Chris Yip 0:05 Welcome to Tell Me More: Coffee with Chris Yip, the official podcast of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto. Each month, I sit down with someone from our vibrant, global community to talk about what places them at the heart of designing bold solutions for a better world. You'll meet alumni, students and professors who are making a difference across a range of fields, including some where you may not expect to find them. Chris Yip 0:33 My guest today is Arlyne James, who completed her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in 2024. During her undergrad, she launched My Dorm Store, which makes dorms into homes, made by students for students. Arlyne, welcome to the podcast. Arlyne James 0:47 Thank you so much for having me, Chris Chris Yip 0:49 Yeah, this is gonna be super exciting. You're wearing swag. You're wearing a sweatshirt that I really want right now, which says "My Dorm Store," so you know, we'll talk later about getting some swag for me. Before we get to My Dorm Store, why were you drawn to mechanical engineering in the first place? Chris Yip 1:03 Yeah, absolutely. I think going through school, I loved STEM, like math and science, but I also loved creativity and art and history so what really drew me to engineering specifically was the ability to weave those two together, so to not just focus on problem solving, but creative problem solving. Chris Yip 1:24 And a little any, like an art so like a little bit of like a design esthetic as well? Arlyne James 1:29 Yes, yeah, absolutely. Chris Yip 1:30 But I have to ask this question too, with my decanal hat on and with my institutional hat on, U of T, why? Arlyne James 1:39 Of course, so I think growing up, my mom had gone to U of T, and it was always a part of my life, like hearing about her. Chris Yip 1:46 Following footsteps? Arlyne James 1:47 Exactly. She was a proud alum so she did nursing and graduated from St Mike's. So growing up, she would always bring us to campus, and had really wonderful stories of her time here, and she lived at Loretto so... Chris Yip 2:00 Nice, nice. Arlyne James 2:00 Yes, yeah so it was always a big part of my life and then when it came to applying for different engineering programs, I think having the TrackOne specifically, that optionality and getting to learn more about what engineering really was before deciding which stream you wanted to do, that really appealed to me. And I think the mentality, like the Skule mentality and that team feeling. It's funny, everyone always said, Oh, U of T is so competitive, it's really hard to make friends, all that and I found, yeah, it couldn't have been further from the truth. I found that, especially when I came on the tour and for the like open house days, that camaraderie really shone through. Having that, in a academic sense, really appealed to me as well, and it being the best program in Canada didn't hurt. Chris Yip 2:54 Actually, you mentioned your your mom went through nursing, right? So there's always this sort of nursing engineering connection. So was there any nursing engineering connection? Did she notice that when she went through undergrad? Arlyne James 2:59 She had lots of stories of the engineers back in the day, which I think the work hard, play hard, that was still definitely there when I did engineering. I mean, no one has more fun than, than engineers. So even having the second frosh week and in the winter term and all that, it's so... Chris Yip 3:19 Oh Godiva Week. Arlyne James 3:19 Yes, yeah, exactly. It's just so much fun. Chris Yip 3:23 It's great and we just welcome, we're recording this podcast about two weeks into the term, and we just welcomed our largest ever first-year class. 1500 first-years came back, or came in, 43% women, 63 countries. So it's an amazing cohort. And you started in TrackOne. TrackOne, for those who don't know, you end up opting into one of our core programs once you finish TrackOne so that's, that option is always there, and we're always interested in whether students end up in their chosen field, the one that they had, would have selected in first choice coming in, or they, something in TrackOne actually swayed them in a different direction. Arlyne James 4:03 Yeah, so when I was initially in TrackOne, I thought mech. It's funny people refer to it as TrackTwo sometimes, because it still keeps a lot of doors open and allows different, you can focus on a lot of different streams, which is great. I think the other thing I really loved about mech and something that drew me to that was the ability to still work, like in project management or in a team, just working with people, I love doing that so having that is such a core component of mech. And yeah, that was what ultimately swayed me. Chris Yip 4:37 All right. Now, now we dig into the meat of the topic today on the podcast, My Dorm Store. What was that moment that the idea came to mind? Arlyne James 4:46 Of course, so it was in my second year. And something that I also really loved about U of T when choosing engineering here was the ability to weave business in through your degree, so being able to do the business minor. I just, I knew from day one I wanted to do that. So in my second year, when I was able to start taking engineering business courses, one of the projects was creating your own business, and I was thinking about different problems I'd seen, or different things I wanted to solve. And I was fortunate to live at home in my first year, so I think seeing my friends living in dorms, and I had a friend that was an international student, and seeing her experience in such sharp contrast to what I was fortunate to have, like a pillow every night and clean laundry and just the comforts of home and just, I think, when you're sometimes in that environment, you don't realize sort of all the things you're