How I Built This with Guy Raz - HIBT Lab! Malala Fund and Our Place: Shiza Shahid

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

On October 9, 2012, Shiza Shahid’s life changed forever. It was on that day that 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, capturing the world’s attention. Before long, 22-year-old Shiza found herself leaving her corporate job to join a recovering Malala and her father in launching the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for girls’ education across the globe. Little did Shiza know, this venture was actually just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey...This week on How I Built This Lab, Shiza recounts the childhood experiences that forged her commitment to public service and advocacy—ultimately shaping her worldview and leading to her first encounter with Malala. She also discusses her pivot to the for-profit world with Our Place, the cookware company she co-founded in 2019 that’s both profitable and making an impact.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. And for those of you who are listening to the lab for the first time, let me briefly explain what we do on this episode that is slightly different from our most. Monday show. How I built this on Monday focuses on founders who created big brands that have become part of our culture in some way. The lab is a place where we meet founders and entrepreneurs who are

working on big ideas that could have a significant impact on the world. This is also the place we talk to interesting content creators and even past guests from the show to catch up on what's been going on their lives now. So today, our guest is someone who, at age 22, helped to build one of the most visible nonprofit groups in the world, the Malala Fund. Shiza Shahid grew up in Pakistan and was a student at Stanford when she first heard about Malala Yusuf Zai. Malala, of course, first came to public attention at age 11 when she chronicled her efforts to get an education in a part of Pakistan that was controlled by the Taliban. Shiza soon became a mentor to Malala, and eventually, with Malala's father, Zyadin, built the Malala Fund into an international foundation dedicated to helping educate girls around the world.

Today, Shiza is the co-founder of a for-profit company called Our Place. They sell practical cookware that's designed to simplify cooking at home. We'll hear about that venture later. Shiza was drawn to public service from an early age. She volunteered at a women's prison in Pakistan as a teenager. And around that time, a tragedy that struck a part of her country would completely change her worldview. My friend, he helped get me connected to this nonprofit that was helping women in prisons. He died in an earthquake in Pakistan.

And this was an earthquake that caused a... a lot of loss, a lot of tragedy, a lot of destruction in the country. It was an earthquake, I think, in 2005 in Kashmir. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And this was one of the only buildings in the city that was impacted was the one that he lived in. And he was my best friend, my first love, and it completely shattered my world.

And the next day, my father drove me to an earthquake relief camp that was housing. people who'd lost everything. They'd lost family members, they'd lost their homes. And here I was, you know, I'd sort of had the most difficult thing that I have ever experienced, the biggest loss that I've ever experienced. And I was surrounded by people who had lost even more. And for that next year, the way that I think I really got through that was I spent every single day volunteering in that camp. So I would go to school, I would leave the moment class was done. And soon I was the only regular female volunteer. And so at 1516, I was spending every day with children and young girls and playing games, organizing weddings, taking them to the hospital. And that was my day

and day out. And it was a very sort of formative time for me in really immersing in service and grassroots work. And you, I mean, you must have felt that earthquake in Islamabad. We did, yeah. More than 70 or 80,000 people died in that earthquake. It was, It was devastating. And even in those, you know, the challenging circumstances there, girls were still restricted from leaving home or from being able to do what boys were allowed to do. Yeah, absolutely. It was very close by. So it was probably a 15 or 20 minute drive.

And it was definitely a culture that was a lot more conservative than my own. And I spent all day with these girls and they were my friends. And so being exposed to the restrictions that were. placed on their lives versus on mine was something that was very eye-opening. Yeah. I guess from a young age, from 13, 14 years old, you kind of got into politics and activism. Tell me a little bit about the kind of activism that you got into when you were a kid. The very first thing I did was go with this nonprofit that was helping women in prisons. And all I was doing was carrying medical supplies. And that was just, you know, the very first thing that I did.

