This Pakistani-born Entrepreneur Built a $600 Million Business from Scratch

[ghazi52]

This Pakistani-born Entrepreneur Built a $600 Million Business from Scratch

https://www.ediblearrangements.com/About/tariq-farid-ceo-edible-arrangements/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Farid


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Tariq Farid
Tariq Farid is an American entrepreneur who is the owner and CEO of Edible Arrangements International Inc. In 2009 he was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year by the International Franchise Association.

The Pakistani startup ecosystem has, despite a lot of hype and excitement among the Pakistani entrepreneurs, still not produced enough successful startups. However, there are a number of Pakistani-born businessmen and entrepreneurs that have been widely successful creating million dollar businesses from scratch outside Pakistan.

Meet Tariq Farid, Founder of Edible Arrangements
Born in Pakistan in 1969, Tariq Farid is the owner and CEO of Edible Arrangements, a US-based franchising business that specializes in fresh fruit arrangements. His company, now worth more than half a billion dollars, has more than 1,200 stores all over the world.

“In 2016 alone, Edible Arrangements is expected to ship 10.8 million orders.”

Tariq’s journey started out with a moderately-sized flower shop in East Haven, a Town in Connecticut, United States, which he bought by borrowing $5,000 from his parents. Unlike many other mega-entrepreneurs, Tariq didn’t start out with a dream of making a million-dollar business.

At that time, he was just a 17-year old trying to make ends meet. That’s when he had an idea of making edible arrangements of fruit-filled bouquets and chocolates. This idea would go on to later transform his whole life.

“Being around flowers, I started thinking about the presentation of food in different displays and, at the time, no one was thinking about scaling or turning it into a big retail business,” said Tariq in an interview with Forbes.

When he first started pitching his idea to people, he was turned down by a lot of people and told it wouldn’t work. He was told that “people aren’t going to pay for this and it hasn’t been done before.” Not giving up, he decided to send an edible arrangement off to floral customers just to see their reaction. The response he got was simply amazing and reinforced his belief in his own idea.

“The customers asked, “when can I buy them?” I was inspired by the customers and when someone told me it’s not going to work.”

He opened the first Edible Arrangements store in 1999. Initially, it was incredibly hard. On their very first holiday, the festival of Easter, they had to make 28 arrangements and it took them 16-18 hours to carry that out. But after the orders had been sent out, more and more people started taking interest in them.

Building a Franchise
Even after orders had started flowing in, Tariq still had a relatively small business. The real break came when a customer reached out to ask if he could build one in the American state of Massachusetts. Tariq, initially doubtful, said he would consult his attorney and send the paperwork if needed.

In truth, he didn’t even have an attorney. So he put together a document and did all the research by himself. In doing this, he learned a lot of things about franchising which he normally wouldn’t have.

“When I spoke with franchisees I knew what every word meant and that was one reason we were very successful,” he elaborates. “When I got on the phone, I knew every aspect of the document we were signing and knew why it was there and the purpose of it.

That’s where it all changed for him and Edible Arrangements. Today, Edible Arrangements is worth over $600 million. In 2013, they hit $500 million in system-wide sales for the first time. Their sales expectations for last year alone were pegged at 10.8 million orders.

It has taken Tariq 17 years to take his company to where it stands today, and still, he keeps on planning to take it even further. He says that they are currently working with a number of big companies that want to use Edible Arrangements’ products for marketing or thanking clients. Moreover, they plan to add 75-100 stores per year.

Tariq has faced many challenges along the way but has successfully managed to deal with every one of them.

“Before, everything was a lot simpler, but now you have to build a web presence and a global presence. Along the way, things have gotten very complicated and very expensive.”

Tariq Farid is a big example of why you don’t need millions in funding to succeed or to be incubated at some big-name incubators or accelerators. It also shows how the only feedback about your idea that you need is from your consumers — the people actually using your products. A lot of people laughed off at his idea in the start, but that didn’t put him off.

