Behind the Brand®

E37: Connor Curran / Local Laundry

[00:00:00] Jeff Adamson: Welcome to Behind the Brand, presented by Neo. We take an inside look at the leaders behind today's most influential brands. I'm your host, Jeff Adamson. As co-founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, I'm fascinated by what it takes to build great companies. On this podcast, we'll learn from leaders that are reimagining, transforming, and innovating in the financial and retail industries across Canada. Let's get going!

[00:00:33] Jeff Adamson: Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Brand, where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and change-makers behind everyone's favourite Canadian brands. This week is Small Business Week. With small businesses making up over 97% of Canadian businesses, I would be remiss if we didn't hear some perspectives from our largest population of entrepreneurs.

The people building and running the businesses that make our communities and neighbourhoods special. So in honour of Small Business Week, our guest today is Connor Curran, one of Calgary's top 40 under 40 according to Avenue Magazine, and the Chief Laundry Officer at Local Laundry. Local Laundry is a remarkable Canadian-made clothing company on a mission to create positive impact through community and social good.

And I have to mention that we're proud to have them as a Neo partner. This episode is packed with small business advice, insights, and tools. If you're an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or someone who is generally interested in everything it takes to build a business, you won't want to miss this episode. Connor, welcome to the show.

Connor Curran: Thank you so much for having me excited to be here.

Let's go back to the beginning. I want to hear the Local Laundry startup story. So tell us, tell us the gritty details of getting, getting you guys off the ground.

[00:01:42] Connor Curran: I just got laid off from oil and gas here in Calgary. When I was at school, I looked at all the super-successful people in my life.

You know, my parents, friends, and everyone, they were all did really well in oil and gas. So all throughout university, that's what I wanted to do because I thought I wanted to make lots of money and do business stuff in oil and gas. And people were like, great. What do you want to do in oil and gas? I was like, I don't know, business. Whatever makes the most money. Like, I'll do that. So I tried my hand at the oil and gas industry for about two years and I got laid off there. And so I was just like, you know what? Not for me.

[00:02:07] Jeff Adamson: Was it during like a down cycle in prices?

[00:02:11] Connor Curran: Yeah. Like the two 2014, uh, this is when I got laid off.

[00:02:16] Jeff Adamson: What were you doing in oil and gas? Was it like, were you on the rig or were you?

[00:02:19] Connor Curran: No, I was at an engineering firm. I was a subcontract specialist. No idea what that means. I was so bad at it. I was basically just like helping draft the contracts between the construction companies and the oil and gas companies. And I was useless at, at it. So I was not surprised at all when, when I got laid off, that's all I wanted to do.

And so when I got laid off and I realized that the industry wasn't for me, I had to figure out what it is that I wanted to do. And I looked to my parents as, um, what they did, and they were successful entrepreneurs. They own an Irish pub just down the street from here, the James Joyce Pub, if you're ever hankering for a good pint.

They came to this country with no money, no education, and they built a successful life for themselves. They were their own bosses. They were able to provide for the family. They were able to use their business as a vehicle to give back to the community. And so it was there that I kinda realized, you know what, I think that's what I really wanna do. I wanna be an entrepreneur like my parents.

[00:03:07] Jeff Adamson: That's a ridiculously hard business to run. Like I don't think, man, people understand, no question how difficult running restaurants, bars, pubs is. I'm, I'm assuming they didn't have, they didn't come to Canada with a playbook of like, this is how you run the James Joyce Pub. It was like figuring it out on the fly.

[00:03:21] Connor Curran: Exactly. And, and a business where, you know, you really gotta watch your costs and. Scottish? Irish? Irish, yeah, my parents are from Ireland.

[00:03:29] Jeff Adamson: So then they did have a playbook then. So they grew up with

[00:03:32] Connor Curran: it. He was, he was working in bars since he was like 14. It was always his dream to open a bar, a pub. But everyone was like, oh, you want to be an entrepreneur? Just go take over your parents bar, no problem. And I was like, no, not a chance.

[00:03:42] Jeff Adamson: I mean, I'm assuming you watched.

[00:03:44] Connor Curran: Worked there, started the dish pit. Yeah, I worked as a bartender during university summers, that kind of thing.

[00:03:49] Jeff Adamson: And was part of it, you saw kind of the life they had and you're like, I don't know if I've got that level of grind or was it just, you didn't, you weren't attracted to that industry?

[00:03:58] Connor Curran: I just wasn't passionate about it, right? My dad was always passionate about pubs, and it just wasn't for me. And there was a little bit of vanity in there, too. I wanted to be successful in my own right. I didn't want to be successful because mom and daddy gave me a pub.

[00:04:11] Jeff Adamson: That's amazing, though. I mean, cause I think there is that stereotype of people who grew up and their parents ran a great business and, and then they just kind of fall into the business.

[00:04:19] Connor Curran: And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, those people work extremely hard as well.

[00:04:25] Jeff Adamson: The fact that you had that and you said, you know what, I want to do it on my own. I think that's really respectable, man.

[00:04:48] Connor Curran: Well, thank you. I think the reason it always comes down to passion, right? I wanted to find something that was passionate, that I enjoyed. And so... But the other thing was I didn't have any money and I'm kind of risk-averse. So I didn't want to go ask mom and dad for a bunch of money or go out and, you know, spend my last dollar.

So I, uh, I just, I had came up with this idea for a clothing company, you know, people really wanted to support local breweries and farm-to-table, fresh local food. And I was like, what if all our laundry could be local? What if clothing could be a way to bring our community together? And so I just did what any idiot does.

I just Google searched how to make a t-shirt company, watch the YouTube video. A couple hours later, 50 bucks, I had my own online t-shirt company and then I just, I got addicted to it.

[00:05:33] Jeff Adamson: So you literally started the whole company up with 50 bucks? Yeah. Like just went, bought a domain, opened up a Shopify.

[00:05:39] Connor Curran: Shopify, plugged it into a print-on-demand t shirt. Unbelievable. My first designs, I'm not a designer. First designs came from a website called Hipster Logo Generator and I just came up with a stack of different designs, tossed them up there, and started selling.

