Featured Founder: Pegai

Curt Mastio
Curt Mastio
May 30, 2019 10:21:00 AM

At Founder’s CPA, we are privileged to work with a wide spectrum of highly impressive clients. Welcome to our first generation of Featured Founder, where we are highlighting a diverse set of “Founders” who may not fit the stereotypical “Founder” mold set by Silicon Valley, but they all bring a unique solution to their respective markets. Here’s one company we are intrigued by, introducing Pegai, a handcrafted leather goods brand, in this week’s Featured Founder. If you are interested in having your company featured, please contact us to get started.

Q) What does your company do?

At Pegai we design and craft minimalist leather goods that will last a lifetime with a personal touch of our customer’s. With each sale, we donate a portion of the revenue to the children in need around the world. We call this “Good Craftsmanship” while our heirloom quality leather goods make our customers happy, the proceeds from this transaction make a child smile on another part of the world.

Q) What is your mission?

We would like to change the leather fashion industry by proving that the highest quality leather goods can be made at affordable prices while still having room for making a positive social impact in the world with each transaction. And this is our battle with the current high ticket luxury brands that sell you a social status supported by an illusion created with enormous marketing budgets and fashion shows that has nothing to do with leather, craftsmanship or humanity.

Q) What differentiates your company from your competitors?

We are a small family that has been in leather making business over 5 decades now. So we know our leather and we love our work. We are small and we like it that way. We pay attention to each craft by ourselves, we talk to our customers face to face and love to know that our crafts make a positive impact on children’s life one piece at a time.

Q) What are some challenges your consumers are facing right now and how does your company help?

Finding high-quality leather crafts with a personal touch at affordable prices is challenging. Especially from a team that answers to its customers directly is not very common. So we present our extensive leather expertise to our customers and stand behind our work whenever they need us is the way we help them experience a pleasant leather shopping experience over the internet.

Q) What’s your favorite part about the company?

We come to work every day knowing that we will see our friends and enjoy a good days work. At the end of each day when we take our packages to the courier, knowing that each box helped a child to get one step closer to achieving his/her potential means the world to us. That’s our favorite part of Pegai!
Curt Mastio
Post by Curt Mastio
May 30, 2019 10:21:00 AM
Curt Mastio started Founder’s CPA in 2017 and currently serves as the Managing Partner of the firm. After obtaining both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign Curt started his career in Big Four public accounting. Shortly thereafter Curt served as the Chief Financial Officer of Storage Squad began his stint as an Adjunct Instructor at Northwestern University’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and has been teaching Accounting & Finance to undergraduate students for 6+ years. In his current role Curt oversees strategy, operations, and business development at Founder’s CPA. Further, Curt has experience working directly with 200+ startups and small businesses providing accounting, tax, and outsourced CFO services. His industry expertise lies in the SaaS, Blockchain, Marketplace, and Fintech industries. He has served as a key advisor working directly with startups that range from pre-revenue to companies generating over $30 million dollars a year in revenue. Lastly, he serves a key role working directly with the firm’s clients that have collectively raised over $200 million in venture capital funding to date. Curt is also an active advisor, mentor, and investor in the startup ecosystem. He has facilitated numerous workshops, webinars, and presentations to incubators and other startup-centric organizations. He is also an active mentor for Techstars in both Chicago and Iowa. Outside of his daily professional duties Curt is actively involved with Beat the Streets Chicago and was a founding member of its Young Professionals Board. His efforts in both leadership and community involvement were recognized when he was awarded the Illinois CPA Society’s Outstanding Young Professional Leadership Award in 2020. He was also a panelist at their annual conference in 2022 where he spoke about his experiences starting and operating a public accounting firm. He maintains an active Certified Public Accountant designation that he obtained in 2014. Outside of work, Curt can be found spending time with his friends & family including his dog Rufus. His hobbies include golf, boating, cooking, reading, and attending sporting events & concerts.

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