 

[ghazi52]

Biography


Tariq Farid was born in Sahiwal, Pakistan,[2] in 1969, the oldest of six children of Ghulam and Salma Farid. His father emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, working in Connecticut as a machinist. Tariq Farid arrived in the United States with the rest of the family in 1981, when he was 11 years old.[3] As a teenager, Tariq mowed lawns and worked in a McDonald’s restaurant. In 1986, when he was 17, the family bought and began operating a flower shop in East Haven, Connecticut. While working in the family business, which expanded to additional locations, Tariq developed a computerized point of sale system for floral shops, and struck out on his own in 1991 in a business selling computer systems to flower retailers.[3]

Business ventures

By 1993, the computer enterprise grew into the computer software distributor Netsolace.[1]

In 1999, he and his brothers partnered to open the first Edible Arrangements store in Hamden, Connecticut. The business specializes in fresh fruit arrangements, melding the concept of fruit baskets with design inspired by the floral business.[3] After designing the computer systems, training manuals, production and profitability tracking and supply chain management process, they began franchising the concept in 2001. Farid often highlights Edible Arrangement franchisees on his blog, TariqFarid.com.[4][5][6]

As Founder and CEO, Farid has grown the company to more than 1,200 stores serving locations in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Arab Emirates, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Italy, Hong Kong, India, and Jordan.[7]

In 2006, Farid also launched the franchise concept Frutation by Edible Arrangements out of his desire to provide consumers an “on-the-go” option; now called "Edible to Go". In March 2008 the company was reported to have revenues of $195 million.[8] By 2014, the company's 15th anniversary year, Edible Arrangements had 1,200[9] locations and annual sales of approximately $500 million.[10]

In 2010, Edible Arrangements faced dissatisfaction from some of its franchisees. In January 2010, more than 270 franchisees presented Farid with individual letters expressing opposition to corporate policies and practices that they considered to be harmful to their individual franchised businesses. The franchisees formed an association known as "EA Independent Franchisees Association, LLC", or "EAIFA" and hired an attorney to represent them in possible litigation.[11] On September 20, 2010 the group filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of 170 franchisees, alleging that several changes the company made in its franchise agreements were unfair or violated contractual obligations to the franchisees.[12] Edible Arrangements International, responded to inquiries about the lawsuit by saying that they strongly disagreed with the accusations and would vigorously defend the complaint. The company subsequently initiated a motion in the courts to dismiss the case, but this attempt was denied by a District of Connecticut judge on July 19, 2011 and the franchisees were granted authority to pursue the case on all claims.[13] The lawsuit was amicably settled in 2013.[14]

Farid Foundation 990 reports show donations of $20,000 in 2009 and of $30,000 in 2011 to ICNA Relief.[22]

Awards and recognitions
In 2009 Tariq was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year by the International Franchise Association.[23]

In 2009 Tariq was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He spoke at the 3rd Leadership Summit held by the council for the advancement of Muslim Professionals and at the Small Business Summit held by The New York Times.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Farid

 

[iPhone]

Damn, he's behind Edible Arrangements franchise. In the last five years or so they've sprouted like crazy all over new York city. People at work with me are crazy for that shit. I would have never guessed.

 

[ghazi52]

How Tariq Farid Made Fruit Baskets a $500 Million Business
Tariq Farid says his family would "still be struggling" if they were in Pakistan. Instead, he's the CEO of the very successful Edible Arrangements.

By Kathleen Kim

Tariq Farid pictured as a child on the left and now on the right.


Born in Sahiwal, Pakistan, Tariq Farid moved to the United States at the age of 12 with his parents and five siblings. From his family’s 600-square feet flower shop in East Haven, Conn., Farid started Edible Arrangements, specializing in fresh fruit baskets and bouquets. "When I started the business, I felt I had nothing to lose," Farid says. "People who doubted me asked, 'How will you make it work?' And I always said, 'It will work--I will make it work.' Failure was not an option." There are now more than 1,100 Edible Arrangements stores worldwide, with combined revenues of about $422 million.

When we got to the United States, my family was struggling. Right away, I started delivering papers, mowing lawns, shoveling snow—anything to bring some money home. A lady who lived down the street told me, “Honey, keep working this hard and you’ll be a millionaire by the time you’re 35.” That just stuck with me.

My father had friends who also immigrated to the U.S. and everyone looked up to the ones who started a business. No one asked, “Are you successful?” or “Are you making money?” We were just impressed that they owned a business.

I got a job at a flower shop when I was 14 years old. Right after school, I ran to the shop to water plants and take flowers to customers. I learned to do everything, from making deliveries to buying from the suppliers. In the process, I saw how the shopkeeper ran his business.

