The story a front door can tell

[00:00:02] Welcome to Envy Traveler, a place where I talk about New Brunswick stuff.

[00:00:08] One of the things I'm really interested in is small business and those

[00:00:13] entrepreneurs that take the risk to get it started. Today I'm going to be

[00:00:17] interviewing a business owner here in St. John and letting her share her

[00:00:23] story with all of us. Here it comes. Sit back and enjoy. I'm here today with

[00:00:34] Laura Wheel. She has a company here in St. John called Hatch and Parley and I'm

[00:00:41] looking forward to talking to her just a little bit about her journey and coming

[00:00:45] into St. John and how she got this company started and what's in the

[00:00:51] future for her. Laura, welcome to Envy Traveler. Thank you. I'm looking forward

[00:00:56] to see what's in my future too. Well, I was told by David Goss to get in touch

[00:01:05] with you and you so impressed David with what you're doing that I thought it

[00:01:12] was important that I'd be able to tell my listeners about it. So give me a

[00:01:17] little bit of background on why you decided to move to St. John and the

[00:01:24] business that you've decided to establish. I'm glad that we have that

[00:01:29] sentence in recording because reading David Goss's books had me fall in love

[00:01:36] with St. John even more than just landing here and moving here and starting

[00:01:42] up a life. So that's pretty cool if he thinks that what I'm doing is good

[00:01:46] then it's got to work. I have probably a very similar story to many people that

[00:01:54] are coming here now where I was in Ontario and it was an appropriate time

[00:01:59] for us to make a move. I have teenagers and my husband was ready to make a shift

[00:02:06] in his career. Mine was doing well. I've been in the window-to-windower

[00:02:10] industry for quite some time now and I felt success. I felt failure. I've seen

[00:02:19] the industry change and flourish. When we came out here, it was for my husband

[00:02:27] to teach full-time. He's a machine-ist teacher and he is now up at NBCC full

[00:02:35] time which is great. My kids are doing so well. One of them is working. He's now

[00:02:43] living out on his own on a cool little apartment on Douglas Avenue and my

[00:02:47] daughter is at Harborview and she's involved with music and the theatre

[00:02:52] productions there and just living her best teenage girl life. When I came

[00:02:57] out here, I didn't know what I was going to do. I knew I'd figure out

[00:03:02] something. Fortunately, the bills were a little lighter because we were able to buy

[00:03:08] a home here after selling our home in Ontario so that was a nice reprieve. I

[00:03:12] had the winter off and in that time I made friends. I became probably more

[00:03:18] social than I have been in a long time and it was through those friends that

[00:03:24] I got to learn more about the history of the city and I got to see the

[00:03:29] art and explore and hike and I realized very quickly that the people of St.

[00:03:36] John, they also celebrate it. Everybody's so eager to tell me how

[00:03:41] wonderful this place is that I already have learned is quite

[00:03:44] wonderful and something that was quite consistent are the people that I

[00:03:49] would go and hang out with. They have a lot of local art. Their homes are

[00:03:54] tiny and modest but their furnishings are beautiful and a lot of local art and

[00:04:00] a piece that I saw over and over again was the collage of St. John doors. The

[00:04:07] people here celebrate the doors of St. John and here I am recently moved with

[00:04:13] a long history of the window and door industry. I'm living in a city of

[00:04:18] St. John and I'm living in a big door so I knew what I had to do.

[00:04:23] So when you begin to think about knowing what you have to do, what were some of

[00:04:29] the early steps in putting together what you now have? Certainly I needed to

[00:04:35] figure out which vendors to align with. I've been fortunate enough to

[00:04:39] know and understand who's out there and which ones would be the most

[00:04:42] suitable finding a location that was difficult and I'm sure many

[00:04:47] small business owners feel that there aren't too many commercial properties

[00:04:54] that are... I needed a showroom, I need a shop, I need a loading bay, I need to be

[00:04:59] on a bus route. So I did eventually find that and I found my supplier and

[00:05:06] over the past year with my own not so strong arms carved this place out

[00:05:14] and knocked down walls and got to learn how to figure out a concrete

[00:05:19] floor grinder and polished everything, painted built up benches, found some

[00:05:25] people that are still with me today and get everything ramped up for

[00:05:30] production which is where I am now. So I have a cool showroom and I have

[00:05:35] a spray booth. I have one person that does painting and spray. He's a

[00:05:40] local artist and very particular which has been lovely. And also a

[00:05:45] second person that is a contractor and good woodworker and he's been

[00:05:52] doing all of these builds with me. So that's where I am now and I feel

[00:05:57] like I've brought a lot of my passion and my interest and my ability to

[00:06:01] St. John and I'm at that early stage of now trying to introduce

[00:06:05] myself. That's the part I don't have. I don't know the builders and the

