How This Couple’s Relationship Grew With Their Jewellery and Leather Goods Business
MONCTON – In 2012, Andreii Gaidash, an architect with a creative mind, made a pair of earrings for his new girlfriend Nataliia. That hobby became Dodo Handmade Accessories, which now sells jewellery and leather products out of Moncton.
The couple, now expecting a baby, moved to Moncton in 2017 to be closer to their biggest market, the U.S. They also wanted a safer place to live and grow their business.
“We were dreaming of doing what we do openly and honestly without fear. We wanted to live in a better economic and social situation,” Nataliia said. “And because of this business, that became much more international than local, it was also good to move to North America and to ship from Canada.”
Dodo Handmade Accessories includes Nataliia’s handmade jewellery and Andreii’s leather designs and custom products. Andreii uses traditional techniques and hand stitches the leather products. That’s why something like a backpack could take three weeks to complete.
The couple turned their hobby into a full-time business in 2015, when the economic, political and social situation in Ukraine went sour.
The year before, a revolution had started, Russia had annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and protests by separatist groups in the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts (like a province) had led to ongoing armed conflict. Dnipro, where they lived, bordered both oblasts.
Nataliia was worried that if a war were declared, Andreii would have to serve alongside his countrymen. Although Ukraine didn’t declare a war, the fear was enough to push them to move away.
“I wanted to support my country but not by my husband’s life. And we were thinking of children and what future they would be getting if this conflict lasts,” she said.
Consumer sentiment had also turned gloomy. People would rather save money than spend it on handmade crafts. The products Dodo offered through gift shops weren’t getting sold.
By this time, Andreii and Nataliia were newlyweds relying on their side business and their jobs as an architect’s technician and sales representative. Inflation devalued the local hryvnia, in which their salaries were paid. They struggled to repay a loan in U.S. dollars that their relatives provided to help pay for their apartment.
“We were devastated. We were still finishing updating of the apartment to move in, and we were looking at this exchange rate every day and it was raising, raising, raising and we realized, ‘oh my God, we are in trouble!’ We don’t know what to do. It was a very tough year after all these events,” Nataliia said.
Feeling stuck, the couple decided to open a second Etsy shop for Nataliia’s jewellery designs, adding to the first one that hosts Andreii’s leather products. Etsy, an international platform for selling handmade goods, allowed the couple to sell their products to Europe and the U.S. and get paid in American dollars.
In six months, their business was successful enough that Andreii could quit his job and Nataliia could let go of some responsibilities at hers. In a year and a half, they paid off their debt to relatives.
“But we worked very hard. Don’t have any meetings with friends,” Andreii said.
With PayPal unavailable in Ukraine, they had to rely on an intermediary company to get their money. This means they weren’t able to register the business properly. Shipping to U.S. customers was also challenging at times for geographic reasons. These limitations were out of their control.
A New Start In Canada
So in August 2017, Nataliia and Andreii hopped on a flight to Canada. They shipped 600 kilograms of equipment to their new rented home in Dieppe. They found the home with the help of Lana Ternavska, the Ukrainian owner of Moka Spa & Salon in Moncton.
“When we decided to move to Moncton, I did my research and I found a Russian speaking and Ukrainian speaking community and we started asking questions about housing and all those stuff which we were interested in. That’s how we found Lana and she helped us to rent that house,” Nataliia said.
The president of the Russian Multicultural Association of The Greater Moncton Area and owner of GoMusic Studio in Dieppe, Stanislav Olkinitskiy, also spoke to them over Skype to answer their business questions. Nataliia said having such a community was a big help.
“I was even crying one night because I didn’t realize that Lana and also few more people who were all so supportive, they didn’t know us. They just knew that we are a couple moving from Ukraine, that’s all. We just found them on Facebook and some online groups,” she said. “It was one of the factors that made us think Moncton seems to be a good place.”
Nataliia and Andreii have since bought a house in Moncton. They’ve attended craft shows and now sells products through Lana’s salon and two gift shops in Nova Scotia and Ontario.
Although not booming in revenue, the business is growing each year, Nataliia said. In Ukraine, they worked out of their 40-square-metre apartment. Now their whole basement is a dedicated space with workshops, an office and a photo studio. Their living area is now a showroom.
Nataliia has also started working part-time to help her practice English.
“When we’re writing our goals for the future, we don’t see ourselves doing something else apart from our business. So, from the next year, I’ll probably quit everything else and focus on the business,” she said.
Currently, Dodo makes an average of 300-400 sales a month, including wholesale items. The most popular items are the leather wallets and watch straps. More Canadian orders are coming in, but the U.S. remains the largest market. Nataliia now spends a bulk of her time doing the administrative, development and communications side of the business while Andreii remains focused on the creative side.
They plan to attend craft shows in Toronto, New York and Halifax. They also plan to onboard more wholesale clients, which would mean hiring part-time apprentices to help with production, packaging and shipping.
“We made and shipped the biggest order in our business history: 7,700 bracelets to one of our wholesale customers in the U.S. It was more than one month of crazy work…That gave us an understanding that we would need to hire people because imagine doing the same thing for 7,700 times,” Nataliia said.
The couple is also in the current cohort of the Catapult program by ArtsLink NB, an accelerator for artists.
Despite the growth and opportunities here, the couple said the business currently only makes enough to get by because the living cost in Canada is much higher than in Ukraine.
They now focus on the online business and bringing the audience to them.
“The ideal solution would be to have a showroom, maybe separate from our house, which is also our future goal, and maybe a workshop next to it so people can come and visit us instead of going to craft shows,” Nataliia said.
On December 8, Dodo will have its first open house event with a workshop, and other activities planned.