My Greatest Learning Project Since Graduation (Part 4)

A year ago, I thought training for ultramarathons from nothing was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But during the training, I was also working on the social enterprise project. For a whole year, I was  spending almost all my weekends either with the sewing ladies, designers, potential investors, volunteers etc.. I remember a week before running the Vibram HK100, I was telling my friend Leong how working on the social enterprise project was actually tougher than training for an ultra, and how managing the social enterprise project together with the training felt like I was doing HK200.

There was a long while when I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning asking myself what the hell was I doing, especially when I was not even remotely interested in running a business. Recently, I was finally able to come to terms with myself. I have convinced myself that I have spent pretty much the same amount of money, time and effort doing an MBA plus social science plus environmental sustainability degree. Instead of reading and researching, I have acted it out, which made it even more fun and valuable.

I am very grateful to those who have given me the inspiration and shown me this admirable cause - Francis of SVHK who has shown by his own example of what it means to dedicate your life to serving society. Dr. Siu of the Baptist University who showed me the potential and transformation of the sewing ladies. Mr. Chu, Mr. Chong and Ada of LplusH who have shown me what it takes to operate a world class social enterprise. Bob, Alex, Times and Angel who gave me their time, their heart, talent and expertise for free. Last but not the least, Leong, for being my most important mentor and investor, and for believing in me.

Every time when I was about to give up, I would remind myself that it is a great blessing to have such talented and dedicated people inspiring and guiding me, and so I should try my best, give it all I could and keep going.

When I started this project, I was hoping that I could bring out the worth and potentials of the sewing ladies. Now that I look back, I was actually the person who gained the most out of it. The sewing ladies probably were making just as much money and subject to the same risks had they worked elsewhere. I am not able to offer any greater sense of job security. The only thing I was able to offer them was a little sense of joy and pride. Day after day, they were using their sewing skills, but stepping outside of their comfort zone and trying new things.

I don't think I have empowered the ladies, but this whole experience has certainly transformed and humbled me. The past three years of working on this has taught me so much about society, business, reality, my values, passion and inner strength. No matter what the outcome is, it has been a truly rewarding journey. 

My Greatest Learning Project Since Graduation (Part 3)

 

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist”

Artists are a rarity. Even good craftsman are hard to come by in a world of mass manufacturing.

Making friends with the sewing ladies gave me the opportunity to get to know the stories of each one of them, how some of them had been sewing all their lives, how they spent the early part of their career making a full garment. During the empowerment programme, I was also very impressed by how much initiative and effort they put into their work. 

I still do not doubt that their sewing skills, experience and passion are assets. But the changing economy has put them in a disadvantaged position. In the 80s, the sewing ladies were required to sew the whole garment. As the sewing industry evolved, scale, speed, productivity became the drivers of profitability. To achieve these goals, many sewing tasks were de-skilled and broken down into smaller and simpler tasks. Specialization to achieve higher productivity also confined workers' skills to some parts of a garment.

By the 90s, the handful of garment factories in Hong Kong were mostly confined to doing OPA (Outward Processing Arrangement) whereby workers in Hong Kong would only be sewing some parts of a garment e.g. the collars, shoulders and seams to qualify for tariff benefits. By the time we started taking orders, I realized that the skills of the sewing ladies at the social enterprise workshop had degenerated and it took a lot of effort, communication and motivation to help them revive their skills once again. It was challenging both for myself as I am not a garment expert and it was challenging for them because they had to practise very hard to catch up.

Doing customized garment making is an area which cannot be substituted by mass manufacturing. The social enterprise workshop can offer flexibility, quick turnaround and be able to fulfill small orders. But at the end of the day, products have to meet market standard. There are so many obstacles that have to be overcome, including sewing skills, limited access to fabrics and trims, and productivity in order to justify the high labour costs. As of today, I cannot confidently say that there is a compelling business case. Today I was having lunch with one of my most important mentors and a true role model Ada, and she assured me that now is definitely not the worst time. "The worst time is when you get an order which demands very high quality, that will be the worst nightmare..." I know it will be tough, but I also hope that day will come, since this would at least mean that the business can survive until then.