[00:06:10] developers and contractors of the area. So I'm trying to be as enticing

[00:06:15] and endearing as possible to bring people through and maybe share my

[00:06:20] story, pique their interest. Because what I'm manufacturing here is

[00:06:25] something that's currently not available in the eastern part of our

[00:06:31] country. As far as I can tell there are no other fiberglass

[00:06:35] stores in the Maritimes. Fiberglass stores are very common on the

[00:06:41] west side of the country. They're building codes are more stringent

[00:06:45] and fiberglass is a very popular common product. As you go across

[00:06:50] the country it starts to balance out where it's 70% in Winnipeg, 50%

[00:06:56] in Ontario and essentially nonexistent out here. So I feel like

[00:07:01] I'm bringing this really cool, beautiful product that's efficient

[00:07:05] and stylish to a market that I feel it's going to suit very well.

[00:07:11] The timing is right. So then if I'm hearing you correctly

[00:07:16] your biggest challenge at this present time is just getting to be

[00:07:21] known by those contractors and individuals that will ultimately

[00:07:26] be installing those doors that you're manufacturing.

[00:07:30] That's right. So I hope that every contractor and builder

[00:07:33] in the Maritimes is presently listening and thinking, geez,

[00:07:37] I need a door. I know where to go now.

[00:07:42] So how competitive are your doors

[00:07:47] compared to other doors that they can purchase and put into

[00:07:52] homes and what's the advantages of your doors?

[00:07:56] I love that question. Thank you.

[00:08:00] The doors that are presently available are either

[00:08:04] a custom wood door. You're going to find a few people that can make these

[00:08:07] or just wood door systems, maybe a few of them a year

[00:08:11] and they are quite expensive but there's nothing else that

[00:08:15] compares to that. That door goes in and that's the door for that house

[00:08:19] for the rest of its life. The majority of the doors

[00:08:24] are steel doors compared to that. So you go to

[00:08:27] Kent or any of the lumberyards and it's a steel door

[00:08:31] that is the most popular in the area and you probably see them off and they're white

[00:08:35] maybe six panels or half glass and the two panels at the bottom

[00:08:39] they are affordable, they're straightforward, they're easy, they work

[00:08:45] there's nothing too terribly stylish

[00:08:47] about them. There's sometimes I even see homes

[00:08:51] especially up in the north end where the home still has a lot

[00:08:55] of the original detailing and the woodworking

[00:08:59] the cornices up near the roof and the window detailing is beautiful

[00:09:03] and the original doors gone probably because it had rotted out or

[00:09:07] broken or whatever and just this basic steel

[00:09:11] door is put in there and it just sucks the life out of it

[00:09:15] it's right at the sidewalk view and it feels like

[00:09:19] the beginning of a shift into just putting basic

[00:09:23] products in. So the steel door you can get those they're made from

[00:09:27] Atlantic windows and doors through Kent. Atlantic Windows and

[00:09:31] Doors is a wonderful company I know the

[00:09:35] leadership there I've been through their shops

[00:09:37] many times they're beautiful people it's a large manufacturer in a small town

[00:09:42] so they're they do a lot of community events and they stand

[00:09:46] by their products. So the steel doors I don't want to come on here and say that

[00:09:49] what I'm doing is is better it's just it's different it is unique

[00:09:54] but if you're going to put in a steel door nobody's going to say wow that's

[00:09:58] a nice door it's just utility those ones may be

[00:10:02] around six eight hundred dollars I could do something similar for

[00:10:06] around nine hundred a thousand dollars so my pricing isn't too varied

[00:10:10] from what you can currently get but I'm manufacturing it here

[00:10:16] I have full production I also have a full paid shop

[00:10:18] and I'm not going to do something that takes the life out of a home I'm going

[00:10:22] to figure out a little bit of a story of the

[00:10:26] home a little bit of personality from the

[00:10:29] homeowner and I'm going to put that into the door because that is one of

[00:10:33] the very few building products that you can do that

[00:10:38] that front door has a statement all on its own

[00:10:41] and I feel like if you take that away it it pulls out the identity of the home

[00:10:47] so that's what I'm that's what I'm delivering I get to figure out

[00:10:52] what that what that piece is and then I build it

[00:10:55] because I'm building it here and I'm selling it direct

[00:10:58] you don't have the mark up through a lumber yard

[00:11:01] or a retailer and that's how my pricing is tight

[00:11:05] on such a beautiful product so then you're basically saying that

[00:11:11] you can custom design a door that fits the home that the door is going to fit into

[00:11:19] yes that is fantastic and I think it's something that

[00:11:27] is totally unique in in the whole maritines

[00:11:33] I'm just wondering how far away from st. John you can be selling those doors

[00:11:39] and still be able to do the kind of custom design that you're talking about

[00:11:46] I have in my previous experience in Ontario it was just north of Toronto for the majority of the time

