 Good morning good afternoon and good evening. My name is Asha Bay and I'm joining you from Washington DC and the Office of Alumni Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Our office offers grant competitions and other opportunities and resources for exchange program alumni. Thank you for tuning in and welcome to the latest episode of Mentor Talks. Mentor Talks is a series designed to benefit exchange program alumni and those interested in improving themselves and their communities. This is your opportunity to talk directly with leaders and mentors who excel in their fields. We're very excited to welcome our guest today, Nasser Jeber. Nasser is a chef and social impact entrepreneur who has participated in ECA's Arts Envoy program. Nasser is also the co-founder of Comida, a unique business that uses cooking and dining experiences as a way to build communities and encourage a cultural exchange. One of the most valuable lessons that Comida gives participants is demonstrating the use of storytelling and culinary arts as a way to build a community. You could even say that Comida trains participants to become ambassadors of their culinary culture. Now that you have a brief intro to Nasser, what would you like to ask him about? His advice for entrepreneurs seeking to build a following for a new business? Or maybe how he approaches his role as an organizer among groups from different cultures? This time is for you and we look forward to hearing your questions. Nasser, welcome and thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Good. We're excited to have you. Thank you. Sure. Before we get to our questions from our online audience, can you tell us more about what inspired you to create Comida? Comida happened by accident really. I used to own a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that had good food, had good reviews, but wasn't busy. And the idea was that we need to do a lot of pop-up dinners to bring in customers to the store. And I started with a small dinner called from Ramallah to Bogota, showcasing Palestine and South American food and things of that sort. And it started selling out. And all of a sudden, other restaurants in the neighborhood started asking me how am I getting a lot of customers through the door. And I told them what I was doing and they were like, can you curate these dinners for us as well based on the theme of the restaurants? So eventually, Comida became the ticketing platform where people purchase tickets to attend those dinners. And the purpose of it was is that it increases food traffic. The owners of those restaurants make some revenue, of course, as well from those pop-up dinner series. And that $65 ticket or $85 ticket that people pay translates into $1,000 worth of revenue down the road when people order catering and come back and have recurring revenues. So it was a mixture or a combination of Airbnb experiences along with TripAdvisor. And it worked out. And all of a sudden, we started hosting other restaurants, other experiences and it grew from there. It actually happened by accident. So the social impact part of it, where you're connecting people and connecting them with people that can, for example, get them jobs or help them network and navigate some of the culture of New York as well as the environment there. How did that all begin? That happened right after the election process. Right after the election, a lot of people were interested in talking about the refugees community and interested in talking about how they can help out. So we had somebody reach out to us from IOM, which is an organization based out in DC, and that they had resettled some refugees in New York. The United States has resettled some refugees in New York and they need help, they need work. And we couldn't really hire them, but we were already doing these dinner series. And we decided that why don't we just throw a dinner party and people pay tickets to come here to the story of these refugees and then the money goes back to them. We have all the equipment and we all have all the ingredients so it doesn't necessarily cost us anything to put it together. And we did. And the first dinner was ahead, the second dinner was ahead. All of a sudden, you know, the news showed up. But then I had a close friend of mine who is a storyteller. He's currently the musical director of Mulan Rujan Broadway, a very, very talented, you know, writer and, you know, creative person. And he told me something interesting. He said that Americans, you know, we love happy endings, we love the story of the underdog. So we need to tell the story of the refugees in an inspiring way and not in a depressed way. So that's the cultural barrier that we were trying to break because a lot of the refugees come from trauma or come from places where their story is sad and it doesn't necessarily invoke hope. Where we can tell the same story because they're now here in the United States where there's a land of opportunity, there's a second chance, the American public is welcoming. So there is a lot of hope and there's a lot of mobility upwards. So we told that story and that took on wildfire and eventually is spread to other states. It helped hundreds of families get lifted out of poverty. The dinner series model eventually became that it's not the money from the tickets that they're getting access to. It's the people at the dinner. So if I happen to be a landlord who is interested in refugee issues and this refugee needs a home because they can't afford rent, they would get an apartment. And these stories happened, whether it was housing or jobs or financial impact or health work or things of the sort. Wow, that's amazing. And I also heard that you did a dinner series for veterans as well. Yes, of course. We support our troops and we support the veterans and the veterans also have a story to tell. We actually teamed up an Iraqi refugee with a veteran and they had like a consigned dinner talking about their experiences in Iraq. So that was like a really lovely and touchy story to like to talk about. I'm sure there was a lot of politics on the table. Sure, there was a lot of emotions, but the ideas that they can see each other in a human lens was very beautiful. Yes, that's great. So we're going to get to some viewer questions and I think you might have also, you might have talked about this a little bit, but one of the questions is how did you get started with this idea? Did you do a lot of planning or did you make it up as you went along? Well, to be honest, like I did come from the startup space prior to Comida. So like I had a little bit of an experience on how to launch something. So my first ever startup was a nutrition on demand based company that didn't really take off, but it taught me a lot on how companies start, what you need to do to get coders, what you need to do this. And the second one was the restaurant of course. I mean, it wasn't a tech startup, but it was still an entrepreneurial venture that had to start and basically like we have to work it from scratch. So I had a little bit of an experience to do it. So when Comida came about, it didn't happen by design. Like I wasn't planning on launching another tech thing, but because the demand to sell tickets, I didn't want to do it on brown paper tickets or Eventbrite or other world of sites. So we created our own and that became a business in itself and we never really expected that other restaurants and other food entrepreneurs would use the platform, but it did. So sometimes you just have to go with and say yes to everything and from there figure it out. Nobody really knew that Facebook would grow beyond a college, you know, linking website or community website to become a data behemoth around the world. So there's a lot of things that can happen along the way. That's true. Yeah, and you'd also, we were talking a little bit earlier and you'd mentioned that you didn't even know how to cook when you first came to New York. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, I'm actually still like, I mean, I still like struggle with that a lot because like the imposter syndrome like, oh, I had to be like, I became a chef by accident, you know, like I didn't go to the Colorado Institute. I didn't work for 20 years in different kitchens and all of a sudden there's some sort of a profile and I'm a chef and I'm cooking. So I ended up doing finance and economics, but then I graduated during the financial crisis and there were no jobs to be had. But to support myself, I was working in restaurants and eventually I couldn't get a job in finance and I had to accept the reality that was in me or around me. And then by accident, I, a chef at a major restaurant said, I'll teach you how to cook. And I was like, sure, I mean, I love the food and I was taking pride in what I was doing. And then I started learning a few things, learning a few things. Eventually after a year and a half, I opened up a restaurant and it was a small restaurant. It was a quick service restaurant, nothing fancy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And I was cooking and selling food and it came with a lot of challenges, you know, kitchen work is not easy. It's backbreaking work, it's long hours, a lot of sacrifices. It's an industry that you have to get into knowing what you're getting into. But once you learn a lot about food, you learn a lot about cultures, you learn a lot about diversity, you learn about just impact itself. Because people need to eat, they eat three times a day. So like we have to take food seriously in the sense of like who we are, you are what you eat in a way. So I started expanding to different cuisines, liking certain things, not liking certain other things, playing fuge and things of the sort. And it brought us here. Cool. So what was one of the most satisfying moments you had during one of your community programs? I had an Iraqi refugee who used to work for Mercy Corps in Iraq, but she's Kurdish. So she was twice displaced, one under Saddam in a second time again during the clashes that were happening with the war that was happening after the Iraq war. And she found herself in the U.S. And although she was legal, like she couldn't get a job. But she had like a Fulbright scholarship now, one in a thousand get a Fulbright, you know what I mean? Like it's a prestigious thing to do. Like I know if I apply right now, Hali will not get in probably. So we needed to help her. So we threw a dinner for her and she was the only refugee that within one dinner she was able to land a job at Columbia Cornell. So that was really lovely because the other other refugees like had found kitchen work or found retail work or found like handy work. But this is like this was like a professional institution that was present at the dinner and she was able to get a job immediately. So she didn't have to live on her friend's couch and she got her own apartment and seeing her life transformed that way and help out her family also is something that I'm very proud of. It's those moments that I really care about. And to be, you know, very honest, like for Komida like these refugee dinner series, like they don't make us any money, right? It's all about like the how much can we help out and part of the community. So sometimes like we have to push back against because we are for a profit business against our board and say like how much impact can we do? How much impact can we take on and still like