BREAKING THE MOULD

Sahar Hashemi, Founder of Coffee Republic

What makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur? According to Sahar Hashemi there is no particular mould that entrepreneurs fit into. Niamh MacSweeney spoke to the inspiring business woman and found out, that when she says anyone can do it, she means exactly that.

In 1995 together with her brother Bobby, Sahar Hashemi set up a business, which we now know as Coffee Republic. It is one of the most recognised UK high street brands currently with a turnover of £30 million sterling and growing.

Her book Any One Can Do It follows the progress of Coffee Republic from a business plan to its present day and has been a huge success. Recently named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum the future for this intrepid entrepreneur is very bright indeed. But what is the real definition of an entrepreneur?

WHAT IS AN ENTREPRENEUR?

For Hashemi entrepreneurship is not a word that she necessarily associates with starting a business, for her it is much more than that. “It’s a constant state of mind, a different attitude, an attitude that anyone can have.” Hashemi also believes it is a myth that entrepreneurs are born, a myth that people love to subscribe to. When choosing a career she found it difficult to find any comparisons with other entrepreneurs. “I tried to compare myself with Richard Branson. I would think am I remotely like him, no, did I make my first million selling sweets in the school playground, I certainly didn’t, did I drop out of school in some controversial way, no”. Clearly Hashemi was not your classic entrepreneurial type, she went in the opposite direction and became a solicitor.

Very quickly Hashemi realised that what she was doing didn’t suit her personality. “Aristotle has an expression - your ideal is doing something that you are best at. I think your ideal is doing something where the whole term work-life balance doesn’t exist, so you are not really counting whether you are working or living. For me I couldn’t be myself. When you can’t be yourself by definition you switch off, you actually stop having fun and I remember that time back in the 80s boredom and routine were part and parcel of working life,” she explains.

ANYONE CAN DO IT

Hashemi is the first to admit that great ideas aren’t necessarily original, new or revolutionary. “You need to find your vision, something that you are passionate about and something you love doing. Find your hobby and find out how you can make your hobby make money for you” is her advice. EDUCATION Discipline the ability to work hard and self-belief are attributes of an entrepreneur. Hashemi agrees “entrepreneurship courses are fantastic because it gives you great tools. The more tools you have at your disposal the better and education is one of the tools.” When she started out in business there weren’t that many entrepreneurs. Now we have loads of entrepreneurs who are celebrated throughout the world and people are being encouraged to become entrepreneurs,” she maintains. ADVICE FOR ENTREPRENEURS Find something that you are passionate about and then through the series of steps and the tools you need to go for it. Anyone can do it you just have to do it.

FAMILY BUSINESS

According to Hashemi the good thing about working with a family member is you know each other really well. “My brother and I got our training from the sand pit because you have big fights and then you forget all about it. I found that the business starts benefiting from that rather than you being careful not to tread on anyone’s toes. Of course there were times when we were going to kill each other we regularly plotted each other’s deaths but that’s the whole point of a sibling because one minute you are killing each other and the next it is forgotten. With somebody who isn’t a family member you can’t do that because the tension builds up and you can’t always be honest.” Hashemi is aware of the need for family run businesses to have a succession plan in place, however she does not expect the next generation to want to take over. “I think its admirable to have the business even in one generation. I’ve got this business but how can I expect my children to be as passionate about the same thing. Everyone has got to find what they are good at. You can’t force it down your children if its not the area that interests them.

Hashemi stayed in the comfort zone of the law firm for five years. Sensing that she was getting stuck in a rut the alarm call came when in 1993 her father died suddenly. “ I realised that there is no comfort zone, because a comfort zone is a complete false sense of security and a complete illusion,” she says.

A LEAP OF FAITH

Realising that she had nothing to lose, Hashemi took the biggest leap of her life and left the law firm. “I think that my motto in life is leap and the net will appear. I believe so strongly in this that I’ve since taken many leaps in life.”

Hashemi went to visit her brother Bobby in New York and fell in love with the habit of drinking high quality coffee every morning. She was quick to grasp the concept of taking a small commodity like coffee and completely turned it into something luxurious.

On her return Hashemi decided that she would like to bring American style coffee bars to London. The next day she went to the nearest tube station, got on the circle line, got off at each of the 27 stops and realised that there was a serious gap in the market.

ANYONE CAN DO IT

It was that day that Hashemi became an entrepreneur. “I don’t believe that entrepreneurs are born. I believe that every person has entrepreneurial qualities within them and the problem is that these qualities just remain dormant. The question you always ask yourself is am I entrepreneurial. But the question should be how can I unlock more of the entrepreneur in me,” she explains.

THE FIRST STEPS TO SUCCESS

Hashemi openly admits that she knew nothing about coffee but regards this lack of knowledge as an advantage. “Its great to be clueless because all you see is your vision, you are unaware of the obstacle and have no baggage. Our minds were empty so we found out everything we needed to know about the world of coffee.”

Through market research the siblings found that “in the 80s we drank 7 times more tea than coffee, in the 90s we were drinking 4 times more tea than coffee, I’m happy to say that we now drink as much tea as we drink coffee,” she says.

Writing the business plan for Coffee Republic they calculated that they needed to raise £90,000 to open the first store, but securing finance was not easy. Eventually the last banker on their list finally agreed to lend them the money.

Again, Hashemi values the rejections because she maintains that if you get a ‘yes’ straight away then there is something wrong. “Other people will always stop at a rejection but an entrepreneur learns that getting to the ‘yes’ is all about notching up rejections.”

MAKING A DREAM A REALITY

The next step and perhaps the most difficult was the implementation of the venture. “Implementation is when you come across what I call the corporate traffic jam because none of the suppliers can supply you with what you need, landlords don’t want to give you a site because you have no credibility and employers don’t want to work for you. As an entrepreneur you just have to boot strap and make things happen. ”

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

In November 1995 the first Coffee Republic opened its doors. The first coffee bar of its kind in the UK, there are now over two thousand five hundred coffee bars just like Coffee Republic. To those who think that Hashemi was lucky to latch on to the next big thing, her response is simple. “There is no such thing as an overnight success; in fact it takes 15 years to become an overnight success. The same way that bank managers reject you when you have idea, also customers don’t buy the brand immediately they reject you at the beginning.”

BREAKING EVEN

Initially Coffee Republic had to make £700 a day to break even but every day for the first six months they only made £200 in sales a day. “We didn’t give up because we had this vision, which we were committed to. It took six months for the sales to start to break even. We then decided to expand and open another store. I though great we are a big chain now. ”

By the late 90s and with over 100 chains the company began trading on the stock exchange. It was then that Hashemi decided to leave and sold out in April 2001, a decision that she now regrets. “When you work like an entrepreneur, you behave like an entrepreneur and the whole work-life balance doesn’t exist because work and fun and work and life become the same thing. By taking one out of your life you are taking a big chunk of something that you love out of your life.”

Hashemi doesn’t believe in luck instead she believes that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes and that anyone can do it and she. “The way I see it there is a conveyer belt in front of us and on this conveyer belt there are little cubes of luck that are always going in front of us but often you are not even looking at the conveyer belt. But if you are in the right place and have the right attitude then when that conveyer belt passes in front of your eyes you have got to grab that cube of luck, if you grab it, then you have got to take that leap and I believe that if you take that leap things will always be there for you,” she concludes.