 

My Greatest Learning Project Since Graduation (Part 2)

Six months after our company's factory closure in Hong Kong, I remained in touch with about 100 sewing ladies. I had a chat with each of them to see what they were doing and what challenges they were facing. Of the 100 people, only half of them found jobs. For those who did not find jobs, they were telling me stories of how they were rejected at the first round at job fairs because they were too old. For the remaining half who found jobs, only 3 were on a monthly salary, the rest were doing temporary jobs with no employment protection. 

"Social entrepreneurs are often driven by passion, they've found a new way to tackle a social problem and everyone they speak to gets excited by their vision. They're convinced that as soon as their innovation has been released their enterprise will take off. Love makes the world look rosy."

By now I also realize that I too have been somewhat blinded by my initial passion and my little innovative idea. Having a bright idea isn't enough. Having products that are good and that can sell, bringing in business consistently and managing the cash flow are the real challenges.


Along the way, I've been fortunate enough to get mentorship from friends who are successful in their fields. Their advice to me was straightforward - start with a business plan, explain how I would produce the products, what it would cost, who would buy them. I racked my brain for months to ensure I've all of the angles. I thought it would be useful for helping me think through through the process of running the business, but reality was very far from that.

There's no correlation between the quality of a business plan and the business, I then realized it is revenue that determines the survival of my humble little start up company. The sooner I bring in revenue the better.


Many social enterprises fail because the product or service they offer isn't valuable or not valued in the market. Simply creating social value isn't enough. The best social entrepreneurs must sell, they persuade people to buy what they have to sell. It is also very important to get ideas off the ground, and be very adaptive and responsive on developing products and services.


As with any other business, a social enterprise is also changing, evolving, adapting and growing. This dynamism together with a social context require constant learning that comes from trial and error, not only in terms of dollars, but also initiatives, partnerships and tactics.

My Greatest Learning Project Since Graduation (Part 1)

 

It has been three years since I came up with the idea of setting up a social enterprise, 2 years planning for it and 9 months since incorporating and actually running it. Whilst I am still terribly preoccupied with day-to-day running and frantically finding business, I've recently felt the need to re-visit and reflect more deeply about these questions:-

Why social enterprise?

What social problems do I want to address and what is the impact I want to achieve?

Why do social enterprises fail and what is my learning so far?

I must admit I had a really rosy picture when I first came up with the social enterprise idea three years ago and I could still remember how passionate and eloquent I was pitching and preaching this idea.

I never dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur, let alone a social entrepreneur. I guess every social entrepreneur has a kind of lovestruck story. Destiny found them and showed them a social problem which touched their heart and soul and they coincidentally had an innovative idea for a solution, and there goes a journey to the deep end...

In my case, it was company factory closure in Hong Kong, an empowerment programme which I ran for a large group of sewing ladies and subsequently close friendship with some of these ladies which, enabled me to see their passion and potentials.

Why it was a social enterprise was straight forward. There was no room for survival for mass scale garment manufacturing in Hong Kong since the 80s. If there is a reason for garment sewing to exist, it will have to be something which Hong Kong has a competitive edge and is worth the high cost. But that alone is not enough, having a setup as social enterprise has other incentives for corporate customers. Corporate customers through doing business with us, work with us to address a social problem, or more specifically, they work with us to empower a disadvantaged sector of society.

When I first met the sewing ladies three years ago, they were in their 40s to 50s. Some of them, in addition to having good sewing skills, also had management experience in small factories back in the late 80s. The social enterprise project is intended to provide an opportunity to enhance their garment making skills, to enable to them to make a living using their craft, and to foster entrepreneurship. It also aims to address a need in the market whereby designers often have the need for sample making and small custom made orders which require good sewing skills and short turnaround time.

While I was pitching the social enterprise idea to big companies for support, I accidentally stumbled onto a discussion with some of these companies on corporate uniforms. Hong Kong's economy is heavily supported by the service industry and the amount of uniforms worn by corporations every year is enormous. These uniforms are also replaced and disposed of regularly. Since our landfills are soon reaching full capacity and there are talks about waste disposal levy, corporations are interested in exploring sustainable textile solutions rather than contributing to the problem.

The second component of the social enterprise is to create sustainable textile products using recycled materials from corporate uniforms. Seeing this humble little innovative idea turning into prototypes gave me a lot of satisfaction, but that was only the start of a long journey of logistical nightmare...