by diana | Aug 28, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to accompany Selvan to shop #2 of Essmart’s 17, which is located maybe 20 minutes outside of Pollachi. Around 5:30 pm, Selvan and I set up a little solar lantern demonstration center in front of this store. We propped the...
by Essmart | Aug 24, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
Hi! This is Selvan, writing my first blog for Essmart about my day-to-day field experiences running the ground operations. It’s been almost 15 days since we got to Pollachi, and we have made significant progress from our hotel room in Sakthi to a moderately furnished...
by diana | Aug 15, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes, Thoughts and Ideas
Happy Independence Day! Since today was a national holiday, we spent most of it working from our Pollachi office/warehouse. Our sixth Essmart team member has arrived, and watching our complementary skills come together to move Essmart forward has been a rewarding...
by diana | Aug 14, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
It’s Diana here — I arrived in Pollachi on Sunday morning after taking an overnight bus down from Bangalore. After checking out the new office space and listening to Jackie and Selvan tell me the details of their progress, I was most impressed! Two other...
by jackie | Aug 13, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
On Saturday afternoon, Selvan and I went on a motorbike ride through a few villages within a 15 km radius of Pollachi. We visited five shops, where Selvan got to test his skills as a salesman and we got to see how these new shop owners reacted to the prospects of...
by jackie | Aug 11, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
Thursday, we finally moved into our new space in Pollachi. It ended up taking us a bit more time to get the key than expected. Â We basically had to pitch Essmart to our landlord to get him to support us, given we’re young and new to the city. In the end, we gave...
