Sojourn Magazine Spring 2017

SOJOURN//SPRING17
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MINIMALISTIC TRAVEL WITH
UNBOUND MERINO
MEET THE BRAINS BEHIND YOUR NEW TRAVEL ESSENTIALS
By Azhar Ahmad
Tell us a little bit about yourself and
your role in the company
I am Dan Demsky and I am an
entrepreneur based in Toronto, Canada. I
am one of three co-founders of Unbound
Merino alongside Dima Zelikman and
Andrew Cariboni.
How did all the founders meet? What
inspired you guys to start Unbound
Merino?
Andrew, Dima and I have all been best
friends since elementary school (around
4th grade). We've all worked together in
various jobs and in our previous company
BizMedia, which is a video production
agency which is still active in Toronto. We
created Unbound originally for ourselves.
We wanted to find a way to be able to
travel with less stuff, and discovered a
whole world of performanace fabrics
typically made to be activewear for people
who compete in marathons and triathlons.
We loved the materials and their ability to
regulate temperature, repel odors, wick
sweat and dry quickly - but thought they
all looked a bit silly on people who weren't
competing in some kind of race. So we
began to make simple shirts for ourselves
and quickly realized how many of our
friends loved what we were making and
wanted it for themselves. So we decided
to create a crowdfunding campaign to see
if the rest of the world wanted this stuff as
much as we (and our close friends) did.
We ended up raising over $350,000 USD
and sold in almost 90 countries around the
world! Germany being our third largest
market!
What made you decide to be in this
industry?
We created something simple and clean in
an industry full of stuff that looks sporty
and technical. There's nothing wrong with
clothing that looks sporty - it's just not the
kind of clothing we wanted to pack for our
trips. So we created what we felt was
missing.
Tell us about your product. Why merino
wool?
Merino wool is the world's best all natural /
non-synthetic performance fabric. By
using the highest quality Merino wool we
were able to create luxuriously soft
clothing that is odour-free, wrinkle
resistant, moisture-wicking, and
temperature regulating (keeps you cool in
the heat and warm when it's cold).
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