and the first time that I understood what it felt like to be exposed to communities and lives that were so different from my own and to feel like in some small way, even if I was just, you know, handing out vitamin C tablets to women who thought they were delicious and wanted to treat what it felt like to help. And one thing led to another from there. I began working with my friend's mother and she ran microfinance and microenteries. programs for women in the informal settlements in Asamabad. And I had always loved to read and write. And so I started writing case studies about the women who received the loans and I would go into

the informal settlements and community probably a mile and a half from my home that I had never stepped into, but completely opened up my eyes to the power of women, to the power of grassroots entrepreneurship, and to the fact that I could do something in my life that, you know, felt important. One of the things that I saw, you know, when you were still, I guess, in high school, you attended some street protests in Islamabad, not illegal, but still, you know, your dad was in the Navy. And this is when Parvez Musharraf was the president of Pakistan, a military man himself. But what were you protesting against? Were you protesting against decisions he made or his rule or what? the specific protests that you're referencing, those happened when the military dictator at the time

for Vez Meshirev removed the Supreme Court justice in Pakistan. And there were mass protests. And, you know, my father, he was worried about me. The protests would get violent sometimes. And he would say, look, I'm employed in the Navy. And so, you know, we're not supposed to protest the government. And I think he was just protecting me really. And I would say, all right, I get it. And can you just drop me over to my friend Omna's house? And then I would sneak out to the protests. And sometimes they were huge.

Sometimes there weren't. And here I was this 16-year-old girl with my postcards and placards. And I get photographed in my photos on the front page of the national newspaper. So I'm running around the house kind of hiding the newspapers that day. Right. And my father's friends call him up. and say, oh, I see Shizes on the newspaper. And he sort of laughed about it and I think was secretly proud.

And that's when I realized, all right, they're saying I can't do this, but I kind of can do this. Yeah. You eventually managed to get to Stanford University. Was it a culture shock for you to go from Islamabad and to all of a sudden be on this campus with mostly American students, you know, obviously top students in the country? But college life in America is very different from college life in certainly in Pakistan and elsewhere. What was it like when you got there? Was it just a surprisingly different environment? Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

It wasn't the Pakistan to America transition. It was actually the Pakistan to American college life transition. And Stanford is it's just the farm. There's nothing there. There's no city. You eat in the dining halls. You go out to the fret parties. and the closest city is San Francisco and it's an hour away and how are you going to get there?

So to me it was the shock of being on a campus. It was also the shock of being, you know, this young person who had a lot of meaning invested in the work that I was doing. And here I was, this, you know, middle class Pakistani girl from modest means. And I was given the scholarship to Stanford University, which, you know, confirmed my sense that I was meant to do something to help my community. So, you know, I sort of showed up with all of this purpose and felt a little bit trapped on this campus

where, of course, the perspective was different. So it was lonely and it was hard, and I remember I would get into the elevator and, you know, some of my dorm mates would say, how are you today? And I'd say, well, and I would start answering the question. And one day they said, you know, it's just a figure. speech. And so I think it was it was a strange time in my life to be thrown into this beautiful

farm where you were just meant to learn in a hypothetical way and take classes you were interested in and what a beautiful opportunity and gift. But my mind wasn't there and I was spending all my time online researching what was happening in my country. And you know this guy. This was a time when things like suicide attacks and terrorist attacks were growing. Sure. And they were very close to my home. Yeah, I think there was a big attack on a hotel in Islamabad around that time when you were in college. The Marriott.

There was the Marriott, which is where my sister had gotten married. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, we'd lived in the naval complex. There was an attack right by there. Within sort of a one-mile radius, several attacks, attempts. And, you know, I was very worried about my family. and I would go to bed at night, my phone on full volume. If I got a ping, I would wake up panicked.

Yeah. It's hard leaving home. Yeah, right. There was a long period of tension, particularly in Islamabad and border areas in Pakistan. Meantime, you are far away on the west coast of the United States. You must have felt a lot of homesickness, a lot of just anxiety about just being away from home and being so far away from your family. Yeah, I did.

