Saba Gul on quitting Popinjay and exploring what’s next Stepping down from the iconic brand she’s created has been a gut wrenching decision for Saba Gul. But the maverick entrepreneur says she is just getting started. In March of 2011, Saba Gul quit a haobuy coque iphone xr six figure engineering job in the US to become an entrepreneur in Pakistan. With ma coque samsung j3 2017 $20,000 in personal savings and ‘an idea that lit her fire like nothing had before’, the MIT grad launched a non profit that would enable women artisans from rural Pakistan earn a fair wage from their craft. In 2013, numerous ups and downs later, she pivoted her business into coque samsung j1 2016 chien the high end handbag label Popinjay that was still committed to the model of ethical fashion. Saba’s triumph in creating a global fashion brand out of Pakistan, her business acumen and the smashed glass ceilings trailing in her wake have made her one of the most looked up coque samsung galaxies4 to success stories in the country. So, when she announced earlier this week that she was stepping down from her role as CEO at Popinjay, the broken hearts and shocked, disappointed murmurs were coque samsung galaxy alpha game boy inevitable. Saba Gul Saba says that while this was one of the hardest things she’s done in her life, it does coque samsung galaxy s5 frite not signal the end of her ambition. In a freewheeling coque samsung a5 fleurs chat with PakWired, she discusses the reasons behind this decision, the challenges of running a startup from Pakistan, the idea that lights her fire now and why she’s committed to entrepreneurship for life. Why are you stepping down There are two to three harry potter coque samsung high level reasons. coque samsung Funding was a challenge. I raised a total of about half a million dollars in seed funding. We were able to do a lot with it in our first year. We designed and manufactured our products, built up our supply chain, hired our first coque samsung s7 geek few team members and even got our first few retail partnerships. We got Anthropologie in our fourth month and CNN was our first press exposure. But it was not enough to get us to our Series A. If I could go back, I would raise a much larger amount. My seed amount would have been able to get us to the next milestone. I also feel we have a very complicated supply chain that spans multiple countries, products and raw materials. That required building a team in two different countries. coque samsung As a solo founder that was a huge challenge. I think startups are just too much work for one person in the early days. We had a physical product. We owned every vertical of coque samsung galaxy a5 pokemon our business from end to end. At some point, when the stakes get higher, doing all this as a solo founder becomes almost impossible. It means you constantly going back and forth and not to justice to any one particular role. Ultimately my startup philosophy is also where you either go big or go home. While this is not right for everyone, it is what works for me in terms of keeping me challenged and fuelling my ambition. It has always been my vision for Popinjay to go big. It isn’t that we run out of money or that this just isn’t working. It that given the challenges that I described, it not possible for us to scale at the rate of that jonwelsy coque pour iphone xr vision. You have teetered on the edge many times in the past, both with the non profit Bliss and then with Popinjay. Why are you coque integrale iphone xr giving up now, when you coque samsung galaxy s4 caoutchouc pulled through in equally bleak situations We actually been in situations coque samsung j3 2016 loup bleaker than this one. coque huawei But there is a right time and a wrong time for taking a step. There were many many tough times during Popinjay coque samsung galaxy alpha channel journey. The interesting thing is that when I made this decision, perhaps to investors, it was a strange time to step down. We had recently received multiple new funding commitments. Our revenues were on the upswing and we had upcoming PR opportunities. We coque samsung j3 silicone disney had a new creative director. Things were looking as if they were going to improve. But I still knew that we needed much more to really truly go big. And I wanted Popinjay to thrive, not just survive. I feel that there this line between persistence, which is necessary for success in a startup, and stubbornness, which can be a roadblock to it. I have cultivated a thick skin coque samsung galaxy core plus cdiscount while dealing with the recurring challenges of Popinjay. I know that results take longer than expected, and they harder than expected, in coque samsung galaxy s5 van gogh a startup. But I felt I was grappling with the same fundamental issues over and over again. I was still a solo founder. That wasn changing any time soon. There was an opportunity cost to my time as well. I have got the brand as far as I could with the resources that we had. You been hustling since 2011, first with the pilot non profit Bliss, and now Popinjay to make ethical fashion a sustainable business model in Pakistan. Now with you stepping down after such a long struggle, do you think the two are inherently contradictory There is nothing wrong with the model or the concept of artisan based business. Every business has particular ingredients be it a founder, a market, a product, a focus, a team that determines how it weathers the challenges that come up in its journey. Moreover, our product is a nice to have product and not a have to have product. It not solving a hard pain point. Fashion is a fickle industry, subject to changing tastes and trends. There a significant amount of money that needs to go into marketing and into creating aspiration in your customers hearts and minds. It not just about developing something great. So, a business model like this will have to be bankrolled by someone with a lot of capital to invest. With our product being made in this part of the world and sold in another, the capital would have enabled us to build a great team in multiple countries. Ventures like Popinjay will benefit from having multiple founders on board. But ethical businesses should make sense and do make sense. Pakistan has a rich heritage and design history. We have uniquely skilled local artisans. It just requires hard working people committed to making this vision a reality. coque iphone It is happening and it will happen. When was the decision for you to step down taken Was it the company or your call It was completely my choice in the sense that I went coque samsung j5 peugeot to the board and told them that this is what I felt is right. We reached a consensus from there. bijoux pas cher The decision itself is a rolling process. We started having this conversation a few months ago and now we all are adjusted to it. The conversations about the future of the brand coque iphone xr rouge are still ongoing. Who is poised to succeed you It is too early to give substantial news on this front. Do you think you be staying on as an adviser, or in any other capacity, with Popinjay It depends on what ends up being the future of the brand in terms of a coque samsung galaxy a5 sm-a500fu takeover, but I am happy to stay on in that capacity. Is it too premature to ask if Popinjay is open to an acquisition The question is premature, but it is part of the conversation. That is a possibility. How is this move going to affect the artisans of Popinjay The primary question on my own mind was what this means for the future of the artisans and the relationship that I have with them.
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