Edible Arrangements founder Tariq Farid with some of his tasty creations. Photo courtesy of Success Magazine
“There’s no such thing as just becoming something...We are a reflection of the people before us,” said Tariq Farid.
At twelve years old, Farid and his family started a new life in a new country. Immigrating to America from his native home of Pakistan, he spent his youth like many other young Americans, cutting Mrs. Johnson’s lawn and delivering papers on his paper route.
At the tender age of 13, during just another day helping a neighbor with her yard, the neighbor called him in for a hot cocoa.
“Son,” she said, “if you keep working this hard, by the time you’re 30 you’re going to be a millionaire.”
She was right.
Founder and CEO of Edible Arrangements and millionaire business man, Farid began his life in America in the humblest of conditions.
His father, who spoke little English sought opportunity in the United States as many immigrants have before him.
His mother, who he largely attributes to his success, entered the States wide eyed and excited having been told stories of the wonders it held by her grandfather who had visited in the early 1900s.
While neither knew much of the culture or even the language, they were determined to provide their children with a future full of opportunity.
His father came to America with no formal intention of staying in the states. He knew he would have to work hard but he wasn’t fully aware of the challenges until his first job.
Working at steakhouse, Farid’s father was asked to mop the floors but immediately felt slightly offended. Having come from a comfortable life in Pakistan, he wasn’t accustomed to mopping dirty restaurant floors. Sensing this, his supervisor took him to the back to show him the dish washing station. He asked him to observe another employee washing dishes. Farid’s father was pleased with this task. All he had to do was stand and supervise someone else washing dishes. Then his supervisor indicated it was his turn to wash dishes. Taken aback, he then realized his comfortable life in Pakistan was in the past.
If he wanted to make it in America he was going to have to do everything, including the most seemingly menial tasks. He rolled up his sleeves and never looked back.
His mantra became, “Nothing is beneath you. Whatever you need to do you do it so well that people want to hold on to you.”
It’s a life lesson that Farid has held onto since his youth.
Because Farid had worked watering plants at a local flower shop, when one came up for sale, Farid’s parents felt there was a great opportunity.
“My father assumed because I worked in a flower shop that I could run a flower shop,” said Farid.
That was the immigrant spirit, he said. Taking risks and working hard was never a question, but rather a way of life.
At seventeen Farid was running his own business. He spent all of his free time after school and on weekends working in the shop.
In March of 1999 Farid began Edible Arrangements without any case studies, or formal business plan.
His small flower shop business turned into an idea that became widely successful even from the start. The first day he had to turn down orders because there was too much demand.
He never imagined it would grow the way it did.
Just twelve years later Edible Arrangements has a thousand stores, approximately seven employees per store, and franchises in fifteen different countries. It continues to expand, leaving a formidable impression on the American economic landscape.
Historically, the immigrant population has been a driving force in the economic growth and stability of the United States. Through an influx of some of the worlds best and brightest minds searching for a new land that was ripe for innovation, America became a haven for the worlds most intelligent and hardworking. Traveling to a new land was a risk in itself and many those who ventured to do so retained their risk-taking spirit, a key component in the development of new ideas and innovations but also in the development of new business and from that more job opportunities.
While the Government struggles to cure the ailing 21st century economy, there are those who feel the answer lies in the creation of new opportunities, not the bailout of failing institutions.
“Where do start-ups come from? They come from smart, creative, inspired risk-takers. How do we get more of those? There are only two ways: grow more by improving our schools or import more by recruiting talented immigrants,” wrote Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and author several books including The World is Flat.
According to research presented by Robert Litan of the Kauffman foundation, “Roughly twenty-five percent of successful high-tech start-ups over the last decade were founded or co founded by immigrants.”
Immigration not only fosters new ideas but helps continuously rejuvenate systems that may not be functioning effectively. This constant rejuvenation of ideas is what has historically allowed the United States to grow financially and technologically at unprecedented speeds.
Litan noted that between 1980 and 2005 almost all of the new jobs created in the United States had been created by companies that were five years old or less. He cited an estimated 40 million new jobs.
