TV viewers’ eyes on low nose bridge prize

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This article was published 22/11/2024 (343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg entrepreneur whose company makes eyeglasses for people with low nose bridges is one of the faces of a partnership between the NHL and Intuit QuickBooks.

KayTran Eyewear founder Kathy Tran-Riese appears with Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar and Toronto Maple Leafs right winger William Nylander in a commercial for the accounting software, which is airing now on numerous TV networks.

Tran-Riese will also appear on social media spots promoting the multi-year partnership, which was announced earlier this year. The NHL has named Intuit QuickBooks “the official small-business accounting software of the NHL,” providing the company with a number of exclusive league marketing rights and designations to use in national advertising, marketing and promotional initiatives.

Tran-Riese flew to Toronto in September to film the commercial, which also features Toronto jeweller Alex Armen and Calgary entrepreneur Adam Thompson, who owns Friday Sock Co.

“It was really surreal and crazy,” said Tran-Riese, 39.

“It was a large production, so there were probably 100 people on the set. It was very cool to see those behind-the-scenes moments … Overall, it was a lot of fun.”

The 30-second commercial shows Makar, Nylander, Tran-Riese, Armen and Thompson each walking down a runway while a group of photographers snap photos. The voiceover compares the entrepreneurs to the hockey players, saying, “You’re an elite talent that can visualize greatness — always geared up and ready to shine. You’re special; you’re built different.”

Tran-Riese had the idea for KayTran Eyewear while pursuing her MBA at Western University in London, Ont. She could never find eyewear that fit her facial structure properly — glasses would always slip off her nose or touch her cheeks.

In an entrepreneurship class in 2010, Tran-Riese created a business plan for a company specializing in eyewear for individuals from diverse backgrounds who have low nose bridges, including Asian women like herself.

A professor encouraged Tran-Riese to pursue the idea, so she launched the company in 2012.

She designs the glasses, which are manufactured in China. They include features like elevated nose pads, narrower bridge widths and a widened temple angle.

“Everything is built into the frame to allow people with low bridges to find comfortable eyewear,” she said.

The business does most of its sales directly to consumers online and has shipped its products to more than 20 countries. A few stores in Canada and the United States carry KayTran frames and Tran-Riese is working on expanding the company’s presence into more.

For many years, the business was something she pursued on the side while working in finance and marketing roles at firms like Apple, General Mills and the North West Company.

Three years ago, she quit her day job to focus on KayTran full-time. Since then, she’s more than tripled the company’s sales: in 2021, the company did about $120,000; this year it’s on track to do about $500,000.

Actors such as Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) and Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) have been photographed wearing KayTran sunglasses.

Intuit QuickBooks was happy to feature Tran-Riese in the campaign, said Kelly-Ann Massingberd, group marketing manager.

“One of the objectives of our campaign was to show that business owners can define success on their own terms, and we wanted to recognize and support small-business owners’ unconventional paths to reaching their goals,” Massingberd said in an email.

“When we spoke to Kathy, her story of business ownership is both unique and admirable, starting from the ground up on her own, with a goal of creating an inclusive, stylish, high-quality Canadian product. We also know that many business owners can find themselves in her journey and be able to relate.”

Born in Oshawa, Ont., and raised in Toronto, Tran-Riese moved to Winnipeg in 2014. She lives with her husband and two children in the River Heights neighbourhood.

The entrepreneur will get more media exposure when she appears Thursday on the long-running CBC television reality show Dragons’ Den.

“It was a fantastic experience,” she said of filming her pitch in front of the show’s venture capitalists in Toronto in May. “I had practiced for weeks in front of my kids. My kids knew my speech verbatim.”

Tran-Riese is currently hiring to help her grow the business. The entrepreneur likes being creative and navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship, but the best part of running KayTran is hearing from satisfied customers.

She wants to inspire confidence in both Asian people and people with low nose bridges.

“We always thought there was something wrong with our faces — our nose bridges were too flat or our cheeks were too wide — things that are characteristic of the culture we’re a part of,” Tran-Riese said.

“The ability for people to have options now, the freedom and liberation of that, has really inspired me to just keep doing what I’m doing.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca