How One Couple Found a Business Idea Seven Thousand Miles from Home

By Lynne Strang, Late-Blooming Entrepreneurs

Meredith and Lee Hedrick

Doha, Qatar has megamalls, luxurious hotels and soaring skyscrapers. It also has a small- but-scrappy souvenir business with its own style.

Doha Designs is the brainchild of Lee and Meredith Hedrick, two Annandale, Virginia teachers on temporary assignment in Qatar. Since its launch a year and a half ago, the Hedricks’ startup has found a niche among Doha’s many Western expatriates seeking good-quality mementos of their time i...