Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Sheba Zaidi and Genevive Savundranayagam, Founders of Mahara Mindfulness, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We are the founders of Mahara — a contemporary lifestyle brand with a mission to create products and experiences that offer people a stepping-stone into a world of mindful practices and personal transformation. From years of personal experience with journaling, meditating, and breathwork, we came to deeply understand the immense healing power of a lifestyle rooted in mindfulness and wanted to share that with others. In early 2020, we left our decade-long corporate careers to launch Mahara — never anticipating a global pandemic to hit just weeks later. But with every challenge comes an opportunity. We decided to develop our first product, The Human Being Journal, as a direct response to the pandemic to help people manage their mental health, provide perspective and live their best lives. The journal is perfect for the busy go-getter seeking a mindfulness practice that decreases stress and enhances well-being. With guided questions rooted in the fundamental pillars of a happy life—including health, career, and relationships—the journal bridges the gap between our human selves and the deeper sense of being so many of us are craving in this modern world.
Tell us about yourself
In 2018, we were both at a crossroads in our career and personal lives and wanted to move into something more mission-driven and aligned with our values...which is why we launched Mahara and created The Human Being Journal. Today, what motivates us to do what we do each day is that we know our WHY. On bad days you need to be able to come back to your "why." What is driving you to solve this problem? Why do you care to put your blood, sweat, and tears into this every day? For us at Mahara, our intention was clear from the start. It was deeply personal — we wanted to make a meaningful difference in the world and inspire humanity to live mindfully.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Our biggest accomplishment as business owners is multi-fold:
- We love that our journal is helping people manage their mental health better and giving them the clarity and perspective they need to live their best lives.
- It means a lot that The Human Being Journal has resonated with customers, media, and celebrities. The journal has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Globe and Mail, and Oprah's Healthy Living' O' List as a recommended wellness tool. Celebs in the wellness space have also endorsed it, including Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow (goop), Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Kourtney Kardashian (Poosh), and Lauren Conrad.
- Giving back is baked into Mahara's ethos. A percentage of all journal sales go towards supporting global mental health organizations, such as NAMI and CAMH.
- We are constantly looking to expand the business so the journal can reach more people. We are proud to say that we are available in several retail locations, including Chapters Indigo, Holt Renfew, Paper Source, Barnes and Nobles, goop.com, and Poosh in both U.S. and Canada.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
One of the hardest things about being a business owner is getting comfortable with uncertainty. Not knowing how your sales will look, not knowing if your shipments will arrive on time, being unsure if your new hire will work out, etc. However, we have found that curiosity arms you with the ability to stay hungry and find new solutions to problems that will inevitably arise as an entrepreneur. We experienced this early in our journey with Mahara — just two weeks after quitting our careers, the global pandemic hit, and we had to change course. Instead of wallowing, we got curious about what problems we could solve, and we decided to move into creating a product that could help with the mental health crisis that was unfolding all around us.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Be compassionate: The highs and lows of entrepreneurship can often feel like whiplash. This is why it is so important to have compassion toward yourself. For both of us, the mindfulness practices we had in place, including daily meditation, journaling, exercise, and good nutrition, helped us ensure we prioritized self-care. It was our way of showing kindness and deep compassion for ourselves, which helped us bounce back from bad days.
- Keep the perspective: Perspective allows you to remain optimistic while keeping your eye on the long game. Having perspective helped us manage extreme shipping delays resulting from COVID, deal with damaged inventory, not having warehouse space to store products (so we converted our apartment into one!), and so on. We knew these struggles were part of our journey and that, in a few years, we would be able to look back and appreciate the lessons we learned during these early years.
- Display grit without ego: Courage allows you to display grit without ego. This is one of the most important qualities an entrepreneur needs to navigate daily fires. When the pandemic hit, it would have been easy to give up, return to our corporate careers and chalk everything up to bad timing. Instead, we had to dig deep and find the courage to move forward with Mahara and trust the process, despite not having a clear roadmap in front of us.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.maharamindfulness.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maharamindfulness/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maharamindfulness/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/maharalifestyle
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/maharamindfulness/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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