[00:05:52] Jeff Adamson: I love that there's a whole other company dedicated to hipster logos. Okay, so you, you, you started up, which I think a lot of people don't understand is just how, Valuable what Shopify has done is no question in lowering the barrier to starting a business now question.

[00:06:09] Connor Curran: And that's why I always say people have no excuse not to start a business. If you want to start a business, you are out of excuses for why you can't start one.

[00:06:16] Jeff Adamson: Yeah, they've just made it so you're like tripping over starting companies though. Yeah, it's,

[00:06:20] Connor Curran: it's us. And so that's why I said that the easiest thing is starting the business. The hard part is growing and keeping it going, but you have no excuse for starting a business.

[00:06:27] Jeff Adamson: And so many people also think they're like, I just don't have any ideas. Yeah. It's like, well, guess what? The idea actually isn't the hard part at all. No. Ideas are cheap. You can actually start with bad ideas. And as long as you actually get the execution, the actual right running of the business right. Well, it's going to change so much. How much have you guys changed?

[00:06:45] Connor Curran: Our business has changed fundamentally, probably 20, 30 times.

So it worked yesterday. It's not going to work today. And what's working today might not work tomorrow. You always have to be willing to adapt. And we started as a print-on-demand company. Someone would order a shirt and then the company would print it in LA and ship it. So we didn't have any inventory and that was great.

Then stores came around, they were interested. Then we had to buy inventory and now we were focused not so much on online store, but a wholesale company and then COVID hit. Now we're focusing on custom corporate apparel and that's the majority of our revenue. You know, and now we're looking at acquisitions and now we're going to build a portfolio.

[00:07:21] Jeff Adamson: So how did you go from solo entrepreneur to having a co-founder building your team? Like, walk me through that process. Cause I feel like a lot of people, maybe they have an idea, maybe they want to start a business, and they think that they have to kind of go it alone, but you've got a co-founder.

You've obviously got a team now. What was that process for finding the co-founder and then building your, your kind of founding team?

[00:07:44] Connor Curran: I want to ask you this as well. After us, for me, I knew pretty early on what I was good at and what I was not so good at. Right. I'm, I'm the heart. I can go out and sell and be passionate and drop vision and inspire people to get going and that kind of thing. But I really lack the financial side of things, the operational side of things. You know, I need an adult is what I determined. I need it. Yeah. So I'm going to keep me in line and pull my head from the clouds. And so, I was introduced to my business partner Dustin.

He was a friend of a friend. He was working at a promotional company. And originally, my friend introduced me saying maybe we could do some hats. And so I reached out to him and it didn't quite work with our print-on-demand model and that kind of thing. But he said, you know what, I think you have something here.

I'd love to work with you on this. And for me, I was just so So he just offered himself up. Yeah, absolutely. He said, I'd love to help you with this. And I didn't know him. He was a complete stranger. But I said, you know what, I actually

Jeff: How did you guys meet?

Connor: A friend of a friend, a guy I was working with at the time.

I worked at a tech company here in town, Benevity, because the business wasn't able to sustain myself from a salary perspective, so I had to work while I was growing it. The guy I was working right beside, he went to school with Dustin. Oh, okay. And so he's like, man, my, this guy went to school, he's doing something close, I think you guys would like each other, you know, you should meet for coffee.

I mean, for coffee, we did. And then, we like to say we dated before we got married, so I said, I really, this is what I need help with.

[00:09:00] Jeff Adamson: Who got the check?

[00:09:02] Connor Curran: I think I did. That's a good question. Uh, it's a very good question. I think I did. So I had the, I wasn't even a corporate card.

[00:09:08] Jeff Adamson: What I like about this though, is that so Benevity is a startup here in Calgary.

I'd say they're very mature startup. They're, you know, profitable, well-established private equity is in there. But I think that What people underestimate at working at startups is who you're meeting there and then who they know and keeping your eyes open to, obviously you have the work that needs to get done, but it's also the relationships that you're building with the other people who are there and And, you know, you would, the fact that you maybe would have never met Dustin, who has presumably been very valuable to the business if you hadn't have worked there, if you had just been focused on, you know, your work at Benevity and you hadn't been kind of having your, your eyes and ears open, you may not be where you are now.

[00:09:49] Connor Curran: No question. Yeah. If it wasn't for Dustin. Local Laundry, it would have, it would have folded a long time ago. Oh, nice one. But, oh, I didn't even think of that. But also like the stuff I learned there, you know, and their ethos and their values really kind of leaked into what became the foundation of Local Laundry.

You know, Benevity was all about, you know, a giving back platform and the charity aspect and the social, and that really kind of helped build the foundation. So a lot of what makes Local Laundry so community-focused and social, I picked up. And learned, you know, from the leaders at, at Benevity and, and, and so I'm very, very thankful for my time there.

[00:10:22] Jeff Adamson: So you got Dustin in and then how long before you hired your, your first employee?

[00:10:26] Connor Curran: A long time. Uh, both Dustin and I, we both worked for free on the business. We both had Jobs and we both worked, uh, this on a side for like two years till I was able to go full time. And then when COVID hit, we hired a couple of, uh, students, some communication, some Mount Royal PR students to help us with our social and a couple of other things.

So they were our part time hires. And then eventually when the pandemic hit, they got laid off from their jobs. We hired them full time. So we're still a really small team. So there's three of us full time. And then about. Three of us part time.

[00:10:59] Jeff Adamson: And what were you looking for like what were the characteristics that you'd looked for in your early hires mostly values driven?

[00:11:04] Connor Curran: Do you know do they believe and share the same values that we believe in do they see and understand the vision?

Are they willing to care as much as as we are they're willing to go the extra mile For the customer, for clients, are they solutions orientated versus problem orientated? You know, are they going to be able to dive in and just fix things when stuff needs to get fixed?

[00:11:24] Jeff Adamson: Was it hard to find those original employees? Like, and the reason I'm asking is that because oftentimes you're looking at different people and you're like, okay, well this person's a big company person. This person is a small company person or this person, you know, has a lot of experience. This person doesn't, uh, this person has a degree or they don't like those types of attributes.

