Jai Sharma, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Threadharvest sat down with us to chat about dreams, crowdfunding success and the creation of Threadharvest. Threadharvest’s biggest hope is to become the ASOS or Iconic of ethical fashion. Each piece of clothing or accessories has a story, making a positive impact on both someone’s life as well as the world around us. They first launched through an ING Direct Dreamstarter campaign and will be hanging out at #RadLivin tomorrow. If you see them be sure to say hi!
Meet Jai…
Where are you in the world?
I live and work on Sydney’s beautiful Northern Beaches (Curl Curl)
How do you follow your bliss?
I’m not so sure about the bliss bit but I seek out meaning and joy in three fairly interrelated ways.
- I surround myself with inspiring people that I love – from my wife, to my little nephew and niece, to the people on my team at ThreadHarvest. Few things give me more joy than being around people that do, think and say inspiring things.
- I pray and meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus every day. I grew up with a Hindu father, Christian mother and close friends that were Jewish, Muslim and atheist (sounds like the start of a joke I know!) so religion has always interested me. I have found no deeper source of truth and comfort than what I find in my relationship with God. So many households have a bible on a shelf, yet so few realise what an inspiring and relevant read the Gospel of Luke is for example.
- I snorkel – not particularly profound I know, but coming face to face with a turtle that you’d swear was smiling at you in a secluded Sydney beach is pretty close to bliss in my book!
When did the inspiration for Threadharvest first come about?
I spent a few years working in child rescue/rehabilitation in India and at the end of my time there came to realise that profit-driven businessmen I knew, had accidentally done more for the community than I had in my years of toil. They had achieved it by providing what so many of the community members actually needed – jobs. Fast forward through some time researching the apparel industry, as in ethical investment analyst and some long conversations with Brian (my co-founder), we just couldn’t walk away from the opportunity.
Tell us a bit about your philosophy and what you hope to achieve through Threadharvest?
Thread Harvest is a social enterprise that hopes to be something like the ASOS or Iconic of ethical fashion. The online fashion boutique curates a selection of jewellery, footwear, apparel and accessories from various suppliers around the world. The production and sale of items on the Thread Harvest platform employs marginalised people and funds innovative projects all while having a positive impact on the environment. Each piece comes with its own story of lives, communities and environments changed in positive ways.
You really got going once you did the ING Direct Dreamstarter campaign. How did you first discover it and can you walk us through your campaign?
Honestly I can’t even remember how I came across the Dreamstarter initiative, I’m guessing we stumbled across it on social media but I’m really glad we did. It was a fairly simple campaign, no-one on the team had ever run a crowdfunding campaign before, but we put a lot of effort into making the rewards worthwhile and being honest and realistic about what we were hoping to achieve.
Were you ever scared to put your dream out there into the world and ask for financial support in making it happen? If so, how did you overcome it?
Yeah, absolutely, the asking for financial support bit wasn’t so scary because we were confident in our rewards, but having to go public with something that was so imperfect and very much a work in progress was hard. We all had to check our egos at the door. Ultimately, it was a good opportunity to learn the value of putting something out there before you feel 100% happy with it. It was a valuable lesson because to be honest, if we were going to wait before we were 100% happy with the business before going live, we would probably still be pre-launch.
What advice could you give to someone who would like to crowdfund their own dreams?
Develop a well-planned marketing strategy for the campaign. Unfortunately, creating an awesome crowdfunding page is useless if you don’t have a ton of people visiting the page.
What’s been the most surprising thing that’s happened since starting Threadharvest?
One of the most surprising things has been developing connections with people around the world that, were it not for the business, I would never have come across. From artisans in Ethiopia, to women rescued from trafficking in India – when I hold a piece of fashion that they have lovingly created, I feel connected to them and I love being able to be a small but positive part of their story.
What advice could you give to someone who knows what they would love to do but haven’t gone for it?
Tee up 10 conversations with people who have walked sections of the path you want to walk. Give each of those individuals permission to be brutally honest in their advice and at the end of the process prayerfully combine their feedback into a next step.
