From Vietnam to Canada, she expanded her clothing line despite global lockdowns.
Lưu Lệ Thủy
Vietnam
Since I was 20 years old, my life was spent doing a stable job at a state-owned organization. However, having an executive MBA, I always had an entrepreneurial streak, a wish to start something on my own.
A charitable initiative made her realize her dream in life.
So my friends and I started a charitable fund for children in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam, where several children were too poor to even afford decent clothes. Looking at these children, I finally realized my dream: being able to provide high-quality fashion to underprivileged children.
With this vision, I decided to quit my job and start “HAKI Fashion Joint Stock Company”. The focus was using most of my raw materials from natural sources to make clothes for children aged 0-8 years. 95% of our raw materials came from bamboo and oak fibers. As soon as I started my business, my Facebook training started as well. Having no idea about Hanoi’s clothing market, I used Facebook as a vital resource to recruit employees, find raw material suppliers and join specialized groups to learn and adapt.
Her business was selected for display by the Vietnamese embassy in Saudi Arabia!
In terms of learning and growing, my first year went great! I felt closer to my dream. And we had some great progress to share. Our business was selected for display by the Vietnamese embassy in Saudi Arabia!
The next year, however, gave us a unique challenge in the form of the pandemic. Our shop shut down. We had to look for other avenues to sell, and we turned our attention online to Facebook. And to our great surprise, our brand found a breakthrough: one of our customers set up shop in Canada! This was an unexpected way in which we expanded despite brutal times.
The pandemic’s unconventional challenge gave rise to unexpected brand growth, all the way to Canada.
We continued to grow thereafter. Mainstream news outlets like CBC and The Guardian wrote about us. In the pandemic, we also undertook a mission to provide cloth masks to frontline workers. As a result of these developments, our revenues doubled even in the pandemic.
Facebook has been a source of constant support for the business. 80-90% of our customer retention comes from there. And so, as we’ve learned to tackle our fundamental challenges for the business, more interesting challenges lie ahead for us. And we are ready for them.
