Douglas Magazine, April/May 2019 by Page One Publishing

A P R / M AY 2 0 1 9

10 YEARS OF THE

10 TO WATCH AWARDS!

Brandon Wright, founder of Barnacle Systems and a winner of this year’s 10 to Watch.

GO AHEAD DO THE IMPOSSIBLE THIS YEAR’S 10 TO WATCH WINNERS ARE CHANGING HOW WE THINK, LIVE AND DO BUSINESS

THE FUTURE OF DOWNTOWN

The devil is in the details

SPECIAL 10 TO WATCH ISSUE PM41295544 PM41295544

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APR/MAY 2019

CONTENTS FEATURES

Customers from Victoria to New York and beyond can’t get enough of Victoria Distillers’ indigo spirit Empress 1908 Gin.

The Future of Downtown Douglas takes a snapshot of Victoria’s downtown as locals debate solutions for keeping the city core vibrant and livable amidst unprecedented growth. BY SUSAN HOLLIS

BY CINDA CHAVICH

The Rebrand Challenge

The do-and-don’t lessons learned from Island rebrands.

BY ATHENA MCKENZIE

V2V Charts a New Course The luxury catamaran service prepares to enter the 2019 season with some big strategic changes. BY BILL CURRIE

The Colour of Success

Remote Control

How to keep your team together in the new world of remote office workers. BY ALEX VAN TOL

DEPARTMENTS

10 to Watch Awards Now in its tenth year, the Douglas 10 to Watch Awards shine a spotlight on the Island’s best new businesses.

BY DANIELLE POPE, SUSAN HOLLIS, ATHENA MCKENZIE & KERRY SLAVENS

8 FROM THE EDITOR 13 IN THE KNOW Luxury marina sets sail, dental care on wheels, F*ckUp Nights and the buzz on a new kind of networking.

20 CASE STUDY Abeego’s mission. BY DANIELLE POPE

22 IN CONVERSATION After five decades as a trendsetter in Victoria’s retail scene, Keith Gage-Cole is still looking forward — fashion forward. BY JEFF DAVIES 98 LAST PAGE Dobell Designs’ signs of the times. BY BILL CURRIE

INTEL (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE) 90 MONEY Move over, Tesla. BY STEVE BOKOR AND IAN DAVID CLARK

92 NEXT LEVEL The secret to achieving more with less.

BY ALEX VAN TOL

94 COMMUNICATION Don’t miss your real business story. BY JIM BEATTY 96 GROWTH It’s all about you. BY CLEMENS RETTICH

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DOUGLAS 7

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

FROM THE EDITOR

Back to the (Business) Future

MAGAZINE EDITORS LOVE to look forward, and I’m no different. Who are the emerging local business leaders? What’s happening globally that will eventually affect us here? What are we doing here that will impact the rest of the world? But once in a while, it’s good to look back for some perspective, and the anniversary of our annual 10 to Watch Awards is the perfect opportunity to do some time traveling. 1 O ur winners beat the odds (and our judges are smart) Three out of four of our 10 to Watch winners (2008 to 2018) have stayed in business. That’s phenomenal when you consider Canadian small and mid-sized business (SME) survival rates. Industry Canada says 85 per cent of businesses survive a full year, 70 per cent survive two years and just 51 per cent survive five years.

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2 G reen is the new normal. Being a green business used to be a differentiator. Now, as climate change becomes a critical threat and plastic is filling up our oceans, reducing our carbon footprint is essential and expected. 3 E very business is a tech business. In 2008, many SMEs didn’t have websites, social-media channels or the platforms and apps available today (Slack wasn’t invented yet!). Now, everyone from Etsy artisans to construction firms can navigate WordPress, stream videos, build apps and talk big data. 4 L eadership has been redefined. A decade ago, leadership was still hungover from the 20thcentury notion of “just do what I say!” But then millennials came of age and said, “If you want me to follow you, be worthy of following.” Savvy employers woke up. 5 E ntrepreneurs are less lonely. In 2008, incubators and accelerators were far and few between, F*ckUp Nights didn’t exist, and networking events meant quick business card swaps. Today, there’s a meaningful meetup for just about any kind of business. 6 B usinesses need staying power, not bricks and mortar. Ten years ago, a few trendsetters used to work in coffee shops or from spare bedrooms, but most people still thought a business needed a building in order to be credible. Now, coworking is flourishing, coffee shops are entrepreneurcentral and home-based business is really just business as usual. 7 R emote has its rewards. Sure, businesses still need to build teams, but solutions like Skype, Zoom and Slack have made it possible for people to work remotely, and employers are seeing the benefits (see “Remote Control,” p. 86). 8 W e’re not just a tourist destination. We love tourists, but thanks to outreach by organizations like VIATEC, Island Innovation, South Island Prosperity and Capital Investment Network, the world is discovering a deeper Island economy, and investors are asking, “Why didn’t I know about this place before?” 9 W e grew up, but we didn’t get old. A decade ago, we were still “newlywed and nearly dead.” Today, Victoria’s largest age group is 25 to 34. It’s not just that Victoria got younger, it’s that we started to think like an emerging young city. Age is an attitude. 10 We were awesome then, and we’re even more awesome now. Somewhere along the way, we got a lot more confident about the value of what we have here on Vancouver Island. We stopped apologizing for being small, and we began to think big.

Scotia Capital Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. For more information visit www.scotiawealthmanagement.com

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Welcome to our future! — Kerry Slavens kslavens@pageonepublishing.ca

BEYOND BRILLIANT Diamond & Gemstone Eternity Anniversary Bands

DOUGLAS 9

www.douglasmagazine.com VOLUME 13 NUMBER 3 PUBLISHERS Lise Gyorkos, Georgina Camilleri

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kerry Slavens

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jeffrey Bosdet

PRODUCTION MANAGER Jennifer Kühtz

SALES AND MARKETING MANAGER Amanda Wilson

LEAD GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jo-Ann Loro DEPUTY EDITOR Athena McKenzie STAFF WRITER Susan Hollis

ASSOCIATE GRAPHIC DESIGNER Janice Hildybrant

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Rebecca Juetten

MARKETING COORDINATOR Advait Gupte

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Belle White

ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Deana Brown, Sharon Davies, Denise Grant, Cynthia Hanischuk, Nicole Mackie CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jim Beatty, Steve Bokor, Cinda Chavich, Ian David Clark, Bill Currie, Jeff Davies, Gillie Easdon, Danielle Pope, Clemens Rettich, Alex Van Tol CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Dean Azim, Jeffrey Bosdet, Joshua Lawrence, Jo-Ann Loro, Belle White

PROOFREADER Renée Layberry

CONTRIBUTING AGENCIES Getty Images: p. 14-15, 81, 86, 92, Alamy: p. 32 GENERAL INQUIRIES info@douglasmagazine.com SEND PRESS RELEASES TO editor@douglasmagazine.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR letters@douglasmagazine.com TO SUBSCRIBE TO DOUGLAS subscriptions@ douglasmagazine.com ADVERTISING INQUIRIES sales@douglasmagazine.com ONLINE www.douglasmagazine.com FACEBOOK DouglasMagazineVictoria TWITTER twitter.com/Douglasmagazine INSTAGRAM @douglas_magazine COVER Brandon Wright of Barnacle Systems Photo by Jeffrey Bosdet Published by PAGE ONE PUBLISHING 580 Ardersier Road, Victoria, BC V8Z 1C7 T 250.595.7243 E info@pageonepublishing.ca www.pageonepublishing.ca Printed in Canada, by Transcontinental Printing Ideas and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Page One Publishing Inc. or its affiliates; no official endorsement should be inferred. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the contents of any advertisement and any and all representations or warranties made in such advertising are those of the advertiser and not the publisher. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in all or part, in any form — printed or electronic — without the express written permission of the publisher. The publisher cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement #41295544 Undeliverable mail should be directed to Page One Publishing Inc. 580 Ardersier Road, Victoria, BC V8Z 1C7

Douglas magazine is a registered trademark of Page One Publishing Inc.

ADVERTISE IN DOUGLAS! Douglas is a premium magazine dedicated to innovation, leadership and business lifestyle. Established in 2006, Douglas is the first choice for business leaders and achievers. Align your business with Douglas. For more information or to request an advertising rate card, please call us at 250.595.7243 or email us at sales@douglasmagazine.com.

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M A G A Z I N E’S

TO WATCH

THANK YOU In its 10th year, Douglas magazine’s 10 to Watch Awards foster business growth by increasing awareness of new local businesses who exemplify innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. This could not be done without the support of our sponsors.

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INNOVATION | DESIGN | BUSINESS | STYLE | PEOPLE 

[IN THE KNOW ]

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

At the multidisciplinary design firm of Studio Robazzo, Andrew Azzopardi and Christina Robev use parametric design tools — including computer code and scripted algorithms — along with digital fabrication technology, such as 3D printing, CNC milling and laser cutting, to create their unique installations and functional design pieces.

IT’S GETTING REVOLUTIONARY Since being named a Douglas magazine 10 to Watch winner in 2017, Studio Robazzo has been on a creative surge. Not only did the multidisciplinary design firm plan and fabricate the parametric “connect pods” for the artisan market in the expanded Mayfair Shopping Centre, they’ve added Vancouver projects as well. The sweeping, larger-than-life space dividers for TED 2018 in Vancouver were designed by Robazzo, and so was the entry installation they made for the Vancouver Film Festival gala.

The past two years have also marked a shift in the types of projects they are being considered for. “Everything leading up to now has been more temporary [installations],” says co-founder Christina Robev, “but we’re in talks with local architects, landscape architects and developers to do more permanent works, such as public art and architectural feature pieces.” And after years of “wishful thinking,” Robev’s and co-founder Andrew Azzopardi’s dreams

of a dedicated wood shop and fabrication space recently came true when they acquired secondary space in Chinatown, just two blocks from their Douglas Street design studio. The wood shop is home to their new CNC machine. “These additions have proven to be total game-changers for the studio,” Robev says. “We do our design at [the Douglas Street studio], then it gets built in Chinatown. It completely revolutionized our capabilities and process.”

DOUGLAS 13

NAUTICAL NUMBERS

WINDS OF CHANGE

A superyacht is a privately owned yacht that measures over 24 metres long and carries a professional crew.

The marina can host 28 yachts at a time, ranging from 19.8 metres to 53.3 metres.

During 2019, the marina is expecting at least 160 yachts, double the 80 yachts hosted in 2018.

BY ATHENA MCKENZIE

MORE THAN THREE DECADES AFTER ITS INITIAL CONCEPT — AND AFTER YEARS OF CONSTRUCTION DELAYS — VICTORIA INTERNATIONAL MARINA IS SET FOR ITS OFFICIAL GRAND OPENING ON CANADA DAY

[ HERE + HAPPENING ]

hile the Victoria International Marina made its global debut in June 2018 as a venue for the Melges 24 World Championship Regatta, the 28-slip marina for luxury superyachts is now fully operational and planning a July 1 grand opening. “Last year we had about 80 boats in and it was to really test our capacity… to test our service areas,” says Craig Norris, CEO of Victoria International Marina. “This summer, we’ll be fully running, with some added features. We’re hoping for 160 different boats this year.” The marina project was originally conceived more than 30 years ago by developer Robert Evans. Purchased by Community Marine Concepts in 2014, the new owners made some small alterations to the overall concept and began construction in the fall of 2016. An initial opening planned for summer 2017 was sidelined as weatherrelated issues and other factors

hampered progress. “We were building the first of its kind in the world,” Norris says. “There was no design for this, so we had to make it up. That’s difficult enough when you’re challenging an industry to do something it’s never done before, especially on the West Coast. If you do that in the middle of a construction boom, you end up in the middle of a nightmare.” To mark its official opening, the marina will “piggy-back” on the harbour festivities with their own celebration, including the Future Oceans Design Competition. “It’s a competition across Canada for fashion designers to come up with unique ways to use ocean plastics in clothing,” Norris says. “The idea was to connect something fundamental and right in front of us with ultra high-end fashion.” A principle amenity at the marina is the soon-to-be-open Boom + Batten restaurant, owned by a

group of local investors. Along with an open-concept kitchen, a woodburning pizza oven and locally sourced menu, the space will offer ocean views from every seat. “First and foremost, we’re a restaurant for Vic West,” says executive chef Sam Harris, formerly of Agrius and The Courtney Room. “Its name captures the energy of the project,” Harris says, noting the boom and the batten are parts of a ship that hold the sail in place. “These elements allow the wind to move a vessel,” he adds. “They help nature fuel your adventure. We view the restaurant the same way. It’s a structure that allows nature and imagination to fuel our adventure, which is what we share with our guests.”

“It is pretty well documented in economic impact assessments conducted in other regions of the world that the average impact of any one superyacht on the economy is around one million dollars a year.” — CRAIG NORRIS, CEO, VICTORIA INTERNATIONAL MARINA

[ TALK ABOUT TECH ]

[ THINK URBAN ]

[ GET CONSTRUCTIVE ]

It’s always a happening when 2019 VIATEC Awards celebrate the best companies in this region’s high-growth technology sector. Last year’s event drew a record 1100+ people, and organizers hint this year could reach a new record attendance. This year’s 18th annual VIATEC Awards take place on June 14 at the Royal Theatre. viatec.ca

KWENCH, the co-working culture club, has launched The Culture Project to find out from Victorians, “What makes a great city? What makes rich urban culture? What are other cities doing that we could be doing here?” Add your idea here: cultureprojectvic.com

Performance consultant to Olympians Kimberley Amirault-Ryan sets the bar high as the keynote speaker for the 2019 Vancouver Island Construction Association (VICA) Conference on April 24 at Victoria Conference Centre. Featuring current trends and sector updates, topics range from Project Delivery in the Digital Era to Equality in the Workplace. vicaconference.ca

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HOW THEY DID IT NETWORK

BUSINESS IMPACT WHAT BUSINESS NEEDS TO KNOW

DISRUPTING DENTAL CARE A new on-wheels dental service ties into today’s lifestyle convenience trend. BY GILLIE EASDON

CHALLENGE For many people, making time to get their teeth cleaned regularly is a logistics challenge, especially for those with big families. And then there are those who tense up at the mere thought of a dental office, so they avoid the care they need. Then Danielle Ayotte, an entrepreneurial dental hygienist, had a idea.

SOLUTION Ayotte was sitting in a class discussing community needs when she came up with the idea for Wheely Clean, a Greater Victoria mobile service that brings registered dental hygienists to its clients’ doorsteps in a specially outfitted, state-of-the-art Mercedes Sprinter van. Private and professional, the van’s interior features birch flooring, walls and ceilings, pod lighting, natural fibres, plants and a choice of music and podcasts. Wheely Clean’s clients so far are families with young children, but Ayotte sees a huge opportunity to bring the service to assisted living residences, co-working spaces and other workplaces. Long-term plans include bringing care to Indigenous communities once she has completed a cultural safety course to qualify her with the First Nations Health Authority. Wheely Clean’s services include head and neck examinations, oral cancer screening, cleaning, custom oral health education and whitening. When a visit reveals the need for a dentist, Ayotte simply forwards the information to the client’s dentist or recommends a clinic.

Are you B.C.’s best tech startup? Have what it takes to compete for over $250,000 in cash and prizes over 6 months and 4 rounds of competition, against 150 competitors? The deadline for the New Ventures BC Competition is Apr. 10. newventuresbc.com

B.C.’s privacy commissioner has announced PrivacyRight, digital products to help your business comply with the Personal Information Protection Act and avoid reputation damage from a privacy breach. oipc.bc.ca/privacyright

The BC Construction Association and the Province have launched Builders Code, a pilot aiming to increase women in skilled trades in B.C. from 4% today to 10% by 2028. The code defines an Acceptable Worksite and gives employers tools and resources to create safer, more inclusive worksites. builderscode.ca

SPREADING GOOD IDEAS

POLLINATE GOES BEYOND TRADITIONAL NETWORKING

“How do we move networking from being so transactional and more toward building long-term, meaningful relationships in business?” asks David Steinley, senior consultant at KPMG and head of external events for Pollinate Victoria. That’s the challenge Pollinate is looking to address. Billed as a cross-sector, forwardlooking networking group for emerging leaders, Pollinate supports the sharing of initiatives and ideas through its networking evenings, skills-training seminars and philanthropic events. “There seems to be a gap in the Victoria marketplace,” Steinley says. “There are lots of events going on, but not ones focused on developing young professional talent and giving people a way to connect.” Pollinate started in Vancouver but has expanded with “hives” in Victoria and Toronto. Pollinate Victoria had its formal launch on January 31. “Our goal is to develop young professionals into future leaders,” Steinley says. ”Everything we do is centered around giving people something to share, whether it be a topic of interest, such as a forward-looking business or tech discussions, hands-on skills training events, or creating philanthropic undertakings and implementing them together.”

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMP 2019 APRIL 25 AND 26 AT VICTORIA CONFERENCE CENTRE

Now in its 10th year, #SMCamp has grown into Canada’s largest social media conference. #SMCamp launched one year before Instagram began, which shows you how much staying power this conference has.

Headlining this year’s #SMCamp are social superstars Scott Stratten of Unmarketing Inc., Rand Fiskin of SparkToro and Mari Smith, the person even Facebook asks for help.

#SMCamp is two packed days of networking, workshops, keynotes and round tables. First timer? Sign up for coaching from experts like Matt Stewart of the Bearded Leader. Don’t miss the Coaching Panel: Getting the Most from Social Media Camp. Visit socialmediacamp.ca

DOUGLAS 15

MEET UP

WHERE BUSINESS HAPPENS

ALWAYS LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

“It’s a load off our shoulders. They asked us to do it about a year ago, but we weren’t over the hump or ready to look back and laugh yet... What F*ckUp Nights did was make us feel like ‘It’s not just your problem anymore — because people know your story.’ Working through the process of preparing and putting things in logical order helped identify what our f*ckup actually was.” — SCOTT DEWIS, RACEROCKS 3D

F*ckUp Nights are raw, riveting and inspiring The spring F*ckUp Nights event took place at The Duke Saloon and hosted a sold-out crowd.

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BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

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FAILURE IS GLOBAL F*ckUp Nights is a global movement launched in Mexico City in 2012. Presenters, typically entrepreneurs, get seven minutes and 10 slides each to tell their stories of failure, followed by Q & As and networking.

