With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1471305
JULY/AUGUST 2022 BCBUSINESS 45 TOP: CONIFER HOMEWARES S E A N B L I S H E N AGE: 29 Founder, Kilig Candle Co. LIFE STORY: For Sean Blishen, suffering a serious car accident in 2019 proved to be a pivotal event. Raised in Vancouver, Blishen dabbled in marketing, journalism and fashion studies after graduating high school. She also worked at Aritzia until her mother, an immigrant from the Philip- pines who grew up poor and is now a nurse, encouraged her to try health care. So Blishen did the unit clerk certificate at Vancouver Community College and became a unit coordina- tor at St. Paul's Hospital. Enjoying the work, she then spent two years in England as a personal shopper at luxury department store Harvey Nich- ols before returning to St. Paul's. But the car crash "completely changed my life," recalls Blishen, who has spent three years in physiotherapy. "I wasn't able to go back to my hospital job." So Blishen, who has always liked making things and is a big believer in self-care, started Kilig Candle Co. out of her parents' kitchen in 2020 with just $300. After giving candles to friends and family, she began selling them on Instagram and launched a website. Blishen saw Kilig—a Tagalog word that loosely translates as "nervous excitement"—as an opportunity to help others. So in early 2021, the company partnered with Toronto-based nonprofit Adhika, which feeds Filipino children break- fast at school. Kilig donates a meal for every candle sold. BOTTOM LINE : Vancouver- based Kilig sells its candles online and at some 35 North American retailers. Blishen, who sources all materials locally, makes most prod- ucts herself, with help from an assis- tant. The company recently launched a self-care line consisting of lotion, soap and two roller-ball perfumes. Having built a healthy e-commerce business stateside, Blishen hopes to land more U.S. stores. So far, Killig has donated some 6,000 meals. Blishen, who hosts the Girl Gang pop-up for female-owned businesses in Vancouver, is also thinking about how to help her fellow entrepreneurs. "I'd love to find a way in the future, as we grow, to create some kind of bursary where we give back to people who want to start their own businesses, specifically female- founded businesses." –N.R. E V A N M C D O U G A L L AGE: 29 Founder, Conifer Homewares LIFE STORY: Not getting accepted to architecture school turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Evan McDougall. Winnipeg-born McDougall, who grew up in Langley and Surrey, attended Carleton Uni- versity, where he earned a bachelor of industrial design. He then worked at design agencies in Canada, the U.S. and Sweden, mostly for big con- sumer electronics makers. Although McDougall found those jobs fulfilling, he wanted to make Vancouver his home. So he took a chance by returning from Sweden to become a freelance consultant. Finding enough work, McDougall bought a 3D printer for prototyping. During his first Christmas back home, he only gave 3D-printed gifts. So McDougall made some planters, and when a friend asked how much he planned to sell them for, he saw an opportunity. After his consulting work took a hit early in the pandemic, he spent a month validating the busi- ness model for Conifer Homewares, which soon grew into a full-time job. McDougall now has 50 3D print- ers at Conifer's headquarters in East Vancouver. He makes his products using plant-based materials derived from sugar cane, cornstarch, tree fibre and other fermented organic matter. At first, McDougall planned to go direct to consumer, but he now focuses more on retailers because they help promote Conifer and make bigger single orders. 3D printing is more flexible and less capital-intensive than traditional manufacturing, which requires a large investment in moulds that can't be changed, McDougall explains. "Because I didn't have to do that, I could scale incrementally," he says. As a result, he never had to raise money, and Conifer has been profit- able in each of its first two years. Also, McDougall's only employee is a co-op student from UBC who serves as a production assistant. "I don't see myself needing more than a handful of people to keep growing the business." BOTTOM LINE : Through plant and homewares stores in Canada and the U.S. and as far away as Scotland, Conifer sold more than 4,900 biodegradable planters in 2021—almost 1,000 kilograms of product that would otherwise have been made from conventional plastics. Doubling sales every year is a sustainable goal, reckons McDou- gall, who plans to diversify later. "Because I'm in the unique position of essentially owning the factory," he explains, "there's really no reason not to use the same business model for other products." –N.R. Evan McDougall Sean Blishen