missing and what a difference it makes. So yeah, when I was in my second year, after having seen so many of my friends go through that and not having those things in their dorm, or not really knowing how to get set up and just how important that is, I wanted to solve that problem. So yeah, that's where the inspiration came from and having that as a project in class really gave me the space to develop the idea, start understanding all the things that go into a business, thinking about how you would even start that, and looking at different customers, thinking about how you would forge partnerships. So I loved it. And then, yeah, the class went well. And then at the conclusion of that, I had heard about the Hatchery on a tour I'd been on and the idea of starting a company was always really exciting to me, having that ability to just create something brand new and just be totally creative and throw a bunch of things at the wall and try out everything and yeah, wear a bunch of hats. I just thought that sounded so exciting. Chris Yip 6:47 So did you do this as this, as yourself as an individual, or was there actually a team of friends that came together? Arlyne James 6:52 Yeah, so a couple of my friends and I, we worked on it in the Hatchery together, which was so cool to see that come together and really take what had been just a class project and make it into a little business. And then what was really interesting so then in my PEY year, which is for those who don't know, it's when you're doing engineering, you have the option to do a co-op year, which was another big draw for me to doing U of T. Having that ability to test out like a real career for a year and see what you like so I was applying to a bunch of different co-op positions and got a couple offers, but nothing was really sparking that same interest in me as running with the company and seeing what we could do with it. So I had reached out to the PEY office to see if doing an entrepreneurial co-op was even an option, and learned that it hadn't been done before, so it wasn't something that there was really a template for, and Roger Francis in the PEY office was gracious enough and believed in me and what I was working on so it ended up being the first entrepreneurial PEY Co-op, which was so much fun to build the template out for sort of set up a system that other students now have continued on and been able to do. So working through all that with him for that year was really cool. And I think in that year I saw that this was something I really wanted to take on full time and make into a company, and especially during that year, focusing on it and seeing what being an entrepreneur was like. Chris Yip 8:32 Yeah, so the startup space is interesting at U of T. It's very diversified, and the Hatchery is kind of the engineering one is primarily focused at undergraduates. Give us a sense of what what it provided, and the resources in the community build. Arlyne James 8:46 Yeah, of course. So I think, like the hatchery, or really any of the accelerators I've been a part of here on campus, they really give you the space to develop your idea, take the time to understand, like, what goes into making a business, sort of those fundamentals that you may not have had the background in before jumping into it. So yeah, I think they provided me with a lot of opportunities to connect with mentors, like outside of the university too, which was great. And then I found that like U of T is so awesome with having those accelerators in that room for entrepreneurs, and then, like, at a central level, I think adopting like a change or like kind of a new system, I found challenging, so that's why I started just reaching out to, like individuals at the residences and forging those relationships so but yeah, the accelerators and the entrepreneurship community is awesome. Chris Yip 9:45 Maybe for listeners, sort of explain, so what is, how does My Dorm Store work? Arlyne James 9:48 Yeah, so essentially, we create packages that have everything students need to move into their dorm. So we partner with residences at universities and colleges across Canada to design these packages that have exactly what students need. So instead of wasting time trying to figure out what you need or arriving to an empty mattress, students arrive with everything they need already waiting for them down to the correct like sheet size, or if you need a shower curtain or a mattress protector, all those little things that you don't really realize you need until you're already there. So yeah, we take the worry out of moving, and then throughout the year, parents and loved ones can send care packages or things for birthdays or exam time so it really becomes like a connection between home and students, which is so special to see. It's just so heartwarming when you can help like a student celebrate their 18th birthday or their first birthday away from home, and yeah, so it's helping students move in and then feel like their dorm is their home throughout the year. Chris Yip 10:53 It's interesting because this is such an important, this is a huge transition, right? For a lot of people, it's a first time they've I mean being away from home, kind of on their own, like, that's an interesting process. Like, you move to a new city, people to figure out where stuff is, where to go, like, what's nearby, and if you're in the middle trying to move, like, it's just bad, right? Yeah, there's so much stress. You know, for our students, they've got Orientation Week, they've got all that kind of stuff, figure out where you live. This creates such a simpler transition. Arlyne James 11:22 Exactly every year I make it a priority to do pop ups and really, like, be there to help students. It takes a lot of manpower for our team to do those events and like, be on campus, all around helping students