Like how did those factor into those early hires? Like, were you. Did you have a profile in your head or were you just kind of like, Hey, I like this person. They seem like a hard worker. Let's take a chance on them.

[00:11:50] Connor Curran: It's a little bit of both. I think mostly people came to us and said, Hey, I'd love to work with you. I'll even work for free at this, or I need to do this as part of my project or my degree for there's some volunteers, some volunteers, you know, and we just, we just needed people. Right. And then as you got to know them over time and you got to see their talents and see their work ethic and they believe the same things you believe, that's when we really got to kind of invest in them and bring them on full time. So there were additional ones that they kind of came to us. We attracted them and then we got to work together.

[00:12:20] Jeff Adamson: You got the name, you got your logo, you got an early team. Tell us some of the stories in the early days about like some of the barriers that you've had to overcome and launching the company.

Like, is it a lot of people, and I'm actually guilty of it where you'll look at a company and you'll be like, man, that company just like came out of nowhere. It was overnight success. And I catch myself sometimes thinking that too. And the reality is that any company that you see that exists today probably was close to death.

Hundreds and hundreds of times. What are some of those moments that you had? I'm certain certainly covid was was one of them, but tell us some of those early kind of war stories.

[00:12:55] Connor Curran: I mean,I think the biggest thing for us is probably two things is one. We knew nothing about the clothing industry or the retail industry, and so we were always learning on the fly.

Be in big meetings with these big box stores, and they would, you know, calls the VP of this and the VP of that, and they go, Yeah, you know, we're gonna require you to ship everything to our DC, and then we'll take our, you know, go on, hang on, Sorry, what's a DC? I go, Washington? Yeah, yeah, they're like, uh, it's a distribution center.

I like, ah, okay, gotcha distribution center, you know, or that's how there's a massive learning curve and we're still learning a ton. You know, now we're learning a ton on the cut and sew side of it. You know, how garments are actually made that different stitches and patterns and all that. We didn't go to fashion school or, or, or have degrees in that.

So that's been a big learning curve. I think cash has always been our biggest thing. We've self financed this whole thing. Both Dustin and I, we've only ever had to put in a thousand bucks. So when Dustin and I, you know, we, we signed our first shareholders agreement, we both agreed to put a thousand bucks into the business and we've never had to put another penny in, into it.

So it's always been kind of self-funded. You know, and we haven't take, we have a line of credit and a credit card, but that's about it, you know, other than like, um, the Siba loan or anything, we've never taken long-term debt to, to feel our growth or anything, which is great because, you know, it gives us a lot more freedom, gives a lot more control, but always cash strapped. We're always trying to make sure we have enough runway.

[00:14:11] Jeff Adamson: How do you go about that decision though? Because I feel like there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are looking at, you know, you've got capital purchases, you, you want to hire staff, you want to grow. In order to do that, you need to have an infusion of cash. So, how did you make that kind of growth versus funding decision?

[00:14:28] Connor Curran: And I think you could argue all day whether it was the right decision. Maybe looking back, maybe we should have been a little bit more aggressive because, you know, but we just thought that we could do this. That we, that we didn't need capital to grow that, that we could grow it organically.

You know, at this time we both gotten married, we had wives, we didn't wanna put the house on the line risk it all. I think if we were, if we had started this when we were like 19, 20, I think we would have done it a lot differently and take a lot more riskier, um, but we've kind of played it safe and, and, you know, for better or worse.

And you gotta keep in mind, like growing up, you know, our, like we see the 2008 financial crash. Then I just went through, you know, the, the 2014 oil crash. We saw the, the bad sides of what happens when. Companies and people are over-leveraged and we saw what could happen and we never wanted to put ourselves in that position.

So we always knew that, you know, let's give this business a real strong go. And if it goes belly up, sure, we'll just get jobs tomorrow, you know, so that's okay.

[00:15:22] Jeff Adamson: That's an interesting point too, because you talk about how you would have maybe done it differently if you were younger, and I feel like a lot of people who start thinking about starting a company. They don't start thinking about it sometimes until a lot later and then they're like, oh, I got a mortgage. I've got this lifestyle that I'm living and I've got, you know, all these expenses, responsibilities. I've got no time and, you know, not enough energy to do it.

And so it's like, there's almost like this window of, of opportunity to start companies and you can start a company like Jack Moss started, I think, Alibaba, when he was in his mid thirties, I think. Uh, and he was a school teacher, so you can certainly start at any time, but it's seems to me that the, the risk and the downside grows as you start having more of these.

And so it is interesting to me because like in many ways you go to university, yes, you do learn, but then you also now are like, okay, maybe you come out with debt that you want to pay off. And then you're like, okay, now I want to use my degree. I hear that a lot where people want to use their degree and you're like, okay, we'll get a job.

And then companies are quite good at always having a carrot in front of you. And kind of always wanting to get to that next promotion or that next milestone. And the next thing you know, you've got a house, you got a mortgage, maybe you're married, you got a kid. And that idea that you had is now looking like a lot more risky.

And so it's like, if you're like a single person, you know, you don't have kids, you don't have a mortgage to me. That's actually like the best time to really take a chance, because you're not putting a lot of other people or a lot of other things at risk, but I feel like a lot of people wait too long.

[00:16:57] Connor Curran: 100%. So did I. I waited too long. I started.

[00:16:59] Jeff Adamson: Would you start it earlier if you could do it again?

[00:17:01] Connor Curran: It's the number one thing. I started when I was 25. I would have started earlier, but My, I had my own barriers. I looked at my parents and I idolized my parents, how smart they were and how much they knew about business.

I just, I never thought I was smart enough to start business. I didn't think that I knew enough about taxes or, you know, corporate structure. Stuff like that, you know, which is ridiculous because I just google searched how to make a t-shirt company and I just kept googling stuff every time I didn't know something.

Yeah, you know, and I think if I had started this 2021, you know, but you're also way more open about your strengths and weaknesses than a lot of people. And I think that that's actually kind of one of your strengths in a lot of ways, because a lot of people, they don't want to say that they're not good at something.

