Building Furniture - Changing Lives, an Entrepreneur's Unlikely Journey in Nairobi
It started with a job in tourism - it ended with an impact focused business in an industry she had no experience in - furniture building. In this conversation with Sara Reeves, we learn about the unlikely journey that led her to work with the World Bank to support Nairobi artisans. A path that eventually led her to start her own furniture business and on a wild adventure to deliver a chair to Obama.
See her company’s furniture here: https://www.instagram.com/loveartisan
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (computer transcription is still a work in progress), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Sara Reeves:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey, and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders, they're using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. Today, I'm really excited to speak with Sarah Reeves, entrepreneur, furniture maker extraordinaire, and founder of love artisan, a Kenyan based company making some amazingly beautiful furniture all impacting hundreds of lives. And one cat, her journey from Australia to the Kenyan textile industry was an unlikely one. And through work, she has trained and supported entrepreneurs and business owners and has worked with the World Bank's in their effort to build sustainable businesses in Nairobi. And she even has a top secret furniture making endeavor, which at one point, if she feels comfortable sharing she can, Sarah, it's a pleasure to have you on.
Sara Reeves 0:59
Hi, Morgan, greetings from Nairobi. It's my absolute pleasure to be part of your podcast. And I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Morgan Bailey 1:08
Amazing. So you're originally from Australia, correct? Mm hmm. But you You are now working in the textile industry? It sounds you know, make it with you know, you've built an amazing business. I'm curious. How did your journey go from Australia to the textile industry in Nairobi? Yes, well, it's,
Sara Reeves 1:28
it's quite an interesting journey. It's not one that I expected if you'd asked me 15 years ago, where I would be in life, but I am from Australia. I'm originally from Melbourne. I studied psychology at university. And then I promptly did not work in that field, I went into a career in tourism, which brought me to the African continent back and forth over a number of years. And that's the first time that I got to come to Kenya was during my tourism career. So eventually, I moved to Kenya with the tourism career in 2012. So I'm coming on to nine years here in Kenya now. And then even then, I had no desire to be in furniture making, I had no particular aptitude. But what happened was the tourism sector in Kenya, going back from 2013 2014, became quite volatile, we had some insecurity. And it was quite difficult to to make a career. So one thing that can you does for is for you is to kind of, if you have any entrepreneurial spirit that's lurking latent somewhere in you, it seems to ignite it. And that's what happened with me. So I started to move out of the sorry, the tourism industry, and I moved into a house that didn't have any furniture, to be honest. That's how it began. And I thought, Well, I mean, how hard can it be to make furniture I had no idea so I I googled some you know, YouTube videos and whatnot. And and we went and we bought pallets and tomato crates myself in the the scary the security at the compound. And yeah, we just started making furniture for my house, and bookshelf and bed and so forth. And that's
Morgan Bailey 3:15
how you carry is like, how does that look? So I'm thinking about this, you know, you say like, you know, some tomato crates and some wood. I'm trying to picture like, what what was that first version of furniture that you made?
Sara Reeves 3:27
I'm gonna it looks terrible, like. So what happened was myself in the Askari, his name is Evans. We started making this furniture for myself. And for movie nights that I wanted to host like outdoor cinemas in the backyard. And it was happening in my living room. So then friends started to say, Oh, can you make me this, like a pellet sofa and whatnot. So we started to just dabble in making furniture for friends. And I mean, it wasn't a sustainable business model by any stretch, like the entire thing was happening in my living room. So no, if I ran out of, you know, nails or screws, I had to like drive to a hardware district to go and pick up a packet of nails and so forth. So yeah, it really wasn't a sustainable business. And I am I'm a bit shocked sometimes that we actually sold the people paid money for that furniture, but But yeah, that was kind of the first iteration of of the furniture making myself and Evans. And yeah, after about nine months, I had to shut it down because it was not sustainable. And I couldn't pay the rent. And yeah, I kind of closed it down. Yeah. And then from there, I let's see what happened next. I got into the way that the universe works and brings you serendipity. At times. I had a conversation with somebody who was asking me about my furniture business. And to be honest, I was kind of shutting him down because I'm like, this is this is an old story of already. Shut it down, I don't want to talk about it. And the reason he was asking me was because the World Bank had a, there was a grant from the World Bank innovation chapter to, to help people in the informal furniture making sector in Nairobi. And I basically had close to a year of challenges and failures. So I could inform this new project about how to better spend that money that they had, and how to avoid making the mistake, not just making the mistakes that I made. But the lessons that I learned about what looks like the issue is not always the real issues. So So yeah, so I long story short, I came to I came to run their world bank program for a year which assisted working business people in Nairobi, in the informal sector furniture, making assisted them with business challenges, of which we have many. So if you don't mind, I can expand a little bit on how it looks to be in in the informal sector furniture making world in Nairobi.