I was 7,000 miles away, and I would spend most of my time calling friends and talking about Pakistani politics and human rights. And it was hard. I worried about my parents a lot. Thankfully, they're safe and things there are getting better in some respects. But it was definitely hard.

Yeah. You are at Stanford. And from what I understand, around 2009, there was basically an order that the Taliban issued in parts of Pakistan and borderlands of Afghanistan where they essentially prohibited girls from attending school. And you saw this story that was in the New York Times. I think it was a video documentary about this young girl, Malala Yusuf Zai, and just about her struggle to get educated. What do you remember when you first saw that video? What do you remember just thinking about it? I was just so struck by this girl in her courage and her father and his courage. And I was also just, I felt deeply accountable because here I was getting this incredible education that was wildly expensive beyond anything I had ever fathomed was possible for me. And less than 300 miles from where I grew up, girls were being told they can't go to school. And I just felt like, you know, is there something I can do to do? to amplify these stories because I don't think most people know that in the 21st century, there are places where girls can't go to school.

Yeah. You reached out to see if you could make contact with her soon after you saw that video, right? Yeah, I found a way to her father and I called him up and I said, here is who I am and I want to help you. And true to who he is, he was immediately open and just said, thank you so much. And we kept talking about it. So I said, well, what if I host a summer camp in Islamabad? And you can bring your daughter and other girls from your community.

And he agreed. So that summer, I went back to Pakistan. I shared my plan with everyone. They told me it was a bad idea. And the idea was you'd bring girls to Islamabad and you'd have some sort of summer camp, but it would be more like a kind of like school. Exactly. It would be a summer camp where the girls were given.

some relief from what they had been through. So, you know, music, art, trauma therapy, and self-defense classes, but also by virtue of being in the capital city, you're now surrounded by journalists and government and non-profits who can hear these girls' stories firsthand. You know, it was very hard to get information about what was happening. In fact, what caused things to shift there was a video being leaked, I believe, of a young girl being flogged. Yeah. And these things had been happening, but it was so hard to get information out that it was difficult to change public opinion because this group had come in, like most terrorist

groups, saying, your community has suffered injustice. We're going to solve real social challenges in the way of Allah, right? Give us your gold and stand with us. So they didn't come in saying we're going to blow up girls' schools if they had. the community would never have stood by them. Right. They promised social change. And then they turned.

Right. And they promised security and safety and all those things. Yeah. Exactly. And they used legitimate grievances to get the community on their side. So now you had to get people to see who they were so that you could drive them out. And so the idea was let's bring these girls to Salmabad. Let's give them access to the things that I've had access to, networks and resources and mentors.

And let's hear their stories in a really. safe format. So this was the first time you met Malala face-to-face when she came to Islamabad for this summer camp? Yes, I think so. You know, I'm a little fuzzy on the exact timeline, but I think it was at the summer camp that it was the first time that we met her and 26 other classmates of hers. Wow. And you organized like housing for them and activities for what was like a week? Yeah, exactly.

I was interning at a news station. I asked what they would fund it. They said, yes. Then they said, but we want to televise it. I said, no way. Yeah. Then I think I went to UNICEF and I asked for money and they had a grant limit of $500, below which you didn't have to do much reporting.

And so they gave me $500. I think I probably raised $1,000, got a guest house, sent money for a car to bring them all down. Malala's father got buy-in from all the parents. Got a form with signatures for them to sign. Got all my friends and contacts to volunteer. And that was it. Wow. All right.

So you go back to Stanford, graduate, and go work for McKinsey. And I think you were based in Dubai, but probably traveling a bit, right? Exactly. Based in Dubai, I worked that year in Cairo, in Doha, in Abu Dhabi, all over the region. And all the while, keeping in touch. with Malala and her father? Yes. You know, there was a flood in their community. So I went up and helped distribute some aid there. So I'd visited them. We were loosely in touch. So you're sort of kind of involved and keeping up with her. And at that point, Malala, she had some attention

from that piece in the New York Times, but I mean, that was kind of it. She was back to her quiet life trying to get educated. But of course, that would all change in 2012 when she was shot. while she was in a bus on her way to school. And that attracted global attention because she had been the subject of this documentary. Yeah. I had just landed in Cairo for a project with McKinsey. And a friend texted me and said Malala has been shot. And I was just, I mean, I felt the ground completely collapsed.

