Parade of Homes

Cont'd on page 126 FOR EVERY COZEY COUCH SOLD, HE DONATES A COMFORT BOX FILLED WITH PERSONAL HYGIENE PRODUCTS AND CLOTHING TO A MISSION IN MONTREAL. You can order it online and have it delivered to your doorstep. It has no-fuss hardware so you don't need tools to assemble it, and you can add extra seats, a chaise and corner pieces to create 480 possible configurations. Oh, and it only takes one person to move it. During his first year in business, the startup achieved 1,200% growth. Aubé is now a big-time CEO of his own company, and he's embraced the concept of corporate responsibility. For every Cozey Couch sold, he donates a comfort box filled with personal hygiene products and clothing to a mission in Montreal. His idea has already caught on with other manufacturers. Presumably, the people at bed-in-a-box maker Endy slapped their heads and said, "Why didn't I think of that?" before they rolled out an Endy couch this summer. >> ECO-FRIENDLY LAUNDRY detergent TruEarth (tru.earth) is another product whose time has come. When B.C. entrepreneur Ryan McKenzie and his wife Kathleen were expecting their third child, Ryan became deeply concerned about plastics in the environment. There had to be a better way to package goods. Turns out a family member of Ryan's pal Brad Liski had patented soap strips that fit in a small cardboard sleeve. They called up their tech-savvy business partner Kevin Hinton and gave the soap a trial run to see if it worked. They were sold, and pretty soon, thousands of other people were sold, too. They created a webpage to gauge interest in subscription orders, figuring that if 150 people signed up within a month, they would have a viable business. They got 1,500 subscribers, and after a year, they had 60,000 customers around the world. That means 60,000 people who don't buy laundry soap in plastic jugs, or in big boxes that take up about 30 times as much space in shipping containers. Parade of Homes FALL 2021 125

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