Kanevas<\/a>, the nightmare is over. This Quebec-based company allows you to design the bag of your dreams. Bu who is behind this great concept?<\/p>\nTwo women who simply couldn\u2019t find their own perfect bag, so they decided to create their own and help other women like themselves.<\/p>\n
Meet Myl\u00e8ne Cusson and Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne David.<\/p>\n
“It all started when Myl\u00e8ne was looking for a bag big enough to carry her big laptop,\u201d says Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \u201cShe was looking for something classic, quite professional and she couldn\u2019t find it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne had been sewing from a very young age, she offered to design the bag for Myl\u00e8ne.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not long after we thought, \u2018why not allow each woman to design their perfect bag?\u2019 It is from this promise that Kanevas was born,\u201d says Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne.<\/p>\n
While the two had a lot in common, they also have different strengths that complemented each other well. For instance, they both worked as accountants and were passionate about their business, however one was more focused on creativity, the other more so on logistics.<\/p>\n
After agreeing on their business plan, the two entrepreneurs decided to make their dreams come true. But, they soon discovered that it\u2019s not that easy to change your life.<\/p>\n
“At the launch and the months before the launch, we both had full-time jobs. One of the challenges was starting a business while working. We could have dropped our jobs from the start, but in the beginning, we often invested our profits into the development of the company. There is, therefore, little room for pay,” they explain.<\/p>\n
And this is not the only difficulty they encountered.<\/p>\n
“For both of us, it was important to start a family. We felt that doing it early in our business was the best way to focus on growth. It was not easy, though. We launched the company in May and the same month Myl\u00e8ne was giving birth,\u201d says Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \u201cSeven months later, it was my turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
And getting funding wasn\u2019t easy either. As Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne points out, when you start out in fashion, without necessarily having experience in the industry, it can be difficult to apply for loans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked hard to show them that our business model was innovative and different from our competitors. We had to be creative about how to finance ourselves. […] Futurpreneur was the first to help us, but we also did socio-financing in order to pre-sell products and get cash,\u201d says Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne.<\/p>\n
Despite the obstacles, the two entrepreneurs did not give up and now the company has just celebrated its first year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud to have founded Kanevas without specific skills in the world of fashion, production or design. We knew how to surround ourselves and work hard to acquire the skills we lacked,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n
For aspiring entrepreneurs, Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and Myl\u00e8ne give the following advice:<\/p>\n
“It’s clich\u00e9, but be well surrounded and don\u2019t hesitate to seek advice. We can\u2019t know everything and often we do not have enough perspective on a situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
They continue: “Starting a business is a roller coaster. There are incredible highs as there can be lows. There are often big decisions to make that affect our business as well as our personal lives. Our mentor allows us to take a step back from a situation, identify the elements that we would not have thought of on our own and ask the questions that lead us to walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ready to be your own boss? Learn more about our Start-Up Program<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\nWritten by: Charlotte Robert, Bilingual Copywriter, Futurpreneur Canada<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kanevas is a Quebec-based company that allows you to design the bag of your dreams. It was started by two women who simply couldn\u2019t find their own perfect bag, so they decided to create their own and help other women like themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurpreneurs-and-partners"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}