... AND LOCAL Launched in Victoria in 2016 by Jim Hayhurst and Ian Chisholm with VIATEC, local F*ckUp Nights typically draw 250 people together to learn from presenters and celebrate their courage to tell the real stories.

CAN YOU RELATE? There’s something down to earth and meaningful about F*ckUp Nights. As one participant said, “Hearing about how other people screwed up really causes you to reflect on your own moments of failure. You get honest, fast.”

WORK STYLE

FIND YOUR FOLLOW THROUGH IN HIS RECENT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ATOMIC HABITS: AN EASY & PROVEN WAY TO BUILD GOOD HABITS & BREAK BAD ONES, JAMES CLEAR EXPLORES HOW SMALL CHANGES IN HABITS CAN LEAD TO REMARKABLE RESULTS.

DON’T RELY ON MOTIVATION People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. While it seems simple, scheduling ahead can actually make you 2x to 3x more likely to perform an action in the future.

USE IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS Cues that can trigger a habit come in a wide range of forms, but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues. Broadly speaking, the format for creating an implementation intention is: “I will [DO THIS] on [DATE] in [PLACE] at [TIME].”

HAVE A PLAN B Sometimes you won’t be able to implement a new behaviour, no matter how perfect your plan. In situations like these, it’s time to use the “if–then” version of this strategy. You still state your intention to perform a particular behaviour, so the basic idea is the same. But this

Do Canadian citizenship & immigration rules leave you puzzled? We can help. time, you are planning for the unexpected by using the phrase “If ____, then ____.”

DESIGN FUTURE ACTIONS When poet and novelist Victor Hugo locked his clothes away so he could focus on writing, he was creating what psychologists refer to as a commitment device. It’s about making a choice in the present to control your actions in the future. Find ways to automate your behaviour beforehand rather than relying on willpower in the moment. Examples include deleting gaming or social-media apps so you can focus.

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Adapted from Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.

VISUALIZE YOUR BUSY-NESS CloudCal Changes How You View Time Tired of boring calendars that all look the same? CloudCal has changed all of that. The Android app uses Magic Circles, which transform each day of the month into a clock face, showing a colour-coded representation of the hours when you’re busy or free. CloudCal syncs well with Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Evernote and Outlook. You can even add Facebook so you never miss your favourite Facebook events. pselis.com DOUGLAS 17

DESIGN | BUILD

DOUGLAS READS In football or chess, rules are fixed, the end point is clear — and so are the winners and losers. But in business, rules change, there’s no set end point, and no winners or losers — only “ahead and behind.” The game is infinite, but most organizations play with a finite mindset, says Simon Sinek, whose new book The Infinite Game comes out on June 4 and explores how to embrace the infinite mindset and avoid lags in innovation, morale and performance.

A WALK IN THE SKY B.C. TOURISM COMPANY PARTNERS WITH MALAHAT FIRST NATION ON SKYWALK PROJECT BY SUSAN HOLLIS

Finlayson Arm — you know it’s there but it’s hard to see. But a change in land ownership of an 168-acre parcel, sold by a private developer to the B.C. government on behalf of the Malahat Nation, has led to the creation of a tourism project that could see the construction of a 40-metre wooden tower at the Malahat summit. Visitors to the Skywalk would travel along a 600-metre elevated walkway, through Arbutus and second-growth Douglas fir trees to the tower. A café and retail centre are also planned. The project is being designed by David Greenfield and Trevor Dunn of A. Spire by Nature, the team behind the Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish, which had a massive impact on that region’s economic development. Part of A. Spire’s

18 DOUGLAS

business evaluation focused on tourism numbers at Goldstream Park, which captures 600,000 visitors a year, and Butchart Gardens, which sees over a million tourists annually. “I can guarantee this will be successful,” says Greenfield, who says he has known about the land and its potential for years. “We truly want this project to be a tourism facility that will have positive impacts on retail and local hotels and things of that nature so that everybody prospers and benefits from it.” Greenfield says tickets to the Skywalk experience will be between $20 and $30, with special rates for seniors, students and children. He expects construction to begin in the fall of 2019, with completion in June 2020.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Douglas checks in with previous 10 to Watch winners to see how business is going. BY SUSAN HOLLIS

RUMBLE WINNER 2013 This health-conscious 10 to Watch winner has learned some big lessons in the past six years. It started with a toofast expansion into the U.S. at the encouragement of an early investor. “... we went big, we went downhill and now we’re back,” says founder Paul Underhill. “... Our original plan was to dominate in Canada first, then move to the States. We should have stuck to that plan and stuck to our guns, but we were young, naive and that nearly killed the brand.”

With the help of local investors, Rumble has recalibrated and made a number of improvements to their supershakes, including the addition of grass-fed protein and butter, coconut MCT, organic and ethically sourced coffee and cocoa. They’ve also switched to fully recyclable packaging.

PIZZERIA PRIMA STRADA WINNER 2011 Creating a restaurant is hard. Creating and maintaining a number of them is even harder, which is why Pizzeria Prima Strada stands out as one of Victoria’s top-rated pizzerias. Since opening on

Cook Street in 2008, owners Cristin DeCarolis and Geoffrey Dallas have closed one location on Bridge Street, and added two more — one in Cobble Hill, the other on Fort. The closure and expansion made it clear to the owners that their focus should be on improving what they already do well — housemade products. That includes their Neapolitan pizza (think thin, bubbling crusts) and an expanded line of housemade offerings, including gelato, chili oil, spiced olives, pepperoni and more. DeCarolis says the focus on house-made gives them more control over their menu. “When we go back to our business plan,” she says, “we ask ourselves, ‘What is that formula that works best for us?’ And it’s always about quality and good neighbourhoods.”

PAGE ONE EXPANDS TO MEET DEMAND It’s been a landmark year for Page One, publisher of Douglas, YAM and Spruce magazines. YAM and Douglas have achieved record growth, while our newest magazine, Spruce, has quickly earned a loyal following of readers inspired by its amazing home and renovation features. As an independent publisher, Page One has also seen a major talent expansion. Heading up the company’s growing digital division are Belle White and Advait Gupte, who bring energy and marketing expertise to Page One’s websites and social media. The company’s sales and marketing team, led by

Amanda Wilson, has grown too with the addition of Denise Grant, founder of 100 Women Who Care; Nicole Mackie, formerly of CTV; and ad coordinator Rebecca Juetten, who has spent over a decade in the English Language Learning sector. “Page One’s growth proves the power of great print magazines that connect with their audiences, augmented by a strong digital presence,” says company president Lise Gyorkos. “Douglas, YAM and Spruce are not just products; they are communities and we’re excited that these communities continue to grow and show support.”

OUR SHOWROOM IS FULL OF GREAT DESIGN. OUR DESIGNERS ARE FULL OF GREAT IDEAS.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

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CASE STUDY ■ BY DANIELLE POPE

BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

THAT’S A WRAP ABEEGO’S MISSION TO REDUCE FOOD WASTE

In a small manufacturing facility in Victoria’s Rock Bay district, Toni Desrosiers and her team are changing the way people think about food wrap. In a process that’s mostly people powered, they are creating a beeswax-based wrap that imitates nature’s own rinds and peels.

 PACKAGED GOODS 2019 puts the focus on consumer packaging

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BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

F YOU’D TOLD Toni Desrosiers 10 years ago that she would change food culture with an invention made from a scrap of fabric and some beeswax, she’d probably would have agreed with you. But it wasn’t entrepreneurial hubris that gave her such confidence — it was first-hand knowledge. A nutritionist by trade, Desrosiers ran an experiment with a stick of rhubarb from her garden, wrapping half of the piece in a resealable plastic bag and half in homemade beeswax wrap. Nearly a week later, the pieces looked similar, but the rhubarb in plastic was tasteless, metallic and tinny. The piece in the beeswax had a flavour that was full, deep and crisp. “I realized I didn’t fully know what food tasted like [up to that point] because we’ve become used to having it a certain way — and used to throwing it out,” says Desrosiers. “This was the beginning of my journey into understanding flavour — and understanding that food needs to breathe. Just like any living thing, it can’t survive in an airtight environment.”

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Evoware, an Indonesian company looking to develop an alternative to plastic, is testing a variety of packaging applications for bioplastics made from seaweed. Some of the wraps are edible, while others, for use with food items such as teas or soups, dissolve quickly when liquid is added.

Desrosiers’ experiment with fabric and beeswax was the start of what became the first breathable (and reusable) food wrap on the market: Abeego. Essentially, Abeego, which is made from beeswax, tree resin, organic jojoba oil infused into a hemp and organic cotton cloth, “picks up where the peel leaves off.” It protects food from air and moisture while letting it breathe, much the way a lemon peel, onion skin or cheese rind works. Desrosiers began selling Abeego at neighbourhood markets in Fernwood and Moss Street, but the product wasn’t an instant success; some people saw Abeego wrap as a pointless invention or as an eccentric alternative to plastic wrap — at least, until they saw the results. Compared to food stored in airtight containers, or stored with no wrap at all, food stored in beeswax wraps stayed fresher and retained more flavour, sometimes for weeks. Retailers, too, took a while to recognize the benefits of Abeego, but once they saw the results, it didn’t take long for them to become convinced.

‘‘

1 Abeego inventor Toni Desrosiers went from selling her product at community markets to having retailers in 36 countries.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Food needs to breathe. Just like any living thing, it can’t survive in an airtight environment.

As the product caught on, it was quickly imitated by competitors and those in DIY culture, but Desrosiers doesn’t worry about competition; she’s glad the message is spreading. “When I started this, no one was talking about plastics in the ocean or reducing waste,” she says. “I think I knew from the start this would be big — I just didn’t realize how much we would need it.” Desrosiers’ invention has since been featured on Dragons’ Den, and she’s won a number of awards for her work, including the 2018 Startup Canada Social Enterprise Award for B.C., and the prestigious 2018 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneurs Telus Trailblazer Award. “We still need to stoke the conversation around food waste and consumer materials, but it’ll happen, and it’ll be 10 times more important when it does,” she says. “No one likes throwing food away — you budget for your meals, and it hits you. Abeego is a product that actually lets you prevent that loss and keeps your food as alive as it possibly can be.”

2 Abeego wraps are made from beeswax, tree resin and organic jojoba oil, infused into a hemp and organic cotton cloth.

3 Abeego sources beeswax from family-run apiaries in the Canadian prairies.

REUSE ON TAP

Recognizing that consumers forgetting to bring back refillable bottles meant an excess of bottles being produced, Victoria’s Cultured Kombucha has started a program where extra bottles can be returned for free or for discounted refills.

CANADA.ABEEGO.COM

BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

4 Rolls of Abeego ready to be cut into wraps. The wraps are malleable, self adhesive, and fully washable — and can preserve foods for weeks.

5 Every food needs a slightly different preservation method. Basil and some fresh herbs, for example, prefer to be kept at room temperature with space to breathe.

NO MORE CHEESE FINGERS

Tel Aviv-based creative agency Gefen Team created a reusable Towel Bag for Doritos in Israel aimed at gamers. It allows players to easily clean off the clingy orange chip dust without disrupting game play.

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JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Keith is a true survivor. He might describe himself as a hippie, but he’s a very astute businessman ... He knows where he is at. He’s a no-nonsense guy.

IN CONVERSATION WITH KEITH GAGE-COLE, OWNER OF HEART & SOLE SHOES

SOLE SURVIVOR By selling thousands of pairs of shoes and boots to style- and quality-savvy customers, Keith Gage-Cole literally has a footprint everywhere in the city. And after five decades as a trendsetter in Victoria’s retail scene, he’s still looking forward — fashion forward. BY JEFF DAVIES

eith Gage-Cole is a man who describes himself variously as an old hippie, a storyteller, a history buff and someone with an eye for art and fashion. So how does a selfdescribed “old hippie,” who never graduated from high school, someone who got his start selling posters and black lights, hash pipes and counter-culture newspapers, succeed and prosper as a leading retailer of high-end and designer shoes in Victoria? “Some people say I’m crazy, but if I’m crazy, then I’m crazy in a way that makes people happy,” says the owner of Heart & Sole Shoes and his newest boutique, Heart & Sole Too, a high-end hosiery and essentials boutique that recently opened across the street from its sister store. His secret? “I’ve always stuck my nose to the grindstone and worked pretty hard,” he says. But above all, he notes, “I’m prospering because I have a great staff and a great location. I pay attention to what my customers ask us about. When

they mention a brand, we look it up. Other stores ignore them. We treat our customers like family because we don’t want one-time customers — we want lifetime customers.” So there it is. No secret sauce. No savvy moves learned in business school. Just a lot of real-life experience gained from growing up in Victoria and spending half a century in retail — and the desire to make people happy.

THE HEART OF RETAIL On a February day just after the snow, GageCole, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard, walks into Heart & Sole Shoes, his boutique in the heart of the Mosaic village, the trendiest part of Fort St.’s Antique Row. Snippet, the Parson Russell terrier who is Gage-Cole’s constant companion and official greeter, as it were, leaps up to meet me. Heart & Sole is located in a building constructed in 1929. Its Tudor exterior has been modernized with rich red replacing the traditional black and white, and arched windows with leaded glass. The original sign, made of solid red cedar, still hangs outside. Inside, there’s original fir flooring. “Eight-inch clear fir,” Gage-Cole says. “My

guess, it would cost $50,000 to $70,000 today if you could find it.” Details like this matter to him. He points out the boutique’s shelves and cases, built by a carpenter he’s known since he started out in business in 1969: “My buddy Zane. Excellent carpenter, and an artist and musician. Instead of a shelf with two coats of erathane, I’ve got four coats of verathane. Artistic shelving.” And then Gage-Cole throws out a term that weaves through his conversations: Avant garde. “Ahead of the pack. Setting the pace. Most beautiful store in town. Anybody who doesn’t think so, they’re just jealous.” Indeed, inside and out, Heart & Sole celebrates beauty, with an aura that’s classy and sassy, quaint and a little bit quirky. On the shelves are sandals by Birkenstock and Mephisto, Red Wing boots from Minnesota, including the Blacksmith for a cool $380, Glerup woolen slippers from Denmark, Beautifeel shoes from Israel at $400-plus a pair, plus other big names like Wolky, Roma and El Naturalista. There are even floral gumboots. Then there’s the wearable art: leggings, scarves and beautifully patterned hats from

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LIFE LESSONS “Keith is a true survivor,” says Robinson. “He might describe himself as a hippie, but he’s a very astute businessman. I will call him ... and say, ‘Where are we from this year to last year?’ And he will give me an exact figure with the cents after. He knows where he is at. He’s

BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

local artisans. There’s also a line of socks called Darn Tough from Vermont. Wear a hole in them and the maker will replace them. Seriously. “We hunt out quality in our lines and we also hunt out different prices,” says store manager Jennifer Robinson. “So there is really something for everyone in this store, from the $75 mark for a pair of shoes all the way up to and above the $500 range.” A long-time retail manager, Robinson came to work for Gage-Cole in September 2017. Gage-Cole says of Robinson and his other staff, “They are my family. If it wasn’t for my staff, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I do.” He leans over the store counter as he talks. There are two bright green bottles within easy reach. Prosecco. Some nice Italian bubbly to help Robinson celebrate her birthday. Robinson agrees the store has wonderful staff. “But it takes an amazing boss, an amazing head of the company, and Keith exudes that in a lot of ways,” she says. “He empowers his staff.” a no-nonsense guy.” Gage-Cole also stays in front of the trends, Robinson says. “He has people for that — me!” she laughs. Robinson goes to shoe trade shows, and Gage-Cole sometimes tags along. He also keeps his eyes open during his frequent trips

With an inventory sourced globally — from Spain to France to Israel — Heart & Sole caters to customers who want unique and bespoke footwear, handbags and accessories.

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to Mexico. “He was just down in La Cruz and there are some gorgeous leathers coming in.” It turns out that Gage-Cole, who knows his leather, got a lead on some quality leather handbags and ordered more than 100 of them, about $30,000 worth. His eye for quality, along with hard work, superior service, loyal staff, a prime location, an ear for the customers, an eye on the bottom line and a sense for trends are the common threads in our conversations, like the stitching in a sturdy shoe. But at times the hippie emerges. The morning after our first interview, Gage-Cole meets me over a coffee at Picnic Too, a café next door to Heart & Sole. “This is deep shit,” he tells me. “Life-saving shit.” And then he tells me of the challenges he faced as a young man growing up in Victoria in the 1950s and 1960s. “What you’re doing,” he tells me, “is an article on a guy with ADD or ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder], a guy who had a helluva time at school. I was the class clown. But I wasn’t always funny. I had a record at Oak Bay, [and I was] a chatterbox, kicked out of classes. Teachers told me I was stupid and useless … I thought I was stupid and useless for a long time, because my teachers told me I was — and they’re the authorities, right? But it turns out I’m not stupid. Far from it.” He jokes that after a bike accident in 2003 led to some cognitive tests, his neuropsychologist told him he was smarter than she was. During our conversation, Gage-Cole speaks of his philosophies and his wide range of interests. “I’ve educated myself in dozens of things. I’m a history buff. I’m into music and art. I’m an appreciator of poetry.” Not a bad photographer either. He shows some of his recent photos from Mexico. One, of a margarita with a slice of citrus on the rim, could be in a gallery.

