An inspiring environment

I must say that it is very inspiring to have an office in an company incubator and meet interesting entreprenours on a daily basis. There are currently a start up program with about 50 companies at IQube, the company incubator where our office is located, and there are maybe 20 more established companies here. Every single day I talk with someone whom either I get an idea from or that I give and idea or tip to. There are down sides as well of course. Everyone is very much in love with their own project and hence likes to talk about it. A lot. But generally that is not a big problem. Had we not been recommended by Trygghetsrådet to apply here we would probably still be sitting in our apartment.

Well, it's almost time for our meeting with our business coach, Christian Zanders from Jetshop. Before that I need to send an email to Tirtha in Nepal.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

One thousand and one things

I know that I've written about this earlier, but things are moving forward really, really fast right now.

Lina is in Stockholm right now, getting ready for the Eco Now fair on Thursday-Saturday. She caught the train on Monday morning and will not be back until Friday evening. While she is in Stockholm she is meeting with potential customers and with some interesting people.

I am currently doing everything at once. Yesterday I worked with a tax form between 8pm-9pm before I decided that it would probably seem a little bit more understandable is I waited with it until today. I have not dared to check yet today. It is a two page form and it has a 28 page instruction... I'm trying to find fabric suppliers in India, button suppliers in Sweden, trying to hire people in Nepal, trying to decide on website design, blogging in two languages and loving every minute of it.

We meet so many inspiring people, both here at IQube but also when we meet potential customers, people who work with Fair Trade, at events and at fairs. And it is really fun with all the comments I get at Veckans Affärer.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Catch 22

Today I’ve met with our business coach through IQube, Christian Zanders, the CEO of Jetshop.

Christian is there to push me and to give me good advice when I need to make tough decisions. We need to get our sales started and it is tough to get the time to make everything happen at once. I am currently investigating if it’s possible to employ someone to help with the sales part. Unfortunately we do not have much room in the budget to start paying salaries, but to make The Fair Tailor profitable we need to sell. Do I smell a little catch 22?

Yesterday I meet with representatives from the regional government. They have room in their budget to support projects in companies that are growing, but I feel they might think we are a little to trade oriented for them to support us. Generally they to not support trade business. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Hjärntillskott

Last Friday is was on a seminar called Hjärntillskott (The name is a Swedish play with words that does not really translate).

The seminar was about leadership and there were three speakers: 

*Sweden's former national coach for the bandy team Kent Hultqvist

*The CEO of SIBA, Fabian Bengtsson, who was kidnapped last year

*The former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson.

Hultqvist spoke about how you need to adapt your leadership to the people you are leading, how he can't be the same coach for the national team as he is when he coaches 7-year old boys.

Bengtsson spoke about his kidnapping, how he managed to stay focused and how it has changed him and the way he leads SIBA.

Persson was the one I had the highest expectations on, he is one of the best public speakers in Sweden. But it was such a disappointment. He was arrogant and he seemed to dream about the good old days when things were so much better.

Good thing Hultquvist and Bengtsson were really good. And the compère, Kristin Kaspersen, was also really good.

It was me, Lina and two other IQube entrepreneurs who went together and we had a really good time there. Now we just have to employ people so that we can be great leaders for them. Lina said something about already having employed me in The Fair Tailor, but I don't know what she meant with that...

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

A new hope

After having talked to a person here at IQube today I have realized that The Fair Tailor offers much more that what we first thought.

Through out the work with the company we have had different tacks we have planned to follow, but we have not until now seen how well they fit together. I can't say exactly what I mean, but the pieces fit together much better now.

This will just be a short post, there's a social event here at IQube, IQlub, that I need to go to.

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

Change we can believe in

Today I have spent most of my time so far working on the business plan. The version I'm re-working is from the end of March and was the version we handed in to Venture Cup. It was written about 1.5 months ago and I'm surprised that so much have changed in such a short time.

The trip to Nepal changed a lot, the feedback from Venture Cup gave us a few new ideas, the move to IQube has changed things.

When I'm working it is easier to focus on the things that pile up on my todo list than what we actually do. It feels good to see signs of progress.

The IQube business coach

Today we have two interesting meetings, first we're having lunch with Ingemar Gustafsson who manages a fair trade network, Nätverket för rättvis handel, and later we're meeting with our IQube business coach Christian Zanders.

Both Lina and I are quite new to fair trade so hopefully Ingemar can give us some advice on how to move on.

Christian runs an e-commerce solutions company, Jetshop, and he will be our business coach through our time here at IQube. I've googled him and he seems to have a lot of experience in fields that are important to us. It's great that we got this opportunity through IQube.

Moving forward, and backward

Today I have felt some of the advantages of sitting at IQube, I meet people here that might have solutions to some of the problems we face. 

I have also spoken to Viveca Reimers at Västra Götalandsregionen, she is an environmental coordinator at their purchasing department. She was very helpful and took time to give me a few tips, but the conversation also made me realize that we have a long way to go before we can deal with such a large organization as Västra Götalandsregionen...

Today I have made some progress on the business plan, I have set a deadline to finish it this week.

A new era has begun

A new era has begun, we have moved The Fair Tailor from our apartment to IQube, a company incubator.

I think I will come here most days, Lina will also come by from time to time, she is still doing her internship at Universeum.

Today I have done a lot of things, but the business plan progress is slow. I don't know why, but I cant seem to get any flow in that work. And I need to finish it so that I can send it to the bank, to Arbetsförmedlingen, to ALMI, to...

To put it simple, it has to get finished.

But on the other hand there are quite a few things that has to get finished. I suppose the best way to solve it is to do everything at once...

Life as a (local) celebrity

Yesterday I was interviewed by a local newspaper, Bohusläningen and today is the start of my new life as a local celebrity.
I have yet to discover all the perks and fringes associated with my newly won fame, but I did get a text message from my mother saying that she had read the article.

I spent a large part of last night trying to decide which netbook PC to buy. Since I will work both here and at IQube in the future, I need a fairly portable computer. I think I will go for a Samsung NC10, but the runner up, HP 2140, also looks good.

I am also trying to find organic fabrics, but that seems to be quite a challenge. If you buy from a producer the minimum quantity you need to buy is 1000kg/colour and quality. 1000kg makes a lot of shirts...

It's time to sum up the first day at IQube

First they presented the IQube way and what we could expect as an IQube company. Then they introduced the potential business coaches and there were some among them that we could really need help from.
After that it was time to listen to every ones business ideas and I'm really impressed. 27 ideas in a wide variety of fields. The youngest entrepreneurs were 18 and the oldest more than 40 years older. It was also inspiring to see the commitment and energy.

We did a short 5 min pitch of our idea and people seemed to like it. I completely forgot what I was supposed to say at one point, but I remained calm regardless of that. We have talked about the idea so many times now that I'm beginning to feel really comfortable doing it.

One more thing: Don't forget about Earth Day. Check out my old friend Wikipedia for more info.

The first day at IQube

Yesterday afternoon we had a coaching session with Andreas at Drivhuset.
It's always good to talk to him. He thinks we are doing a good job, but he has always these little tips on how we can make things a little bit smarter.

After the meeting we went to a lecture about the art of selling.
Ulla-Lisa Thordén told us about selling from an interesting perspective. She is a veteran in the business and she thinks of selling as something everyone can do, it's just about to find the right product to sell, i.e. something you believe in.

Now we have to run, we have our first day at IQube, the company incubator I have written about earlier.

We made IQube!

I'm in Pokhara, I got here by bus. It "only" took eight hours on a very bumpy road.
The Swedish Fair Trade students I wrote about earlier are here as well and they sent me an text yesterday saying that all the bumping around coming here made them an inch shorter. I do believe them.

But now to the big thing.
We made IQube!!!

We got an email from them today saying that they had 200 ideas presented to them, they then met with 80 of the entrepreneurs and finally selected 30 of them.
So, this means a lot of things, for one we will get an office, a business coach and business training. We will also get access to the network of more than 200 companies connected to IQube today.
So what I am trying to say is that it is a big deal.

IQube doesn't only consider the business idea, they put a lot of importance in who the entrepreneurs are. And we made it.
Feels kinda good :)

IQube

Today Lina and I meet with IQube, and company incubator that’s looking for entrepreneurs that are in the process of starting up a new business.
We were invited to them last Friday and we have been in Stockholm over the weekend, so we had to write our presentation rather hastily.

