How this woman unwittingly became a female founder: Helping Hands Yangon

Archive Date: January 18, 2018

How dogged persistence in prototyping for a personal project grew into minimum viable product (MVP) and became a social enterprise called Helping Hands Yangon. Learn how Annie founded this self-sustaining business after realizing there was demand in Myanmar for teak furniture and local Burmese handicrafts.

The women looked from their sewing machines to see who had walked through the 10-foot wooden doors. They smiled politely and went back to stitching the bags on the sewing machines. They had no pressure to please, nor guard be on guard for anyone who walked through the entrance. Their long workbench was lit by the ambient sunlight streaming in from the ceiling-high windows that gave them a view of the landscaped garden outside.

One woman with a serene smile approached me and asked if I was looking for someone. Within seconds, I heard a voice ricocheting through the cavernous ceiling and archways. It was Annie’s characteristic deluge of enthusiasm for something in the works. I said I had a meeting with the owner of the voice. This was her house, and also the headquarters for three NGOs/social enterprises that worked with Yangon’s street kids, ex-addicts, single mothers, and differently-abled.

Annie (I’m only using her given name to protect her privacy) drifted over to greet me, apologizing for taking a few extra minutes to wrap up another project meeting. Would I like a drink while waiting?

By the time I finished scanning her bookshelf, she had brought me a cup of coffee and we headed upstairs for a chat about her projects. After settling into the rattan chairs, Annie recounts her experiences in Yangon on the veranda with a view of the landscaped garden and garage-workshop I had walked past.

The origins of accidental business

By the time I met with Annie in 2015, she was already well known for two social enterprises in Yangon: Helping Hands Yangon and Pomelo for Mynamar. She wanted to brainstorm scaling solutions for the NGOs and businesses she’d co-founded, as “business wasn’t her thing”. But, she had nonetheless stumbled on a product-market fit by naturally creating self-sustaining businesses to meet the demand and create job opportunities for locals. Why was business so natural for a self-professed NGO person more interested in discussing the nuance of social challenges locals face?

Our hour-long afternoon discussion passed the golden hours as we delved into her journey as an unwitting female entrepreneur. Annie’s original two-year stay was approaching its seventh year by 2015. When she had first arrived, she had one major problem she worked on with dogged determination: furnishing her house.

A personal passion makes an unwitting prototype

In 2008, Myanmar was still a closed economy and importing foreign furniture was not an option, or too expensive to be one. But there was no shortage of local supply. Teak furniture was lying around as discards because locals were tired of using the material. Though Annie could pick up used tables off the streets, she couldn’t use them. The weather-worn teak needed to be properly refurbished.

But Annie needed to furnish her house. She was also set on doing so with the abundant, high-quality teak. What was utterly lacking were appropriate finishing materials and willing skilled artisans. It took Annie months to find anyone who would help her restore the pieces she’d collected. After that, they had to continually test whatever wood finishing they could find in Yangon at the time on the teak to see if it was suitable for the humidity, protected the wood, and pleased the eye. This talent sourcing and product development took well over a year before Annie had her first usable prototype*, for which she was the sole customer.

A ready product becomes a magnet for requests

Annie’s refurbished furniture caught attention. The pieces I saw sitting in her house were also seen by other expats who visited and similarly loved the idea of giving high quality furniture a second life. Unlike Annie, they lacked her network of artisans to call on. Just by seeing her products (refurbished teak furniture), people began to ask for a service (access to the artisans). After taking a certain amount of orders, Annie looked into doing a formal business registration. With the establishment of a business, she and her business partner could graduate to formalized business operations and officially hiring artisans and the street youth whom Annie wanted to help.

Growing product lines

Forming the organization after the orders had become regular gave Annie and her team of artisans the space to organically grow without pressure to make ends meet. Every order that came in allowed them to refine aspects of the business such as the refurbishment process, taking orders, managing customer expectations, and also finding new apprentices. The modest growth also gave room for another development to take hold: expanding to another product line by employing seamstresses to create tote bags, tunics and other textiles.

Bringing a product to customers

Now, with formal operations and more streamlined goods, Annie began to think beyond just passively meeting orders. How could more customers discover Helping Hands to sustain revenue, or even grow it? Because Helping Hands was designed as a business that brought employment to otherwise unemployed artisans and street youth, growing the business would directly impact more lives. With refurbishment services and textiles ready, Annie and her business partner could shift positions from finding talent, to finding customers.

In a country without regularly accessible or stable internet until around 2014, a traditional shop seemed like the next evolution of this business. In 2011, Annie and her business partner co-founded Pomelo for Mynamar, a retail store to showcase pieces created at Helping Hands as well as products from other Burmese artisan groups in rural areas.

Distilling the unique value proposition to scale

Helping Hands now employs over 50 artisans and ex-street youth. Annie recognizes that establishing her Helping Hands early has given her an unwitting first-mover advantage. She is tempted by the opportunities to scale the positive impact on the communities, but recognizes the inherent risks of preserving the organization’s original culture and value propositions.

Both Helping Hands has a clear value proposition for its stakeholders, employees and customers. For buyers, they provide high quality local furniture, textiles, and handicrafts with proceeds that are transparently returned to the creators. For artisans, seamstresses, craftsmen and other local staff, they are able to find relatively stable income in a market rife with casual labour. Will Annie’s businesses be able to retain their unique value propositions when they scale? If yes, how?

For the locals, the benefits extend beyond direct monetary value to the organization’s investment in their livelihoods. In Part 2 of this feature, I will discuss the value currency that a boostrapped startup, or any organization, can leverage to attract and retain talent.

Some concepts

If you are also interested in creating a product or building your startup, check out some of the concepts covered in this piece:

• Minimum viable product and the Business Model Canvas
• Prototype is something the bare minimum solution to your core problem. Prototyping, or rapid prototyping, is a common term where startups build a barebones version of their product to test whether users find it useful and adopt it. Each new iteration should be data-driven based on feedback from the previous version.
• Product-market fit refers to a product that satisfies customers demand, which in turn helps sustain a business.

Check out the furniture currently available at the Helping Hands Facebook page.