Morgan Bailey 6:09
Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious. So just a snapshot from like, you know, I'm imagine you know, you're you're in your, your house, you're building this, you know, what I imagine is very suspect looking furniture. You know, and to be honest, there was a point in my life where I went, moved into an empty apartment, and I'm like, I'm gonna build all my furniture. And let's just say, I never built furniture, and I never bought furniture. And it was an empty apartment for a while. So I understand the difficulty with that. But fast forward, what what does like when you think about now, just to give the viewers an idea, like, what does the furniture look like now?
Sara Reeves 6:43
Oh, definitely, by now, I have no hesitation in backing the quality now. But yeah, it's evolved hugely. And what's so interesting, actually, to tell that story is that Evans who was with me from day one, this is five years ago, this is in 2015. He has walked the journey with me from day one, through workshop Nairobi into love artisan, and were together to this day. So who gave up that security job? And yeah, and join forces? And yeah, so we really evolved into we have an actual identity as a brand, we have a certain style that people know us for. So yes, I can proudly now say that we've come a long way in learning how to make furniture and how to make good furniture. But I have to confess that my bed is still made out of tomato crates To this day, and I urgently need to upgrade it. But I mean, it seems to be hanging in there. So yeah. pellet furniture in my own house. So
Morgan Bailey 7:42
absolutely. So I'm curious, you're mentioning about the informal market there. You know, and so from from my time in Kenya, one thing I remember very distinctly is just driving down the road, and just seeing furniture, making furniture makers, building sofas, and things like that, you know, kind of almost in the middle of a field, so to speak, or like in an open air market. So, you know, what does that what does that informal market look like?
Sara Reeves 8:10
Okay, so what you're talking about is exactly the sector that we work in the main road being Gong road. So it's called the geo Cali sector in in Swahili that means hot sun or harsh sun, and it literally means that people are working under the harsh sun to make their furniture. So that sector in Nairobi, it's the largest furniture making sector in all of East Africa, actually, it supports more than 2000 people's livelihoods, as well as the sort of ancillary livelihoods of the people making foods to sell to the for news and so forth. So how it looks from the outside is that there's a whole bunch of people just making things on the street. And you may think, Okay, well, what what is the issue here? Like, why, why is this furniture at a certain level, or rather, I should go back a little bit to say that that sector and that industry is a largely self taught industry, and a self governed industry as well. So you will find very few people that have some sort of qualification or trade school learning most people have learnt on the job, which speaks to a great amount of enterprise and innovation on on the part of Kenyan people. But it also highlights the fact that there are limitations then if you are self taught about what your capabilities are, for instance, it's difficult to for if you came along that sector with a picture from Pinterest and said, Can you make me this sofa? The person might say yes, but the execution might leave something to be desired. They may not. In fact, they're unlikely to be able to interpret a technical drawing and do all of those kinds of things. So yeah, so that's it. of where the industry is. And it does have a lot of challenges. Some of them are at the level of the funders themselves, that could be improved things like customer service professionalism. If you say you're going to pick up your order, after two weeks, you know, it needs to be ready, that kind of thing. And then there are a lot larger issues at hand as well, which are things like the availability of dry timber, because no matter how good you are as an artisan, if your timber is not dry, if your timber is wet, you know, the furniture will buckle and it will bend and the drawers won't open. And so far, so that's a major issue. Also, we're still very, we're not very automated, we don't have a lot of investment into the infrastructure of the industry, or the automation, access to machinery and all those kinds of things. So some of the things we find are at the level of the funders themselves being a self taught industry, and others are part of a broader challenge that that I would say, Kenya faces.
Morgan Bailey 11:04
So talk to me about the World Bank project, because it sounds like that was one one tool that they were trying to use to help, you know, create more sustainable businesses within this sector. What did that look like?
Sara Reeves 11:17
Yeah, so after I thought that I was like closing off my furniture. And then I had this great conversation, which like, reopened the whole thing again. So what the World Bank project is, was and and is, it's called workshop, Nairobi. And the idea behind it was to look at that working industry and look at how can we support it to overcome its business challenges. So it began as a training project training institution in the heart of that sector. And we changed over about a nine month period we chained It was 25 workshops, but we had about 200 people come through in different iterations. So some people had a full six week training, and others had just parts of the training as well. So what a six week training looked like was, because clearly, these are working people. So you can't take them and put them in a classroom for three weeks and say, here's this, you know, learn this. And here's a certificate. So it was really crucial that we structured this training to enable people to still earn their income. So we would do four hours a week of practical training, which is things like how to do finishing, how to do cutting correctly, how to do your sanding, all of these practical joinery things. And then two hours of theory and theory would be anything from what is designed, like, what's mid century design, what's antique, to, how to deal with a customer who has a problem, or how to cost your item correctly, and how to price your item correctly. And all of those kinds of things, so and the projects like what would happen is, at the beginning, everyone would be given a project to complete after the six weeks.
And it was it was fabulous. And it was fascinating. And I really credit it for really giving me the understanding of that industry in a way that I now can confidently contribute to the betterment of that industry. And I can even, you know, I and I've learned Swahili as a result of that, too. So I'm actually grateful for that, but, but I feel that like I really do understand the day to day, challenges that that industry faces and I feel like I can help be a voice to help others understand what the industry faces as well. And one of my greatest sources of pride with that particular project was that we had 100% attendance rate, knowing all the challenges that go on in gumroad. All of the people that joined our course, ultimately graduated from the course and sometimes they would have to have traveled and they couldn't attend a certain class, but they would call and say please can I make the do the catch up class for you know, the sketching class or for whichever one they missed. And it was a real testament to, to the World Bank project, serving and solving a need that existed. So towards the end of the project, it was a one year project and towards the end, I was tasked with creating income for the project. So starting income generation and so what I did was we started like furniture, like a small line of furniture, quite simple, small things, lamps and footstools. And, and whatnot. And, and how we would do it is we would make the designs we would say, Okay, come and pick up, you know, make 10 stools, and then you make 15 lamps and so forth. It would come back into workshop, Nairobi at the end and then we would sell it, we would do all the quality control and all the finishing and then we would sell it from workshop Nairobi. So it was a very lovely business model and to this day, it's now it's still a furniture company. It's one of Nairobi's, most successful artisan furniture companies. So yeah, I'm super proud of my time there. And I'm, I'm really proud that, that that business took root and is now a sustainable and profitable business with it's hot in our industry. So, and that that kind of from there, I was so passionate at the end of that one year contract, I was like, right, what can I do next, like I really was, so into furniture, and I really saw that I could contribute. So I basically, like I walked up and down Gong road with my last World Bank payment in hand, that was the only savings I had. And I was like, I had the passion for it. And I didn't even take a day off. Because I thought if I take a single day off, I might wobble and I might lose faith in myself. So I signed on to a workshop space, I named the company and I didn't have any designs or any real plan, other than just feeling that this that I was passionate about this industry. And that it, you know, that if we gave it more attention and more investment and more support that it has such a potential that we could tap into. So that's kind of how then came to be.
Morgan Bailey 16:23
That's amazing. And I'm just, you know, I feel like it's like the very entrepreneur moment, right, with like, your last paycheck in hand. You know, you're like, I need to I need to go do this. You know, and you're walking down Gong road, which, you know, I mean, it's not, you know, like a road that you would find in a lot of countries. You know, it's it's a shoe. It's like, so, yeah, it Yeah, that sounds like just a wild a wild experience. And you know, and I'm also i'm just i'm trying to, I met like a man, I've seen pictures here, the furniture, which is just amazing. And the color and the fabrics. I went a little wild when I was in Kenya and bought just an incredible amount of fabric. Everyone was wondering what I was doing spending my money on fabric.
Sara Reeves 17:05
I think we all go through that phase for sure. I think there's an there's a quite an addiction amongst a lot of expats about showing how much fabric you actually know I'm able to, I'm able to like, you know, tap into that level of fabric without actually cluttering my entire house with wardrobes full of fabric. So I get all the joy of working with it. Yeah,
Morgan Bailey 17:26
you found a great outlet. Oh, that's great. So now what I'm curious, though, it's like so your, you know, your company is is not just you know, you're not just there to make furniture. But it sounds like a big purpose of your of your company is to impact lives of those that you work with. So speak to me a little bit about, like, how does that ethos impact how you run your business?