[00:17:39] Jeff Adamson: Yeah. Yeah. And then it becomes difficult to partner up with people because in order for you to have a team, you kind of need to divide up resources. And if you're not willing to say that you can't do finance operations, legal, tech, then. You're gonna be stepping on everyone's toes all the time. And no one wants to work with someone who's like, I'm the best at everything.

[00:17:57] Connor Curran: Yeah, yeah, it's true. That is my superpower. I'm not afraid to ask for help. I'm not afraid to look like the dumbest person in the room. And I have no shame. Like, I'll go and ask anyone anything. The dumbest questions. And I think, you know, It's been said a lot before, like there's strength in vulnerability and I think as entrepreneurs we have to be vulnerable and we have to be open.

You have to be willing to ask for help. Sometimes it's the hardest thing to do is just ask for help. What I've seen, so many people out there that want to help. So many people that you described earlier that had the aspirations and they never went for it. But now they see a little bit of themselves in us and they're so willing to help. They'll do anything to help because they let them in. You just got to let them in.

[00:18:33] Jeff Adamson: You just got to know how Canadian thing like I feel like there's a lot like and even maybe more of a prairie thing to in some ways like people don't want to ask things of others. It seems like a lot of people, great people and incredibly smart people, they don't want to go to someone else for help.

And, and, and I don't, even though the person actually be happier helping them than they would be if they were never asked.

[00:18:59] Connor Curran: Yeah, I think about this all the time. Cause my strength is that my parents are from Ireland. That's my strength. You know, we come from a long line of people of charming, you know, storytellers, just living for the good times, living for today, you know, and that's not Canadians. Canadians are shy. They're quiet. They're reserved. They're thoughtful.

[00:19:16] Jeff Adamson: I'm gonna get a couple beers in a minute.

[00:19:17] Connor Curran: Right. Exactly. I 100 percent think it's a cultural thing. And then you can compare that to the entrepreneurship and small business scene to the South of us. You look at the States, they have no issue with risk.

They have such a massive appetite. They think massive. That's a nice, it was often say like, maybe we don't think big enough.

[00:19:35] Jeff Adamson: And you've talked to people and it doesn't cost anything to think big down there that they take massive swings. They think massively. And I think, yeah, it's 100 percent a cultural thing.

[00:19:45] Connor Curran: Our own barriers on ourselves. No one else put barriers on us. We do it.

[00:19:49] Jeff Adamson: What's been one of the more surprising or unexpected things that's that's happened in your journey at Local Laundry?

[00:19:56] Connor Curran: I think I never thought this would be like my calling in life, but I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not where I want to be yet. You know, we still got a long way to go. Lots to learn, lots to figure out, but I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And I feel like it's afforded me the right and the ability to be exactly who I am. I think when you work at a big corporation or you're working for someone else, maybe not everyone, but me, I was, I was always trying to be someone else.

I was trying to compare, I was always comparing myself to others and I was trying to be something that I wasn't. And then as soon as I gave that up, as soon as like, I don't care what the boss thinks of me, like I'm starting my own thing, or I don't care what other people think, I'm my own boss. It gave me this sense of freedom and this confidence.

I can be as weird, wacky, and silly as I want. I don't care. I'm not looking for a job from... Someone else. So there's, it's this incredible sense of freedom that I can be exactly who I'm supposed to be and that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. You know what I mean? I imagine you must feel the same way.

[00:20:48] Jeff Adamson: Like, I think it's, yeah, when you go off on your own and I think part of it, part of what makes it easier is stopping seeking approval from everyone. Yes. And it's not easy to do because you obviously like care, but you kind of have to care a little bit less about what your peers think, and a lot of others think, but then you got to care a lot more about what your customers think.

Yes. Oh yeah. Cause like, customers are generally pretty damn honest. Yeah. They don't sugarcoat it. And they, and then they often vote with their money and, and if your product isn't moving and that's kind of like the best feedback in some ways where it's like, okay, well, something needs to change. Yeah, like you're kind of, they're telling you and, and there's so many different ways that people can tell you what to change to and what they like, what they don't like.

It's never been easier in history to kind of understand your customers. But the hard part, yeah, was, was kind of. Getting away from seeking the approval of others, seeking, you know, people to kind of tell you what you're worth as opposed to you going out and doing it.

[00:21:49] Connor Curran: Or even comparing yourself. I don't know if you experienced it, but comparing yourself to other entrepreneurs, you know, like you said before the overnight says you look at this person on Instagram or LinkedIn, you're like, God, this guy is so successful. Like, why aren't I as successful?

[00:22:00] Jeff Adamson: Like, I feel like Canada has got a lot more of this than in the US and others in the sense that in Canada, it feels a lot more of like, Hey, there's a fixed pie and. If my piece of the pie grows, it's because I'm taking a piece of your pie. That, that's a lot of the, the chatter and this thinking around success.

There's only so much success to be had. There's a finite amount of it is kind of how it feels. Versus the U. S. is just like, we're just going to grow the whole damn pie. And there's the, you know, the famous quote like, rising tides raises all ships, right? It doesn't mean... Like if I'm, if I'm successful or if you're successful, like that doesn't come at your expense.

Like you, you could be successful. And, and, but I feel like there is a lot of that comparison that happens between companies. Uh, and even, even us, like as being outsiders, like we came to Calgary, we started a company and we're just doing our own thing. And I think a lot of people were like, what are these guys doing?

Like what? And there, there was actually a little bit of a little bit of just kind of like, yeah, like what do these guys think they're doing? And we're like, well, we're figuring it out as we go. Just like everyone else.

[00:23:02] Connor Curran: Do you think a part of it was you'd come from a successful venture? Like you, I don't know.

[00:23:06] Jeff Adamson: I mean, you were known before. I don't think any of the founders or early teams that Skip whatever, like say, Hey, we're successful. I don't think you'd ever hear any of us saying that we, we, we all feel like the job is never done. We always look at it as like every day is kind of day one. I don't, I'm not, I can't really say for sure, but I think it's, you know, it could be certainly difficult.