We bought a flower shop in East Haven when I was 17. The first thing I did was set the temperature wrong on the cooler where you store the flowers. I thought the colder, the better. So I froze our first batch of flowers--$500 worth. I went back to the supplier and was nervous because I didn’t have any money to pay him. When I told him the story, he got a chuckle out of it and gave me a new batch of flowers. After those sold, I paid him back.

From the very beginning, I was passionate about our business. When we opened up the first week, we did about $70 a day in sales. That’s a big deal to a high school student. I always tried to get out of school early so I could take orders and deliver orders. I was about 19 when we opened a second shop.

I wanted to figure out a better way to track orders and organize delivery. In 1988, I bought an IBM computer and figured out how to create a point of sales system. By then, I knew the flower industry in and out. I went around to flower shops from Washington, D.C. to New Hampshire, asking if they wanted to computerize. I was on the road constantly from 1991 to 1993, selling and installing the software.

By 1997, we owned four flower shops. That was the year I discovered a company in the fruit arrangement business. I decided to try it. My mother was the first person I showed the arrangements to. I put them on the dining room table. She took one look and said, “This is going to be big.”

In 1999, we opened a small store on the side of our flower shop in Hamden and started selling fruit arrangements. A family friend asked, “Why would people buy cut fruit if they are used to buying pieces of fruit? Have you done a focus group?” Of course I hadn’t. I didn't even know what that was. I just said, “Yea, my mother said this is phenomenal.” I remember getting 30 orders at Easter and just being impressed. Back then, we had no equipment—we cut everything by hand and it took all day to make the arrangements. But we couldn’t make them fast enough. People just loved them.

When we opened another shop in Norwalk, a man came by and said he wanted to open a store in Boston as a franchisee. I was shocked. Franchises were Burger King and McDonalds, not us. I called one of the best people in the franchise industry, Michael Seid. He said, “Well kid, you don’t have enough experience. But if you put it together right, you could be pretty successful.” I hired a consultant to put the paperwork together. A month later, I presented the franchise agreement to this first franchisee. I drove out to Boston every day to help him build the store, lay the floor, clean his windows--whatever needed to be done.

When we opened a third edible arrangement store, we got a call from another potential franchisee from New Jersey. Then one from Atlanta and then another in California. Most people told me, "Don't grow like that. Don’t spread yourself too far." But we never just planted stores anywhere. People who believed in our business came to us. We always found good partners that way.

We never borrowed or took out loans from banks. They were skeptical about the concept of fruit in baskets. So I invested most of our own money into Edible Arrangements and never had debt. But I was very careful with every penny spent. We were building stores so quickly--we had about 700 stores by 2008. I was always nervous that something would happen.

Then, the economy crashed. We had zero failures until March 2008, when our first store failed. I lost sleep over it for 10 days. I couldn't believe it. People said, “So what? Only one closed.” But it was a big deal to me. We lost close to 40 stores because of the recession. I was always optimistic, and we opened our 1,000th store in 2011.

My mother passed away in 2005. We built a school in her name--the Salma K. Farid Academy in Sahiwal, where she is buried. We also opened a hospital, which sees about 4,000 patients a month. It provides free medicine and healthcare, mostly to women and children. I'm proud to be able give back for the blessings I have been showered with. I have no doubt my family and I would still be struggling if we stayed in Pakistan. Coming to America was the greatest gift given to me.

https://www.facebook.com/TariqFarid/

Welcome to Salma Khatoon Academy

https://www.facebook.com/salmakhatoonacademy/?fref=nf

 

[Khafee]

@ghazi52 Bus karja paglay ab rolaiyga kiya?

 

[Jugger]

Pakistan needs more such entrepreneurs.
It's sad that such people need to go out of Pakistan to establish successful businesses.

 

[Khafee]

Jokes aside, for any inspiring entrepreneur - this is a must read.

Me on the other hand, am going to retire in a pind, and become a farmer.

 

[ghazi52]

The Love Behind Edible Arrangements

 

[ghazi52]

In Urdu.....

 

[ali_raza]

this guy is a genius

 

[A.A. Khan]

Oh buss kardo, this promotion of that islamophobe invader nation USA, throught these ppl. Tell me what is in this for Pakistan? Is hos company based or headquartered in Pakistan like many NRIs? Did he outsource any jobs for Pakistanis? Why don't your report his son and daughter marrying americans in church also.? Pakistani-born Americans who shamelessly cover themselves as Pakistani American community has nothing to do with Pakistan so stop these pathetic PR campaigns.