SUCCESS often comes the second time round, and Aamir Ahmad is living proof of
this. After devoting seven years and a huge amount of money - both his and
other people’s - to a mail-order furniture business that ended in disaster,
at the age of 36 he picked himself up and started again. His second
business, Dwell, is expected to have sales of £25m this year.
Brought up in southwest London with his younger sister by Indian-born parents,
he grew up keen to become an entrepreneur. “Several family members had their
own businesses and that always seemed a glamorous thing to do,” he said. “My
grandfather had jute mills and a trading company in Bangladesh and India and
my uncle had a big carpet and textile business.”
After A-levels Ahmad studied computer science at Manchester University and
then joined Boston Consulting for three years. He left to work in strategy
at the fashion retailer Laura Ashley and then IDV, now the drinks group
Diageo.
Then, at 28, Ahmad decided to start his own mail-order furniture business with
£40,000 of savings, mainly because he had seen how large mail order was in
America and thought it had big potential here.
He said: “Looking back, it is quite astonishing how badly planned it was. I
had no background in furniture design and I wasn’t exactly sure how to start
the thing up. I just had a strong vision of where I wanted it to go. I went
to a few trade fairs and tried to do some research but I didn’t have any
idea.”
He used the house he shared with his boyfriend in Putney as a makeshift
warehouse and office and set about producing a catalogue for the company,
which was called Ocean. “I got the fundamentals of producing a catalogue
completely wrong,” he said. “I didn’t have enough products, so I had a
32-page catalogue with 40 products in it - virtually one per page.”
He had 10,000 catalogues printed and asked friends to help distribute them,
thinking it would take a day or so. It ended up taking four weeks - and from
them Ahmad got only three orders worth a total of £800.
He was determined not to give up, however, and remortgaged his house to
produce another catalogue. His persistence was infectious and, as sales
grew, he even persuaded business angels to invest in the business.
“What happens is that you get into this mindset where, because you are
struggling so hard, you don’t ever stop and say Okay, forget that, it was a
complete waste of time, let me do the sensible thing and get on with my
life. You just think, I have to carry on doing it.”
But no matter how fast the business grew, the way it was structured meant that
it never made any money. After seven years Ahmad, by then 35, was finally
forced to give up his dream when investors refused to put in any more money.
The company was sold for a knockdown price and Ahmad, who by this stage had
8% of the equity, walked away with less than he had put in.
“It was an incredible body blow, when you have spent your whole life building
up a business,” he said.
Ahmad, who had also just split up with his boyfriend, decided he needed to
take some time off. He went to live in Spain and spent a year renovating a
house.
“I felt demoralised and like a complete failure,” he said.
By the end of his year away, though, he decided he wanted to have another go
at starting up a business.
“I told a few of my former staff that I was doing this and they said I was
completely mad. But I decided that this time round I would not make the same
mistakes again.”
So in 2003 Ahmad started up Dwell, another mail-order furniture company, using
£50,000 he had got back from the first business and £100,000 he borrowed
from his father.
“Although superficially it looked similar, I changed everything about it
behind the scenes,” he said. “The most important thing was I started the
business with more of a focus on making money.”
Instead of sourcing furniture from suppliers, he decided to design and develop
all the products himself, as well as writing all the computer systems. Then
he launched the business simultaneously by mail order, internet and shop –
the first one in Balham, south London.
The difference was incredible. “It went phenomenally, pretty much right from
the start,” said Ahmad. The big difference was this time I knew what I was
doing. If I made a mistake, I fixed it straightaway.”
In seven months the firm was in profit. Dwell now has seven stores across the
country. In 2007, turnover was £15m and this year it is expected to rise to
£25m.
Now 40, Ahmad, who still owns 100% of the business, thinks the secret of his
eventual success has been blind optimism. “You have to be incredibly
tenacious,” he said. “If you see an obstacle, the first thing you should
think is how you are going to break it down.”
His advice to people wondering whether to risk starting up a business after
their first one has failed is simple. “The people who make it work are the
people who say it was all my fault and I am going to fix it. You have to
learn your lessons.”
Above all, he said, “you have to start again. Don’t even think about getting a
job or working for someone else. You will regret it for the rest of your
life.”
