Jane Souralaysack and Lake Siva are ‘riding a high’ as they sit down to talk about their business, Creator Jacket. They recently attended the Elevate Festival where they entered and won the ScaleUp pitch competition presented by Toronto FinTech company Moneris. The co-founders say that having a clear, intentional, and strategic game plan in place for how to move their business forward played an important role in their big win.
Souralaysack and Siva don’t come from a traditional business background. Before they started Creator Jacket, a swappable graphic jean jacket company, Souralaysack was a beatboxer and Siva was a break-dancer. Siva has competed nationally and internationally and he’s won over 30 competitions. Back art is a big part of the breakdancing and beatboxing communities. Souralaysack and Siva noticed that people in their respective communities loved being able to express themselves through fashion and graphics, but they wanted more versatility. They decided to fill the need for the community of customers they knew so well, and Creator Jacket was born.
The co-founders spent a total of two years prototyping version 1.0 of the swappable graphic jean jacket which they launched through a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $80,000. The jacket was a hit, but Souralaysack and Siva wanted to make the product even better. Today, they are seeking feedback from their current customer base and are in the process of developing version 2.0 of the jacket. The co-founders were in the midst of tackling this design upgrade when they discovered the Racialized and Indigenous Supports for Entrepreneurs (RAISE) program through a good friend and mentor. RAISE is a provincially funded, comprehensive grant initiative to support Indigenous, Black, and other racialized entrepreneurs in Ontario who are on the road to starting or scaling their businesses. The program provides access to business development training, business coaching through the Parkdale Centre for Innovation, culturally responsive support services, and access to grant funding. “It’s pretty rare to find a grant that [supports] in particular, the BIPOC community,” says Souralaysack, so they put their application in and were accepted into the program shortly thereafter.
Souralaysack and Siva were excited about the opportunity to gain education and insight tailored to their business. “You do these business courses online. And they’re very […] general. So it’s hard to get […] specific feedback,” says Souralaysack. With the support of the Parkdale Centre program advisors, Souralaysack and Siva were able to put together a comprehensive plan to help them navigate their 2.0 launch which has several moving pieces. “There’s definitely a lot of juggling involved between, you know, selling through what you currently have, and prepping for the new launch, but also collecting feedback and data from your customers about what they would like to see improved for the second version, and making sure we can implement those improvements in time for the second launch,” says Siva.
With their business in high gear, it was difficult for the co-founders to find the time to make a plan, but they say taking time out from working in their business to work on their business was crucial. “We have all these other roles that are within [the business], and then you have to [also] be the leader, and step back and say, okay, what is the vision?” says Souralaysack.
“Our Parkdale Centre advisor gave us this really amazing Google Sheet. It was pretty elaborate. There was a lot of information in there and it really helped organize everything that we needed to do. After you fill it all out, you basically have a roadmap to what you should be doing within the next year or so. That was really valuable,” notes Siva. The co-founders say the roadmap they created during their time working with their Parkdale Centre advisor was instrumental to their success at Elevate Festival’s ScaleUp pitch competition. The win landed the duo another $15,000 to put towards their 2.0 launch.
The next big task for the co-founders is to create a compelling marketing campaign for their 2.0 jacket. The team is excited to create something that effectively communicates their brand’s story and core values. As they head into this next chapter, Souralaysack and Siva are equipped with a solid game plan, their RAISE grant funds, and a big confidence boost coming off of their win at Elevate Festival. It looks like all signs on this roadmap point to success!