Like if someone's been grinding away at something for a long time and a new team comes in and is having early indicators of success. I think it can be maybe a bit of like, you know, why are they doing so well? And like, why aren't we doing better? But in my mind, it's like, we actually, like at least the way that we see it at Neo is we want every single entrepreneur to build.

Million, multi-million, billion-dollar companies because that puts Calgary on the map, that puts Canada on the map.

[00:24:57] Connor Curran: What I want to know is, going back to partners. You know how you, you met your partner. Cause I think is really interesting is correct me if I'm wrong, but you and your partner, I'm thinking Andrew, you know, you guys were at your previous venture, you were at Skip and then you came here. Like, how did you guys meet? How, what's your relationship like? Is it the same, like Dustin and I, or is it?

[00:25:15] Jeff Adamson: Yeah, similar. I think in some ways, so I knew Josh and Chris Simair, who are the, you know, other co-founders of Skip from university. So they were on the Husky track and field team. They were really successful athletes.

You were on the wrestling team. I was on the wrestling team. Yeah. And so we, we just kind of were around each other and knew each other. And after I'd finished up my athletic career, I was like, okay, I want to figure out what to do. And yeah, I was debating doing an MBA or starting a company. And then that was kind of just serendipitously, I think, uh, when I bumped into Josh, he'd come back from London, he was an investment banker there, which is an incredible story for a guy, you know, growing up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to be working in RBC capital markets in downtown London.

It's like a pretty far-flung trip and, uh, and then, yeah, so he was like, yeah, we're thinking about doing a startup. And I literally like asked him like, what's a startup. I actually didn't even know what that was. And then he knew Andrew, and so he brought Andrew in to Skip, as another kind of later co-founder.

It was just like, these are the smartest people I've ever encountered. With like, with incredible amount of horsepower. So like, I couldn't ask for a better founding team than these guys. And then they brought their older brother, Dan Simair on. Um, who was a really, really great foot, uh, no, not football, a volleyball player, software engineer.

And so it was Josh, Chris, Dan, Andrew, and I were kind of the kind of founding team. And then we had an incredible early founding team of kind of locals of just people who we met like at a bookstore or a cafe, or they were track athletes in Winnipeg and like seriously just lucked out that our early hires happened to be brilliant, but had just never been given the opportunity.

He was like, you gotta, you gotta understand, this is one of the things that I love about what we're doing is, and also what you're doing is, where else do people get these opportunities? Where else is someone going to be able to literally see, get a front-row seat at how to build a consumer brand, manufacturing in Canada, or building a bank from scratch?

Because most of the time you probably have to go outside Calgary for those types of jobs. 100%. I want to double-click on, so why, why build in Canada? Like why manufacture in Canada? I feel like, and the question I had as I was thinking about this was like, okay, why isn't Levi's making their jeans in, in Alberta?

Why isn't Nike manufacturing their shoes in Winnipeg?

[00:27:40] Connor Curran: Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. It's funny you brought up Levi's. Did you know Edmonton used to be the denim capital? Edmonton, there used to be a great brand called GWC. Everyone, like our parents said, you're wearing G dubs. They used to make almost as much denim in Edmonton as... California. No way. Edmonton was a thing. What about Winnipeg? Cause Winnipeg has silver.

Winnipeg's got a great, yeah, silver jeans. Silver, silver jeans. I've met those guys before. Uh, really great company, 100%. Are they still around? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, still in the family. Still family owned. Still family owned, yeah. The term like salvage, you know, salvage denim. Oh yeah. Lot of the modern model, those modern techniques were founded in Edmonton.

It's crazy. So people used to make stuff here. We always throw around a stat prior 19. According to Stats Canada, prior 1989, 70% of all clothing bought and sold in Canada was made in Canada, 70%. You know that number as a 2020 is less than 5%. So we, we saw this and we actually saw this as an opportunity because we were in all the big box stores and we just kept kinda hounded on price.

You gotta make your stuff cheaper. Got to make your stuff cheaper. We need a bigger margin. You need a bigger margin. Got to get it cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. And we're like, this is a race to the bottom. We're never going to be able to compete with these massive guys to make a cheap product. So for us, it was like, how can we differentiate ourselves and how can we honor, you know, our values that we've set up?

We're called Local Laundry. A part of it was customers were asking for it. Like you guys are called local honor, but your stuff made in China, that doesn't make sense. So our customers are asking, but you're getting called out on that. Oh yeah. Why are you guys called Local Laundry? And they're like, Oh, you know, cause we give back to local charities and stuff, but your stuff's not made locally.

And we're like, Oh yeah, I guess you're right. But we also saw it as a way to differentiate ourselves, right? I think as a small business, you have to be able to go against the grain. You have to be, can't be afraid of being different. And we saw, you know what, we can't compete with the big guys on price, but we can compete with them on value and quality.

So we know that they've offshore, they offshore because of money. They're never going to onshore because they're making too much money. So they're not going to be able to compete with us. We're going to, our garments are going to be that much more expensive. We're going to have that great story, the great true to our values, and they're not going to be able to compete with us.

So now we're not even competing with those guys. We're competing, we're in a whole different. Smaller category, all by ourselves.

[00:29:42] Jeff Adamson: I see that a lot, too, where people start up a company, and it's like, how are you going to do that better than someone else? You know, like, if you're trying to build a t shirt that's, why can't someone else just make the same t shirt?

So, like, in the very beginning, like, the strategy side has to be, like, if your competition were to replicate this, what would happen? Recently as well, but I'll get to the whole Walmart saga in a minute. So you decided, okay, this is going to be part of our competitive advantage. Yes. We're going to make it in Canada.

[00:30:09] Connor Curran: Better quality garment. I'm going to have, it's going to be true to our values and we're going to stand for something. Where is it made? We work with manufacturers all across Canada. Our hats come from Vancouver. Uh, but the majority, we do some stuff in Alberta, the majority of our clothing, t shirts, sweaters comes out of Toronto.

