Issara: discover personalisable, ethically handcrafted leather goods

Rosh Govidaraj

9 years ago

Hi fellow Rodinhooders!

Having followed your insightful discussions over the past few months, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Issara. We work with artisans to produce ethically handcrafted leather goods and just launched last week.

I am a former management consultant who started Issara after experiencing the frustration of searching for a beautiful, functional leather bag that didn’t break the bank. Seeing the incredible skill of these artisans (despite the decreasing respect their craft receives over time) helped nudge my idea into the realm of a social business. We work with 46 artisans across Indonesia and India who are paid 3x minimum wage, receive health insurance and are enrolled in an interest-yielding savings plan. We are also working towards B corp certification.

Our focus is on crafting minimalist, highly functional pieces from premium materials (i.e. leather from the same tanneries supplying luxury Italian brands). Logos are kept discreet to allow the quality and workmanship to speak for themselves, and the range is optimised for travel and work.

After 11 months of living in villages without hot water, bottoms burnt on hot motorcycle seats, food poisoning, dealing with rampant sexism, ageism, and even blackmail, we are now live. During launch month we are offering 10% off and complimentary monogramming to say thank you to early backers. I would love to hear your thoughts on a few things:

Website: I’m not a technical person nor an e-commerce expert and would love the input of you more tech-savvy people on the UX on the site. What would you change about it?

Press: As a bootstrapped social business, broad exposure will be crucial to our success and social impact. We have just been featured on The Fashion Journal, Tech in Asia, TechPulse, Carryology & AskMen. Would you know of other publications or blogs which may be interested in covering us?

Product: What do you think of the current range and how would you like to see it expand? Thoughts on copy and pricing would be great too.

Thank you so much for your time. I really look forward to hearing your thoughts and answering any questions you may have 🙂

Sincerely,

Rosh