Sara Reeves 17:51
Yeah, it's a really interesting question. And I think just to preface it a little bit, just to give you sort of the two main core beliefs that we have in in this company that that drives us. So love artists in I mean, I think the name is does actually speak for itself. So it's about recognizing and appreciating the artists and journey when it comes to furniture making. So the first thing we focus on is that we want to communicate to our customers is the story of the artisans behind the company, the people who are actually making the furniture, I believe that the process of making handmade furniture, it's deeply personal. And it requires a lot of loving what you do. And I think that customers, like feel that love in the end product. So we've always shared on our social media about who we are, as a team. Many of our long term supporters know the entire team by name. And I really cherish that personal connection, we also tend to show the customers the realities of what it means to work in the informal sector in Nairobi. So the occasional power cuts the challenges of finding sustainable timber. And then, you know, crazy things like goats visiting the workshop. I mean, it's never boring. So so that's one of the main threads of our company. And then the second story that we tell is around the textiles that we use. So as you mentioned, we use a lot of African cultural textiles in our business, I would call our style, contemporary African furniture, and we source from all around the continent. So you know, we have encara, from all over, we have mudcloth, from Mali, couvercle, from the Congo. And our aim is to sort of showcase these textiles in a way that maybe hasn't been seen before, that can work in a modern home. And we're blessed to have, you know, an abundant cultural history of textiles in Africa. So we want to be a small part of telling that story and, and promoting those textiles. So, so that's that's kind of how I would describe our company and our mission in a sense But now it's your question. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.
Morgan Bailey 20:03
Well, I've just, you know, it sounds like a big part of that is, you know, I guess like humanizing the process and connecting people to, you know, both the locations where the materials come from is that as well as those. And one thing that you mentioned is this, you know, that right there was this idea of storytelling. And I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit?
Sara Reeves 20:26
Yes, certainly. I mean, I think and you're so right, that I think that I'm a big believer in humanizing business. And processes, like companies are not some inanimate, blob, they're made up of human beings. And so I think the more that we realize that, that the more that we realize everything in life is about human connection, whether it's buying a cup of coffee, or a piece of furniture, or whatever, like there. There are humans involved in all of this. And I think that kind of removing that anonymity a bit, and, and speaking to the the stories behind it, and the narratives behind it. You know, I think there's definitely a global trend towards that. And it's a trend that I like, fully support. But so basically, yeah, I think I mean, as you know, there's been a quite a revolution in the last few years, about transparency and business about what's the value chain, who is impacted, if you look at fashion revolution, so who made who made my clothes, I think that's probably a really good example of one of the the forerunners of transparency in the textile industry. So what I find really interesting is that a lot of small businesses, and particularly creative businesses, have always had a natural inclination to tell the stories of what they do. I think it sort of speaks to their authenticity, and their transparency about this is our process. And this is what we do. And this is where we buy our supplies. And this is what you know, show the way that you might come up with the design, and we'll put it all together. So there seems to be this kind of natural storytelling instinct in a lot of creative businesses. And now we're starting to see it replicated in large corporations. So I find that quite interesting that the small businesses are the ones that have really led the way in authenticity of this storytelling and, and a friend of mine, I believe he actually coined the term because I googled it after he said it and it wasn't on Google, which is quite a feat. But he coined the term narrative consumerism, meaning that, you know, consumers, we no longer are willing to accept a product just on its face value, we demand to know the story behind that product. And I think that's one of the greatest shifts in consumerism that we've seen. And it's definitely a very strong part of what love artists and is as a business is to always humanize and connect those stories in our business.
Morgan Bailey 23:01
Absolutely. I mean, I mean, a business is, is its people, it's both the people that it impacts it's it's everything along the supply chain pathway, to you know, who's building who's assembling who's doing the accounting. And I think not only I, you know, I love you know, I love the storytelling aspect of it, and how it impact consumers. But I mean, I imagine like how, you know, internally within the business, how does acknowledging people's stories affect the the employees and the people that you work with?