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TIME TO SHINE Gage-Cole says it took him a long time to realize he had a gift: “I have a huge imagination and I’m very creative. I can make something out of nothing.” He learned to embrace this gift, this 3.3 litre twin-turbocharged unquenchable curiosity. All-Wheel Drive system V6 365-horsepower engine “It became my way of life,” he says. “I call it O.L.S. — Oh, Look, Shiny!” But back in his teens and 20s, before he started to shine, Gage-Cole didn’t think anyone would ever hire him. He didn’t come from a wealthy family. He grew up in a blue-collar home in Victoria. His father worked in a sawmill, rising to become a millwright before the mill was sold and he returned to being a labourer. “From my dad I got a work ethic,” Gage-Cole says. He followed his father into the

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mill: “It was hard and sweaty, and I loaded wood in a 200-foot furnace and I went home and complained. My dad had that job for the last six years of his career and he never complained once.” After leaving school, Gage-Cole moved to Vancouver in 1966 with a duffel bag full of food and clothes and soon found a job. And lived in an apartment he describes as a filthy hole. He finally ended up back in Victoria. And in 1969, he and a friend, Glen Lynch, borrowed a thousand dollars each and used it to start a store called Baggins on Government St., up a long flight of stairs in a building next to what is now the Bard & Banker pub. That’s where they sold those pipes and posters and rolling papers. It took the hippies an effort to get up the 40 steps to buy their tie-dyed shirts, but they made the trek. Half a century later, the Baggins name is still around, now on a shoe store selling the Converse line on Johnson Street, decidedly not a hippie place. Gage-Cole only lasted a year at the business: “I sold out of Baggins for pretty much nothing, deserted Glen for six months.” But Glen Lynch is still there in the back, behind all the shelves of shoes, another “old hippie” who has witnessed the rise and fall of many a trend in the B.C. capital. He describes Gage-Cole as “dogged, the same as me. Only way to make it. Got to have determination and realize you can’t make it in anything else, so you better make it in this.” Lynch says Gage-Cole is someone who’s not afraid to change; he’s moved his business more than a dozen times, changing the name and product lines along the way. It would be much tougher and more expensive to get into the retail market in Victoria today, he admits, and much of what he and his old buddy have learned is, in his words, not transferable. “He has survived because he’s a local and he knows the market. His gut.” You mean guts or gut instinct? I ask Lynch. Both, but particularly gut instinct, he says. “He’s got a pretty good opinion of himself,” Lynch adds. “He doesn’t push it in people’s faces, but he is competent.” Both men will tell you they “didn’t have a clue” about retail when they started out, and that may be why they persisted and prospered.

FASHION FORWARD Ian Clark, CFP 250-405-2928 iandavidclark.ca

26 DOUGLAS

Joseph Alkana, CIM, FCSI 250-405-2960 josephalkana.com

Steve Bokor, CFA 250-405-2930 stevebokor.com

After leaving Baggins, Gage-Cole learned leather work and tried his hand at making and selling sandals, over the years turning out 5,600 pairs and acquiring the nickname Sandalman. “I recognized fads that were coming in and out,” he says. “In ‘82 and ‘83, I sold crystal

like you wouldn’t believe. Crystal balls, crystal shapes. Then Stanfield’s shirts with beer labels, three buttons. Sold a few thousand of those.” After some other retail adventures, he finally decided to concentrate on shoes, launching Heart & Sole Shoes in 2008 on Cook St., then four years ago moving around the corner to larger Fort St. quarters, attracting a mostly (but not exclusively) female clientele, with an approach he describes as fashion forward. He’s also a co-owner of Footloose Shoes on the other end of Fort St. with his ex-wife, Kerstin Greiner, although he’s planning to transfer his shares to his daughter, Aleisha Gage-Cole. There have been some challenges, GageCole admits, such as the conservative tastes of Victorians. “We would like them to be a little more avant garde,” he says, noting local tastes tend to lag a few years behind those in Europe. He tries to anticipate what will catch on here, but it doesn’t always work out; he remembers importing one line that was about a year too early.

Gage-Cole describes it as a place where, “When a woman comes in, she thinks, ‘This is what I deserve,’” he says. “One woman was in the other day and she says, ‘This must be what heaven looks like.’” Both Wilcox and Gage-Cole are passionate about offering customers a positive experience, helping them find what they want, and keeping them for the long term, not just taking their money. “You have to be friendly,” Gage-Cole says. “[Our customers] have to feel that they have something when they leave. ‘No’ is not an answer. They’ll never come back again.”

It’s a philosophy that seems to be working at both stores. “This would be my style,” says Jayalinda Cole, a customer from Saltspring, standing in Heart & Sole and holding up a flashy red shoe highlighted with a rose. “I would like to have a place to wear these. They’re outrageous and they are very passionate … It’s inspirational. One of a kind, too.” An inspirational shoe store? Exactly the sort of comment the “old hippie” probably likes to hear — and one he can file away for future use as any smart entrepreneur would do. ■

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“What you’re doing is an article on a guy with ADD or ADHD, a guy who had a helluva time at school. I was the class clown. But I wasn’t always funny.” Then there’s the lack of adequate parking. He’s worried about the move by city hall to end free parking on Sundays. There’s also the fact that his shop is not on downtown tourist maps. And there’s the disruption caused by building bike lanes and what he feels is an unsympathetic attitude at city hall. “I don’t disagree with bike routes,” he adds. “I just disagree with the way they were done. It’s a shit show in the 500 and 600 block of Fort.” But that’s a rare negative comment from a guy who says he’s not into competition, just cooperation, making friends and staying in touch with the market. Last fall, Gage-Cole opened another store, Heart & Sole Too, right across Fort St. from Heart & Sole. It specializes in women’s accessories — high-end hosiery, socks, jewelry, scarves — complementing its sister shop. So what makes him think there’s a market for such a specialized store in Victoria’s competitive retail scene? “We’re creating a market,” he says. “Ladies’ hosiery. Avant garde.” There’s that term again. “It’s a store where a woman can come in and be surrounded by feminine things,” says manager Danica Wilcox. “She can get personal service. She can get a pair of stockings and get some really good knowledge.”

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CITY SHIFT

THE FUTURE OF DOWNTOWN

DOWNTOWN VICTORIA IS DEALING WITH UNPRECEDENTED CHANGE Metro Victoria has outpaced the national growth average for cities its size for years, and continues to do so, with thousands of people moving in and around the downtown core. With that densification, the pressure is on everything from housing to heritage. Douglas takes a snapshot of our downtown as people argue over and innovate solutions for keeping the urban core great amidst fast growth. BY SUSAN HOLLIS

28 DOUGLAS

DOUGLAS 29

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30 DOUGLAS

from addiction and homelessness that fan out from Pandora Ave. “The biggest challenge for Victoria is threefold,” says Miko Betanzo, the City of Victoria’s senior city planner and urban design specialist in charge of downtown. “It’s to ensure that the functions and needs of downtown continue to be met while ensuring it’s still livable and the character and authenticity of Victoria remains intact. Those things are sometimes opposed, and sometimes they work in unison, so it’s about keeping the balance.”

WHERE IS THE BALANCE? Maintaining that balance relies on many things, primarily successful placemaking, which Betanzo says means designing for people first, as opposed to cars or garbage loading or developers. To do that, Victoria’s planning department has to synthesize these discordant voices at a street level and ensure that a diversity of residents can comfortably meld and interact downtown. It also needs to safeguard against inequity — so one demographic isn’t favoured over another. That means finding a balance between financially stable condo owners and the city’s homeless population — and everyone in between.

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ASK / DUSTIN

ow you experience downtown Victoria depends greatly on which blocks you explore. Some are flush with heritage charm. Others are contemporary — curated to meet the needs of a tech-fuelled workforce. Then there are the buildings that have seen better days but provide important and affordable rentals. Not only does downtown have many sides, it must satisfy many needs. It’s the commercial, retail, tourism and entertainment hub for the Capital Region, and it’s home to some 8,460 residents and growing (according to 2016 Census data on downtown, Harris Green and North Park). The City of Victoria’s 2012 Official Community Plan (OCP) predicted downtown would see 10,000 new residents by 2042, but 2019 stats show Victoria has already reached 40 per cent of that population expectation. The likelihood of this region exceeding OCP predictions is high. There are pluses and minuses to the increased density. Retail vacancy rates have fallen to under four per cent under the current mayor and council, down from 10 per cent in 2014. Many stakeholders say having more people living downtown will increase the area’s safety, which is important to those who already live or work there. “As a business owner, I like the fact that there’s another set of eyes on the street when people are going for a run or walking their dog — these are people who are invested in the health of the downtown because it’s their community ...,” says Teri Hustins, owner of two Oscar & Libby’s gift stores downtown. “In the 1990s you could bowl down Government Street after 5 p.m.,” Hustins adds. “So I think the pairing of residents and the business community along with different social agencies and community groups makes for a really healthy, vibrant community.” To accommodate a growing population, downtown is densifying rapidly as developers, buoyed by low interest rates and a robust economy, are reimagining everything from downtrodden heritage buildings to entire city blocks. This growth has brought issues affecting downtown into sharp focus. Just mine the local news media for letters to the editor, or visit Vibrant Victoria’s message boards, and you’ll find strong differences of opinion. Some people feel dedicated bike lanes are ruining the city, while others valorize this infrastructure. Some want taller buildings; others think height and massing will kill the esthetics. The area’s newest buildings are lauded by some, while traditionalists mourn the perceived loss of heritage. Then there’s the concentration of social services in the area, which has created a lot of fear in regard to the clusters of people suffering

2011 4,000

2016 6,000

8,000

2042 10,000

The City of Victoria’s 2012 Official Community Plan predicted downtown would see 10,000 new residents by 2042, but 2019 stats show Victoria has already reached 40 per cent of that population expectation.

Interestingly, many of the people most accepting of realities of downtown are the people who live there, as opposed to those who commute in to work or visit as a day-trip diversion. Paul Gandall, a lawyer, downtown dweller and president of the Downtown Residents Association (DRA) says while his group does have concerns about what the city is getting back from developers as it navigates this aggressive period of growth, downtown living is comfortable for most people.

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“I think Victoria’s downtown … is like any other. It has pros and cons in terms of convenience and transport and operating hours and noise,” he says. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly unexpected about it when it comes to living here.” Lori Smith* and her husband have lived in a condo near Vancouver and Yates streets for 26 years. She takes the changes, including the massive number of buildings going up in her Harris Green neighbourhood — the fastest densifying part of the downtown area — in stride. There, 16 active and large projects will account for roughly 2,000 new residential units, 45,000 square feet of commercial retail space and 8,000 square feet of office space. Some of these projects are in the works or imminent; others have been completed within the last two years. “I love my views and my apartment,” Smith says, “but I knew when we bought that those things might eventually go away as the neighbourhood was built out.” Smith takes the city as it is. “I know the street people in my neighbourhood, and I have everything I need within a few blocks,” she adds, “so I feel very lucky to be here. I have to say, though, if smelling your neighbour’s curry or hearing sirens bothers you, I don’t know why you’d choose to live downtown in the first place — it’s part of the colour of living here.”

The last multi-agency Point in Time count showed a decrease in homelessness rates across Victoria, but the numbers are still high enough to warrant concern, especially for Indigenous people, youth and seniors.

PANDORA’S BOX Just a few blocks from Smith’s condo is an area many people identify as the flash point for their fears of what could happen if a balance isn’t maintained downtown. Pandora Ave., between Douglas and Cook, has been controversial for everything from bike lanes to open drug use to gentrification. It’s where the city’s homeless issues (a recent

homeless count put the number at 1,525 in Greater Victoria, down 18 per cent from 2016) are most visible, especially since the area is now in the spotlight with the announcement of more condos and mixed-use projects. City projections show thousands of new residents will move into new buildings along the Pandora corridor over the next five years. Some of the developments include BlueSky Properties’ mixed-use project in the 1000-block, which will include a Save-On-Foods on the ground floor, plus more than 200 residential rental units above. The V1488 project by Cox Development is a 16-storey, 102-unit rental building with ground-floor commercial at the corner of Cook and Pandora. Across the street at the Wellburn’s site, a proposal is under review for a six-storey building with 100 rental units by Vancouver’s District Development Corp. In the 900 block of Pandora, a 16-storey, 166-unit rental tower has been proposed by Townline, the developer who brought The Hudson to life. The new residents and employees these developments will draw will dramatically change the current look and feel of the Pandora corridor, which currently has services for a good portion of the city’s homeless and addicted population. Long-time developer Chris LeFevre thinks these changes will echo the transformation that took place in Old Town in decades past.

*Name changed by request.

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“The more people you have living in the zones that are a concern, the better it is,” says LeFevre, whose eponymous development company has created hundreds of affordable living units downtown. “Integration of people from all walks of life is fundamental to any city, and if you incarcerate them in one zone it’s just like creating a prison, and that’s bad planning.” Though new residential and commercial spaces will redefine the neighbourhoods, shuffling the city’s poor and homeless populations elsewhere doesn’t address root causes of the problem. Homelessness is seen by many who work in the social-service realm as a major stumblingblock to well-being for people suffering from addiction, trauma and brain injury. “People don’t have anywhere to go — they can’t get into housing, and there’s no place they can be safe and try to cope with their situation,” says Don Evans, executive director of Our Place Society which owns a purposebuilt facility in the 900 block of Pandora Ave. that has been operating since 2007. The magnitude of need is clear when you look at how many people depend on Our Place’s 68 programs, which include supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites, along with services for those dealing with addiction, mental illness, brain injury, trauma and homelessness. “So people are caught in this cycle of addiction,” Evans adds. “Now we’ve drawn them out of isolation, [it’s made] them more visible. That’s created the situation we have on Pandora, where people are feeling uncomfortable seeing people who are actively using substances because they don’t understand why they’re doing it, or what they’re doing.” Evans says getting his clients into permanent, safe homes is the critical first step toward recovery, and he has garnered a great deal of support on the issue from local political, community and business leaders. Victoria’s mayor Lisa Helps says access to housing is a top priority for the City, which is revising its housing strategy to establish an aggressive 10-year plan to create more affordable units by way of incentives and inclusionary housing. City officials are also exploring redevelopment opportunities downtown. “We’re really looking under every rock and using every tool possible in our tool kit to create, incentivize and fund more affordable housing in the downtown,” says Helps. “When the city says affordable, we mean costing no more than 30 per cent of a household income for a low-tomoderate income in the city.” Amidst still-high levels of homelessness, the City has raised the ante of its housing trust fund to one million dollars, up from $250,000, which will go to private, non-profit developers at a rate of $10,000 per affordable housing unit.

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DOUGLAS 33

This, along with last year’s provincial commitment of $7 billion for a B.C.-wide affordable housing strategy means there is ample money to house people. Where and what that should look like is another question, especially for those struggling with addiction and mental-health issues.

HOUSING FOR ALL Lack of affordable housing in the core isn’t just affecting Our Place clients. A hot real estate market has made single-family dwellings outside downtown unaffordable for low- and middle-income earners. Condos, once considered a viable point of entry into the real-estate market, are increasingly pricey — especially for family-friendly two-or-three bedroom units. There’s also a lack of affordable rentals, which makes housing people who work in and around downtown tricky. And that affects employers too. “When I speak to our member businesses, the number-one concern I hear is the struggle they’re having attracting and retaining good workers,” says Victoria Chamber of Commerce CEO Catherine Holt. She says housing affordability is a major obstacle. “We need investment in stable nonmarket housing designed for working families with rents based on local incomes and not the

international marketplace.” One of the solutions The Chamber has proposed to government is separating the need for workforce housing from the region’s international real estate market. “The real-estate industry is vital to our economy so we don’t want to destroy it,” Holt adds, “and it is not reasonable to think government regulations will reduce housing costs back to the point where the average family can afford to buy a house.”

PROTECTING HERITAGE Amidst all of this densification and push to create more housing for more people, some critics are concerned about overwhelming Victoria’s older building stock. Their concerns aren’t exclusively about housing affordability — they are also worried about pricing businesses out of the core. Keeping “a little bit of the city shitty,” as Bentanzo says, is good for new businesses who require lower rents to get into a stable commercial cycle, and small businesses who can’t afford commercial space in new developments. “To understand the priorities we are focusing on, everything new and shiny isn’t necessarily good,” Bentanzo adds. “Often, the things that exist and contribute to the function of the city come, more than we realize, from old building

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34 DOUGLAS

stock, which allows for startups or cafés, and when we look at that less than adequate building stock and converting it to other priorities like affordable housing, a very careful conversation must take place so that we know what we’re giving up and what we’re getting.” There’s old building stock, and then there’s heritage. Heritage preservation through renovation has been a policy priority of many Victoria city councils over the years, and it’s not without its controversy, especially when it comes to facadism. Facadism refers to the practice of keeping the exterior of a building to retain a vintage look, while gutting the rest due to safety or cost concerns. High-profile local examples include the Era building on Yates St., the Union building on Pandora Ave. and the Customs House project on Government St., in which only the shell of the former building was retained. That project, by developer Cielo Properties, will accommodate a high-end, 57-unit development. Some residents worry the City is being too accommodating to developers who care more about the bottom line than heritage preservation and height restrictions. One of the city’s most outspoken advocates for heritage preservation is former city councillor Pamela Madoff, who recently joined a group of 50 citizens, including heritage planners

JO-ANN LORO/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

and neighbourhood representatives, who are concerned Old Town’s heritage program is “slipping out of balance.” “When you look at the character of the city — and that we actually enjoy an international reputation for the quality of our built heritage — when you start going down that road to facadism, it starts turning the city into basically what appears to be a film set.” Betanzo says the City has done a fantastic job of preserving its heritage to the extent that it will not likely ever be under threat. Perceptions of that kind, he notes, have more to do with a “changing of the guard” and evolving notions of identity. “There’s a lot of new people coming on and a lot of older people have moved on, and I think there’s a concern that all of that hard work might go away with that change, but the reality of that is not there,” he says. “Everyone can recognize the benefits of heritage to the authenticity and identity of the city, and we could almost do a better job of concentrating on other areas as opposed to some nebulous threat of heritage demolition.” Whether a development is a heritage renovation or a new build, the DRA is keeping a close eye on changes taking place. Not only does the DRA assess appropriateness of development proposals by holding its own public meetings, it will also pressure developers to provide solutions to perceived issues with build-outs, including massing and public amenities. The DRA recently encouraged changes to a proposal by Jawl Residential and Nadar Holdings for a 12-storey mixed-use building on the Pacific Mazda lot at Cook and Johnson. The project will house the City’s new No.1 firehall and emergency service centre, plus 130

The Customs House redevelopment at Government and Wharf preserves part of the facade. The luxury development will include 57 high-end condos.

affordable housing units. The developers have plans to build three other towers on the site. Concerned about a lack of green space around the project, the community and landuse meeting organized by the DRA led to the creation of a 2.5 metre setback around the property, in addition to a dedicated public plaza, something Dave Jawl of Jawl Residential said his group was happy to do. But not all downtown stakeholders feel the need for new public spaces, given the state of existing squares and parks. “A lack of green space is not something your average downtown resident would raise as a concern,” says Mike Kozakowski, publisher of the local development news site Citified and online forum Vibrant Victoria. “If anything, there’s more of a concern from people who live down there that the public spaces we do have aren’t used very well.” He points to Centennial Square. “It’s a massive open space,” he says, “but it’s hardly used because there’s a [sense] that it’s not conducive to spending a nice afternoon with the kids… so the question is: Does downtown Victoria actually need more parks or does it just need more densification to have more eyes and ears on the streets? That’s the sentiment I keep hearing.” While public consultation is integral to the development process, helping to create livable, vibrant spaces for residents, it can also ease tensions between communities and developers. Much of Victoria’s new DOUGLAS 35

Seattle’s council has already upzoned the majority of the city’s multi-family and commercial stock to allow for more density, and because the City of Seattle depoliticized the permit process, very few applications go to council. Seattle has also launched an easy-use website that helps residents explore the nuances of all proposed builds. “None of this comes without controversy,” said Nathan Torgelson, director of Seattle’s department of construction and inspections at a recent talk to the Urban Development Institute Capital Region in Victoria. “Many in the development community feel the fees are too high, and many neighbourhood activists don’t like the idea of increased density in their neighbourhoods, so it’s been a tricky discussion... The devil is in the details — planning is not easy.” ■ Plans for the City’s new No.1 firehall and emergency response centre include four towers at 12-, 14-, 15- and 17-storeys high for a two-acre site on the edge of downtown and Harris Green.

development in and around downtown is in areas that have been underused or poorly maintained over the years. Keeping density in appropriate areas is part of creating and maintaining vibrancy near the city’s commercial hub. “If we’re unable to densify Harris Green on a surface parking lot that’s been used as an automotive service dealership for 50 or 60 years, I’m not sure where we can develop and densify,” says Jawl in reference to the Pacific Mazda car lot proposal. “That’s the best place to do it where we’re going to have the least amount of negative impact and the greatest amount of positive impact.”

