How I Transformed Canada Goose Into A Billion-Dollar Brand

This is a Canada Goose parka. And it costs $1,450. The jackets, with their iconic shoulder patches, are such status symbols that the people who wear them are sometimes a target of robberies. Celebrities like Selena Gomez, Ryan Reynolds, Jennifer Lopez and Hugh Jackman are wearing Canada Goose. When you buy a Canada Goose jacket, you're buying a piece of Canada. That's important. You can't replace that. Dani Reiss, the grandson of Canada Goose's founder, took over the company at age 27 and completely transformed the family business. Our brand wasn't that well known, like it was known in the coldest places on Earth. People who lived and worked in those kinds of places. But people in cities didn't really know the brands at all because it wasn't a consumer brand at the time. Here's how Dani transformed Canada Goose from a small family business into $1 billion global luxury brand. My name is Dani Reiss. I'm chairman and CEO of Canada Goose Inc. This company was founded by my grandfather in 1957, and I've been working here myself since 1997. The story of Canada Goose starts with Dani's grandfather, Sam Tick. He was an immigrant from Poland who moved to Toronto, Canada after World War II. He founded a small factory with a few sewing machine operators, probably 5 or 6 people working for him back in the day, making outerwear for the local marketplace. It was a small company and it was called Metro Sportswear Limited at the time. Metro Sportswear specialized in wool and vests, raincoats and snowmobile suits. In the 70s, Dani's father, David, got involved in the business after marrying Sam Tick's daughter. He was an entrepreneur, so he grew the business. He was an inventor. David invented a down machine. There weren't any machines that fill the clothing with down. So lots of that was done by hand. He invented this machine that automatically weighed the down and blew the down into the jackets, which were then enclosed and then quilted. This is the way that down jackets are still manufactured in our factories. This helped him build the business up into a preeminent private label down manufacturer, selling designs to brands like L.L. Bean, Timberland and Eddie Bauer. Later on, after a lot of the private label business that he had, there were some companies that were bankrupt. There were some companies who took their business to lower cost environments, and so he had to create a brand name. So he created a label called Snow Goose, and that was a label he sold certainly in the coldest places on Earth. This brand would later become Canada Goose. And. This is where Dani enters the picture. When I was a kid, my parents always made me wear stuff that they made, and I didn't really want to wear it because nobody wants to wear the stuff that your parents give you when you're a kid. Dani's involvement in the family business started early on. In high school, I had jobs every summer. So I worked in the dorm room filling down jackets, and I worked in the shipping department, the finishing department. I worked as a janitor. Reception, I would type letters. I did almost every job there was other than actually sewing jackets. I never really thought it would amount to anything because I never planned to be in this business. My parents always told me, whatever you do, don't get into this business. After graduating with a degree in English Literature in 1997, Dani wanted to be a writer and travel the world. That is until he ran out of money. My plan was to go to Europe, go to Asia and travel and write, had my ticket and my parents said, why don't you work here for three months and make some money before you traveled? And that's literally all they meant. They didn't want me to stick around, and I didn't want to stick around either, but I could use the money. So I said sure. And I worked for three months. Three months turned into six months and then into 12. After a year of working at Canada Goose, Dani decided to stay permanently. At that time, Canada Goose was only bringing in $2.2 million in revenue. Dani went to trade shows in North America and Europe. People really liked it. They liked it especially because it was made in Canada. I always wanted to do something that I would love and could be passionate about. In 2001, Dani took over the company from his father, becoming CEO at the age of 27. I told him the way I wanted to do it, and told him I was willing to do it if he was willing to give me a shot. And he did. That's how it all began. There were less than 30 sewers in the factory. It was a small company, and unfortunately in the factory we didn't have enough work to work full time. That was one of the first things I had to change was to get some volume back into the factory, so we could be at capacity. When I was 27 years old, I didn't even want to put the title CEO on my card. I actually had a couple of business cards. One of them was blank. International sales manager. One said marketing manager. And then I had one that said CEO so when I was talking to like banks. I didn't like titles very much. I still don't really. But as companies get bigger, they become more important. While the private label was the biggest chunk of the business revenue, Dani started focusing on building the Canada Goose brand. One of the first things he did was change its name from Snow Goose to Canada Goose. By 2003, Canada Goose parkas were retailing for up to $435 and were gaining traction internationally. To increase brand awareness, the company held a ball hockey competition between different outdoor retail brands called the Canada Goose Cup. So all the biggest brands signed up to play against each other because everybody wanted to beat each other. So the first year of this tournament, we lost in the finals, which was disappointing, except that one of our kind of competitors, they beat us and they put the trophy in their front