Absurd Idea.

Written by on April 27, 2011 in Asia, Entrepreneurship, Featured - 1 Comment
It’s 4:19AM. I keep trying to will myself back to sleep, but it’s no use.

It’s not the jetlag. It’s not the alarm clock. It’s the anticipation… the nervous energy that won’t let me continue with my fitful sleep in our Bangkok flat. Only the glow of the laptop illuminates the room. I’m a nervous ball of energy, sleeping is beyond me now. 

This morning is the morning I’ve been envisioning for the last three years now - it’s the first day on the ground in Bangkok. For the last three years, after spending all day at our “real jobs”,  my friends and I have burned the midnight oil planning, researching, understanding our customers, building the partnerships, crunching the numbers, working out the logistics to create this idea of Biographe – a sustainable style brand that employs and empowers survivors of the commercial sex trade in Southeast Asia.

 

This morning the screen printing equipment is supposed to arrive. Bioraphe will launch as an accessory and premium graphic t-shirt line, and we’ve sunk a good deal of capital into this essential equipment.

 

I want to believe the assurances from the screen printing company that it will arrive today, but past experience has bred a great deal of skepticism. So far we’ve already had a huge shipping snafu. The equipment we bought from a US company shipped out by boat on January 18th… or so we thought. It was supposed to take 5 weeks to arrive here in Bangkok, but when I followed up 3 weeks later I learned that there had been a miscommunication and it was still sitting in their warehouse in Chicago and was not, in fact, on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. We had to go with the much more costly plan B, which was to air ship it form Chicago to Bangkok.

Even if the equipment arrives today as promised there is the small issue of clearing customs, delivery from the airport to our facility… as well as that small matter of getting heavy pieces of machinery to our second story space. I’ve moved many of my friends into tiny 5th floor walk up apartments in Manhattan, but I think today will make that look like a walk in the park.

These are just a few of the challenges that lie ahead of us today. Challenges abound this first month on the ground. What we are attempting to do is not easy. We are attempting to build a successful fashion brand driven by broken women, financed by a committed group of supporters cutting $10 and $20 checks, with time, distance and language barriers impeding communication and workflow… not to mention, none of us has ever run a fashion brand before. Any way you look at it, this really is just an absurd idea.

I try to take comfort in an Albert Einstein quote, “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

Today is the day that absurd idea comes to life. Or today is the day that the plan falls apart. I don’t know how today will go, but I’m glad I have a talented team around me to figure out how to make this absurd idea happen.

Right now, I think the best thing I can do is go for a run to burn off some of this nervous energy.

 

Diary of a Social Entrepreneur. This is the second post in a series of posts giving a first hand account of the challenges and realities of launching a social enterprise. Kyle Westaway is on the ground in Bangkok launching Biographe – a sustainable style brand that employs and empowers survivors of the commercial trade in Southeast Asia.

Photo: claudia stucki

Kyle Westaway

Kyle believes in the power of the market to create a positive social and environmental change. He has helped build Biographe, a sustainable style brand that employs and empowers survivors of the commercial sex trade. Kyle is the founding partner at Westaway Law, an innovative New York City law firm that counsels social entrepreneurs. Kyle is a Cordes Fellow. He lectures on social entrepreneurship at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School and writes for Triple Pundit, Social Earth, Law for Change and Socentlaw. He sits on the board of Explore - a charter school in Brooklyn - and The Adventure Project - a nonprofit that seeks to add venture capital to social entrepreneurs in the developing world.

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  • JJenkins

    I’m excited for you. Sounds like you have thoroughly prepared so everything should work out great. Good for you.