INSPIRATION FROM SEATTLE As Victoria grapples with the push and pull associated with creating a vibrant, livable city core, it could look to Seattle, which is facing similar, if more intense, pressures. There, a booming tech sector is bringing thousands of new residents into the downtown core every month, making Seattle the fastest-growing city in the U.S. The city’s development boom has resulted in 69,000 new housing units coming on market in the urban core in the past seven years. Where the city differs from Victoria, beyond sheer population, is in how it is navigating development. Seattle residents pay a housing levy, a tax which goes directly to the creation of housing for people making 60 per cent or below the median income in the metro area. Seattle developers can “pay or play,” essentially a choice between giving dollars to the City’s housing fund or incorporating below-market units into their plans. They can also defer property taxes on projects that provide 20 to 25 per cent of units at an affordable rate. DOUGLAS 37

Go ahead. Do something impossible. —SETH GODIN, AUTHOR/ENTREPRENEUR

BUSINESS ADVICE FROM THE Jim Hayhurst

Cathy Whitehead McIntyre

Managing Director, Canada, Beattie Tartan

Advisor, Roy Group

Principal, Strategic Initiatives Inc.

It is easy to get trapped behind your computer. Get out from behind your screen and meet people in person. Attend conferences and events that will put you in the same room as other smart people. Personal relationships are invaluable in growing your business.

“Explain it to a toddler” tests how well you understand your business. Too often entrepreneurs hide behind jargon and technical language. Investors, customers (and your team) will see through it.

Disrupt yourself! Every industry is bound to be disrupted sooner or later (and likely sooner). Constantly look for ways to shake things up. Innovate to serve your customers better, earn their ongoing loyalty and insulate yourself from current and emerging competitors.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Deirdre Campbell

38 DOUGLAS

TO WATCH

Create fresh water. Help prevent panic attacks. Shake up the construction industry. Disrupt the garburator. There’s no end to what you can do with a passion for making the impossible possible. Want proof? Check out this year’s 10 to Watch winners. “Entrepreneurs do more than anyone thinks possible, with less than anyone thinks possible,” says John Doerr, a Forbes-ranked entrepreneur and champion of cleantech. And we’ve been seeing that ever since Douglas magazine launched our 10 to Watch Awards a decade ago as a way to celebrate Vancouver Island’s top new businesses.

Do the math: 10 years x 10 businesses a year = 100 businesses who challenged notions of what was possible in order to achieve the remarkable. Looking back over the decade, it’s telling — and a testament to both the winners and our judges — that three out of four 10 to Watch winners remain in business as of January 2019. The winners’ list is a veritable who’s who of

2019

Island success stories: DeeBee’s, Topsoil, Roll.Focus Productions, LlamaZoo, SendtoNews, Stocksy and Flytographer to name just a few inspiring winners. This year’s winners are equally inspiring — and just as full of passion and promise. So here’s to the 10 to Watch winners of 2019! We’re proud to play a part in your stories.

BY SUSAN HOLLIS, ATHENA MCKENZIE, DANIELLE POPE AND KERRY SLAVENS

1 0 T O WAT C H J U D G I N G PA N E L Heidi Sherwood

Dr. Pedro Márquez

Dr. Rebecca Grant

CEO, SATTVA Spa and Sapphire Day Spa

VP, Global Advancement, Marketing and Business Development, Royal Roads University

Associate Professor (Retired), University of Victoria

The adage that “you can make money but you can’t make time” has become increasingly important. It reminds me to use my time wisely and to focus my energy on tasks that are fulfilling and valuable.

In times of complexity, rapid change and uncertainty, a truly diverse, inclusive and interdisciplinary team is the best option to increase a firm’s competitiveness. Let’s welcome, encourage and recognize the enormous value of collaboration and teamwork.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realize the wealth of resources available to them through local colleges and universities — continuing studies classes to hone skills, grants to support innovation, talented students looking for co-op jobs, and more. Educational institutions can be great partners.

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For a one-time $27 investment, you receive a lifetime Peninsula Co-op membership which means you share in the profits of the company. Every time you use your Co-op member number, your purchases are recorded. Based on Peninsula Co-op’s profits, a percentage of your purchases is added to your share account and is paid out to you by cheque each year at rebate time. Plus, when you choose Peninsula Co-op, money goes back into supporting local communities. Last year, over $500,000 was distributed to 300 charities and initiatives. So, you can feel good about giving back to yourself and to your community. Becoming a member is easy! Apply at peninsulaco-op.com or at any of our locations.

“Douglas magazine’s 10 to Watch showcases new businesses and embraces economic development throughout the Island. At Peninsula Co-op we know the value of local support, as we’ve grown and thrived through the patronage of our local community. We are honoured to help shine the spotlight on the entrepreneurial trailblazers of today as they enhance the community with innovative products and services.”

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894 Goldstream Avenue, Langford 2320 Millstream Road, Langford 321 Wale Road, Colwood 4397 West Shore Parkway, Langford  Malahat to Duncan 805 Deloume Road, Mill Bay 4804 Bench Road, South Duncan 281 Trans Canada Highway, Duncan 1007 Canada Avenue, North Duncan  North Island 699 Aspen Road, Comox 940 Ironwood Street, Campbell River

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TD Business Banking salutes your innovation, achievements, and entrepreneurship throughout our Island communities. At TD Business Bank, weisisare TD TDBusiness Business Banking Banking proud proudto to TD Businessto Banking your innovation, committed helpingsalutes Canadian Small Business grow. 2018 support support Douglas Douglas Magazine’s Magazine’s 2018 achievements, and entrepreneurship throughout 10 10TO TOWATCH WATCH Awards AwardsCelebration Celebration our Island communities. At TD Business Bank, we are For more information reach out to Congratulations Congratulations totoallallthe the10 10ToToWatch WatchWinners. Winners. committed to helping Canadian Small Business grow. TD TDBusiness BusinessBanking Bankingsalutes salutesyour yourinnovation, innovation,

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

LANDON SHECK AND MORGAN SEEBER OF AUX BOX

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? In the book Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, Dr. Seuss speaks about the ‘waiting place.’ This is the horrible place where everyone is waiting for something ... their turn, or that phone call, or that person to show up. Skip the waiting around and get out there and chase whatever excites you. Do this relentlessly. Life is short and fragile, and your time ought to be well spent!

Parksville-based modular building company Aux Box began with a simple question: “What if we design and build a bonus room that could be delivered to someone’s backyard?”

DEAN AZIM

What was the scariest part of starting up? The business not being able to survive long enough to get our product to the people who want it and appreciate it. What would you do differently if you could do it all again? Take more time to identify our minimum viable market. In many ways, we built a product and then went looking for a market.

MORGAN SEEBER AND LANDON SHECK

Aux Box WHAT IF YOU COULD ADD A HOME OFFICE, yoga studio or spare bedroom to your property without weeks or months of onsite construction and high costs? It’s a problem two longtime “construction guys” — Landon Sheck and Morgan Seeber — set out to solve with Aux Box. Based in Parksville and Nanaimo, Aux Box is a modularbuilding company specializing in small, prefabricated outbuildings

that provide critical extra space. Each fully wired, insulated and code-compliant Aux Box is built at a quality-controlled indoor manufacturing facility while a minimal foundation is built on the owner’s property and electrical is installed. The Aux Box is then delivered and set up, often in as little as one day. Sheck and Seeber see Aux Box as a lifestyle-efficiency solution, designed to save property owners

time and to eliminate the “pain points” of construction — the mess and disruption, the cost uncertainty (Aux Box has a fixed price), and the fears about quality. Interest in Aux Box has grown as property owners find more and more uses for Aux Boxes, from art studios to wine rooms. Aux Box has also attracted those seeking solutions for Airbnbs, campsites and other commercial uses. At just over 100 square feet, Aux

Box’s smallest units don’t require building permits, and Sheck and Seeber have also been working with the City of Nanaimo to modify bylaws so residents can generate income by renting out Aux Boxes in their backyards. “We recognized it was just a matter of time before we see the huge benefit of a modular construction process,” Sheck adds, “so we were trying to get ahead of the curve.”

DOUGLAS 43

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

ERIN SKILLEN OF FAMILY SPARKS

What was the best business advice you ever received? Be yourself, tell a compelling story and surround yourself with smart people whose strengths complement your weaknesses.

As a social impact business, Family Sparks is focused on using digital, clinically driven solutions to change the mentalhealth space — and change lives.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? There’s rarely a perfect time to start, so stop talking about it and start doing something about it.

JOSHUA LAWRENCE

What was the scariest part of starting up? Imposter Syndrome. That little voice that says, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do this.” What book or podcast have you found most inspirational? Daring Greatly by Brené Brown and How I Built This with Guy Raz

ERIN SKILLEN AND DR. JILLIAN ROBERTS

Family Sparks BROADENING THE CONVERSATION around mental health means accepting the workplace as important to the well-being of the average working adult. At Family Sparks, a mental wellness company founded by psychologist Dr. Jillian Roberts, the goal is to disrupt the mental-health space with digital, clinically based solutions that change lives. Family Sparks began as

an online parent counselling service but has grown to provide mental-health services for a wide range of clients. “We didn’t realize how little discussion people were having about mental wellness in their companies,” says Erin Skillen, COO and co-founder. “It was something you see symptoms of every day, but you don’t really think of it as an overall trend that you can do something about.”

“We began to see that everybody was in dire straits,” she adds. “People needed an alternative to massive corporate programs.” With that in mind, Family Sparks added an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), providing clinically based counselling, coaching and resources to help businesses support and improve employees’ mental wellness. Working with carefully vetted affiliate partners

What would you do differently if you could do it all again? I honestly wouldn’t do anything differently because even the mistakes taught me something and got me here to where I am now. And I love where I’m at.

for face-to-face counselling in Victoria, Nanaimo and Toronto, the EAP also has online video and chat counselling and HR training, along with legal and financial advice for some 500 employees — and still growing.

DOUGLAS 45

Innovation. Innovation. We encourage encourage it.it.

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

LYNDSEY BELL OF BIGFOOT DONUTS

What was the best business advice you ever received? There wasn’t one profound piece I can recall; rather it was having role models and being surrounded by entrepreneurs. It was actually negative advice that was the biggest motivator — having non-entrepreneurs incite fear of starting a food business pushed me to prove them wrong.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

As the only artisanal, made-fromscratch donut shop in the Comox Valley, Bigfoot Donuts is a sweet part of the Vancouver Island food revolution.

What would you do differently if you could do it all again? I would have done it sooner! We are having a lot of fun building this business in spite of the incredible amount of hard work and long hours. It’s worth it to do what you love.

LYNDSEY BELL AND JAY VALERI

Bigfoot Donuts ENTREPRENEURSHIP is in Lyndsey Bell’s blood — her family has owned businesses in the Comox Valley since 1920. “It was only a matter of time before I found my own calling,” says Bell, who despite a successful professional career in finance was unable to curb the desire to run her own business. “I knew I loved business, but what

else did I love so I could combine the two?” The answer: donuts. “My husband, Jay [Valeri] and I had done numerous road trips throughout the Pacific Northwest where we visited countless donut shops,” she explains. “It became clear we needed this in our town.” The pair spent three years taking the idea from concept to

store opening, saving the funds, putting together the business plan and developing the brand — Bigfoot Donuts — as well as the perfect dough recipe. A savvy social media marketing campaign leading up to Bigfoot Donuts’ official opening in May of 2017 meant the shop sold out their 800 donuts in one hour. Since

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Make a plan and believe in yourself. Surround yourself with good people and like minds.

then, Bigfoot has continued its impressive sales and is looking at expanding in the Comox Valley with kiosk-style locations, with the current location acting as the flagship and production space. “There is a revolution happening now in the local food scene on Vancouver Island,” Bell says. “We are happy to be an emerging player.”

DOUGLAS 47

Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

ANIA WYSOCKA OF ROOTD

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? To make sure to check in with themselves, celebrate their wins and take breathers every now and then. Being a founder is an awesome and unique journey, but with it comes significant sacrifice. It can be hard and reward-less work (especially at first), and it’s easy to feel isolated and caught up in a lot of pressure. So be sure to give yourself a break every once in a while to note how far you’ve come. Mind that you don’t burn out before you get to where you want to be.

Panic or anxiety attacks can be completely overwhelming for those experiencing them. Now there’s an app for that, thanks to one bootstrapping local entrepreneur.

JOSHUA LAWRENCE

What was the scariest part of starting up? The vulnerability that comes with putting your project or name out there. In Rootd’s case, users didn’t (and still mostly don’t know) that the app they’re using is a labour of love envisioned and created by a single person with contract help. They want everything done fast, with no bugs, and for free.

Rootd ANYONE FAMILIAR with the debilitating effects of anxiety and panic attacks knows how frightening and lonely the experience can be. To instill a sense of security, paired with a good dose of knowledge about what’s happening to your body when panic and anxiety set in, Victoria’s Ania Wysocka created Rootd, an app that subtly and effectively comforts those who need it, any time and anyplace.

Wysocka came up with the idea for Rootd in her last year of university when she started experiencing anxiety. As a student, she found she couldn’t afford many of the resources out there to get help. “I wanted something that offered a way to get in touch with somebody when you’re feeling overwhelmed, also a panic feature, a guided breathing tool and a meditation tool all in one,” she says.

She bootstrapped to create Rootd, working full time and spending off-work hours researching mental wellness, with a focus on cognitive behavioural therapy. She ran her content past psychologists and academics to create an up-to-date resource. She also designed most of the app herself. Her efforts have paid off: Since launching last year, Rootd has been downloaded over 50,000 times in more than 100 countries

through the App Store and Google Play. “I get feedback from girls saying they went back to school because of [Rootd],” says Wysocka, “or they’ve gone back to work because of it, knowing they have it in their pocket and can turn to it when they need. “Those kind of comments and that kind of feedback,” she adds, “really helped me get past my fears of vulnerability and makes it seem like it’s all worth it.”

DOUGLAS 49

THE FUN IS IN THE GETTING THERE

Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

ROB FRASER OF ENDUR

What was the best advice you received? Be patient. A lot of people look at short-term results and draw conclusions from that, but many things rear their heads further into the process than you’d expect.

Performance-apparel company Endūr invites everyone to up their “sock game” and use the oft-neglected accessory as a canvas for self-expression.

What was the scariest part of starting up? Going all in and potentially giving up a good career opportunity.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Don’t be afraid of asking questions. Remove the ego — you don’t know what you don’t know. Ask as many questions as you can and read as much as you can.”

Endūr Apparel REMEMBER HOW YOGA pants evolved from workout attire to everyday wardrobe item? That’s what End r aims to do with its performance socks. “You can wear it to work and it looks stylish, but you can go straight to the gym — or for a cycle or run — with a product that provides support, moisture wicking and breathability,” says company founder Rob Fraser.

“We provide products for an athletic life balance.” It was during his years as a Canadian National Team cyclist that Fraser was introduced to the concept of “sock game.” In competitive cycling, team uniforms are mandatory, but socks are one area where one could express individual style. “We find a lot of our customers use our socks to tell their own

story,” he says, pointing to the variety in patterns and colours. In addition to being in more than 150 stores across Canada, End r has opened up a flagship store at Uptown. Current products include socks and underwear, with plans to release a line of compression socks in the near future. A unique part of End r’s business model is its ability to

What book or podcast have you found inspirational? The book The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, sparked a lot of ideas. And the StartUp podcast [by Gimlet Media] goes over a lot of the issues a new entrepreneur may face.

create custom socks for brand partnerships, such as their work with Red Bull. “We’ve innovated the way in which people think about and use socks,” Fraser says. “We’ve also innovated the custom sock business, and we reach hundreds of thousands of new customers at no cost, while providing a quality product for other companies.”

DOUGLAS 51

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

DEVESH BHARADWAJ OF PANI ENERGY

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Surround yourself with experienced, intelligent and generous advisors. Let them pick problems to solve — and, focus on important problems, rather than urgent ones.

Devesh Bharadwaj has a philosophy: don’t fall in love with the solution, fall in love with the problem. The problem his technology is solving is both critical and global: creating fresh water from non-fresh sources.

What was the scariest part of starting up? Knowing there is a high chance of failure can be scary. There were times I asked, “Am I making the right decision?” I was. Confidence, at the beginning, is knowing you’ll be OK if you do fail.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

What book or podcast have you found most inspirational? The book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel touches on something interesting. True disruption and innovation in society is going from zero to one. It’s not looking for the best technique to clear horse manure; it’s building a car.

