Fyfe Barraclough fell in love with traveling after college, starting out with entrepreneurship along traveling. He took a round the world trip with friends and came back with a serious urge to keep traveling and to combine travel with day to day life.
A few years later, after buying an Alpaca sweater on a trip to Ecuador he started receiving a lot of compliments from friends and family. Everyone loved the sweater and blanket that he had brought home.
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For most people, those moments would mean nothing, but for Fyfe it was a light bulb moment. If everyone likes these, why don’t I sell them?
So after his next trip to Central America Fyfe made a detour to Ecuador. He loaded up on sweaters and blankets and Alpacalyfe Apparel was born.
Since then there have been all sorts of twists, turns, and adventures that go along with trying to do business in a developing country. Fyfe shares the challenges and education of starting an importing business and the steps you can take if you see something you love while traveling and want to find a way to sell it at home.
Also covered in this episode:
- Fyfe’s first long-term travel experience
- Challenges when traveling with a group of friends
- Decision making when traveling in groups
- How running a painting business allowed him to travel
- How you make maple syrup
- The origin story of Alpacalyfe
- Learning that most Alpaca sweaters aren’t actually Alpaca (even though the tags say they are)
- Finding reliable suppliers
- Learning what customers want to buy
- Hassles with importing
- Steps to take if you want to import something you’ve seen traveling
- The educational experience of starting a business
Links:
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Our book recommendation for this episode is How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. You can get it free when you start a one month free trial with this episode’s sponsor, Audible.com. Go to audibletrial.com/theworldwanderers.
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Music credit: bensound.com
