A colourful craft paves the way for a bright future
Thin Thin Hlaing is an owner of Karen traditional dress shops and she also well known as a woman entrepreneur who is leading the traditional weaving design industry in her native region, Hpa-An. She has been in this business for 7 years now. She started in a small cottage, selling the clothes directly from her home for 5 years, but has now owned three shops at near Kyaukkalat Pagoda. She live with her family, her husband and two children. Her son is studying at kindergarten and her daughter is in grade 1.
“It has been a dream to own a business since I was a child. When I was in my school, my teacher used to ask all the children what they wanted to do when they were older. My answer was that I want to be a business tycoon. Even most of the kids would answer differently like doctor and engineer.” She said about her dream.
But she really struggled in childhood as her family could not afford to support her education and she missed out on school. So it forced her to become a business owner as there were not many other options for her.
Before starting her business, she worked around 9 years at Thailand with her husband before they were married and saved the salary to start up a business. They both worked in a motorbike manufacturing factory and her role was to check the quality of parts that were being manufactured and it taught her a lot about paying attention to detail and the quality of the product.
She also spent time working in the Platinum Mall in Bangkok, Thailand’s largest fashion mall, selling baby toys. As a result, she learnt a lot about how to run a successful business and since then has always been thinking about how to make a profit.
After she was married, one of their relatives advised to come back to open a shop with their help. They opened the shop at the relative’s premises and since then they have grown step by step. She started the business with 1.1 million kyat selling jewellery and gold. Out of her whole family and relatives, she is the only entrepreneur. All of her family work for the government in some way or another. Because of her success, she provides support to her family and relatives. She has sad memories from being a child, having to eat bad and broken rice and doesn’t want her family to experience this.
She is different to her family because she has never been afraid to lose in business. “Even if you lose, it will give you experience which you can take forward and be even better than you were. The value of experience outweighs the risk of losing” she said.
Now she has been with VisionFund Myanmar for 8 months with one more month to go on her 10 million kyat loan (USD $6,560) which has a 9 month term.
From this loan, she used approximately 5 million kyat to cover orders of longyi loom products which mean she gave orders to loom businesses for specific longyi designs from 3 regular suppliers. This covered approximately 1,000 pieces of clothing (longyis), all with different designs and sizes.
Each weaving machine can produce approximately 280 pieces of the same design in a production run. She ordered in total 1,400 pieces which equates to 5 different designs. These cost 6,500 kyat per piece.
The designs she requests have all come from her creative mind, her own knowledge of what customers want and what will be a popular design. She sees the designs that will bring profit and then comes up with new variations that are similar to the very high quality designs, but she is able to have them produced much cheaper through weavers on the machines as opposed to handmade which are much more expensive. So she is able to meet a demand in the market for product that looks higher quality, but is more economical to produce.
“Handmade weaving products have high quality but expensive as well. So, only few people can afford it. So, I thought that how can I reach out my quality products with reasonable price. I figured it that answer is weaving with machine. I discussed with some local machine weavers to product the longyi that I have designed. It was a hit in the market and there were a lot of demand”. She explained.
She stays up to date on the market trends and fashions. She also uses her own preferences as a guide to know what others would like. She knows the cultural importance and significance of different designs and colours.
“For example, older people like black and darker colours. For weddings, people want maroon colours”. She said. So far, this has worked for her as her business sales continue to grow.
Her aim is to next year begin establishing her own weaving business that will employ lots of women, up to 100 women, with at least 4 or 5 weaving machines in Hpa-An. She wants to produce all of her own designs and products which will give opportunities for employment to local women. She knows that many women from this region end up going to look for work in Thailand and elsewhere and they can end up being exploited, and families being pulled apart. SO she wants to create opportunities for women to stay and work here which is better for them.
When she was a child, she had 5 siblings and it was a very tough upbringing with her family not having enough food and clothing. Even thinking about it now brings back emotions and tears in her eyes as she describes it.
She’s always wanted to create jobs for her family (brothers and sisters) and wider community. She sees young people and youth wasting their time here because of a lack of opportunity.
She feels a sense of responsibility: “If I can give opportunities to others, then that is what I need to do”. She commented.
For her next loan, she would like to request if possible, a 20 million kyat loan (~USD $13,123) which would help her to establish the weaving business. She believes in herself and ready for this size of loan. Her business is going really well and even if she can’t get the full loan, she is going to go ahead with her plan anyway.
Right now she has a total of 4 shops as well as t-shirt printing business that creates cultural t-shirts celebrating Karen culture that she sells through her outlets (see examples that both her husband and her are wearing).
She currently hire 10 staff and all of them are full time employees including 2 family members who just finished university. All of her staff are single and some of them are students completing distance education. She pays them a good salary and she thinks all of her staff are happy to work for her.
Moreover, she also received business coaching and advice from CRO since it’s an important part of SGB loan, she often asks the CRO for advice and ways to improve her business. Despite her business doing well, one of the areas highlighted was the need to improve her record keeping, so this is something she has now started doing.
The CRO also highlighted to her the importance of strong customer service, greeting customers when they come in and treating the customers well. It’s important to build good customer relationships.
She said “there is no-one like VisionFund – they are the best”. She gives them a 10 out of 10 likelihood of referring VFM on to her friends based on her experience with them.
One of the things that stood out for her when the CRO first met with her is that VFM has a mission to support communities and children. This focus on well being of children was very good and resonated strongly for her – especially given her background.
She needs funding to keep growing and sees also strong market potential for her products in Thailand with the Karen community there. No-one is currently producing or satisfying that market. She also wants to give a big thank you to So Win Kyaw (CRO) for all of the support he has provided.
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