What Can Your Business Learn From a Peruvian Market Trader? Meet Our Kiva Entrepreneur For May

As we explored in this recent post, investing in women means investing in families. Which ultimately means investing in the future of communities, too.

With that in mind, our Kiva borrower for May is Elizabeth from Satipo, Peru, who is a member of a communal banking group of six women known as ‘Las Fresitas.’ She is seeking a loan of $2,075 in order to make updates to the floor tiles and pipes of her food stall, where she currently sells chicken, sausages and eggs.

Elizabeth stood out to us as she put us in mind of our first Kiva entrepreneur, a lady called Ines Margarita from Columbia who we lent to back in November 2015. At the time there were a great many people seeking loans to add stock to their stalls or small shops, but Ines was slightly different. She wanted funding in order to buy shelves in order to display her products more effectively.

This struck a chord with us, as we saw a commonality in her desire for what she was offering to be clearly seen and understood in her market, and related to it in ourselves and in those we work with.

And so it is with Elizabeth. She is not changing what she does, or who she is, or the products that have made her business work so far- this is vital regardless of whether you’re your selling meat in South America or your marketing skills in the South West.

The case instead is that she has been trading for three years now, and is in a position to look reflectively at her business and update elements in order to, in her own words, “offer her customers a better service.”

This realisation that the systems we put in place in the beginning are now not quite right for our growing enterprise is something we too come across so often in business- although in our industry it is rarely the bricks and mortar that is in need of a refresh.

We adore helping entrepreneurs to thrive by making the small adjustments their growing business needs, and we are delighted to contribute to Elizabeth’s stall improvements. If you feel similarly inspired to get involved, you can follow her progress here.