Building the market access an industry never built

"A lot of us piece beauty together from aunties, group chats, random shelves, Instagram, products brought from back home, or stores where the product is there but the story, standards or context are missing," David Ojeifo says.

He has a name for what that costs. "I call that the search tax: extra time, money and uncertainty," he says.

“It’s time to build the systems we wish existed”

David Ojeifo

Iléara, the platform David is building, is aimed at that tax from two sides. It is not only a marketplace: it helps brands navigate compliance, retail readiness, distribution and consumer discovery in Canada. "I am trying to make it less exhausting to find products that understand melanin-rich skin, textured hair and the cultures behind them, while helping the founders behind those products reach market," he says.

The system behind it is the daily work: "Right now that looks like messaging founders for product details, checking ingredient lists, rewriting product pages, organizing brand assets, testing Shopify checkout/supplier routing, and turning scattered conversations into a real operating system."

"It is early, but it is real," he says, and it is further along than that makes it sound. Eight brand partners are signed, a ninth is underway, and the company has secured more than C$18,000 in non-dilutive funding with the backing of five accelerators, among them League of Innovators.

It started, David says, from a feeling that was hard to explain cleanly at first: "there are shelves full of beauty products, but a lot of Black consumers are still forced to search like outsiders." The product may exist, but trust is scattered. Trust is the part he is working on.

"I care because beauty is one of those places where people can spend a lot and still feel like an afterthought," he says.

David describes the business as sitting between culture and infrastructure. The culture is the rituals and ingredients behind the products, along with the founders, their stories and the inherited knowledge. The infrastructure is the part people do not always see, from ingredient lists and labels to order routing and fulfillment. "I care about both because representation without infrastructure stays fragile, and infrastructure without culture becomes another generic marketplace," he says.

One of the growth routes under consideration is a creator-led pilot with a small group of trusted creators, under a rule he likes: "paid amplification only follows organic proof".

He has built outside the company too. He co-founded and helped build the Entrepreneurship Association at the University of Toronto Scarborough, was named a Top 5 finalist in JCI Canada’s Creative Young Entrepreneur competition, and was a finalist for the YeY Black Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

David is candid about the stage. "I am still early. Some pieces are sharper than others."

"The truth is, I am building the thing I wish existed," he says.