Pani Energy SINCE HE WAS TEENAGER, Devesh Bharadwaj has been interested in combining technology and business to make a disruptive impact. Bharadwaj grew up in India and was intimately connected to the world’s growing need for freshwater resources. Soon after he began studying at the University of Victoria, Bharadwaj inspired a partnership between the engineering and chemistry

departments. The result would become Pani Energy, a researchbased company that uses technology to reduce the cost of producing fresh water from nonfresh sources. “There is a tremendous amount of infrastructure needed, worldwide, to address water treatment, and the question becomes, how can we do this successfully while being environmentally friendly

and economically feasible for those who will struggle to meet the gap?” says Bharadwaj, who has received numerous awards for his entrepreneurship and engineering since launching Pani in 2017. Bharadwaj knew about the projected 60-per-cent gap in world freshwater needs by 2030, and he wanted to give companies digital technology to run at state-of-the-art levels, while

improving hardware and software options to revolutionize the water and energy industry. It may sound like no small feat, but Bharadwaj has an even more ambitious goal in mind. “I wanted to find the biggest problem to solve,” says Bharadwaj, “and, by focusing on water, Pani is actually addressing a much larger issue: climate change. There’s nothing more important I could work on.”

DOUGLAS 53

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

BRANDON WRIGHT OF BARNACLE SYSTEMS

What was the scariest part of starting up? I started the company with a line of credit against my house. And I have a wife and a threeyear-old at home.

Recognizing that marine technology was falling behind the lucrative advancements in smart-home tech, Barnacle Systems looks to dominate the remote-monitoring and security market for recreational boats.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Listen to your customers. Talk to as many of them as you possibly can before you develop your product or start a business.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

What book or podcast have you found inspirational? Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff is a great book. And a podcast I really enjoy is This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis.

Barnacle Systems LIKE MANY GOOD STORIES, Barnacle Systems’ starts on a dark and stormy night — in January of 2017, when Brandon Wright’s sailboat broke its moorings in Mill Bay. After securing his boat, Wright immediately started researching the options for remote monitoring. To his surprise, he found nothing like the smart-home products flooding the market. Like any good entrepreneur, he took it

upon himself to develop the product he needed. “Our niche is security and monitoring for recreational boats that are being left at marinas or on mooring balls,” Wright says. “We developed BRNKL, a hardware product for boaters who need to check in on their vessel from their smartphone, tablet or computer. Like a home security system for your boat, BRNKL allows boaters to see inside of

their vessel with an onboard camera while monitoring critical alerts such as high-water alarms, low batteries, loss of shore power, and anchor-drag.” Recently, as one of 20 companies in the Canadian pavilion, Barnacle Systems became the first marine electronics company to exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). And Pacific Yachting magazine named BRNKL the Best

What would you do differently if you could do it all again? We launched our product at the middle market but our customers are primarily owners of the larger, expensive boats, so maybe launching the premium pro version first and then following up with the less-expensive version.

Innovation for 2019 in marine electronics. “We’re currently working on wireless sensors for our product, and we’re also working on our fleet system — both should come out this year,” Wright says. “Barnacle Systems wants to ‘own Canada’ in the remote-monitoring and security market for boats.”

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

DAMIR WALLENER AND TAMARA LEIGH OF EIO DIAGNOSTICS

What was the best business advice you ever received? LEIGH: Be nice to everyone on your way up because they’re the ones who will catch you on your way down.

Damir Wallener knew very little about cows, but that didn’t stop his company EIO Diagnostics from developing the technology to solve a serious issue affecting the dairy industry.

WALLENER: Have every conversation — you never know where they will take you. And don’t let fear stop you from trying.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? LEIGH: Build a great team. No one can do everything themselves; you want a team that brings different skills to the table. WALLENER: There’s no such thing as having too many conversations. Your work won’t matter unless you know what people really want; offer that.

TAMARA LEIGH AND DAMIR WALLENER

EIO Diagnostics ENTREPRENEUR DAMIR WALLENER never dreamed he’d launch a business focused on the dairy industry, but when a friend approached him about a sick animal on Vancouver Island and a farmer who needed help, he launched EIO Diagnostics. Partnering with experts in the tech and dairy industries, EIO created FirstLook Mastitis, a revolutionary early mastitis detection system that keeps dairy animals healthy and

farmers in business. Mastitis, an infection of the udder, is the most common health issue affecting the dairy industry. It costs farmers $10 billion per year globally, in treatment, production and animal loss. “What I knew was that we could do this — and we needed to create a product that worked for farmers, not just in the lab,” says Wallener, who is CEO of EIO. FirstLook sensors show farmers symptoms days before

a person would see physical signs. That means infected animals can be treated sooner, says Tamara Leigh, EIO’s chief marketing officer and agriculture expert. The system uses automated, touchless technology to measure udder heat in under one second. Because it doesn’t require internet, Wallener and Leigh hope it will one day support populations worldwide that rely on dairy animals.

What was the scariest part of starting up? WALLENER: There’s a moment when you have to decide if you’ll commit to this process — and it’s a long process — knowing there’s no guarantee of a successful outcome. That’s a leap of faith. You have to be sure you want this.

“When you can see what people really need, it gets you up in the morning,” says Leigh. “You don’t always know what barriers you’re going to face, but sometimes the path rises up to meet you. Farmers feed us — they’re the real rock stars — and we need to do everything we can to support them.”

DOUGLAS 57

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

VICTOR NICOLOV OF ANVY TECHNOLOGIES

What’s the best business advice you ever received? The best advice I received is that even though it can be exciting to keep adding cool features to your product, it’s more important to keep the business aspect of things in mind and not forget the goal. It doesn’t matter how cool your product is if no one wants it or even knows it exists.

Anvy Technologies invented a smart composting solution that brings sustainability right to the kitchen sink.

DEAN AZIM

What book or podcast have you found most inspirational? Not really a book or podcast, but: Steve Jobs’ grad speech at Stanford in 2005. A book that helped me a lot is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

Anvy Technologies MECHANICAL ENGINEERS can’t help but problem-solve, whether they’re working on aerospace technologies or finding new ways to compost. In Victor Nicolov’s case, it was the latter that led to the creation of Sepura Home — a smart composting system that attaches to a kitchen sink, much like a garburator. Sepura Home then separates all organic waste

into a sealed, odour-free unit that can be emptied as little as once a month for a family of four. “It started from an argument my wife and I were having about who had to take out the compost at our condo, and I was thinking it would be great if there was a device that would do that for us,” says Nicolov, who was an engineering student at the University of Victoria [UVic] at the time.

After running the idea past several professors and receiving support from UVic’s Innovation Centre — an on-campus idea accelerator — Nicolov launched Anvy Technologies and began troubleshooting his product design. One year later — after two UVic entrepreneurship awards, countless messy trials and four prototypes — Sepura Home

What would you do differently if you could do it all again? I would have started building my product earlier instead of obsessing over having a perfect design beforehand. By the time I was given this advice, I was already noticing that the most common thing slowing down my progress were problems I could have discovered earlier on by just building and trying the product.

successfully captures 95 per cent of solid organics that wash down a kitchen drain. Nicolov hopes his company’s green device, now in beta testing, will be the new norm in all future kitchen design. And with its recent addition to the BuiltGreen Catalogue, which lists products that meet industry certification in key areas of sustainability, Sepura Home is on its way.

DOUGLAS 59

MEDIA ONE IS A PROUD PARTNER OF DOUGLAS MAGAZINE AND THE 10 TO WATCH AWARDS

For the past ten years, we’ve been thankful for Douglas Magazine taking the time and building a platform to acknowledge the best in new Vancouver Island Businesses. To all this year’s winners, congratulations. We hope your stories continue to define the success and represent the diversity of our business community here on the Island.

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Q&A

10 TO WATCH WINNER 2019

WITH

ANTON SOLONNIKOV OF VITAMINLAB

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Expect the challenges you face will be something you don’t usually face in any other scenario. Persist through it — believe in what you know. Sometimes you have to grind out the tough times, because they will be there.

VitaminLab started with a simple question: Why can’t people have their vitamins customized the way their prescriptions are?

What was the scariest part of starting out? The unknown is the scariest part of starting anything. You have this idea, but you’re not sure if the market will accept it. Just keep going.

JOSHUA LAWRENCE

What book or podcast have you found most inspirational? The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma had an impact on me. It’s an inspirational look at how to take care of yourself in the full scope. It changed what I do.

VitaminLab ANTON SOLONNIKOV had been a pharmacist for a decade when he saw a better healthcare solution. People would come to Solonnikov’s pharmacy in search of the right vitamins, the right brands, the right dosages, and he would walk them through an aisle of options, aiming to get them as close as possible to what they’d need. “People would ask, ‘But what’s right for me?’ I’d recommend

what I could, but it’s different for everyone,” says Solonnikov. “As close as we’d get, it wouldn’t be totally personalized — and that didn’t seem right.” Disturbed by the discrepancies in quality and dosages, Solonnikov had an idea: What if he could give people access to customized vitamins, in much the same way other medicine is dispensed? The result is VitaminLab, an online, personalized supplement

supplier, based on specific DNA testing. “As a pharmacist, you see the health data and the solution, but there was no option for a custom vitamin,” he says. “Now a client can take a test and visualize their needs, so we can fill them.” Solonnikov says people in this region are commonly deficient in Vitamin D and Omega 3, but other needs are more complex to assess. VitaminLab removes the guesswork.

What would you do differently if you could do it all again? I think the way we got here was the right way, but it might have been nicer if we’d arrived quicker, and made some decisions sooner.

“A lot of people take vitamins but don’t know why, or what they need,” says Solonnikov, whose team now includes physicians and pharmacists throughout Canada and the U.S. “Just like a Starbucks order, you should be able to get something made entirely for you, and now you can.”

DOUGLAS 61

V2V Charts a New Course BY BILL CURRIE

62 DOUGLAS

When V2V Vacations launched its Victoria-to-Vancouver luxury catamaran service in 2017, they were greeted with high hopes and some skepticism. But the Australia-based company is nothing if not determined as it prepares for a new season with some big strategic changes.

A GOOD SAILOR knows when to change course. Understanding that is also critical to staying afloat when starting a business venture, especially in new waters. V2V Vacations discovered as much when it launched its luxury, high-speed 242-seat catamaran service between Victoria and Vancouver in May 2017 with a $14 million dollar capital investment and hit some rough patches. In August of 2017, just three months after launching, the V2V Empress lost both engines and spent four months in dry dock before new engines could be procured and installed at a cost of $2 million. Then there have been lowerthan-expected passenger numbers during the winter months.

Now, under the helm of a new general manager, V2V has charted a new course for 2019. Instead of sailing out of Victoria to Vancouver in the mornings, the V2V Empress will change direction and sail from Vancouver to Victoria, returning to its mainland home port later in the day. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have not done day trips before,â&#x20AC;? says GM Julian Wright, the nephew of Hume Campbell, whose Australia-based company Riverside Marine is the parent company of V2V Vacations. A fourth generation family company, Riverside has been in the marine business for 93 years, running passenger ferries, tug boats and barges, dredging services and sand sales.

Featuring an exterior design by local Indigenous artist William Cook, the 38.5-metre V2V Empress is a 242-passenger, high-speed catamaran that makes the trip between Vancouver and Victoria in three and a half hours.

DOUGLAS 63

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So why has V2V moved its home port to Vancouver and literally switched the direction of its sailings? “We’re going after tourists; that’s where more of the traffic is. Generally people want to maximize their time in Victoria — after all, it’s an iconic part of B.C.,” says Wright, who took over early in 2018, having previously worked as commercial manager of RiverWijs, a division of Riverside Marine, providing terminal towage to an Australian oil and gas company. The data essentially made it obvious what V2V had to do. In 2018, which Wright calls a turning point, the V2V team embarked on a campaign to ask customers what they wanted, then ran the data and compared and contrasted it with other service providers such as the Victoria Clipper and Harbour Air. “We started to track why people were not booking with us, and overwhelmingly people wanted to leave in the morning from Vancouver and leave Victoria as late as possible,” Wright explains. “Traditionally, it’s very busy in the morning in Vancouver and then very busy in the afternoon in Victoria, and that’s just the way the traffic runs.” Even “concierges in hotels in Vancouver say the number-one question they get is how to get to Victoria for the day,” says Wright, who believes the new day-trip schedule, which will take passengers on a three-and-a-half-hour trip through Active Pass, the Gulf Islands, Haro Strait and Trial Island into Victoria Harbour, will drive the company’s goal of doubling its business in 2019. Although he says 2018 was a good year, he would not reveal revenue or ridership numbers,

but he does say the numbers were not as strong as hoped for the winter months, which has led V2V to cancel winter service. “That decision came down primarily because the numbers were not strong. We were hit by a number of weather events,” Wright says, adding that it’s not much fun to be rolling around on winter seas. “We only have the one vessel,” he adds, “and we need to look after her as much as possible.”

BIG MARKET As the West Coast’s biggest urban centre, Vancouver is a gateway for tourists arriving in the Pacific Northwest. With its large international airport and 23,000 hotel rooms in the metro area, it is also one of the country’s strongest tourism markets. Until now, Wright says, V2V’s business model had been split evenly between attracting local and business customers on one hand, and tourists on the other. Now, with its sights set squarely on tourists, Wright is convinced it will pay off. And he’s not alone. “There are over 10 million visitors a year in Vancouver with options of how they come to Victoria — I think this is just fantastic,” says Paul Nursey, president and CEO of Destination Greater Victoria. “It just makes good business sense.” But first the business case was tested. “We had some good numbers last year when we

The V2V Empress follows a route from Vancouver through Active Pass and the Gulf Islands, across the Salish Sea to Victoria and back.

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made a short trial of a day-trip schedule and a really good response to that in October on short notice,” Wright says. “So I think that’s very encouraging.” “I think Victoria benefits more than Vancouver,” says Eugene Thomlinson, associate professor in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Royal Roads University. “... you’re taking these visitors that may have spent time in Vancouver and you’re bringing them to Victoria to spend their money for the day.”

GROWTH IS THE PRIORITY V2V Vacations is not the first company that has thought of a passenger ferry service between Victoria and Vancouver. The Victoria Clipper thought about doing it and didn’t, saying in 2017 that the larger vessel required for the

service would mean constructing a new float and driving new pilings in Vancouver Harbour. At the time, the company wouldn’t rule out future plans. “We never say never,” CEO David Gudgel told the Times Colonist. “We want to be part of the transportation fabric and part of the tourism industry here in a big way. [The route] is basically tabled, it’s always an option.” Previous to that, in 1993, a Norwegian company called Royal Sealink launched a

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Victoria-to-Vancouver service and shut down after less than two years in business in the wake of leaking millions of dollars due to low ridership. That may have been 26 years ago, but questions still persist, which Wright is quick to address. “We’re here for the long run. This is not a flash in the pan. We have a history with start-up ventures for the long run and making them successful.” Thomlinson agrees. “First of all, it’s a large investment. You’re not going to jump into it without taking a hard look at the numbers. And there’s enough support and deep pockets from the overall company.” “They have communicated to me on several occasions that they’re in for the long haul and would like to do other things,” Nursey adds. Wright will not say how much V2V has invested to date, but he does note that growing V2V Vacations is the priority right now. “We’re very responsive to change and to challenges,” he adds. “There may be more challenges to come up this year and more adjustments.” For instance, this year V2V will move from three tiers of service on board its vessel to two, with fares staying the same as last year. The cost of a one-way premier class trip is $110 to $120, and a one-way royal class trip is between $165 to $180 depending on the month. Locals and senior citizens receive a 10to 15-per-cent discount depending on the class they select.

LESSONS LEARNED Wright notes there is more brand building work to be done for V2V. “Brand awareness in Victoria is pretty strong with the locals and the tourism industry,” he notes, “and it’s [in] Vancouver where we’ve had to build from the grassroots last year. But in the wider tourism market, we have a lot of work to do.” Nursey believes V2V Vacations can scale over time. “As they get more business partners, they get more distribution partners,” he says, adding that as long as they continue moving in a positive direction, the future looks good. As for talk about a second vessel that was in V2V’s original business plan, “We’re pressing pause on that,” says Wright, “but it’s definitely in the growth options. We have to find out a lot more about what the customers want.” And that learning is essential to success, says Wright. “If you are not taking lessons learned in a startup,” he adds, “you’re calling it off too early.” With a forecast of another strong tourism year, it’s full-throttle ahead for V2V Vacations as it continues to hone its business plan and build brand awareness while charting a new course for growth. ■ 68 DOUGLAS

When true passion drives real growth Written by Christian Thomson, CEO of Marwick Internet Marketing

have some exciting news to share! I’ve just learned that we made it through to the third and final round of the Small Business BC for “Best Immigrant Entrepreneur.” I’m so happy to have made it this far with so much competition in British Columbia. It got me thinking of how it all came about, and how creating something out of nothing got us to where we are today. What did it take to get Marwick Internet Marketing to 16 employees, 35% YoY growth and recognized by Google as a Premier Google Partner agency with ZERO investment? Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning, in this case, was July 28th, 2012. This was the date Theresa and I arrived in Canada with our three children and Eva the Pug. Theresa had advanced stage 4 Lymphoma, and we had no money, no assets, and a huge medical bill. In the chaos of getting to Canada between chemo treatments, our UK business started to fail, and we decided to dispose of it, leaving us with no income in Canada and a family to support. I had also landed as a British citizen on a visitor visa, unable to get a regular job. I would have to create an income — and fast. I thought about all the things I enjoyed about running my old business, to see what transferable skills I might have in Canada. Bare in mind I was a surf coach and surf school operator, so not really compatible with living in Langley, BC! However, the marketing of our surf business, and specifically digital marketing, really jumped out at me as skills I loved, and I decided to use my time between being a tourist and permanent resident to create Marwick Internet Marketing. Starting again, not knowing anyone and

not knowing the business environment of That is until you revisit the WHY. Why am I a new country was both a blessing and a doing what I’m doing? Keep asking WHY and curse. The blessing was that I was able to you’ll find the passion. Those bummed out think long and hard about why our old surf days are just there to remind us WHY; they business fell apart. The lack of processes and are not there to stop us. This is where the systems meant that I was the pin holding it commitment comes in. 85% of businesses fail all together. It was a stressful job that I had before they hit the $1M mark. It’s a rough ride unknowingly created for myself. Knowing this, I set out from day one to create Marwick Internet Marketing as a business that would soon make me redundant — a company that was strong because of the company of the team, not one individual. The second thing I wanted to ensure was that my passions remain high — my passion to grow a business, my passion to employ the right people who fit our brand, my passion to help other businesses grow by generating more revenue from their online presence. Without passion, it would be just a job. With passion it would be a fantastic hobby. However, passion doesn’t just fall from a tree one day; passion comes from completely believing I know first-hand that seeing someone in what and why your else’s business succeed is extremely company does what it does. rewarding, as is being able to support At Marwick Internet Marketing, our core value your family, seeing your idea come to is to be the trusted digital life and then growing to levels that marketing partner to help were once just a dream. companies succeed online. I know first-hand that seeing someone else’s business succeed growing a business. You’ll have days where is extremely rewarding, as is being able to you feel like a king, everything you touch support your family, seeing your idea come to turns to gold and you’ll have days where life and then growing to levels that were once things go wrong. When it rains, it pours. just a dream. Commitment is the unwavering belief that For me, it’s easy to have a passion for you can achieve the goals you have set. Marwick and our clients’ companies, but Finally, when you’re equipped with some days are bad days — some days you processes, passion and commitment, you just want to quit. really can do anything.

