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

Yet another post about DEM Collective

Yesterday I med with Annika Axelsson from DEM Collective.

She had traveled for two days and almost missed her connecting flight in Amstedam so she was a bit tired and confused since she came straight from the flight to meet with me.

She told me about the factory they are building in India and the working conditions for people working in the factories that make clothes for the big brands like H&M and Zara. The storys make me very happy that we have chosen a different path with our project.

I am amazed by Annika, she had hardly slept for 2,5 days and lost her luggage and her passport but she was still full of energy when I met with her. She has worked with Fair Trade and organic materials for quite a long time and it must be frustrating to see how slow things are mowing forward. But she still manages to keep her spirits high. Amazing. 

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

First e-survey, inspiration by Drivhuset and more about ALMI

I've just sent out our first e-survey and I'm really excited about the response we'll get.

I've sent it to 151 persons. If you are not one of them and if you can read Swedish I can send it to you as well.

The e-survey will be a base for the development of The Fair Tailor, I hope it will give me a few pointers about what people are interested in.

I really like Drivhuset!

I have mostly spoken to Andreas there but today I spoke with Maria and it was very inspiring. We and ALMI have different ideas on how to solve things but there are other ways of doing things and Maria was good at pointing them out.

I spoke to Carin at ALMI today and we agreed to disagree.

They have their view on how things should be done and we do not share that view.

And that's to bad.

But it was a good talk with Carin, she managed to explain their view, earlier ALMI has not informed us on why they feel they way they do. They believe that a project like ours should be financed strictly by own capital, i.e. you should not loan money for a project like this.

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

Looking for customers

Today I've had an inspiring lunch with a former colleague from my time at Volvo.

She had some good ideas about other products that we could broaden our range with.

On a different note she also told me that Volvo and SAAB thinks that there will be no real customer demand for electrical cars until 2027. My response to that is that it has been nice to have two Swedish automotive companies, but if they don't change their mind there will be none 2027.

We are looking for customers. Do you know of any company that you think might be interested in buying Fair Trade shirts? Please contact me at sebastian(a)thefairtailor.com

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

Mingle with Maud

I'm just back from having been at the mingle session with Maud Olofsson, Sweden's Minister of Enterprise.
It was inspiring to hear her speak about the plans they have to make things easier for small businesses. Hopefully they will do something about office turnaround time at ALMI...

There was a panel discussion about how to make it easier for entrepreneurs at the end and it was really interesting to see the difference between a professional speaker, the Minister, and the representatives from the University. She was so much better at getting her opinion expressed in a clear way.

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

ALMI said no, again.

On the ALMI website FAQ you can read "It's about taking risks when nobody else dares to do. ALMI dares."
We have 1/3 of the money, the bank is positive to provide 1/3 but the government agency that is supposed to give loans when the bank says no is not willing to provide the last 1/3.

If you are an investor and you have the money we need and are looking for a good investment, please contact us.

Sebastian Stjern

The Fair Tailor

-Dress Responsible

Our first newsletter is out

Today we sent out our first newsletter. 

Would you like to receive it, please send us an email and we'll forward it to you.

I took most of the weekend off from work, but I did put in some hours on trying to write the spec for our website. And besides that, Lina and I talk about The Fair Tailor most of the time when we're awake =) No, it's not that bad, we have other things to talk about as well, but we both have ideas on what we shall do and how to do it.

ALMI is investigating if they will perform a new investigation regarding our loan application. Tomorrow we'll get information on what they decide. It would be a really tough blow if they would turn us down, so keep your fingers crossed. 

Fair Trade and business

Today we met Ingemar for lunch to discuss fair trade in general.

He had some interesting tips on what to consider and other companies that we could learn from. DEM collective is a company that everyone can learn from, but Ingemar, and his colleague Caroline, also mentioned some other companies that we hadn't heard about before, as for example White t-shirt.

Later today we had our first meeting with our business coach Christian Zanders from Jetshop. We sat down together for a couple of hours and both Lina and I feel that Christian knows a whole lot of things that can help us. Very promising! I am really exited about this.

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.

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...