Human interest is of the most important news that comes across, and when you hear that one of your vegetable vendor’s son or the daughter of a shoe maker made it to IIT or IIM or MBBS or some higher degree, it is something that everyone should be proud of. And with time, we do get to hear such news from one or the other area and that the society or the community that he or she belongs to are on cloud 9 especially their parents and family.
We have a similar case that has happened in South India and wherein the little boy outshines the most talented entrepreneurs, famous personalities and celebrities as well. PC Mustafa, a coolie’s son has grown so well into an entrepreneur that even a management student could not think of. He belongs to a very financially poor family and that even his parents are not educated. He was the eldest of the four children and that he had three younger sisters.
He belonged to a village where the people of the village were always far away from education, electricity and advancement. The children had to walk almost 4 kilometers if they continued school after primary school. With the idea of walking so long, most of them did give up the idea of education. And so did Mustafa as well. He instead thought of being a daily wage worker.
He did fail in 6th and thereon his interest was drawn. He was good at Math and so he did have little expectations from himself and one of his professors, Mathew, did help him grow to a good point. He did not like the idea of Mustafa dropping out of the school and simply asked him a simple question which made Mustafa motivated for the whole of his life. The professor asked him if he would like to become a teacher or rather be a coolie when he grows.
He studied harder there on, came first in the 7th grade in his class and then after achieved good grades in grade 10 as well. He followed the professor on his footsteps. And he moved out of the village to go to college for further studies and made sure that he paid greater attention in class, making sure that he doesn’t spend more money, and that he had to prove himself. He did have suffered a lot during college life but managed it all. He studied harder and stood 63rd in the entrance of National Institute of Technology then known as Regional Engineering College. He took loan to pay off his tuition fees and actually wanted to become an engineer and had no idea of becoming an entrepreneur.
He moved from Bangalore to Ireland to Dubai to India and made his name and earned his respect. He worked with Motorola and he still remembers his experience on his first flight. He then shifted to Dubai and worked with Citi bank where his salary was raised in lakhs. He sent one lakh rupees to his father with his friend and his father had tears in his eyes while he handled such a huge amount. He was happy that he was a support to his family. He then wanted to do something of his own and resigned from Dubai and moved down to India. Only one of his cousin and his wife did support him in this.
His motto was to spend time with his family and that he had to give back to the society what it had given to him. He with his three cousins thought of opening a small outlet of making and supplying batter of the dosa. He initially did start with small investment and that they did not expect it to reach so high in profits but from the first day itself, they saw profits. They started the outlet in a small 550 sq. feet area store, two grinders, one mixer and a sealing machine. The venture was given a name ID Fresh and their main target was to get the sales of 100 packets a day. And the target was met in the next six months.
The profits went high and so did their store got bigger. The dealers were increasing and the staff was hired as well. He joined in 2007 as the CEO of the venture and he looked into every matter. He made sure that the talent from the rural areas crept in and were hired. He wanted to give a chance to all those budding entrepreneurs and so he asked for the staff only from the rural areas. From the batter of dosa, they started with idli and wada batter as well, and eventually with parathas. By 2012, the company expanded and started outlets in Chennai, Mumbai, Mangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. He even did start an outlet in Dubai but was unable to match the demand of the public.
The 100 crore company gave attention to the Indian market. The daily packages of batter increased from 10 packets a day to 50000 packets a day in the span of 10 years. All he wants to say to the public is to don’t let that time to wake you up and rather stand up on your own, choose the right time, place and thing and let the creative person in you grow. Success is always tied with hard work and passion. Make sure that you be where you wish to and stand above all.
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