Apr. 2, 2018 The Ladder: Roberto Menendez:
Roberto Menendez, 59, is director of design at WM Fares Group and personally is the developer of a complex of affordable housing and artists' studios in Halifax.
When I came to Canada from El Salvador, I was confronted with the painful reality the poor are surrounded by wealth. In addition, there's winter – at least in Latin America, you have nice weather. On the other hand, you don't have earthquakes and landslides that take out communities. Canadians like Latinos, so being accepted was a little easier. People pick up our accents, lower their guard.
I worked on a coffee plantation from my early years. At 15, I recorded counts, working beside the man who measured beans. I used to look at those structures; my dream was to design housing. I graduated with a master in architecture in 1985, married in 1986, came to Canada in March, 1987, and our son was born six months later.
El Salvador had a very brutal civil war – it's complex because poverty is an effect of bigger problems. Because I grew up facing poverty, my outlook was different. I thank God I was exposed to a reality that gave me tools to become who I became, with [a sense of] social justice. I always like to be a better person – that's the "catchy phrase."
When we're open to learning, we develop experience. I got a masters in international development at Saint Mary's University because of my deep passion for development. We have enough resources to solve the problems of the world but it's purely greed in the world's structures. Then I taught for a year. I love to teach critical thinking and problem solving – not to panic!
I have two hats. I'm doing wonderful development in support and design but financing my personal social project. My wife and I got a property, designed it and created affordable housing; 24 residences and 11 studios.
To design, build and manage it fulfilled my life goal, fills my heart and makes me happy. I couldn't have done it without my job because I had to pay bills; we had to mortgage everything.
Putting affordable housing in this market isn't easy, I swear to God. My wife was 100 per cent supportive. She's pragmatic, as most women are, because women are the ones who carry the load. I'm pro-women because I grew up with a single mother.
When you're single you're fearless; when you have a family, you have responsibilities. My wife had a financial background, went to community college here, then worked in information technology.
My philosophy is God has given me one day to live; I choose to live it in a relationship with myself, my wife, people in the office.
I'm a pragmatic idealist, defined by faith and values as a person, husband, professional and by liberation theology – which is big in Latin America. I did an Atlantic School of Theology diploma, ran a development and peace group, helped reconstruction programs for El Salvador, helped a poverty group. We helped create community enterprises where people could have dignity, work and have ownership, like Street Feat newspaper [closed in 2014 after 17 years].
I try to create an environment of peace and harmony – and have fun. We're a team of nine; they're experienced with computers, but if the lights go out I continue working because I use my hands.
I'm a minimalist in design because it's simple economically. I came from a tiny country, so by nature, I make the best use of resources and place. I hate waste. I'm guided by functionality and rationality.
Millennials want to sit in the kitchen, have a drink, tapas. When I came here, there were dining rooms people used two times a year. Open-concept kitchens? Islands? Phenomenal.
That was Cape Breton 100 years ago – they gathered in the kitchen because it was warm.
I don't look typical Salvadorian, like a guy people think is an architect. My office is my cave. I know where everything is. I'm efficient and practical; it's easier to have my files here because I get calls every day from developers.
I like to bring tranquillity and peace to projects, use organic landscaping like rocks. Art, paintings are important. We're too busy and don't need busy environments. If I had the opportunity to study more architecture I'd spend a year in Japan.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jun. 4, 2018 "Cut from a different cloth, serial entrepreneur is reinventing pantyhose": Today I found this article by Camilla Cornell in the Globe and Mail:
When she was about 10 years old, Katherine Homuth recalls her grandmother – frustrated by a snag in her nylons – telling her: “Someone in our family needs to reinvent pantyhose.”
Ms. Homuth, now 27, just “brushed it off” at the time, but the idea continued to percolate in her brain even as she launched two successful businesses of her own. The first, e-commerce platform ShopLocket, sold in early 2014, making her a millionaire at 23.
The second, Female Funders Inc., launched in 2015, offering paid access to an online network for angel investors and entrepreneurs in search of funding. But even as she was running Female Funders, Ms. Homuth was contemplating her next business, and she kept returning to her grandmother’s words.
“I wanted to solve a real hair on-fire problem,” she says. Creating a pair of indestructible pantyhose fit the bill. “With most pantyhose, you can’t even get out the door without the product breaking,” Ms. Homuth says. “I had no idea if this was a problem I could solve. But I knew if I could solve it, it would be a worthwhile invention.”
