07:43] SPEAKER_00: But I also want you to give us some of the tough things or challenges for listeners so they can keep it up for them.
[07:50] SPEAKER_03: A challenge came to me right away. So I'll start with the challenge.
[07:54] SPEAKER_03: One challenge is just rent prices rent is, you know, as I said, I found a 300 square foot location so that I could find cheap rent.
[08:02] SPEAKER_03: But if you want to be in any of the busy retail areas, it's just quite a big.
[08:09] SPEAKER_00: Like Rob's in like Rob's in.
[08:11] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I was looking at Rob's in even in a pandemic and it was still so expensive.
[08:16] SPEAKER_03: Like they aren't dropping their rates. And I think a lot of it is, you know, there's some offshore money.
[08:22] SPEAKER_03: They're there seem to be okay with spaces sitting there empty instead of negotiating.
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so they're offshore people are owning them and they're not renting them out for their asking for.
[08:34] SPEAKER_03: They're out of the lot and they're like luckily the a few years ago we did a pop up on Rob's in street and we couldn't get a realtor to say yes to a pop up.
[08:43] SPEAKER_03: But the Rob's in street business association.
[08:46] SPEAKER_03: They went after the landlords for us to be like, this is going to be Christmas.
[08:50] SPEAKER_03: We want Rob's in street to be busy. Let them do a pop up in your building so that it brings more people to the area and it just, you know, it looks busier.
[09:00] SPEAKER_03: And then we ended up getting a pop up space, but the landlords didn't really care and they weren't super eager to it.
[09:07] SPEAKER_03: We just kind of, you know, found someone to give them a nudge.
[09:10] SPEAKER_00: What about a good thing? What's something that's very positive that you working and operating a business there?
[09:16] SPEAKER_00: I mean, people have money in Vancouver.
[09:17] SPEAKER_00: So.
[09:18] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[09:19] SPEAKER_03: Money people have a lot of people have clothes high end clothes, but also I think our community is pretty supportive of small businesses.
[09:28] SPEAKER_03: We have a pretty loyal following of customers that come back and they they they want to see us succeed.
[09:35] SPEAKER_03: And a lot of my suppliers that, you know, that sell product to us, they're they're so excited to they're like, I, you know, I hope you make money off this or like, you know, I've had some clients have started and seen us from the very beginning and are 300 square foot location.
[09:51] SPEAKER_03: And they're just really, really supportive to tell their friends and kind of push the business.
[09:56] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[09:57] SPEAKER_00: So you're originally from Maple Ridge, you're here in Vancouver, but we want to know what it would look like for you and some of the mistakes you've made, some of the positive things have happened.
[10:07] SPEAKER_00: If you were to start all over again and you just moved here to Vancouver, BC, but this time you don't know anyone knowing what you know now, what would you do and how would you go about starting all over again as an entrepreneur?
[10:18] SPEAKER_03: I'm glad I don't have to do that, but, but essentially I do when I go to Toronto, you know, I don't have a lot of contacts out there.
[10:26] SPEAKER_03: So one is joining any business group that you can forum for FWE forum for women entrepreneur.
[10:34] SPEAKER_03: It was really helpful for me.
[10:36] SPEAKER_03: There's also a lot of whether they're business groups, Facebook groups, just other, you know, other people that are looking to grow and expand their business.
[10:48] SPEAKER_03: I find again, there's a lot of like supportive groups, especially as a female entrepreneur.
[10:53] SPEAKER_03: There, yeah, I found a lot of support in that community.
[10:57] SPEAKER_03: And then even, you know, now with social media as well, maybe making your first hire if you don't have a big network in Vancouver, then making one of your first or second hires, someone that really does have a community, does have a network can get the word out about your business through, you know, their friends or their social media, but just kind of, you know, can help you make those connections.
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: Okay, awesome. Let's talk about your routine. What does the first hour look like for you when you get up the morning, do you have a specific routine or ritual that helps you get motivated start your day?
[11:33] SPEAKER_03: Well, today I woke up and did a 630 beach workout in kits and then a cold plunge. So that is my, I say that's my first day.
[11:46] SPEAKER_00: Is that just running in and running out or is that staying out for 30 seconds?
