My First Business, with Naeem Parvez

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My First Business, with Naeem Parvez Naeem Parvez is a new, and sometimes clueless business owner. Join him on his journey of hardships a

Ever wondered just how tough it can be to take the entrepreneurial plunge? 🫣From the challenging task of finding the rig...
30/11/2023

Ever wondered just how tough it can be to take the entrepreneurial plunge? 🫣

From the challenging task of finding the right talents who jive with the company’s values and culture to the inevitable hiccups in landing those big projects, she’s seen her fair share of ups and downs.

Meet Jaya Maru, co-Founder and CEO of Rewardz Middle East, has been into HR digital transformation, incentives management and investment banking for 17+ years now. But she’s not just your typical businessperson. She’s an optimist, a hustler, a learner, and a self-proclaimed nerd. 🤓

Despite these challenges she experienced, she always goes back to the purpose of why she’s doing it: to build moments of joy in a world where people always feel valued. 🥰

During my chat with Jaya, we delved into discussions about:
👀 Managing C Players in business
🤝 Hiring based on value alignment than skillset
💼 How demotion is necessary for personal growth
👎 Losing a major deal and learning from it
💭 Sales process and mindset of enterprise clients
🗣 Importance of user interaction and feedback for ideas
💰 Setting realistic expectations and negotiating on pricing
✨ Aligning personal with business purpose
🫂 How EO helped her during the toughest phase of her life
👩‍🦳 Lessons learned from her late mother

We share stories, insights, and a few good laughs along the way, making this a podcast episode you won’t want to miss. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. ✨

What an honor to have been invited as a guest speaker and talk in front of 50+ women entrepreneurs, where I had the oppo...
09/10/2023

What an honor to have been invited as a guest speaker and talk in front of 50+ women entrepreneurs, where I had the opportunity to discuss the art of Elevating Sales Mastery. 🤝

I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to for choosing me to share my expertise. It's a fun experience, indeed.

I hope that my insights have provided you with valuable clarity on how to maximize your sales in your respective businesses. 😊

Here are some quick snaps from this recent event that I am excited to share with you. Also, they were so sweet they give me a customized gift with my name on it.

Swipe left to see the behind the scenes of the event and the special gift! 👀

Dr Sassan’s story is incredible. From fleeing a revolution, to searching for truth through politics, to becoming an Atto...
28/09/2023

Dr Sassan’s story is incredible. From fleeing a revolution, to searching for truth through politics, to becoming an Attorney at Law, and finally becoming an entrepreneur – the twists will leave you in awe. 😯

He has managed to grow German Imaging Technologies (GIT) Dubai LLC for 24 years, despite these stats being stacked against him:

The average age of a business: 14 years
The % of businesses that reach $1M in annual revenue: 5%
The % of business that exceed $5M: 0.6%

GIT has become a printing solutions powerhouse in the Middle East and in Africa, while facing challenges like a paperless economy, a pandemic that shut down offices and numerous low-priced competitors.

It’s not easy being in the top 0.6%. 🤷

As I do with my guests, Dr Sassan Dieter Khatib-Shahidi and I travelled across a wide variety of topics, but the most beneficial part of this interview is when he delivered a short masterclass on how to set OKRs, you wouldn’t want to miss that. 😉

Apart from that, we talked about:
🤔 Identifying A players and C players
💖 Loving to solve the challenges of business
❌ Failure is not an option (unless it’s a controlled experiment)
🤝 Importance of being transparent to your employees
💰 Focus on selling one first
😊 Leading people with a smile
💡 Setting the right vision and purpose
🌟 Understanding and defining the North Star
🪖 Revolution in 1978 that changed Dr. Sassan family’s life

What I love about Dr. Sassan is that he’s sharp in business, but yet works hard to remain spiritually grounded – I wish I’d recorded our coffee conversation after the interview for you guys to hear. He’s got the German efficiency mixed in with Buddhist concept of accepting suffering – it’s a real fun mix, he’s really quite a treat to share a room with. 🤗

I don’t think there was a single dull moment in the whole interview, and I can’t wait for you to listen to it!