Sara Reeves 23:34
Yeah, I think that's another great question. For me, I think the first thing that you need to do as a business owner, if you're coming into a business is let's say there's a certain sector that you're trying, you're trying to solve a problem for a certain sector. And the first thing to do is to realize that that sector is not, again, like some homogenous mass, it's it's individuals with, you know, dreams and goals and priorities and agency over their lives. And so I think the first thing we need to do is to understand that, you know, we're all humans and all individuals, it's not just a faceless consumer, a faceless sector that you're trying to work with. So I think company culture is super important that might I think my natural style anyway is to it's collaborative. So everybody that works in Laval Edison, I share the common mission, I mean, we really do have quite a strong team culture, that that everybody knows, like, this is our mission and everybody supports the mission. And once you've actually established that, it becomes becomes quite easy because now anybody new that comes into the business. It's not for me to hand them a you know, a guide and say, Okay, this is how you need to be it's that everyone in the team is then showing them by example. This is the this is company culture. So yeah, I would say that like, I mean, honestly, it starts with treating people with dignity and respect and understanding that, you know, individuals have their, you know, their own desires and goals. And, and I think that this word from this word of empowerment for me can sometimes feel a bit problematic because it's, in some instances, it can kind of infer that there's a, like a handout or a helplessness on the part of the individual that's being empowered. And the way that I would look at it is that it's a collaborative effort. I mean, the funds that work it love artists and bring so much to the table. I mean, we literally couldn't produce a product without them. So I think that I look at it more from a point of view is that we all have something to contribute. So let's look at what can I do? And what can somebody else do? I mean, I certainly can't make furniture personally, like, I wouldn't buy the furniture that I personally had to make. But so I've always looked at it as a as a collaborative process of, you know, let's do this thing together. And, and I mean, there's a saying, you may know this, having spent time in Kenya, but it's generally an African saying of Ubuntu, which means that I am, because you are, so it speaks to that interconnectedness of everybody in life. And, and business is no different to that business is life.
Morgan Bailey 26:27
So I really, I really love that. And, yeah, and I think that the part you bring up about the empowerment is really critical, because especially in a lot of post colonial countries, you know, there there is a bit of paternalism that that can come in, in which the empowerment does it does feel a bit paternal, as opposed to saying, Hey, I'm acknowledging the resources that you have. And I have, these are the resources that I have, what can we create together? which is which, you know, feels much more of a partnership? Absolutely, yeah. Which I think it's just, it's just a really, really important point. And, and something that's, I think, just important to acknowledge. So through your whole journey, you've been through a lot. I'm curious, like, for somebody else who has the same sort of passion and drive that you do and and you know, up starting a business, what some of the advice that you would give them.
Sara Reeves 27:22
Um, if you want to make money, just go and plant onions, and you're going to get returns like twice a year minimum. So I certainly wouldn't come into this business or really, any business with the idea of this is going to be a moneymaker. I've always had the belief that profit is an outcome, not a goal. Even when I was in travel, I was a travel agent for a time and it's, you know, it's, it's like, let's solve your customers issues or your customers problems, come up with a solution, do your job, well, focus on doing your job well, and success will come and profit will come. I mean, it's, it's a given in that sense, but I've never been one to, to look at profit as being the, you know, the focus, it's an outcome to me, not a goal. So I would say that, um, I would say, like, just generally, in any entrepreneurial business, you know, it's, it takes a lot out of you as an entrepreneur. And I think we don't, we don't get to see the whole story in the beginning, otherwise, none of us would ever leave our employment and become an entrepreneur. So it's sort of unveiled to us slowly by slowly, and by the time you've realized You're so far in it, you don't know how to get out and you can't think of anything else to do so you, you somehow just stay in it. But But I mean, what what a journey of growth. I would also say that for me, or at least in the furniture sector, and I, this doesn't really speak to, let's say, the tech sector, where you do actually need to scale quite quickly to get your products or your services, you know, proven. But one of the things that was really good for me, it was a hard path, but I'm grateful for it was that, like, this is an entirely self funded business. I mean, I haven't actually even asked my mom for a loan. And I know I don't need to, but since three and a half years now of self funded business, which means that all the growth that has happened has just come from, you know, from making furniture. And what it's given me is a very strong foundation. And it has helped me to understand the seasons of the business, and which has better informed me now for our next step, which is expansion and an export and all of that stuff. So for me, I'm really grateful for not seeking funding or investment early on, although I now my next point is to now look at, you know, what do I do at this point, but so it really helped me understand the business and then as a as a person, it's made me grow maybe more than I wished to, but, but I don't regret it. So yeah, I would say that and i and i think that like, okay, there's no big break. That's my other belief is that you You know, no one knocks on your door and says, Hey, here's the opportunity of a lifetime. I mean, I think the big break is just showing up every day doing the work, putting the hard work in showing up again, the next day, I think we can sometimes have a culture of thinking that, oh, I went on to I didn't know Shark Tank, or I went on to this thing, or somebody famous bought my furniture or something as though that's the, the catalyst that all of a sudden makes our lives and our businesses easy. But I think credit goes to just showing up and doing the work and, and really doing the process. Like that's it, you know,
