Scared of What?

Komal Ahmad

03.11.20

What's worse than failure? Inaction. Komal Ahmad founded Copia with zero business experience, hell-bent on solving hunger--globally. Her conviction that it's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all is a great example for any entrepreneur.

Summary:

What’s worse than failure? Inaction. Komal Ahmad founded Copia with zero business experience, hell-bent on solving hunger–globally. Her conviction that it’s better to try and fail than never to have tried at all is a great example for any entrepreneur.

What’s a great antidote for fear? Passion. Komal Ahmad was so committed to her mission that failure just didn’t matter.

Thuy

So you were about 26 when you launched COPIA you had no business experience were you nervous? Were you scared?
Komal_Ahmad

Komal Ahmad

Scared of what? I mean what's the worst that can happen? I think the worst that would happen is that we just don't take action right? That we accept the status quo. I might not be the person that is most experienced or maybe even the most equipped to solve this problem but I am hell belt on it right it's not about optimism or pessimism for me it is that my team and I are hell-bent on making this happen.

So I guess that's the difference and the fact of the matter is you know we knew we needed to build a more scalable model and we did that through technology but we also did that by becoming a for-profit business and when we first started off we were a non-profit and so that was an incredibly challenging process you know spending 90% of my time fundraising and you know I love this mission but that is not my mission is not to go spend most of my days asking and begging people for money.

And it's rather I would rather you know for solving the world's dumbest problem what I require some of the world's smartest and most talented people who you know the Bay area requires salary. I mean anywhere requires salary and also like a you know our goal is not to just solve this problem in San Francisco or in California or even in the United States and if I'm gonna dedicate my life to an issue then we're gonna do this and we're gonna make sure that we we solve this and address this globally and so being a for-profit business affords you the resources the talent to be able to solve something at scale and that's really what my you know vision is.