be a functioning business? Right. So what do you think are the most effective ways that you get the word out about Komida and do you use like specific channels or is it by word of mouth? I think for any business you have to treat the press like your girlfriend or boyfriend. You have to be kind to the press. You have to know journalists and you also have to constantly be pitching stories. You can't take it like personal if your story doesn't get picked up. A lot of stories get pitched and nothing gets picked up. But if you're smart about creating stories, then a journalist would write about it. Eventually another journalist would write about it and that's how we get picked up. So for us, for example, we ended up, we knew that this is a food series. So we went to all the food blogs like Eater, Grub Street, Things of the Sort. We put our stories there. Eventually we moved over to like newspapers like Newsday, New York Times and then to like fashion life magazines like Bogue magazine, New York or things like that. So it takes strategy, it takes planning. You have to know the media. You have to appreciate the media and you have to consistently stay relevant and stories are quick to come, quick to go. So you have to always capture the attention of the public eye. And we were able to do that with our dinner series at the time. And now we're like planning other things and hopefully it's the same strategy but different things. Okay, great. So how often do you come across people who are less willing to try new foods or interact with different cultures and what kind of approach do you take with these people? Interesting. I can tell you this much. Like in New York City we get a lot of people who are like very open to different food adventures and takes because there's simply just so many cuisines around that people try food consistently. But I can tell you that people sometimes get unhappy with how their own food is being presented. So if I decide to do molecular gastronomy with Palestinian cuisine, I will get like a lot of backlash saying this is not Palestinian food and you're destroying the culture and how can you dare you do that and things of the sort. You know like people take food very personally. So the idea is to introduce them into a new way of making the dish and not necessarily how grandma made it or mom made it. And to have a different take on like how things can be presented not just in terms of looks but in terms of ingredients, in terms of shape, in terms of taste and still be authentic to the dish that it was. It's just, you know, evolution of food or cuisine. All right. And so I think you touched on this a little bit before but how do you keep Kamita sustainable as a business model? So we make most of our revenue from restaurants using our platform for profit business. So if you're a restaurant that's a Thai restaurant in New York that wants to get more customers, you host a dinner experience on our platform customers book the dinners and we take 3% commission off of that. We also have a B2B, which is our catering unit, but it does like corporate catering so that gives us a float. So there's a marketplace and the catering arm and those both sustain the business. Of course, like things can grow into like data, like what people are eating because like we can track every food item that was ordered across every gender across every profile. We can tell like if you're making this sort of income, then you're eating this kind of dishes and that data of course can be then used for, you know, future of the business in some of the ways. So those are the ways that we just keep sustainable with the business. Okay. So the next question is what is the most important skill you use to manage these dinners with so many different people? Would you consider yourself a teacher or more of a business person? You know, I used to be a waiter for a long time and the skill that I tapped into this wasn't the business skill. It wasn't the cooking skill. It was like how to be a host and ideas like how to set up a dinner properly and have people be comfortable being engaged. And we did dinners up to 100 people at a time. And if I haven't had like a New York City waiting tables experiences at those kind of volume, I probably would have crumbled. But the fact that we have done them before and trained them and understand how many people we need to have on the floor and like how to see people and how to make people a food flaw, you know, smoothly, it worked out in that. So I put my waiter head back on and basically did that. Interesting. Okay. If I wanted to create a small business like a fast food chain, where's the best place to start? First of all, I would advise anyone not to get into the restaurant business simply because the restaurant business is tough, high margins. But if it hits, it hits. I do have to say. First of all, you need to begin with the concept and you need to begin with and testing your food. Make sure it's good. They can't just be an idea like it has to be truly and tested and tested and tested again. That's why I would suggest that anybody who's trying to open a restaurant to do something called pop-ups, which basically is a restaurant that is moving around, that doesn't pay rent, that shows up at certain markets or certain dinners or just with your friends basically. And test out the menu, get honest feedback. And once the menu is tested truly, you need to build a business plan to launch the restaurant. A restaurant requires two types of runs, which is the front of the house, which is when the guests are the interaction with the team, and the back of house, which is the kitchen operation. And the kitchen operation alone is hectic. It requires daily scheduling, daily