Rinzin Dorjeer Jehru was in Tokyo with half a dozen Tibetan refugees from India, when he received a call, saying he had won a green card lottery to come to the United States.
It was early 1992, and the last thing on Jehru’s mind was business. When he left India with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, he was thinking of a career in the hotel industry.
Eleven years later, Jehru, 40, runs Tibet Souvenirs, a slowly-but-steadily flourishing gift shop in downtown Berkeley, flanked by Starbucks and busy restaurants.
A Tibetan refugee born and raised in India, he had trained in hotel management in Japan. He also worked in the Dalai Lama’s exiled government in Dharamshala, India, to help educate several Tibetan exiles like himself.
Modest and unassuming, he never had that quintessential American dream of starting his own business and becoming a successful entrepreneur. Yet, here he is today, among an estimated 500 Tibetans in the Berkeley area, many of whom own small businesses. They seem to share a determination to succeed.
“They have tremendous entrepreneurial energy,” says Dave Fogarty, coordinator of the city’s community development project. “Unfortunately, there are very few programs to encourage small businesses. Most start with their savings. Many fail in the first year. But they are ready to start all over again.”
From jewelry to the Dalai Lama
Tibet Souvenirs, is open seven days a week. There, customers can buy colorful stone and metal jewelry; Kashmiri shawls and rugs; woven bags lined with shells; long, embroidered shirts and Indian artifacts; traditional Tibetan wear; wall hangings depicting the seven Buddhist mantras; and Tibetan draw curtains, as well as CDs and books on the Dalai Lama and Tibet.
The store exudes a cozy, homey atmosphere and Jehru’s friendly nature only makes it more comfortable.
“This place is so warm that I’d almost think there would be a chair here where one could sit and read,” said Eryn Hughes, a 27-year-old Oakland painter, who picked up a book on Buddha and a shirt at the store.
Until October, Jehru, whose parents fled Tibet in 1959 following the 1949 Chinese invasion and subsequent occupation, worked out of a cramped, 90-square-foot shop, quite fitting for his first foray into small business. It sat between two restaurants, largely obscured from passersby, except for the knickknacks he displayed outside.
Then as the business grew, he decided to find more space. When a storefront in two shops away from his became available, Jehru moved.
Jehru still likes to lure customers in with colorful woolen caps, bags and mufflers outside his new 800-square-foot shop, even though the store now sports a big glass window that reveals his colorful wares.
His rent has jumped from $500 to $2,625 a month. But Jehru is not complaining. He says his profits have climbed nearly 30 percent since he moved into the new place.
But when he decided to move to a bigger shop, Jehru says he was not thinking about expansion and how much more money he could make. He wanted a store that would be accessible to wheelchair users and he was tired of spending up to nine hours a day in a cramped place.
Jehru’s journey to Berkeley included several Bay Area hotel jobs, including the Cabana Hotel in Palo Alto and the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in San Mateo. But Jehru discovered his Tibetan nature wasn’t suited to the American hotel industry and, just as important, didn’t really like working for others.
“In this culture, employers look for aggressive people. The fact that (Tibetans) look small and are soft-spoken goes against them,” said Kendra Smith of Colusa, one of Jehru’s sponsors when he came to the United States.
SBA classes helped
So he struck out on his own after taking classes in bookkeeping and entrepreneurship conducted by the U.S. Small Business Administration in Oakland. He started the gift shop because he liked the idea of a business that would allow him to maintain ties to his homeland.
“I wanted to educate the American people about Tibet,” he said. “We, in a way, are ambassadors for Tibetans, telling Americans about our culture and about the Chinese occupation.”
Jehru keeps meticulous records of his weekly sales. He sells his products at double the cost, but keeps most of them under $20.
He also keeps tabs on how other Tibetan shops are pricing their products. “You may be able to sell an item once at a good price. But the customer may not come back a second time,” says Jehru. “The most important thing in business is turnover, not profit.”
Jehru pockets a modest but steady profit of about $1,000 a month and has already repaid $2,000 of the $5,000 that he borrowed from friends to start his business.
None of Jehru’s products comes directly from Tibet. He has three main suppliers, Uma Art International of Emeryville, and Kathmandu Imports and Nava Trading Co., both based in Los Angeles.
“Most Tibetan products are made in India and Nepal. There are too many restrictions in Tibet,” says Jehru. “This gives me a chance to tell customers about Tibet every time they ask why my products are made in India.”
