Entrepreneur Of The Week: Larissa Stefani

Who: Larissa Stefani, owner of Lloyd & Wolf Couture. Lloyd & Wolf is a Vancouver-based brand of individual handcrafted, limited-run, luxury leather goods. Using the highest quality leathers from Italy, Spain, and the USA, bags are handcrafted in both Spain and Vancouver. Each of the pieces is hand numbered. 

 

 

Business Highlights: Lloyd & Wolf has received a ton of media support, both locally and across Canada. Their Abi bag was a top five Finalist in the Independent Handbag Designer Awards for 2013 in NYC, for Best Overall Handbag, and the only Canadian contender.

 

Business challenge: Getting retail support—we'd like to be carried in more stores—and brand awareness. While we've had lots of excellent press, we are still relatively unknown.

 

Spark’s Insights: For your business, it may be a matter of pounding the pavement and trying new things until your line "catches." We’d encourage you to develop relationships, not only with store owners and buyers, but also anyone tangentially related to your business—fashion journalists and bloggers, and style influencers. We’d suggest getting your bags seen on the right people, even if you have to give them away in the beginning. And keep at the media. In our experience, press begets press—it’s a more-is-more scenario. People need to have seen something new a staggeringly high number of times before they will begin to recognize it. In short, hang in there!

 

Larissa’s Advice to Other Entrepreneurs: Don't give up. It is very frustrating trying to manage a family and a start-up, but I believe it to be healthy having outside interests and aspirations. Sometimes what seems like a bitter disappointment leads you down a much better path, and you need to keep following it.