“I came to Minnesota from Somalia with my parents. I'm a Minneapolis-based entrepreneur. I started my journey being an outsider in my community. I had to learn the language and understand that I didn’t fit in right away, but I was comfortable being able to build things, start businesses and add value to my community, and that’s where my entrepreneurship started.
“The biggest thing I hear all the time is that refugees are mooching off of the economy or being a non-productive member of society when, in reality, immigrants contribute to a big part of the U.S. economy, especially here in Minnesota. We contribute by starting businesses and having that grit and hustle. We’ve always had a chip on our shoulders that inspires us to seek excellence in whatever we want to do.
“I started a business to help inspire other people. No one owns businesses in my family; my entire family came here with the idea that the American dream was just getting a job and making it work, so shifting that mindset was difficult but important. Navigating those treacherous waters allowed me to provide for my family and work on my terms, and that’s what success means to me: To control the end narrative and inspire somebody who looks like me to do the same.
“Having my mom be able to retire and being able to provide for her is one of my biggest successes. Coming from a war-torn country, my mom wasn’t used to a sense of security. She always had a fear-based mindset of ‘I have to put food on the table; I have to always be working, working, working.’ So to be able to put money in her pocket from my entrepreneurial adventures whenever she needed it is what gives me a sense of success and keeps me motivated to continue going. I genuinely wanted that for her when I first started, and accomplishing it was an amazing feat.
“America is an amazing country. It’s the land of opportunity that has many different opportunities to be who you want to be, start what you want to start and seek guidance from a melting pot of different people. Nowhere else in the world will you see so many different cultures and people in one place sharing the same vision of just wanting to find success for themselves and their families. I encourage others to take advantage of that; to be who you are and to be proud of who you are.”
