BCBusiness

JUNE 2017 BCBUSINESS 41 BCBUSINESS.CA Today, Tri-Star's markets include Europe as well as China, Malaysia and Vietnam. The 30-employee com- pany is known throughout Southeast Asia for its packaging, which keeps mortality rates low, Tchao explains. "We pay a lot of attention to live seafood and how to make sure, at the end of the day, when we put it onto somebody else's table across the sea, that it's live." TOP EXPORT CHALLENGE: "Sometimes the laws are different, so we have to make sure that each product can go into that country, and they all have different tariffs and whatnot," Tchao says. "Even though it's legal here doesn't mean it's necessarily OK over there." WHAT'S NEXT: CETA will create more opportunities for Tri-Star, Tchao believes: "We see a rise in consump- tion across the board." The World Traveller Chromag Bikes, Whistler SPECIALTY: High-end mountain bikes and bike parts, plus clothing and other soft goods FOUNDED: 2003 EXPORTING SINCE: 2006 PROPORTION OF TOTAL SALES FROM EXPORTS: Roughly two-thirds THE STORY SO FAR: Chromag kicked off its export business in Japan, thanks to a cycling industry con- nection that was both personal and professional, says founder Ian Ritz, whose title is big boss. "Beyond that, the other markets we reached were purely through people discovering our brand and finding that there was a demand for our products, and they sought us out," Ritz explains. Chromag—about two-thirds of its products are made in Taiwan—now exports worldwide. Besides Japan and several other Asian countries, destinations include the U.S., Europe, South America and Australia. TOP EXPORT CHALLENGE: "Probably the biggest challenges simply relate to the cost of getting the products there," Ritz says, "understanding the logistics process and building our business so we have a level of traffic that we can negotiate rates and ship the size of cargo to reach scale of economics to make it feasible." WHAT'S NEXT: Ten-strong Chromag is curious about China, where other cycling players have been moving for some time. "We've been a little bit skeptical because we don't know much about what the participation in the sport is like there," Ritz says. "But just through our manufacturing contacts in Taiwan, there is some talk about there being a good potential market." The Quick Study Riversong Guitars, Kamloops SPECIALTY: Acoustic guitars crafted in Kamloops, mostly from B.C. and other Pacific Northwest wood. The instruments feature a patent-pending adjust- able neck LAUNCHED: 2006 EXPORTING SINCE: 2014 PROPORTION OF TOTAL SALES FROM EXPORTS: 80 per cent THE STORY SO FAR: In 2012, founder Mike Miltimore was nominated for Canada's Young Entrepreneur of the Year through Business Develop- ment Bank of Canada. The resulting publicity caught the attention of distributors in the U.S. and Malaysia. Miltimore suggested that they meet at the NAMM Show, an annual music products trade event in Anaheim, California. "So I built eight guitars, went down there in January 2013, met with the guys and negotiated a deal to start selling into the U.S," he recalls. Distribution is relatively simple because Riversong ships to a single location in Nashville, Miltimore notes. NAMM also helped Riversong, seven of whose 30 employees work in manufacturing, to reach beyond North America. After it struck a licensing deal with Brussels-based European Music Distributors, which had seen its guitars there, EMD went on to distrib- ute them throughout Western Europe. Thanks "They might have a great product, but even if they do have a thought about trading internationally, they just don't know where to start," says Baxter, a onetime policy adviser to former Inter- national Trade minister Ed Fast. Many owners of small and medium- sized companies look at international trade as much more complex than it really is, says Colin Hansen, president and CEO of AdvantageBC International Business Centre Vancouver, a non-proŽt that promotes the province as a location for international business. "The minor- ity of small-business owners who do venture out and start to explore export opportunities show an amazing success rate for their e'orts," adds the former B.C. minister of Economic Development. "So I think the challenge is to overcome a certain amount of inertia that's there, and helping small and medium-sized business owners to realize how they can explore some of the opportunities." Hansen suggests that B.C. companies 'y the Maple Leaf because Canada has a such strong brand. The country is well positioned for international commerce, he contends, citing the pending Com- prehensive Economic and Trade Agree- ment ( CETA) with the European Union. Canada is the only nation to have such a robust EU trade deal, Hansen says, pre- dicting that the North American Free Trade Agreement will remain impor- tant for it and the U.S. "That gives us the opportunity for companies to do busi- ness with half the world's economy." For young people thinking about exporting, though, there aren't many opportunities, says YELL executive director David Cameron. "The beauty of this #TradeTalks and the BC Chamber stepping up and taking a lead to say, 'We want to partner with an organization to bring youth to the table,' is this becomes a wonderful mental exercise for all these young people to imagine what it would mean, what it would imply, what's at stake, what needs to happen to take a company to that level." Emily Naing wants to build a career as an entrepreneur. Like Cering's Sekretaryuk, Naing, 18, is a gradu- ate of Pinetree Secondary School in Coquitlam. She just completed her Žrst year at the University of Toronto, where she plans to study Žnance or manage- ment. In YELL, noticing that they and their fellow students were having trou- ble sleeping, her group hatched Swave. This device, which may end up being a small, 'exible pad that slips between a pillow and a pillowcase, uses a 1970s audio technoloŸy called binaural beats to help users reach a deeper state of sleep in the time available to them. "It's restorative instead of light sleep, where your eyes may be closed but you're not

• Cover