Christian Thomson is the CEO of Marwick Internet Marketing, a BC-based digital marketing agency helping companies dominate their sector on Google. 38142 Cleveland Avenue, #204 Squamish, BC V8B 0A7

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70 DOUGLAS

THE COLOUR OF SUCCESS

When master distiller Peter Hunt’s first attempts to create a gin celebrating the Fairmont Empress resulted in a strange indigo liquid, he thought it was a terrible mistake. But customers, from Victoria to New York and beyond, soon couldn’t get enough of the indigo spirit.

■ BY CINDA CHAVICH

STEVE DRAKE

hen Peter Hunt set out to create a gin to celebrate the centennial of Victoria’s historic Fairmont Empress Hotel, he chose both classic and unique botanicals. There would be plenty of juniper and coriander for old-world style, plus contemporary touches of lively grapefruit peel and ginger root. But the most unique addition to the Empress 1908 Gin was a blue butterfly pea blossom from Thailand, which tints the gin a very royal purple and has made the spirit a hit both here and abroad. “Empress 1908 Gin may soon be Canada’s most popular premium spirit export,” says Hunt, Victoria Distillers’ young president and master distiller, whose indigo gin recently surpassed Hendrick’s as the most popular premium gin sold in the province, and is now selling across Canada, in 22 U.S. states, and in the U.K. and Japan. “Victoria Gin always did well, but Empress Gin surpassed Victoria Gin sales in five weeks,” says Hunt,

“and within six months it was the best-selling premium gin in B.C.” Hunt is the son of Bryan and Valerie Murray who opened an artisanal distillery called Victoria Spirits in 2008. They produced the eponymous Victoria Gin whose original bottling, with the image of a young Queen Victoria on the label, was launched at the Empress. In 2015, the Murrays sold the company to Grant Rogers of Marker Group, and he expanded with a new larger distillery and tasting lounge on the waterfront in Sidney, rebranding as Victoria Distillers in 2016. Peter Hunt remained with the new company as president and master distiller. With the new gin so wildly popular, he is preparing to install a third still at the small Vancouver Island distillery to keep up with demand. “Our production has increased tenfold in the last year,” he says. Empress 1908 Gin is now the flagship spirit for Victoria Distillers, a boutique distillery which, like many, started with a dream of making whisky. Gin was a way DOUGLAS 71

to help distinguish the brand while the brown spirits aged in barrels, but Hunt says their whisky, rum and bitters projects have been eclipsed by their bold new gin. How the colourful butterfly pea blossom ended up in the botanicals for Empress 1908 Gin is a fascinating story. Hunt says he was experimenting with various botanicals, including some of the signature Empress Hotel afternoon tea blends, while working on the new spirit named for the year the historic hotel opened. The intense royal-blue colour was accidental, says Hunt, a result of infusing the Blue Suede Shoes blend of green tea and butterfly pea blossoms into a batch. When the gin turned colour he says he thought it was a nonstarter. “I’d never heard of butterfly pea flowers,” he says. “We almost threw out the whole batch — who would buy this?” But the gin, which so perfectly complements the amethyst accents in the new décor of the hotel’s modern Q bar, found instant fans. Soon hotel guests were grabbing a cab to the one government liquor store in Victoria that was selling the new spirit to buy a bottle. The other exciting and unexpected side effect of this infusion is its ability to magically change colour. Just add a splash of tonic or a little acidic citrus juice, and the royal purple spirit morphs to lavender and pretty pink. It’s what has brought mixologists to the Empress 1908 Gin in droves, but Hunt said he didn’t initially know his gin would transform this way in the glass. It wasn’t until they began creating cocktails for a local Art of the Cocktail event that they realized how the colour evolves, depending on what mixer was used. “We had no idea why this was happening,” he says. “We were sitting

PHOTOS: JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

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 Victoria Distillers has increased production tenfold in the last year. The distillery produces gin, vodka, liqueur and whisky at its Sidney facility — and will soon add rum to its list of premium spirits.

C M

 The butterfly pea flower, which

gives the Empress 1908 Gin its indigo hue, is native to Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia, where it is often used as a natural food colouring.

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at the bar in the distillery lounge, shaking up cocktails, and we were scratching our heads, trying to figure out why we had so many different colour variations.” The butterfly pea flower blooms on a climbing vine in tropical Asian climates, where it is traditional for indigo teas in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The petals are also used to garnish salads and desserts, and to create blue rice dishes and puddings. As it’s nearly impossible to add a natural purple hue to a drink, creative bartenders began using the tropical plant in their own cocktail infusions, says Rob Williams, the new bar manager at the Empress Hotel’s Q Lounge.

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“Where I come from, in the U.K., there’s been a gin boom,” says Williams. “Ten years ago there were four or five brands in Scotland; now it’s close to 100.” But now he’s fielding calls from bartending colleagues from as far away as Australia about Empress 1908 Gin. “It’s outselling everything — I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Williams, who also has barkeep colleagues in Edinburgh, London and New York asking him about the popular blue gin made in his new backyard. Williams puts Empress Gin on par with other new premium products like The Botanist Gin, produced by Bruichladdich Distillery in Scotland. With 50 per cent juniper in the botanicals, plus intense citrus notes, he categorizes Empress Gin as “a contemporary London dry.” It’s now the top gin poured in the hotel’s Q dining room and lounge. The Q-1908, a frothy lavender sour, is the bar’s signature drink, just one of the many gin cocktails that now make up nearly half of what’s ordered in Q. “Last year we sold 23,000 drinks using Empress Gin, 60 per cent of our total gin sales,” says Williams. “We make a lot of French 75s using Empress gin, Negronis, and our Royal Auxiliary.” “Q is seen as a martini bar, and our highest selling cocktail is the gin martini — but we made 7,000 Empress G&Ts last year, too.” Jeff Guignard, executive director of the Alliance of Beverage Licensees (ABLE BC) says gin is riding a popularity wave that coincides with the growing cocktail culture and the craft distilling craze. “Gin, as a category, is doing tremendously well,” Guignard says, citing national statistics showing gin sales are up more than 30 per cent since 2010, with a six per cent increase in B.C. between 2017 and 2018 alone. “Ten years ago there were maybe five B.C. distilleries; now there are 60,” he says. “Bartenders today are extremely competent

and experienced, and small spirit producers are making good connections with them. “Plus, when you’re selling something hyperlocal, consumers will pay for that experience.” Though gin trails other spirits in total sales — whisky and vodka being Canada’s most popular drinks — spirit sales continue to rise with sophisticated young consumers expected to spend $26.6 billion on spirits by 2020, while the artisan gin movement continues to expand worldwide.

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When it comes to colourful gins, there are some copycat spirits but Hunt says Empress 1908 was the first blue gin. Recent releases of “colour-changing gin” using the butterfly pea flower include Ink, a small-batch gin from Australia, The Illusionist Dry Gin in a black bottle from Munich, and Sharish Blue Magic Gin from Portugal. There are other coloured gins from small producers in Canada, too — like the electric yellow Ungava from Quebec that gets its sunny hue from arctic plants including rosehips, bakeapple and Labrador Tea, or Dillon’s amber Rose Gin made with rosehip and rose petals — but Empress 1908 Gin is the only homegrown gin that morphs from deep purple to full-on candy floss pink. Though some say the indigo colour is “gimmicky,” Hunt says the butterfly pea flower adds an earthy flavour and rich mouth feel to Empress gin. It’s won several medals at international competitions this year in blind tastings — Gold at the 2017 New York World Wine & Spirits Competition, Gold and Best in Class at the 2018 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition, Best Canadian Classic Gin at the 2018 World Gin Awards, and double gold at the

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

 Peter Hunt, president and master distiller at Victoria Distillers, has a background in molecular biology and genetics and, yes, bartending.

2018 San Diego International Wine and Spirits Challenge. It’s on the menu at the Plaza Hotel in New York and The American Bar in London’s Savoy Hotel. Hunt says Empress 1908 Gin fits well into the growing trend toward unique gin offerings, especially in the U.K. where gin has never really gone out of fashion. According to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association in the U.K., gin sales rose by 28 per cent in volume (and 33 per cent in value) to reach £1.5 billion in the year ending in March 2018, with sales more than doubling in the past five years. Victoria’s Empress 1908 Gin may also be riding the wave of pink cocktails. The association points to a recent “craze” for coloured and savoury gins, including pink products from major makers — Gordon’s Pink and Beefeater Pink, raspberry-infused Pinkster, Edgerton’s rosy London Pink Gin, Warner Edwards pink Rhubarb gin, and Luxardo’s sour cherry gin. Empress 1908 Gin hits both trends, a naturally deep-purple spirit that makes pretty lavender and pink drinks. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Ultra Violet, a blue-based purple, was the 2018 Pantone colour of the year — “a dramatically provocative and thoughtful purple shade” that “communicates originality, ingenuity and visionary thinking” and offers “a higher ground to those seeking refuge from today’s overstimulated world.” Cheers to that! ■

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FIND EVERYTHING RIGHT HERE, IN DOWNTOWN VICTORIA

Your Place to Be

 Your Place to Be video participant, Mar Dolinski-French, shares a moment with friends on Pandora Avenue. Head to yp2b.ca to find out what downtown means to her.  Beautiful Johnson Street as seen from inside jewellery retailer, Little Gold. Our colourful downtown is full of vibrant people who live, work and play here. Another YP2B participant, Nathan Davis loves living and working downtown because it’s where he gets to be his authentic self. Who do you get to be when you’re downtown? We want to know. Go to yp2b.ca to participate.

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Between meetings, emails, and notifications is that oh-so-precious time when true connections happen. While those rare moments can feel fleeting these days, they simply unfold naturally when you’re downtown. ■ by Anne-Sophie Dumetz, for Downtown Victoria

rom budding entrepreneurs to established leaders, artists to engineers, community builders to event producers, live performers to restauranteurs — and every dream in between — we get to be, and become, whoever we aspire to be when we’re downtown. It’s all possible, welcomed, and expected to unfold here. Downtown Victoria is more than the economic and tourism engine of our region: it’s the heart of Victoria. This revelation had our team at the Downtown Victoria Business Association excited. So, we stopped, closed the digital distractions, and paused to look beyond the daily headlines to see all the other stories intersecting downtown. This is the reason we — a business association with

close to 1,500 members — are spearheading the Your Place to Be storytelling project. So we can collect and share our stories. Why? To remind us all about the true stories of downtown: the ones you and I write every day. We are sharing these authentic, unscripted stories of locals expressing who they are when they come downtown. The stories are diverse, as unique as who we are, together. Now, we’re not claiming to have every story. For that, we’d need yours, too. So, Victoria, who do you get to be when you’re downtown? To see the current set of Downtown Victoria’s Your Place to Be videos, get to know the project and find out how to get involved, visit downtownvictoria.ca/yp2b or yourplacetobyyj.ca.

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THE REB RAND

THE BEER FOR THOSE WHO LOVE IT HERE. 80 DOUGLAS

Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Greener Cleaner Store

DO-AND-DON’T LESSONS FROM ISLAND REBRANDS

C HALLENGE T

he bear grotto at The Soap Exchange, complete with its fake rocks and fuzzy stuffed bear, was once a beloved spot for children to play while their parents shopped — but it definitely gave the shop a dated early-90s vibe. A longtime retailer of environmentally friendly cleaning supplies, the Hillside shop had its product displayed on crowded and rough plaster shelving, with little organization. “It was all fun and funky, but it really wasn’t functional,” says owner Wes Koch. With the knowledge that he needed a succession plan for the long term, Koch started working with Gary Linford of ReGeneration Family Business Transitions, and the idea of a rebrand was born. As Koch explains, he wanted to stick with the business’s core values but freshen it up and “get it out of the 90s.” He realized he couldn’t do

it on his own and needed to bring in professional help. “I don’t profess to know anything about that stuff, and it can be daunting,” Koch says. “Where do you start? What does it entail? What do you focus on?” That’s when Doug Brown of Brand Intervention was brought in. “When I first met Wes, he recognized the need to do something, which is really important — that was the foot in the door,” Brown says. “But he had no intention of doing anything to the interior of the shop. He felt he had spent 25 years of his life investing in relationships with people, and that they came to the store and expected to find the bear in the nook, and they liked the fact that the ceiling was the sky and there were painted rivers running across the floor.” Brown recognized improving the shop’s interior would ultimately benefit the customer’s experience of the brand, but he also knew forcing change could be emotionally wrenching to any business owner. To help Koch with the process, Brand Intervention talked to the Soap Exchange customer base, surveying between 300 and 400 customers. “A business doesn’t see itself aging the same way the market does because it’s like looking in the mirror every day — you don’t notice the subtle changes,” Brown says. “His customers were asking for the change. So that’s when Wes took a deep sigh and said the bear grotto had its day and it was time to move on.” Guided through an extensive renovation by interior designer Marika Beise of Rock Paper Square, and the builder Gerry Burnside, Koch — and his customers — are thrilled by the new modern, clean and organized space. “Now it’s more obvious what we do,

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There are a number of reasons a company might want to rebrand. The business may have evolved since it started and needs to reflect that growth. Sometimes it’s an opportunity or even an innovation in the market, and a business is forced to adapt to stay competitive. Perhaps it’s a generational turnover within the company. Both internal and external market forces can create the need for change. “There’s no one critical time,” Brown says. “Sometimes going out into the market and finding out the state of your brand is the most eyeopening thing to do.” As Jeff Bezos is famously quoted as saying, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” For Aaron Bergunder, creative director at The Number, there needs to be a serious trigger for a rebrand — a company shouldn’t go into the BEFORE process simply because it feels a vague uncertainty about their brand. “If people in the business are AFTER just saying ‘it feels kinda stale to me,’ then they aren’t going into it with enough heart and confidence — and enough fear — to execute it properly.” The Number’s rebrand for Tourism Tofino didn’t actually start as a rebranding project. The agency was hired to redesign the destination marketing organization’s

The renovation at The Soap Exchange made the shop cleaner and brighter — “something you would want for Victoria’s greener cleaner store,” says Doug Brown of Brand Intervention. Lori Koch of Bravo Advertising (Wes’s sister) reimagined the earth symbol and the exchange icon of the old logo, and flowed these elements together for a more modern, stylized logo.

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(DMO) website. The rebrand trigger happened when the DMO realized that no matter how much money or design went into their website, it was going to be ugly unless certain existing assets were changed. “The colours, typeface and patterns they were using made them look more like a waterslide park,” Bergunder says. “It was all reds, yellows and blues that said ‘family friendly’ but not necessarily what people think of as Tofino, which is going into the woods and not seeing anybody, or spending the day on a beach and having a fire. Those are the things we tried to tap into.” However, certain existing elements were working. Bergunder says a crucial part of a rebrand is setting parameters. For example, Tofino’s “photography game was perfect,” so the creative agency didn’t need to touch that.

BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

and we’re definitely seeing new customers,” Koch says. ”People are taking more interest in the store, day in and day out.” While Koch admits it wasn’t easy, he advises other business owners going through a rebrand to move away from their personal attachments to any elements of their brand and to focus on what is best for the business and customers.

The existing word mark, originally designed by Alice Young, “looked like the town” and resonated with locals and visitors alike. “It comes down to what you want to change because it’s not working, not throwing out everything and starting fresh,” Bergunder says. “Sometimes you might start a rebranding process and realize how much is working. You make smaller tweaks and have a stronger understanding of who you are moving forward but that doesn’t mean you need to change every piece of collateral. You can really scale a rebrand as much as you want to. You don’t have to chuck everything.”

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WHAT’S IN A NAME? According to Doug Brown of Brand Intervention, changing a business name can be very emotional for many business owners. “There are blood, sweat and tears in a name and a lot has been invested in getting traction for it in the market,” he says. That said, he believes acknowledging that emotional context can validate the business owner’s feelings and open up a discussion to the opportunities a new name could bring, including faster uptake with the consumer; greater clarity about the business offering; and defining the company’s attitude. “These are all benefits to the business that begin as benefits to the customer,” he explains. “Focusing on the customer experience is the key. With that in the crosshairs, emotions can settle and good business decisions about the name change can flow.” When there is a case for a new name, he advises developing a brand-new name, not “Frankensteining” parts of the old name with something new. “A rebrand may subtly tip its hat to the former brand, but it needs to have its own life if it’s to give new life,” he says. “That’s the goal of a rebrand — to breathe new life into an old brand, to invigorate the business and the market.”

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 The first appearance of Vancouver Island’s Brewing’s whale was on a label for their Piper’s Pale Ale in 1999. It officially became the brewery’s main logo in 2003.



The 2016/2017 rebrand changed the name to VI and focused on a minimalist-style hexagonal logo, moving completely away from the existing design with the iconic orca.

The most recent rebrand pays homage to the company’s three-decade long heritage, as well as its Island location.

brewery worked with creative agency One Twenty Three West, who helped the team understand the business needed to retain its Island feel and get back to the elements that made the brand great historically while also modernizing. “First, we needed to convey an Island feel that would resonate with Island consumers. The other part was bringing the whale back — that was a big piece of our identity in the past,” Bjerrisgaard says. “And along with that, really showcasing the Island locations and look and feel. I feel like we nailed it that second time around, but we would have been in real trouble if we didn’t.”