And I really think just, you know, the world was shocked. that in the 21st century, a girl could be shot simply for wanting to go to school. And it took this issue of girls' education, 130 million girls who are out of school, and it humanized it, and it made it personal. And that's sort of the power story. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, you'll hear how this horrific incident actually drove Shiza to quit her job at McKinsey and launched the Malala Fund,

which raises awareness about girls' education, across the globe. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This Lab. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm talking with Shiza Shahid, co-founder of the Malala Fund and of our place. All right, so it's 2012, and you hear the news that Malala Yusuf's eye has been shot. You drop everything, I guess, and you fly from Cairo where you were working at the time to the UK where Malala is receiving treatment. That changed your life. Yeah. To the point where when she recovered, you and her father started to talk about building something up bigger that could have a bigger impact around girls

and education, which would become the Malala Fund. Tell me about just the idea behind it. Tell me how it happened. Yeah, you know, there had been people who had started crowdfunding in her name. And I brought it to Malala and her father and said there's people. who are raising money for you and they said, well, we don't need it, but we should use it to help other girls. And that was really the first spark of it. And we funded a project in Malala's community that she was passionate about to help girls in her community access education. And actually the first time she ever spoke out after being shot, she went on camera and she thanked people for everything. And she talked about, you know, this Malala fund.

Yeah. And so she really came out of it in this very strong. way saying thank you I'm okay and I'm going to do something for other girls and from there it became we can actually take this attention and turn it into change for other girls and do it in a way that we believe is right because as you know when these horrible things happen and people become icons it's very easy for others to say you know what why don't you come and support my non-profit and my cause And, you know, my sense was that is short-lived, but building something that you really believe in, that lasts forever, potentially. And so, you know, don't lend your name.

Do something that is yours that comes from you, that you fundamentally believe in. And that doesn't happen very often, right? When you hear stories of, you know, brown girls who are subjected to horrible things, we celebrate them in the West. We put them on covers on the West, but we don't allow them to lead their own organizations. Yeah. We don't allow them to be entrepreneurs. That was very new and unexpected and badass, I would say. Yeah.

You know, she has really led her movement. And for me, I was 22 years old. I was asking questions and just doing my best to help set that foundation. So you became the CEO of the Malala Fund at 22. Yeah, I did. I quit my job at McKinsey, which was not an easy decision because, you know, at the time, nobody knew this would be a nonprofit that could even sustain salaries. You know, I'm a Pakistani citizen.

I didn't even have a visa to be in the U.S. or anywhere other than Pakistan. And so it was hard. it was a very scary thing to do, and here I was. I had this very cushy job. I had two more years, and they were going to pay for business school, and I had to earn an income. But I look at it as one of sort of the pivotal decisions of my life, and I just remember sitting at my laptop,

and I was working on a project for McKinsey, and I was also drafting an email for Malala's book proposal, and I just kept switching tabs. And one of my friends came up to me and said, Sheza, what's the worst that can happen? Like, what are you really afraid of? And we started to talk through it, and he's like, will you be homeless if this doesn't work? And I said, no, my parents would let me move in and sleep on the couch.

He'd be like, well, would you not have your education or networks? Be like, no, I'd still have a Stanford degree and, you know, a year and some at McKinsey and I'd have built this thing that would have connected me to all these people. And as we really talked about it, I realized the work. worst case was in many ways, you know, just starting over and failing. And it wasn't actually as scary as I was making it out to be. And I had to do this thing. And so quit my job, moved to New York with a suitcase and started the Malala Fund. And I think a lot of my life has been that sense of showing up, really, if I were to boil it down. And it became a hugely significant

