Om Organics Founder Kari Asselin Is Sticking to Her Plan
The skin-care entrepreneur is about to embark on her new chapter, opening a store away from home for the first time.
Kari Asselin is a firm believer in manifesting her own path. It’s not a philosophy that works for everyone, but almost a decade into her journey as the founder of Om Organics, it’s been working for her, and she sees no reason to stop visualizing her success. “I’m exactly where I thought I would be at this stage,” the Ontario-born entrepreneur says.
Asselin began testing her chemical-free, minimally processed skin-care products with friends and selling them at farmers markets in 2013 in and around Invermere, B.C., where she had moved in 2011 and worked as an esthetician in spas. It was her experience of having sensitive, acne-prone skin that never changed despite trying various skin-care products that inspired her to start her own. By 2016, there was enough interest and momentum to open Om Organics as her full-time business with a storefront in the heart of the small mountain town.
Om Organics founder Kari Asselin by Sheena Zilinski
When chatting with Asselin, it’s clear she’s a bit of a big fish in a small pond. She had no doubt that Om Organics would succeed, and investing in Invermere, which sits on Highway 93 in the Columbia Valley among the towering Rockies, almost propelled things for her in a way that operating in a bigger city wouldn’t. “We haven’t run into that many challenges,” she says. “The cost of shipping and freight was one. It costs a bit more because we’re rural, and staffing can be a bit challenging since we don’t have a large pool of people. But we just sailed right through COVID with no real challenges.”
What’s on the horizon next might test that determination a bit more: a second store in a much larger city. In November, Asselin will open an Om location in Calgary as she works to grow the brand beyond the seasonal traffic in Invermere, wholesale accounts, and a steady direct-to-consumer business online. “Our team shifts and moves around depending on the season, so we stay consistently busy,” she says.
One of the few reservations she mentions is potential production and volume numbers that might run through a new store. She’s not quite sure how many demands a second store in a busier market will put on the nine-person team, but she is using the Calgary launch as a test to potentially expand even further. “I’m holding back a bit, but if we see success, we’ll open in Toronto, Vancouver, and Kelowna,” she says.
She says that with confidence and has the numbers to stand behind. Om has seen year-over-year growth the last four years and has a 70 per cent customer retention rate. “The growth has been surprising, more than I ever would have anticipated,” she says.
With a larger team now and a second store on the way, she hopes to continue to back off the day-to-day responsibilities of entrepreneurship just a bit to spend more time with her kids. “With two kids, I can’t be focused on the business all of the time. I need to let someone else be in charge. I have to make sure my kids get my focus,” she says.
It’s likely she’ll find a way to create balance. She’ll manifest that as well, just as she’s done while growing the business.
Photographs by Oly Shamrik.
