Turn a Side Hustle into $100K Revenue

0:00We can't continue or we're going all in. At that point, we were like literally at the end of our bank account. We went on to have an amazing holiday season. It was our first$100 ,000 month.

0:15Hey, welcome to Shopify Masters. I'm Shuang Esrshan, and this is your companion for starting and scaling a business. When Julie Brown was just a kid, her small Canadian town lost two factories and 3 ,000 jobs all at once. They're still recovering to this day. But for the last 10 years, Julie and her life and business partner, Jeremy Watt, have been building Province of Canada. A seven-figure lifestyle brand offering hoodies, caps, and everything you need for your everyday uniform. It's a beautiful product. It's well-made. And it's made in Canada. Bringing that to this generation, I feel, is like all I want to do.

0:54Their business is still bootstrapped, and they started it with only$1 ,500. It was probably the most intense six to eight months of our lives. And we had a baby. It was a big year. With all manufacturing here in Canada, Julie is now leading the industry's Made in Canada movement and taking back the control her town so desperately needed. We're happy to be able to be a beacon for Canadian manufacturing because I feel like we've lost a lot along the way. So excited to have you here, Julie. Thanks for having me. I remember passing down Queen Street East since seeing Prophets of Canada for many years.

1:29So it's great to be chatting with the women behind the brand. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, talk to us a little bit about your childhood, growing up in the town that you did, and how that has imprinted in your decisions and career and also now building a brand. I think at the time, I don't think I really realized the impact of that moment. I mean, I was a teenager, but it was definitely, you know, felt in our town and it was pretty devastating. You know, my aunt and uncle had worked there. And fast forward to, I would say, 10 years later, I had kind of this aha moment where I had moved to Toronto.

2:04I was working for actually a Made in Canada brand myself. And we were looking for this great plaid fabric. And she referenced this company she used to buy fabric from in Canada in a small town. And she was like, I think it was Klein and Tinker or something. And I was like kind of in disbelief that it was the factory for my town. And I think part of that was just that I was young. I didn't really know exactly what kind of fabrics they made there. So the thought that they were making this beautiful fabric that would be used in textiles and home decor, it was kind of like, huh. I guess it just made me kind of really connect the dots and directly see the impact of that shutting down and how the ripple effect of it.

2:47And yeah, I mean, like you said, my town still is recovering from that loss. And I think there's a lot of towns like that across Canada who have experienced that sort of thing. And to be part of a solution or to be part of rebuilding that is a pretty great feeling, you know. So you had a lot of different business ideas, wedding invitations, board games, a Shopify agency. Why was Province of Canada the idea you landed on? Jeremy and I have both had a bunch of experiences in our lives. It's, I feel like, a combination of a thousand different things, you know, that we just felt compelled and it had to be Made in Canada.

3:27It was just ingrained in both of us. Jeremy's parents were really big believers in Made in Canada and I think instilled that in him. And again, I had had all these experiences too. And so when we came together, we had always wanted to create something together. We loved brands. We had been inspired by, you know, of course, Club Monaco here in Canada. Caban was a huge. I remember the excitement I had going to Caban in Montreal and to Catherine. I mean, it just we want to bring what we experienced as as young, you know, teenagers and and 20 somethings and kind of bring that back because it impacted us in such a huge way.

4:06I think having brands, businesses injected into the local economy, that also stimulates culture, right? It is who we are when we have these brands that we enjoy flagship on. Queen West, Club Monaco, Caban. I remember going to those stores and it was so sad when Caban shut down. There's nothing we love more than wandering on a street, grabbing a coffee, visiting stores, exploring a city in that way. To me, there's no better way to explore a city and the people that live there. And we've always had such a love for that. Opening a store was always a goal. And I think that was partly because we wanted to, again, share the full picture of the brand that we envisioned we had for the brand and also provide that experience to people.

