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

A world of change

This project is so different from everything I have done before. New information can result in new decisions in real time. Etteplan was a fair sized company, less than 200 when I started working there and over 2000 when I quit, but it was still a large organization. Decisions took time, now Lina and I can change things instantaneous if we want to.

SAAB (GM) and Volvo (Ford) was so huge that it's almost impossible to imagine. GM and Ford has about 340 000 employees. EACH! To develop a new car from scratch takes years. To change something as trivial as the seat belt reminder symbol takes about 18 months.

If you have the chance, and something you believe in - go for it. Start your own business.

Almost finished!

I've spent a large portion of the weekend working on my old friend, the business plan.

The work has come along nicely and I'm almost finished, I just have to re-work the summary and the risk analysis tomorrow. Then we will be ready to apply for a loan from ALMI.

When I worked at Saab and Volvo I used to get the weekends off AND get payed. Those were the days ;) No, to be honest I like what I'm doing now much more. I'm happy about the change of careers. 

The Consule General

This morning I have met with the Swedish Consul General here in Nepal.
Finding places here in Nepal is not always easy, often the address you are given is just the part of the city where the place is located.
Luckily people here are friendly and several persons have drawn maps in my notebook. The taxi dropped me of 20 minutes before the meeting and luckily it only took me 20 minutes to find the Consulate :)
The Consul and I talked for about an hour about what to think of when doing business in Nepal, the political situation and the power shortage.
The Consul's brother had actually lived in Sweden and worked at Volvo.

The political situation here is fragile and all political parties are working together to create a new constitution that should be finished within one year.
The Maoist government who runs the country now was actually elected, and the consul pointed out that the king left his throne without any violence.

It will be interesting to see how the country develops over the coming years. Hopefully Lina and I will be working with Nepal for many years to come.

My plan for the next couple of days is to work on ways to market this blog and The Fair Tailor.
I will also leave Kathmandu for a few days to see a little more about the country and learn more about the Nepalese way.