Not every business can make it big on Toronto’s Queen Street West.
Co-founder and president of Drake General Store, Carlo Colacci, knew it’d take purposeful collections of hand-curated treasures to attract people of all ages.
“Our key demographic is everyone. We’re trying to appeal to the young, to the old, to the family, and everyone in between. We try to appeal to the curious culture seeker,” said Colacci.
Colacci, in partnership with his co-founder Joyce Lo, run the Toronto-based Drake General Store, a unique one-stop-shop for modern and classic Canadian goods that fill all its buyers with intrigue and nostalgia.
Working with local artists and in-house designers, Colacci’s curations reflect the modern version of the classic general store. The company’s expansion to other cities like Ottawa — and addition to an online shop that ships across the country — also reinvigorated the interests of local roots while scaling back the fast-changing fashion and consumer good industries.
In this week’s #StartupPodcast, we talk to Colucci about how our cultural products can maintain authentic Canadian identity, all the while keeping up with the changing trends of contemporary lifestyle.
The Startup Canada Podcast Show is a production of Startup Canada, a grassroots, entrepreneur-led movement to bring together, celebrate, and give a voice to Canada’s entrepreneurship community. On the podcast, award-winning entrepreneur host Rivers Corbett speaks with the movers and shakers of Canada’s entrepreneurship community to give a glimpse into the future of business, and share insights on everything from social innovation to the future of work, investing, and why we need to think bigger to take our businesses global. Join Rivers Corbett for new episodes every Tuesday airing at 10 AM ET for lessons, trends, and opportunities in entrepreneurship from Vancouver to Fredericton; and Israel to Peru.
You can find every episode of The Startup Canada Podcast Show at www.startupcan.ca/podcasts/.
