Unique Patterns Design Limited - Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
www.uniquepatterns.com
Unique Patterns Design Limited is a classic example of necessity being the mother of invention.
The Nova Scotia company was born in 1994 when owner Tanya Shaw Weeks, who had been running her own dressmaking shop since the age of 19, noticed that fabric stores were increasingly asking her to adjust patterns to their customers' measurements. Traditional patterns didn't fit women's bodies.
Weeks, now 30, shopped around for software that would allow her to automate the process, but without success.
Next stop - what was then the Technical University of Nova Scotia (now called Faculty of Engineering of Dalhousie University) - where she hooked up with engineers and software developers. The rest, as they say, is history.
The team developed a revolutionary software program that allows a woman to go on the company Web site, input her measurements, and choose from any number of patterns that will be made to measure, specifically for her.
"We set out to solve a problem, to respond to an identified market need," says Weeks. "That's what innovation is primarily about."
The company has recently signed an agreement with The McCall Pattern Company, the major pattern maker in New York, where big city shoppers now order custom-made patterns directly from Weeks' Dartmouth operation.
A sister company, Virtually Yours Inc., has since been launched and three more innovative products developed, based on the concept of letting women see how they look in various styles, colours and fabrics before buying a pattern and material, using an interactive online program. The user can actually send in a digitized photograph, and view a photo-realistic image of herself online, right down to her smiling face.
The company now has 24 employees, including a number of pattern drafters who work from home. An important part of the firm's development has been staff training, namely an in-house six-week training program for pattern drafters to teach them to use the software.
"People are so much more confident and effective if they're properly trained," says Weeks.
The firm also has an employee stock option program. "It's definitely a good incentive," she says. "People are working towards a future career where they are actually owners in the business so it has a major impact on their performance."
One of the challenges of working in an innovative environment, says Weeks, is staying focused on developing the business side of things. Software development has to ultimately lead to revenue and profits.
A graduate of Dalhousie University's Costume Studies program, Weeks won the Business Development Bank of Canada's "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" in 1994 and Ernst and Young's "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2000.
For Weeks, the critical link is between innovation and market demand. From a business perspective, the company only commercializes innovative products or processes that respond to an identified need.
Her advice to other companies? "Look at every situation with an open mind, and think about how a problem can best be solved. Dream big, then pare it back to what you think you can accomplish."
