My story
I write about entrepreneurship and faith. This is the long version: every venture in order, including the ones that got shut down.
The journey
- 09/2008
Attended Islamic school
For most, after-school madrassah forms the basis of their understanding of Islam. I had the privilege of attending an Islamic primary school too, up until 2015, when I moved into an Islamic secondary school.
- 10/2013
Became the IT support for my teachers
Fixed printer and network connection issues, calibrated the classroom whiteboards, and installed dual-boot operating system setups. The first time building and fixing things became my job, unpaid, and I loved it.
- 06/2015
Edited the school play
Cut and edited our school play on Sony Vegas Pro. An early taste of taking raw footage and shaping it into something people actually watched.
- 02/2016
Moved into a state school
Five or six months into my first year, issues arose with the school, so we decided to move local. It was a huge change, starting with the number of people per year group. Over the years I dropped pieces of my identity to fit in. The only thing that stayed consistent was my salah.
- 04/2016
Spire Designs
Taking inspiration from my favourite YouTuber MKBHD's profile picture, I started a small graphics design company making minimalist portraits, logos and banners for friends, reaching out to people on Instagram. My first entrepreneurial venture.
- 10/2017
Selling sweets at school
I realised a lot of money could be made with the small network of people at school, so I bought products online to resell at a profit. It later got shut down.
- 04/2019
Flipping luxury goods
A friend shared his passion for sneakers and streetwear, which was also a great business opportunity. The ROI was insane, fuelled by low supply and high demand, but that made it hard to scale quickly without more savings or investment.
- 04/2020
Halal sweets, delivered
During the peak of covid, Eid was coming and I wanted a way to gift friends and family the same thing without going broke. I built a brand out of it, did the social media marketing, and donated the entire first month's profit to charity, as it was the month of giving. The campaign reached 120k+ people on a £0 marketing budget.
- 07/2021
First part-time job
I knew I wanted an apprenticeship after A-levels, but a CV with no work experience would have made me a difficult candidate, so I took the first opportunity that came through.
- 01/2022
Amazon FBA
I quit the job, and the day I turned 18 I opened a seller account and a limited company and began leveraging the demand of the world's largest marketplace. Still flipping retail goods, but FBA let me do it in a more sustained and profitable way. 600% revenue increase and 98% customer satisfaction over 10k+ sales.
- 09/2022
Degree apprenticeship at IBM
After a tough decision between cyber security at a FTSE 100 company and tech sales at IBM, I chose the latter, for how valuable the soft skills of selling would be (and the idea of commission).
- 08/2023
Solah
As someone who struggled to balance work, spirituality and life, I searched for an answer and realised one was rooted in my religion. With no practical tool to help me plan around it, I decided to build my own app to help me and others reach a more holistic sense of productivity.
- 02/2024
Vision Reality
My love for building led me to restart Spire Designs under a new name. Building Solah showed me that bringing a vision to life takes a team of talented people who share the same mission, and that is exactly what Vision Reality became: a creative agency doing web development, design, brand strategy and digital marketing.
- 09/2025
Taqwa Studios
After years of working alone and remotely, I realised I actually work better around and with others. I needed a space with people who share my values, and a clear boundary between work and home that helps you stay present in both.