Growing and Professionalizing the Handmade Sector: An Interview with Hedvig Alexander from Powered By People

This month, Trade+Impact is excited to feature Powered By People, one of our partners for Handmade Futures Summit 2021. Powered By People is working to “grow and professionalize the creative manufacturing and handmade sector,” by facilitating trade and increasing market access for enterprises in the industry through digitization. We interviewed Hedvig Alexander, Co-Founder of Powered By People, about their newly launched Marketplace platform, digitization of the artisan and handmade sector, and PBP’s partnership for HFS 2021. The PBP Marketplace is a curated B2B wholesale platform that connects producers and buyers and reduces the frictions affecting the sector.

How would you describe PBP and the PBP Marketplace?

Baobab Batik, image taken from PBP Marketplace

We focus on handmade and small-batch production. We believe consumers want things that are unique, made better, and they want to know more about how products are made. The creative manufacturing and handmade sector has a unique opportunity to grow if producers can have access to digital tools that can help them optimize their production, collect data and analyze it. There are three things Powered By People does with our recently launched marketplace: connect producers and buyers; provide digital tools to help producers work better and provide financing that can bridge payment terms between buyers and vendors.

PBP recently launched PBP Market, how do you see it benefitting vendors in the artisan and handmade sector?

I think this was coming before, but certainly with COVID, if you don’t have a solid digital footprint you almost don’t exist anymore. Many businesses weren’t online or it was difficult to find them online. As a minimum, PBP Market creates a huge catalogue of hundreds of handmade businesses that buyers can discover and purchase from. It is really meant to make discovery and transactions easier in the sector. Buyers don’t need much friction to make the decision not to buy - as soon as there is something out of place, they’ll go elsewhere. We’re trying to make it easier to discover, pay, communicate, follow production, and ship. We’re trying to take all these friction points that we believe are why the sector hasn’t grown and streamline it. That’s what our value is.

How do you see technology transforming the handmade and artisan sector?

You can be handmade but you don’t have to be analog. There are many things in handmade production you can do digitally that can help your business, such as logging where raw materials are sourced from, how many people work with you on any given day, or the cost of production.

Before PBP Produce, There wasn’t a solution for handmade businesses to provide this and as a result, it’s hard to know how their production is running. For any large scale manufacturing company, how streamlined your production run is is tied to how well your business is doing. There is a huge opportunity to make things more efficient in the handmade sector.

One company, a basket producer for Ikea in South India, said that after using PBP Produce for two months, their artisans each saved 20 hours a month. What can you do with those hours? Can you go out and create more income, can you spend more time with your children, can you look after your elders? It is that kind of efficiency.

Little Ndaba, image taken from PBP Marketplace

Digital tools can address inefficiencies and make it easier to connect and communicate globally.

What are the biggest challenges faced by the sector?

Transitioning businesses to be comfortable using digital tools. We’re looking at how to effectively train businesses in digitalization, by a combination of strategies including training on our tools, while integrating other platforms already established and how they can all work together. It’s important to make sure that you develop digital products that are relevant for businesses because they won’t be digital if they don’t think they need to be.

How did you first come to be connected with T+I?

Gone Rural, image taken from PBP Marketplace

I met Kathleen Holland (T+I Co-Founder & Board Chair) through a friend maybe ten years ago. Kathleen introduced me to Daniella Mastracci (T+I Co-Founder & Executive Director), and then I met Stacey Edgar (T+I Co-Founder & Board Member) at the T+I Summit and Trade Expo in Morocco in 2016. We’ve always believed in the same things. We continued to work with T+I very closely and think that we are so aligned with what we trying to achieve. They have been fantastic partners for us.

Why do you think the Handmade Futures Summit and Trade Expo can be beneficial for your vendor community?

The more experience I have in the sector, I think collaboration and community are incredibly important. I believe collaboration, rather than competition, will make take the sector farther.

The handmade sector hasn’t had strong associations previously and hasn’t had people lobbying for it despite its size. What T+I does and a summit like Handmade Futures Summit 2021 does is bring people together, foster collaboration and sharing experiences. It’s incredibly important for the sector. The event was very good last year and I think it will be even better this year.