[11:51] SPEAKER_03: You know what now that it's summer, I stand for a long time, but in the winter time, I am not in that long.
[11:58] SPEAKER_00: Do you think entrepreneurs have to be weird or unique in a positive way or wired differently?
[12:07] SPEAKER_03: I don't know, an answer to that question. I don't think, I mean, we're all unique in our own way, but I don't know that we have to be wired different. I have tons of entrepreneurs that lots of entrepreneur friends. And I don't, I don't know that I see them too different than my, you know, my friends that kind of work regular jobs.
[12:28] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you don't need to be unique and anyone can do it. You just gotta apply yourself.
[12:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, keep applying yourself.
[12:36] SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about how you educate yourself. What books are you reading now and why are even audio books and or podcasts? And can you recommend any books for listeners who are also entrepreneurs?
[12:47] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I am an audiobook listener. I'm an audiobook for sure. I have lots of books that kind of sit there and collect dust.
[12:56] SPEAKER_03: One, I just finished reading is atomic habits and I have never been good at routine or habits. And I feel like that really gave me a little bit of groundwork of of how to create them and really showed how they are.
[13:17] Speaker UNKNOWN: Cool.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: Any online or offline tools you use on a daily basis?
[13:24] SPEAKER_03: My offline tool is it's called the oak journal. It is a daily and I'm trying to get into the habit of using it every day, but the daily journal one side is blank and the other side is like, what are your top three priorities for the day?
[13:38] SPEAKER_03: It gives you your schedule so you kind of list it out and it just it makes scheduling your day pretty easy.
[13:47] SPEAKER_00: Interesting. Now let's talk about how you balance work and how you relax and not think about work. What are your favorite activities to do in DC since it is a lifestyle province and Vancouver is a lifestyle city. Do you ski bike, kayak golf or hiker simply go for a drive?
[14:02] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm definitely a work hard play hard kind of person. I ski and just recently two months ago, I bought a boat with a couple other friends. So I have been out on the boat every possible day that I hate that I can pretty much since I got it.
[14:20] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, two of the fireworks on around this year, huh?
[14:22] SPEAKER_03: I know, I know that's okay. My boat driving skills are I don't know if they're up to par for firework type of boating anyway, but we took it.
[14:32] SPEAKER_03: We took it away and did our first overnight or this weekend. We went at the Thormin B. We explored the coast and it was, it was actually really incredible to realize how much having a boat just really like opens up the whole coastline for you.
[14:44] SPEAKER_03: And we got to, you know, we visited a bunch of different pockets of friends that were at their cabins and it was, yeah, it was actually a really, really incredible weekend.
[14:52] SPEAKER_00: That was fun. If you weren't doing what you do now, what would you like to do for profession?
[14:59] SPEAKER_03: I think we're going to fashion magazine or some type of fashion publication.
[15:04] SPEAKER_00: So you'd stay in the industry.
[15:06] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[15:07] SPEAKER_00: Didn't walk away. It has to be something.
[15:09] SPEAKER_03: I'm definitely staying fashion. Yeah, I just I love it.
[15:12] SPEAKER_00: Kind of a job would you not like to do? I can do this job.
[15:17] SPEAKER_02: I'm not like to do.
[15:21] SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know. Anything involved with cleaning.
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: Our folding clothes is my thing. I can't have the patience for folding clothes or cleaning.
[15:32] SPEAKER_03: Making beds, making beds all day. Oh God.
[15:35] SPEAKER_00: I can't do that unless it's on the boat. Make the bed up.
[15:39] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
[15:41] SPEAKER_00: Okay. In business, what is your favorite word quote or sentence that you'd like to use?
[15:49] SPEAKER_00: Oh, um, there's anything you like to say often that it to be to employees or clients or people.
[16:00] SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
[16:01] SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think sorry. I feel like you stumped me a little bit.
[16:08] SPEAKER_03: I don't know. There's nothing I can really think of that I.
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: Well, you had one work hard play hard. That's a good one.
[16:17] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Um, I definitely like to do that.
[16:22] SPEAKER_03: Um, what else? I don't know. I'm trying to like think of my team like rolling their eyes at me for something that I say over and over.