lobby, which had our logo in it. So I kind of thought that was a win. We just kept doing that for a number of years. Within five years, everybody knew who we were. Another way. Canada Goose became more recognizable was through the film industry, both behind and in front of the camera. Film sets anywhere, it's cold around the world. They use Canada Goose products behind the camera, in front of the camera. Now we appear in front of the camera much more than we used to, and we don't pay for that product placement. In 2011, Canada Goose introduced its first lightweight products, and in 2015 rolled out its spring collection. It launched its online store in the US that same year, and it opened its first flagship stores in Toronto and New York City in 2016. In fiscal year 2016, the company reached $291 million in revenue. When we started at less than $3 million, I wondered to myself, like, will we ever make it to five? And then when we made it to five, I thought, well, if we ever make it to ten, maybe I'll buy myself, like, seasons tickets to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey games. It kept growing. Every year, I would wonder, like, is there a point at which is going to stop growing? It's interesting how for me, once we got to a certain size, then it became clear there is no limit. In 2013, Bain Capital, the investment firm co-founded by former US presidential nominee Mitt Romney, bought a majority stake in Canada Goose for an undisclosed amount. We were growing so fast that my options were to slow down and grow slower, or to keep growing as fast as we were growing, but I needed more capital. So that's why we decided to do that now. It took us a good year or so to find the right partners. The company went public in 2017, with its shares opening at $18 on the New York Stock Exchange. Canada Goose going public yesterday, soaring in its debut, opening at $18 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock closing its first day of trade with an increase of 25%. That performance making it the second best IPO of the year. Goose priced its initial public offering of 20 million shares, raising more than $255 million. CEO Dani Reiss saying he's excited about what's in store. We're just really excited. This is not, this is not a finishing point. This is a starting point for for us. And it's overwhelming. When the company went public, Dani retained a 30% stake. He currently owns more than 10%. I love this company. You know, it's important to me. It's my life's work and I couldn't imagine not doing that. In fiscal year of 2023, Canada Goose has brought in $878 million in revenue. It currently has a market cap of $1.1 billion. Being profitable has always been very important to me. Historically, Canada Goose has been a very profitable company. We don't disclose a specific number of jackets we sell a year. We sell well over one million jackets a year, I could say that. However, growing a global luxury brand doesn't come without challenges along the way. One last name I'll add is GOOS, getting a downgrade today over at TD Cowen and they go to market perform a target of 15. They were at 22. I think that's an all-time low on Canada Goose as we talk about a pressured consumer. The stock price hit an all-time low on November 1st, 2023, amid uncertain economic conditions and warmer-than-usual weather. The company has also faced backlash from animal rights activists due to using fur and feathers in its products. After the IPO in 2017, Peta bought 230 shares of Canada Goose stock, enough to submit a letter to shareholders and attend the annual shareholders meeting. In June 2021, Canada Goose announced that it would no longer use fur in its products. We talked about for a long time, but we realized that we could make jackets that are just as good without fur as with fur, so we just decided that we may as well do that and just make the jackets more sustainable, even though for itself is sustainable. We felt that that would be responsible decision and we did that and it just worked very well. Transitions went smooth. And you know, I think if you look in the marketplace today, you don't you don't see a lot of jackets with fur from anyone. There's some inventory left. But the transition has not been an issue. And, you know, we'll sell the inventory that has fur and we'll keep going on. So far, Dani has kept most of the Canada Goose manufacturing in Canada, with an exception for knitwear and footwear, which are made in Italy and Romania. Certainly, we would never consider going to the lowest cost environment. We have seven factories here in Canada, and I think the price point, a lot of it's driven by the fact that our products are made here in Canada. The apparel manufacturing industry in Canada was decimated because a lot of manufacturing went overseas. We helped build it back. You look at luxury brands in the world, they make things at home. Most of the world's luxury brands come from France or Italy. I think for us, our commitment is to make things at the best quality environment so we can make the best quality product. I do believe that function pushed far enough becomes fashion. You know, I think that that basic rule we just keep following is make something that works, make it high quality, make it look good, and that becomes covetable. We're going to keep going. You know, we have approximately 60 stores now. We're opening 16 stores this year. I'm very proud that we have the name Canada. I think the brand of Canada is very strong. We're going to diversify our product range, reach more consumers and new geographies, but also in the same geographies. The United States, our brand awareness is not nearly as high as it can be. And China is same thing. And even in Canada, we've a long way to go and we're just getting better. An old mentor once told me, "Dani, don't make it cheaper, make it better." And I think we're going to just keep doing that.