Hard work & Dedication with patience can do the Miracle

Mustafa grew up in a remote village in Wayanad district of Kerala which had neither electricity nor roads. His family lived on the meagre earnings of his father who stopped studying after Class 4 and worked as a coolie on a coffee plantation. He is the eldest and have three younger sisters. His mother Fathima never went to school. He was poor in studies and failed in Class VI, this failure make him totally uninterested in going to school.

But he knows the reality, if he doesn’t study he has to work with his father in farm as colie, which struck him. He decided to went back to school. From then with his hard work soon he became the good student and stood first in the school in Class 10. But as he is from a weak financial background, to support his further study his father don’t have money.

He got admission at the Farooq College in Kozhikode where one of his father's friend, arranged for a free meal scheme in the college charity hostel as he could not afford to pay. Naturally, other students looked at him with disdain. It was not a pleasant experience, but he had to swallow the humiliation for the sake of his education.

He wrote the engineering entrance exam after his college and secured a good rank and got the opportunity to study computer science. He also got a scholarship and took a student's loan. He didn't have to pay any tuition fees but only had to take care of the hostel fees. That was a big relief. He worked hard and did well in studies. After graduation in 1995, He got placed at Manhattan Associates, an Indian start-up in the US.

After a few days of working at the start-up in Bangalore he got an offer from Motorola. So After working for a short period in Bangalore, he was sent to Ireland, again after three months, he got a very good offer from CitiBank and he jumped at it and moved to Dubai. In 1996, a salary in lakhs was quite something for a person from a remote village.. He paid off his debts and his parents started planning for his sister's wedding. Soon, He built a house for his parents in village, in 2000 he also get married.

In 2003, after having lived in Dubai for so long, He decided to return to India. Because he wanted to come back and spend time with my parents and study further, give something back to society by starting his own venture. But quitting a well-paying job is one of his toughest decisions he ever made. He wanted to do something but had no idea what it would be. He came to back to India with a savings of Rs 15 lakh.

After coming India he gave the CAT exam and got admission at IIM-Bangalore, he used to go village every weekend to be with his parents and even while studying he would constantly discuss business plans with his cousins.

One of his cousins, had seen dosa batter being sold in plastic bags tied with a rubber band in nearby stores and came with idea to make and supply dosa batter. So he decided to invest Rs 25,000 and start a company immediately. Five cousins decided to join hands. The partnership was such that he had 50 per cent share in the company and the other 50 per cent was with the four of them. They found a small place of around 550 square feet and started with two grinders, a mixer and a sealing machine. They named the venture ID Fresh as we planned to supply fresh dosa and idli batter.

They started very small with just 10 packets a day and supplying to 20 stores in the neighbouring area, their initial target was to supply 100 packets a day in six months. They stuck to the first 20 stores and waited to touch the 100 packet figure. After achieving this target in 9 month, he decided to invest Rs 6 lakh (Rs 600,000) and move to a bigger kitchen of 800 sq ft with 2,000 kg capacity, which is 2,000 packets with 15 wet grinders.

The best part of this venture was that they were making profits from day one. None of them took any salary initially. After paying the rent of Rs 500 and crossing off the expenditure of buying rice, dal, etc, their profit was Rs 400 in the first month. In 2007, He got his MBA and officially joined as the CEO in charge of marketing and finance. Till then, he was only remotely participating in the operation along with his cousins.

In next two years, they increased the capacity to 3,500 kg a day. The number of stores partnered with increased to 300, 400. In Oct-2015 they became a Rs 100 crore company. They have grown from producing 10 packets a day in 2005, with to 50,000 packets a day with 1,100 employees in 10 years.

If you have the passion to start something, do it immediately. Don't wait for tomorrow. I had the passion to be an entrepreneur, but it took me a few years make that decision. I still regret the delay. I wish I had started five years earlier

- P C Mustafa

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