Mestrae Gives Back

We are a small startup, but we believe the art of giving will take us a long way. We do what we can

 

School / College Assistance programme

At Mestrae, we take it to heart in helping young minds. We have offered assistance in numerous students request worldwide (US, Singapore, India).

One of our proudest moment was to have sponsored and supported an incredibly talented and passionate group of high school students in Murrieta, California - and recently they won 2nd place out of 550 schools in a nationwide business plan competition in New York -- with their business plan for Mestrae interchangeable heels

     

    Fashion Brands crossing borders

    Initiating the Business part of Fashion was both interesting and challenging. The Fashion industry is a thriving $2.4trillion industry - but running a fashion business is complicated, and not knowing how to is even worse.

    This started as Mestrae’s journey of struggles in trying to survive and self-learning the business of fashion and realising that we were not alone. 9/10 fashion brands don’t make it the first year. Additionally, fashion-based companies are unable to receive funds as it is considered high risk. This event was to push forth international growth, sustainability and expansion, that enables the increase of fashion business ROI as a whole.

    We had an incredibly group of speakers amongst some were Thierry Bayle, Global Fashion Management and Professor Loredana, of ASB - MIT Sloan

     

    Reviving a 30 years shoemaking industry

    Artisan shoemakers, with 30 years fine craftsmanship are hard to come by. Mestrae recently faced the turmoil of needing to expand manufacturing to meet customers orders and it didn’t help that the shomaking manufacturers were on a rapid shutdown. We lost over 10 manufacturers in 5 months. Mestrae is expanding overseas to meet customer orders, but in the mean time, we have set up a networking place (FB group) for fashion buyers and shoemakers to meet. Will it work ? We don’t know yet but we hope it helps !

    Girls Day Out, A celebration of 21 women founders 

    We had a fantastic time running Girls' Day Out event bringing together 21 passionate women founders and their team. Held in conjunction with international women’s day, this helped alleviate the consumer pool and give the founders wider visibility  

     

    Sharing startup journey with brilliant students from ASB - MIT Sloan

    Everytime someone asks me what’s it like being a startup founder, I tell them, if I thought building a product was hard, building a business around it is insane and expanding it, shocks the living hell out of ya 🙂 

    I learnt that knowledge is powerful at a young age. My father started off a forklift driver while bringing up us 3 siblings with the help of my mom, sometimes working 24 hours straight to make ends meet. Yet he studied part time and graduated with a bachelors degree at the age of 40. When he passed away, he had 2 doctorates (pHD) and established a community college. Hence education platforms is always special to me

    Given I had no footwear, fashion nor business background, and I come from an engineering background, it has been a lot of self learning - mechanical engineering, finance, supply chain, logistics, sales, marketing, design, media, retail etc  and most importantly understanding the market and what consumers want.

    I met @prof_loredana of ASB - MIT Sloan over 2 years back and she is always full of energy, ideas and has a big heart. Loredana invited me to share the experience of how I started from scratch,  to her MBA students - and I was happy to share the journey and 3 million mistakes I made along the way. That’s the real part of startups 🙂 

    It was absolutely a privilege having that many questions and ideas by a room full of brains running through and dissecting every part of your business segment and I’m really excited to try some of the ideas. I think the journey of learning never ends. And I think the willingness to be humble and to learn, no matter who you are, makes all the difference. 

    I’m a woman, I’m brown skin, I’m from a third world country and a single founder. While I definitely understand  being under privileged, and face tremendous repercussions and challenges on a day to day basis, knowledge does not discriminate nor stops your from being the best of the best. 

    I rarely do share personal experiences on Mestrae’s page but education is a big part of my life and I’m truly proud of this school and this strong woman behind it 

    Pam, 
    Founder