4:53It is a form of art, you know, and it's a lost art. And unfortunately, there's less and less of it. So I think small businesses who are able to open a store and create that experience for people, it's a wonderful thing. Bring us back to the beginning. You only use$1 ,500 to kickstart Providence of Canada. What were some of the first things you did to launch the brand? Yeah, I mean, we started with a few t-shirts and one crewneck. The crewneck was the star. And I think our first iteration of the website was just a video. We just did a really simple video, but it got people's attention. I think that really we were giving kind of a different look to what a typical Canadian lifestyle brand had been up until that point.

5:34And we always tried to keep it fresh. Our logo literally is the Canadian flag minus the maple leaf. A Canadian brand doesn't need to look what is typically known as Canadian. So, you know, removing all those stereotypes and being like, how can this look different and be fresh for Canadians and be products that they want to wear every day? It's not dripping in what's typically known as Canadiana. I think that's also such an interesting concept to keep in mind because this is such a saturated market apparel. You have countless choices. So in order to stand out, you really use your design background to make sure that the products felt different and was unique.

6:12Yeah, I mean, we take a really simple approach. but I think that what we've built over time is people really rely on us for basics. I mean, I don't know about you, but you know, even in this day and age, finding something that's made with natural fibers. I mean, cotton is kind of like almost everything we make is a hundred percent cotton. We want to keep it that way. Again, that's so hard to find nowadays, whether it's like a cotton knit sweater. I have some that are like 20 years old in my wardrobe from like American apparel. Bringing that to this generation, I feel is like all I want to do. Most of what we create are products that we either have had in our wardrobe for the last 20 years and we want to recreate that because I just think it's so hard to find these staples, these well-made staples that should last in your wardrobe for 20 years if you take good care of them.

7:01And again, those products may seem boring, but they're practical. You can rely on them. That's the type of product that we like to make. You're also making it very easy for the customer, right? They can trust you in the fabric that you select, the manufacturing practices that you choose to partake in, and also the design that you have. Yeah. I mean, we've been making everything in Canada from day one. We plan to continue to do that. And yeah, I think the icing on the cake for Canadians is it's 100 % cotton. It's a beautiful product. It's well-made and it's made in Canada. I know this seems like a really common thing to say, but I am a uniform wearer.

7:39It's not something I want to think about every day. And I love having a company where like, I love this shirt. They have it in 10 colors and I can just go back and I know exactly what I want and that's going to fit me the same and I'm going to love it. Almost anti-fashion in a way, right? There's no seasons. You're not - There are no seasons. You're not trying to boost sales by switching up the design. You're being there to be a foundation where people can turn to and they can get closet staples if they choose to. And that was something when we started to, because, you know, there's the world of wholesale and obviously it's tempting to go that route because you want exposure and it would obviously, you'd be great to get into like some stores and have that, that, that exposure.

8:18But we didn't want to play the seasonal game. We don't want to discontinue products after, after, you know, six months. We roll over, we bring in new colors. We'll, you know, tweak things here and there. But yeah, we just, we didn't want a seasonal retail business. So initially$1 ,500, mostly into inventory, you built the site. How did you get people excited about the brand and actually want to be a paying customer? You know, I think we questioned a lot of times whether this was possible for two kids with no money and no, you know, real connection, you know, no connections, just like grit and a lot of work.

8:58And so, yeah, we started with$1 ,500 in our loft and we had like our inventory up on the mezzanine. We just reinvested every time. We didn't take any money from the company for many, many years. And, you know, we got the word out with Instagram. Instagram has changed a lot since then. But back then, I mean, you could share a photo and it would actually get people's attention. So, I mean, day in, day out, we would, that's how we started. We got a few mentions and some press mentions, which helped us along the way. But yeah, I mean, it was really five to seven years of just blood, sweat and tears, I would say.

9:40And then five years in, it was 2019 and we had planned to open a store in 2020, but everything aligned and we decided to do it in 2019. Which is a big catalyst for growth for the brand. But even before we get there, I think what is really important for the audience to know is up until that point, handful of years, all organic growth, which is incredible and hard to think about. $1 ,500, all organic growth for a handful of years. What is your advice for people who are trying to do that today? Like, you know, they don't have a lot of money. They don't have the finances to invest in ads. What should they do?