“Some people like big numbers. They want to make big money. They want to change the world in a certain way. What I reali...
12/09/2023

“Some people like big numbers. They want to make big money. They want to change the world in a certain way. What I realized is that those goalposts will always keep moving.” - Ruchir Punjabi

Ruchir reminded me of the story of Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is condemned to an eternal punishment, where he is forced to push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, repeating the task for eternity. 😮

We related the story to our business endeavors and the cyclical nature of life's struggles, reminding us to find meaning and purpose in the journey itself, even when facing seemingly endless challenges. 🤗

Ruchir now finds his meaning and purpose not in reaching the top of the hill or achieving a grand goal, but in the very act of pushing the boulder itself. 💪

Ruchir Punjabi is the Co-Founder and CEO at Distributed Energy, which is an emerging market solar platform, that helps investors invest in solar as an asset class, and helps businesses of all kinds save money by transitioning to solar.

Before Distributed Energy, Ruchir had founded Langoor – one of APAC’s largest independent digital agencies that was later sold to Havas Group in 2019. Langoor started in his living room in Sydney, Australia before growing to a 200+ people behemoth. They had offices in Dubai, Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Mumbai prior to the sale. Ruchir sold his balance stake in Langoor to a Private Equity group in 2022.

You can tell he is busy man. 💼

It would’ve been next to impossible to cover his entire journey, but I did manage to get him to shower me with his wisdom on a wide range of topics. 🧠

Ruchir is the kind of guy I want beside me on an 18-hour flight. He is an absolute dreamer, and go-getter and go-giver too. His humility in our conversation really touched my heart, and I think it’ll do the same for you - please enjoy my wide-ranging chat with Ruchir Punjabi, on the EO Series of the My First Business Podcast. 🎧

“We need to stop setting these unattainable precedents for what it means to be successful - happy in love, the perfect b...
29/08/2023

“We need to stop setting these unattainable precedents for what it means to be successful - happy in love, the perfect business, the ideal bank account. All of these things, they don't last. They are just stories.”

I won't lie, as I mentioned to Dana, preparing for this episode was quite challenging. The more I researched and learned about her, the more I realized how similar our wavelengths were - how much fun is a podcast interview where we just agree with each other?

But I was floored. Dana embodies so much more than I naively expected. 🤯

She has accomplished a lot, in a short amount of time. I was eager to learn how I can do the same, and she did not disappoint in inspiring me! 🤗

Dana has worked in the branding industry for nearly 14 years. She started in brand design, then shifted into strategy, and was later appointed to run a multinational agency's regional office. Seven years ago, she co-founded her creative firm, Beattie + Dane, in Kuwait. The firm has been globally recognized and has won awards at shows like Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx. It was ranked as one of the top three independent agencies twice. In 2022, Dana sold her shares and left the company to pursue a new passion. She now resides in Dubai, where she runs a strategic consultancy for CEOs called Bark & Berg. Dana also hosts a podcast called ‘Something to Consider.’ 🎙️

Dana is a creative that wants to tell stories from her region. She wants to engage in deep conversations and create things that will push conversations and storytelling forward, as you’ll hear in this episode.

Dana calls it like it is, and I love that we didn’t have to sugar coat ourselves in this conversation. She has a wonderful way with words - she makes you think for yourself without giving you step-by-step advice. 😌

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, I was left with many things to consider after our chat! Please do share this episode with people you love.

Have you every collapsed at an event with over 500 people in attendance? Not because of fatigue, or dehydration - but be...
15/08/2023

Have you every collapsed at an event with over 500 people in attendance? Not because of fatigue, or dehydration - but because of inspiration?

Mazen has.

But let me back up, Mazen’s journey has taken many turns.

From humble beginnings in his grandfather's store - where he would argue pricing strategy at the age of 8 - to selling Polaroid pictures to pilgrims in Medina as a teenager, and finally becoming an entrepreneur by necessity after losing his job and having to pay a triple mortgage... it's been a rollercoaster ride!

Mazen Omair had been investing in and running franchises for over a decade (Subway Restaurants, and Sugarfield & Co) before he attended an event organized by EO. The theme of the event was "Purpose-driven Business.” Before this, he hadn’t put two and two together - CSR was just something large corporate did with leftover money, right? Charities were supposed to be non-profit only, right?

From that time on, Mazen’s entrepreneurial journey changed forever. Mazen and his wife Rana Batterjee would go on to found their first purpose-driven business → EduPloyment.