fund and organization. And I mean, for people who aren't familiar with it, tell me a little bit about the idea behind the fund. What was the vision behind the fund and what would it do? Well, Malala's vision has always been to help create a world where every girl has access to an education that truly allows them to transform their possibilities in life. So not just going to school,

but making sure that school actually teaches you something that changes your circumstances because a lot of schools just don't provide the type of education that's actually needed and we're not measuring quality and outcomes. And that was really where we started, and we looked at what we could uniquely do. And, of course, we had Malala's incredible story and microphone,

and we're able to use that to push world leaders to show up, to get multilateral organizations to give. Because most education is still public education, so working within that sphere was really important. And at the same time, we were able to galvanize people to contribute to the fund and then use those donations to find and support the other Malala's, other grassroots leaders who were bringing change in their communities. And then storytelling was always a big part of it. You know, a lot of this sparked from Malala's story, her father's story. And we knew that continuing to tell stories was the way to connect with people and to bring change and to shift culture.

Right. The fund is always focused on secondary schooling as well, which really is the most pivotal intervention that you can make in a girl's life is keeping her in school through secondary school. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because you grew up in a home with more access to things like education and your parents were supportive of that and you had lived overseas, but you were going to parts of the country where families were more traditional, right? But at the same time, there's nothing in Islam or in religious tenants or even in traditional. tenants that would prohibit girls from being educated, right? There's nothing that's sort of rooted in any philosophical underpinnings. It's just something that sometimes or oftentimes happens where girls are prevented from the same opportunities as boys. Absolutely. You know, Islamic societies have long pushed forward in fields of education and mathematics and art. And I think a lot of what has happened in the region has really been geopolitical and not inherent to the culture in any way, not inherent to the religion in many ways. The region has gone backwards in this regard as a result

of geopolitical instability. And girls are just the battleground for that. When there is war, when there is instability, when there is poverty, women and girls bear the brunt. But they also very often are the ones who lead through it. Right. I want to ask you about, I mean, this is a big stage for you to sort of stand on and you came to it already with some experience and poised, but it doesn't matter how smart and poison well-spoken you are. It's a lot of pressure for a 22-year-old to get on that stage. You know, people probably doubting your ability to do it. People probably wondering why such a young woman is running this high-profile thing. And how did you deal with that? How did you? How did you? cope with the doubters. Yeah, it was really hard. You know, I was 22 years old. And in startups, you can kind of do that and it's cool because, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and all that. But in the nonprofit world, you eat ramen and you're sitting in a dorm room and eating old pizza. Right. Yeah. Totally. But in the nonprofit world, you earn your stripes, right? Right. You earn the right to be there.

And you work up the ladder and you work for less money. And it's not an easy world to be in. And here I was, this 22-year-old brown immigrant girl. And I was also, you know, for a while the gatekeeper for access. Right. Oh, God, that's hard. Everyone's trying to get to her. And they, yeah. Right.

And I'm the one saying, sorry. And so it was hard. And, you know, I would have people literally say to me, you need a guy with white hair in this room. And that's okay. You know, I think hard things make you stronger. And I'm really proud of the work that I did. And of course I made mistakes. I was 22.

But I still make mistakes every day. But for me, this was really an act of love and an act of showing up. And it always felt that way. I was doing this for this 15-year-old girl who deserved to have her platform to build on when she was well enough. And so that's really what guided me was this deep sense of love and responsibility. And, you know, it was hard. It was also beautiful, and I got to experience really difficult things and the best of humanity and the worst of humanity and go to refugee camps in Jordan and sit with Syrian refugee girls and go to Nigeria after almost 200 school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram and meet their parents and hear their stories. And so it really continued to shape me.

Yeah. It also forced me to become an entrepreneur at 22, you know. Right. I mean, even though it's a nonprofit, you have to raise money, you have got to build an infrastructure, you've got to find people to help you run it because I can't imagine the amount of incoming emails, calls, inquiries. Yes, I apologize to everyone. I still not responded to. But yes, exactly. You know, you're building something. And so I had been an entrepreneur growing up. I'd never had the language for it. There's no word for entrepreneur in ordu the closest we have as, I don't know, businessmen probably. merchant trader.