STRATEGY BEFORE CREATIVE so to speak, of the craft beer community. We were becoming your dad’s craft beer more than anything else. As a result, we decided to do a brand update and take it in an extreme direction. It was a swing for the fences to see how modern the brand could be, and ultimately that proved to be a mistake.” The 2016/2017 rebrand changed the name to VI and focused on a minimalist-style hexagonal logo, moving completely away from the existing design with the iconic orca. While feedback from the market was mixed, the loss of sales on the Island was the true indicator that the rebrand had failed.

“You want to own your backyard as much as you can,” Bjerrisgaard says. “That rebrand just didn’t take. It was much too ambiguous and not focused on celebrating the namesake we have.” Bjerrisgaard points to a number of lessons, the foremost being that while it’s important to evolve and change, a business should not completely abandon its past. “If you are looking to do some changes, take it in a ‘slow down to speed up’ approach,” he says. “Pace it correctly, listen to the people around you, collaborate and don’t try and change the world overnight.” For the second round of its rebrand, the

So what separates a successful rebrand from a failure? Brown says rebranding should always tackle the strategic questions before launching into the creative. First you have to figure out what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. He advises companies to ask themselves certain analytical questions: What are your advantages and disadvantages in the market? What’s your promise to the market going to be? What are you going to fall on your sword over? Who are you not going to be for? “All of these questions have to be decided before you figure out how to go out and express that as a brand.”

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84 DOUGLAS

BEYOND THE LOGO

The best way to get these answers is by pulling in as many voices as you Many companies mistake brand for can. For Bergunder, the logo. first stage of a rebrand “You’d be surprised how many entails helping a business people start there for a rebrand,” says trying to figure out what Doug Brown of Brand Intervention. its business really is. “One of the most common phone calls I His company engages in get is ‘Do you do logos? Because that’s “brand sprints” where what we’re looking for, a new logo.’” they spend two days in a More times than not, these callers room with the client doing find out there is a lot of work to do intensive digging. before they’re ready for the logo, a “That’s really the first stage which comes much later in the key step,” Bergunder says. “Figuring out the root of their brand. And that can be by listening to their consumers or their key staff, or a combination. You have to be honest with yourself. You can’t represent your brand properly if you are not being a genuine human. It doesn’t work in 2019. It’s really digging into all that, finding that purpose and, at the end of day, something that’s visually exciting for your customers.” At Vancouver Island Brewing, Bjerrisgaard says the approach on the first rebrand was very insular, describing it as a top-down approach from the leadership at the brewery at the time (the brewery did have a leadership change between the two rebrands). “It was not the collaborative process that it should have been and did not take into account the past loyalty of customers who loved Vancouver Island Brewing the way it was,” he says. “It was very much focused on making big changes and wasn’t listening to the customer or even the internal team.” By contrast, the second time it was very much a “group-think process,” Bjerrisgaard says, which included the team-at-large in the brewery, from the general manager to the staff on the production floor.

rebranding process. But on a journey where the starting point isn’t always clear, the outward-facing logo seems the logical place for the uninitiated. “Your logo is one ingredient out of a hundred things that make up your brand,” says Aaron Bergunder of The Number creative agency. “Your brand is how you talk about yourself; it’s where you exist, what social platforms you choose to use or not use. It’s every decision you make

and every way you communicate. All of these things add up to your brand. It sounds extremely overwhelming, but at the same time, a lot of it comes naturally — it’s all second nature.” A rebrand process should capture all of these elements and write the unwritten rules of your company, from the signage to the fonts and typeface to the palettes and the guidelines for your visual content — right down to your preferred Instagram filter.

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SHARE THE PROCESS While it may be intuitive to keep your cards close until the entire rebrand is ready for the big reveal, it’s actually to a company’s benefit to share the journey, ups and downs. “Don’t be afraid to admit you screwed up,” Bjerrisgaard says. “The number of people who responded when we talked about what happened was affirming. You can come back from mistakes if you own them.” To create more engagement in your social media, Brown advises letting customers know what’s happening. For many small businesses, the idea of inviting people in can be a scary thing to do, but keeping them at a distance can be a missed opportunity. “What are you using social media for if not to build relationships with people?” Brown asks. “And how do you build relationships? You invite them into your process.” ■

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DOUGLAS 85

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SOURCE: INDEED.CA

86 DOUGLAS

Remote Control

The Mahrt Investment Group

How to Keep Your Team Together in the New World of Work In a tight, competitive hiring climate, many employers have begun holding out remote-working as a carrot to attract and keep employees. So how do you remotely manage communications, productivity and logistics — and keep your company culture alive? BY ALEX VAN TOL

he world of work is changing dramatically. Going and gone are corner offices and 9-to-5 work days. In many workplaces, some employees work on site, others pop in via video, and still others share “hot desks” or text in from co-working spaces. According to a Global Analytics survey, 80 per cent of employees want to work remotely part or all of the time. Remote working has big advantages — and big worries. In fact, a major fear for employers is the loss of control once they open themselves up to hiring remote workers. And that fear is not unfounded — when you hire remote employees, you do lose that in-house contact, be it the simple watercooler exchanges or the regular in-person conversations that make it so easy to stay up to date on what’s happening.

THE RIGHT TOOLS TO COMMUNICATE Keeping communication channels open is therefore a must, so it’s important to find the tool that works best for your team — and it’s likely not email, as threads are unwieldy and difficult to sift through in the event you need to go back and look for a detail or an attachment. There are numerous project management tools available, from Trello to Wrike to LiquidPlanner, so ask around and do some research to find the one that fits your business model. Slack comes up again and again as an excellent tool to keep teams connected on projects they’re partnered on and to store the documentation that goes along with them.

Teams can create specific channels to talk about their own projects, but all channels can be made open so others can see what’s going on around the company. Dyspatch, a Victoria-based production platform that boosts enterprise performance in transactional email, has an office of 15 in San Francisco, one remote worker in Chicago and two in Duncan. Slack is their go-to for staying connected. “Our employee in Chicago, he’s part of the product team,” says Noah Warder, Dyspatch’s director of operations. “There’s a product channel where he and his two team members, who are both in Victoria, will ... talk about what’s going on, what projects are happening, who’s responsible for what, and ask for any clarification there.” Similar to Slack is Asana, which Dyspatch uses to handle task and project management. Team members can make notifications and comments, add tasks and direct materials to other team members. “If you’re checking your Asana inbox on a daily basis, you get all the updates that happened the day before on your projects,” says Warder. The moment wires get crossed, Warder’s team will hop on a Zoom call.

HOW TO MEET WHEN YOU CAN’T MEET While project management platforms work to keep teams in flow, they’re not the best option for when wires get crossed — or for keeping company culture on track. Engaged HR owner Denise Lloyd, who employs a full-time remote worker in Vancouver

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DOUGLAS 87

and allows local employees to occasionally work from home, begins every week with a Mondaymorning Skype meeting with the entire team. “We have a camera and a microphone and a TV in our boardroom,” says Lloyd, “and so [our Vancouver employee] is on the TV and is a part of that meeting just like anybody.” “Videoconferencing enables us to take the emotional pulse of others on our teams in a way that email, software and even the telephone just can’t.” RAVEN Trust executive director Susan Smitten uses GoToMeeting to gather her staff and contractors in a video conference every Monday morning. Having experienced incredible growth over the past few years — RAVEN is an Indigenous peoples’ legal defense fund to protect their constitutional rights — Smitten realized she needed a way to ensure everyone was aligned. “There was a clear need to have a cohesiveness to all of the objectives and tasks that we were trying to accomplish,” she says. “Much like a phone call, videoconference is direct. We can achieve the weekly agenda of eight people within an hour.” After each meeting, Smitten says, there’s a better sense of people’s energy. If people notice that someone on the team feels particularly stretched or stressed, the team can adapt.

88 DOUGLAS

RingPartner is a pay-per-call marketplace based in Victoria. Its team numbers around 30, with three or four people working remotely. (In a bid to entice great workers to stick around, RingPartner introduced “core hours” in 2017, where employees must clock in between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.; after that, it’s up to the individual to figure out where in their personal schedule the rest of their workload fits.) Local and remote employees alike are always present for RingPartner’s daily 10:07 a.m. meeting over Zoom. (Setting the meeting for a weird time actually means everyone shows up on time, says CEO Todd Dunlop.) For example,

one of their developers lives in Kelowna, but she stays an active part of the team by attending the 10:07 meeting, and then meeting with the development team afterward. “So they have a rhythm,” says Dunlop. “That communication has been really consistent, which I think has helped with it being as successful as it has been.”

GET IN THE MINDSET The most important issue for any employer is finding the right person to fit the job. Given the cost of living in Victoria — and your ability to pay a competitive wage — you may not find

Keep the Personal Touch As great as remote working can be if it’s set up properly, nothing replaces the personal touch, so do find ways to keep that in-person connection, even if it’s just once a year. Once a month, Engaged HR brings its Vancouver employee to Victoria for the day. For RingPartner, it’s worthwhile to bring employees in for quarterly

meetings as well as the endof-year holiday party. “Yes, that’s an extra cost to the company,” says Dunlop. “But it’s part of the commitment we’ve made. We try to find the best person in the best situation fit for the job.” Dyspatch sometimes flies its people around to meet, at one point bringing the entire Canadian team to San Francisco for an all-hands

group-up, and once they even experimented with meeting in the middle, in Oregon. “That was a nightmare to coordinate,” recalls Warder. “But we do often send individual team members to either office, or fly our Chicago employee into one of the offices to work with his team for a week or so. So we do get that sort of cross pollination.”

80% OF WORKERS

WANT TO WORK REMOTELY PART OR ALL OF THE TIME, ACCORDING TO A SURVEY BY GLOBAL WORKPLACE ANALYTICS.

that right person if you restrict yourself to an in-house role. “If you want to work with the right people who are called to [the work you have available],” says Smitten, “then you have to meet them where they are.” There’s also the newly emerging research about how we work best. Maybe you read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, in which author Susan Cain debunks the myth of true creativity being a product of constant collaboration. Perhaps you’ve also read the findings from Harvard researchers that the open-concept office reduces meaningful face-to-face time. And hot-desking, where nobody has their own space? Just don’t. Studies show it correlates to an increase in relational strain, a sense of marginalization and greater distraction. Whatever your office plan, employees often experience frequent interruption from other employees looking to bounce ideas around or find quick answers. Letting people work remotely even some of the time can create more efficiencies. When he introduced RingPartner’s core-hours structure, Dunlop recognized that the flexibility in how people manage their work time adds value and balance to the realities of modern life. “Be it a generational thing, or because you have other commitments,” he says, “you find [people thinking], ‘You know what? I’d much rather do my tedious work at night, because I can just get it done in an hour, versus it would take me three hours if I were surrounded by people.’” With that in mind, one of the mental transitions employers must make is to understand that the work is about the outcomes and the results you’ve assigned — and whether you’re getting those results. “And if you are getting them, then it doesn’t matter where they sat while they did that work,” Lloyd says. “Was it in a coffee shop? Was it in their home office? Was it in your office? It doesn’t really matter as long as you have measurable things that they’re supposed to do, and that they’re doing those measurable things.” Make expectations clear, communicate regularly and focus on your employees’ outcomes, not their activities. Then go forth and be productive! ■

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DOUGLAS 89

INTEL

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

David Oldridge of Envirotech stands beside his company’s 2019 Urban Electric Class 3 Truck. This truck was on display at the B.C. legislature last fall as Premier John Horgan announced CleanBC. The legislation, expected this spring, will mandate 10% of all new light-duty car and truck sales in B.C. must be zero emission by 2025, rising to 30% in 2030 and 100% by 2040.

MONEY

BY STEVE BOKOR AND IAN DAVID CLARK

Move Over, Tesla. There’s a New Truck in Town Big automakers spent decades trying to kill the electric vehicle. Now they’re seriously in the race, but it’s a winding road with many new players — including a promising Island one.

lectric vehicles have been around for a long time, but lacklustre investment interest has kept the industry confined to incubator status … until now. A perfect storm of consumer demand, government sponsorship and environmental stewardship, along with urbanization of the labour pool, has laid the foundation for a paradigm shift toward the electric vehicle (EV). Adding to the electric impulse is the combined impact of baby boomers exiting the workforce, debt-strapped millennials eschewing the traditional commute, and consumers making a conscious effort to reduce their carbon footprint. There’s no question that entrepreneurs are now rushing in to capitalize, and things are coming together at the right time, but how did it reach the consciousness of Wall Street and Bay Street?

ELECTRIC SURGE Tesla Motors has brought a lot of attention to the EV market. Fifteen years ago, two 90 DOUGLAS

engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, formed Tesla Motors to build and sell electric vehicles. As a fledgling company, they desperately needed capital to get the business off the ground. Their early investors included one of Silicon Valley’s golden boys: Elon Musk, an entrepreneur with a seemingly Midas touch. Musk didn’t think of Tesla as an auto manufacturer; instead, he envisioned it as a transformative technology company. His rationale for backing Tesla was climatedriven. “[Humans] are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now,” he said, “which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere … can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.” Musk used his first-mover advantage to set the stage for the eventual end of carbon-combustion autos. Tesla’s Roadster hit the road in 2008, quickly followed by the Model S in 2012. Most recently, the Model 3 launched as an “affordable” vehicle for the average consumer.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES THE OUTLOOK TO 2040 SALES OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EVS) ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE FROM A RECORD 1.1 MILLION WORLDWIDE IN 2017, TO

11 MILLION

IN 2025 AND THEN SURGING TO

30 MILLION

IN 2030 AS THEY BECOME CHEAPER TO MAKE THAN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE (ICE) CARS.

55% BY 2040, 55% OF ALL NEW CAR SALES AND 33% OF THE GLOBAL FLEET WILL BE ELECTRIC. CHINA IS, AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE, THE LARGEST EV MARKET IN THE WORLD THROUGH 2040. THE UPFRONT COST OF EVS WILL BECOME COMPETITIVE ON AN UNSUBSIDIZED BASIS STARTING IN 2024. BY 2029, ALMOST ALL SEGMENTS WILL REACH PARITY AS BATTERY PRICES CONTINUE TO FALL.

BUSES WILL GO ELECTRIC FASTER THAN LIGHT-DUTY VEHICLES. ELECTRIFIED BUSES AND CARS WILL DISPLACE A COMBINED

7.3 MILLION

BARRELS PER DAY OF TRANSPORTATION FUEL IN 2040. — ELECTRIC VEHICLE OUTLOOK 2018, BLOOMBERG NEW ENERGY FINANCE (NEB)

Musk’s long-term success faces significant barriers, from manufacturing glitches to battery performance and a lack of charging-station infrastructure. Add in a serious commitment by leading automakers like Volkswagen, Audi, General Motors, Volvo and Nissan to dominate the electric vehicle industry, and Musk faces an uphill battle.

THE LONG HAUL Last year, Musk announced his intention to build long-haul commercial trucks, predicting that his charging-station challenges will be resolved by the time his factories are up and running. He’s not the only one with sights set on this space. In the commercial bus market, China’s BYD was a first-mover entrant along with NFI (formerly New Flyer) and a local Canadian company called GreenPower Motor Company. We think they were attracted to the generous subsidies and credits being issued by governments in places like California and Ontario.

LOCAL AND COMPETITIVE In the meantime, it seems the auto industry has all but ignored a significant but unglamorous segment of the market — the municipal short-haul commercial space that moves goods from the warehouse to the storefront, along with courier services and sanitation removal services that seem to be an almost-untapped market. One groundbreaking company in this space is VancouverIsland-based Envirotech Electric Vehicles, which last fall embarked on an aggressive plan to provide short-haul, all-electric commercial vehicles for a wide range of applications. In October, the company unveiled its line of prototype logistic vans and cutaway class 3– 6 multipurpose vehicles to provincial politicians. This coincided with Premier Horgan’s CleanBC announcement, committing the Province of B.C. to be all-electric by 2040. Envirotech will not be a first mover in this space. FedEx has ordered 1,000 vans from a

partnership between Ryder and China’s Chanje. Nissan is selling all-electric vehicles in Japan and Australia, and Mercedes Benz sells its all-electric vans in Europe. It’s only a matter of time before both establish factories in North America. Still, Envirotech’s plan to assemble customized vehicles in Nanaimo (and eventually in Victoria), right on the doorstep of the U.S. marketplace, could give them a competitive advantage; with the Province expected to expand its rebate program for all electric vehicles, the future looks hopeful.

HOME ADVANTAGE Envirotech president and CTO David Oldridge believes the company will have significant advantages over larger competitors because its process began with a thorough analysis of customer needs, and its vehicles are designed to meet those needs. Envirotech’s vehicles feature a robust battery life, fully recyclable battery packs (with space to add more) and standard on-board J1772 chargers (standard in the U.S.). Electric power take-off systems (ePTO) mean their electric trucks do not have to be running in order to operate hydraulic equipment such as cherry-picker buckets. Is Envirotech on the right track? According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “There are now almost 5 million passenger electric vehicles on the road globally (over 5 million including buses and other commercial vehicles). We expect another 2.6 million to be sold in 2019.” Navigant Research says, “... global annual electrified powertrain medium- and heavyduty truck sales are expected to grow from about 31,000 vehicles in 2016 to nearly 332,000 by 2026.” If you can get even a small slice of this massively growing pie, you are doing all right. ■ Steve Bokor, CFA, is a licensed portfolio manager, and Ian David Clark is a certified financial planner with Ocean Wealth at PI Financial Corp, a member of CIPF. Tesla, FedEx and Envirotech, mentioned in this article, are held by clients and advisors of PI Financial Corp.