I was really touched by Mazen’s passion, and his wisdom, throughout our conversation.

Overall, two of the biggest take aways for me from this conversation were:
-Understand your values, communicate them, and live your life based on your values with high integrity
-Don’t live your life on hold, what if the time to pursue your dream never comes?

I can’t believe I don’t have more people like him in my life. Mazen broke me, in a very good way, as you’ll hear in this episode.

If this is the first episode of My First Business that you’ll be listening to, you’ve picked well my friend! And if you’re coming back from hearing other episodes, you will not be disappointed.

Becoming successful doesn’t just “happen.”There’s always forces moving against you that are outside your control. That’s...
01/08/2023

Becoming successful doesn’t just “happen.”

There’s always forces moving against you that are outside your control. That’s what Hasan faced - just two years into his business journey, the 2008 financial crisis came knocking on his door. He was young, had a family to support and had left the corporate world behind - but opportunities were running dry.

Today, Hasan Fadlallah runs an award winning brand agency (Brand Lounge), launched a socially-driven incubator (Fullmoon Experiments), started an F&B venture (Against All Odds) and serves on the Board of Trout & Partners. If you knew Hasan in 2008, you would know that he’d be able to pull it off, solely because of the principles he lives by.

To get here, Hasan had to counter the external forces with those of his own - resilience, determination, and a dogged desire to improve his circumstances. The man doesn’t give up! When most of us are scrambling for the fastest fix, Hasan uses his setbacks as an opportunity for reflection and introspection, and gets stronger with every crisis.

If you want to know how he has created this anti-fragility in his business, you will want to listen to this episode from the EO Series of the My First Business podcast. Here are some highlights from my conversation with Hasan:

🐥 His mini-business in his teenager years

💸 The importance of cash-flow in times of crisis

📈 Joy of meeting targets and building relationships

⚪ Impact of brand strategy and positioning in business (and why no one cares about your logo)

💼 The differences between an entrepreneur and a CEO

📉 Facing risks in starting Brand Lounge

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Building a team, that ends up building your business (you’re not alone)

↪️ Pivoting the business model

💲Understanding value-based pricing and evolving pricing philosophy

👂The value of experience sharing with other entrepreneurs

🥤Landing Red Bull as a client and the importance of ethical behavior

…and so much more!

If you’re in the place of uncertainty in your business, I do suggest hanging out with Hasan for the next hour or so, by listening to my latest episode of the EO series, on the My First Business podcast.

Link in bio.

In business, how do you balance seizing opportunities quickly, without risking failure?From Dubai to California, you hea...
18/07/2023

In business, how do you balance seizing opportunities quickly, without risking failure?

From Dubai to California, you hear the popular chant of "move fast and break things". They don’t show you the graveyard of businesses that operated with that mentality - Zuck could do it, but the rest have moved fast and broken their companies (and their people) to pieces.

Rishi⁠ has a better approach - drawing from his experiences of founding 4 diversified businesses, has learned the importance of starting small, growing gradually, and prioritizing quality before chasing rapid scalability. And he’s managed to this is in the toughest of industries (sustainability and renewable energy), in two separate regions (Middle East and Africa).

This philosophy is evident in his successful venture, ⁠FIKA Mobility⁠, which offers innovative electric vehicles (EVs) powered by efficient battery swapping technology reducing the cost and speed of recharging EVs.

In this episode of EO Series of the My First Business Podcast, Rishi and I discussed about:
🤑 The greed that plagues some entrepreneurs (the pie is big enough!)
🤝 Best way of retaining people (how to have generational employees)
💖 Transparency, empathy and vulnerability with employees
🏇 Betting on yourself
✍️ Lessons learned from his entrepreneurial family (his father, mother, brother, aunts & uncles)
🛵 Investing in an e-motorbike business in Kenya
🏗️ Starting small and taking calculated risks
⚡ Balancing iteration speed and perfectionism

Now, my dear audience, the one main reason you should listen to this episode is solely because of Rishi’s captivating storytelling - he was so humble throughout the conversation, that I couldn’t tell I was sitting with boss of all bosses, and his warmth is something that will be sure to light up your day.

