Nowar Rahmouni is a Syrian diaspora and the founder of Gharna, a venture that sells traditional, natural, and organic products with handcraft designs. Nowar is part of the Zidicircle Diaspora Entrepreneurship Bootcamp 2020

The story behind the venture name

Gharna Halabi, is also known as Aleppo Soap. Aleppo is an Arabic word that means Halab, Gharna Halabi means the Laurel, which is the natural product used, is Aleppean.

What the venture does

Gharna produces traditional, natural, and organic Aleppean products with special handmade packages. They provide value through making special limited packages as natural and eco-friendly gifts.

Gharna’s primary audience are Syrians in Exile facing issues with contacting other natives. They buy traditional gifts from Gharna Halabi to help them start the journey in their new communities. These packages remind them of home and its memories.

Our markets are in Lebanon, the UAE, Europe, China, and now looking to go into the USA.

All our products are 100% natural and so famous in Syria and the world such as Aleppo soap, we craft them manually and pack them into eco-friendly handmade packages.

Gharna’s background and history

Nowar was in her senior year when she got stress-induced eczema. She told her parents about it, and they sent her Aleppo soap which helped with the conditions.

She was broke and needed money to survive and finish her school projects, that’s where the enterprising spirit developed from. Facebook was popular, and Nowar decided to open a page with some images of the soaps she had.

There was a lot of interest, and we got direct calls for orders, which we sold and got more to sustain the increasing orders. My father laughed when I told him we were selling and he sent larger quantities as people kept asking for our products, packaged for the holidays as gifts.

How the name and idea was born

The name Gharna was from one of our products, while we gave the online page a name that was aimed at bringing people closer to Aleppean products.

They later changed the project’s name to Gharna Halabi,

because people saved the product name instead of the company’s. When we chose Gharna, my partner asked about the name, and I answered that it is our Laurel, which triggered Halabi, to make it easy. It is our Laurel from Aleppo city.

Gharna Halabi, because it was relatable and simple for customers.

Nowar’s 3 key pieces of advice from her journey to fellow entrepreneurs

1. Start small and grow with time
2. Listen to your customers because they are the reason behind your success
3. Ask for help from professionals when you attend entrepreneurship training

What triggered Nowar to take part in the Bootcamp

I was looking for more connections and a different point of view.

What Nowar has learnt so far from the program and how she has applied the lessons learnt

I learnt how to create a persona of my customer, that helped me understand who they are, what they do, and how to find them.

The Gharna Halabi we hope to see in 3 years

Gharna products getting known in Europe and the USA.

Experience with the Bootcamp

The Bootcamp contains lots of essential contents, especially the financial part. I have attended a lot of entrepreneurship programs, and none of them went through the finance topic into details, which is what most of us entrepreneurs struggle with.