Calgarians Erik Allan and Kyle Mahadeo have always striven for success in martial arts, so it’s quite a change for them to now be celebrating failure.
But it’s all part of the journey that began when they took up martial arts as elementary school students — a pursuit that’s had a huge impact on their lives.
“That path that we go down to discover our true strengths and powers,” Allan explained.
The past two years have seen the friends harness those forces in a new way, teaming up in business as the Budo Brothers.
“Budo is actually a Japanese word,” Allan said. “‘Bu’ means ‘warrior’ and ‘do’ means ‘way,’ so it’s really ‘the way of the warrior.'”
“We are a martial arts lifestyle company,” Mahadeo said. “We specialize in E-commerce.”
Budo Brothers develop and market several products online, like sticks used in martial arts, ball caps and the Hood-Gi, a hoodie styled after a martial arts garment known as a gi.
“We’ve never done anything like this,” Allan said. “My day job, I’m actually a mechanical engineer.”
“And myself, I’m a gym owner,” Mahadeo added.
After putting up $500 each to start Budo Brothers, they began learning lessons quickly, starting with the Hood-Gi.
“We screwed this up big time,” Allan said. “The cut was wrong, it had threads hanging off. It was a disaster!”
They worked hard to recover from that disaster as quickly as possible.
“We learned how meticulous we had to be with our product development,” Allan said. “And now (the Hood-Gi) is one of our best-sellers!”
Allan and Mahadeo will be speaking about their experiences at a Calgary event called F***Up Nights. It features local entrepreneurs sharing their stories about failure.
“We’re going to be giving a talk at F***Up Nights,” Mahadeo said with a laugh. “It’s a risky name, but I think it’s a very important concept: celebrating failure.”
“If you’re not failing, you’re not learning,” Allan said. “It’s okay to screw it up!”
Continuing to learn from their setbacks is leading to success for Budo Brothers.
“We’ve sold product all over the world: Europe, Japan, Thailand,” Allan said.
“We’re big in the United States, Canada,” Mahadeo said. “It’s crazy how this thing’s growing!”
The event happens on Thursday, March 21 at The Commons co-working and meeting space in southeast Calgary.
“At the end of the day, life is full of adversity,” Allan said. “That can either wear you down or it can make you stronger and build you.”
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