At A Glance

Marc, founder of Kigurumi, started his animal onesie company 15 years ago from his Montreal apartment after struggling to find the Japanese-inspired costumes in North America. What began as dropping packages at the post office on his way to work has evolved into a global operation with manufacturing in China and teams across multiple continents. His biggest growth breakthrough came from organic celebrity endorsements on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, proving that sometimes the best marketing happens when you're not trying to market at all.

Who is Marc Beaupre?

Meet Mark, the Founder of Kigurumi! 

About Kigurumi

Kigurumi is a brand that specializes in animal themed onesies, which are themselves call Kigurumi. This fashion fad is all about comfort and good humor. The animal costumes are well made, but the focus is on everyway about feeling good–about yourself and your clothes. 

Marc’s Journey

Marc founded Kigurumi 15 years ago when he and his partner wanted animal onesies for themselves but couldn't find anyone selling them in North America. "They're a Japanese product originally, and they were just really tough to get," Marc explains. Spotting this gap in the Marcet, they decided to start importing them. What began as a weekend project became a business when they "literally got started in a weekend" by signing up for Shopify, choosing a free template, contacting manufacturers, and launching pre-orders. The early days were humble: "I would drop off packages to the post office on my way to work every day" from their apartment.

The company peaked around 2016 with three or four full-time employees attending conventions across Canada and the United States. Today, Kigurumi operates as a completely remote, globally distributed team. "Everybody is remote, mostly offshore. Got a team, you know, really working from all over the world," Marc describes, with their factory in China, customer support in Indonesia, a designer in Ukraine, and team members scattered across different continents.

Business Growth and Revenue Strategies

Marc is candid about what really drove Kigurumi's growth: "Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet. There was no one thing. We have just sort of been trying to grind at consistency, having great product, great customer service, consistently for years." However, the biggest breakthrough came from an unexpected source - celebrity endorsements that happened organically. "Really, the number one thing that helped us as a brand was something that's not even under our control, which was having celebrities wear our product," Marc explains. From Jimmy Kimmel wearing their products on live television to Meghan Trainor featuring them in music videos, these organic celebrity moments provided invaluable exposure. "That's advertising, marketing that brands dream about. And that's really the thing that made the biggest difference."

Customer Retention Through Innovation

Rather than focusing on traditional retention strategies, Kigurumi keeps customers coming back through constant innovation and trend awareness. "What does bring people back again and again is new styles and new designs. We're continuing to innovate, continuing to bring out new products," Marc says. The company stays ahead by tracking animal trends in popular culture. "There's always sort of a new popular animal. 

Every few years, there's sort of one animal that enters the zeitgeist," he explains, citing examples like sloths, raccoons, sea otters, and most recently, possums and axolotls. They even monitor their own website data: "We look at failed searches on our website. If someone searches for something and no search results come up, that's another thing that Shopify will tell you. That's where we got the possum from specifically is it was the number one thing for years that people were searching for that we didn't have."

Kigurumi’s CX Philosophy 

Marc's approach to customer experience is rooted in authenticity and going above and beyond to protect the brand's reputation. "Our philosophy is to do whatever it takes to please the customer. 

if that means losing money on some sales, if it means making sure that our customer feels like they're fairly treated, that they don't have a negative experience," he explains.

 This philosophy stems from understanding the power of online reviews: "With the online space, a single negative review can be just so impactful." Marc's ultimate goal is simple: "We just want to bring joy to people selling our cute animal onesies. So we will really bend over backwards and do whatever we can to please the customer."

Marc shares a particularly extreme example of customer dedication that occurred when they had run out of a product a customer urgently needed. "What I did is I went out to a store, I bought my own product from retail, paid retail price for my own product, and shipped it to them," he recalls. "I didn't even tell them that. I just needed it. And I wanted to make sure that they were able to get it on time."

Innovation and Adaptability

Marc has three key focus areas for Kigurumi's future growth. First, continuing to invest in manufacturing capabilities: "We started manufacturing our own products around three or four years ago. So it's still a big thing for us is to continue to invest in our manufacturing, keep iterating on our designs." Second, expanding into wholesale markets after being "traditionally very focused on the B2C market," and finally, pursuing collaborations with artists and creators now that their manufacturing processes are established. Marc's innovation approach remains customer-driven through monitoring failed website searches and social media trends to identify which animals are entering popular culture, ensuring they stay ahead of cultural zeitgeist moments.

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Marc's advice to new entrepreneurs is refreshingly direct: just start. "If they're looking to start, just start. The bar is really low. You don't need a lot of capital. You can just do it in a weekend. It doesn't have to be perfect to start," he emphasizes. Drawing from his own scrappy beginnings, he encourages entrepreneurs to embrace learning by doing: "You can be small. You can be scrappy. You can be humble. You don't have to be all slick and fancy to start.