BCBusiness

APRIL 2019 BCBUSINESS 25 BCBUSINESS.CA after volunteering for Vancouver's Eco Fashion Week increased her aware- ness of the garment industry's role in pollution and worker exploitation. Stewart started off selling online across Canada before expanding shipping to the U.S. Having tested the waters with two successful pop-up stores, in February 2018 she opened a shop in Gastown that turned a profit its second month. Typical customers are professional women aged 18 to 36, as well as costume designers for productions like A Million Little Things and The Good Doctor. Because sus- tainable and ethically sourced clothes can be pricier than fast fashion, Arc Apparel's LaterPay program allows customers to pay in four instalments using their credit card. BOTTOM LINE : Revenue more than doubled in 2018, to $360,000. Stewart plans to open a second store this year if she can find the right location. –F.S. S T E F A N I E G R I E S E R Co-creator SHINE BOOTCAMP Director of marketing SPHERE AGE: 29 LIFE STORY: Born in Colorado to what she calls "ski bum parents," Stefanie Grieser was always intrigued by the world of business. But she wasn't sure what that would look like as a career. A stint at a large Calgary insurance company didn't inspire her. Then came an entrepreneurship competition at UVic, which she attended after a year on exchange in France. Her idea? A ski pass app, "not unlike what you see at places like Whistler now." Grieser won the competition (and $5,300), but more important, through the Peter B. Gustavson School of Busi- ness entrepreneurship program, she realized that perhaps the suit-and-tie set wasn't for her. "The professors were very cool, they'd bring in panels of industry entrepreneurs, and you'd meet them and make so many con- nections," says the energetic Grieser. "And that's when I thought, That's it. I'm either starting a startup or joining a startup. I'm not going back to any kind of corporate setting." In 2012, she found herself in Vancouver at Unbounce, which cre- ates landing pages for clients. When Grieser left after six years, she was head of global markets, partnership and events, and the company had grown from 15 to about 200 staff. She's now director of marketing at Sphere, an eight-person Vancouver startup that matches clients with business coaches via an app, and one of three founders of Shine Bootcamp, which holds three-week coaching boot camps for women in business. BOTTOM LINE : Shine, which accepts 15 women for each boot camp, had more than 50 applicants for its latest edition. Grieser is also talking to some major technology companies about partnering with Shine. –N.C. S H E L B Y M A N T O N Co-founder and executive producer BOLDLY CREATIVE AGENCY AGE: 27 LIFE STORY: Shelby Manton doesn't have a background in film, at least in the traditional sense. But the UVic commerce graduate did have experience chasing her older brother, Geoff Manton, around White Rock with a camera, filming anything they could find. Manton thought she'd left that life behind when she went off to university, but it came roaring back when she decided to partner with Geoff, who has a film degree from SFU, and their friend Sebastien Galina to form Boldly Creative Agency. About 80 percent of the produc- tion company's business is making commercials for or with advertising agencies. Manton contends that Boldly is reinventing the film produc- tion industry because it's so lean. "We try to look at other solutions, so we're just a little more crafty with how we approach production problems," she says. "Because a lot of the time in the industry, people say, Oh, just throw a bunch of money at it and it'll go away. But there's always a solution, and it doesn't have to be money that solves it, just some creative thinking." BOTTOM LINE : The three founders have another full-time staff member, plus freelancers they call upon. The company, which hit about $2 million in revenue in 2018, recently moved into a new studio in Vancou- ver's Mount Pleasant. Manton hopes that Boldly will release its first feature film this year. –N.C. THIRTY UNDER THIRTY Stefanie Grieser (left) and Shelby Manton

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