[00:11:53] and typically the border of shipping product and having it make sense

[00:11:59] is around a five hour drive how Canadian is that a five hour drive perimeter

[00:12:05] I from st. John that that's the maritines like that you know we've

[00:12:10] we're covering a pretty good area and I need to be able to do that

[00:12:15] because the populations are low out here and there are only so many builders and

[00:12:19] there are only so many housing starts I need to be able to to build for as far reaching as possible

[00:12:25] right now my focus is st. John because that's where I am and that's uh

[00:12:30] that's where I've fallen in love so I will do my best to deliver to the people of this area

[00:12:37] but I'm in Moncton on Monday I'm in Frederton the following week so I am venturing out of this

[00:12:44] city and we'll continue to to move out and move out but ideally my favorite version of

[00:12:51] of the sales process is a homeowner comes into my shop I fire up a good coffee we get to know

[00:13:01] each other a little bit figure out what's happening what they need we go through the shop we go

[00:13:05] through the showroom we sit down and I and I hone in on some designs we talk about color

[00:13:11] and patterns and maybe like childhood doors or a door that's piqued their interest almost

[00:13:17] everybody's going to have something in mind already and and then we curate just like that

[00:13:22] that perfect option for them and then I quote it 15 different ways and then we land on it

[00:13:28] and a final product I'm willing to go far how many people are willing to come here

[00:13:34] I guess that's what I need to find out well there might be a possibility too that you could

[00:13:41] figure out a way that them doing pictures of the house the exterior of the house etc

[00:13:50] that they could actually send things to you and or even doing it by video and something like

[00:13:59] similar to what we're doing now with zoom where you could actually do a consultation without

[00:14:05] them being present with you that's true I could certainly do that they would miss out on my coffee

[00:14:11] and I do make a good coffee well you're talking to an individual that loves great coffee and I've

[00:14:19] had some great coffee in various places throughout the world what suggestions would you give to a new

[00:14:27] entrepreneur that was going to try to put their dream into shoe leather and actually make it

[00:14:36] successful there are two aspects of my my beginning here that anybody else that wanted to take on

[00:14:46] this type of challenge I would recommend they do the same and one is to learn about the

[00:14:52] resources that could be available to you through Envision and a coa CBDC all of these organizations

[00:15:00] even my bank there are programs that will provide training or tutorials funding

[00:15:10] all sorts of variations of support and for the first few months that's mostly what I did I was

[00:15:16] on a lot of calls and I was navigating all of that and what I could what I could leverage

[00:15:22] and who I could learn from I started up a mentorship and that was quite valuable because

[00:15:31] starting up my own business is quite different than being in an already established business

[00:15:37] and it takes a lot of a lot of energy to to get in every day and keep working at it even

[00:15:45] though there are no funds coming in and and believe in the end goal it sounds a little

[00:15:53] bit hokey but that's where I am now and the other I was recently given this advice and I really

[00:16:00] quite like it and I hope that I'm delivering it on some level today is to learn your story

[00:16:07] figure out the why of why you're doing this and the purpose and that is going to be far

[00:16:13] more compelling than the the widgets and gadgets that you're that you're procuring inside people

[00:16:21] want to know the magic behind it and the magic is not often in the product it's in

[00:16:27] it's in the it's in the the soul well that is fantastic I always like to end my

[00:16:37] interviews when I can here on the podcast by asking the question what's at least one thing

[00:16:43] that you really enjoy and like about new burnswood oh I like whenever I leave home I feel homesick

[00:16:56] and I have never experienced that before in my life I have moved over 40 times I've had numerous

[00:17:04] homes and careers and I have never felt more at home here I don't know what it is exactly

[00:17:11] but I know that I can't stand being away from it now it is so beautiful and enchanting and loving

[00:17:20] I in the history here it feels like St. John is that like it was the middle of the earth there

[00:17:26] you'd even see it at the reversing falls where it was just ripped apart and there's there are

[00:17:33] rocks on one side of the falls that are the geology of of Africa and another from South America

[00:17:42] and then this gorge in the middle and it's just so miraculous there's something very special about

[00:17:49] the tides and the air and the people and it all works very well together thank you for that

[00:17:56] question that was very nice to say actually it was nice to relive and thank you for the answer

[00:18:02] because it's absolutely true that this is home it's home for you it's home for me and it's home for

[00:18:11] over 850 000 other people that have moved into the province many of them in the last few years

[00:18:17] and we continue to grow here in st. John so thank you for your time and I hope you have a great

[00:18:25] day thank you mark thank you for taking the time to come and listen to this podcast today

[00:18:40] it's produced edited and hosted by me mark brewer and it's commercial free except for the fact you

[00:18:51] could go to my website and buy me a cup of coffee if you care to for now have a good day