move in. But it's such a priority for me because those moments when students are arriving and they're really, some of them are all alone, and they have like, there's one story from the first year that we did this, and we were at the residence, and we were handing out pre orders, and the welcome residence team had gone home, but we wanted to stay until every student that had pre ordered could arrive and pick up their stuff. And while we were there waiting, a girl pulled up in a cab and got out with, literally, her backpack and her neck pillow. And since the residence team had gone, like, the welcome team had left, she was, like, just so overwhelmed and like, so lost and disorientated and I don't think she'd even been to Canada before. So we were there to, like, help her get set up and find out where to go. And it's, you really just become, they're a part of the, like residents staff, almost on those pop up days, just there to help students. So moments like that really reaffirm why, why we're doing this. Chris Yip 12:33 I mean, that's so great. It's, it is part of, kind of like an unofficial welcome committee in a sense, right?. Arlyne James 12:38 Yea, absolutely. Chris Yip 12:39 I'm assuming your first client was effectively U of T. So I think, I think what we talked before you said, was it at Chestnut, right? Arlyne James 12:46 Yes. Chris Yip 12:46 Chestnut Residence was the first one you set up at, right? So from one residence at one institution, how is that scaled now? Because you did hint earlier in a conversation, sort of like, it's across Canada now. Arlyne James 12:59 Now, of course. So in our first year, it was Chestnut and St Mike's Loretto that that we set up at. Chris Yip 13:05 You really linked back with your mom and where she went. Arlyne James 13:08 Well, actually, a cool story from that was when I reached out to, it was just me calling, like the residences and and when I phoned Loretto, I met this lovely lady, Alice, who was running the residence at that point. And when I was telling her about, you know, the idea, and she and how much I loved, like, St Mike's and Loretto specifically, because I'd grown up going there, she was like, Oh well, why? And I was like, Oh well, my mom, when lived at Loretto. And she was like, Oh well, what year did she graduate? And we figured out that Alice, so she started working off as, like a cleaning lady at the residence, and she knew my mom from when my mom had gone, there. Chris Yip 13:45 One degree of separation, yes. Arlyne James 13:46 Yeah, such a full circle moment so I was able to, like, go back with my mom, and she gave us, like, a little tour. It was so special, so, and she was such a big supporter from like, day one. So having, like, being at U of T when you meet people like yourself who really like, get to know you and believe in what you're doing and make such a difference. So, yeah, so Chestnut and St Mike's were the first and University College were the first three residences that we got started off at, and then grew to more schools around Toronto. And then last year we were at schools around Ontario and then this year we were at residences across Canada so that jump was took a lot of just logistics planning and figuring out how we were going to pull that off this year. But it was, yeah, it was super exciting. So I guess in total, we were at about 60 residences across Canada this year, and that comprises of university and college residences, and then, like, off campus residences as well. Chris Yip 14:46 Oh, so, like, people in private, like... Arlyne James 14:49 Yeah, like, Campus One. Chris Yip 14:50 Campus One, so, but still, like, officially, still, residences, not sort of, or could someone actually go My Dorm Store, but they're actually, it's like an apartment that they rented, or something like that. Would you still do that? Arlyne James 15:01 Yeah, we actually saw as I think a lot of the growth too, has been through word of mouth and return customers. We've seen that as well so when students are moving into apartments after their, after their time in a dorm, they'll order, because now we do like kitchen and apartment essentials as well. So yeah, I think when students are moving into a space with, like, a kitchen. They don't. They have no idea what they need. I don't blame them. And yeah, even universities that we hadn't had like, an official partnership yet with when we were getting orders from students there, yeah, it was. It provided an opportunity to reach out to that university as well. So I think students telling each other about it, or just finding us online, provided a real way to grow across Canada. Chris Yip 15:46 I kind of floated the idea like, this is actually an interesting opportunity for, for corporates who are looking to play someone, not just doing a corporate apartment, because that would obviously be set up, right? But, you know, research, sabbatical visitors and things like that, where they're sort of in an apartment but then it's, are you seeing? Is that a potential market? Arlyne James 16:03 Yeah, no, absolutely. I think anyone that's moving into a new space and is just looking for those essentials that they need to get set up, it's the type of thing where, you know, it's already tricky enough to travel, let alone packing all of that. So yeah, and if they're looking to set up a new space, it definitely applies. Chris Yip 16:21 They signed for the pickup package, right? And then the end of the academic year, what happens at that point? Arlyne James 16:28 Yeah. So I think being or since I started the company, so much time went into picking the products we were going to use and the suppliers we were going to work with. So I made sure to, like, test every item, and really put a lot of time and care into the items that were going into our packages, so picking things that would last students like