‘Dreams have no limits’, is the motto of Alappuzha native Shafeeq. He wanted to give a face-lift to the flour mill run by his father. Being an expatriate who always dreamed of setting up an enterprise in his homeland, thus contributing towards the growth of his country’s economy, and living with his family, Shafeeq didn’t wait for a government grant to be sanctioned or until he could pool in the required funds. When he returned home after losing his job in Saudi Arabia following recession, Shafeeq had made his mind to pursue what he actually wanted to do. While devising various ideas for finding the money needed to develop the business, he zeroed in on using crowd-funding platform.
Shafeeq had read many stories of people raising funds for medical treatment or to participate in competition through various crowd-funding platforms. He got a plan. “The first thing that I did was to give a bit of publicity to my father’s flour mill by creating a Facebook page called Ikkas Flour Mill and keeping everyone informed about our daily activities through posts and photographs. As people are more inclined towards buying ready-made food products, I gave them an assurance that we can deliver pure, unadulterated flours and spices at their door steps. Usually, the flour mills that are mainly concentrated in the rural areas powder spices, rice and wheat only. However, I changed our working style and extended our services to urban population as well. Busy homemakers and working women can now order these products through our page. Spices and other products are properly washed, dried and then powdered. I will never compromise on quality as this is not my job, but passion. If the spices, rice and wheat are not dried properly before powdering, the presence of moisture can facilitate fungal growth, making it unsuitable for consumption. It was therefore mandatory that we install a dryer during rainy season to dry the products properly before powdering them,” says Shafeeq, adding that he posted on the Facebook page regarding the same and urged people to contribute the money required for buying the dryer.
“I was surprised when I was able to achieve the target of Rs 50,000 in just two days. In a first-of-its-kindinitiative in Kerala, I could successfully raise funds for business development.
The entrepreneur is happy about the fact that he could utilise a social media network to give a small business a pan India appeal. Shafeeq’s methods to acknowledge the people who helped him to revive from the crisis, too, are different.
He has been sending packets of organic flour and spices to the people who had lent him money. “I am not in a competition to do something unique, but fulfilling my promise that I made to the people who show an interest in helping me out. I had mentioned in my post that I would give them various products from our mill, worth the money they had given me. This is just a token of appreciation for the community that, like me, is keen to propagate organic food,” he observes.
When asked about the current scenario of startups in our country, Shafeeq says that the youth who have plenty of calibre and creative ideas, which when devised can give rise to startups that will represent India in an international platform, are forced to leave the country due to very less or no employment opportunities. The creative mindis busy formulating new ideas to create a market setup that will allow him to deliver his products directly to the customers.
