The Necessity of Building Your Own Table

One year ago, I went to my first invite-only event in Lahore as an entrepreneur. I was so excited because a) everyone likes feeling special but more importantly, b) I wanted to learn about expanding in the MENA region and there were some amazing founders there who had done that.

My excitement however was short-lived. I remember standing at the end of the room, right in the middle of the rows with the stage/panel in my direct line of sight. It felt like overlooking a small city from the top of a hill and I remember thinking “wow. This sucks”.

Post panel-talk was the “networking” part of the event. Since I went abroad for my undergrad, I was accustomed to free flowing conversations, insightful questions and accomplished people who were kind enough to share their lessons with me and others starting out in their journeys. This however, was…different.

1 man standing, surrounded by 8 younger guys, who are just flattering him. No productive talk, no exchange of a dialogue. And no genuine interest in the conversation. Was this a result of a lack of networking etiquette or the misconception that you can flatter your way upto a job/promotion? Either way, it felt horrible to witness. There was this other bigger problem: for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was not valued there. I looked around, and saw the same problem in every such cluster. One or two women, standing on the outskirts of a circle which was just formed around a speaker from the panel, all of whom happened to be men. And don’t get me wrong, they seemed to be just as uncomfortable with the experience as I was with mine.

I can’t be the only one feeling this, I remember thinking as I stood at the back of the room. There is no way Pakistan is actually working like this. And if it is, there is no way people are enjoying working like this. And where on Earth are all the women?

That’s when it hit me. This is NOT how business is actually conducted. Not just in Pakistan but anywhere in the world. Networking events are for college students, or young workers who are entering into the workforce. Or tech entrepreneurs, who perhaps benefit the most from these events especially if they have a focus on B2B. They rarely carry value unless they are intensely community driven, or around a niche interest.

Okay what was I gonna do now?

“Go where your customers are”. This is what professor Jamie N. Jones taught me at Duke. “If you don’t know how to find them, you have a problem”.

If I were running a consulting firm, where would my clients, the business owners, be? Definitely not at corporate networking events. They’d be at a golf club, or at a café, or at a dhaaba if they are in smaller towns. Because true business isn’t conducted in board rooms or co working spaces, it’s conducted in third spaces. No matter how many rows of excel projections we make, companies are built by people, and all businesses are people businesses.

This was my “OMG” moment. This is why there were so few women here. The space wasn’t welcoming enough, and anyone who worked in corporate Pakistan for a few years knew very well that no deals were being done at these events. Women were, for the lack of better term, isolated. Most of them don’t play golf, and even if they do, I cannot imagine them sharing a golf club with a group of dudes who have been playing together for years.

Men have golf and dhaabas, what do women have? Where do women often go? What’s an experience they already enjoy where we can encourage more value?

It was this that sent me on a research spree. As I drove back from work I realized for whatever reason, the experience of beautifying themselves is something every woman, regardless of age enjoys. (Please don’t @ me. Men can do this too, I’m just going off the predominant culture 😊). So spaces exist, I just needed to figure out a way to completely change how they are perceived. Easy peezy.

I knew what it will be called, how it would look, and most importantly how it would make people feel. And then all there was left to do was to put my entire life savings into something that had no financial proof, just one girl’s delusional faith (and a bit of repressed anger).

I spent the next few months scouting the right people: carpenters, glassworkers, painters, furnishers, plumbers – everyone had the same reaction to my poorly drawn drawings and a few saved Pinterest photos – “ma’am what are you thinking of doing? This is not how it’s done. You should look at xyz, that’s how it’s always done” but by this time, I had like 8 failed companies and 2 successful ones, so I knew this didn’t matter. I would politely smile and request them to just execute. Plastered walls turned into colored walls, with wooden accents and arches, and a reception that looked like a bar from a mid century modern space. Bit by bit (and a few cries later), things started coming together. The last shock factor came to the gentleman who was sampling the paint and I sent him 8 shades of olive green and tan. But I persisted, the space came together and the pre-furniture, final look had everyone in shock. “Beta hum video bana lain iski? Apnay page pe lagain ge, bara khoobsoorat bana hay. Assi wi dasna ay logaan nu assi aithay kam kitta ay” [Hey kiddo, can we film this? We’ll put it on our page it looks beautiful. We’ll tell our customers we’re the ones who worked on this project]

Apprehension turned into pride and, I saw the same people telling me 20 thousand reasons why I shouldn’t do it my way, now proudly presenting their share of the work to the world. Sometimes, you really just have to trust the process.

Was it like this in every aspect? Absolutely not! My initial marketing strategy sucked. The audience I wanted didn’t know I existed, and everyone who came once said they had no idea we were in business. This was a problem and there just wasn’t anything I could seem to get right. I also made terrible mistakes in the hiring process. I knew personalities mattered, but how much they mattered is something I realized when I opened up NOSMO. This wasn’t just a one-person project. This was real. The team, the clients, the end-to-end interaction with the customers…everything was not just an Instagram page anymore and I was responsible for all of it.

My ‘wow I’m a CEO woohoo’ quickly turned into ‘shit. I’m responsible for all these people’. Everyday I had a new epiphany that I never explicitly learnt in any college class, or business conference, or business book. Reading about things, and doing them are two very different experiences. It’s like reading about driving a car, learning about the gears, and prepping for an emergency brake…but you really don’t know what the whole thing is like unless you’re sitting behind the steering wheel, actually driving, and there is an emergency situation on the road.

Now, almost 8 months later, I’m finally enjoying the work because I feel like the insanity of it all has calmed down a bit. Actually, that’s not true. Each day is still chaotic, but now I just know it will be like that and I know my job is to stay calm through it. From legal aspects, to legislative compliances, to reaching the right clients and making sure the wrong ones never come back, to building avenues of collaboration to ensuring my team stays motivated and happy throughout it all, the biggest thing I learnt was, I’m the least important person in the entire company. And the faster I learn to put my ego aside, the better we perform as a company.

On our eight-month anniversary, I’m so honored to write that I’m at a place where my initial goal of bringing together talented amazing women is achieved. I’ve met powerhouses of talent: from cancer surgeons, to restaurant owners, stylists, software engineers, architects, real estate DEVELOPERS, homemakers, women heading departments in huge legacy corporations, artists, producers, athletes, mothers, small business owners, and so so much more! Are we there yet financially? No lol. Long way to go. But of the many ways I could measure success, The NOSMO is successful in finding and building a space where I discovered the immensely talented women that exist but are unsung in our society. And all of them teach me a new way of looking at life, a perspective so refreshing, I rarely come home tired from work. In fact, almost every day, I have a conversation with someone so cool, I need to journal about it and make sure I don’t forget how cool they were.

8 months to the launch and almost 1 whole year since I went to that event that started this whole thing, and I am so grateful for the journey I got to be on. The NOSMO is built in spite of how the local and international media portrays life in Pakistan. It’s my gift to society, but especially to girls like me who know life is more than just petty gossip or vain talk or making yourself small. It’s a recognition of the unique experiences of every woman and the immense amount of love and life she carries inside her. It’s a celebration of their wins, and a support for their setbacks. It’s the kind of sisterhood that reassures young girls that the biggest lie the world tries to sell us is that we have to choose what kind of a life we will live because no one gets the best of all worlds. It’s proof that the secret of a well-lived life isn’t balance, it’s presence. Being present when you’re with your friends and family, being present when you’re at work, and being present when you’re with yourself.

Will I ever open up the space to men? Probably one day. But for now, every new connection built at NOSMO (from a new kitty party invite that 2 clients exchange, to a new business collaboration that two clients discuss) is a little medal on my wall of things I think I did right.

The next step? Hoping the momentum continues, the community stays alive and active, and the venture makes money (big ameen).

Until the next crazy idea I have,

Xoxo,

Zarfishar