Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
From Aircraft Cleaner to Airline OWNER | Kazi Shafiqur Rahman - Muslim Money Talk Ep 21
Meet Kazi Shafiqur Rahman, Co-founder of SunnaMusk and Firnas Airways, as he shares his journey from being a cleaner at an airport to becoming a successful entrepreneur and airline owner. This conversation literally has it all, the ultimate highs and horrific lows of entrepreneurship, to the importance of family in business.
This podcast is powered by Kestrl.
Kestrl is an app that helps Muslim to grow their wealth without compromising their beliefs
Kestrl - The Muslim Money App
https://kestrl.io/
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Coming Up
01:55 – Introduction
04:48- Coming to the UK and early education
09:28 – Why Aviation? Working at the airport
18:57 – Getting fired and working with family
24:00 - Making money vs. Religion
26:27 - Learning how to do business
29:46 - Becoming a serial entrepreneur
35:20 - Starting Sunnamusk with brothers
38:58 - Consistency, consistency, consistency!
44:12 - Setting a Northstar and raising capital
48:10 - Whitechapel market and the route to Westfield
55:38 – Entering shopping malls and early success
58:47- Pitching to Westfield mall and becoming a real brand
01:06:47 – The Channel 4 documentary
01:10:47 – Leaving Sunnamusk for the Firnas Airways
01:18:19 - What happened to Firnas?
01:21:20 - Lessons learned
01:26:49 – Conclusion and closing remarks
it was my wife that dared me once, before we got married. I would tell her look, I'm gonna launch an airline one day and I don't know, for some reason she believed in it as well. I'm like why would people shouldn't believe you? But she did. And then she goes to me one night. You know, I'll call you a man if you do it. I'm like, bro, my manhood is at question. Now how can I, how can I say please?
Speaker 2:please tell me that wasn't the main reason that you.
Speaker 1:It triggered me. Honestly, look, I knew I was going to do it. I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn't know it was going to be at that time. I think aviation has turned me into a man.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, I'm joined by Qazi Shafiq Rahman, founder and CEO of Sunna Musk, as well as Furnas Airways. He described his meteoric rise, how he went from coming to this country in 1997, not being able to speak a word of English, finding a job as an airline cleaner, all the way to eventually owning and running his own airline, which was actually covered by Channel 4 in a now famous or infamous, documentary. He also talks about how he founded the internationally successful business Sunnah Musk, along with his family, and the trials and tribulations which came with that. An incredible episode. So much to get through, so let's jump right into it.
Speaker 2:As always, I'm your host, areeb Siddiqui, and this is Muslim Money Talk. Before we begin, we actually noticed only about 10% of you are subscribed to the podcast, so if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us and see more things Muslim and money related, then please consider subscribing and, of course, leaving this episode a like and share it with your friends. Leave us a comment or a review, because it really really does help us out and help more people to find us. Thank you. Now back to the show.
Speaker 2:It's been a long time coming, but you were one of the key targets that we've always wanted on the show wow, wow, I feel, I feel very special now but I'm sure you're not surprised, much like you're, I think, one of the the brothers who's doing the most within the space through the side by side podcast and obviously your business ventures, from the massively successful, internationally now recognized suna musk brand all the way to for an us, which, of course, I first came across through the channel for documentary, like many people, but I think it's it's kind of gone on to take a life of its own in the muslim atmosphere. So you know you shouldn't be surprised. So thank you there's, there's so much that we can talk about. I think you have two sides to you, two vastly different businesses that you were known for in the past. There's the Sunamask, like we said, the fragrance brand, now with over 25 stores around the country, 36 plus 36 plus.
Speaker 2:My numbers are slightly out of date 36 plus stores all around the country.
Speaker 1:And it's about five countries. Five countries, so UK you've got. If you want to count Scotland and Wales, then that's different. But England is good. We've got France, we've got Netherlands, we've got Sweden and we've got Germany.
Speaker 2:Sweden as well. Yeah Gosh.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:When I think of the other countries, I think, okay, there's loads of Muslims there. I don't really know the stats of Muslims.
Speaker 2:There's a huge community in in sweden, I think in really in um stockholm area, expats I guess from like pakistan there's a good arab community there really gosh so on the one hand, there's sunnah musk, on the other side, there's for us, which you know, entirely different business, entirely different outcome, entirely different side to you as well, which we got to see immortalized in the famous channel 4 documentary how to start an airline, which is how I first became aware of you and, interestingly, actually, I met your brother-in-law when I was working at pwc.
Speaker 1:I think he's your brother yes, yes, so we actually joined the same team exactly for a con.
Speaker 2:So we joined the same team. He started as a graduate. I came in after I did my MBA and just threw like chats in the prayer room and we used to sit next to each other.
Speaker 1:He was, like you might know my brother-in-law, qazi Shafiq al-Rahman.
Speaker 2:So I was like, oh wow, okay, very small world, very small world. Amazing Shout out for Khan Thank you for sending Qazi our way.
Speaker 1:I mean, he started a business himself as well. Yes, it's called Ivy Lords, and they do, I guess, property management. So, I've recently let my property through him. Wow, it was quite a smooth process, mashallah.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll drop a link in the video at this point if people want to check that out. So, ghazi, there's so much to talk about. But when I went around just asking people about you and what they thought of you, the same few words kept on coming up Mashallah, people said that you were one of the bravest people they knew, one of the most determined and also one of the craziest.
Speaker 1:And I hope you don't take that in the wrong way. You know what I'm finding this interesting, because I usually ask people questions. Now I'm thinking like, oh my God, what has this guy found on?
Speaker 2:me Nothing. I don't think that you wouldn't know already, but listen, tell me about your journey, because when I see you and I see what you're doing, especially through the side-by-side podcast, which, martial, is a incredible thing that that you've started, similar to us, you have people on every single week talking about their stories, their lessons from entrepreneurship, but also your own stories. I feel like I know you and your family to an extent, right, so let me try and feedback your story and you tell me if it's not matching up. So you were born in Bangladesh. You moved here in 1997 along with the rest of your family. You were age 13 and there were 11 age 11, okay, age 11.
Speaker 2:In 1997 there were five brothers. Five brothers and I know you have at least one sister, two sisters, two sisters, gosh, there's seven kids that your parents brought over here, um, and you left school after GCSEs yes, in this country. So you weren't here in this country for very long. You then did your GCSEs.
Speaker 1:You left after that period, so I left school when I got to year nine, so I started in year seven. At that time obviously I didn't speak a word of English, and I didn't speak a word of English for a considerable amount of time until I started my first job. So I left in 2000 and then I was pulled into Madrasa. My father wanted me to do HIFS and Alimiyah and I was very keen on design and engineering, anything that was practical. So obviously it wasn't my wish to leave school, because that's when I really got into the gist of school, because first two years you're just getting bullied, you're getting pushed right left and center.
Speaker 2:How did you survive?
Speaker 1:you didn't speak any English because the I guess all my classmates were Bengalis and the teachers as well. Teachers Indian, bengali and I had a special teacher. So I was pulled from french class. I wasn't allowed to go to french class. I was put into a one-to-one um english class and I think that was instrumental at that time. I hated it, I really hated it, that whole one-to-one aspect. The teacher was so adamant if I missed school one day and if that class fell on that day, he would literally turn up at my door to find out where I was he was so serious, mr Islam.
Speaker 1:Mr Islam, you owe him a lot, wow you know what, now that I look back, he taught me everything grammar writing skills. You know, I suppose a lot of speak people English but they don't really know what they're writing or what they're saying. But knowing the basic grammars was so important and that really played a vital role in the development of Suno Mosque. So, yes, I was pulled out of school, I was put in madrasa and then I restarted my whole year seven again and then I got to year I think year nine again or year 10. And then I told my dad look, it's just not for me.
Speaker 2:So it was your decision. You said I'm leaving.
Speaker 1:The madrasa aspect was my decision, but the school aspect was my father's decision. Why did your father want you? He wanted me to be a hafiz, an alim. He wasn't particularly interested in us getting a, a gcse or something. He knew like this the islamic school had an element of gcse, so that's why he wanted us to do like combine.
Speaker 1:So what did your father do, because I know he used to travel to the uk often when you were in mongolish 1986 he came as an imam in enfield mosque, okay, and then he moved to Finsbury Park mosque and then Forest Cape mosque, so he served his whole life. He's no longer with us. He passed away in 2012, but he was an imam and a teacher to your teacher, to so many people. So one of the I guess, one of the examples I can give. Have you heard of Ibrahim college? Yeah, yeah, so the founder, mushrik, hafiz Mushrik, he was my father's or he is my father's student, and it's his family that actually brought my dad along to the UK. Whoa, okay.
Speaker 1:Because, when they used to migrate to Bangladesh, my father used to teach them in their local village, and then their father. I think they saw something in my dad and they were like you know, we need to take this guy for our mosque. I think they saw something in my dad and they were like you know, we need to take this guy for our mosque, so that's how it went.
Speaker 2:So they brought him over yeah, that's how it went, gosh. So you came over here and then you left school. And what I loved in the documentary about this part was you said you had a real passion for aviation. That was born when you were a child. Do you want to talk about that, how that started?
Speaker 1:Planes. I don't know how that came into me, into my blood, but I think the earliest memory of me and planes was when my father used to travel back to Bangladesh so at that time there was no direct flights or anything into Silet Airport. So they would land in Dhaka and then take a smaller plane and that small plane would shuttle people from Dhaka to Silet and at that time you could pay, I think, five taka and you could go on top of the rooftop of the airport and see the planes land. And when the plane landed I was like wow, like what is this magnificent thing that is so amazing? You know it was at night time so you could see all the lights and you know all the, all the flashing lights on the wings. And then, obviously, my the people came out like why are they sliding out of a shoot or something it's like? Because I couldn't see I couldn't, uh, very clearly see like how they were getting out of plane.
Speaker 2:So I thought they were just sliding off so we should put it into context because they go into this in the documentary a little bit. Where you travel back to the village that you grew up in, you said you grew up there there was no electricity, there was no running water where was the village?
Speaker 1:it's a place called zhokigunj. Zhokigunj is um, so the other side of zhokigunj is karimgunj in india right so there's a river that splits bangladesh and india. I mean, it's not always always river. There's some, I guess, parts that are land, but our part was, end of bangladesh is zhokhi gong, and if you were to cross the river then you'd end up in india. Gosh, so it's. I would say it's a countryside. Yeah, um, you have to travel a bit, I think you have to say it's the countryside, it is a countryside and I don't know.
Speaker 1:In this country we live in a city, very, very busy city, but over there when we go to Bangladesh, we just love the fact that we live away from city.
Speaker 2:Of course, you can appreciate it because of how far you've come.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mashallah, wow. So because of that love of aviation, you decided I'm going to leave school and I'm going to go get a job in an airport. Was that the thinking, the job.
Speaker 1:You know, the job found me so I left school. I didn't have a job. I was signing on to job center. My father did find me a job. It was like a money transfer or something. And you have to go into this basement and again there's only like two people working the boss and me. I'm counting money and he's doing other stuff like property or something, and I was like five days in. I was like no man this is not happening.
Speaker 2:How old were you? You were like 16?.
Speaker 1:No, I was about 18 or something at that point. Because I remember I went to Madrasa and then I started year seven again, and all of that was happening.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I got this job because of my dad and I mean I'm grateful that he got me this job. But I realized that those kind of jobs were not for me. It's like sitting down, you know, counting money or administrative type of jobs wasn't for me. So I was signing on to job center and one one day the advisor he said look, there's um, no, it's not the advisor that said I found the printout. You know you have to go on the I don't know if you know, but you have to go and search for jobs on that machine and you have to take it to your advisor and say, look, I found these jobs, can you get those? And I found this cleaner job aircraft cleaner and it was based in city airport. I was like bingo, this is it. Because you got to clean the yeah, yeah, yeah, and I was like, wow, this is, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna, I'm gonna be around planes, I'm gonna be in airport and I'm gonna see all about planes okay and, um, I took it to my advisor and he set me on a, set me up with an appointment with the manager and, yeah, I turned up for my interview wearing a suit. I went to Matalan and I bought myself a fresh pair of suit for a cleaning job.
Speaker 2:And obviously it worked because you got the job right yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:And he was like why, Like, you're the only guy that's just dressed up in a suit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it showed you were serious. Yeah, you clearly were. You stayed there for three years. I was there for about three years. Yeah, okay, and the documentary made a big deal of this because I think there was the thumbnail of the thing was from airport cleaner to airline owner.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's really what they pushed. But how do you feel about it looking back on that time? Do, but how do you feel about it looking back on that time? Do you think?
Speaker 1:it was instrumental in you wanting to run an airline. It was instrumental in many ways.
Speaker 1:A I would say it was for my English because I was surrounded by predominantly English colleagues and there was no way to communicate with them apart from speaking in English. So that forced me to speak in English. Before that, you would just find ways around not speaking English because you don't want to sound embarrassing and you don't want people to laugh at you or something. But in that job I had no choice. I had two colleagues. I used to be sitting in a van, one side Peter, the other side John. Like okay, how are we going to communicate?
Speaker 2:So you were forced to pick it up.
Speaker 1:I was forced to start speaking in English and, alhamdulillah, that's when I started speaking English. Before that I was just shying away from speaking in English. And then the second reason was, I guess I got exposed to be to planes. I was exposed to planes and I got to speak to be to planes. I was exposed to planes and I got to speak into. I got to speak to pilots, I got to speak to ground staff, I got to speak to cabin crews. I got to wander around in terminal airside, landside, airside, they call it um and it was amazing.
Speaker 1:It was such an amazing experience despite me, you know, doing the cleaning job. It didn't really faze me, I wasn't embarrassed. Obviously, I didn't go and shout from the rooftop saying, hey, I've got a cleaning job. If someone asked me, then I would say, yes, that's what I do. But predominantly it was an amazing experience and I got to learn so much. And then it was John, my colleague. I got to learn, learn so much. And then it was john, my colleague, that used to sit on my left in the transit van. Uh, he used to say what are you doing here? You're so young, why are you wasting your life?
Speaker 1:oh, were they all a lot older yeah, yeah, they were like in their 60s oh really, yeah, so like it's something they did close to retirement yeah, yeah, for them it was just a pastime job, right, it wasn't really a career, yeah.
Speaker 1:So john goes to me oh, what are you doing? You know, why don't you go and learn to fly the damn thing, instead of cleaning it? I was like but I don't have gcses, I don't have any degrees, I don't have anything under my belt. To you know, go and learn to fly. And I know you have to have some sort of a degree. At that time, that's what I was thinking. And then he goes no, no, no, google it up and you don't need so much. And then I was like, wow, I don't need GCSEs, I don't need degrees to learn to fly as long as you're willing to learn, degrees to learn to fly as long as you're willing to learn. And then I thought you know why? Why is it a hold up? Why is my gcse a hold up?
Speaker 1:So in madrasa I was just messing around, I wasn't paying any attention to any of the classes. And then I went back to evening schools. It was, uh, called keen student school on valence road, e1, okay, and I used to go to evening school after work, and that's when I ended up, alhamdulillah, getting a B in English, because that's when I wanted to learn. So that was your first GCSE. Yeah, my only GCSE, by the way. Oh, no way.
Speaker 2:And it's because of that dream that you had, because of that dream, and the dream then was to become a pilot. Yeah, and then I tried various avenues, and it's because of that dream, because of that dream, and the dream then was to become a pilot, yeah, yeah, and then I tried various avenues.
Speaker 1:And then that's when, 2000,. It was just after you know, 9-11, you know it was still quite. You know the whole vibe of 9-11 was still quite prominent and people were still looking at you in a funny way. I remember one time I took a photo of a plane from my van and one passenger told the police. And then the police people, a police came and saw me in my workplace. Why are you taking photos of planes? But you worked at the airport, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the police were saying look, we know, we know, like you know, why you did it, but we just have to do what we have to do okay but yeah, I wanted to learn to fly and then I took a few lessons and at the same time I knew like if you wanted to get get into a flying job like with ba or any of the established airlines they would look at gcses, they would look at your actual academic background and that's when I wanted to go back and do my GCSEs.
Speaker 2:But I was really struggling with the math side of things and physics and you had other stuff going on at the same time, because obviously these, these lessons weren't cheap, right?
Speaker 1:no, they were like 150 pound. How were you paying for this? What were you? I was working in city airport. I was earning quite good money because I was still young, living with parents yeah um, I didn't have any expenses unmarried, not married and I would just um help my family with the family expenses and rest of the money I would get to keep. But did suna must not come around, around, so suna must came after I got fired from my job so I was.
Speaker 1:I started off as a cleaner and then, um, I upgraded my job slightly. Yeah, I went into catering. So you know, when you um go to airports, you see these big trucks pull up and they come and you know, uh, put food into into the planes. That's what I used to do. So my company used to make the food and I used to be the guy who used to drive the trucks. You know, pull up to the truck, uh, to the plane, and, um, deliver the food. You must have to be the guy who used to drive the trucks.
Speaker 1:You know, pull up to the truck, to the plane, and deliver the food you must have got a lot of free food man like that's, that's, that's how my belly came, like having french croissants every single day you know, you look very different than how you did in the documentary you've seen in the documentary, I was like umpah, umpah well, so you're very trim now what was I saying? What was it?
Speaker 2:you got the job as a caterer. Yeah, yeah, so I got the job as a caterer.
Speaker 1:And then I, the reality, the real reason why they fired me is not because I, um, I used to turn up late on my early shifts. So I still love early shifts, yeah, but I never used to arrive on time. Um, and then one day, what I've done?
Speaker 1:I was like, um, I used to take a moped to work yeah so I told my friend, so there was four of us, so I was the first guy in that company and then I, you know, recommended for three other friends, you know um, they're good guys, they're looking for jobs, and then my manager would take them on. I told one of my friend look, just clock me in. Yeah, I'm locking my bike up, I'm on site. But they used that um against me to terminate my job okay, and finally, you must have been really devastated I was because I had no other source of income.
Speaker 1:I was um working in city airport and then what I used to do, the only thing that kept me probably going, is, um, obviously I went back to signing on at that time. I had a, so I had money coming in, so I got my car myself, a car on finance audi a4 convertible brand new off the showroom wow I didn't know what I was doing with my money.
Speaker 1:So I didn't have any any knowledge of money or what I was doing with my money. However, I would advise my English colleagues. They would ask me how come you have so much money? I say, yeah, I don't drink and I don't gamble, that's why. So I would talk to my friends about money, but what I was doing with my money? I should have saved, but I had this car and then that became a liability on me because now I have to keep up with the finance payment and a lot of young people, especially when they fall into, especially Muslims in our community.
Speaker 2:That's often the biggest mistake they make, literally like using cars yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was purely a show of thing, I think. Yeah, I was stuck with the car. I went back on to signing on and then, while I was signing on, I think I was doing doing some side hustles, because my dad taught me to teach Arabic Not Arabic, but teach the Quran. So I did that on the side. And then that's when Sunnah Masjid we stumbled onto Sunnah Masjid.
Speaker 2:Because he was a brother who was studying in Egypt at the time.
Speaker 1:My brother, sheikh Lutf Rahman heutf Rahman. He's the Imam in Regent's Park mosque at the moment.
Speaker 1:The first non-Arab Imam first non-Arab Imam and that's that's a big, big deal, because even in our community it's a big deal normally. Yeah, it's just certain things are done in a certain way. He was studying in egypt and, um, he's a fan. Till today. He's still a. Just the way I am with aviation and planes. He's same way with perfumes. He would ask if someone was wearing a nice perfume, would ask him like, what are you wearing? And he had a collection. And by that time, so before my city airport and all of that, I've done so many different small businesses here and there. So we come from Bangladesh. Obviously, all we know is stuff to do with Bangladesh. So there was this whole thing going on in Bangladesh where they banned fatwa you know Islamic fatwa. They banned it, yeah, they banned it. And then the person who was giving fatwa, they banned him. And there was a whole uprising in the UK around that time. I don't know when it was. I think it was 2005 or 2004 or 2003.
Speaker 1:And then we used to go to those events and sell those cassettes, you know, and books, cassettes. Yeah, cassettes. We used to duplicate copy cassettes of the speeches of those people. So the people that were jailed so would get their cassettes and then would sell them so that was like your first kind of entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I remember we needed a table so I had to build my table. Um, so at that time I still go to stepney green school and I remember buying wood from the diy shop, and you know I used to go home and then I built my table so I doubled into a few businesses, like I even done car rental. So I had this Audi A4. Your brother was taxing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, my eldest brother was taxing and I just wanted to do business. I just wanted. I liked the idea of having money and I remember once my dad caught me saying this, red-handed so you know the mechanic. So you take your car to the mechanic and you know, when they pull out the bundles, like to give you change or something, and you feel, wow, like you know, this guy's got so much money. And then I would come home and say, oh, you know, I could have become a mechanic because I'm always a hands-on guy and because this mechanic is making so much money. And obviously my dad is a very religious guy and he's like why are you, like, so interested in money? But did that?
Speaker 2:impact you, because we often find this when we talk to guests, that people think that you can't be religious and thinking about the deen but also be interested in making money see, dad, like he wanted us to be religious first and then you can do something else afterwards.
Speaker 1:He didn't want it to be the other way around, and with me it was the other way around. It's not like I wasn't praying or anything, uh, but it was more. He had a certain ideas of what we should be. I think three of my brothers they fulfilled his ideas either before he passed away or after he passed away. My fourth brother, sheikh Ashik. He's an imam in Dar al-Ummah Masjid. He recently graduated from Al-Azhar University.
Speaker 2:Just a couple of months ago, right, yeah, a couple of months ago, amazing.
Speaker 1:But that was his. It's not a graduate.
Speaker 2:I think it's master's degree in Islamic fiqh and that's really difficult because that university if people don't know, it's like going back in time.
Speaker 1:It's definitely. It's like I was, we were going to this event and like I was looking for toilet, and they're like yeah, I don't think you want to go to that toilet. So it's like, yeah, you do travel back, uh, back in time there's no air conditioning.
Speaker 2:No, yes, yeah, okay, everything's like handwritten. Yeah, not digital. Yeah, gosh okay.
Speaker 1:So dad, um, he wanted um us to have a certain upbringing, and we understand, like I understand, why he wanted to do it in such a way, but for me, I just couldn't get myself to like a certain thing. I just, for some reason, I just didn't like the whole idea of sitting in a classroom and studying, and, you know, I wanted to learn what I wanted to learn myself. And then I came across later on, just before Sonoma, something called network marketing, and that's what really kind of you know what I was telling you about my car? And you know, you know, instead of you know doing something else, something useful, with my money, I leased a car or I financed a car after getting into this network marketing, or it was.
Speaker 1:The company was called Success University so the product wasn't your forever living products or avon or something else. The product was success education. So what was your role? My role was to a use the product, the success education product, and get other people to into the university.
Speaker 2:This sounds a little bit like a pyramid scheme.
Speaker 1:Pyramid scheme, Ponzi scheme, whatever you want to call it, but for me I did build a team.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the biggest takeaway for me was education itself. Okay, so it actually benefits you, of course, because without it, I don't think Sunamast would have been where it is Really. Without it, because I didn't know how money worked, how business worked. Okay, because I didn't know how money worked, how business worked. I didn't know that. You know, I can be a businessman. All along I was just taking chances and thinking, you know, I'm going to stumble across an opportunity and it's just going to work. There was no systematic approach to business before that point.
Speaker 2:What was different about this, though, that made you think I can actually learn?
Speaker 1:It's my thinking. My thinking has taken a 180 degree turn.
Speaker 2:But was it because you had to teach other people?
Speaker 1:Yes. So that's where the leadership aspect came, that's where communication aspect came, that's where the sales aspect came, because I didn't know what sales was. Before that, I didn't know what leadership was. I, I didn't know, like, what leadership was. I used to think leadership was bossing people around and I used to be afraid of that whole idea Like how, how am I going to boss people around? I can't even, I can't even put my hand up in classroom and you're telling me I'm going to tell people what to do. So I would read books on how to lead leaders because I was afraid of leading smart people.
Speaker 1:So, yes, through the recruitment of the network marketing business, I learned all of this communication, leadership, sales because you had to do all of that. What I took away, the biggest takeaway, was the shift in my thinking, in how I saw the world. After, I suppose, coming across goal setting. That was the number one thing that they, that's the first thing that they make you do set goals, set goals, the idea of learning how to set goals. So they would give you printouts through post every month with a magazine and some materials like CDs, and then I would consume them, like I would be very quick at consuming this education, because this is exactly what I wanted to learn. I wasn't interested in learning advanced formulas of maths.
Speaker 2:I wanted to know how to make money, how to make money, and that's where your interest came in Literally.
Speaker 1:And then that's what made me think, okay, it's not just Richard Branson who can maybe launch an airline If what these guys are saying is all in your thinking and you have to just pick something and you have to have a definitive plan for it, and it's you're going to manifest it, it's going to come to you if you have a plan and you execute that plan. So why am I, you know, selling myself short?
Speaker 2:So you had the passion, this success, education, university thing helps you to realize I could maybe actually do this, I could do this for myself, yeah, and the dream was sort of born. Then your brother was kind of doing sunamas. No, you and your brothers had said that.
Speaker 1:So there's a gap in between this phase and sunamas, so sunamas still didn't come along at that time. I'm still doing success university. Okay, um, before success university I was doing car rental. You know renting my car out and you know give it to other people and yeah, that's a business I would advise anyone not to go into. Why Too much headache? Too much headache, parking fines, this fine write-off. Your car get written off, did your car get written off.
Speaker 1:No it didn't, but it was seized by police. You had to go and stand in the queue with a compound. Oh my God, this is a very, very bad experience. It still gives me PTSD tod till today, that experience. So, yeah, I was doing that. That didn't work. Um, I built a reputation of being a serial failed entrepreneur. So every few months, if I so, obviously you'd meet, meet relatives and they would say okay, what business are you doing now? So after no.
Speaker 1:So after Success University, everything changed. I even had a sweet shop. So, from the car rental then car sales, buying damaged, salvaged cars, fixing them up, selling them on, and then ended up doing a sweet shop because we needed an office, because we didn't want customers to come to our house to, you know, meet us to see the car. And these cars were not. You know fully, you know fresh cars, you know they were written off cars and at that time auto trader didn't have features where you would say, okay, it's a cat c or cat d or cat whatever. Um, now people are more open to the idea of right of cars at that time, like if the repair was good enough, we would just say we wouldn't mention anything. If someone found that, found out from the hpi check, then yes, they found out and we tell them. So we didn't want people to come to our house so we needed.
Speaker 1:We needed an office, either meet them in a petrol station or meet them at an office.
Speaker 2:Was this the lockup that they showed. No, no, no that documentary.
Speaker 1:That's way after. Okay, before that, that that's that. Uh, so that we did take an office to meet our clients, customers, and that's where the mistake happened. That's where that's where we went the wrong way. And then I'll tell you how my education from success university and when sunamas came along, how I steered away from certain things. So we took this office. It was set for a sweet shop. It had the whole fridge and everything set up in there. So we thought you know what, we're going to use the back as an office and we're going to turn the front into a shop. Biggest mistake ever. Why? Because we used all our money into the shop and then we lost sight of why we were taking that office in the first place.
Speaker 2:You just became a sweet shop.
Speaker 1:And then we ended up, before we knew it, we were running a sweet shop and not a car sales business. We did make some good money, like about £7,000, £8,000, me and my friend.
Speaker 2:What about your brothers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was not with my brothers. The only business we brothers do is Sunoma. And then Success University came along and then Sunoma came along in 2009. And that was right after I got fired from my job. So I was doing for about a year. Between getting fired and a year I was doing night minicab driving wow again.
Speaker 1:I hated that job as well, because at that time there was no uber and what that meant was you didn't know who your clients were. So my first job on my first night the guy didn't even pay me, so I took him from central london all the way to somewhere in surrey or something. And because I didn't drop the customers off as he wanted so there was like a few of them and I think I dropped one person off first, where I should have been dropping them off after, and then he used that as an excuse and he just licked it. That's crazy. I called the police. Obviously police were not going to do anything and I just that was my only job at that night. On that night, my first night- and I went home empty handed man.
Speaker 1:So sad, so sad.
Speaker 2:It's okay, it worked out in the end. Yeah, it worked out. And then?
Speaker 1:yeah, I used to do mini cabbing at night and then soon Namaz came along.
Speaker 2:So how did that start? So your brother was in Egypt.
Speaker 1:He himself for fragrances, the same way that you had a passion for. So he always wanted to do something to do with. He wanted, wanted to do a business as well, and he knew. He knew it was going to be something to do with fragrances, but he didn't know who, who was going to do it. He needed an executioner. So he told me you've done a few businesses, you've got some experiences, maybe you know we can get together and put some money together and you know, maybe we can turn it turn into a business and you can run the show. I was okay. I'm always optimistic, I'm always ready for business.
Speaker 1:So did your brother turn to you because they saw you as like the money-minded business they saw me as a guy who just goes out and does things okay okay so, um, yeah, I was ready, uh, we all put like 200 pounds each together and that was it to buy stock, to buy stock, pure stock, uh stock and some packaging, you know the those uh perfume bottles that come in those pouches, drawstring pouches. So we had, um, some of these and some perfume oils from egypt and it was sent by air cargo into heathrow airport. I remember, clearly remember my eldest brother and myself we went down to collect it and we're like hang on, what do we do now? Like no, we've got the stock.
Speaker 2:That was my next question. What was the plan right? Did you have a distribution?
Speaker 1:plan. There was no game plan. We didn't know how we were going to sell the stock. I think the vague idea was we would go to events and when there was an event like a weekend event you know, in Islamic Muslim community we have many events so go to the events and sell at the events, and that's what we eventually done. What year was this? This was like 2012? That was 2009.
Speaker 2:2009? 2009. Because now, when I think of like these big Muslim events, I think of like Muslim shopping festival.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Halal food festival.
Speaker 1:That time, none of that was happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you see all these people With different stores Doing everything. There's like fragrance brands, there's people selling like Alcoholic free drinks, and we go there and we advertise Kestrel and Islamic finance and all of that. But at this time this was pretty new.
Speaker 1:There was only one thing that was happening at that time I think it was close to us was MyLand. There was a Mela that used to happen, but you can't take part in funfair, so it was the Mela that we would go every now and again, whenever there was one. But again, all of that costs money. We were looking for ways to sell without paying rent, because we couldn't like, if you're going to pay rent from day one, how like you can't?
Speaker 2:generate enough cash flow, which is so different now, where you have 36 stores across five countries and, of course, I think one of your biggest feature places is Westfield. Westfield, Stratford, that's's the one but at the time you were trying to avoid rent, so you didn't even have a market stall so at that time Westfield didn't even exist it didn't even exist other mall, other shopping centers did exist, but Westfield was still getting developed.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what Westfield was or I think they opened one shopping center around 2010 or 2009 or something In White City yeah.
Speaker 1:White City. But we were still starting off. We had no clue of where we are going and how this is all going to turn out, because I was still doing mini-cabbing at night and I was doing selling during the day outside, maybe after Friday prayers and whenever there was an event, small event. I remember clearly remember we went to Ibrahim College and there was an event happening and a lot of people turned up and we were there with our little two trays and I remember I couldn't fill up the bottles because I've never experienced selling bottles. So my brother, he sent some syringes to use to fill up the bottles because he knew we couldn't fill it up. But white mask was so thick it wasn't even getting pulled into the syringe. So you had to like, like your hands shaking, and then it was spilling over and then so, but what were you learning through this process?
Speaker 2:Because what was the feedback from customers? It was obviously popular.
Speaker 1:The feedback was very good quality fragrances. I think that still we get the same feedback because we maintain that the quality was good and there was no other feedback apart from that, because there was no customer service involved, because you're just selling here and there and people know that you're not there for long term.
Speaker 2:But must have been. Did you have a website? Did you have a phone number?
Speaker 1:yep, yep, so initially that, oh no, I remember. Yeah, it was supposed to be sold through online. It was supposed to be a digital business. Yep, how can I forget this one? So, before we done all the stalls and everything we went and done in a website was based on zen cart. I don't know if you remember zen cart. We paid someone, uh, I think 500 pound to make us a website, but there was no customers. Customers weren't coming to the website. Um, obviously they don't know what we do. And, secondly, it's fragrance. How are they gonna buy something that they don't know? And, uh, we thought, okay, do you know what? That's not gonna work. We, we better, you know, hit the ground and you know go and meet our customers.
Speaker 2:The website went out there, so we had the website. We always would put the website on all our branding just so we can put it out there, but nothing was being generated from the website so, bro, you're telling me like this story of how it started and from what you told me so far, it seems a little bit like it was a mess when it first it was a total mess.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:It was a total mess and because the driver, I'm the driver and I'm learning everything as I go along so I'm trying to figure out how we go from here to mashallah, the huge success that you are today, like what happened?
Speaker 1:I think the major shift happened in those while I'm saying like, okay, I don't know what I've learned, but I think it was molding me as a person. Okay, it was turning. This whole process almost became a formula and somehow we just did the right thing at the right time. Now that we look back I was like, oh, that was the right thing to do at that time, but we didn't know we were doing it that way. So I think the biggest thing was consistency going out every day Not every day, because there was no event every day, it was every Friday. And I remember until I said to myself I cannot wait for someone to come and help me out. It wasn't moving fast enough, so while my brothers were there. So normally to set up a Friday Jumma stall, you've got 30 minutes to attract customers Because people are just they vanish.
Speaker 1:they vanish Like within half an hour they're gone, so you have to catch them while they're coming out. You're giving out the samples You're trying to sell at the same time. It was a very fast 30 minutes to one hour Was this outside East London Mosque. East London Mosque behind East London Mosque, in front. You couldn't do it in front because they would always tell you to go late. So you'd go around the back, set up the stall. And then I realized, well, setting up the stall was too long because you're getting everything out and then you have to put everything back in.
Speaker 1:So I was using the back of my minicab. So I had a seven-seater, so I would put all the stuff on the back to make a shelf in the back and all the products were there, and once I'm done I just put it away and just shut the boot.
Speaker 2:Okay, so like a possible stall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how did I go from the mess for it to turn into a proper business? I think it was consistent, as every day we were learning, every day was a new. It was school, it was, I guess, university or school or college or something. Yeah, in the while, it was life for me.
Speaker 2:I always say to people when they ask, oh, should I do an mba, should I study this? I say I learned more in running a business for the first six months than I did in the entire time studying studying, you know, out of textbooks and case studies and all of that, that's why that's exactly what happened with us.
Speaker 1:We've learned, I think, the first six months definitely, and that just to take you back a bit what did Success University teach me was focus. If it was any other business, I would probably I would plateau maybe after three months and I would think, okay, this is the dead end. But what Success University taught me was to stay disciplined and focused on and on your path, and that's something that we didn't do when we went from car selling to a sweet shop. Because, remember, there's no game plan, there's no business plan, there's no focus. You're just money can't be focused, like just pure money can't be focused.
Speaker 1:Then you're going to be doing this and that you know anything that brings you money.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Muslim Money Talk. If you like what you've heard so far, you might be interested in checking out what we do at Kestrel, the Muslim Money app. Kestrel is a service that helps Muslims who want to grow their wealth without having to compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price. I founded Kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that.
Speaker 2:If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan. Plug in whatever bank account you have and it will create an auto budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for, and we'll save towards them automatically into pots and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia compliant investment and savings products as well. So download Kestrel today and try it out for yourself. Now back to the podcast. In the startup world, we call that your North Star or the mission, like the reason you started this. So at Kestrel, our mission is to help Muslims to grow their wealth without compromise of their beliefs.
Speaker 2:And whenever we come, loads of things come our way. Someone's saying can you do this for us, can you build this for us? Can you do this? And Loads of things come our way. Someone's saying can you do this for us, can you build this for us, can you do this? And we always go back to that Is it actually helping us fulfill the mission? And if it's not, then it's a distraction. If it is, then fine.
Speaker 2:So we started off as a consumer app. In the UK, you download it on your phone, you use this. But then, interestingly, a bank came to us Bank Islam saying can you actually white label your software? Give it to us so we can launch our own bank, our own digital bank, and we thought this is really different. I never imagined I'd be doing this right. I always thought it was going to be a consumer app, but then, when we look back at that mission, it was. We're still helping Muslims they're all of their customers are Muslims as well. We're still helping them to grow their wealth in a sharia compliant way without compromising on their beliefs. It's just not the way that we imagined it was going to be. So that's kind of, I think, what that gave you.
Speaker 1:It gave you a sense of purpose and a mission that, okay, it can't just be about making money, because there's a million and one ways to make money yeah, right, but you needed to stay focused and literally, if I, if we didn't stay focused, then I guess we would have plateaued and we would have faced so many difficulties that we, within the first two years, we faced all the difficulties that one a business that could face, and we faced and we're so lucky that we have faced within the first two years and it was over. I mean challenges in business. They are there, like you know, just like life challenges. Business has its challenges and you just have to get through it. But the teething issues, the startup phase, and it happened within the first two years and, alhamdulillah, we stayed focused and we stayed determined. What was the biggest issue?
Speaker 1:that happened in those first two years Money was an issue Because we've got a lot of self-imposed restrictions you can't use rebar, you can't use loans, you can't use yes, you can ask family and friends for for loans, but they're not going to be, you know, hundreds of thousands. Is it because we didn't know enough people that had that kind of money? Because we were not for money background? My father wasn't, I mean, he did try and do some businesses here and there, but he was never a businessman. So in our family history we are the first family to actually have a proper business. So, yeah, you can't just ask someone who doesn't have money to lend you money. But we did. Luckily, we did knew a few people that my father knew and he vouched for us and because of his reputation and being an imam, they had no problem in loaning us some money. That must have been scary it was so scary.
Speaker 2:It was so scary father's reputation, literally so money was a big problem.
Speaker 1:So to just fast track the journey from being a stall operator not a stall being a, you know, ad hoc event operator to now, we have to make it consistent, because events wasn't good enough, it wasn't consistent enough and if we are to make this business a serious business, then I need it to become full-time.
Speaker 1:And for me to become full-time someone's got to pay something to me, because I've got my phone bills to pay, I've got, you know, my basic course, and my father wasn't really paying because that's a commitment that I made to him, because if he allowed me to stop islamic education and go into work or something, then I would self-fund myself. And he thought, okay, then you know what? Fair enough whatever. Because he was pushing, pushing, it wasn't happening and he thought you know what, whatever, so you got these halal loans which are interest-free, called the Hasana.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we use our own cash flow. So we didn't need to use cash flow up until Westfield came along. Before that, we were just, you know, recycling our own money.
Speaker 2:So tell me about. I'm so interested in that right Because to get a shop at Westfield, what does it take? It can't be easy.
Speaker 1:You needed to show that you've got something. You've got something behind you. You've got a product that you can that will add value to them. They're not interested in you. You know what you've got. I mean, everyone's got their own self interest and the self-interest of a shopping center is how are you going to add value to their shopping center which will make more customers?
Speaker 2:come. So it's not just oh, can you pay the no 1,500 pounds a story.
Speaker 1:They're looking for a proper product that will add a you know dimension to their offering. So we were doing um events and then I had to make it full time. And then that's when we went to market stores. We went to bethnal green. It was stood there a whole day in rain and thunderstorm and we made about 70 pounds. Okay, this is not happening. This is. This is not the roi is not good enough, like there's two, three people standing there in the stall and the money wasn't there. Were you the only brother full-time at that time? I was the only brother full-time. Abid was still studying in um fort square madrasa, so he was there. He would join me in the evenings and and weekends and for people who don't know, he's the current CEO.
Speaker 1:Abid is the current CEO, and um, and he's your youngest brother. He's my youngest brother and um, we, we. So everyone said why chapel market? You can't go into that because it's too busy and they're not going to let you go there. I'm like, why? So you have to go every morning to the market office before 7.30 am and you put your name down that you're going to trade on that day.
Speaker 1:So one day I asked the market officer look, is that true? I can't trade in YChopper market because that's the market that I would like to be in, because that's where the footfall is. He goes no, that's not really true, but it is true because there's a lot of permanent stall holders that have taken all the pitches. But put your name down and if someone doesn't turn up then we'll put you on their location, and there's a lot of. Obviously they worked on the average and they know, like some people won't come not everyone's going to come every day, sure, so they would give those allocations to the temporary guys who have been on the waiting list. So first day, my God, we made 200 pounds, oh so you got a spot on the first day, yeah, yeah because you go.
Speaker 1:The idea is you have to go every morning. You can't just, like you know, put it on autopilot. You go every morning, put your name down and there's a queue system. The more you turn up, the more your ranking goes up and they prioritize you. So they have a full system going.
Speaker 2:So this was a proper. You'd gone from basically selling stuff out the back of your car once every Friday to now you're every day.
Speaker 1:Now it needs to become every day and it needs to pay my salary or something. And my thing was, if we made at least about a hundred pound every day, then that would be good enough and it would pay me, like I think, maybe about 50 pound a week just to keep my expenses under control, and that was the goal. And then, Whitechapel Market 200 pound, and then it kept on going up and up and up and up. Eventually, on that first weekend I think we made in one day we made about 700 pounds.
Speaker 1:And I guess the major success factor was we were so different and I think that's where the shift started happening. We knew we wanted to be different, we knew we needed to have a brand, we knew we needed to have a nice projection. And before all of that came into play and for people to see it took some time, maybe about a year or so. You set up other stalls and then we set up as a stall in Whitechapel Market and then we had our own marquee. You know you have those stripy marquees with the rods and everything and they would build everything.
Speaker 1:We didn't use one of them. We used an instant marquee and you just pop it open and instantly it becomes a marquee and you set up your table. And at that time we already had a van as well. The van was used to store our goods and the back of the van was turned into a shop. So we had two sales avenues, one with the van If there was an event, then the van could go and display the goods, but this was almost like your permanent shop in Whitechapel Market.
Speaker 1:Not permanent, because you have to go every morning. Yeah, but you were there every day, yeah, but sometimes they would give you one side of the market. Sometimes they would give you in the middle of the market.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they would wherever there was a space. So what were your customers? Because it's really difficult to do this. Did you become really good at selling and bringing people to the store?
Speaker 1:I wasn't, and that's where Ashik comes in, my younger brother, third brother, the imam of Dar al-Ummah. He was always the loud mouth, he was always the sales guy, he was always the marketing guy. So I would be the back-end guy. I would make sure the stores are set up, the products are there. Abid was the guy who was in between between me and the sales guy, so Ashik would do the selling. We had a PA system so we were very loud in the market. So we'd give out samples and Ashik would close the sales and then he would hand it over to Abid and then Abid would fill it up, serve the customer and I would be behind the the guy just making sure that they've got everything that they needed to to to make the sales?
Speaker 2:and who were the customers? Were they just passers-by? They weren't like regulars. No, there was at that time there was no.
Speaker 1:There was no such a thing as a regular for us, because we still no one knew us and we didn't know anyone. Um, but I think towards the end of market store days there was some regulars.
Speaker 2:We did have some regulars but was this enough to convince westfield shopping mall no?
Speaker 1:absolutely no, and, as I said, westfield was still being built at that time, so we had to. So we started in june. It was summer, it was nice, lovely, it was a lot. We had a lot of fun doing the stalls. Um, people would say, oh, which company are you guys from? Because we would turn up in our van. It was a lot, we had a lot of fun doing the stalls. Um, people would say, oh, which company are you guys from? Because we would turn up in our van. It was all branded and everything, and we don't know, we're just doing our own thing, and so, oh wow, um, anyway, come winter, bro, your hands are freezing, like today is very cold, but it was probably 10 times worse, and you're out there all day, we're talking about 12 years ago and weather was.
Speaker 1:The climate was much more, much more extreme and um, let alone. So you're trying to convince people to try something on, but they're too cold. Their hands are in their pocket, of course so I was like, okay, what do we do now? Like, so you know, the perfume oils, due to the cold, it was actually becoming frozen, really yeah. So I'm like, okay, what do we do now? Like, so you know, the perfume oils, due to the cold, it was actually becoming frozen, really yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm like okay, you have to get inside this is a big problem.
Speaker 1:And my mom she wouldn't let me call her sick. So mom again, mom played a huge role from behind me because she would like make sure she was like a boss. She was making sure that we're going out through the door and making sure that we're setting up the store. Even if we were late one day, like 12 o'clock, normally you're supposed to go say nine o'clock. Yeah, she would say no, you still have to go. It doesn't matter if you're late, you still have to go, even if you make 50 quid. That's.
Speaker 1:That's something she was like the enforcer, yeah otherwise we probably would have said you know, I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling, feeling it today, just, let's just call it a day. But no, she didn't allow us to do that.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, we we you needed to get indoors, we needed to find an indoor solution.
Speaker 1:And then I was like I was googling one morning and like looking for space, you know, commercial space and then something came up says commercial opportunities or commercialization opportunities, and the link took me to ilford shopping center oh, exchange, yeah, ilford exchange okay, this is interesting.
Speaker 1:Um, I knew there was a lot of toy stalls that would sell toys, but I've never seen a someone selling perfumes sent an inquiry, get an appointment. Us five brothers, we turn up at the pitching meeting. We have to go and demonstrate our products. The lady liked our products. She said yeah, we're happy to give you an opportunity. Here's the rent. And when we saw the rent we almost fell off our chairs because how much was it?
Speaker 2:So this is one of the stores in the middle of the hallway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so they would supply it's called retail merchandising units, rmus, right and then they would give you the stand and the electric and you just had to put your products and start selling. And so we were paying what? £20 per day in market stalls. So you buy those vouchers and you would activate a voucher every day, but over there they were asking for £900 for a week.
Speaker 2:I was like what £900 a?
Speaker 1:week, £900 a week and then it went up to £ what? 900 pound a week. 900 pound a week. And then he went up to 1400 pound a week um, leading up to the christmas weeks, the for those two weeks and then went back down to about 600 pound per so these toy shops are paying 900 pound a week yeah during christmas time. So it leads, it builds up to christmas time and then it goes to about 600 pound per week after yeah okay, but you did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did it and we were like okay, so we had a predicament, like what we're gonna do, I'm not going back to the stalls, for sure, that, that, that that's not happening, yeah, because I'm the guy who has to go out. Then this is, it's a lot of hard work, um, and then we, we, we said, we spoke amongst our brothers and we said you know what, if we can make our money back, if it's breakeven, then let's give it a shot and see what happens. At least we'll make our money back. And then, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah 600 pounds, 700 pounds, 1200 pounds. And it went up and up and up and up. It was working, it was working. And that's when I started thinking, okay, so we're paying this kind of rent and we're still surviving, and we're still like okay, now let's look at other opportunities.
Speaker 2:But what do you put that success down to? Was it the quality of your product? Was it your sales?
Speaker 1:Quality of our products, the idea of selling, because every business has a sales aspect. Not many people realize that they're in a sales-driven business. People realize that, that they're in a sales driven business and we recognize that we were in a sales business, like it was purely sales. If we didn't speak to the customers, they wouldn't know what we're doing but it was still just physically you going out there.
Speaker 2:Literally you couldn't do a pa system anymore, so you were just no.
Speaker 1:So the malls would not, would not allow you to do any of that. They would not allow you to burn the buchur, so you have to use tester cards. And that's when the tester cards came along. Yeah, we printed tester cards and would, before that, we just cut, cut up cardboards and give it to the customers to sample our products.
Speaker 2:Bro, we had to do what we had to do, because we didn't have money to spend on fancy marketing and then I was driving, um, you know stratford shopping center, the old one.
Speaker 1:You go around there and then you see there's a hoarding that says biggest mall in europe, biggest urban shopping center in europe. I'm like, okay, you know what, I'm going to send them an email. Yeah, um, let's see what they say. Um, still, we're still a very underbaked company. We, we barely have some products we.
Speaker 2:We barely have packaging. How long had you been at Alfred Exchange?
Speaker 1:About six months, six months, and then you reached out to them Six months and then we went to Westfield and then the guy he responded the very next day saying yep, we have some opportunities, £65,000 a year, and we'll just give you the space and the rest you'll have to do yourself. You have to build your own stand 65 000 plus that, plus the rates what works out to be about I don't know about 100 was this a stall yeah store like an rm yeah, no, they will just give the space.
Speaker 2:Oh so it wasn't even for one and that's where we needed the money.
Speaker 1:Before that, to do rmus, we didn't need any money so this was your first where you went out yeah, that was the money from your father's community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, off of his name. Yeah, so yeah, westfield.
Speaker 1:They came along to ilford exchange, they saw our products and they loved it. Well, they didn't love it straight away because, again, I had this issue with lateness and in the documentary you'll see that I have an issue of there is a scene in the documentary which I wanted to ask you. Today. I arrived, I think, five minutes before time.
Speaker 2:You did watch that. He was on time, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That was good, but I always had a timing issue and the day these guys coming from Westfield to come and see what we're doing. The stall wasn't open and in a shopping mall environment, this is you're crucifying yourself, you're losing money.
Speaker 1:No, you're going to get imported. They do not like to see a vendor not open at the designated because they're promising the customers we're open from 10 o'clock. That means we're open. They can't have some shops closed.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, the guy was about to leave, so I begged him please don't leave, let's go and have a coffee. I bought him a coffee and then I convinced him and he said yeah, I'm gonna give you a spot outside, right outside, top man. Okay, and the guy went pin drop, silence, like silent after that day, like he doesn't even respond to me anymore. He told me I can have the spot and then that was it. He ghosted me like for six months and the mall is about to open and still no one's talking to me.
Speaker 1:So I went back to the original person that emailed ian mitchell. He's now one of our board of advisors, whoa. We convinced him later on that he should join us instead. Um, and then, yeah, ian mitchell said, yeah, someone's gonna call you tomorrow and he gave me that reassurance.
Speaker 1:And dare I say that guy, I guy I'm not going to mention his name he did call and say yeah, I'm so sorry, I was in holiday. Blah, blah, blah. He made some excuses up and he said, yeah, we're going to give you the heads of terms and, if you like it, sign it off and we'll take it from there. Bro, you know, have you had that moment when you really want something and then that thing comes to you and then you don't know what to do with it? It's like, oh no, what do I do now? Like now it's coming, like that meant money, like where am I going to find the money? So I consulted a few of my real estate friends and I said, look, what do I do, man? I said, man, just submit that goddamn thing and just send it off. Why?
Speaker 2:are you so afraid?
Speaker 1:of Just give it a go. Just give it a go, muhib Mama I call him Muhib Mama from Wild Cross in my land. I took him to various meetings in Westfield because I didn't know what I was doing, so I needed someone to be by me who understands all of this. So he said, yes, just submit it and see what happens. Alhamdulillah, literally a few days ago, I was telling my brothers you know, it's 13 years on since we've opened westfield and that was, that's still the best decision that we've ever made wow.
Speaker 2:So why was it so successful for you, do you think?
Speaker 1:we were a store, we were a store operator, we were store guys. We were referred to as store guys, but we were not referred to as store guys. After westfield, like, people actually started respecting us as a brand. So this association with westfield, it turned us as a brand. So this association with Westfield, it turned us into a brand overnight.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was hard. First few months we were making like 500 pound a day. It wasn't breaking even. It was a loss. And, yeah, we were scratching our head thinking what are we going to do had you left Ilford? No, we got thrown out. Why We've got this history of getting thrown out? No, we got thrown out because ashik yes, he broke a door handle in the toilet and because he was doing wudu. You're not allowed to use the public customer toilets to do wudu. There's a behind the scene toilet. And he pulled the door too hard. And then he broke the door. And then someone locked no, it was just a customer toilet and he opened the door too fast and the door handle came off and someone, uh, grasped us so they threw you out for that.
Speaker 1:Literally, we begged them. We begged those guys. I'm not going to mention their names, but they said no, it's just not happening. They shut our stall, they put a lock on our stall and said the only way it's going to go forward is you're going to take your stuff out. So, whether you liked it or not, there was no negotiation. We were back in Market Stall, bro. We were back in.
Speaker 2:Whitechapel. So you were back in Whitechapel, and then the Westfield opportunity came, and then Westfield came, and then we were still in the background.
Speaker 1:We were working in Westfield, yeah, but we were so disappointed because Ilford was making good money for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, but what was the turning point at Westfield, I think?
Speaker 1:about three months in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the luckiest thing that we had with Westfield, they gave us nine months rent free. Really they gave us nine months rent free. Really, they do not do that for anyone. I don't know why that guy. He just gave us what we wanted. I didn't even know there was a rent free thing. I thought you had to pay rent from day one. No, they give you rent free, but not for nine months and not in westfield.
Speaker 2:But did you sign up, it was like, okay, nine months free, but then you're there for three years yeah, we were there for five years.
Speaker 1:The lease was for five. There for five years, the lease was for five years long.
Speaker 2:The lease was for five years.
Speaker 1:So normally with five years lease they would give you maximum three months, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's a real godsend. It's from God man, it's a godsend.
Speaker 1:Like why would they give us nine months? And we were late day of Westwood and the guy didn't turn up with our kiosk or stall. And then we were delayed by three months. We lost three months of rent-free Again. Thankfully, luckily, they reinstated the whole thing and they pushed it back on the start date, so we had nine months rent-free to work with and that's what gave us the breathing space.
Speaker 2:Otherwise we wouldn't have made it and that's what gave us the breathing space, otherwise we wouldn't have made it. And that's where you are to this day. Yeah, westfield, you can find Sunamask at Westfield today. Are you still hanging around at Westfield?
Speaker 1:No, we've got an office in Oldgate East. There's about 30 people that work there.
Speaker 2:So, Alhamdulillah. And most recently you did your big bus campaign.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big bus campaigns. Do you know what lockdown was? A blessing in disguise for so many in so many ways, although so many people lost their lives. But, um, if you look at it positively from a business point of view and a purely speaking, purely from a selfish point of view and I'll be really capitalized on it, because the shopping centers were like gods before, like in real, in real estate, they were like the gods, like they choose who they take, they choose who they throw out, they retain absolute control over the leases and everything. So I think allah, allah brought them back down to earth and they were willing to negotiate, make group deals, combined deals. So at that, that's when Abid. So Abid was in driving seat already at that time, during the first lockdown, and he made some really good deals and, yeah, that's where the massive growth happened. It was after lockdown. Up until lockdown, there were six Sonoma's locations, yeah, and then he went up.
Speaker 2:There's so much I want to ask you about that, but I think we have 15 minutes left. Wow, we've talked a lot on this. It would be remiss of me not to bring up the airline right. Furnas, and I know it's been talked a lot. There was the famous Channel 4 documentary about it, but it represents quite an interesting time in your life because this film crew followed you around on this journey for two years. Yeah, was it 2016 to 2018? It was released in 2019.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know so much I do the research right do the research, but it just struck me as it was so raw, like real, and what I loved about it was it's very rare when you see a muslim on tv and you see them just praying. Right often in the documentary you would just be stopping and praying Salah, and the best part was when it sees you performing Wudu and your foot's in the sink which is such a real thing that so many of us do so many times a day.
Speaker 2:But you never see it, especially not on TV, let alone Channel 4. But beyond that, it went into so much. It talks about the relationship with your co-founding team, the, the three of you. There was abdul rakib and then there was the um, what's his name? John john brayford. John brayford, john brayford, he was kind of, you know, like pushing you guys along and feeling kind of annoyed but kind of proud of you guys and all of this, which is this beautiful dynamic. But also it brought in your family, yeah, as well, and your wife's view and you had a young daughter as well at the time and that really made it real.
Speaker 2:That's not just some guys who are into planes who are giving it a go. This is real and people's lives are at stake and and you know. So you know, I think, commend commitment to you for signing up to that process, but were you happy with what the documentary turned up with?
Speaker 1:with the documentary when it came along as you said it was, you know I thought, like you don't get one hour on primetime tv for free, like you said, god sent to me and it would be stupid of me to say no to these people. Did they reach out to you? They reached out to me and it would be stupid of me to say no to these people. Did they reach out to you? They reached out to me. How did they find out? It's a funny story. So when I was doing the airline thing and we were looking for an angle, how are we going to position ourselves in the market?
Speaker 1:Before I started my journey, I used to write to so many hundreds of journalists to talk about my story and none of them found it very interesting. I was like, okay, you're a dreamer, you want to do this? Okay, so what they said? Reach out to us when you have a lot more meat on the bone. These are the words they would use and I thought you know what we need to have a story. See, allah sends you people at the right time in your journey. So when I started the journey with the aviation project, often people would ask me so what is it that you're trying to do. I couldn't explain to them what I was trying to do In one word or in one sentence I came out in the documentary.
Speaker 2:Because I think the documentary introduces you as this kid who moved here in 97 and you only had one gcse. And you had this dream, yeah, that you wanted to launch the uk's third long haul sharia compliant airline all in one and the immediate question in the viewer's mind is okay, wow.
Speaker 2:and secondly, why? Right, like why, and also what I think for a lot of people, you immediately think what about an airline is not Sharia compliant? And then you think, oh, maybe it's the alcohol and the dressing and all of that, but was that the real reason that you wanted to do it? It's to tell a story I mean.
Speaker 1:So we built Sunnah Masjid based on Sharia compliance and the way I understood Sharia compliance was compliance you're complying, complying with something like halal compliant, you're complying. It wasn't enforcement. And I think what the media understood, or they wanted to understood in such a way, where it was enforcement we're going to enforce this and we're going to enforce that and we're going to.
Speaker 2:It wasn't supposed to be that people really turned on you you at some point the Sharia thing and you guys got a bit scared because the documentary touches on this. So just so the viewers know, we're just going to speed along in this story. You left Sunil Musk at one point to pursue this dream.
Speaker 1:I left and I still left.
Speaker 2:Well, you're on the team. Yeah, I'm on the team, but you left after Westfield. You guys had secured Westfield. You then decided this is my dream, I can make this happen. So you handed over the keys to your youngest brother, abid Himashullah has done incredible, incredible things with him. We'd love to get him on to talk about that success story. But then you went off with your friend Abdul Rakib and the documentary. I don't know if it's doing you guys justice, but it just kind of presented you guys as two guys who really liked planes.
Speaker 1:Laurel and Hardy Abdul used to say sometimes you were really into planes.
Speaker 2:So you decided we're going to do this and we're going to make it work.
Speaker 1:So I met Abdul, actually through an online forum. So aviation enthusiasts, they have their forums, so I would be on the forum talking about my crazy projects. And then he was another Bangladeshi from the same area and he reached out to me and said look, if there's any help you need, then I'm happy to help. And we became friends. And then, as I was progressing with the journey, so did did our friendship journey. It kind of happened simultaneously.
Speaker 2:So you didn't know each other before.
Speaker 1:No, no. So we got to know each other through that. So many people, majority of the people that I know, even till today it was through my journey of aviation and that's when I was. I guess I was going through an evolutionary phase in my personality. My knowledge Again from what I've learned with Sunamas I was still in my personality, my knowledge again from what I've learned with sunamas. It was I was still in the, in my eggshell. Now I had to man up and I had to go out there and talk to people and take real, make real decisions and, you know, take real responsibility because I was amongst my brothers. Everything, every, every time we've done something with sunamas, it was a collaborative approach, although I did the execution, but you always had this safety net.
Speaker 2:But this was you going on your own, flying solo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had to break off my eggshell, and Allah sends the right person at the right time and then I come across, so I was looking for funding. I need to raise funding because I cannot sustain this with my £1,200 salary.
Speaker 2:This is what I want to ask. I want to say I think richard branson gives a quote where he says if you want to become a millionaire, start off with a billion pounds and start an airline. Yep, because it's like one of the most expensive capital intensive things that you can ever do this.
Speaker 1:It really is because unless you're a country and you can you've got strategic decisions or advantages of why you should have an airline and you can take a loss. Then it's fine. For a country, it makes sense, but for a person to really make a commercial profit out of an airline business is so difficult. There's so much dynamics, there's so much moving pieces. You know how, when the ticket sales happen on Skyscanner or something, there's so much happening. It's like there's fraud. There's so many different things happen behind an airline and I think it's this whole complexity that really drew me into the whole idea of aviation. It's like, wow, how does this all happen?
Speaker 2:I really want to get to the top of it. It seemed like you were just fueled by passion, because if you really knew how difficult it was going to be, would you have done it, would you have started it? I still would do it.
Speaker 1:Look, it hasn't left my blood. It hasn't really left my blood, although we're going through a phase of closing the company and then, I suppose, maybe revisit it.
Speaker 2:So the dream is still alive. You still want to do that.
Speaker 1:It's very much alive but, inshallah, once I've come out of that. I'm still recovering from that shock. I'm still picking up the bits and pieces. It's gone through a liquidation process, okay and, um, unfortunately, lockdown really, really just was a. It was like a headwind in aviation terms. It was just a lot of headwind that completely, completely threw us off track and the money that we raised was nowhere enough to recover from any of this.
Speaker 2:I think the documentary says at the end you raised around 344 000 pounds or something four, four, four, four something thousand dollars okay so four 444 000.
Speaker 1:when you turn that into pounds, then it becomes three something. Yes, when you factor in the fees of the platform, then you lose more, and then when you factor in the refunds that some investors also took out, people pulled out. Yeah, a lot of people pulled out because it was a three months window and a lot of people changed their minds.
Speaker 2:What I loved about the.
Speaker 2:I wish we had more time to talk about this so maybe it would be great if you had more time to bring you back to discuss it, because it was a real kind of hero's journey, if you see what I mean. Because you start out with this guy with a dream. You go out and you find a plane, right, you want to secure the money for it, and then the airport that you, that you sign up to, they for some reason kick you out after you sign like a million pound contract. And it was just this crazy moment where you're sat there in your office and you're signing the. You're looking at the paper. It's like, okay, this is for a million pounds yeah should I be doing this and then?
Speaker 2:it's almost like you, just say bismillah and you sign and then the cameraman just says do you think that was a good?
Speaker 1:idea. I don't know, I don't know. Look with me. The thing was you can go, go to different consultants and there's too many consultants in aviation business. I paid so many consultants and I lost so much money because none of those plans were good enough to really put in front of an investor and for an investor to ask serious questions If you were to go for the proper, proper consultancies, which I came to know of at the end of my journey. Like who Like? For example, knighthood Capital is led by a guy called James Hogan, the former chairman and CEO of Etihad Airways, who is now my friend. Wow, but I wasn't able to get his attention.
Speaker 2:At the time.
Speaker 1:At that time, or in fact, he was still working in Etihad he was still working in Etihad and he wouldn't even consult me. There are other companies who are out there who do these sort of things, but they will ask you, how much money have you got? Because there has to be some sort of backing. And if I told them, oh, I've got nothing, then obviously they're not going to take me, take me seriously. So if I was to ever do this again of course I'm not going to do passenger aviation for sure really, what would you do private?
Speaker 1:jets talk too much. Talk too much as in complaints for this, that what I might do is cargo okay, almost like a trucking company okay your clients are agents, your clients are b2b very different business very completely still in aviation.
Speaker 1:But it's completely different business model and and I wouldn't do like a airline per se cargo airline it's going to be just like a they will call you up and they will like ask you to do a mission and it will be a mission specific fine uh company. So it's like an ad hoc charter company based in cargo business so?
Speaker 2:so what happened? Because the documentary ends very optimistically where, at the end of the documentary, you managed to purchase a 17 seater plane, so a lot smaller than the original plane it was leased.
Speaker 2:It was leased, lease right. So you're leasing a plane. It comes with the pilots, who's also the owner, and you get all these investors for this fantastic event at the airfield. And then all the investors climb on the plane and it takes off and everyone's cheering and chanting your name on the plane and then it ends and it just says you managed to raise the money. What happened? What happened after that?
Speaker 1:Lockdown happened, covid happened, so we were going through the whole licensing phase and, look, I think there's going to be so much to cover if I open that it will be a different episode.
Speaker 1:Literally. So I'm going gonna keep it very simple. Yeah, what happened was the money that we raised was nowhere enough. After all the platform fees and the refund of investors, I think ultimately we ended up with 200 and something k, although people rely on the figure that's on the website where, where it shows how much we've raised. Obviously it's in their best interest to show like, oh, they've raised so much money, but ultimately we didn't get the actual amount. We needed to do more rounds, more funding rounds, and my hope was let the Channel 4 documentary go out and then we will do more rounds. And then, while all that was happening and getting ready for the next phase, um, the licensing authorities. They found a whole suite of problems with the aircraft which, unfortunately, the lessor or or the owner of the aircraft didn't really fully disclose.
Speaker 2:I I got that vibe in the documentary where he said it hadn't flown for two years yeah, yeah, it was parked up and yeah I don't want to I guess to be honest, like I'm, I'm I'm very angry.
Speaker 1:I'm angry with, with certain people and particularly the aircraft owner. I'm I'm very angry because they they should have. Obviously I take responsibility for not engaging a proper company. You know, like when you buy a car you have to take AA or a mechanic to see if everything is okay, but with aircraft it's not like you don't do a dipstick check.
Speaker 2:I get it because it was really the end of the dream. This was like the final thing. Everything was going wrong, airports were pulling out. You didn't have routes to fly anymore. You'd lost the original, you know aircraft that you were going to buy. This would seem really like the final ticket to to achieve that yeah, so you know, but it sounds like inshallah. This dream is very much still alive because you have the contact network that you have now, the reach that you have.
Speaker 1:Marshall, you're seen as like one of the best entrepreneurs, let alone Muslim entrepreneurs within the country, so if anyone can pull it off, it's got to be you inshallah, make dua for me that I have that Allah gives me that energy back, because I do feel like, as I am getting older, when I look back at what I did, I, when I watched that, re-watched that documentary. Obviously, when I re-watched that documentary, obviously my son watches it every week or something and he goes. I'm so proud of you, dad.
Speaker 2:Mashallah, how old is your son?
Speaker 1:He's six and he understands and he's very proud. But when I look at it myself I was like shit, what's that mean? I can't believe I had so much courage and braveness. I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't do that now Because I'm too mean. I guess the courage of night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't know yeah all the things that were going to happen, all the things that would go wrong, and it can give you a lot of courage and sometimes that's the kind of madness you need to pull something off. But I think about that with my own business. If I knew now what I was going to go through and how difficult would it would be.
Speaker 1:I would never have done it, I would never have done, but a lot of conceals things for me, for a reason I think aviation has turned me into a man, really like from a business perspective. I knew nothing about fundraising, um share options, this, that. How do you work out valuation, pre-money valuation, post-money value? These were all like, like scientific terms to me and I used to ask the cfo person. I was like what does this mean? Or how do you get to that, or how does it? I was having a course, I was learning it was your education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, literally, and, bro, like this, honestly, it really did turn me into a man, I would say. And, by the way, that idea, it was my wife that dared me Really. It was my wife that dared me once, because, I don't know, I used to, just before we got married. I would tell her, look, I'm going to launch an airline one day. And I don't know, for some reason, she believed in it as well. I'm like, why would she? People shouldn't believe you, but she did. And then she goes to me one night. You know, I'll call you a man if you do it. I'm like, bro, my manhood is at question. Now, how can I? How can I say?
Speaker 2:please, please, tell me, that wasn't the main reason that you?
Speaker 1:it, it triggered me. Honestly. Look, I knew I was gonna do it. I knew I wanted to do it, but I I didn't know it was going to be at at that time. Wow, for me it was probably going to be another six, five or six to ten years later still, but I said you know what challenge accepted?
Speaker 2:because there's this moment in the documentary where your wife and daughter had gone out to bangladesh, and at this point the dream was really almost dead yeah right, the airports that you were going to fly to had pulled out. Was it wakefield? It was, uh, waterford and they were so annoyed because I called them waterford I appreciate that waterford airport Airport pulled out from the deal for whatever reason they did, and you flew out to Bangladesh and you hadn't told your family what was going on and you sat around this fire with your wife.
Speaker 1:Abid, abid was there. Yeah, abid was there. Abid was there, and your daughter.
Speaker 2:And you break the news to them.
Speaker 1:What was their reaction? They were devastated. I mean, I don't know about Abid I think he he's more calculated than than I am, so he probably like knew it could go either way. It could either happen or it could go south. But obviously me and my wife, we were like there's only way, there's only one way it's going to happen is, and it's by happening like it's going to launch. So for her it was very, very difficult News and she was like oh, why didn't you tell me, you know, and it's okay, it's okay to start, it's okay to start Very small. And now that I look back, you know what, maybe I should have just started Opening a cleaning company In aviation and slowly, slowly Work my way up, just like with Sunamas. You know how we done.
Speaker 1:But I went like all in and I went right into the deep end and I guess everything bro happened. I believe everything happens for a reason Whatever we do, every action that we take Is by the permission of Allah. And I think that's what was supposed to happen In my chapter of my life journey and I was supposed to be maybe trained or taught that way some of the life lessons and honestly, it really knocked me, it finished me. It crippled me when everything came crashing down after the first lockdown. I was going through depression. I was going through anxiety.
Speaker 1:You've got people calling you. I was going through depression. I was going through anxiety. You got people calling you. You got lenders that have loaned money to me as a person, not as a business, because they wouldn't lend it to the business because it's too risky. So they looked at me and they gave it to me. So now these people are calling me for their money. I'm like what am I supposed to say? Like I don't have it. So, yes, it was a very difficult time. Obviously, I didn't blank those people. I was always. Yes, the responses were slow, but I never ran away from talking to people.
Speaker 2:I can tell how it would have made you to a man and I had to, I had to just get through it.
Speaker 1:and that's when my fitness journey came and boy like if that I think that really helped.
Speaker 2:You can't tell, mashallah Radhikar is in a very different shape than he was in the documentary the fitness journey definitely helped, because running, jogging, you know, working out it kept me sane.
Speaker 1:Otherwise I would have become a madman Gosh. There's so much more I want to ask you. Otherwise I would have become a madman Gosh.
Speaker 2:There's so much more I want to ask you. I feel like this warrants a part two, but we're literally out of time. Let people decide, let people comment below and say if you want KSR back on the show.
Speaker 1:I hope you say yes, we'll get back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please do. That would be fantastic. Brother Qazi, I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, brother. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum, thank you for listening to the Muslim Money Talk podcast. If you like what you heard, then please subscribe to Muslim Money Talk. Wherever you might have been listening to this, give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really