Banker quit her job to try building a beauty ecommerce empire in Pakistan

The global market for beauty products is worth a staggering US$426 billion. MAC sells one lipstick and one eyeshadow every two seconds, and retail behemoth Sephora rakes in approximately US$650 million in annual revenue. While the majority of sales are based in Western countries, Asia is fast catching up. And this is a dynamic entrepreneurs are gradually waking up to.

Sahr Said, founder of beauty services marketplace BeautyHooked, understood from an early stage that her dream was always to be an entrepreneur. After finishing her undergraduate degree from Cornell, Sahr rejected job offers from Wall Street to return to Pakistan. She felt her home country teemed with opportunity.

Initially, Sahr found the going a bit tough. Admitting to being “starry-eyed” and “idealistic”, she soon realized she needed to understand the market better before honing in on her idea. Sahr proceeded to accept a job at Citibank, where she worked as a risk analyst for almost four years. “As I needed to learn how businesses in Pakistan really function, I figured my best bet would be to work in commercial banking – dealing with small and medium-sized corporations and understand successful models,” she adds.

The entrepreneur explains that her time at the bank was a tremendous learning opportunity. She was able to analyze financial, operational, and business models across several verticals, and understand the nuances of each. Her management skills were also enhanced as she was promoted to lead the team – an experience that she describes as invaluable.

Necessary to get out of comfort zone

However, after a few years, Sahr realized she had reached a glass ceiling. For her to continue achieving bigger and better things, she needed to move on. “I knew how successful mid-stage businesses functioned, but what about starting a venture from the grass root level?” she asks. Coincidentally, she was offered a position to work with a USAID-funded project promoting entrepreneurship in Pakistan. She had no hesitation in quitting her job to accept the offer.

As part of the project, Sahr worked extensively with women entrepreneurs, helping them understand their potential market and building the viability of their product. She networked extensively across business circles in Pakistan and got a feel of what consumers really wanted. “I started learning what it really took to be an entrepreneur,” she explains.

However, unlike most entrepreneurs, Sahr felt she was still lacking academic knowledge on finance and management in order to build a successful company. Soon after, she enrolled in an MBA program at her alma mater, Cornell. “I wanted to be absolutely ready,” she adds.

Sahr’s time in the US exposed her to the rapidly-growing segment of beauty tech. She personally used services like Birchbox extensively. Her prior stints at Citibank and USAID also helped her realize that there was a significant market for beauty and fashion products in Pakistan. Sahr felt she could use this knowledge to build a service that women desperately needed.

“Over US$2 billion dollars have been invested in the beauty tech industry since 2009,” Sahr says. “I wanted a piece of the pie.”