That's where most, most, uh, textile is in Canada now. You got lots of Montreal, Winnipeg still got, you know, a good size textile, but we, we work out of, just today I was on a call with a manufacturer out of St. Albert. It was going pretty, pretty rapidly. It's, it's given us a competitive advantage. Our prices certainly went through the roof.

Thankfully, it's, it's what our customers wanted. Our customers, we thought we'd lose our customers overnight, because overnight our sweaters were. When from 60 to 90 because

[00:30:50] Jeff Adamson: of labor,

[00:30:51] Connor Curran: that's the thing. So people always ask, like, why is Canadian made so expensive? The textile, the fabric is almost the same price, no matter where you get it.

Yeah. Only difference is the cost of labor, but our manufacturers adhere to strict Canadian labor and environmental laws, but then. They have to pay Canadian wages and all of our manufacturers, they pay a living wage. Other countries, they don't have those same regulations. Well, a little lower cost of living as well, or cost of living.

[00:31:13] Jeff Adamson: What's like the hidden side of, of minimum wage that people don't necessarily understand is when the minimum wage goes up, a lot of people become unemployable. Because now if minimum wage goes up 20%, that cost has to get passed on. And also some, maybe you would have been able to afford hiring an extra person prior to that increase.

But then now, because if you've gone up 20%, then you're like, I can't. And if I don't pass on the cost, then I just can't hire any more people. So then they're just. It's kind of stuck and it's, it's tough because obviously you wouldn't need to pay a livable wage, right? You need to be able to, and housing prices are insane.

Inflation is going crazy. So it's a tough, like, I don't know what the right decision is.

[00:31:49] Connor Curran: No, there is no right answer. It's a balance. It's a balancing act. You can't keep everyone happy and you have to upset someone and it's hard, you know, and that's why cash is always going to be an issue for us because our costs of goods are just so high.

Our margin is that much lower than all of our competitors, but you know what? We've been here. It's eight years later. We're still, we've. Found new ways to compete now. It's a benefit. It's it's when it comes to like the corporate side of things for the custom corporate clothing. It's differentiator again, you know, and now a lot of these companies, they want Canadian-made.

They want to support local. We're going after unions. Unions is becoming a big pro, you know, prospect for us because they have their mandated to support Canadian made. And there's not a lot of Canadian made options out there.

[00:32:27] Jeff Adamson: What I love about it too is that, and I wonder what the economic impact of buying one of your articles of clothing is versus, because the money goes back into the economy and if it goes back into the economy, it takes a little bit more pressure off versus if I were to buy something like, I mean, this, this sweater is made in Canada, but.

My jeans, God knows where they're made and, and so it's like keeping the money in the system as opposed to having a kind of leaky bucket. Have you guys ever looked like, do you know?

[00:32:53] Connor Curran: We've tried to quantify that. We want to say, you know, like, uh, we've tried so many times to quantify for every dollar spent on our sweaters, this is the amount of dollars that goes back.

We haven't quite perfected it, but. Absolutely. I mean, there's stats out there that say for every dollar spent in the local economy, it goes back around tenfold. Yes, absolutely. Supporting Canadian manufacturing supports a diverse Canadian economy.

[00:33:13] Jeff Adamson: And also for supply chains, too. Like, we all saw through during COVID, like a lot of people, you know, they can't get things in because everything's logged down in the supply chain.

Did you guys...

[00:33:24] Connor Curran: No! Because our, our closing is dyed here. It's milled here. It's sewn. It's printed. Our supply chain was route. There was, we had to wait for a couple of things, you know, but relatively we came out of the pandemic with our supply chain intact, unscathed, everything. The only thing that doesn't grow here is cotton doesn't grow here.

Right? It's a little tougher. It's a little tougher, but now with advancements, it's bamboo with hemp. There's some great hemp manufacturers. Poppin up. You know, I think we're still about 10, 15 years away from that, but everything else we've been to the milling facilities, we've been to the dye houses, we've been to the cut and sew shops, you know, so there's all these benefits.

[00:33:56] Jeff Adamson: Then why aren’t more companies doing this? I would say I get the higher costs of course, but. Why isn't kind of back to my original question, like, why don't some of these global brands say, Hey, we're going to actually manufacture locally, um, raise our prices and compete and kind of build more of a brand around cause like sustainability is obviously like, and ESG is really big.

Like, why don't you see these global brands trying to replicate something of, of what you're doing, your strategy.

[00:34:26] Connor Curran: It all comes down to money. The margins are just. Too good with overseas production. Some companies will have small collections that's made locally, test it out, but the price just doesn't, it doesn't work.

It doesn't, it doesn't work. It all comes down to money. And, and we're feeling it right now in this kind of economic climate where customers, they want to support local as much as they can. But with rising, you know, inflation, interest wages, interest raises, stagnant wages, people just need more bang for their buck.

And supporting local is sadly not a priority for them.

[00:34:54] Jeff Adamson: When we were, we were speaking over at Tech Thursdays. Yeah, that's right. The Xero guys. And I was saying one of the surprising things to me when, when we got started, we started seeing the data come in on kind of where do people spend money on our, on our cards.

And I was expecting quite a bit of money to be going to these local companies. And especially during COVID, remember all the hearts of the support local hearts were everywhere. And like, literally there was no change to kind of like local, like local. And that's why I have, I struggle. A little bit when, when people are like, because it seems to me like a lot of lip service people say, because like it's such a good thing to say, it's, it's this nice thing to say is like you should support local, but when you look at where the money is going, it's going to literally 11 companies in Canada, 11 companies in Canada probably control 90 plus percent of all the spend, uh, like retail spend.

So yeah, 90 plus percent of banking is. Five banks, 90 plus percent of telecom is three telecom companies, and I think it's about 80%. 90%. Well, it's certainly over 90% in grocery if you add Walmart and Costco, absolutely.

[00:35:56] Connor Curran: That goes back to, 'cause consumers are looking for bang for their buck and I don't blame them.

[00:36:00] Jeff Adamson: Yeah, you can’t, you hold it against them,

[00:36:00] Connor Curran: but I'm looking for bang for my buck in my personal life.

[00:36:23] Jeff Adamson: At least a lot of these big companies are mostly Canadian owned. I mean, that's the silver lining.

