Dead Industry: Canadian Manufacturing and Lessons for Entrepreneurs

“The sad tale for Canadian manufacturing is that it’s over” – Mike Keilhauer on Monday.
“one of the mistakes we made along the way was not outsourcing manufacturing to Mexico soon enough” – Kathryn From

Had the pleasure of attending an Ontario forum at the Rotman school on Monday. With some fascinating was hearing stories of successful Canadian business established for 15 to 25 years now, having weathered many cycles along the way and how they got to where they are. Presenting were:

Mike Keilhauer, President, Keilhauer Furniture
Kathryn From, Co-Owner and CEO, Bravado! Designs Inc.
Les Mandelbaum, Founder and President, Umbra

Some of my other notes:

• Outsourcing isn’t a business opportunity, it’s a matter of survival. you need to seek out every comparable advantage you can to stay ahead of their competitors in a global market.
• “Proudly designed in Canada, manufactured in Mexico” -Bravado!
• Canada is not a big enough market. Look internationally and to the US when starting a business, Canada is not enough to support most startups in a niche industry.
• Be different than your competitors, Keilhauer and Bravado! differentiate by being more specialized, Umbra differentiates by being more generalized
• Your competitors can be your only friends and your own customers can be your worst enemies. All spoke of the problem of wholesale intellectual property theft from suppliers and especially customers (think knock-off designs from the likes of Target or Home Depot). ” I can’t trust my suppliers, I can’t trust my customers” -Les Mandelbaum
• Advice, don’t go into the apparel or high-end maternity business. Very thin margins in apparel ~10%, and over 50% of a babies born in the US are to families with less than 33k in income (wow)
• As above, research your market carefully before you go into it, are you sure you want to be in this industry?
• “it takes 15 years to be an overnight success” – Keilhauer, or at least two to three years before you figure out how to really make Money in your business
• Have a simple brand message and stick to it. E.g. “quality furniture on time” then you can measure everything you do against that brand promise. Is this activity driving “quality furniture” on “on time”? If not, don’t do it.