Grit & Growth

• Short Takes: Growing Impact, Stitch by Stitch

  Meet Denica Riadini-Flesch, a former economist turned entrepreneur, who was so saddened by the struggles of traditional artisans and farmers in rural Indonesia that she created a company to help change their lives. SukkhaCitta is a farm-to-closet fashion brand that puts power back in the hands of the women who make our clothes. Its mission: to end the exploitation of women and simultaneously regenerate the planet. Balancing purpose and profit while fighting society’s demand for fast fashion is a challenging endeavor. Inexpensive clothing produced by mass market retailers puts a strain on small artisans everywhere. But fast fashion’s impact on the planet is even more dramatic. The industry is responsible for as much as 10 percent of global carbon emissions. Producing a single cotton T-shirt can take 2,700 liters of water. And all the textiles that are thrown away pile up in landfills, adding 92 million tons of waste each year. Once Riadini-Flesch began really looking at how clothes are made, she knew she had to do something about it. “In the craft economy, you basically make something for up to six months, and only then they try to sell it. But at that moment, women don't have any bargaining power. She needs the cash for her family to survive. And that's how this sector is filled with so much exploitation,” she explains.Riadini-Flesch took a holistic approach, expanding access to both education and markets, and her business focuses on a farming calendar, not a fashion calendar. “We're a social enterprise. What we do in the villages is being funded by our business. So in essence, with every <piece of clothing> that our customers buy, they start this cycle of regeneration in our villages. And our clothes, because we use only natural materials and natural dyes, it takes only about two to four weeks for it to completely biodegrade back to the soil,” she says.Learning how to grow her business while maintaining her values means rethinking her definition of success. She says “Growth is not evil, as long as we know what is our ‘enough.’ And once we hit it, we maintain. We find ways to take care of everyone who's involved. We find ways to give back more than we take. And in that sense, businesses can actually become a force for good.”Hear Riadini-Flesch’s inspiring story and how she’s creating a social enterprise that gives women in Indonesia true opportunities rather than aid.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• Short Takes: Disrupting African Travel, One Ticket at a Time

  Meet Wyclife Omondi, co-founder of BuuPass, a company committed to tackling one of Africa’s biggest challenges: transportation inefficiency. The solution seemed simple enough – digital ticketing – but making it happen took persistence, adaptation, and plenty of strategic pivots. Learn about Omondi’s entrepreneurial journey as he scales to include other modes of transportation and expands across the African continent.Born and raised in Kenya, Omondi studied in Singapore and the United States, and only returned to Africa after entering a student competition with his future BuuPass co-founder. Their winning business model to use digital ticketing to bring transparency and efficiency to Africa’s transportation system came with a $1 million grant!Seamless movement across Africa is BuuPass’s mission, but the road to get there has been far from seamless. While the company is named after a Swahili slang term for bus, the business model was transferable to other modes of transportation, including trains and planes. Expanding across borders created even more opportunities, but with that came more regulatory and cultural obstacles. With a flexible mindset and willingness to pivot, Omondi keeps thinking bigger while raising venture capital, including from Silicon Valley investors, to achieve hypergrowth.Omondi admits that entrepreneurship is hard. “It's your baby, and you don't want anyone to correct your baby, and you're so tied to it. That makes pivoting a bit difficult. If something doesn't work, we reiterate and go. But also in Africa, when you go alone, you go this far, but when we go together, we can go much further. So value partnership and collaboration to make your business more successful.”Hear how Omondi is transforming transportation for operators, ticket sellers, and travelers – however and wherever they go.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• Short Takes: Breaking Barriers with Heavy Machinery

  Meet Santhoshi Sushma Buddhiraju, CEO and cofounder of Autocracy Machinery, a heavy machinery manufacturing company located in southern India. The idea for her company began with a simple question: Why is India, the world’s largest consumer, so reliant on imported machinery? Answering that question entailed bold risks, fearless leadership, and personal sacrifice.Santhoshi had a strong foundation to start a business, even one that was extremely male-dominated. She got a world class education at IIT Madras, created a food delivery start-up on the side, received a prestigious internship at Georgia Tech in the United States, and ultimately built her corporate career at HSBC. But solving local problems in her home country of India captured her imagination and fueled her resolve.While most entrepreneurs were shutting down their businesses during COVID, Santhoshi was launching her start-up with a vision to transform India’s infrastructure and economy through local manufacturing expertise. According to Santhoshi, India imported $43 billion in machinery in the last financial year alone. “That’s huge,” she says, “and imagine being the biggest population of the world, the biggest consumer of goods. And then we realized why are we not manufacturing our stuff and very basic stuff? You have more manpower than anybody can imagine and imagine what magic you can do,” she declares.Santhoshi identified and capitalized on an enormous opportunity. She explains: “Our cities are developing, our ecosystem is developing, and our population is rising. What India is trying to do is build a better utility network – water pipelines, gas, electricity, digital networks, cable, optical fiber networks, all of this to every household. And it all requires machinery. There's a need. There's an opportunity. Why don't we manufacture the machines, machines which we are importing at $150K?” And so she did, manufacturing machinery that was cheaper, faster, and responsive to local needs, first in the utility industry and now in many others.Hear how Santhoshi is breaking down barriers, listening to her customers, relying on her team, and encouraging entrepreneurs to do the same.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• Short Takes: Building a Health(y) Business in Rural India

