The
best business advice often comes from those whose success was built from the
ground up!
With
this in mind, the Caribbean Development Export Agency (Caribbean Export) as
part of their WE-Xport
programme arranged for two successful Caribbean women who built their
businesses from the ground up, to share their journey with the nineteen female
entrepreneurs that are participating in the WE-Xport programme and invited
guests during a Fireside Chat held recently at the Hilton Barbados Resort.
These female
business owners all completed the WE-Xport programme, a one-year initiative
geared at helping them to start exporting their products or to increase their
exports and is just one of the programmes implemented by Caribbean Export in cooperation with
the European Union.
The
guest speakers were Keisha Smith-Jeremie, CEO of Taste Sanaia, an apple sauce brand which
started in her kitchen but is now available via Amazon, Whole Foods Market and
Walmart, and Christine Souffrant Ntim, award winning Forbes 30 Under 30 serial
entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of the Global Start-Up Ecosystem. They both spoke candidly about their business
experience and addressed issues like scaling for growth, capitalizing on
digital exports, and the importance of learning the basics.
Keisha,
a Bahamian now living in the United States, recalled that when she began her
apple sauce business she would wake up at 3 o’ clock in the morning to start
preparation. She packaged the finished product, then waited for the UPS truck
to collect the day’s produce before heading to her fulltime job as the global
head of Human Resources of a huge corporation.
She
did this for a number of months before realizing that it was impossible to grow
her business this way. Keisha was forced
to scale up and acquire capital!
“I
knew that was not sustainable. Having a day job really pushed me into scaling
and delegation. It just wasn’t an option to continue in that way…. It forced me
to think about delegation very early in the process,†she said.
The CEO of Taste Sanaia told the entrepreneurs that if their aspirations were to scale, they had to get comfortable relinquishing control of some aspects of their businesses.
“You
have to essentially figure out for yourself as an entrepreneur what is your
best and highest purpose in your company. Often, we think it is in the creation
of the product, but usually those things are commodities. Someone else can
create the product, they can create it faster and cheaper,†she explained.
She suggested that it was a
good idea to work with a co-packing partner, that is, an entity or person, who
could produce volumes at scale and had already worked out all the kinks.
Admitting
that it was difficult initially to relinquish control, she however pointed out
that finding a co-packer enabled her to go to Amazon and Whole Foods
Market. “You can’t do that if you are
still the person producing it,†advised the entrepreneur whose apple sauce will
be in 800 Walmart stores this summer.
“Certainly, with food
production, whatever the unique aspect of your product is, you want to stay
close to that. It is a limiting factor unless you are able to trust that other
people can replicate your product and eventually it can be done by machinery,
if you really want to grow at scale,†she said.
During the course of her
expansion, Keisha pitched her business on the reality investment show, Shark
Tank. She landed an offer of $150,000 for a 20 per cent stake in her company by
investor Mark Cuban. However, after
fleshing out the details of the proposed deal, she opted not to sign off on
that deal but to retain Mr. Cuban as a consultant. She then went on to raise half million
dollars on her own to fund the Taste Sanaia enterprise.
“I later decided not to accept
the money… in the beginning it is so hard to say no, but what I really had to
get clear with myself on was did I really believe the business was going to be
as big as I projected it to be? If it
was, I wouldn’t want to give up 20 per cent of the company for $150,000. You have to believe in yourself and your
ability to create something even bigger …,†she said of her decision to retain
full ownership of her company.
Keisha also cautioned the
entrepreneurs that it was impossible for a business to grow without finance.
“Growing
up in the Caribbean, there is a mindset to avoid debt…, but as an entrepreneur
you have to get comfortable with the fact that your business can’t accelerate
unless you have the capital. My business
was self-funded most of the time but when I started getting yes from Whole
Foods, Walmart and other places, I realized that I would be holding my business
back if I only allowed it to grow at the rate that my savings would allow and
that would not have been the right thing for the business,†she affirmed.
And on the note of not holding back, the WE-Xport
ladies were also introduced to another goal-getting female entrepreneur during
the Fireside Chat. Young, dynamic and disrupting the American and global tech
industry is Christine Souffrant-Ntim, Co-Founder
of the Global Start-Up Ecosystem and founder of the Haiti Tech Summit.
Hailing from a long line of Haitian female street
vendors, she was the first of her family to be born in the United States. She
created an online platform called Vendedy to help street vendors sell their
products to global consumers via SMS.
Earning 20 per cent commission
on each sale, her concept to digitalize street vending accelerated so quickly
that she made the Forbes 30 Under 30 List.
According to Christine, “At
that time, when it came to Caribbean, African and emerging markets, our
problems were not relatable to the US market.
We try so hard to fit the mold of
western markets that we sometimes lose focus of what really matters. I realized
that if I had to succeed with the business, I had to think creatively with
funding and repositioning this product and the value of the people it
represents.â€
Since
its launch, Vendedy has evolved to become an online directory for street
markets worldwide. “Don’t be married to your business model, sometimes your
business hits the fan when you reach your first customer, so trust what the
market friction is telling you,†she said of her company’s evolution.
The
technology whiz stressed that the story behind the brand was also critical.
“There are thousands of businesses selling the same thing you are selling. The
most powerful thing you have as an entrepreneur is not your product, but your
stories, your journeys.â€
In
addition to the story, she pointed out one’s ability to learn was also
essential, particularly as it related to the technological aspects of the
business. A self-taught coder, Christine
realized she could share her knowledge and monetize this “service†through a
website she coded called CaribbeanStartUp.
There
she offered to teach persons how to leverage technology and develop their
brand. Within 24 hours of the launch, 500 individuals and companies from around
the world had signed up!
“You
need to be able to export your talents digitally to the world. We live in a digital age;
export is not just physical it is also digital.
Some people forget that you can teach your knowledge, share your
background and your story and monetize that.
So for example, if you have the fashion expertise to build bags, you can
actually start a tuition series to teach people these skills from a St. Lucian
perspective,†Christine recommended.
Insisting
that the entrepreneurs must leverage technology to advance their businesses,
she stressed, “It’s not about being a tech company, it’s about being tech
enabled.†According to the serial
entrepreneur, being “tech enabled†meant having a website, an accessible email
and being visible on all social media platforms.
“Culturally
speaking, we just give our phone numbers but phone numbers are not accessible twenty-four
seven. With email, you can have two way
engagements anytime,†she pointed out.
Urging
the regional entrepreneurs to learn the basics of all aspects of their
business, especially when it came to technology, she said: “Learn online, learn
on YouTube, learn on Google Academy and the final thing I will say is leverage
or learn first from people that understand your problems.â€
Christine recalled that initially she didn’t understand the premise of export but insisted that the small population size of the individual islands meant that Caribbean female entrepreneurs “needed to automatically think from an international mindset.â€
She also recommended they export regionally and supported Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Sandra Husbands who urged the ladies to explore the Guyanese, Panamanian and Surinamese markets.
“I just want the paradigm shift to adjust; I just want people to understand that the next wave of products, the next wave of stores, and that the next wave of innovation is going to happen in emerging markets,†she advised. (S.P./Caribbean Export)
