Someone Somewhere

Your bio:

My name is Antonio Nuno, and I'm 28 years old. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Someone Somewhere, a social enterprise and digitally native brand on a mission to lift milllions of rural artisans out of poverty. Before starting Someone Somewhere I worked in McKinsey & Co. Mexico, Social Ventures Australia and Cemex Switzerland, focusing on social impact and consumer goods projects. I studied Industrial Engineering at ITESM and did a Minor in Social Entrepreneurship at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I've been selected as Unreasonable Fellow, Global Social Benefit Institute Fellow and part of the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Mexico. 

Our work in Someone Somewhere is raising thousands of people out of extreme poverty, and inspiring more than 2 million young people every month through our social media and owned channels.

Project name:

Someone Somewhere

One-line project summary:

Someone Somewhere is a social enterprise and apparel brand on a mission to lift millions of rural artisans out of poverty

Present your project.

The artisan industry is the second largest source of employment in the developing world, but 70% of the people who are part of it live in poverty or extreme poverty because their products and channels aren't matching today's trends and market needs. 90% of them are indigenous women, the most marginalized demographic in the planet. Someone Somewhere combines traditional handcrafts made by hundreds of rural artisans with materials, designs, technologies and sales channels crafted for the modern consumer, which allows the artisans we work with to increase their monthly income by more than 300% and raise out of the poverty line. 

We strongly believe that empowering rural women is the key to eradicating poverty, and that revolutionizing the artisan industry may be the key to unloccking all their potential.

Submit a video.

What specific problem are you solving?

There are more than 200 million artisans in Latin America, Africa and Asia that live in poverty. Only in Mexico there are more than 10 million. It is the second largest source of employment in the developing world (just after agriculture), yet it hasn't changed in decades. Artisans don't have the access to quality materials that justify the amount of work they put in every product, their designs are based on trends from 50 years ago, and it's almost impossible for them to show their products in the places where people actually buy things. They rely on intermediaries who take advantage of their desperation to sell to reduce the prices, and as all the people in the same community to the same work, there's so much internal competition that a lot of artisans loose money with every sale. 

At the same time 65% of millennials care about the impact of their products, but they struggle to find brands that match their lifestyle, values and budgets. 

We are working to connect both worlds.

What is your project?

We turbocharge artisan techniques, the products where they are implemented and the channels where they are sold so they become competitive in today's market. Our in-house team works with every community to design the products, artisans elaborate them, and our customers get them through our online store or our physical stores in key neighborhoods. We have more than 150k followers in social media who are constantly waiting to see our new launches, and have been able to expand to 13 indigenous communities around Mexico. Our next big steps for the year will be to launch in the US and start working with artisans from Peru.

Who does your project serve, and in what ways is the project impacting their lives?

98% of the people that work with us are indigenous women from rural communities. It's the most marginalized group in the world, but also where humanity has some of it's biggest potential. I've personally seen how smart, hard-working and generous these women are, but also how this talents are being lost because there are simply not enough opportunities for them.

Someone Somewhere was designed with them. We realized that we couldn't come with a solution from the city and hope they would adapt to it, so we spent months testing different ways of working until we found one that worked for everyone. Each artisan works from their home and decides how many products to make each month, get paid immediately and earn more than 300% more than before joining us. We have 10x more artisans in our waitlist than the ones we can employ at the moment, but we are working very hard to involve as much as them as we can as soon as possible.

Which dimension of The Elevate Prize does your project most closely address?

Explain how your project relates to The Elevate Prize and your selected dimension.

I chose the first one because that's our mission, to raise millions of rural artisans out of poverty.

We are connecting rural artisans with millennials, and building awarenss about the issue. We reach more than 2 million young people every month through our social media channels, influencer collaborations and webiste, informing them about the size of the problem and showing them how to solve it. We don't have official calculations, but there's a huge chance that we are the most well known social enterprise in Mexico for people between 18 and 35 years old.

How did you come up with your project?

When we were in highschool, my co-founders and myself started going on volunteering trips to a lot of rural communities around Mexico. In this trips we met a lot of people, and were amazed by their talent and passion but also buy the levels of poverty and marginalization they were facing. In college, we decided to go and live in some of these communities for various months to really understand the problems and design a solution together with them. The production model we designed in these trips is the basis for Someone Somewhere.

Why are you passionate about your project?

When I was a teenager, my family was very affected by the 2008 financial crisis and we spent months living by the day. It was just at this time, when I was complaining about everything, that I started going on volunteering trips to a lot of rural communities and realized what real poverty was like. Some of them were just 2 hours away from my home, but were so different. It was an experience that really marked me, and that day I decided that I would spend the rest of my life fighting poverty and helping people realize their full potential.

Why are you well-positioned to deliver this project?

I'm extremely passionate about eradicating poverty, and extremely confident that working with rural artisans is one of the best ways to do this. 

My background in business has helped us build a company around the idea, raise the necessary funding and recruit the right people for each area. My creative side has helped us come up with great products that people love, and come up with marketing campaigns that reach millions of potential customers at a fraction of what other brands spend on these activities. I've also been able to surrond myself with people that complement me and have the strengths I don't have, something crucial when you are trying to build something meaningful and powerful.

Provide an example of your ability to overcome adversity.

During the current COVID crisis, we have had to close all our physical stores, a big part of our revenues. Instead of laying off all our sales staff, we decided to open a new area of the company called SS for Business, to elevate the corporate gifting industry with our products. Working with artisans allows us to personalize products in ways that are impossible for any other brand, and our team has been super motivated after knowing they would become part of this project instead of loosing their job. They have generated more sales in 2 weeks than what all our stores together sell in a month, and have kept the artisans working instead of stopping all our productions.

Describe a past experience that demonstrates your leadership ability.

-I've mentored more than 100 social enterpreneurs in Mexico in different topics, and a lot of them have told us that they decided to start their companies after learning about us and finding it was possible to solve social issue with a business. 

-More than 200 undergraduate interns have done programs with us and more than 30% of them went on to start their own social enterprises or join existing ones after the experience.

-I recently started a monthly event where some of the top entrepreneurs in Mexico join to share insights, problems and help each other. We are preparing for the 4th edition and a lot of great sinergies have been created so far.

-After understanding that one of the biggest barriers for artisans to join the global market was informality, we decided to launch an innitiative to develop a special fiscal entity for artisans, that allows them to become part of the formal economy without all the obstacles and taxes that are currently present. It's already in the senate and has great chances of being approved.

How long have you been working on your project?

4 years

Where are you headquartered?

What type of organization is your project?