  Meet Sumit Sinhal, founder and director of Kin’s Health, a growing healthcare company located in West Bengal, India, at the foot of the Himalayas. While most entrepreneurs would see obstacles in delivering care to this remote region, Sinhal’s passion, innovation, leadership, and strategic vision are creating opportunities — for both patients and doctors. India is infamously known as the diabetic capital of the world with over 80 million people suffering from the disease and an equal number who don’t even know they have it. In 2011, Sinhal’s company set out to change that statistic with early detection care and has since expanded to provide cutting-edge healthcare, including telemedicine and wearable devices, to underserved and hard-to-reach communities.While working in remote regions has its advantages (less competition, for example), recruiting skilled staff can be a challenge. As a leader, Sunhal realizes the importance of creating a shared vision that extends beyond the founder.“One of the most important stakeholders that you have is that of employees, especially in a service industry, that of healthcare. It is very important to have exceptionally trained employees to make sure that they understand the vision of the company. What is it that you intend to do? What is the passion behind doing everything that you do?” Sunhal says.While Sunhal and his team are meeting the needs of underserved patients, they’re also empowering doctors to become entrepreneurs themselves. “We want to become the business partners for doctors, help them become docpreneurs , be a digitally savvy business, and provide the best of care that patients could possibly receive” he explains.Hear how Sunahl is creating impact, embracing technology, and using innovative solutions to build his business and provide a model of care in other underserved regions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• Stories Sell: A Masterclass on Building Trust One Tale at a Time

  Welcome to Grit & Growth’s masterclass on sales, featuring Celine Duros, a woman who started her career in sales at 16 and is now both an experienced sales director in emerging markets and consultant to entrepreneurs seeking the secrets to successful sales – whether you’re pitching yourself, managing teams, or selling a specific product.Celine Duros sold earrings at a holiday market in France, transitioned to men’s fashion, and only realized after business school that sales was her true calling. She moved to Ghana a decade ago and has honed her craft by working across 25 African markets, building relationships first and selling second. With so much experience selling and consulting across the African continent, she has stories to tell and lessons to share with entrepreneurs everywhere. Top Six Masterclass Takeaways Actions speak louder than words“If I had been in touch with the actual decision maker, I would have seen that there was some skepticism and the value was not as clear. You can trust the word, but really, if you want to forecast, look at the actions, cause that's where you're going to be able to actually see through.”Stay involved in sales“One common mistake that I've seen is that CEOs or cofounders that are not comfortable with sales, they delegate to team members. And there's so much at stake ‘cause you know, sales keeps the lights on, but it's also what gets the company to grow.”Document your sales process“There's usually no documentation, and that's usually what I see in a lot of organizations that I work with. Not transferring, not having an actual way of selling, not providing the tools and just like, ‘Oh, you come to meetings with me and then you learn from that.’”Review every rejection“Frame it from a research perspective. Actually have a discussion with the client straightaway and say our goal is to make sure that we improve our solution to make our customers happy, so I'd love to get your feedback and it's just no pressure. It's just, I'm doing research. I'm not here to sell you again after you already said no.”Tell stories, and have a library to draw from“Telling a story of who I am as an individual and why I work for this company, telling a founder story, a vision story, who-my-customers-are story, this is going to be building the trust, whatever topic, I have a story library of about 32 stories that you can use at every stage of the sales process.”Listen to know what stories to tell“I always tell my team, don't be a product pusher, be a solution finder. You can abuse storytelling if you just throw stories all the time and you don't throw the right story at the right time.”Listen to Duros’ sales advice spanning topics like delegation, emotional intelligence, compensation, bullshit radars, and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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