And now with building the Malala Fund, I had started to build something in the U.S., a nonprofit, but I was surrounded by entrepreneurs building businesses and social enterprises. And that's when I realized I wanted to build something of my own as well. We're going to take another quick break, but when we come back, has Shiza Shah had made the leap from running the Malala Fund

to founding a for-profit cookware company that's making its own big impact. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This Lab. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm talking with Shiza Shahid, co-founder of the Malala Fund and of Our Place. All right, so you left the Malala Fund around 2014, and from there you jumped into the for-profit world, this time in the startup space.

And I understand that before you started what would become our place, you were actually doing a little bit of investing, right? Yes, I launched now very. ventures. I started dipping my toe into angel investing. So I raised a small fund to invest in mission driven startups. And what I was really trying to do was re-immers in tech and startups and understand the ecosystem and, you know, build a point of view around this intersection of business and impact and representation. So that was where I went next. And over the next few years, had the privilege of investing in about 20 startups

and really just re-immersing myself into the ecosystem and also trying to prove that I belonged there, right? I had been the nonprofit girl for a while and making that pivot back into startups and tech was definitely challenging and I had a lot of insecurities to overcome, to have the confidence to be there. And I'm curious, when you made that transition

and you started to focus on the for-profit sector, What was the response that you got from people who knew you as committed to this nonprofit world? Was there, you know, because sometimes, right, there's suspicion in the nonprofit world about entering the for-profit side. Yeah. Well, I would say in the for-profit world, it was challenging because everyone wanted to get lunch because they thought the story was interesting. And people like to put you in a box. And so, yes, I'd gone to Stanford and yes, I'd worked at McKinsey. but very quickly I was the nonprofit girl and I actually had friends in the nonprofit world

who had built long career as a nonprofit and they had told me when I was running the Malala Fund think long and hard because the longer that you're in the nonprofit world the harder it will be for you to launch a business so just be sure and I appreciated that advice from them and so it was it was also hard for me to feel like I belonged there because, you know, every industry has its jargon. And when you don't know the jargon and you don't know the acronyms, you feel like perhaps you are not experienced.

An outsider, yeah. Exactly. Well, it's great advice that you got as somebody who used to work in the nonprofit world. That, you know, you can really make an impact. Being in the for-profit venture gives you the tools and the ability to really scale something. So I know that you sort of began and trying to do some investing. and raising a fund, but ultimately was your vision when you left Malala Fund to start your own business to come up with something? Yes, it was. Absolutely. And I was, you know, living in Silicon Valley, investing, taking classes.

And while it's, you know, a huge privilege to be able to support other entrepreneurs in small ways, I needed to go all in on something. And so I was definitely looking for something to commit myself to. And when I met my husband, we started working together on the idea for our place. Before we get to our place, what were some of the ideas you were thinking about? What were some of business ideas that were circulating in your mind? You know, I have always been very connected to my home country and the idea that, you know, talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. And so as connected tools became more common, the idea of training talent,

in places like Pakistan and then connecting them to job opportunities globally where salaries are higher was very, very interesting to me. And I've also been always very passionate about the craft that exists in my part of the world, you know, embroidery and weaving and all of these ancient crafts where people are so skilled yet so underpaid and so exploited. And as there was this growing awareness of the importance of that craft in the West, I was and still am very passionate about building brands that employ people within those crafts, but then allow them to access much higher wages through effective branding and quality control in the things that allow you to build a beloved brand in the West.

So you're thinking about some ideas, but you eventually land on this idea to make cookware. Tell me how that idea came about. Yes, gradually. And then all at once is how our place came about. I'm an immigrant. My husband Amir is an immigrant. He was born in Iran and then grew up in Los Angeles. And for both of us, we literally found our place in America

by cooking and sharing food and having people come over. And by the way, did you, Shiza, did you grow up cooking? I did not. My mother never taught me to cook. She actually would never let me into the kitchen when, Anyone was cooking. Wow. She would tell me to get out.

