How Naadam grew from risky loan to lucrative cashmere fashion brand

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The story of Matt Scanlan, Diederik Rijsemus and cashmere apparel brand Naadam reads like an adventure novel. During a globetrotting vacation in 2013, the two college friends found themselves stranded among Mongolian goat herders in the Gobi Desert for three weeks. They learned about the wool trade, and came away with a business idea: Make low-priced cashmere goods by purchasing wool directly from those herders, skipping the middlemen who bought low and sold to apparel brands at a high markup. Neither co-founder had any industry experience or enough money to fund a startup. But in 2015, Scanlan's parents put up...