We recently connected with Kinda Hibrawi and have shared our conversation below.

Kinda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

We are a social enterprise based in Los Angeles, CA and we strive to share the beauty of our culture. During the Syrian conflict, so much of the focus was on the violence and the horrific war that took place for ten years. As Syrian-American co-founders it was important that we showcased a different side to our heritage, one that we were nostalgic for and had fond memories of. We had one vision – to connect highly skilled artisans from the Middle East to an untapped global market.

We curate and deliver organic, luxury, handmade products, by scouring the globe, in search of master craftsman impacted by conflict or forced displacement. Our artisan partners expand from Syria and Lebanon. We honor and nurture the sustainability of these products by preserving a heritage, while redefining them in a contemporary voice. We connect you to the artisan and their work, by telling their story, so you know where your product is coming from and how it was crafted.

As a collective group of creators, problem solvers and dreamers, we believe in clean living with purpose. We focus on eco friendly bath must-haves, like vegan bar soap and cotton loofahs made in Syria, with zero-waste packaging made in America. Our products aim to preserve an ancient cultural heritage, change the narrative on a region defined by conflict, and provide artisans the opportunity to make an honest living.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We are two SYRIAN-AMERICAN Co-founders based in Los Angeles, CA.

KINDA HIBRAWI FROM ALEPPO, an internationally renowned painter and creative director with branding and marketing skills in the non-profit sector. Her artwork has been exhibited both internationally and nationally to sold out shows in the U.S. She has over a decade of experience in creative design, product development, advocacy and outreach, she has worked on various projects with the U.S. State Department, UNRWA, UNICEF as well as national organizations. The United Nations named her a 2012 Global Thinker and Influencer at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. Kinda holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California State University of Fullerton.

RAMA CHAKAKI FROM HAMA and DAMASCUS, applies 25 years of technical and communications experience to her passion: social development for Arab youth. She runs the VIP.fund, a venture philanthropy fund investing in youth programs and technology startups. Currently, Rama serves on the board of the Syrian International Business Association. She’s a founding member of Arab Women in Computing and the first regional Women Angel investment Network (WAIN) and also served on the board of TechWadi, PCRF, PACES, The Impact HUB – UAE , Challenge to Change and Nakhweh. In addition to a certificate in Designing for Social Systems from Stanford University, Rama holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and a Master’s in Engineering Management from George Washington University.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We launched our small business at the end of 2019, and then the pandemic hit a few months later, like so many businesses we had to pivot. Fortunately, we were already setup as an e-commerce so the next step was finding talent to help us spread the word. Since so many people were at home, we were able to recruit eight interns that year. We worked on creating content, expanding our social media, and blog writing. Additionally we partnered with various local charity organizations that were struggling to raise funds by creating campaigns for their cause. We dedicated a specific month to raise funds for a non-profit with every sale of one of our products, with a portion of the proceeds donated.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

We chose to sell on our own site over the Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy. We researched this and asked others who ventured out to different platforms. We learned that there is a high cost of entry, in addition to having your brand showcased to a large number of customers. Ultimately, we did not have the funds to promote our brand on Amazon or were willing to give Etsy 30% of our sales, or take on free shipping. Which generally means tagging on the cost of shipping to the product. We felt we wanted to drive all traffic back to our site to help it grow versus spending the high cost on other platforms.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mintandlaurel.com
• Instagram: @mintandlaurel
• Linkedin: @mintandlaurel
• Twitter: @mint_laurel

Image Credits
credit : Mint + Laurel