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NEXT LEVEL

BY ALEX VAN TOL

The Secret to Achieving More with Less The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 Rule, is still a powerful tool for growing your business by showing you where the real value is.

hile at the University of Lausanne in the late 19th century, Italian engineer and economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that in his native Italy, 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. Intrigued by the distribution, Pareto turned his attention to other countries and discovered that this mathematical spread remained roughly the same. In fact, what has come to be known as the Pareto Principle turns up in countless ways throughout the human-made world. (And maybe even the natural world, too. I did find reference to a pair of ecologists from France and Australia who found the Pareto Principle in the grazing habits of zooplankton.) The principle certainly applies in software, where, in general, 80% of a project’s code can be written in 20% of the allocated time (while remaining code — the most difficult — sucks up 80% of coders’ time). In 2002, Microsoft figured out that by fixing the top 20% of user-reported bugs, they’d resolve 80 per cent of system errors. The principle also turns up in taxation, where 80% of the taxes collected generally derive from the highest-earning 20% of the population; in global economics, where 20% of the world controls 80% of its resources; and in health care, where roughly 20% of the people use 80% of the health-care resources. While it’s not a law (purists will be quick to tell you it’s actually an observation) the Pareto Principle is a pretty compelling breakdown that is replicated in myriad systems.

APPLYING THE PRINCIPLE Now that I’ve drawn you a quick sketch of how this weird 92 DOUGLAS

as you can about them — then go find more customers like that.

READ ESSENTIALISM: THE DISCIPLINED PURSUIT OF LESS Written by U.K.-born tech CEO and business consultant Greg McKeown, Essentialism shoves you up close to the uncomfortable fact that you can’t be everything to everybody — and neither should your company. Figure out which 20% of your business’s activities are driving 80% of your successes, and do more of that. (Essentialism is essential reading for anyone who feels like their to-do list is too long, regardless of your interest in applying the specifics of the 80/20 rule.)

mathematical principle shows up in the wider world (Google it and you’ll discover a slew of tips from 80/20ing your marriage to streamlining your grocery shopping), let’s look at how you can jump forward in your business by applying an old principle.

FOCUS ON YOUR KEY CUSTOMERS Don’t concentrate on the hundreds or thousands who purchase your product once or twice, but on the few who make big buys on a regular basis. These are your bread-and-butter customers — the 20% who drive 80% of your bottom line. Quit futzing around trying to

Look closely at that 80% of nonessential products, offerings or processes. If you’ve got a product with a deep history and only a fringe following, consider axing it. engage and convert the lukewarm among your clientele. (Yes, that means looking closely at how many person-hours your company spends on that unquantifiable black hole called social media). Instead, spend time making sure your key clients are satisfied and that you’re recognizing them for the trust and value they find in your relationship. Learn as much

LET GO OF THINGS IN THE ZONE OF DIMINISHING RETURNS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY DON’T ALIGN WITH YOUR VISION This might be painful, but look closely at that 80% of your nonessential products, offerings or processes. If you’ve got a product with a deep history and only a fringe following, consider axing it. When Laurie Schultz of Vancouver-based ACL (a global risk management, compliance and audit software firm) became CEO seven years ago, she set about decommissioning those things that, despite being large revenue lines for the company, ultimately weren’t strategic or beneficial over the long term. Instead, she focused on growing that smaller slice of ACL’s best offerings — and put all the other stuff on the chopping block.

LEARN THE PRINCIPLE INSIDE OUT FOR BEST APPLICATION In his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More,

THE 80/20 PARETO PRINCIPLE HOW IT APPLIES TO BUSINESS

20%

80%

QUIT FUTZING AROUND trying to engage

and convert the lukewarm among your clients (yes, that means a close look at how many personhours your company spends on that fuzzily unquantifiable black hole called social media).

INVENTORY

80% of the business is done by

20% of the selection of products or services

SALES

80% of the business is done in

20% of the time the business is open

SALES PRODUCTIVITY

80% of the sales is generated by

20% of the sales staff

CUSTOMER BASE

80% of the customers come from

20% of the area a business reaches

ADVERTISING

80% of the business comes from

20% of the meeting time 20% of the sales or of the customers

Alex Van Tol works with organizations to shape and communicate their brand stories. From real estate to tech, she uncovers what makes organizations tick — and what can help them grow.

MEETINGS

PROFIT

80% of the business’s profit comes from

IT ALL ADDS UP We’ve only scratched the surface of the Pareto Principle, but I think you can see the value. If you take the time to thoroughly understand it and how to apply it, you’ll reap the benefit of knowing how to leverage significant results from just a little effort. Sounds like next-level thinking to me. ■

20% of the customers

80% of important discussions happen during

marketer and business consultant Perry Marshall describes how the Pareto Principle behaves exponentially. If 20% of your clients make up 80% of your revenues, the 80/20 rule applies within that 20%. That means the top 20% of your top 20% of your customers (the top 4% overall) deliver 64% of your sales. (Want the math? That’s 80% times 80%.) This helps you figure out which customer base to focus on developing. Marshall goes into much greater detail in the book, teasing out the 80/20 rule as it applies to your salespeople, your employees and your departments. “When you know how to walk into any situation and identify the 80/20s, you can solve almost ANY money problem,” Marshall writes. He’s selling it for just one cent at his website, too — worth a look.

DOUGLAS 93

PLAN TO COMMUNICATE

Developer Lloyd Wansbrough says opening Colwood’s first hotel was a labour of love. So was opening its doors to some neighbours in need.

Here are my tips for crafting your own plan. The alternative is to work with a communications professional.

1 List your goals and objectives. Think of this as the road map for where you want to go.

2 BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Narrative. The best way to communicate your brand message is by telling a story. What’s your story?

COMMUNICATION

BY JIM BEATTY

Don’t Miss Your Real Business Story A West Shore developer threw out his plans for a ribbon-cutting and PR event for his new hotel in order to help local seniors displaced by flooding. He didn’t do it for publicity, but the goodwill he garnered spoke volumes about his values and his brand.

he paint was dry, the beds were made and the employees were hired. At Colwood’s first-ever hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, almost everything was ready to go. It was November of 2015, and the owners of the 80-room franchise hotel even had a ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for the coming days, complete with a media release ready for distribution. For developer Lloyd Wansbrough and his family, this was the culmination of an $11-million labour of love. But by news standards, the project risked being another forgettable, run-of-the-mill item, along the lines of a cheque presentation or walk-a-thon. 94 DOUGLAS

Then something happened that thrust the hotel into the daily news cycle — and into the hearts of local residents. Days before opening, torrential autumn rains caused flooding at the nearby West Shore Lodge, a supportive living residence for seniors. Emergency officials scrambled to deal with the rising water while attempting to evacuate all 64 vulnerable residents. Wansbrough immediately recognized an opportunity to support his community while also boosting his brand. He offered to open the hotel, days earlier than planned, to the displaced residents. It meant a flurry of activity, including a final safety

inspection, corporate approvals and notification to staff to report to work earlier than expected. “We didn’t turn to our communications guy and say, ‘What do you think?’ We just did it because it was the right thing to do,” Wansbrough says now. “A lot of this was just timing. If the water problem had happened the month before, there would have been nothing I could have done. We were still under construction.” And yet, in an instant, it was a masterful stroke of communications and community relations. More than a dozen frail seniors relocated to the unopened hotel, and the goodwill gesture scored more media coverage than the ribbon-cutting ceremony ever would have. “Holiday Inn Express offers emergency shelter to Colwood seniors before opening,” screamed the CBC News headline.

FOR THE RIGHT REASONS How many other businesses would have moved with such speed, forethought and consideration to leverage a bad-news event into a feel-good moment for residents and business alike?

Audience. Who do you want to communicate with? Employees, investors, customers, community? Through planning, you will discover the most effective way to communicate with each group.

4 Key messages. Figure out what you want to say and ensure you have well-crafted, consistent messages. They need to be relevant and demonstrate your value.

5 Tactics. Identify the best ways to spread your message. From email and intranet to social media and press conferences, there are a lot of options.

6 Delivery. Get your message out to the people who matter. Review what worked and what didn’t so you’re ready for next time.

MANY PEOPLE THINK THEIR BUSINESS REPUTATION

is something that can be engineered and controlled. That’s true to some extent, but actions often speak louder than words when it comes to reputation.

“We didn’t expect to get all the coverage,” says Wansbrough. “But people do care and people do react to those kinds of things. Are they at my hotel for that reason? I don’t know, but I feel good about what we did.” The way he describes it, this was merely a case of good timing. But too few companies think about the importance of communications to the vitality of their business. They painstakingly consider their product, service and business plan, but communications is often overlooked. It’s not just about external communications, to the media, community or customers. It is also communicating directly to employees, ensuring they are aware of a new product, launch date or management issue.

PREPARING FOR THE UNEXPECTED Communications planning is essential to success. It’s a business tool that outlines how you intend to share your story, how you will advance your corporate goals and how you will interact with external and internal audiences. All of these things can impact your reputation, brand, sales, marketing and more. Without a strong communications plan, your business might be unprepared for challenges and change, or you may miss opportunities to reach new customers. When you have good news to share, such as a new location or product, a strategic communications plan will ensure you are delivering the right messages to the right people. And when something goes wrong, such as a product recall, a fire or employee misconduct, a plan can ensure you are reacting quickly, effectively and with consistent messaging. The early hotel opening in Colwood was the marriage of a smart business decision and strong communication. Lloyd Wansbrough has some advice for other new businesses. “Support the community and the community will come back and support you. Sometimes you may not see it immediately, but you will succeed, and you will feel good about your contributions.” ■ Jim Beatty is a communications consultant who spent more than 25 years in journalism. He is the principal at Jim Beatty Communications specializing in strategic communications, media training and crisis communications.

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DOUGLAS 95

GROWTH

BY CLEMENS RETTICH

It’s All About You There’s no tool kit to teach you everything you need to know about owning a business. But there are some realities which, if you accept them from the beginning, will help set you up for success.

uring a recent speaking engagement on growing autonomous enterprises, a business owner raised his hand and said, “My workforce is completely disengaged. With how hard it is to hire experienced people, I’ve had to hire a lot of “green” millennials. I’ve never seen a more disengaged bunch of people. How do I grow a business on that?” To clarify, I asked, “Are you talking about your whole team?” He responded that it wasn’t all of his team members, but most. As respectfully as possible, I said it was extremely unlikely that

a whole group of people were all disengaged because of who they were (the dreaded “millennials” in this case). In fact, the cause of the disengagement was most likely sitting in the room. There was just no way for me to say it respectfully then and there.

OWNING IT The challenging truth is that it’s rarely “them” and almost always us. I’ll give you another example: During a meeting with the owner of a large engineering firm, he started talking about his employees, his voice raised and clipped.

“I don’t know what their problem is,” he said. “My door is always open and we have meetings every week. So why is it that the first time I hear this project is completely off the rails, I have to overhear it at the elevator? All they’ve given me for months is green lights. Now I hear we’re in trouble?” He slumped back into his chair, honestly bewildered. Yes, his office door was always open, and yes there were meetings and Gantt charts and methodologies. Every tool for success was in place. But still there was a problem. Why? What comes to mind for me is something our parents used to teach us: when you point one finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing right back at you. In my experience, most problems track back to business owners. This includes the failure to communicate, to take time to understand and to seek and receive feedback on how we contribute to failures in our environments. Add to that a

shortage of empathy, a short fuse, micromanagement, lack of training in change management or even the most basic knowledge of human psychology.

START WITH YOU When I talk with owners, I often sense a desire for some secret — a hope that growing a business is a mechanical process: just push the right buttons and watch the magic happen. But there are no secret buttons. It isn’t our customers or our employees. The stuff that defines the energy, direction, pulse, purpose, makeup and character of a business is the product of a very small number of people. Usually, that number is one — the owner. An organization is the product of its leadership. If you are the owner, it’s your makeup and your character. Personal qualities that impact the success of your organization include:  an appetite for, or aversion to, risk a n ability to communicate rather than just talk

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 an ability to be fluid  a willingness to learn  a willingness to trust  an ability to treat failures as opportunities to learn. Yes, it is theoretically possible your business could be successful even if you have none of these qualities. But in most cases, even if you follow a business recipe to the letter, success or failure is the consequence of who you are.

THE CHARACTER OF SUCCESS There is no single type of person guaranteed to be successful in business. But there are kinds of people who will struggle, and there are certain traits that can contribute to success. Here are four of those traits. The ability to let go Your first hire is the first moment of growing up as a business owner. Right there, you cut the herd. This is where you either grow up and learn to let go, or set a pattern of maintaining an infantile death grip driven by a lack of trust. If you want to journey beyond your own limitations, to create a legacy, you have to trust other human beings. You have to let go of being the best baker or electrician or massage therapist. If you can’t do that, you’ll never become the owner of a successful bakery, electrical firm or health clinic.

Being OK with not being the smartest person in the room Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos talks about the importance of being a “day-one company,” a business that starts each day assuming it has nothing and knows nothing. So get ready to become a “day-one entrepreneur” who is ready to start learning all over again, every day. Creating a successful independent enterprise means walking away from the comfortable mastery that got you here as coder or engineer or cook; away from the ego and comfort of being the best in the field, of rarely failing. Instead, you have to be OK with waking up in a world where you may fail every morning — and often do. In this world, what you mastered yesterday is never enough — you have to master something new today and every day. If you can’t accept that humility, you’ll be trapped in a world where the work may get done perfectly, but it will always be done by you. The number of excellent employees in your enterprise will always be exactly one. The confidence to act in darkness Being an entrepreneur requires being comfortable with acting in partial ignorance. Few things require more courage (and even a hint of madness) than acting on incomplete information when a lot is at stake.

People do it in love, and we must do it in business. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have all the facts. You never will. You have to act anyway. As long as you stay in research mode, you may feel safe. But you risk nothing, and you create nothing.

The courage to deal with what is Successful business owners are neither pessimists nor optimists. They are realists. They don’t believe the world owes them anything. They don’t shake their fists at the sky when it rains. They accept the reality of what is. They don’t blame others or external forces for failures. The best don’t even blame themselves, because it isn’t about blame. It is about the lessons that collisions with reality can teach. Successful entrepreneurs sense in their bones the connection between their behaviour — their blood, sweat and tears — and the results. While that can be motivating, the world of the business owner also has a kind of uncivilized brutality to it. There is no safety net if you fall. There is a deep sense the pavement is just a few inches away, and it is very hard.

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos talks about the importance of being a ‘day-one company,’ one that starts each day assuming it has nothing and knows nothing.

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Why Registered Why hire Registered Whyhire hirea a a Registered Interior Designer? Interior Designer? Interior Designer?

“An RID professional “An professional whowho has has “AnRID RIDisis isa a a professional who has the education, training and vision the and vision to the education, education,training training and vision to enhance interior environments, enhance interior environments, creating to enhance interior environments, creating safe spaces safe and meaningful spaces in which to creating safe and and meaningful meaningful spaces in which to work and live.“ work and live. ” in which to work and live.“ -Jacqueline Marinus, Jacqueline RIDRID JacquelineMarinus, Marinus, RID D’Ambrosio Architecture + D’Ambrosio + Urbanism D’AmbrosioArchitecture Architecture + Urbanism Urbanism

FOCUS ON WHAT IS Most people get hung up on what should be. Successful entrepreneurs understand that it shouldn’t be anything: it just is what it is. Our job is to transform reality, whatever that reality is, into opportunity. That means adjusting your expectations to what’s actually going on, and create value from — and for — that reality. So what about the engineering firm owner and the false green lights? The rough truth is that he wasn’t ready to accept that the failure was of his own creation. He couldn’t accept his position of power over others. (Owners are often blind to the psychological realities of their ability to end people’s careers.) Nor could he see that his brusque “I just tell it like it is” manner, coupled with the confidence that he was always right, was responsible for the environment where it was unsafe to tell the boss the truth. It wasn’t him. It was them. ■ Clemens Rettich is a business consultant with Grant Thornton LLP. He has an MBA from Royal Roads University and has spent 25 years practising the art of management.

“Hiring an RID ensures “Hiring ensures thatthat every detail “Hiringan anRID RID ensures that every your space of yourdetail spaceof will be handled by abe every detail of your space will will be handled by a professional who has professional who has a minimum 6 handled by a professional who of has a minimum years invested in years investedof industry through a minimum ofin6 6the years invested in the education and education andthrough experience. “ the industry industry through education and experience. -experience. “ “ -Sara Peddle, RID Sara Peddle, RID Western Interior Sara Peddle, RIDDesign Group

VISIT FOR LIST VISITUS USAT AT DESIGNCAN.CA DESIGNCAN.CA FOR VISIT US AT DESIGNCAN.CA FORAA ALIST LIST OF REGISTERED DESIGNERS ON OF REGISTERED DESIGNERS ON OF REGISTERED DESIGNERS ON VANCOUVER ISLAND. VANCOUVER ISLAND. VANCOUVER ISLAND. DOUGLAS 97

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WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?

BY BILL CURRIE

AS SECOND-GENERATION SIGN PAINTERS FROM WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA, THE DOBELL BROTHERS LEARNED THEIR TRADE THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. NOW THEY’RE ATTRACTING NEW INTEREST IN THE ART OF HAND-PAINTED SIGNS. The signs are all around town, visually connecting past and future. “If it stays still long enough, we paint it,” jokes Chris Dobell, who, along with his brother Stu, owns Dobell Designs, a sign-painting business that does it the old-fashioned way — by hand, no digital wizardry. “We call ourselves traditionally untraditional,” says Chris. They work out of a 10’ by 40’ cargo

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container, where every square inch is covered with inspirational old signs, tins and bottles. To create their signs, the brothers use ornate lettering, decorative gilding and a style that pulls largely from the 20s to the 50s. “We go to vintage shops and check out Used Victoria for stuff from those eras, for inspiration about how they did it back then,” says Stu.

“Our art is also influenced by all sorts of genres mashed together — comics, graffiti and West Coast scenery,” adds Chris. After 13 years in business, the Dobell signs are part of Victoria’s commercial landscape. See their art at pubs like the Bard & Banker and The Drake, at tattoo studios like Government Street Tattoo and Painted Lotus Studio, on sandwich boards at Red Barn Market and on windows at ANIÁN and Victory Barber & Brand. Their work is also a huge part of the visual identity of Phillips Brewing and

Malting Co., whom the brothers credit with helping them get their start. Today, 85 per cent of their work is done for Phillips. “As Phillips has grown, we’ve grown with them,” says Chris. “They put us on the map.” “We can go into just about any pub in Victoria and see one of our [Phillips] signs,” he adds. How does it feel to see their work everywhere in the region? “It’s an awesome experience seeing someone looking at our art,” says Stu. “That’s my sign!”

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