First we got an introduction to Iqube, what they do and what they can help us with. The concept seemed to fit us. Even though we might already have finished some of the things they discussed we could certainly need some help with marketing, legal issues, an office and maybe a few other things…

They seemed interested in what we had to say. They of course questioned how we think at some points, but then again I think everybody does. It is, after all, their job to find out if we are up to the task. I think they liked us, but they had 200 ideas from the start and they only have 30 places. On the other hand, when we came among the top 30 at Venture Cup there were over 300 others in the race.

I’m not looking forward to the trip tomorrow, I think it’s about 20-22 hours in total before I reach Nepal. Hopefully I will have some time to rest once I get there.
Well, I guess it's time for me to start thinking of packing...

Meeting with Iqube

Right now I’m working on the presentation of The Fair Tailor that we will give at Iqube later today. From what they write on their website they are more interested in the people behind the idea than the idea it self.
Since Lina, in my eyes, is a born entrepreneur I feel we have a pretty good chance.

If we get accepted in to Iqube we will get an office, a business coach, an education program and access to a network of 200 companies.
But first I need to finish the presentation. And I need to do it fast.

Meeting with Björn

Long before we had even thought about starting this company Lina read a book by Björn Söderberg and got inspired by his entrepreneurship in Nepal. In the book Björn told the story about how he came to Nepal after high school and how that lead to that he now has started several CSR companies there.

Last fall we went to a lecture he held and it got us both inspired. When we some time later realised that he might want to work with us in the future we decided that we wanted to start the company in Nepal.

So, today we had our first meeting with Björn. Since he lives in Nepal he has very a busy schedule when he is in Sweden. Luckily he had time to meet us today, on a Sunday. Since I’m going to Nepal the day after tomorrow I felt that it would be good to get some tips before going.
We sat down together for one and a half hour to discuss what we want to do, what he has done in Nepal, how we can put our plans in to action.

Björn gave me some good leads to follow up on when I go to Nepal. One of the persons I’m looking forward the most to meeting when I’m there is his old friend Tirtha, the person who runs Child Watabaran Center.

Now I need to prepare, we are meeting with Iqube tomorrow and we need to have a good presentation of both The Fair Tailor and us to show them.

The BANK!

Today we met with Swedbank Avenyn, hopefully they will be our bank throughout this project.
We met two advisors and discussed the project for about an hour, and it was a really good meeting. We have done our homework so we fell we can answer most questions we get, and they seemed interested in the project and asked good questions. Of course, since they are a bank they will need some sort of security...

Before the meeting with the bank I had a meeting with my manager at Etteplan, the company I’m leaving to start The Fair Tailor. I hadn’t presented the idea for him before, but he seemed to really like it. He promised to by a couple of shirts when we are up and running =)

I got an email from Iqube today, it is a company incubator and we are hoping to get them interested in our company. They are looking for 30 entrepreneurs in Gothenburg and they want to meet us next week, on Monday afternoon.
So the plan for the next couple of days is: Saturday - Travel to Stockholm. Sunday – Meeting with Björn Söderberg in Stockholm and travel back to Gothenburg. Monday – Meeting with Iqube. Tuesday – Decision from ALMI and travel to Nepal.

Still moving forward

This morning I had a meeting with TRR, an organisation that can help you if you are looking for a job or planning to start a new company.
My contact person there gave me a few good tips on things to look into.
We are trying to get selected to be a part of a pre-incubator that a company called Iqube is starting here in Gothenburg and my contact at TRR told me that I should send our business idea straight to a person at Iqube who works with TRR. By doing so we went straight through to the second round.
She also gave me a list of five abilities that are essential if you are going to start a business:
The ability to solve problems
The ability to endure problems
The ability to work together with others
The ability to put a lot of effort into what you are doing
The ability to believe that you and/or your idea can make it.

This afternoon we met with two persons from Öhrlings PriceWaterhouseCoopers and they gave us a lot of good input with respect to the budget.
It is always good to discuss your idea with someone who can see your strengths and weaknesses and that’s not afraid to question your choices and assumptions.
During the meeting I could also feel that we have done quite a good job so far. We have done our homework, even though we still have a long, long way to go.
But I am sure that we are on the right track, no doubt about it!