Venus Eye Design and Mike Christiansen: Born for Success

By Paddy Kamen

When he was a child in Camrose, Alberta, Mike Christiansen spent many afternoons and weekends hanging out in the back rooms of the optometrist’s shop where his mother worked. Something got into his blood there, because he’s been in the business ever since he became an adult. In fact, you might say he got raging infection in this bloodstream, because he’s one of the most successful young upstarts and innovative business people in optical today.

Venus Eye Design was started by Christiansen and his wife Brandi, back in 2001. He was the designer and sales person, she ran the office. It didn’t take long before Christiansen’s unique approach was making inroads with ECPs, first in the west and then across Canada. Christiansen’s approach was to listen carefully to what practitioners wanted, and give it to them, along with the best customer service in the industry.

Who designed the frames design Venus? Christiansen himself, of course. He still does, gearing most of his adult product to the progressive wearer who spends moderately and still wants to look fantastic. “Our designs both set and push the trends, but not to the point that they are too bizarre for the typical, style-conscious consumer,” he notes.

Christiansen’s first designs were in laminate and he was bucking a trend that said plastics were on the way out. “I knew that one of the problems was that they often didn’t fit well. So I addressed that with good design, added vibrant fun colours and great shapes and they took off like crazy. They’re still selling very well indeed.”

The Venus flat collection has been very strong for the company. The unique flat metal designs in this series are available in an outstanding array of shapes and colours, extremely lightweight and hypoallergenic and fit nicely within the most popular price range for Canadian consumers, which Christiansen has found to be from $160 – $200, retail.

His edgy Venus X collection features ultra thin stainless steel in an assortment of vibrant colours. “This collection has some of the most distinctive shapes yet,” Christiansen explains. “But each is engineered to fit progressive lenses. It’s a very popular series.”

Colour is key to the Venus success story because, as Christiansen says, “Colour provokes emotion in people. Scientists have determined that the human eye is capable of distinguishing over 300,000 colours. Every one of which is capable of triggering a diverse mood or feeling, each as distinct and individual as human beings themselves. It is truly a personal experience that gives a particular colour its personal character. I apply this knowledge to eyewear. I love applying colour combinations, say for example, the right turquoise with a crisp chestnut brown. When I get it right I know for sure that clients are going to love it. I might change it up to ten times to get just the right shade of each colour but I do get it right before we go into production. I know that our success owes a lot to this attention to colour and I play close attention to colour forecasts in the fashion industry.”

The naming of colours is a playful aspect to the Venus approach, with each name carefully chosen to perfectly describe the colour. Chocolate cheesecake, keylime pie and strawberry sundae are just a few examples. There are three to eight colours (single and combinations) for each model.

Business growth has never been an issue for Venus Eye Design, pointing with certainty to the fact that Christiansen has his hand on the pulse of consumer desire and expectation when it comes to eye fashion. He designs for men, women and even kids. His qt-pie collection will be quadrupling in the next four months to accommodate demand. “This is the best selling children’s line for many of my accounts, and some will be carrying only Venus from now on.”

The busiest quarter on record is now just under Christiansen’s belt and he sees no let up, having maintained a prodigious 300%-plus growth rate for a few years now. And despite the fact that he’s done no outreach through international trade shows (“I just haven’t had time,” he admits), Venus will soon be going global. “People from abroad have contacted me and we’re in discussions,” he allows.

Venus Eye Design now has sales reps in most provinces, while Christiansen still keeps a hand in some Alberta accounts, Vancouver Island, the Okanagan Valley and Ottawa. “My accounts have great faith in the people I’ve selected to go and visit them. And more business reps mean we now have more time to better service our existing accounts and to garner new ones.” Venus collections are equally strong and leading in Alberta, BC and Ontario.

Christiansen could not have grown this far and this fast without paying attention to quality. “I really believe in investing in the quality of our frames, which are made in Japan and Hong Kong. It must be working because my accounts tell me our product has some of the lowest warranty problems they have ever experienced.”

One of the most service-oriented aspects of the way Venus deals with ECPs is the inventory tracking system they instituted a few years ago. Christiansen says that they track every frame every day and know that when it gets to a certain level, they need to reorder. “It takes ninety days from raw material to delivery, so the system takes that into account and based on sales to date we reorder in plenty of time so that we don’t run out. We have virtually eliminated back orders with this system, excluding those very rare occasions when the problem is at the shipping or customs end of things. Over the last couple of years we haven’t had any backorders at all.” 

Furthermore there are no minimum orders required. “I don’t feel I should dictate how many frames an account should carry,” says Christiansen. “Some of our accounts carry fewer styles but do as many repeat orders as someone else who carries more. So much depends on the size of the store, their experience with the product and how they display it.”

Christiansen is understandably proud of the success that Venus Eye Design has enjoyed. “I created this label from nothing; created the name, the designs, selected the colours and started the account relationships. We began with six models and now have over 300, each in several colours, serving men, women and children, from conservative to edgy. Our next innovation, for January 2008 will be a full sunglass line. These will be large and trendy but not over the top. Certainly not generic.”

One last word from the dynamic Mike Christiansen?

“The success of Venus, although tremendous, is just the beginning of the vision I have for the Venus brand name.”

Wouldn’t his mother be proud!