Echo Dou, portrait of an alumna entrepreneur

Echo DOU, a 2016 graduate of the Global MBA - Luxury Brand Management, launched an e-commerce site aimed at promoting handicrafts from minorities in southern China, including the Miao, in order to help maintain ancestral know-how. A beautiful initiative of the "new luxury" to discover...

- How did you get this project?
Originally, I have a university degree in theatre and literature from Yunnan University in China. After that, I worked in Beijing for thirteen years, first as a journalist for the city's television, then in events where I created my own company. My main clients were foreign companies in the luxury sector. In Beijing, I met my French husband and we then considered moving to France. At the same time, I started to think about developing a business around the ethnic handicrafts of Chinese minorities, for which I developed a real passion and great admiration. However, not speaking French and not fluent in English, the project was still unclear even though in my head the idea was clear, and I was worried that I would have to start my professional life over from scratch.

- Why did you choose Sup de Luxe? Tell us about your experience?
While I was living in Beijing and wanted to come to France to follow an MBA in brand marketing, I was seduced by the GLOBAL - LUXURY BRAND MANAGEMENT MBA from Sup de Luxe which presented itself as the essential training to understand luxury companies, and to cross their doors. This training course presents a very complete teaching program to acquire the knowledge necessary to manage a brand. Supported by the school's Cartier Chair, the Global MBA has an excellent reputation in the luxury industry and benefits from a considerable network. Finally, Paris is the symbol of luxury and coming to spend a year of study there was a dream! So I decided to apply and was lucky enough to be selected to follow the 2015/2016 MBA program.

- How did your acquired skills help you to launch your project?
The values of luxury acquired during my MBA year: "luxury, a passion, a profession, a network" gave me the motivation to follow my heart and my passion in order to realize my dream.
The education I received provided me with the necessary knowledge to create a brand and finalize its general concept, going through all the stages: strategic analysis, business plan, planning, product and brand management, traditional and digital communication, accounting, company law, marketing and sales strategy, etc. The most important benefit has been to provide me with the ability to design the general concept of brand development and management, rather than specific skills.

- Tell us about La Maison d'Echo.
The Maison d'Echo aims to promote the craftsmanship of the Miao and minorities of southern China, by renewing it and thus contributing to the maintenance of ancestral know-how in the villages where they were born, in a sustainable development approach. La Maison d'Echo works directly with the craftsmen, from whom it obtains its supplies without intermediaries, striving to respect the authenticity of a cultural heritage in an accessible art-de-vivre. For these peoples, who often lack writing, their art is a witness to their history, a true language full of meaning, transmitting from generation to generation their traditions and customs, which should not be distorted. Exchange and mutual respect are the basic principles of THE ECHO HOUSE and the foundations of fair trade.
During the search for suppliers in China, we visited more than thirty villages in inaccessible mountains, from the forests of southern Yunnan bordering Laos, Vietnam and Burma, to the north in the Tibetan part of the province at 4000 m altitude!
Now, we are recording our first orders and are very satisfied with the reception that is given to our site.

- What can we wish you for the future?
Beyond the commercial success that every entrepreneur expects, my greatest motivation is to share my passion for these endearing peoples of the minority ethnic groups of southern China, whose Miao are the best known, and to make their admirable crafts known in France.

You can find La Maison d'Echo :

https://www.facebook.com/LA-MAISON-DECHO-169582526976505/

https://www.instagram.com/la_maison_decho/

Website of La Maison d'Echo : http://https//www.lamaisondecho.fr/