I had been away from my leather dude thingy for some while on the socials. I had been fairly quiet on both Linkedin and Instagram for a stretched period of 3 weeks.
One evening after Bakra Eid I received a call from IBA CED with a voice note if I would be interested to have a session with them for their summer entrepreneurial program.
Sounded like someone knew me or my work and this was something that made me excited and curious at the same time. I never knew the person.
Another call received within some minutes from an old acquaintance who had a small leather startup back in COVID, also happened to be an IBA alumni reached out with the same interest .
I was amazed, my hibernation in scorching summers, my inadvertent “sabbatical” was not registered in the universe.
It felt like an unknown pull .
A kindergarten teacher from Haque Academy sent in a DM on instagram that she referred me to IBA people.
Without a second thought, I responded with a positive gesture. More faculty members started getting in touch and I shared a plan to have a one day workshop incorporating a hands-on crafting experience combined with interactive brainstorming about leather and its commercial value in today’s world.
(Right after the session while writing this piece, I got another message from IBA’s marketing professor Dr Nida Khan who claimed that it was her who referred me to the CED team )
Whoever it was , it felt like an orchestrated process.
In the last couple of years, I’ve been oscillating from a states of inertia to a full swing here and there. Working as a Consultant for UN project, to being offered collaborations by Italian Leather Association, being invited as a delegate for their flagship event Lineapelle, an expert sustainability speaker by govt depts, activity partnerships with leading NGOs, capstone projects offered by academic institutions, becoming a luxury specialist certified by LVMH to being in a state of questioning my own existence and reflecting on global events, perhaps finding a reason to continue working with my ventures or just become a foreign policy diplomat.
I don’t have a degree which allows me to pursue becoming a stakeholder in foreign policy, let alone a diplomat or holding any executive office.
My opinions are biased often sound like conspiracy theories that turn into realities after a while. I see things with a perspective of world being in a state of cold war and everything happening around is its spin-off. Skirmishes in the Middle East, slow and steady disruption in the Pacific Peninsula, the Ukraine Russia conflict and South America’s tug of war choosing between communist system or capitalist system.
Back to the universe code pulling me back into educating the younger generation about leather.
We agreed to conduct session on June 10th ( Today ) and my team started preparing the activity gear, the leather , the equipment for the event.
An ACCA finalist, failed twice in Corporate & Business Law entering a hall where he would meet the faculty who harboured hundreds of startups in the last few years. I wondered what made them choose me over any accomplished leather dude in the market.
But I was feeling immensely happy about the fact that leather is entering into the halls of Pakistan’s iconic academic institution. Just in April this year, I happened to conduct a similar workshop with Habib University at IDEAL but the difference between entering IBA and Habib was the fact that I am finally talking to minds who have a tendency to commercialise, push boundaries of marketing and eventually be able to conceive ideas of bringing back leather into the culture.
According to Mike Redwood, one the industry’s most prolific commentator, Leather as an industry has a marketing problem.
“Marketing involves the whole mix of macro environment studies, consumer attitudes, company skills, competitive environment, market segmentation and targeting; only then aspects of product, price and communications. For leather that communication is complicated by leather’s role as a component. Effectively this involves consideration of push or pull marketing with big implications for resources and costs.”
Once I entered into the “zone” I felt like having an olympic torch in my hand ready to be shared with the most competent people and keep that flame alive.
I never felt such thing ever before. I don’t know whether it was my fascination with IBA as an institution or whether it was the matrix that manifested this binary code inside my brain.
But it was something really special.
The activity happened with the usual creative energy. Everyone wanted their wallet to be made before everyone else’s. The excitement after seeing their products completed was similar to what I always experience.
But then there was something different again.
The entrepreneurial energy! The participants were not undergraduates but teenagers in their O and A levels . Imagine having an entrepreneurial sense in minds who hardly took any serious decisions in their lives yet. Most of them fond of sports, manifesting becoming musicians or thinking about modifying their cars.
Yet they had something that most workshop participants never have. The hunger to earn !
The passion to create something that brings in money.
And I couldn’t be more excited to ask them writing their business plan if they had a company selling products made out of real leather.
The response was amazing. The ideas , the brand identities, the USP’s the marketing approach was simply mind-blowing . Coming from teenagers who haven’t stepped into an undergraduate program.
I would like to congratulate the faculty of IBA CED for sowing in the seeds into these young minds in such a short span where they are beginning to observe how economy around them works.
We talked about inspirational entrepreneurs mostly local brand founders, how their journey and business model inspired them. One young boy was most inspired with his father who had several businesses and he said he wants to be like him.
I was astonished that a 17 year old would also be listening to Warren Buffet’s technical advices, interviews where I usually zone out and unable to understand most of his advices.
The program for Summer School at IBA CED is being conducted for a few years now. I am genuinely curious to meet students who attended this in former years and how they are killing it in their universities now. I am sure some of them should be founders by now on their way to become exceptional leaders and finding solutions for the problems they identified and making the world even better.
Till I visit IBA again next month, I am hoping that I am able to mentor and inspire atleast one startup from one university in every city who would continue keeping this flame of LEATHERNESS alive in decades to come.
Here’s my return from the inadvertent sabbatical !
Checkout their post on Linkedin
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