Awarded the
“Rodinstar” Post
of the week!!
Hi Rodinhooders, hope you guys are doing great.
It is quite long since I wrote my last post in Jan 2013. That was the humble beginning of my startup (then called Hometown), where we work with local craftsmen to make and sell handcrafted leather shoes.
Well, we have made quite progress since then, I and Asha will be doing a detailed story on this sometime later this month.
For now real quick updates on what has happened since then.
2013 – Present
- [Feb 01, 2013] started working on new shoe collection
- [Feb 06, 2013] was invited to participate at Tony Hsieh’s (Zappos CEO) Downtown Project, Las Vegas. They wanted me to share my startup journey and why we focus on delivering the most personal customers service to every single inquiry. (Gosh, I’ve never been out of Pakistan before, actually nor even on a plane. On top of that it looked impossible to get a US visa with almost no money in my bank account)
- [Oct 08, 2013] participated in a startup program in Kuala Lumpur – organized by the US State Department. (this could be my door to get a US Visa, I thought)
- [Feb 14, 2014] managed to get the Visa for US, sponsorship for my ticket and I’m good to go for a 11 days US trip. (In addition to spending a week at Downtown, Vegas, I planned to spend two days each in Silicon Valley and NYC)
- [Apr 02, 2014 ] Instead of the spending 10 days in US, I ended up staying for close to two months. The experience was magnificent in terms of learning and challenges for me, got to see a clear picture of that world. Met many of those ‘online only friends’, they are way more amazing than what I imagined. Also, some of our leather was delivered at Medium office.
- [April 15, 2014] we are now a Delaware C Corp. It would allow us not only use online payment gateways and other eCommerce services which are not offered in Pakistan, but also sets with our long term goal of becoming a leader in men fashion.
- [May 09, 2014] changed our brand name from Hometown into Markhor
- [May 09, 2014] started working on the idea of how to launch our new shoes collection. Marketing? but we don’t have budget for that. Slow progress can kill our startup.
- [Jun 18, 2014] let’s launch an Indiegogo / Kickstarter to get our founding customers.
- [Sep 23, 2014] launched on Kickstarter with the goal to raise $15k (It’s currently live, video below)
- [Sep 23, 2014] Seth Godin wrote a blog about us
- [Sep 24, 2014] hit our goal within 22 hours and 21 more days to go. ..
If you are looking for the best pair of Loafers, Derby or Peshawari Chappal, please back us on Kickstarter.
For Rodinhood community, we are giving free shipping to backers from India. So when you make your pledge just select that your shipping address in the US and you’ll not be charged any shipping fee on Kickstarter.
For any more question or information, please write me in the comments below. I’m here all day.
PS. If you’re on ProductHunt, please up-vote us.
Thank you guys and I look forward to hearing from you.
Love from Lahore!!
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