ordering, inventory checks, managing, employment, and making sure you have really, really good employees who love what they're doing. And you can trust them with the business because you can't be the person grilling, frying and taking orders at the same time. It's a lot of work. It needs to have like a production line process in the back of the house and a hospitality line in front of the house. And it takes some time. So, you know, most people, like 80% of restaurants fail in their first year, so it takes a lot of work. And I say, how do you suggest for anybody trying to do a quick service restaurant called QSR to look up on the internet what QSR services look like, how the industry looks like. And to test out their menu ahead of time in like pop-up dinners and pop-up locations. That's good advice. So what have your favorite meals been during your international travels? I enjoyed the camel meat in Morocco. I think that was, I never really thought I would enjoy camel kebabs, but I did. Of course, would I ever eat it again? Probably not. Like I feel bad slaughtering a camel, especially to eat it, right? But like in Morocco, it's slaughtered and people eat the entire animal, so that's respectful. And I would try it, I guess, if I'm there, but like I would not go hunt it, you know, here or somewhere. I love that. I also love all forms of kebab. I mean, I have to say like Istanbul has a great, great place, destination for food. And they have amazing breakfast as well. So I love that. I love seafood, ceviche a lot in Peru. I mean, I love Latino food. So different places. The idea is to be open to everything. Like I don't go crazy and like, oh, I'm going to eat like, I don't know, alligator today or something. I mean, I would try it if it's around, but like I'm not into much of the exotic, but really into the history of the people cooking it. So like Spain for me was great because you can tell a lot about the history of ham and how people engage in food markets and food halls and things of the sort. So that's really nice. And what are some of ways that you keep the community engaged over a long period? Long time period. So that's hard, you know, keeping people engaged requires a lot of content creation. So like the Instagram page has to be always up and running. The Facebook page has to always be up and running. The email list has to be always up and running. And you need to capture people, but also not bother them at the same time, give them engaging content, give them stories to read. So that requires a lot of content creation. We have a team dedicated just for that because it requires not just marketing, but like storytelling skills and, you know, just engagement with the customer. There has to be 14 points of engagement before a customer clicks on you. And that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of 14 points of entry that you have to think about. So what are those 14 points? So like you have to, for example, send them an email and then there's an Instagram post and there's a Facebook post and then there is the flyer and then there's the invite that comes in on their app. So it's like those different points of engagement that needs to be a constant reminder like, oh, this thing is happening, this thing is happening. So it's a lot of work. That sounds like it. Yeah. And so we're going to go back to when you first arrived in New York City that was two weeks before 9-11. How did 9-11 change your outlook? It changed it a lot. I mean, in the beginning, like I was completely confused about am I an American or am I a Palestinian or am I both because there was a lot of sentiment that was really high. And not only that I was coming to the United States in post 9-11 world or 9-11 world, but like I was also coming out of the second in Tifada, which was the uprising that was happening in the Palestinian territories. So clearly two war zones, I mean, at the time that was happening and like that was pretty tough. But then I got the discovery that New Yorkers were more open about like hearing my story and not vilifying me and things of the sort. And I was able to build a community here. Of course, I mean, it was tough to explain yourself. You know, a lot of people would come and tell you like, oh, why does this happen in the Arab world? And then you have to become like the ambassador of the Muslim world, the ambassador of the Arab world and talk to people about how things are not like this. And that's like a big burden. I don't think, you know, I have to explain the reasoning of terrorists. Because I'm not one like, so why should I understand their logic and try to explain it? But I think people were looking for answers. And if they don't know anyone, they will naturally ask a person from that area like what's going on. So we had to basically like explain what things led to these groups to come about. How does it feel to be an American in New York after this happened? Loyalty to the United States and like how much like I actually love the United States and love the opportunity that America gave me. But at the same time, like what are my roots and like how do I relate to it? And I feel like food brought in all of that because you're able to explore the American way and still keep homage to, you know, my whole origins and still deliver on both ends. Cool. So can you talk more about your experience like being an envoy and working with the State Department? It was an amazing experience. It was an amazing experience. I have to say that whenever I want to feel good after a stressful day, I go and like look at the envoy program and just see what other people are doing because it's just wonderful. It happened by coincidence. I was in South by Southwest and then I was approached