You guys also, we haven't touched on your, your charitable strategy. Like, so you guys give back, not only are you manufacturing locally, but you're also giving back locally as well. Tell us a bit about

[00:36:39] Connor Curran: that. We really want to be a brand that builds community and that's been kind of baked in since day one.

And again, a lot of lessons learned from. We think it's the right way to do business. We think in the very near future, it's going to be tablestakes. It's just how business is done. I also think it's, it's a great business strategy. I think it's really great for business. I studied this as my honor thesis.

I did the study this in my MBA. There is actual financial benefits to supporting in the community. So it's just, for me, when I started, it just made sense.

[00:37:08] Jeff Adamson: Why wouldn't we do it? Why does it make business sense at this stage in your business?

[00:37:12] Connor Curran: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when consumers look at. Two products, two widgets, and they're identical in all aspects and price, but one has a charitable component and one doesn't.

Nine times out of ten, they'll pick that one with the charitable component, all else being equal, you know, and it's just something that consumers, they want to support, they want to feel good about, you know, and they want to be seeing supporting it and that kind of thing. We really just see it as it's the right way to do business.

We don't call ourselves a social enterprise. You know, we debate about that a ton that that's, that's kind of hindered a lot of businesses in some places that focus too much on the social. Your business first, and being a profitable, well run business allows you to invest in the community. And that investment will come.

It's an investment that come, it'll come back through the community support of your business. But if you're too far on that side and a little, Not so [00:38:00] much watching the numbers. I, for an example, our tagline used to be 10 percent of all our profits go back to charities. And then Dustin, he kind of nixed that.

I was like, why? This is great. And he's like, yeah, I ran the numbers. It's more like 15 to 20 percent of our profits we're giving to.

[00:38:13] Jeff Adamson: Yeah. And that's like your, that's your salary essentially.

[00:38:16] Connor Curran: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We were giving too much. Not that there can be a number too much, but it's like, if we continue down this path, we're not going to be in business for much longer.

So you have to be a business first. But I think that there's an investment case to be made. Take your marketing budget, toss it in community, community investment, not giving back. Giving back implies that you took something. It's an investment in more ways than one, right? And we've been that since day one, and we've reaped the rewards from it.

[00:38:43] Connor Curran: Any time we need,

[00:38:44] Jeff Adamson: what have you seen on that side? Like, has it, has it resulted in more market or media coverage or media?

[00:38:49] Connor Curran: More customers. Anytime we need help, I'll never forget when we got our warehouse, we had no furniture. I think I, you've heard this story before. And, uh, and, but I just put it out there.

Hey, we need office furniture. Oil and gas companies, people dropping chairs off, come take whatever you want. You know, would they have done that for us if, you know, maybe we hadn't been giving back? Maybe. Who knows? I believe we've reaped huge rewards out of our community investment. And now we want to showcase that just because we're a small business doesn't mean we can't have a big impact.

We have a lofty goal, a million dollars by 2030 to donate to local charities. We're not donating tens of thousands, it's just what we can't afford. Our very first donation was $100. You do what you can. And that's the message we want to get across. You just do what you can, volunteer, share stories, share on your social media.

That's enough to move the needle, right? And that's the way you should be doing business. But the business comes first.

[00:39:38] Jeff Adamson: Yeah. I remember it reminds me of a conversation I had with, with one of my co founders at Skip. And it actually started up because my, my mom had asked me if we could donate some money to this cancer fundraiser in, in my hometown.

My, my auntie actually had started it up and it was raising money for Where's your hometown? Saskatoon. They were raising money to buy equipment for this cancer resource center and uh, it's called Chocolate Cure if anyone's interested. And I went to my, to my other co founders and I said, Hey, can we donate some money to my mom's cancer fundraiser?

And they're like, we're not even profitable yet. Like we need to, you know, I was like, okay, fair enough. And then I asked, um, the oldest brother, uh, Dan of the founders and, and I asked him I think there could be some good, there's some marketing value here or whatever else. I think there's a way we could do this and he says, and it stuck with me for a long time because it was so harsh what he said.

And he said, he's like, I don't think we should give any money to charity. And I was like, well, how, how come? Like, what if we were profitable? And he says, he says, the way that we add value to the world is by being the best at the thing that we do. And what we do is food delivery. That's how we're going to be.

That's how we're going to give the most back to people. What if we could lower all the prices? What if we could pay couriers more? What if we could put more money back in the restaurant owner's hands? He says, if we can be the best at that, other companies can be, you know, like charities can be better at that, at that, or maybe big companies that have.

Big, uh, charitable strategies of a hundred people on the, on their corporate giving teams. They're going to be really good at that. He says at our stage of where we are right now, he's like, we're not going to be very good at it and how we're going to know we're doing it right or not. I'm not, I don't know if he's right or wrong.

It stuck with me in terms of like, okay, so it's about‌ delivering value in your business first to your customers and, and, you know, and then as an afterthought to your point, like business first, but then it doesn't mean that you can't give back. So I think your approach is probably a little more,

[00:41:20] Connor Curran: well, it was to say it was right, but I think for us, it was, it was part of our value, you know, that we were giving the customers and, and, and knowing that they felt good that that was supporting very, very Henry.

I've listened to podcasts all about Henry Ford. It's very, very. Henry Ford-esque, because that was his whole thing, was the best you can do for your, to serve your customer as best as you can, offer them the lowest prices and that's your, that's how you bring value.

[00:41:43] Jeff Adamson: Where, where, where do you go from here? Where, where do you want to take Local Laundry? You mentioned you want to give a million dollars to charity by 2030. I think you'll achieve it far earlier than that. What's, what's your vision for Local Laundry longer term? Do you want to be a global clothing company? Do you want to keep it local? What's that vision?

[00:42:01] Connor Curran: Right now our path to growth is through acquisition. We want to build a portfolio of similar brands across different geography, demographics, you know, um, we found it very difficult to scale local. It's hard to scale local. If people in Edmonton, I don't know if people in Edmonton would care about You know, this Calgary company, maybe they would, we've have yet to find extreme success expanding outside of Calgary.

