Faisal Butt ’99

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Faisal Butt ’99 wanted more from his career, and he did something about it. Five years after quitting his job as an IT consultant, he is now the president and owner of Tribal Monsoon, a budding supplier of handmade crafts that connects South Asian artisans to consumers worldwide. Motivated to take a similar career risk or to embark on a new career path? Read about how Faisal turned his entrepreneurial passions into a business, and gain insight on how to jump-start your own company. E-mail Faisal and send us your feedback.

1. Everyone has a dream that they’d like to work towards, how did you go about making yours come true?
I’ve always wanted to run a profitable business that has a social benefit – a business that benefits a community by enriching or improving the lives of its members. I come from an affluent family from a third world country, so I’ve seen the extremes of both wealth and poverty. My innate business acumen motivated me to create a profitable business. My inner philanthropist was pushing me to do something to help alleviate poverty in my native country. In my company Tribal Monsoon, I found a way to satisfy both of these personal desires. I wanted to give something back to my community and country.

2. How is Tribal Monsoon a social benefit?
Tribal Monsoon is a company that has a twofold goal – to make a profit and to benefit the community it sources from. We source our handmade products from communities of artisans all over South Asia. By giving the rural craftsmen of the Indian subcontinent an international platform on which to promote their skills and handiwork, Tribal Monsoon has helped provide these natives a means of self-support and has given them access to the global market for their unique crafts. Cottage industries in villages across South Asia have flourished due to the vital economic link that Tribal Monsoon has provided via its electronic commerce and marketing initiatives. Tribal Monsoon’s ventures have helped improve economies and living standards of many South Asian artisan communities, and has helped preserve local cultural craft heritage.

3. How do you apply this vision for social benefit to the countries you work in?
Through Tribal Monsoon’s partnership with Overstock.com’s Worldstock program, Tribal Monsoon employs around 500 artisans all over Pakistan. The artisans we employ and support include wood-carving craftsmen, carpenters, tailors, embroidery workers, wood polishers, brass carvers, marble stone workers and more. Tribal Monsoon acts as the marketing firm, promoting Pakistan’s artisans in a professional way on the international level.

4. What advice do you have for other people who may share your entrepreneurial passion and are interested in starting an import/export business in another country?
Be flexible and adaptive. It's not easy conducting business overseas, especially when you're used to the easy, efficient and transparent way things are done in the U.S. When you're doing business in another country, understand that you're in a foreign country and business customs are different. Try to adapt to the way business is done in the host country, rather than forcing people there to change their ways. Also, when overseas, try to mingle and make local friends - they'll help you get acclimated to the local scene faster.

5. How did your ethnic identity and family background shape what you are doing now?
My family has been in the hand-knotted rugs business for over three generations now. My grandfather owned a factory and employed hundreds of artisans and rug weavers, producing handmade rugs for the U.S. and Europe market. Today, our family supplies Pakistani handmade rugs to Macy’s department stores all over the west coast. It was a natural step for me to continue the family tradition of promoting handmade products from South Asia to markets worldwide. I started Tribal Monsoon with a vision to promote handmade artisan products from South Asia to retailers and consumers worldwide by leveraging innovative marketing methods and modern information and communication technology.

6. How did you take the knowledge you had based on your family history in craft manufacturing and create a business that is successful in the current market?
When I started the company, I was an IT-savvy graduate from UCLA with two years of IT consulting experience under my belt. I knew how to get by in the U.S., but I felt like a fish out of water when I returned to Pakistan to launch the business. I didn’t know anything about the concerns of artisans, the issues they face, or how to communicate with them. My father, who had been in the rugs business for over 30 years, helped guide me throughout the process. This business wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t listened to the guidance and wisdom of my family.

7. What made you leave your job in the IT field and pursue this business idea?
As an IT consultant in downtown Los Angeles, I was learning a lot about how technology could streamline everyday business processes, but I was craving a chance to implement these technologies for my own business. What drove me to leave was this constant feeling that my strengths as an organizer and leader were not being utilized at the big IT firm. With Tribal Monsoon, I got a chance to put my innate entrepreneurial and leadership skills to use on a project that was both lucrative and had a social benefit.

8. How did you know that your business idea was a viable endeavor?
I make most of my decisions based on pragmatic common sense, backed with numerical analysis. I knew that the price differences in buying products in South Asia and selling them in the U.S. or Europe would reap in profits – it was common sense. But to confirm that premise, I did some number-crunching and only moved forward when it made good financial sense. My advice to new entrepreneurs is always do the number-crunching before making any major business decision.

9. What would you say was one of the key steps that you took that made this company flourish and grow?
I acted on a premise I had early on that geography is irrelevant. I knew that with the spread of the internet and with the spread of the Internet and with the emergence of new technologies like voice over IP, I could operate from anywhere in the world and still market and sell our products to buyers in North America and Europe. Even though Tribal Monsoon was a U.S. registered company, I decided to outsource all of our operations to our South Asia office. This benefited us in two ways – we lowered our operating costs and we were able to better control product quality because we were closer to the artisans making them.

10. Tell us a memorable story or experience you’ve had through Tribal Monsoon?
When I started the Tribal Monsoon office in Pakistan, word got around fast that there was a U.S.-based company working on connecting the handmade products of native South Asian artisans with U.S.- and Europe-based buyers. The government saw it as a noble cause and an innovative effort by a young entrepreneur. In January 2003, I was selected as “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” along with nine other candidates by the Pakistan government and the Shell oil company at a grand ceremony attended by top leaders in South Asia. It was an amazing experience to be awarded by Mr. Shaukat Aziz, who is now the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

11. Looking back from where you are now, what did you wish you would have known at the time you started this endeavor?
I wish I had known what marketing initiatives are going to give me a good return on investment versus those that end up being a waste of company funds. We’ve been creative and experimental in the way we market our company, and we’ve learned by trial and error. While some marketing projects were expensive and didn’t pay off, others were cheap and generated huge benefits for the company. It would have been nice to know up front what works and what doesn’t, but this unknown factor is a part of doing business. Running a business involves risk, and you have to have an appetite for risk to survive in the business world.

12. What specifically did you find not to be successful in marketing your product?
I found that trade shows are expensive and don't always give you a return on investment. People often say that there's nothing like face-to-face interaction in business. Buying into the philosophy of the importance of face to face interaction, we signed up to attend trade shows in LA, New York and other cities so we could meet clients in person. I learned that face-to-face marketing is not as important today, with the advent of new technologies like voice over IP, Web-based faxing, international text messaging and the Internet. The world is getting smaller and smaller with the widespread use of these IT and communication technologies. My clients can call me on a Los Angeles area code number, and I'll pick up at our factory in South Asia. My client doesn't care where I physically am – he or she just wants to communicate - in an easy, cheap, and hassle-free way.

13. What are your hobbies or interests outside of your company?
I love the outdoors and I love to read. On my weekends in LA, I would go out to the beach, lie out and read for hours on end. On my weekends in Islamabad, I often go hiking with friends. I also love to spend time out in my back lawn, reading a magazine and daydreaming. For me, being close to nature is therapeutic and cleansing, be it the soothing sound of the ocean waves in California or the sound of leaves rustling in Islamabad. I do prefer the ocean in LA to the hills in Islamabad, but you have to make the best of what you have wherever you are.