 Hello, and welcome to the third installment in our Entrepreneurs Exchange Web Chat series. I'm Vanessa Berry, Senior Advisor on Youth Entrepreneurship at the U.S. Department of State and an alumna of the Fulbright program in Tajikistan. Today, in honor of International Women's Day, we will be discussing an important topic, the opportunities and challenges that women face as entrepreneurs and innovators in the business world. I'm so excited to be joined live in our Washington Interactive Studio by our distinguished guest, Kathy Corman Frey, instructor at George Washington University and founder of the Hot Mama's Project, and by Umama Paracha, Chief Executive of Musa Biopharma in Peshawar, Pakistan. Both of these accomplished women are here today to share their unique experiences and to answer your questions. I'd also like to extend a special welcome to the International Exchange Alumni who join us from around the world. Including those gathered at the We Create Center in Islamabad, Pakistan, whom you will see on the screen shortly. The Women's Entrepreneurial Centers of Resources, Education, Access, and Training for Economic Empowerment, or We Create, are physical entrepreneurial community centers around the world that equip women with the tools to develop and grow their businesses and promote measurable economic and societal change. I also want to give a shout out to the viewing party gathered at the Binational Center in Santiago, Chile. We also want to welcome the viewing party at American Center, Colombo, which is partnering with the Women's Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Sri Lanka. Now, before we begin our discussion, I want to note that these interactive programs can be viewed by anyone around the world. But, as always, alumni of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs enjoy privileged access to our guests. Remember to share your thoughts with us or ask questions at any time in the chat space on the live event page or on Twitter using hashtag ENTR exchange. Now, while we wait for your questions to come in, let's hear briefly from our guests, Umama Paracha and Ms. Kathy Corman Fry. Umama is an IVLP alumni and the current CEO of Musa Biopharma in Pakistan, a company associated with research and development of pharmaceutical products. Kathy needs no introduction. An award-winning entrepreneur, community leader, and educator. Kathy founded the Hot Mama's Project, the world's largest collection of women's case studies, to highlight successful business women as role models for aspiring women entrepreneurs. So, to start, Ms. Umama, please share with us a little about yourself and your experiences as an entrepreneur. Hello everybody, I'm Umama Paracha from Peshawar, Pakistan. I'm a journalist by education and I had no plans of becoming an entrepreneur at all. But as soon as I finished my studies, I was asked to join my family business, which I was not interested in initially. But I didn't gain interest because meanwhile I was getting trained at work. I joined women's chamber of commerce industry in Peshawar and I interacted with 150 entrepreneurs in Peshawar working from their home or in commercial areas, which kind of inspired me and enforced me to actually start taking interest. And that's exactly when I joined with interest with my father and now I'm on my own. He runs his own industry and I'm on my own. It's a good feeling to be an entrepreneur at such young age and being acknowledged also. People don't really get advantage and they're not privileged enough. But it's been a not very long journey and I still have a success story to make. I'm just in the beginning phase but I'm looking forward to challenges coming ahead. Though initially it's hard for women in our society and our culture to come up and work in industry or work among men around because it's not really considered a good thing. I mean they discourage you. They try to tell you to sit back home and not work. They think it's not your cup of tea. You can't. But you need to face all those challenges. You need to come up with it and work hard. So yeah, it's been a great journey. It's just like I said, it's just the beginning. I have a lot to learn and a lot to achieve. Thank you. Thank you so much, your mama. Now, Kathy, tell us a little bit about the work you've done to empower women in business. Thanks, Vanessa. And it was great hearing umama's story. So the Hot Mama's Project is, as Vanessa mentioned earlier, the world's largest women's case study library. And so Harvard Business School made famous the case study, which is essentially a fancy story. And so the Hot Mama's are basically, it's slang. It's a sort of interesting, eye-catching term. But what it really means is dynamic women. And we found that there were women all over the world who were really coming up with their own formula for success. And that success wasn't just in their career, but it was also at home and together how they were making that work in their home and their work life. So they came to our website, they wrote their story, and now all those stories are free and online to serve as virtual mentors and role models, if you will. And there's research behind as to why that's so important. We say if you can't see it, you can't be it. But the truth is, starting at around age 11, some girls engage in what we call self-limiting behavior. So let's say you wanted to start your own business, but you might stop at the