A year later and the three of us are together celebrating the Mint+Laurel anniversary. Me and my confounding ladies of this lifestyle social impact brand have no regrets, only 7 lessons learned that social impact, women led businesses can benefit from:

LESSON 1 - Building relationships with overseas suppliers takes time and patience. We had 6 months prior to launch and 6 additional months after launch of failed product development. We scouted for Syrian artisans in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, France, Germany, Dubai and the UK before settling on the three artisans we currently work with in Syria.

LESSON 2 - Sisterhood before all goes only so far! We started our venture by drafting our objectives, aspirations, weaknesses and strengths. We shared previous failed partnerships and lessons learned from them. As the year went by, we supported each other as sisters and gave one another the time and space needed to go through the trials and tribulations of life. While this served us well to gel together as a team, we learned that for the business to succeed as an entity we needed more structure, commitment, and the ability to give the business priority. We also needed to deliver tough love to one another and share challenges openly and honestly for the benefit of the business.

LESSON 3 -  Quality control with suppliers is half the process. We had grossly underestimated the amount of time required for quality control cycles. We got on long product development calls and exchanged hundreds of messages. We sent photos, and designs. We received countless confirmations. The first shipment came and as much as 30% of our products were not on spec. We discussed this, drafted a quality control process, hired a local representative who inspected workshops. The second shipment arrived, and still 18% of the products were not on spec. Syrian artisans “find solutions”; “there’s no blue yarn, gray is close enough!”, “ran out of pink packaging, roses come in lilac, so that color will work.” and so, for us to get things as we want them, we literally needed to get photos EVERY step of the way!

LESSON 4 - Karma Credits Count. Mai dealt with suppliers in Syria. When Kinda and I aired our frustration over poor communication, inconsistent products, untrusting partners and a lot more, Mai reminded us of the PTSD state EVERYONE in Syria is in. “They have no electricity”, she’d say, or “They must have been jailed or tortured”, and with that, she would ask that we send love, engage with patience and an open heart. She led the way in making sure everyone was paid well and paid on time.  Her good will and karma credits came to serve us during the long and difficult journey our products had to make across checkpoints and country borders. 

LESSON 5 - Explaining how products are used. The three of us grew up using the products we sold. The loofahs, soap bars and  textiles are familiar. We didn’t account for the nuanced differences of perception in a modern market that had become accustomed to liquid soap and scrunchy loofahs. Kinda our lead product designer had to scour the web to learn how to best position and explain our products for the mass market in the US. 

Thank you Kinda for making our products beautiful. Thank you Mai for bringing them safely across three continents. Here’s to 2020!