Research conducted by Harvard Law School research associate Vivik Wadhwa also revealed that more than half of Silicon Vally start-up businesses in the past decade were established by immigrants. These companies subsequently employed over 450,000 workers and grossed approximately fifty-two billion dollars in the year 2005.
First generation Americans created the last entrepreneurial economic boom. This was sustained by continuous influx of immigrants that then helped build on the developing economic landscape. Not only were small businesses popping up around the nation, new jobs and more money was being pumped into the system. When one business failed, a new one would quickly take its place. This allowed for an economy that lasted through most of the 20th century.
The 21st century ushered in a new wave of economic issues. Restrictions on immigration made it more difficult to enter the United States legally. Failing banks and businesses forced foreclosures and lay offs. Unemployment and debt skyrocketed. Not only did academic institutions face funding cuts but universities across the nation saw tuition rise, some as much as thirteen percent in one year.
On February 6th 2009, the U.S. Senate voted to restrict financial institutions that received taxpayer bailout money from hiring immigrants on H-1B visas. This effectively limited the number of high-skilled and trained immigrants from entering the American workforce.
Wadhwa’s studies also showed a correlation between H-1B visa numbers and patent applications. H-1B visas are temporary work permits issued by the Government. “In periods when H1-B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H1-B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”
The innovative spirit that drives the immigrant population to create and contribute is not solely an economic influence, said Farid. He feels his faith and upbringing in Pakistan played a key role in his quintessentially American success story.
Though a practicing Muslim, religion is not something that Farid broadcasts, he feels as though the tenants of his faith facilitate his actions not only as a man, but as a business mogul as well.
Four years ago, as Edible Arrangements was growing, Farid realized there was little chance he could fund an advertising campaign with an interest-free loan. In Islam, engaging in interest is considered unlawful. He consulted a Shaykh or religious leader who he had grown up around about for advice.
“I called him and I told him I needed to borrow money and it would have to be with interest.”
The Shaykh, an old friend of Farid’s said, “Well, I know you, so sell the company.”
Farid said he never paid interest up to that point. He was able to negotiate zero percent financing on his first Edible Arrangement vans and office building. A concept at the time that was relatively unheard of in the business world.
Aware of Farid’s upbringing and commitment to his religion, the Shaykh knew Farid would not be able to live peacefully if he felt he had gone against his Islamic teachings and his honest upbringing.
“My mother and grandfather used to say that when there was [blessings] in money, Allah multiplied it.
Not wanting to sell his quickly growing business, Farid worked harder to secure an interest free loan through a Shariah compliant company and finally succeeded after what he described as an “uphill battle.”
When Farid needed forty thousand dollars for his business, his mom offered it to him with no hesitation. He asked her how she just had a spare forty thousand dollars laying around.
When he had first started his business he gave her 50 dollars a week from the venture as it was starting out. She had saved every penny of it.
She asked for nothing other than for him to pay her back twenty thousand, half of what he had borrowed from her, when he could because she wanted to give his sister a wedding gift and that he do good work with the rest.
Farid took this agreement to heart. When his mother passed away in 2005 he started the Farid Foundation in 2008, building a hospital bearing her name in their hometown village in Pakistan that provides free health care to approximately 170 people per day. He also built an Islamic School in Hamden, Connecticut in her honor.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing as a millionaire business man.
Despite some of the criticism he has faced doing business the way his family and faith have taught him, he says he has mostly garnered respect form his peers for his zero-interest ways and commitment to honest financial dealings, a concept that has recently been questioned in the era of Enron.
“One of the important things is that you become an example for other people,” he said.
He feels his immigrant spirit contributed an innovative product and the example of his hardworking parents fostered an attitude of dedication but his faith has given him the opportunity to share a new way of making it big without falling deep into the debt and financial corruption that has contributed to the instability in today’s economy.
American culture began as immigrant culture, noted Farid. The values, principles and standards that America is built on are simply a collection of the best aspects of every culture that immigrated to American soil.
“Often times, immigrants understand more about what America is about than [indigenous] Americans,” said Farid.
In a time of economic uncertainty America is seemingly looking over its shoulder at what used to be and wondering how to avoid becoming a has-been.
Friedman, wrote in a New York Times column, “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”
Comments powered by CComment