well beyond their first year. So we find that students will either keep their items for next year, for their second or third year, or we have had students that reached out to us and said, like, Hey, I don't need this stuff, or I'm going back home. So we've started a at least in the Toronto area. Chris Yip 17:04 Storage? Arlyne James 17:05 Yeah, we've done something like that, or a donation program. So we'll collect the items at the end of the year, and then we'll donate them to, yeah, just to reduce waste and find a better way to repurpose them. Chris Yip 17:18 That's a cool sustainability angle to it, right? Because I remember us talking about this before, and like everybody, we all accumulate stuff during the year, and it's sort of, what do you do with it? And it's like, well, now you can actually build a storage service where you could start going back and forth, because I think I would assume you also have a storage issue for all your stuff that you as you start to package it for the for deployment, right? Yes. So how do you talk about this logistics question. So how are you doing that across the country, like I could imagine in Toronto, it's like, I'm here. But as you spread like, are you building like depot sites in different places? Or do you, do you have team members now going or are you flying across the country trying to do pop ups? Arlyne James 17:57 Yeah, no, it's this is where the engineering problem solving mindset really comes in handy and I'm just so happy I did this degree at U of T. It really prepared me for, like, big, overwhelming problems like that, where to take the next step, you really have to do a lot of, like, pre planning and problem solving. And so I think we were fortunate to have a lot of lead time before we got any orders in. So we knew that it was going to be across Canada sort of in February of last year. So that provided like, a good four or five months to build out that system. And I really tackled it like an engineer, just taking everything down at like, the system level and plan Bs and what to do if this happens or that happens. So what did, we ended up shipping everything out from Ontario and keeping everything in house, which I wanted to do, just for the quality control perspective, and making sure that we were delivering the same level of service, even though it was going to be in like Alberta or Halifax or in BC. So we ended up not like doing the different centers. We kept everything in Ontario and then shipping wise, it was just a lot of, I spoke to so many people like in the distribution and logistics world to get a better understanding of what that would look like and how to accomplish, because a big part of what we do too is offering the move-in day delivery, so having everything arrive on time, but also not arrive too early, because then the residences have all these packages, and these partnerships allow us to be like the only packages that arrive before students do. So getting that timing right is so important. And yeah, it was just a lot of a lot of learning, a lot of finding, like the right shipping partners and like, finding a bigger warehouse space to build all the packages in. And, yeah, getting all those systems in place. All ahead of time. So I mean, demand this year was way more than we had had or, like, could have anticipated. It was, like, even though we had done all that there, I was still, like, trying to get more inventory at the last minute, because it was just way more than I had predicted. So being able to use that creative problem solving, and you can do all the planning in the world, but unforeseen things come up all the time. So a lot of learning as you go but I think that's just comes with entrepreneurship. Chris Yip 20:30 How are you dealing with, you know, like we said, two, three years into it now. Are you, are you finding people are saying, Oh, this is, this is a wish list. I wish you could do this, like you also you went into sort of kitchens and stuff as you've expanded, right? Beyond just kind of the standard dorm. How do you deal with sort of what people want, and then deciding I should stock this. How fine grained can you be? Arlyne James 20:54 Yeah, no, that's a cool question. So I think what really kind of informs how we curate the packages or put all that together, is the residence partnerships and having that sort of first-hand knowledge from them about what exactly students need to move in, and really building the packages from there. So when students arrive, like everything they need, down to the right, you know, extension cord type, or down to, like, what says some residences will only allow certain like laundry detergent, so having all those details in place for students is so important. And what's still great about, and I still like keep this today, is also like building in those little touches. So we had, like, a mom reach out this year and she was saying, Oh, my daughter really loves this, like, one color of comforter, but we don't see it on your website. Is there anything you guys can do? And I always make it a priority to make those things happen, because I know how important it is to have those little details when you're, like, a million miles from home and, or even, like, the other day, it was a girl's birthday, and we do these, like, birthday cake packages for birthdays. And I called the mom, and I was like, okay, like, I just want to make sure everything's in place, whatever, and she was like, Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful, but I would really love if you could get red velvet cake for my daughter. It's, I know it's not on your site and whatever, but, and I was like, yeah, we'll make it happen. So I think still going the extra mile to do those things is, definitely reminds me of why I started this in the first place. Chris Yip 22:30 How big is your team