In 2012/2013 I made a career change. I decide to leave the technology behind me and move forward to use the technology and internet rather than working on building platforms and software. Jordan is not an easy place to do a career change on it, especially in this difficult economic time. For that I had to take the risk and change my career through establishing a new business for me.
I am not a single worker, I have to work through a team. For that I backed to my old friend +Ahmad Farah who I worked with many times before. Ahmad is a very good managerial person. He managed his multiple second hand clothes stores for years. And he is great in research, cash flow & resources management, understanding peoples, and figuring out how to build businesses.
Together we start thinking in our abilities, backgrounds, connections, available opportunities, passion, and so on. We discovered a new land we can invest our abilities in. This land is eCommerce. eCommerce is well known and used in the first world. But in the third world it is still not trust-able! But we are sure it will be in the next few years. On the other hand both of us are passion for wood, ancient things, recycling, art, and handmade products.
There is an old quote say "If you make what you love, you will never work". And after we looked for our abilities and passion we decide to make this quote a life style for us by selling handicrafts through eCommerce. This was the first step we made in our establishment +Farah Balcony.
Later on we start doing research about the handicrafts, its possibilities and limitations. We found a lot of things we can do especially that we decide to sell only Jordanian handicrafts. But this research was not enough to build the right business model.
If we want to sell handicrafts, we need to find craftsmen who make them! So we looked though our connections, and we found an organization which could help is in reaching these craftsmen. We went to IRADA, the largest arm for development and the most prevalent one in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation in Jordan.
Together we start a project to make a white book for the reality, abilities, and problems of the artisans and craftsmen in Jordan. The project period was six months, within the project we visited more than 160 craftsmen in all regions of Jordan including crowded and remote areas. We documented all types of artisans such as individuals, shops, and associations.
The results we found by this field study was extraordinary. We got bad news in some aspects, but we also got much good news too. We found wonderful products which hard to find in anywhere else such as very beautiful traditional dress in modern designs, ancient pottery, and some unique wooden piece of art products.
Also we find a lot of natural resources that could make a great impact on the local society such as olive oil when you use it in soap and cosmetics, gemstones, and the wonderful dead sea.
If we used these resources and abilities, we could make a real change in the lives of many people who are working in this sector. I hope we find the help to market the Jordanian handicrafts world wide. And I am sure it will make change.
We will keep posting about the things we found and the things we will. And at the end let me say for all craftsmen and artisans "we are looking to sell you products, but please show us your best!".
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