Watch or listen to the new episode of My First Business Podcast! Link in Bio! 👆

In business, how do you balance seizing opportunities quickly, without risking failure?From Dubai to California, you hea...
18/07/2023

In business, how do you balance seizing opportunities quickly, without risking failure?

From Dubai to California, you hear the popular chant of "move fast and break things". They don’t show you the graveyard of businesses that operated with that mentality - Zuck could do it, but the rest have moved fast and broken their companies (and their people) to pieces.

Rishi⁠ has a better approach - drawing from his experiences of founding 4 diversified businesses, has learned the importance of starting small, growing gradually, and prioritizing quality before chasing rapid scalability. And he’s managed to this is in the toughest of industries (sustainability and renewable energy), in two separate regions (Middle East and Africa).

This philosophy is evident in his successful venture, ⁠FIKA Mobility⁠, which offers innovative electric vehicles (EVs) powered by efficient battery swapping technology reducing the cost and speed of recharging EVs.

In this episode of EO Series of the My First Business Podcast, Rishi and I discussed about:
🤑 The greed that plagues some entrepreneurs (the pie is big enough!)
🤝 Best way of retaining people (how to have generational employees)
💖 Transparency, empathy and vulnerability with employees
🏇 Betting on yourself
✍️ Lessons learned from his entrepreneurial family (his father, mother, brother, aunts & uncles)
🛵 Investing in an e-motorbike business in Kenya
🏗️ Starting small and taking calculated risks
⚡ Balancing iteration speed and perfectionism

Now, my dear audience, the one main reason you should listen to this episode is solely because of Rishi’s captivating storytelling - he was so humble throughout the conversation, that I couldn’t tell I was sitting with boss of all bosses, and his warmth is something that will be sure to light up your day.

Watch or listen to this new episode of My First Business Podcast! Link in BIO! 👆

What would you do if you lost 60-80% of your revenue overnight?For Marie-Christine Luijckx (aka MC) – the founder of Fru...
09/06/2023

What would you do if you lost 60-80% of your revenue overnight?

For Marie-Christine Luijckx (aka MC) – the founder of Fruitful Day in Dubai - this wasn’t just a hypothetical question.

It was her reality. ☹️

When the pandemic hit and offices started shutting down, her B2B fruit delivery business took an immediate hit. Offices called her to pause contracts, deliveries were paused, and she still had overheads to pay.

And yet, Fruitful Day actually grew.
Not just grew, but thrived. 📈

So what saved MC while other businesses started closing their doors?
Her ability to react, and to react fast with a masterful pivot. 💪

MC is an experimenter at heart, and an organized one at that. In fact, if I had to summarize who MC is as a business owner, I’d say she was the walking embodiment of the idiom, “Luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparedness.”

She opened my eyes to the importance continuous product experiments, setting up your business for a successful pivot at any time, and never being caught dead with all eggs in one basket.

Whether you have or haven’t planned for your worst case scenarios, this episode will inspire you to build that into how you run your day to day business.

In this episode of the EO Series, MC and I talked about how Fruitful Day cracked the code.
🧺 Sensing new opportunities and putting eggs in multiple baskets
✨ The ‘Aha’ moment that she knew she was on to something good
🧠 Making tough decisions in the midst of a hazy macro-economic environment
🫂 Finding her tribe via EO
💼 The most interesting way to hire salespeople
👩‍🏫 3 ways to be a good mentor
💵 Shift from bootstrapping to raising $1m from investors

I hope this story brings a smile to your face and inspires you, just like it did for me. Sometimes, even in difficult times, there's an opportunity to do something amazing. ✨

Listen to this new episode available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform!

Click the LINK IN BIO! 🔗

How did you identify the opportunities that unintentionally gave rise to the creation of your own business?One day, Maan...
01/06/2023

How did you identify the opportunities that unintentionally gave rise to the creation of your own business?

One day, Maanav asked a restaurant owner if he knows who the biggest spender in the restaurant is, and he didn’t get an answer. This encounter sparked the idea of developing a tech product aimed at enhancing restaurant service to customers. Although his startup venture, like many others, had a limited lifespan, this experience fueled his fascination with delving further into entrepreneurship and eventually becoming a Venture Capitalist.