We, we've got Calgary in lockdown, maybe a little bit surrounding areas, but expanding outside has been very difficult. So we want to build a portfolio of, of brands, you know, of, um, different local companies in different, in each city, but leveraging the assets of the whole, of the whole portfolio.

[00:42:40] Jeff Adamson: So if you're a local clothing company in Saskatoon, get on LinkedIn.

[00:42:44] Connor Curran: you want to sell, send.

[00:42:47] Jeff Adamson: Get your, get your acquisition deck ready to go.

[00:42:50] Connor Curran: Absolutely. And we've, we've talked to a bunch, you know, we're, uh, we're in the middle of an acquisition right now. We already got our eyes set on two, three others. And I think we can grow this into a really well respectable national portfolio of small local companies that sell online, wholesale, do the custom clothing, you know, um, and a little bit of everything.

But we, we definitely have big appetites to grow, you know, maybe even a little in the promotional space as well. But we really see our path to growth as growth through acquisition, acquiring other brands.

[00:43:20] Jeff Adamson: Before we wrap up, I want to hear about the Walmart saga. So. It's public, I'll talk about the public stuff and then you, that way you, you can't get in trouble.

So Walmart basically like copied your logo it appears, and like it's like shockingly similar. Uh, and was selling them in which, when I saw that I was like, oh my god, like this is, this is insane because when people think of local they don't think of Walmart, so to me, the brand potential brand impact is, is really bad because some people might be like, Oh man, Conor totally sold out, chucked all those values.

And yeah, it's great, but for the right price, exactly. So, so how did you find out that this was happening?

[00:43:58] Connor Curran: You actually play a big part in this story, which I don't know if you know, but I have to thank you. So I'll get into that a little bit. You play a big part in this 2016. Begin the process of trademarking this design.

If those don't know, trademarking is very expensive, thousands of dollars. So this mark that we'd used, you know, the YYC, the CAN, we were seeing lots of revenue from it. We want to protect it. So we went down the road of trademarking, took us three years, thousands of dollars. We didn't get the trademarks of 2019.

It goes through a whole process, the Canadian trademark. And so we're very protective of this. And a part of our right and our duty as the owner of the trademark is we have to defend it. So if we see marks that potentially could be infringing, we have to protect our mark. So a customer of ours was in a Walmart store in March and saw a design that was confusingly similar to ours.

The way the trademark is set up in Canada is that it's designed to protect consumers. If it can cause confusion in the market to consumers, then there's an issue. And we got enough customers reaching out to us about this design, it was causing confusion in the market. So we reached out, you know, we reached out in April, we tried calling, we tried emailing, you know, we've been down this road a little bit before.

And usually when we show the trademark, it was just kind of back off. Walmart, uh, said they saw no infringement and they were going to continue to sell the mark. And so we really didn't feel like we had any recourse. There's nothing else we could do. So we did the only thing we did and we took to social media, and this is where you actually come into play.

So we, we posted on social media and started to get some traction, some, you know, lots of our customers saying that the design was confusingly similar and that kind of thing. But then people started to share it and you shared one of my LinkedIn posts and you have a much larger following a LinkedIn than I do.

I think after the algorithm has done something because after you post you reshared it. It took a life of its own, and it went massive. To this day, it's my highest ever engaging.

[00:45:40] Jeff Adamson: Oh, it's great. Hey, look. Yeah, happy to well I just literally felt like I was I actually felt you guys have been wronged. Yeah.

Well, thank you Yeah, I mean, I can't take any credit for it,

[00:45:52] Connor Curran: but our community stepped up. They shared it out. They voiced their opiNeons You know, which showed that there is a clear case of confusion in the market, right? And so we got media coverage and more media coverage, interviews and interviews and newspapers and radios and all this sort of stuff.

And finally, they wouldn't respond to us, but they responded to one of the news outlets and said they were going to pull the design, which is a good start. But we're going to continue to push things. So we are exploring all legal options and we're going to leave nothing on the table. So the other incredible thing was the outpour of other artists and small businesses who the same things happened and they felt helpless just like we did.

We felt helpless. We felt disappointed in the system, the trademarking system. What's the point? Why do we go through this process? And so we felt like we had to stand up and it's scary standing up to the big guy, you know. David was afraid of Goliath, I bet. Because I had to be careful of what I say. I could be slapped with a defamation suit, you know, if I don't stick to the facts.

It's scary. You don't know what they. They got a massive legal team, massive legal counsel, and we're just two dum dums who Google searched how to make a t shirt company, you know? But we think we have to stand up for what's right. People like yourself, resharing, telling that story. So I, I can't thank you enough and all the other people who, who, who did the same, it, it really means a lot.

And went from a position of us feeling helpless that we couldn't do anything to like, these people got our backs, you know, like we, I, I think we can do this. Like these people got our backs, you know, and again, maybe that goes back to our whole strategy of community investment, you know, when the time came and we needed help, help was there, man.

[00:47:18] Jeff Adamson: You know, well, you paid it forward and now, now it's coming back. So you're well in your right. I think you deserve the success that you guys have had so far. Um, you know, we're big fans. Where can people find you? How can they support you?

[00:47:29] Connor Curran: locallaundry.ca, @local Laundry on all social channels. If your company is looking for custom corporate apparel, give us a shout.

But yeah, any, uh, any Local Laundry. ca or if you want to support us, just check labels of clothing. See where stuff's made. Ask questions. You know, where is this made? How is it made? Who made it? You know, that

[00:47:44] Jeff Adamson: goes a long way too. Well, grateful for you coming in Connor and big fan of what you're doing. Keep fighting the fights and we'll be cheering you on.

[00:47:51] Connor Curran: Thanks for giving me the time. Appreciate it.

[00:44:06] Jeff: Thank you for tuning into Behind the Brand. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you’re interested in learning more about Neo Financial, visit us at neofinancial.com.

Behind the Brand is a production of Neo Financial and MediaLab YYC. Hosted by Jeff Adamson. Strategy, research, and production by Keegan Sharp, Alana Tefledzuk, and Kyle Marshall.