{"id":37167,"date":"2023-10-20T14:48:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-an-impromptu-journey-to-morocco-saved-my-business-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:48:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:48:28","slug":"how-an-impromptu-journey-to-morocco-saved-my-business-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-an-impromptu-journey-to-morocco-saved-my-business-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How an impromptu journey to Morocco saved my business &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/my-best-mistake-basket-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"my-best-mistake-basket-thumb\" title=\"my-best-mistake-basket-thumb\"\/><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-19456\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"my-best-mistake-basket-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/my-best-mistake-basket-thumb.jpg\" height=\"110\" width=\"90\" \/>Every entrepreneur has the right to demand perfection from their suppliers, but what happens when the nature of your product means achieving perfection is nearly impossible?<\/p>\n<p>  <span id=\"more-8423\"><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This was the situation Lindy McLeod found herself in when she set up The Market Basket Co.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The boutique online retailer, which ships throughout Australia and internationally, offers a range of French-style baskets imported directly from Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Founded nearly a decade ago, The Market Basket Co. has sold more than 80,000 baskets \u2013 not bad for a sole trader who started with \u201cone lever arch file and a spreadsheet\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The idea came to McLeod while she was living in London.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI lived in London and went to Paris for a weekend and bought a few of these baskets\u2026 I used to load them like crazy and thought they were fantastic,\u201d McLeod says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI found out about a little service that would do a bit of research for you for not much money. I got them to find out where they came from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI found out they came from Morocco and I got a list of ex-Moroccan exporters and found one that spoke English.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy this time, I\u2019d moved back to Sydney. I didn\u2019t really intend to start a business but I had this in the back of my mind. Also, I had been working in large organisations and didn\u2019t like it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did some research and thought, why don\u2019t I give it a try?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McLeod ordered a container load of baskets from the company she had found before enlisting the help of a second company to check over the samples.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t going to Morocco \u2013 I wanted to do it all remotely. I sent the samples to a company that checks cargo in Morocco. They came back to me and highlighted all these problems with the baskets,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McLeod became convinced she was being cheated by her supplier.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe head of the company got involved and I more or less said, \u2018Keep your baskets\u2019 and broke off negotiations,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went on the web and had a look for an alternative\u2026 and realised maybe I\u2019d been a bit hasty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a friend at that point who was older than me and a very experienced lawyer. He said to me, \u2018Why don\u2019t I just call him and make it sound like I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happened, and try and get into a conversation?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The conversation went surprisingly well. So well, in fact, that the company encouraged McLeod to visit Morocco and see the operation for herself.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo make a long story short, I went on a plane by myself to Morocco [but] I arrived without my luggage,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Much to her amazement, McLeod was welcomed into the company owner\u2019s home. She was then taken to where the baskets are made and met the people who make them.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey got their workers to unpack every single basket in the container and I checked every single one. Then they packed them up and sent them to me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spent two weeks with this family and with the owner, and found out they\u2019re a really lovely company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeeting them and developing a relationship with them, and developing mutual trust, was vital.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McLeod realised that because the baskets are handcrafted, they can\u2019t always be perfect. She discovered she had been sent only the very best samples in the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI still get a lot of second-class baskets, which I just sell a bit cheaper myself\u2026  I know how much work they put into trying to get it right,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got a second supplier as well. They\u2019re based in Marrakech and the first supplier is based in Casablanca, but the baskets are made in the High Atlas Mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, I would say be persistent and don\u2019t give up. Also, if you can\u2019t solve a problem, sometimes if you think outside the square there\u2019s another way around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every entrepreneur has the right to demand perfection from their suppliers, but what happens when the nature of your product<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}