Maanav Sagar is now a Partner at Bharat Founders Fund (BFF), which is an early stage venture group, of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs globally, and they’ve got a great portfolio of some exciting companies .

In this episode, Maanav and I talked about:
💡Finding opportunities everywhere
🛠️ Solving the right problems (and truly understanding product market fit)
💔 Dealing with self-doubt and self-worth after shutting down his business
↪️ His strange path to becoming a VC (from making money, to taking other people’s money)
👥 Choosing between serial and first time entrepreneurs
💸 Defining financial freedom

If you’ve been dreaming of being a full time investor like me, then you’ll be chewing up the golden nuggets from my conversation with Maanav Sagar of Bharat Founders Fund.

Click the link in bio to watch or listen to this episode! 😊

How did you identify the opportunities that unintentionally give rise to the creation of your own business?One day, Maan...
01/06/2023

How did you identify the opportunities that unintentionally give rise to the creation of your own business?

One day, Maanav asked a restaurant owner if he knows who the biggest spender in the restaurant is, and he didn’t get an answer. This encounter sparked the idea of developing a tech product aimed at enhancing restaurant service to customers. Although his startup venture, like many others, had a limited lifespan, this experience fueled his fascination with delving further into entrepreneurship and eventually becoming a Venture Capitalist.

Maanav is now a Partner at Bharat Founders Fund ([BFF](https://bff.investopad.com)), which is an early stage venture group, of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs globally, and they’ve got a great portfolio of some exciting companies.

If you’ve been dreaming of being a full time investor like me, then you’ll be chewing up the golden nuggets from my conversation with Maanav Sagar of Bharat Founders Fund.

Click the link in bio! 👆

Looking for a dose of reality in the world of entrepreneurship? Look no further than Roma Vora of Aranya Farms. .madam  ...
19/05/2023

Looking for a dose of reality in the world of entrepreneurship? Look no further than Roma Vora of Aranya Farms. .madam

As a successful business owner, Roma knows that not every entrepreneur has a daily meditation practice or reads one book a month, but what they do have is the ability to learn from their failures and keep moving forward.

In Part #2 of the EO Series, Roma and I talked about:

💁🏽‍♀️Roma's self-awareness
🤔The challenges of being in a family business
🍃Taking a break to gain perspective
🤝Networking and relationship building
👼Balancing work and motherhood
👩‍💻Innovation and business development
✨Being present in the moment
🤗Handling feedback
🌾The joy of growing a farm business

She is breath of fresh air - I almost want to bring Roma back every month for an episode, it is absolutely intoxicating being around her bubbly energy!

Tune in for some real talk on entrepreneurship and a glimpse into the life of a successful businesswoman who isn't afraid to keep it real.

Link in Bio.👆

A reminder to keep going.
16/11/2022

A reminder to keep going.

How many entrepreneurs knew they had to go ALL IN after attending a concert?⁠⁠Upasana’s  life experiences - including be...
01/09/2022

How many entrepreneurs knew they had to go ALL IN after attending a concert?⁠

Upasana’s life experiences - including being the first in her family to get on a plane, and the first one to study abroad - built her confidence to start her neurofeedback clinic - Evolve Brain Training. ⁠

She is by the far one of most fearless humans I know!⁠

Couple that with her own experience of neurofeedback therapy to treat her insomnia, and a ton of trials she ran in her husband’s office - she knew she was on to something good.⁠

In Episode 09 of My First Business, I got together with Upasana hoping to glean lessons on starting a business from scratch, and I wasn’t disappointed! ⁠

We talked about:⁠

🔥 replacing yourself⁠
🔥 hiring mistakes⁠
🔥 self care routines for business owners⁠
🔥 (not) celebrating successes ⁠
🔥 faster decision making⁠
🔥 lessons from mentors (including “it’s okay to be mediocre”)⁠
🔥 your business is your baby⁠
🔥 improving your inner salesperson⁠
🔥 retreats and vision days with your teams⁠⁠

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!⁠

This episode is brought you by

--Where to find the podcast--⁠
🎙 Spotify⁠
🎙 iTunes⁠
🎙 YouTube

A  gem
27/08/2022

A gem

Super fun one in the pipeline!With  of
15/08/2022

Super fun one in the pipeline!
With of

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