You are a prominent entrepreneur in the lifestyle sector. You are at the helm of affairs of your ventures at a very young age. What drove you to start a business rather than a 9 to 5 job?
Well it’s never a 9 to 5 job, It’s always a “9 onwards job”. There is no “chuti time” in Pakistan. Coming to your question, well It’s not like I started my career as an entrepreneur or was born to a business family. Just like most people, I spent my initial years working for various organizations. As times have changed now and every employee dreams of starting their own business, so did I. The issue people like us face is that we are not willing to give up our well settled job for starting a business as it involves huge risk. The only solution to this is to gather full confidence in yourself along with complete faith in God. I also faced the same issue initially but the process and training I went through during my job days gave me some confidence. I believe unless you don’t go through this whole job process the chances for you to succeed are very less. It’s not just the knowledge of work you need to acquire, it’s about how to get a job done, how to make things happen. You need to have some command over all the departments that play crucial role in any business. You need to have a strong grip over dealing with people, HR skills, Marketing, Branding, PR, Vendor dealing, some basic knowledge of Finance and Accounts and most importantly command over developing systems or creating SOPs and ensuring it’s implementation. So once I felt that I had grasped some command over these things during my job days I went ahead with my first business opportunity and left my job. Btw I am still struggling with Accounts and Finance as I was basically a marketing person. Moreover you also need to have the right people, right partners who have faith in you and vice versa. So all the above factors plus my supportive business and life partner; my wife and my childhood friend and my business partner; Adeel played a huge role in this transformation. Remember you will always have friends with whom you plan different business ideas every night but they never move on to the execution part. Identify them and ignore them because you only need partners who are not just dreamers but doers.
Tell us about all your ventures in detail.
Well my main competency is in Marketing and Branding. I am one of the pioneers of digital marketing in Pakistan and have many years of experience in this field. I have a Digital Marketing Agency “Click 247” where we provide digital services to the International clients only. Then I have a school “National Grammar School” and a franchise of Gloria Jeans in Askari 11 along with a restaurant with the name “Foci”. I have another cafe “Cafe La Vue” in IMC hospital phase 5 DHA. It specializes in healthy food and we aim to provide tasty but healthy and nutritious food to the patients and their attendees. I also have a Jewelry brand with my wife “Zeevar by Mahin Akbar”. We provide customized 925k silver jewelry and precious and semi precious stones.
You have been in the food business for far too long. Why did you think it was lucrative to get involved in this sector? How have you seen the food market grow and expand over the years?
Honestly, lucrative was not the only reason for me entering this field, it was my personal interest or you may call it my passion as I am a big foodie myself. The market has grown in the past but at the same time has become highly saturated. Under these current circumstances, I don’t see it growing but surviving only. For the new entrants, you certainly need to bring something new to the table in order to survive.
Out of all your business ventures, which is the most profitable for you?
Profitability depends on many factors especially in these circumstances, COVID before and now political instability. So I can not rank any particular business in terms of profitability as all my businesses have out performed each other in various times. This is why one should keep on diversifying their business portfolio and should never rely on any particular business.
What are you currently working on?
Currently I am working in collaboration with Vapemall on some new innovations to help reduce the smoking culture in Pakistan. It’s a secret, and will be announced soon. Other than that I have some expansion plans with my current businesses.
What according to you has been your biggest achievement so far?
Well it’s just the start. At this stage of my life the achievements are too less or you may say too small in scale to be considered as an achievement that one can share publicly. There is a lot to be done yet. For now achievement for me would be to do justice to the brands that I currently have and satisfy my clientele consistently.
How do you deal with unhappy clients?
Client dealing is a different world altogether. The client can never be happy if he/she feels that the brand is not realising their mistake or doesn’t really intend to solve the problem. We all make mistakes but acknowledging and intending to take corrective measures is the most important thing. I try my best to personally attend the clients and most importantly listen to them. As my main field has been digital marketing, my clients may not know this but 100 percent of the complaints online, all go by me and my wife. In fact, we personally reply to them specially for the school business because it is a very delicate work as people are trusting us with the career and future of their kids.
With your sheer brilliance and hardwork, you are one of the most influential people of the country. Who has influenced you to pursue your current line of work?
Thanks for the kind words. Regarding who influenced me the most, well it was my boss “Asif Sana” when I was doing a job as the Brand Manager at NGents. Infact, I would rather call him my mentor. He is one of the top entrepreneurs of Pakistan and believe me you can not beat him when it comes to building an organization from scratch and ensuring the systems, the SOPs are not just in place but being religiously followed. Before meeting him I always kept hearing that you need to have a mentor if you want to succeed which I didn’t believe at that time. But he made sure to bring the best out of me and always kept pushing me by giving more responsibilities other than guiding and inspiring me so yeah I can not take away that credit from him.