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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Achievers: Christophe Cremer - Profiting from every day problems

This is an old BusinessWeek article that discusses the achievement of entrepreneur, Christophe Cremer, who founded the the Paris-based online mortgage broker, Meilleurtaux in 1999. Although similar online-mortgage application sites like E-LOAN had already existed in the US, when Cremer tried to launch one in Paris, he received cold reception from his banks. Regardless, Cremer moved ahead and his site soon became popular, making it easy for him to convince banks to partner with his firm.

"I showed them the site was getting over 40,000 applications a month and that it wouldn't be profitable for them not to work with us," he says.

Cremer got the idea of starting his firm from his brother-in-law who had shopped with just two banks when applying for a mortgage as he found the application process very boring and tedious. That conversation with his brother-in-law sparked the idea in Cremer to start his own firm.

"I thought, this is something the Internet could do," Cremer says. His idea works in the banks' favor, too, because "rather than doing 10 meetings and getting one customer, they can do two meetings and get two customers."

The article shows how entrepreneurs from all over the world get ideas to start their businesses by listening to and observing every day problems faced by others, and then finding ways to solve those problems. As happens in most cases, others initially don't buy into their visions but successful entrepreneurs generally do not give in and forge ahead anyways, and in the process, often achieve tremendous success.

"Meilleurtaux, operated by parent company Omnigain (MEX.PA), brought in revenues of more than $65.3 million last year, a 74% increase over 2005, and has now begun opening brick-and-mortar branches -- some 52 already in France, plus 60 franchises that sell insurance and provide mortgage refinancing services. It was the first company to be listed on Alternext, a trading market for small and midsize firms, in 2005, and soon graduated to the bigger Eurolist in October, 2006."

For complete article, see:

BusinessWeek Online: Online Mortgage Rates? Ooh-la-la...

Labels: achievers, inspiration, inspiratonal story, motivation, motivational story

posted by Little Rishi @ Wednesday, September 16, 2009 0 comments

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Achievers: Anita Ahuja - Converting Trash to Treasure

The Forbes.com article profiles Anita Ahuja, a 47-year Indian women, who has started an organization called Conserve which recycles waste plastic bags into fashion accessories. Not only her ecofriendly business generating good profits but it is also providing employment to many of the city's poor people.
Her organization uses poor garbage pickers to gather waste plastic bags, a source of polyethylene, which are then used for making products such as totes. These products are then exported aboard through wholesalers to countries in Europe and the US.

The products show up in stores in Britain, France and the U.S. (including chains like Whole Foods (nasdaq: WFMI - news - people )) at anywhere from $16 to $50. So far she's sold 174,000 pieces. Last year Conserve brought in $317,000, keeping $150,000 in its for-profit arm. That money was put back into the business and used to run a school for the children of the ragpickers--200 enrolled and counting. Along the way, she's taking on Delhi's recycling mafia and the Indian bureaucracy, and getting a toehold in Parisian fashion.

She got the idea of starting Conserve in 1998 while discussing the issues like sewage and garbage with her friends. Her initial idea of recycling the kitchen waste of an entire neighborhood into compost didn't work out. However, as usually happens with most entrepreneurs, that project led her to the idea of recycling waste plastic bags into various homemade accessories.

Over the next two years Ahuja experimented with recycling the bags. She tried weaving them together to create a tarpaulin-like covering for the shacks of slum dwellers. Another time she tried pasting pieces of the polyethylene onto canvas and cardboard. She saw that a thicker fabric could be used to make bric-a-brac like pen holders and file folders, and realized she'd finally found a successful recipe when her homemade products were popular at a fair at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi. She decided to venture into accessories.

Buyers of her products now include Global Girlfriend, a Colorodo-based online retailer that sells Conserve totes wholesale to Whole Foods stores. She is also expanding her facility to meet the needs of larger retailers such as Target and Zara. Thanks to Anita's efforts, her organization is not only profitable but it also provides livelihood to many poor garbage pickers and other employees.

Bharti Sharma, a mother of one daughter, does quality control in the workshop and represents the organization at trade fairs--a long way from her ragpicking days. "I've worked here seven years, and my life is so good [that] I have no plans of leaving this place," she says.

For complete article, see:

Forbes: Bag Lady

Labels: achievers, inspiration, inspiratonal story, motivation, motivational story

posted by Little Rishi @ Saturday, August 29, 2009 0 comments

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