What is your name?
Justina Blakeney, Faith Blakeney and Ellen Schultz
What is your business name?
Compai
What is your website URL?
www.Compai.com
When did you start your business?
2001
Why did you decide to start your business & why did you choose the type of business you chose?
We started our business in Italy after finishing fashion school because we felt disillusioned with the fashion industry. We did not want to begin designing for multi-national companies like many of our classmates. After little research it was clear that most brands simply put twists on the current trends, exploit young creatives and offshore production, and usurp the earths’ resources will little or no sense of responsibility. We wanted to work in the industry—but with our own rules. This meant that we wanted to think independently, think green and to design with our own heads.
Our business has changed immensely since it’s inception—it started as a line of accessories, than it turned into an eco-boutique and small, recycled clothing line, tucked into the historical center of Florence, Italy. Than we started making books… and now, we are doing all kinds of things…
What is your favorite thing about being in business for yourself?
So many things!: Freedom to manage our own schedules, working with no bra on, having every single one of our ideas taken seriously, choosing who our co-workers are, being able to work on different things each day…(one day we are accounting, the next day designing, then it’s blogging and flickring and myspacing, the day after that we’re doing a photoshoot for some local newspaper, and then going to cut up t-shirts for a birthday party! Truly—never a dull moment!
What turned out to be harder than you thought?
Making a living wage, while trying to encourage our company’s growth, is our greatest challenge. Paying for health insurance or not having it at all—also really really really sucks.
Looking back, what is one thing you know now, but wish you knew back then?
CONTRACTS CONTRACTS CONTRACTS—even with friends.
Do you participate in any business groups (mentoring, networking, etc) ?
Currently we seek biz advice from the SCORE office (Counselors to America’s Small Business) they are a free service that has helped us enormously in creating our business plan and organizing the structure of our business.
As a business owner, it can be easy to work all the time – do you have any tips for balancing your business and your personal life?
Ummm…great question. It’s been 6 years and that’s still a tough one. I guess the best answer that we can give at the moment is that, if you love your job, it doesn’t feel like work. (just to give you an idea…it’s 4AM right now… ?)
What have been some of your best business successes?
In March, we will have over 100,000 books on the market. We were featured in a five-page spread in Glamour Italy, we were on the Today Show and in Italian Vogue. Schools and rehabilitation centers have been using our books and our designs to create recycled fashions and sell them to generate revenue for their communities.
What are you planning to do with your business in the future?
Our full fledged eco clothing line is finally coming out in 2008. Our new book “99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Tie and Rock your Scarf” hits shelves in March 2008. “Poseur”, a teen novel series by Rachel Maude comes in Jan. 1st, and Compai has contributed how-to projects for this series—the first novel to ever come with sewing patterns. We have teaching seminars and trade fairs scheduled…and we have several business partnerships in the works with kickass companies like Janome Sewing Machines and Zazzle.com. We knock on wood as we say that, hopefully, in a year or so, we can actually quit our day jobs!