And I always thought it was because one of my cousins had suffered a really serious burn in the kitchen, and I thought she was just really scared. Yeah. And I realized later in life that it was actually her way of liberating me from the life that she had lived. You know, she had grown up having to do a lot of domestic chores. And she'd gone from her father's house to her husband's house and spent a lot of her life in the kitchen. And now she runs an orphanage and she's living her best life. But a lot of her life was in service.

And she didn't want that for her daughter. So she never taught me to cook. But then I moved halfway across the world, which she had not planned for. She probably thought I'd live down the street and she dropped food off. And I couldn't feed myself. And it became something that was very disempowering to not be able to feed myself. Yeah. I think it's a skill that everybody needs to.

to have. It's so crazy when I meet people who say, I don't know how to cook. And I'm like, well, what are you going to do? Like, there's no takeout available, you know? Exactly. I was very proud of my 11-year-old who made himself fried eggs yesterday. Fried eggs is most of my diet. There you go. So you learned how to cook as a young adult, basically. Yeah. I mean, I'm still learning. And I think that's one of the things that sets our place apart is we weren't founded by chefs trained in, you know, the Culinary Institute. We were founded by home cooks who often struggle to feel like good cooks. And you were focused on like simple one pot recipes and this pan, right?

This always pan. Yeah, our first product was the always pan. And it really grounded the design philosophy of the business. So the always pan stemmed from this idea of, you know, you walk into a kitchenware store and you say, I'm moving into my first studio apartment, what do I need? and they will hand you with 16-piece cookware set. Right. And they'll say, here's your skillet, your saute pan, your stock pot, your sautier.

A saucier is literally a pan just to make sauces. Right. I had grown up with two pots, a flat one and a round one. Right. And we got to thinking, and we thought, can't you do most of this in one pan? And so we took the literal Venn diagram of the shapes and sizes of the most commonly used pots and pans, and where those intersected, we drew out the always pan. And then from there, we started to solve other design challenges.

Things are heavy. Let's make it from lightweight cast aluminum. The beginner cook, you know, like your 11-year-old, probably needs a non-stick coating. So let's get a ceramic non-stick coating that works really well. That also doesn't have a lot of chemicals that people are worried about. Let's add in things that just spark joy and ease. A little nesting spatula. a pore spouts, a lid that traps and releases heat.

And then let's make it really beautiful because you want cooking to be joyful and fun and playful in a source of self-expression. Yeah. And that's how the always pan was born, and it became this huge hit. We established product market fit very early for the product, but also for the brand.

Did you have any challenges raising money for it? We faced absolutely every rejection in the world, but that forced us to get scrappy. And so we were profitable, first year in business. And a lot of that was product market fit, but I think more of that was really the brand that we had built and the ways in which we were speaking to culture, community, tradition, and representation. And when you have stories that move people, you can shift culture, right? And at our place, we were entering an industry, food, cooking that was very exclusive, very intimidating.

Everything was about professional chefs, racing against a clock on television, doing highly precise tasks and everything was rather whitewashed, right? There was really sort of this sense of there's European food and all the other cuisines could kind of fit into one aisle in the grocery store. And we were really pushing back against that notion and saying, can we just celebrate all of our traditions equally loudly? And can we acknowledge where these highly complex ingredients and cooking techniques come from and give credit and celebrate the ways in which we eat and connect and cook together. And that really infused sort of the hard and soul of the business. You have by that point had experience running a major well-known foundation and you had raised

money to start your own investing fund. But like finding a way to manufacture products is a it's a different challenge. And just designing those products and trying to figure all that out. Where did you start? Like for example, where did you go to? to make the products. Yeah, well, that's where my co-founders come in. So I have two co-founders. One is my husband Amir. The other is our friend, Zach.

