In today's show we hear the fascinating story behind Mamahuhu and their online shoe sales. Handcrafted stylish shoes created by artisans who are building their life as a business owner.
On this week’s show I had the pleasure of chatting with Henrik Saetre, Chief Online Officer at Mamahuhu. Their story—and the mission behind selling stylish shoes that are handcrafted by artisans—is a fascinating one. Not only did they bring a unique and high-quality product online, but they are helping artisans build their own businesses and become self-sufficient. Their business model is based on one of my favorite lines, Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
You will find a full transcript at the end of this post.
We chatted about:
* Their story and business model
* How they find their artisans and what they look for
* Why they chose Shopify
* The challenges they have encountered and the solutions they found
* What words of wisdom Henrik has to share on how others can find success in their own businesses
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Transcript
You can also download a pdf of the full transcript here: BobWP eCommerce Show Episode 109 October 18 2017
Bob Dunn: Hi, Henrik. Welcome to the show.
Henrik Saetre: Thank you very much.
Bob: The model for your online store and your whole business is fascinating. When I found your site and went through it, I thought, “Wow, this guy’s got to be on my show.” Why don’t you tell everyone who you are and how you started this whole venture of yours?
Meet Henrik Saetre, COO at Mamahuhu Online
Henrik: Yeah sure, thanks. My name is Henrik. I’m the COO of Mamahuhu Online. Very briefly, I believe in doing the right thing, and that’s what I use to guide my actions, especially when doing business.
Mamahuhu Online, a part of Mamahuhu, is an ethical fashion brand that was started about five, six years ago by a very good friend of mine. Though he’s Spanish and I’m Norwegian, we studied together in Shanghai. Mamahuhu Online got started as a result of him and his then partner. They were looking at how they could get into fashion. They had an idea for the type of shoes they wanted to produce, and they wanted to figure out how to do it.
Where do you start? You have a design for a shoe. How do you go about it? They looked into all types of traditional things like having it made in factories, but they were struggling to find something that really fit them in terms of the ethics involved. The, when they were in Colombia, walking the streets of Bogota, they saw a cobbler sitting there, working on shoes and they got talking to him. That was—and I’m going to butcher the name because my Spanish pronunciation is really not up to par—I think it’s Jorge Rozo.
They got talking to him and they found out that he was a master artisan. He used to work for a bigger company but, with a lot of other employees, he got laid off because a lot of the production from Colombia, which used to be a major leather production country, got moved to Asia.