Morgan Bailey 30:36
yeah, I resonate with that a lot. And I think a lot of particularly in the West, there's this, this fairy terrier fairy tale idea of like, you know, one thing aligns, and then bam, it just explodes. When really, you know, if that even happens, it was because of a lot of very, you know, consistent specific actions over the years. And a lot of times, you know, we just see that explosion and think that's how it's gonna happen. But it's just showing up every day. And I think, you know, the idea of, you know, showing up every day getting to know your industry, the ins and the outs of it, and a lot of the sort of unsexy components of it that you maybe would have glossed over, or hadn't thought about when you just started out. So I can definitely really appreciate all that. Now. I do. I am curious. So you did mention, you know, famous people in furniture. And I, I know you have a story somewhere around that around this top secret mission that you have, I wonder if you could speak to that, you know, as we sort of wind down shoot,
Sara Reeves 31:38
yes. So, um, yes, that's very true. So just to speak to a previous point, there's that there's something that music industry and they say, you know, it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. And I think that's exactly kind of what that's one of the most interesting, slightly crazy things that I've done in life and in business was in 2018, when Barack Obama was visiting Kenya, to open his sister's project in western Kenya, she had a Youth Foundation that she was opening, like, for sports, and so forth. And I'm a big fan of Barack Obama and have been for a long time, and I even had him on my vision board at the start of 2018, I was going to manifest some ways to meet him. And I ended up Okay, so you've been in Kenya. So you know, we have a cultural clause here called the lessor or the kangaroo, which is a thicker coastal cloth, and it has different sayings on it. And when Barack won the election, in 2008, it was printed with his face on it and, and quotes about Barack and saying, you know, celebrating him and so what we did is I managed to track down this cloth, which was by then 10 years old, and I couldn't find it anywhere in Kenya, and I even checked in Tanzania. And I quietly had to buy it off eBay in the states and get it shipped over to Kenya. But so, um, he was coming to Kenya. And he was coming on the Saturday and by the Friday, and I wanted to make him a chair with his basically with his face on it using this cloth. And by the Friday, I still didn't have the cloth because I think there was a public holiday in the States. And so I got a message saying, or due to this public holiday, we're going to ship your products next week. And I was like, Oh, I can't deal with this level of disappointment. Anyway. Through divine intervention, four o'clock on the Friday, we get the cloth. So we make the chair. Now I've got this beautiful, bright yellow chair that we've made him with his face on it. And then I thought, Okay, how am I? How do I get it to him? Like he's here in Nairobi now? But surely, does anyone know where he's staying? Like, I hadn't really, it was really one of these. When you trust in the universe to unveil the next step, it was very much that it's like, okay, now we have the chair. Now, what do I do? So I was like, okay, does anyone know this thing? I couldn't find him anywhere. I mean, it sounds a bit silly to say that, but I was somehow thinking I'd just be able to find him. So it gets to the Sunday, and I still hadn't found him. And I was like, okay, maybe I have to drive this thing to Western Kenya. And then try and figure out how to meet him in western Kenya. So I was calling around friends in the tourism industry asking if they had a vehicle to take me to Western Kenya. And they didn't. And then it was it was the day of the World Cup final for football. And I was at my local restaurant. I'd already drunk two glasses of wine. It was 930 at night. And I got a call saying yeah, we've got a vehicle we can take you to Western Kenya. And I said when they said now, I said, Okay, give me one hour. So we literally I called the Fundy who made the chair and that particular Fundy came from a village which was next door to where Barack sister was doing opening the foundation. I called him and I said you want to come to Western Kenya and give him this chair and he's like when I said now Okay, so we drove through the night. To consumer, which is the largest city in western Kenya, we get to the next morning. And at that point, I'm like, right? What's my plan here? Like, I had a slight moment of hesitation. But it's like, you know what, let's just keep taking the next step. And so we actually shared this on our social media throughout. So then there were many people saying, How did you know how can we get in this chair? Can they get into this event, and so forth, and so on. And if you know Barack's second book, The Audacity of Hope, I think that was the hashtag that I, that I kind of used for this crazy mission, because it was like, ultimately, we really didn't have a plan other than, you know, just to go to the next step and trust that the universe would make this thing happen and true to form the universe did open up a pathway for us to on the day like ultimately be accepted into the event, even though we hadn't had any prior invitation or anything. So then we were with this chair, then trying to get Barack's attention. Anyway, we Okay, long story short, we didn't get to gift it to him directly. Because the Secret Service said it needed to be vetted. Fair enough to one of the funny things about that is that one of the Secret Service guys was our customer. And I was like, Craig, you know, me, you bought chairs for me last month, like, can't we just like do something here? Anyway, so um, we give to the chair to his sister's foundation in western Kenya, which is called style tiku.