My husband, Amir, when his family fled Iran, they left everything behind. And when they came here, they rebuilt their lives by starting a kitchenware manufacturing business. So he had grown up surrounded by the industry. And so while he had

never considered being in the industry or connected to it. He understood how to manufacture, how to build supply chains that were highly scalable and highly efficient, which is a very, very hard thing to do. And I've invested in e-commerce companies. And by and large, I think most of them will build a brand and get really good at marketing and forget how hard it is to make great products and not just great products, but products from scratch. You're convincing factories to open up new molds, new lines, to do things that have never been done before. And that makes it a lot harder, right? You're not just going, we're not doing what other e-commerce startups often do or other businesses often do, which is go to a factory, look at a booklet, point to a pan, say, make it pink,

and put our logo on it. We're starting from why is cooking hard and how do we make it easier? And we're creating shape, sizes, fixtures, features, inserts, add-ons coming from different places, different factories that have never existed, and then doing that at scale, and then doing that through a pandemic and inflation and supply chain challenges. You know, I wonder, I mean, I have to imagine that the skills that you gained kind of standing up the Malala Fund and all of the challenges served you well when you went on to found this business. I mean, completely different. It's not about girls. It's about cooking. And it's about simplifying cooking.

But still, I mean, probably some of the infrastructure. structure that you created, helped you figure out how to do similar things for our place. Absolutely. I think, you know, this idea of career pivots can still be very intimidating, and especially when you go from nonprofit to for-profit, education to cooking and gathering. But so many of the skills that make you effective as an entrepreneur as a leader are directly transferable. I see this in my own organization as well, the people who are most valuable. I know that they can do not just the job they're doing, but multiple other jobs. And for me, it was always, if you ask enough questions, you can kind of figure anything out. One of the biggest skills I did

learn, though, at the Malala Fund and in my work with Malala was the power of story to inspire change. When we launched our collection around Iranian New Year, Noru's, we cast families who came from intersectional backgrounds and challenge the notion of who is Iranian and what do Iranian families look like and what do they care about. And we do that in every story we tell. We center representation behind in front of the camera. And I can tell you as a Pakistani immigrant, how much that means to communities like my own who have simply not seen our traditions acknowledged or featured. It means the world to see yourself reflected back in, in broad. brands that you admire in content that you consume because we've never seen it and we've

never seen our identities affirmed. And most of our lives, we've sort of, you know, tried to fit in and be a little bit more Western and be a little bit more white. When you think about the impact of nonprofits, I mean, nonprofits can really change the world. They can really make a huge impact. Do you feel like with what you're doing now in the for-profit world, you can have an equally powerful impact? I do. I do. For one, you know, just the scale we've been able to build to. We have been able to donate hundreds of thousands of meals. We've worked with nonprofits fighting hunger. We've worked with nonprofits providing immigration support services. We've worked with nonprofits that are fighting against hate and racism. You know, we've created over 100 jobs

in two years in the United States, more internationally. We have employed people, given them good benefits, done our best to build a culture that's inclusive. I think nonprofits have a huge impact. I think businesses can have a huge impact. Of course, trillions are traded in the financial markets every day, and nonprofits are just a fraction of that. And I think nonprofits should take risks.

The market won't. fund social entrepreneurs where there probably isn't a path to an IPO or an exit, but those social entrepreneurs will then lay the groundwork for the next and the next and eventually that market starts to form, or there has been a natural disaster and you need to provide relief, there's no market there. You need relief and aid services to go in. And so if we are to solve the world's most pressing challenges, because we need every part of the system to work in tandem.

So understanding where different parts and different sectors can work, I think, is really important. And I think also just not taking anything as black and white. Shiz Shahid, co-founder of the Malala Fund and of Our Place, thanks for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me, Guy. This was lovely. Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at how I built this and mine is at guyraz. And on Instagram, I'm at guy.orgia.

If you want to contact the team, our email address is hibt at id.wondery.com. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez with editing by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Rumtine Arableu. Our audio engineer was Gilly Moon. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Liz Metzger, Josh Lash, Sam Paulson, Catherine Seifer, and Carrie Thompson. Neva Grant is our supervising editor. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.