now, right? Because when you describe sort of 60 different residences, I guess in that, I don't know if that's 60 different institutions or some subset of that, but how, how big are you as an operation? Arlyne James 22:42 Yeah, so we ended up hiring three students this summer to work with us, and one of them was an engineer, actually. Chris Yip 22:48 There you go. Arlyne James 22:49 So growing the team, I think what was really important when I was looking at hiring and figuring out, like, who I wanted in certain roles, so we had, like, a marketing role, more of a logistics coordinator, and then a website development role. And there was the opportunity to hire like people who had graduated. But I think I found that when I was a student, having those opportunities to... Chris Yip 23:16 As a student, yeah. Arlyne James 23:16 Yeah, exactly. It makes such a difference to have that first role, and that first sort of thing on your resume, and all the learning that I did in those like early co-ops or early positions, and just having someone sort of take a chance on you and made such a difference. So I think that was something I wanted to carry on. And yeah, I worked with four, actually, yeah, four awesome students this summer, and it was really wonderful to see how they started off in made out where they are now. And yeah, I think, and I learned so much from them, too, about how to lead and how to sort of grow a team and yeah, it was really cool to actually sort of expand just beyond myself. Chris Yip 23:59 So you've hit the residence, you're scaling across the country, so 60 institutes, 60 residences. What's next? What's the grand plan for Arlyne to take over the world? Arlyne James 24:09 Yeah, I think, you know, expanding to different markets, as you said, doing more business in Canada too. I think being a Canadian company is something that we love being and we're helping more students here, I think, also building out our offerings throughout the year. So we've seen how, how much of a difference these, like care packages make. So being able to offer more of that. We also have, like, a new subscription care package program, so parents can send something every month. But yeah, I think it's also finding, like more ways to reach students. So it's been like, it's funny, we don't really do that much marketing like we don't do any kind of paid online advertising or anything like that. So I think building out like those channels more, seeing what having like that could accomplish as well. It's funny, I find that also just like being on campus and like doing the pop ups, you also learn just so much about, like, what students are looking for, what they want. So also continuing to do that, and and, yeah, I've been fortunate enough to meet so many people who really believed in what I was doing, and yeah, and just provided a lot of, like, mentorship and support, I think, and so much learning is just sort of done through those conversations, even with yourself. So having that, like sort of just kind of built-in guidance was wonderful. Yeah, we've been able to, like bootstrap as we go, which has been great. So having or being able to do that has been really wonderful. Chris Yip 25:40 No, I think it's great. Even though you've got such great growth, you're still kind of kept it in a sense, sort of small, like you still kept that sort of personal touch. It's not become sort of some sort of giant Amazon level stuff, right? It's sort of, this is still Arlyne and her company, we're running these personalized approaches, we've got the ability for people to do a subscription system, people can, anybody can send a personalized package to somebody and say, Hey, happy birthday type thing, and someone gets a red velvet cake, right? I think that, that's, that's so, such a special opportunity, right? And for it to kind of grow out of engineering, I think, is wonderful. It's, it's kind of a nice model study, because it's also in a different sector, right then, compared to people like, oh, I built an AI startup, I built an app or something like that, which is great. There's lots of those as well. But you're in a in a sector which is pretty niche, right? One that can be, I think, super and you are being super successful with it. So congrats on all that. Arlyne James 26:35 Oh, no, thank you. I mean, I It's, there's, like, so many people along the way that you just think about, like, how fortunate you are to, like, meet people like yourself who, like, from the get go are like, this is awesome. Like, keep it up so and when you're like, a new business, or, like, navigating it, having that when you're when it's just an idea, or when it's like, new, it just means so much. So, like, thank you for no problem always being a cheerleader. Chris Yip 27:01 Yeah, no worries. But thanks, Arlyne, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for being on the podcast. Arlyne James 27:11 No, of course. Thank you, Chris. I mean, you're like one of my favorite people to have coffee with. Chris Yip 27:14 Terrific. Chris Yip 27:15 Thanks again for listening to Tell Me More: Coffee with Chris Yip you want to catch up on past episodes and to make sure you don't miss the next one, please subscribe. We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more. Just look for Coffee with Chris Yip. You can also check out @uoftengineering, on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn for more stories about how our community is building a better world. And finally, if you'd be inspired to join us, we'd love to welcome you. If you're thinking of taking a degree or working with us on our research projects, you can find us online engineering.utoronto.ca or you can visit our beautiful campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I hope I can join you for coffee soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai