SAHAR Hashemi OBE was visiting New York when she chanced upon a coffee shop that served a great cup of coffee.
She wanted that back home in the UK but couldn’t find an equivalent cup in the tea-drinking country.
So, she hatched a plan to create a coffee chain, hoping that someone would build it so she could have a good cup of coffee.
Instead, she wound up starting Coffee Republic, which grew into a big chain which she eventually sold because she thought people who start businesses should not run it when it becomes big and profitable.
On hindsight, she realised, that was not correct, and that all enterprises should behave like start ups.
Sahar explains much of the concepts at the recent Singapore Management Festival 2019, organised by SIM Professional Development. She also details her entrepreneurial journey in her books Anyone Can Do It and Start Up Forever.
Here she talks to STORM-ASIA about what new entrepreneurs will have to bear in mind when starting their own ventures.