She began to explore the idea in January, 2017, and quickly became “obsessed” with fibres, fabrics, knits and yarn. “I fell down a rabbit hole,” Ms. Homuth says. The problem she faced was that hardy fibres also tend to be dense, and hence they’re not sheer.
After many trials, Ms. Homuth finally hit on something similar to Kevlar (the material used in bullet-proof vests), but much finer. By June, she had created a prototype pair of pantyhose made with the synthetic fabric that was “ridiculously strong and still reasonably sheer.”
“There was still a ton of problems,” she admits. The fabric was white and couldn’t be dyed. It wasn’t stretchy and it “broke every knitting machine we put it on.” Even more crucial – it was too thick. “I wanted to make sheer pantyhose,” Ms. Homuth says. Still, she was convinced she was on the right track.
In July, she sold Female Funders and that summer launched a round of seed financing to focus on research and development for the company she would call Sheerly Genius. A Kickstarter campaign followed in February, 2018. It featured a giggle-worthy video of various people, including an irate robber using a stocking mask, struggling with pantyhose breakage
(“Sometimes I don’t have time to shave, and the nylons get stuck in my whiskers”). There were also illustrations of Sheerly Genius’s strength (think Ms. Homuth hanging from a pantyhose harness).
The 45-day effort raised US$190,000 from almost 1,600 backers. Each pledged US$89 or more for the privilege of having one of the first pairs of the patent-pending hose – due off the production line in September. Ms. Homuth followed up with an IndieGoGo campaign this March.
Crowdfunding seems an odd choice for a woman who built a business on bringing together angels and investors, but Ms. Homuth sees it more as a marketing tool than a financing tool. “Quite honestly, the amount of money we raised through crowdfunding would never have brought this product to life,” she says.
But she did get valuable feedback. For example, she nixed the original opaque control-top version in favour of all-sheer pantyhose. To address the problem of the fabric’s thickness, a new version was developed that could be dyed as it was being manufactured.
The crowdfunding campaigns also “enabled us to do some early test marketing to see what messaging worked; what resonated with people about the brand; and to get customer validation that people wanted
Joanna Griffiths, chief executive of Toronto-based Knixware Inc., used a similar strategy to raise financing and buzz around The 8-in-1 Evolution Bra – her answer to the discomfort of underwire bras. But, she says, crowdfunding campaigns can be tricky.
“You have a customer base that loves to experiment,” she says. But converting those early adopters to loyal consumers means going “above and beyond,” and making the preorder process as pain-free as possible.
“We were one of the first campaigns to offer exchanges on sizes,” Ms. Griffiths says. “That was unheard of at the time, but it was important to do whatever we could to make our backers happy.”
Ms. Homuth understands the importance of satisfying those initial customers. “We know they’re taking a leap of faith, so we’re offering a 30-day guarantee for anyone ordering from Kickstarter,” she says. “Once the pantyhose get on the market and you can read the reviews, we’ll start treating them more like a regular intimates product with no guarantees.”
Given the price point of US$89 or more for the pantyhose, executive brand and marketing strategist Livia Zufferli sees a potential issue with that strategy. Although the product is hitting on a very real pain point for consumers, she says, “that’s a big ask. They need to make the math simple so that the value for money is evident.”
An app that allows users to track product wears would be a playful way to emphasize the pantyhose’s staying power, she suggests. “And I think a money-back guarantee would take away some of the barriers to purchase.”
For her part, Ms. Homuth believes consumers will come to see her pantyhose as a wardrobe staple “like a pair of pants or leggings.” The price point is high, she says, because although “you can produce a regular pair of pantyhose for $1 at the most, ours uses about US$40 worth of fibre.”
The first batch will roll off the line in Toronto, but production will later move to Port Carling, Ont., near the Muskoka home the newly-wed Ms. Homuth shares with her husband, Zac, (also an entrepreneur). She has settled on a direct-to-consumer sales model for the pantyhose using a Shopify-hosted website and relying on word of mouth, social-media marketing, referrals and PR to drive traffic.
Eventually, Ms. Homuth sees the fabric she created being used for other applications, such as active wear. “I see this as the next big thing,” she says. But in the meantime, “I’ve never had more fun running a company. It’s one thing to be trying to convince people to buy software; it’s another to be in a problem space where people get it right away and they understand the value.”
