IBA Students’ Entrepreneurship Success Stories

The IBA graduates have long been known to dominate job markets that constituted the supply side of labor, and for once it seemed that this state would remain perpetual and IBA graduates would succumb to what we typically refer to as ‘corporate slavery’-but not any longer. The tide of entrepreneurship is at its full swing as some IBA students initiate their businesses in the midst of undergraduate studies. It’s commendable on how they have jostled between their successful startups and the ever so rigorous academic life at IBA. We have hence selected four successful startups to explore what makes these ambitious entrepreneurs so unique and inspirational:

IBA Bookery:

The success story of IBA Bookery is very similar to that of other entrepreneurs working in IBA in different fields. The journey of this small business started in August 2013, with an aim to provide a platform whereby students within IBA can trade goods mainly books and related notes at competitive prices, without any hassle of searching books in different market places. This business is the extension of Big O Studios Photography to a new line of course material trading. The Bookery served the purpose of a place where buyers meet sellers easily, which once used to be a gap of communication and meeting right people to deliver our material to. Upon its launch, the audience welcomed the initiative with a very positive and appreciating response. Thus, the trading of course material was done tremendously, and speaking about their expectations, the co-owner,Safeer-e-Hussain said,

“The outcome and the initial response was beyond our expectations. We received a very positive response from all the people around. Many students were able to buy their complete semester books and even sell their books at a very good price compared to the local Urdu Bazar.”

To launch a new product in market is never an easy job, especially when there are competitors around, and you can smell strong resistance among the target market. Talking further about the problems IBA Bookery faced at its launch was to, Safeer pointed out that,

“One major difficulty that we faced was to persuade students to fill in the form for their books to be displayed on the catalogue. We tried to make the form entries as precise as possible to avoid any redundant information that anyone has to enter repeatedly. But the initial motivation to actually persuade them to list was one of the major problems. We tried so provide maximum ease by integrating the website with directly with Facebook feeds.”

However, strong determination and willpower could not stop IBA Bookery to success, and here it stands now in front of us, aiming to rise high and extend its horizon to a wider market.

A&M Apparel

The feeling was anything but natural for enterprising students like Azeem Naeem Adamjee and Mohammad Saleem Nasir when they decided to officially launch clothing brand, ‘A&M Apparel’ on November,10,2012.As they reached their 20s,they both felt obliged to start this business as sustainable source of income, allowing them to expand the brand after graduation.

The A&M Apparel designs and produces hoodies, jackets, polo shirts and t-shirts and initially started with test market consisting of only IBA students but now this has been broadened to youth as target audience. The indicators of success of this new clothing brand in terms of profitability and clientele are impressive. In the words of co-founder, Azeem Naeem Adamjee:

‘We have successfully catered to several institutions, which include Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi Boat Club, and The CAS School among many others. This has given us the opportunity to diversify into new products, along with providing us with healthy profits, part of which has been re-invested for future ventures and part of which has been used for our personal day-to-day expenses. And we just received our first international order from the United World College (UWC) in Hong Kong this month, so we can now proudly say that A&M is going global. Yay!’

According to him, the recipe for such success is attributable to taking decisions after mutual consensus with his fellow co-founder, Mohammad Saleem Nasir. In accordance with their skill set, Saleem takes care of financial side while Azeem handles the marketing side of the business. Interestingly, as startup entrepreneurs, they came across a funny incident as narrated in the following words of Azeem:

‘Last year when we made hoodies for IBA students, we also got many orders from the Faculty members at IBA. One of those orders was from Miss Lalarukh Ejaz. She had ordered a Small sized hoodie, but due to a packaging error, she was delivered a XL hoodie. So when we went to deliver it to her at Main Campus, she opened the packet up and said, “Is this a Small hoodie??” And I thought to myself “Is XL the new Small? Or have we made a packaging error?” Well for a moment we were like “Oops.” but then immediately we replaced her order.’

Well, in the early stages of entrepreneurial journey, the “Oops” never end. Speaking of IBA faculty, IBA CED has been really impressed by this business venture and has been very welcoming and supportive though the entire business operation is done outside IBA. And so with the resounding success of A&M Apparel, Azeem’s message to all aspiring entrepreneurs is that:

‘Always be a trend-setter, not a trend-follower. And never take an uncalculated or half-hearted risk. You are risking your life on that one decision, its better you put in all your effort to make that risk a success-but the real question here is, “Do you wear A&M?”.’

Pom Frites

Pom Frites and Aun Shah are well known today among the IBA community but little is known about the past endeavors of Aun and how he came onto the successful idea of Pom frites. Aun shares with us his passion for entrepreneurship and tells us that he had an entrepreneurial mindset even before coming to IBA. In 2010 He introduced chocolates and wafers in Pakistan by an Italian brand ‘Loackers’ and although the business is worth millions today, he was sadly driven out by one of his buyers. After that in 2011 he went to a development traineeship program in China. While his stay there the idea of fried ice cream caught his eye and fascinated him. He experimented with the idea and introduced a similar product in the Pakistani market which he sold on a modified Qingqi. However in order to mitigate risk he decided to sell French fries as a side product. This was the beginning of Pom frites because at this point he gave his business this name which literally means Fried potato in French. Furthermore to distinguish himself from competition he came up with his own recipe of Peri Bites and Chicken Chunks. Peri bites went on to become his most successful product and that is the reason he keeps its recipe a secret known only to him.

Regarding the connection of his business to IBA he has the following to say:

‘Although Pom Frites had nothing to do with IBA when it was launched, but later upon a meeting with Dr Shahid Qureshi, the door to IBA opened and we worked together on a partnership agreement and created an IBA-CED Incubate company “Pom Frites” that was launched separately. The supply chain is the same, but operations for Pom Frites and Pom Frites IBA are both different.’
When asked about the experience that he had as an entrepreneur and the difficulties that he faced, his response was as follows:
‘Starting a business is not easy, it requires capability to handle a lot of stress, if anything goes wrong in your business, you’re responsible. However the learning is immense and it’s a job where you are the boss.’

Finally he says that he does not consider his business work at all because it is something that he loves and is a staunch believer of the saying:

“Do the work you love and you won’t have to work a day”

T-Labels

Talha Ali, a junior BBA student, is the most recent addition to the league of IBA entrepreneurs. He has joined this league by launching T-labels, a clothing brand providing apparels, last month in IBA. When asked about his recent launch he had the following to say:

‘Entrepreneurship has always been my passion and this was one way I could translate it into action’

Talha also goes on to talk about the target market that he defines for his brand:

‘T-labels was launched through IBA platform, however our target market is not confined to the students, alumni and faculty of IBA, instead it expands to all the young population of Karachi.’

Additionally,he believes that his brand is in the infant range right now but the product portfolio is gradually increasing. He also mentioned in the interview that he has faced many hurdles since the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, like not being able to convince the IBA administration about his idea and not being effectively able to implement some strategies like marketing strategies. However his perseverance has carried him through all that as his brand has been finally approved by CED and this has led to opening of a lot of doors for him. He has come into contact with many suppliers and industrialists who gave him an insight into many important market characteristics and he was also able to overcome many administrative hurdles.

Finally he gives a message to the entrepreneurs who are starting off that:
‘Believe in your idea and believe in yourself, apply your business concepts learnt in books, work hard with persistence and you are bound to achieve your targets.’

Lessons to be learnt

These entrepreneurs of IBA are living examples of the fact that it is never too early or never too late to start believing in yourself and your dreams. All that stands between you and your success is a little perseverance and a little hard work. So go ahead, dream, believe and work hard, who knows when entrepreneurial success might come knocking your door.

"I Made IBA"

‘I got a call inquiring about my Made in IBA hoodies and I was surprised to find that it was from a worker at IBA. It was rather shocking that he had even heard of the brand and so I shared this experience with my Facebook friends via a status update, many people wanted to contribute to give the worker a free hoodie. Before I knew it, I had decided to take the initiative to give all the workers free hoodies, the I Made IBA hoodies’. These are the words of Sahabzada Aunuddin Qadri, a student of BBA at IBA and the owner of the brand Why Generation, and this is how the story of the I Made IBA hoodies started.

The idea that Aun initially had was to provide free hoodies for the entire staff and workers at IBA. However after inquiring the administration about the total number of these workers, Aun was taken aback by the fact that there were 400 workers in city campus alone. This was a reality check for him and he realized that he had to be practical in his approach as it was impossible to provide hoodies for the entire staff and construction workers at IBA. Thus at this point he had to change his aim slightly and decided to only target the junior staff (100-125 in number) which for them comprises of administration junior staff, peons, photocopiers and canteen staff at both the campuses.

With regards to the support from the IBA administration Aun had the following to say:
‘The experience with the administration has been a bit slow in terms of communication due to their availability issues. However, the administration was supportive, and guided us well. It provided us with the sort of insight that we would not have on our own.’ He also added that the administration also helped them by providing donation boxes, which have now been placed at both the campuses.

The charity drive for the I Made IBA initiative is currently in full swing. Its marketing is also being done on the social media through many people, the majority of whom have volunteered to market for the cause. Donations are being received from both the students as well as faculty. The collections of donations are to continue till the fourth of January after which the proceeds will be used in manufacturing the hoodies.

In the end I would like to add that the total sum which is required for this project is only Rs. 55,000 which seems achievable if all the students at IBA contribute generously. So come on and be a part of this amazing initiative to put a smile on the face of those people this winter who work for us, who work for IBA. Donate and help transform the dream of providing hoodies to these people into a reality.

The holiday-less celebration of Dewali

Written by: Maryam Tajjali and Bakhtawar Ali

"I miss spending Dewali with my family," said Meena Kumari in a melancholy tone.
Strolling around the university all day, we wondered whether the Hindu students wanted Dewali to be considered a national holiday across the country. Dewali is the biggest and perhaps most vigorously celebrated event in the Hindu culture. Underneath the sheet of colors, and fireworks that glitter the nights during the festival, there are a crux of festivities which relates to prayers being offered to their gods.
It is intriguing to know that the attachment and indulgence associated with this occasion are very similar to that tied with Eid. Also, like Eid, its dates are decided by the moon calendar and they fell on Sunday and Monday, 3rd and 4th of November, this year. We have always wanted and prayed the fourth day of Eid be declared a holiday, so the fact that the Hindu student body is not granted a holiday even on their "Eid" seemed overwhelming.
One of the questions asked to the Hindu students on the campus was “Do you want the university to be closed for Dewali, even though Hindus in the institution are a small minority”; the responses varied- some were defiant, others were compromising. Upset about spending Dewali away from her family, one of the freshmen quoted "The festivities end late at night and I wouldn't have been able to attend classes early morning the next day, we shouldn't be deprived of our holidays just because we're a minority". Another freshman had a different take, “It’s inconvenient, but I don't expect a university of thousands to shut down for less than a hundred people". The variety in responses did not just end there; a junior year student referenced to India's holiday policy in the following words, "Our government should implement a policy regarding the monitory events as our neighbor (India) does, which allows both Eid and Dewali to be a gazetted holiday". It was further asked whether they wanted to be excused from attending classes during Dewali. This turned out to be controversial as although majority of the students were willing to take the offer, some of them felt that having to miss classes was equally inconvenient.

To widen the scope we then went to non-Muslim faculty members. It was a pleasant surprise that the government of Pakistan does recognize minority holidays. Mr. Manoj from the city campus told us, "IBA allows Dewali holidays as an option to its staff as it's a gazetted holiday by the government of Pakistan". The students not getting an off while the teachers enjoyed optional holiday seemed rather unfair but Mr. Roger Eli shed light on a different point of view: "Student life is when you're making something of yourself so you can't afford to stand against the rush and be left behind. The staff is merely enjoying the perks and payoffs of the efforts they put in to get where they are."

Interestingly, Pakistani Christians are lucky to have Christmas coincide with the winter vacations and Muhammad Ali Jinnah's birthday. However, they too are denied holidays on occasions like Thanksgiving and Easter as students or private sector employees. The Christian students we came across were generally just happy that they get to celebrate Christmas with wholesome zeal and zest, "our other occasions are secondary compared to Christmas". A highly esteemed member of IBA teaching staff, Professor Leon Menezes said the taking up the optional holiday can be a burden in itself "if faculty takes leave, he/she will have to conduct make up session later."

The students and teaching faculty at IBA generally think that although closing the University for every Minority’s Events would be a drastic step, it's only reasonable to at least allow the students leave on the days of their festivals. Just because they're a smaller group does not mean their feelings are any less important and giving them holidays on their festivals would make them feel much more welcome and valued. We approached Professor Bilal Munshi with this problem and he replied with what is the-cherry-on-top to this argument "You guys get off for all your Eid days, if Hindus getting Holidays on Dewali makes them happy- Why not?"