10:19Yeah, I mean, I could even give you an example of like, we did this one thing, which was called Standard Time, because Standard Time was created by a Canadian. And we actually shared a tweet at the time every single day. And we'd actually had a mailing list where we sent an email every single day. And it was a tidbit about Canada. It was like a little interesting fact about Canada. So we really got creative with ways to, you know, get in people's inbox on a daily basis. It was a lot of work. But yeah, I mean, we were relentless. We, you know, we put in thousands and thousands of hours and we made sure we showed up every day and we created, you know, beautiful content.

10:59That's still a huge driving force for us. I mean, we still do all of our photo shoots in-house. We, Jeremy actually does all the photography still. I do the styling and we have a small team that helps us too. And I think the storytelling too, combined with the visuals and, you know, the effort we put into that, which a lot of companies I think nowadays don't put a lot of effort into that, but we are just such brand lovers and we are so passionate about telling these stories that we can't help ourselves. It's started that way. We haven't really changed our recipe much in the last 11 years. So, you know, province of Canada, this idea launch, it was a little bit of a side hustle for a few years.

11:38Yeah, you also had an agency. Jeremy and yourself are Shopify experts. So for new founders, they're trying to build their first store. What are some things they should think about? Yeah, I mean, we were one of the first agencies in Toronto to be Shopify experts. I think we were one of two when we started. And Shopify is obviously a big part of our story, which is also a great Canadian story. You know, I really believe if it hadn't been for Shopify, I don't know if we would have would be here today on many levels because we were able to have this side hustle, build brands and also have our design business, which was building brands for other people.

12:13And for us, it was just a combination of like, you know, our skill set. We were both graphic designers and being able to build on Shopify allowed us to kind of bring, you know, our branding, like, you know, we could develop an identity, a brand, and then also provide them with an e-commerce site to sell on. And the value that we could provide because of Shopify was huge. And it was the first time we kind of our skill sets had come together and our passion for arts and commerce, I would say, came together. Because we started dabbling in that, it's what made us go, gosh, we can do this for ourselves.

12:47So it was definitely a huge turning point for us. Because at the time, I mean, having an e-commerce site as a small business was unheard of. You couldn't do it. You needed somebody full time working on this, the cost to even get it set up, the security around it. It was just not something you could do as a small business. So yeah, it opened up a lot of doors for us and just made the whole process so seamless that we could just focus on developing the brand. You know, we learned a lot from that experience. We also, it was a beautiful thing because we had province of Canada as like a living, breathing example of like what we could offer other brands that we were working with.

13:20some really simple tips, you know, in terms of, again, this seems really simple, but offering a discount code to sign up for your newsletter, building that newsletter. There's a lot of value in that. Having a healthy, strong email list is something as a business that you can always rely on without having to rely on these external, you know, whether it's advertising or whatever it may be, you can control that fully and what you're delivering to people on a daily or weekly basis. It's a powerful thing if you work hard at building it. And so, you know, we've seen, just by adding a discount code to get that email and for their first order, just that, the conversion in that is huge.

14:00It seems simple, but it really does work. Obviously, advertising, it's worth investing in. You might be wondering whether it's worth putting money into. But I would say, again, if you're going to do that, you need to do it well and you need to do it carefully and not just throw money at it. You need to really study what it is that your customers respond to through those ads. Otherwise, you might find that you're wasting your money. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the businesses that we worked with, some of my favorites were like, you know, they'd been around for 30 years, their product photography was horrible, even their online merchandising, such a simple thing.

14:35But making things universally understood. So, you know, a lot of companies use a lot of internal lingo publicly, like on the, you know, You really need to simplify things, dumb it down so it's very easy to understand and follow, especially if you have a large product line or that sort of thing. But yeah, good photography and a strong, simple MegaNav and good merchandising, online merchandising can go a long way. I think it's important to note here, right? When you're sharing those fun facts and interesting facts about Canada in general, you're not selling anything to do with province of Canada.

