This month we celebrate 10 years of skoah. Anniversaries often come with cliches like "where did the time go?" or ' I'd do it all over again'. Chris and Andrea have co-authored a blog post to explain. We also have some other insights to share about what the past 10 years have been like for us and where we are headed as a company.  

 

"Where did the time go?" Well, the first 5 years of business ownership are tough. There is no way around that. It's more or less the 'test' of one's ability to manage risk, stress, lack of time, resourcefulness and thickness of skin. Risk isn't a problem for us. We've always felt comfortable being in a little over our heads. This manifests itself in many ways aside from our choice to grow our company. For example, we didn't start out our running aspirations with a 5k race, but rather a marathon-in late November-in the rain and chill of Seattle. Move onto Adventure Racing, and do we select an introductory triathlon? No, instead we opt for a 3 day multi sport race including some sports we've never done such as rappelling across a canyon 200 metres above ground, and canoeing through a swamp. How about a last minute pre-baby trip to relax? A 3 week hiking tour of Guatemala should do the trick with Andrea 6 months pregnant. Needless to say, we've always been 'comfortable' when we've gone outside of our perceived 'comfort zones' and great things have come of it. This translates into our business. Why can't we become the leading Canadian skin care brand? Why can't we put ourselves on the stage beside some of the great role models in our industry? We've learned that we can because we have the support of our krew members and our kustomers.

 

So where did the time go? Truthfully,  it moved more slowly in the first 5 years. We worked every single day probably until year 4, and then I think we took 1/2 days off on Tuesdays until we took a full Tuesday off. And while the weeks went quickly, the progress didn't always feel as fast as we wanted it to. This happened because we went out on a limb and decided to revamp our business model and focus completely on facials only in order to be absolute experts in skin care and feel completely confident developing and creating amazing skin care products. So we knew this would come with a greater effort than the path we started, but it also meant a much greater reward-establishing ourselves as a skin care product company.  But then some amazing things happened. We went from feeling completely tapped timewise and emotionally and did the unthinkable-opened more stores. This movement beyond our 'comfort zone' forced us to do more with less. Less time, energy, and resources. But, we learned to rely more on our people and our kustomers to share the great things we were doing, and represent skoah on our behalf. I guess we learned to 'let go' just a tiny bit and empower others to take on more.

 

But the past 5 years really have gone quickly. Suddenly it's 6 years, and 7 years and now 10. And we will have 8 stores by the end of the year and all of that transpired by moving a bit out of where we felt comfortable. And now while we are more time pressed than ever before, in part due to more stores to manage but also more little people to manage-we now have 3 children. We have learned that we are not the centre of our skoah world anymore. We have people on our team who do some of the things we used to do much better than we have ever done. And while this may come as a surprise to ego-centric entrepreneurs, it is actually the most rewarding feeling to know that someone else can do your job.

 

So where are we going in the next 10 years? Well more skoah stores are absolutely in the cards. More in Vancouver, in Eastern Canada and more in the US. One of our great revelations came to us last summer. We attended the opening of our Boston store. This store is not owned by us like most are, but rather by Pete Dziezdic-also known as 'Boston Pete'. As we walked towards the store on the opening night, crowds of people were buzzing about 'this cool Canadian skin care company'. Boston Pete created a new world of skoah fans and we were observers in its introduction. The result of this is opening up skoah franchises to new markets and individuals who share our passion and commitment to customer experience. But we also have more skoah's planned for ourselves. Afterall, we love to be in over our heads and there isn't a better buzz that opening the doors of a new store to new customers and to awaiting existing customers.

 

So...the question is 'would we do it all over again?' Well, yes and partly no. Yes, we will do it all over again because we are planning out the next 10 years as you read. But no, in that we'd do it a little differently. We'd follow our guts just a little bit more. We'd heap more praise on those who helped us early on and those who continue to, and we will certainly learn from some of the mistakes we've made over the years. But without mistakes we'd have never been in over our heads to begin with. And maybe the last thing we'd do is change the metrics of success we had set for ourselves.

 

Overall we are feeling pretty fortunate to be growing and expanding 10 years after skoah began. We hope we get better as we age, and we hope most of our existing krew and kustomers want to come along for the journey. Stay tuned for another 10 years!

 

Chris and Andrea Scott, owners