The Boss of You

I suspect most of us creative types have, at one time or another, considered picking up a few bucks on the side doing something we’ve previously done just for fun — whether it’s knitting ASCII-art wrist warmers, making spicy fruit preserves, or making hand-tooled leather belts. But not all of us want to turn that [...]

[Read more →]

I first came across Tressa Brotsky’s gorgeous organic soft toys and goods for wee ones at the Moss Street Market in Victoria BC this summer. My mom wanted to pick up a gift for her acupuncturist, who was expecting and I was happy to tag along to one of my favourite community markets. I was [...]

[Read more →]

If, like us, you have admired DailyCandy for its smart, savvy style finds (not to mention stunning, uber-consistent, and classic design), you might enjoy this video I spotted over at the Harvard Business blog: biz blogger & venture capitalist Tony Tjan interviews DailyCandy founder and editorial director Dany Levy about her journey as an “accidental [...]

[Read more →]

I hate to start off blog posts with excuses, but this one really needs a little ’splaining as it were. I contacted Jeannette Ordas, a local Vancouver designer/blogger/all-round-crafty-gal back in early July with this idea that I would run a local summer series of profiles of some of my local indie business heroines. Then my [...]

[Read more →]

I went to Danielle Laporte’s blog this morning for a dose of inspiration — she’s a neverending source of it — and read a post that brought tears of recognition to my eyes, and a great big inner “Yes!”
My beloved, creative, entrepreneurial friends, if you read one blog post today, make it this one. So, [...]

[Read more →]

There’s a fun movie night coming up soon for all you fans of indie, DIY, crafty stuff. Faythe Levine is bringing her film, Handmade Nation, to Vancouver. The film features some of our favourite artist-designer-crafters, like Jenny Hart (whom we interviewed for our book, The Boss of You) and Nikki McClure, among many, many others.
The [...]

[Read more →]

The economic woes we’re facing right now feel awfully familiar.
See, Emira and I started our business in February 2000; by the end of that summer, our industry (and in fact all things web-related) had experienced the first big dot-com crash. Our friends and family wondered at times if we’d hitched our horses to the wrong [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve personally been really hesitant to comment too much on the economic downturn and its impact on small business. On the one hand, I feel very strongly that the kind of business we have always advocated for — sustainable growth, measured risk and frameworks for measures of success that don’t focus exclusively on ballooning profits [...]

[Read more →]

I love Danielle Laporte. She’s an awesome, creative, wicked-smart woman who we’ve been fortunate to know for many years. She’s the co-author of Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design, which she wrote with her former business partner, Carrie McCarthy; and now she’s working under the moniker White Hot Truth, writing, speaking, and working with [...]

[Read more →]

The oh-so smart and savvy team behind local Vancouver newsletters yoyomama and yoyobelly, for mom’s and mom’s to be respectively, have just launched their own blog at Yoyo Diaries. I have a pretty strong hunch that the BizTips category is definitely one to watch for working and entrepreneurial moms. How do I know this? It [...]

[Read more →]