15:13Exactly. People are just interested to actually tune in. What is the new fact of the day? And through that, they'll be like, all right, I'll be starting to think about the brand. But yeah, you're not being salesy or pushy at all. And that's always been our approach. It's the same with like, you know, educating our customers rather than selling to our customers. That's just the way we have always done things. Yeah. The element of like education, entertainment as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that Canadian pride, you know, right now is obviously having a moment. And I feel like we've been here for 11 years kind of doing this.

15:49And we suddenly, it's like, it feels like we've been here all along. And now suddenly people are paying attention or noticing more than ever. So that's an amazing feeling. And I think it was also about highlighting moments in Canadian history or, you know, that aren't always talked about. Like, of course, we all know the main, you know, our top stories. Yeah, I think it was like bringing some of that to the table and reminding Canada of all the great things that we've done and all the great contributions that we've done. And all the funny, interesting tidbits that we should all know about this wonderful country of ours.

16:23I think people often think businesses get successful overnight. And it does look that way because you have reached this point of exponential growth, but it's also almost like a decade of work building up to that point. Yes. Organic growth because of great storytelling and engaging community building, which also contributes to such great SEO for the brand as well. So incredible. Done without paid ads. Then we get to 2019. Talk to us about how you were kind of thrust into building up a retail store. Yeah. So at that point, we, I'm like, wow, how personal should I go? So we were about to have our second child and we had brought on somebody to help with province of Canada because we were also running our design business as Shopify experts.

17:17And we, yeah, so we had somebody and they were kind of running province of Canada and we thought, okay, we can kind of like ease back one more year get through this year have this baby um this was january 2019 and then in 2020 we had had this goal to open a store um and you know we always kept an eye out for locations and one day this shop uh came up on queen east and i always took a picture of the phone number next day we go to work and sadly our wonderful employee had decided to give her notice and it was this moment of, okay. I mean, it was devastating because I thought, now what do we do? And we knew we could not continue running these two businesses.

18:04You know, we had never really gone all in on province of Canada fully. It was always, you know, our side hustle, I would say, even though it didn't probably look like that. And so when this happened, it was either like do or die is how I felt. And my first thought was, we need to call this place and we need to open this door as soon as possible. And if we don't do that, we're done. And I mean, we had some pretty big heart to heart here because I was like, it's either like we can't continue or we're going all in. And we decided to go on. I think we were like, well, if we never go all in, we'll never know if this was possible.

18:46But I mean, we had self-doubt. We had feelings of like, maybe no one's telling us. Maybe everyone thinks this is like a silly idea and maybe it's not doable, you know, and maybe we're kidding ourselves and we should just throw in the towel. But we thought if we don't give it one last shot and fully commit, we will always regret and not, you know, regret not knowing the real answer. So we buckled up. It was probably the most intense, I would say like six to eight months of our lives for sure. We went into debt the most that we had ever gotten into debt. And we had a baby and we, and the Raptors won.

19:25And it was a big year. Canadian moment. Exactly. And then we opened our store in September. We had an amazing September. I mean, we, at that point we were like literally at the end of our bank account. So it was like, Like this was it. It was like, you know, we'd hit the end of the road. And we had an amazing September. We went on to have an amazing holiday season. It was our first$100 ,000 month, which we had never even believed was possible until then. Like we kind of couldn't believe it. We were just blown away at the reaction. And I think for the first time, the great thing about the store was just being able to people to, you know, experience the store firsthand and what our vision was for the whole brand.

20:08And we didn't just have the online presence. And then fast forward to January, February, we had like no inventory. And then March came along because we weren't prepared at all for what had happened during the holiday season. And then March comes along. And of course, COVID hits. And at that moment, we thought, oh boy, what have we done? Like we've opened a store and now all stores are closing. And in retrospect, though, I really to this day think if we had not opened that store in 2019 and kind of been like forced or felt compelled that this was the direction, we would have obviously never done it because we would have never thought that opening a store in 2020 would have been a good idea.