[16:28] SPEAKER_03: But it's, but it's not for me.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: Okay. What's your least favorite order sentence you do not like to hear?
[16:40] SPEAKER_01: I don't know like some type of complaining or just like I can't.
[16:44] SPEAKER_03: I'm just like, you know, um, or like I like I hate when people are like, no, just because no, you know, like, oh, we don't do this because we don't do it.
[16:53] SPEAKER_03: Um, where there's like not a reasoning behind it like, well, it would make more sense, you know, and kind of when people are like stuck in their, you know, stuck in their ways that they've been doing it and they're not able to think outside of the box.
[17:06] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[17:07] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick one or two words, describe yourself. What would it be and why?
[17:14] SPEAKER_03: Um, one or two words.
[17:18] SPEAKER_03: I think like, how do I go with like fun and hustle?
[17:23] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, kind of like the work hard hard play hard, you know, I really like to make work fun.
[17:28] SPEAKER_03: I have fun outside have team events, but then also when, you know, when you got to get something done, you just kind of put your head down and do it.
[17:38] SPEAKER_00: Anything keeping you up at night these days, anything business related.
[17:43] SPEAKER_00: My new store, Renault.
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: Your new store, Renault.
[17:47] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[17:48] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. How expensive supplies are and everything right now.
[17:52] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Okay. I want you to give us a top three things on your inspired lifeless.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: This is kid. You could be wanting travel morph, philanthropy, write a book, TEDx talk, anything like that?
[18:05] SPEAKER_03: I would love to have a, so the new store will be even kind of a higher end store.
[18:10] SPEAKER_03: I'd love to then eventually do a lower end store that's a community.
[18:15] SPEAKER_03: So all proceeds for the brands that we don't sell.
[18:19] SPEAKER_03: We would sell and put towards different charities every month.
[18:23] SPEAKER_03: So kind of have a give back, rift store to be the lower, the lowest end of mine in yours.
[18:30] SPEAKER_03: And I would love to have a vacation home somewhere that is water access that I could take my new boats to park it there on main island or pender island or harmony island.
[18:45] SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly. You should take your boat to Hornby Island. You've ever been there?
[18:48] SPEAKER_03: No, I've never been there.
[18:50] SPEAKER_03: Oh, you heard of it. Yes, I've heard of it before.
[18:53] SPEAKER_03: Off to Middleton Island.
[18:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. That's kind of like the Hawaii of BC. It's beautiful.
[18:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would recommend if you got the boat.
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: Or a desolation sound.
[19:04] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I did desolation last year. I went on a sailing trip.
[19:07] SPEAKER_03: We rented a catamaran and went on a sailing trip up to desolation and it was magical.
[19:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was in my two favorite places.
[19:14] SPEAKER_00: Do you have any advice that you may have received that you can pass on to entrepreneurs throughout Canada?
[19:24] SPEAKER_03: I would say, and this is something I'm still telling myself is just to stop procrastinating and and just do it.
[19:31] SPEAKER_03: I can be a little bit more careful about where I can be tend to be like an over thinker and not just kind of like jump on things, but just stop procrastinating and get it done.
[19:41] SPEAKER_00: Okay, Courtney, we're going to wrap things up. How can our listeners get all of you? And is there anything you'd like to add before you leave us today?
[19:49] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you can get a hold of us. My Instagram is it's court walkins and my companies is at mine in yours.
[19:56] SPEAKER_03: I'm going to go to the first coat and I would love for, yeah, listeners to check out our website.
[20:01] SPEAKER_03: Let us know what you think about it. And if you are in Vancouver at the end of September, come, come check out our new store.
[20:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm sure it's going to be beautiful.
[20:09] SPEAKER_03: I hope so.
[20:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, good. Well, thank you for coming on the show. I've learned a lot about you and I'm sure listeners have as well.
[20:16] SPEAKER_00: And to all our listeners, thanks for listening to Canada's podcast and listening to Courtney's story.
[20:20] SPEAKER_00: Like, comment and subscribe to all our channels to get the latest podcasts from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[20:25] SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next time.
