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- We have a lot of stories to tell,
and ever since the beginning, I always felt like
we had more stories to tell than we actually had time
to tell them in.
- [Narrator] You'd have to be stupid or crazy
to end up in the middle of the Gobi desert
with two and a half million dollars in cash.
These guys were a bit of both.
(upbeat music)
- It started about four years ago.
We literally got stuck in the middle of the Gobi desert,
and I think did what would be natural for most people,
we saw a problem and we wanted to fix it.
We were emotionally invested in the people
that we were stuck with, and the result was an opportunity
to buy raw cashmere, and then everything else
kind of fell in place.
You use the cashmere to make yarn,
you use the yarn to make a sweater,
and then you make a brand.
We got to Mongolia every May.
It's like seeing old family members,
hanging out with the guys,
hangin' out by a campfire or raggin' on each other.
I talk to people all the time,
they're like "Wow, this must be a really grueling trip,"
no, I get to go see my friends.
I do think people care
that the product is ethically sourced.
I also think they care about the product itself.
If before people were going in and paying a lower amount,
and everybody was paying that because it was fixed,
we go and we pay a higher amount.
We're not subjected to being a middleman.
What we see is that there are unfair trade practices
taking place.
They just lack normal regulation
and they're prone to fixing prices,
they're prone to disadvantageous situations for the herders,
the people that we were emotionally invested in.
That's our advantage.