But I also got to spend six hours hanging out in the same airspace as as Barack Obama. So there's absolutely no regrets and, and then we drove back to Nairobi that very night, and my phone by that stage was totally dead. And I had people literally standing in the workshop the next morning customers saying, what happened with the chair? Did you get the chair? You've gone offline, like literally people for like, almost two weeks for what asking about? What happened with the chair? So it was a crazy mission. And it certainly wasn't a publicity stunt. But it was kind of one of the most favorite things that I've done in the business. And even just, yeah, just in life, I think.
Morgan Bailey 37:09
So. Well, that's, that's, that's really amazing. And I'm excited to hear any updates that come from that?
Sara Reeves 37:15
Yes. So yeah, let's stay tuned. There might be something else happening next year. So maybe you can invite me back for that the next chapter, that particular
Morgan Bailey 37:24
story, that would be fantastic. And I'm looking forward to you know, once once the exports are happening, to ordering some of your furniture, because, yeah, I really do love that. That fabric. Fabulous. Well, this has been a pleasure. I have one more question for you, is what what is inspiring you right now?
Sara Reeves 37:47
I mean, I'm often in a state of inspiration about one thing or another. I think. For me, I think ideas are never the problem. I think I seem to be able to hear in Kenya more than anywhere. Like certainly I didn't necessarily have this in Melbourne, but I'm able to kind of tap into that inspiration, I would say My issue is more ideas are not the problem. It's the execution. That that you know, you can't execute every idea that you have, but but I'll focus now really, as a three and a half year old business is to continue to impact and to build the capacity in our industry. That's like my big passion. Yeah. So basically, it's time now for us to step outside of the Kenyan borders, and to see how big we can make our company. I have definite plans for love artists and to expand into the US, and hopefully the global market in 2021. So that's really what's my driving force now is to kind of take love artists into the world. And my, one of my great desires is for people to say, oh, Kenya, that's a, you know, that's a place that makes funky and original furniture. So I would love to help change people's perceptions, or to add to people's perceptions of Kenya and what we can do here. So I would say that's kind of my driving force my driving passion for for 2021.
Morgan Bailey 39:15
Well, that's just so much like, Yes, I imagine. Yes. Well, you know, I, I'm really impressed by what you've accomplished. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the business progresses. And how could people find more out about you?
Sara Reeves 39:32
Okay, so we, through all social media, mostly on Instagram, we love artists, and we have a little blue heart icon, Facebook, we're called love artists in Kenya. And our website should be being switched on depending depending on when this podcast is but within the next month or so, as well. So hopefully you can find us one of those ways.
Morgan Bailey 39:53
Amazing. And I've seen your Instagram channel, a lot of really beautiful things on there. So definitely do check that out. Well, Sarah, I want to thank you. This was a pleasure. It was very much enjoyed chatting with you. And looking forward to continuing the conversation and hearing a follow up on that. on that chair.
Sara Reeves 40:12
Thank you so much, Morgan. It's been an absolute pleasure to be on profit meets impact podcast. I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak about what I'm passionate about. And I really do. Thank you so much, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the podcasts in your series.
Morgan Bailey 40:29
Thank you so much. We'll be talking soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Prophet meets impact podcast. If you'd enjoy this experience, please subscribe wherever you find your podcast and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at WWW dot profit meets impact.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai