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/1505828
28 BCBUSINESS.CA SEPTEMBER 2023 S M A L L B U S I N E S S this location, can you help? And you answer yes or no," she explains. That system, paired with her own need for community support, was the impetus behind The Village App, which Stone co- founded in 2020 with Karen Olsson, founding partner of Kelowna-based tech devel- opment company Atomic47 Labs. Olsson has over 25 years of experience building startups, and, according to Stone, was essential for the development of The Village App, which launched on Google Play and the App Store in 2021. "It's really like a com- munity bulletin board," CEO Stone maintains. "You don't come to The Village App because you want to know the best restaurant in town or have recommenda- tions for the best stroller. You come because you have something that you need, something you want to give, or you want to know what's happening in your community." All requests are welcome, whether you're looking for babysitters, volunteers or donations. "There are a lot of people who would help more if they knew what the community needed help with," says Stone. Since the app is free for individuals, it can also be a useful tool for small business owners who are struggling to balance life and work in a recession. Some nonprofit organiza- tions and municipalities are already leveraging it for dif- ferent needs: for example, a municipality in Alberta is using it to connect newcom- ers with 35 local nonprofits (including language learning services). Kelowna is consid- ering employing it to help the homeless population access resources like cooling stations in summer or beds during winter. Ultimately, the objective is to normalize asking for support. That's something even Stone remembers struggling with: "Am I worthy of asking for help? Is this even a big enough problem that I want to ask? All those things go along with the guilt of asking for help. But then you realize how many people want to show up for you. If you ask, people will show up, but you need to ask."—R.R. n "It is purely to cover for the astronomical increase of prices of the raw materials and packaging," says COO Juristovski Bosnic, who immigrated to Vancouver from what was Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro) in 1992. "We also wanted to give a small raise to our staff [of five], just to cover inflation." Launching Nala in 2017 was the duo's way of dealing with the grief of losing their husband and father, Alan, to lung cancer. The point was to encourage people to identify and remove carcinogens from their daily lives—starting with a switch to natural deodorants that the founders state are free from harm- ful chemicals like aluminum, parabens, phthalates and propylene glycol. So it was important for Nala (Alan spelled backwards) to be accessible, despite its premium status as a body care product. Price standardization was a move to be able to stay in business, according to CEO Juristovski Jemc, who studied commerce and marketing at UBC Sauder. She notes that while the price of some Nala deodorants increased, its personal- ized deodorants (which come in different strengths for different bodies) went down from $35 to $32. "We communicated to our retailers [via email] at least a few months in advance because they needed to know, but also to give them an opportunity to stock up at the lower price point," says Juristovski Jemc. "With our customers, we started creating content on social media that directly tackled price transparency." Nala posted a number of Instagram reels and TikTok videos discussing the high cost of organic ingredients and sustainable packaging as well as the importance of fair pay. As Juristovski Jemc puts it, people were understand- ing: "For the most part, people have been pleasantly receptive to it. And we're empathetic because we know the cost of everything is going up and we don't want to raise our prices." She recalls sending a survey to Nala's highest-valued customers (i.e., loyal customers who spent over $1,000 within the last few years), asking for feedback. One customer responded that, with recent life changes, Nala was simply out of her budget, and asked if the discount code that she had could be extended. "I gave her a code that was even more generous than that initial one," says Juris- tovski Jemc, emphasizing how much she appreciates repeat customers. "People are very price sensitive, especially during a recession," Juristovski Bosnic points out, noting that Nala recently released a $10 summer deodorant trio sample pack. "Once they get to know you and trust you, they'll come back and they won't have a problem paying a little bit more because they will appreci- ate the quality and the brand's value as well." –R.R. H O W T O C O M M U N I C AT E P R I C E H I K E S W I T H C U S T O M E R S Vancouver-based natural deodorant and body care brand Nala Care is all about transparency—with its ingredients and prices. In times of rising costs and faltering economic growth, co-founders Radmila Juristovski Bosnic and Ada Juristovski Jemc resisted price hikes as long as possible. But the shoe dropped in March 2023, when the mother- daughter duo succumbed to inflationary pressures and raised the prices of their deodorants from $29 to $32.