by the James Beard House about a possible trip to Morocco to talk about or launch the export of American Halal beef. And I was really excited about that because the fact that there is American Halal beef meant that there is inclusion. For a long time, the American Muslim community couldn't find Halal beef unless they went locally. But now there is like major production of it. So that's really wonderful. And then the idea is to go to Morocco and met with the team and the embassy there. They were really lovely. Of course, Morocco is the first country to recognize the United States. So there was a lot of warm like very old diplomatic ties and I came to explore the country of Morocco or the Kingdom of Morocco and learn about them through food. Now I love Moroccan food because if you go to Queens here in New York, there's a big Moroccan community and I love their food. But then I discovered that it doesn't even compare if you ever when you visit like the cuisine is so rich and so diverse that what we get like at least in New York City is a very small dose of it. Okay. Well, we'll have to go to Morocco then. Yeah, for sure. All right. What advice do you have for people who are planning to create an organization based on cultural values, whether it be art, theater, music or food? I think you have to be true to your values first. I feel like you have to really think about your mission statement and think about like how you're really impacting the community. It's easy to for a non-profit business to stay as a non-profit business because that's what they do, right? They're in the business of being a non-profit. But that has repercussions to it. For example, like does ego kick in the way? Are you really impactful? How much of the dollar spent or on the art or the theater or the music or is actually going back to the community? So you have to really find a way to make it sustainable as a living if you want to do this full-time but at the same time have the highest impact of value. You don't want to be an organization that takes a dollar and donation or a grant but spends 90 cents on just upholding the organization and 10 cents on the actual impact. So there has to be some sort of balance in which you can make it work. And also you have to look at the real problems within the community. I love theater and I love the arts but if I am working with refugees in Greece on the water, they are in need of food and translation services, right? So the idea is that look deeply within the community and see is there a need for this problem to be solved or are there more immediate needs to be solved? Or is this just your interpretation of what needs to be solved? And that's important. Yes, fulfilling a need. So how difficult was it to obtain permits and other paperwork in order to start your business? And what do you wish that you knew now? Well I have to say thankfully the United States government is very friendly towards business so it takes five minutes online to launch a business. Now I understand that it might be difficult in different parts of the world. Sometimes you need like 14 signatures to get like a permit going. But I luckily never had that experience so I wouldn't know how it is abroad. But at least in the United States it's very easy. Everything is mostly done online and if you have a good accountant or a good lawyer that can be expedited really quickly. There are really now websites that you just pay and they expedite the process of incorporation all the way to delivery and you become a business within 15 minutes really. Wow, that's amazing. We actually have a resource on our website enabling entrepreneurs to tab and we have different resources both international and national there for anybody to check out. That's amazing. Yes, so I have a final question. What's next on your dinner plate? Well tonight is going to be a Palestinian menu actually that's like a little bit of a fusion. We helped this new Palestinian restaurant called Canoone open up on 21st and 9th. And they have been rated by Eater which is like the news food blog as one of the hottest restaurants in New York City to Eden for November. So we're very proud about that. And it's going to be sumac and sachan chicken which is a Palestinian salad chicken and maklube which is our version of biryani. And of course some dips, hummus, mohammara, things of the sort. So we're excited about that. That's great. Congratulations. Okay, so it looks like we're just about out of time. Before we go Nasser I'd like to ask what's your number one tip for trying to have for someone who wants to try to have social impact in their community? Never be afraid to fail. Keep trying because the truth of the matter is is that like one person cannot change the entire world but a community can but it takes action of one person to start. So don't be afraid to start. Keep at it and people will join you. When we started our dinner series it was just 10 people in a basement. Wow, okay. So you started small. Oh, before we go too I want to give you a shout out from Ali and Jerusalem who's saying that you're an inspiration for Palestinians creating positive change abroad. And hello from Jerusalem. Thank you Ali. Hello back. Good. Okay, so thank you very much Nasser for being with us today. And a big thank you to you, our online viewers for participating. Be sure to keep your calendar open for our next mentor talks in December. We'll share more information on our next guest right here on Facebook and on our Twitter handle at exchange alumni. Interested in learning about more opportunities for exchange alumni? Visit our website at alumni.state.gov and follow us on social media. Thanks for watching and see you all in December for our next mentor talks.