20:47So I always think that was such an incredible moment and also such a fork in the road that we could have easily just been like, we'll just have this baby get through this year and then we'll stick with our plan. And I know for a fact that like with COVID, for example, people were treating us like, you know, a small local business where they could do local pickup and delivery. It was like curbside pickup. If we hadn't had that presence on the street, I just don't think we wouldn't have been thought of in that way. And so the support that came with that and we just wouldn't have survived. I really, truly believe that.

21:21And that that was such a big moment for us to kind of like, depending on which way we had gone there. I don't think we would have survived if we'd gotten in the other direction. I always get so taken aback hearing these stories because, again, from an outsider's perspective as a fan, I see the headlines. I see the mentions of roundups. And I'm like, this is a beautiful brand. They decided to go into retail. It's all seamless. So seamless. Yeah. But there's moments of chaos that push you to that decision. Yeah. I'm also sure that there's also a logical checklist that you also had to be like, all right, this is also a decision that makes sense.

21:57I guess now zooming out a little bit for those who are with the brand and they're toying with the idea of opening a physical space. What would you say to them to think about before they do that? I mean, look, we we loved it. It really propelled our business. It made it just an online brand to a physical living, breathing thing that people could experience. And not only did obviously our sales grow from the store, but our online sales have like grew in a huge way. Like our sales are literally like, you know, a radius around our stores. And I think that they grow from there, essentially. And the community around it supports us so much.

22:39But yeah, I mean, for us, it was necessary to get our full vision out. And as scary as it seems, you're thinking about things like, this is going to sound silly, but you worry about all sorts of things like who's going to clear the snow in the winter? Who's going to do that? Because there's so much in going from an online store to a physical store. Staffing it. Just keeping it fresh. It's a lot of work, admittedly. And I think before you make those big moves, you're just kind of like trying to, whether it's talking yourself out of it or wanting to be like really thinking it through and be like, can we really handle this?

23:17Is this really what we want to do? Because, you know, it brings a whole other set of, I don't want to call them problems, but it can. But for us, I mean, it was such an important move. I'm so glad we did it. I'm so grateful we did it when we did. It was the best decision we made. Sometimes you need that extra push and then you'll figure out, you know, the bills, the snow clearing, the lawn work. You do. You do. Yeah. I mean, in that moment, it was probably one of our lowest moments for sure. And I actually called my old boss who was so helpful. And I knew she had been through moments like this.

23:52And she said, you know, this may seem like the worst possible scenario right now. This may seem really awful. But she's like, I promise you. that this might end up being one of the best things that ever happened. And it was so hard to believe that in the moment. But boy, was she right. You know, again, it really if we had handled it differently or taken, you know, and not open the store and instead turtled and made the decision in fear rather than take a chance. Yeah, I mean, it was it was huge. So after the great September, the great holiday season, you reach the first 100K a month ever. it also gives you the financial runway and also the room to experiment with paid ads for the first time.

24:37For the first time. Yeah. What were you doing and thinking about when you have money to spend? Yeah. Yeah. So we were like, OK, we need to take advantage of this. And so we had never done any online advertising. So we found a great company to work with. And yeah, I mean, again, much like the store, that was game changing, as you can imagine. And, you know, we work hard at that, too. It's not like we just throw whatever up there. And it's something we, on a weekly basis, we tweak and we analyze because we don't want to waste money. We take it all very seriously. And it's easy to just throw money at that and kind of let it go.

25:17Because when we started, we kind of weren't honing in on it as carefully, I felt, as we should. And over time, we have really, I find like as soon as something's not working, we change it. We don't waste money on ads that aren't working. Whereas at the beginning, it was a bit more lackadaisical. And that was something I felt even like the industry's approach is kind of a bit lackadaisical in that way. And we kind of forced the issue. And we're like, we want reports on a weekly basis. And we want to be able to tweak and, you know, perfect this. And I think that has also been game changing for us.