Alem health Was Built In A War zone. its Founder Is Thankful For That.
Aschkan Abdul-Malek on a stopover in Dubai.
ASCHKAN ABDUL-MALEK HAD come to Afghanistan to solve problems. He was working for a consulting firm, and in 2013 was helping the World Bank study healthcare constraints in developing countries. One day, as he was home talking to his cook, he learned how personally devastating the healthcare problem could be: The cook was spending six times his annual income to fly his wife to India for medical care, because she couldn’t find the doctor she needed at home. Many Afghans were in similar positions: Despite an average annual income of about $680, locals spend nearly $300 million a year on what’s called medical tourism.
Abdul-Malek wondered if he could fix this. Entrepreneurship was new for Abdul-Malek, 34, a son of Iraqi and Iranian parents, who was raised in the U.S. He holds a law degree and an MBA from Vanderbilt University, worked in investment banking and strategic consulting and spent time with an NGO in northern Iraq. But corporate life never suited him, he says: “At no stage was I ever that guy that would just get lost in a crowd.” He races cars at 160 mph for fun. When a bomb goes off near the office, he checks that everything’s OK and gets back to work. He performs well under pressure. A Kabul startup was his kind of challenge.
Bu hikaye Entrepreneur dergisinin August 2016 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Entrepreneur dergisinin August 2016 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
How Small Shops Take Big Risks - It's not easy for mom-and-pops to try something new, because they rarely have a safety net to fail.But there are ways to innovate cautiously-as one small business on our list, All My Heart tattoo studio, has found.
The Charlotte, North Carolina, studio is airy and suffused with natural light. In the reception area, there are modular chairs, midcentury couches, and a vase of fresh flowers on a Japanese-influenced cabinet. But the real surprise goes beyond aesthetics. All My Heart's owner, Graham Beech, isn't just playing with a new look; he's trying out a whole new business model. Historically, tattoo shops have wanted to control the clientele, and use the tattoo artist as kind of a cog in the wheel, Beech says. What's different about our business is that the client is the artist, and they have their own individual clients.
5 Ways to Multitask Your Fall - From a corporate office to working from the living room, Emmy Award winner Mario Armstrong has five new products designed to make putting in the hours more enjoyable.
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Small businesses have a hiring problem. According to the July monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), 19% of small businesses rank the inability to find quality labor as the single most important issue facing their company, while 38% reported job openings they could not fill. Overall, 49% reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.
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If you have a tween girl, you've probably heard of Rowan. It's the cool brand for piercings, where licensed nurses insert hypoallergenic studs into thousands of ears every day. With more than 500 employees, it's on track to have 65 stores and an annual run rate of $100 million in revenue this year.But in 2017, Rowan was just a fledgling startup with a great idea and a bad business model. It survived because founder Louisa Schneider was willing to pivot, and pivot, and pivot again, until its mission, profit, and market all clicked into place.
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