Tariffs Wiped Out Half Her Revenue. Now This Founder Pays Herself Like a CFO

Tariffs on Canadian goods erased roughly half of KayTran Eyewear's revenue "within an instant" last year, forcing the Winnipeg company to pause its U.S. business for several months. Founder Kathy Tran-Riese says the shock rewired how she thinks about money — both inside the company and in her own bank account.

The lesson she drew: a business is a conditional asset, not a guarantee. A company can be a great asset if you "strike it lucky," she says, but many shutter their doors every year. "What it is today could not be what it is when you retire, and that runway for me is 25 years from now."

From basement orders to a U.S. distribution centre

KayTran designs low-bridge-fit eyewear — a product born from a personal problem. "I'm Asian, and struggled my whole life finding glasses that fit me properly because of my facial features," Ms. Tran-Riese says.

She developed the idea in 2010 while completing her MBA and launched the business in 2012, running it alongside a career in finance. She left her corporate job roughly nine years later to work on KayTran full-time. What started with orders packed out of her basement now includes a marketing team of about five, staff in a Winnipeg warehouse, and a U.S. distribution centre she opened late last year.

The U.S. facility was a direct tariff response. She couldn't absorb the tariff costs, so domestic U.S. shipping let KayTran serve customers there "at a price point that was fair to them and consistent with our brand," she says. The move also unlocked wholesale partners in the United States.

What does the tariff scare change for an owner's pay?

It convinced Ms. Tran-Riese that her company couldn't be her only asset. Like many founders, she had assumed her personal wealth would track the value of her business — "This is your nest egg," she says of that mindset. Now she sees it differently: "It has to be part of a more cohesive mixture of things."

Karen Craft, president of Ottawa-based advisory firm CraftXecs, says there's no perfect balance between personal savings and reinvestment. She encourages entrepreneurs to think in "seasons": at start-up, cash mostly stays in the company; in a stable period, the owner can withdraw more.

Ms. Tran-Riese hit that stable phase and faced a learning curve on taking money out. "When you first start, you don't really think about your personal side, because you're so focused on building the business. Every cent goes back into this." Her early withdrawals fluctuated with company performance, which made consistent retirement saving and personal budgeting difficult.

Her system now has three layers:

• A minimum monthly salary that covers the family expenses she contributes to.
• A full-year cash-flow model covering warehousing, marketing, staff, production, inventory outflows, new product launches and seasonality.
• A buffer of at least one month of cash set aside each month, so the business doesn't hit a working capital crunch after her salary.

The averaging logic is deliberate. "You can't pay yourself a sustainable salary on your lowest cash flow months, and you can't pay yourself an inflated salary based on your highest cash flow months," she says.

Building wealth outside the company

Ms. Tran-Riese works with a financial advisor to invest through registered retirement savings plans and tax-free savings accounts. Her advisor also recommends business owners pay themselves at least some salary — not just dividends — so they can contribute to the Canada Pension Plan.

Ms. Craft cautions owners against getting comfortable in stable periods. "You can go from being in this wonderful state – I'm making money, I've got my plan – to all of a sudden the carpet being pulled out from under you." Her advice on planning: don't go it alone. "Surround yourself with the right experts, so you can test your ideas and keep blazing the trails you need to blaze."

KayTran is growing year over year, and Ms. Tran-Riese isn't stepping back soon — she's already showing her eight-year-old daughter the business, including product design. "Obviously she's not doing the final decision-making, otherwise everything would be pastel-coloured," she jokes.

Over the next two decades, she plans new product lines while continuing to build personal wealth outside the company. Paying yourself, she says, means clearing a "psychological hurdle": "There's a bit of guilt in doing it, but [it's] very practical and useful down the road."