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...
by jackie | Aug 8, 2012 | Aug '12 India, Blog, Field Notes
For the past couple days, Selvan and I have been hunting for a combined apartment / office / warehouse space in Pollachi. We need space for Selvan to live and work, space for Diana to stay in when she spends time in Pollachi, and space to store products until we feel...
by diana | Jan 31, 2012 | Blog, Field Notes, Jan '12 India Trip
We began our surveys with help from SELCO Lab employees and some students who are helping them out. The morning was spent going over the surveys. I could kind of see a slight clash of interests, as what we’re doing as a distributor of products is quite different from...