lemonade stand. But if you remove those blinders, if you're exposed to a role model or a mentor and other confidence-building experiences, then you might go ahead and achieve your potential. So it's really about breaking through those self-limiting behaviors, reading about people who are struggling and who have done it, and saying, you know, I relate to that. I can do that. And then we've created a set of tools and workshops that actually measurably increase confidence. So we export those to other women's groups and conferences, companies and communities to help them increase the confidence of their populations. We may be very well-educated, very smart, but we need that confidence to take that step forward and do what we really want to do. Thanks so much, Kathy. Now let's turn to our audience of exchange alumni and entrepreneurs who are watching from the We Create Center. Welcome to the Program Exchange Alumni. I'm sure your group has plenty of questions for our guests. So let's take the first question. My name is Thak, and I went on CC program 2013 to UMass Everest. And I have a question regarding, well, it's something, you know, very close to me in a sense that, you know, I have had ideas about starting up something. And I, again, I take a step back every time I think about things because of lack of copyright and paid a partnership here in Pakistan. So, I mean, how do you like, you know, I mean, in the U.S., I know that there is a strong law of, you know, protecting once ideas and, you know, things like that. But here, obviously, it's overloose and, you know, it's in the starting stages. So, I mean, how does one, you know, cope with that until things, you know, settle down? So that's the question. Thank you so much for that question. And I'm going to let Kathy and Umama respond to this question on how do you protect one's IP, especially IP being intellectual property, especially in environments where the laws and regulations are not necessarily very strong? Well, I'd be curious to hear what Umama, especially being in the business that you're in, has to say about that. And then I've actually, over the past few years, had a student who developed a business plan for a business in Pakistan. And it involved really just huge improvements that matched the demographics. But I'd love to just hear from Umama really quickly in your field, intellectual property rules, correct? Well, it's, you're right. I mean, over here, there is an issue of copyright. But the field that I come from, it's a very sensitive field. It's about pharmaceuticals and you really have to take care of minor things and you need to get approval from Ministry of Health. And so it's a little lesser chance of getting into it because you really have to take care of it. It's a sensitive field. But otherwise, I agree with her. There is certainly issues of copyright here in our country. And that's the reason people are afraid to come into entrepreneurship because they fear their ideas might be taken by someone else and they won't be taken care of. Well, this is an interesting topic on two different levels. One level has to do with what a lot of studies will talk to about behaviors and ideas around entrepreneurship, which can be classified as fear of failure. So this fits into that category in terms of what obstacles do I think may get in the way that will prevent me from being successful? It doesn't mean that it's not legitimate. It's fear. It's a real issue. But how do we tackle that? So one way that we've seen be very successful for women around the world is using what's called the Delphi technique. And this is a research methodology which is based on a panel of experts. So where are you going to get these experts? Well, this is where mentorship comes in. Mentorship, literally, I don't think it could be more popular here. It's such a popular topic and I know it's very popular around the world also. And so to say, here's an area that's a challenge for me. Here's an area which is a goal for me. Here's an area that I'd like to learn a little bit about. And what we found is the magic number is five. So women with five or more mentors have higher perceptions of self-confidence and success. Now what if that could start to eradicate or do away with some of this fear of failure? It's not the solution, but it's a solution. And then the second thing, which is very tactical, which I've seen done before, is alliances which can be used as a competitive advantage. So let's say somebody comes in and they do. They blatantly copy your idea. But you have an alliance or a partnership that is viewed as very valuable in your community. And that is the upfront work that you do as a business owner. How are you going to meet those people? Maybe it's through your personal board of advisors, your five mentors. And these do not have to be all women, and frankly, nor should they be. You're going for experts and know-how, not just gender. So that's one way that we've seen people be very effective in just on what we call sort of a grassroots way, working through problems. It might take years to establish policies, but right now we could go out and find people who have done it or have ideas about how to do it. Thank you both for those excellent comments and reflections that actually give the audience some very practical advice and steps. So let's now turn to social media and look at some of the questions that are coming in from the chat space. Great. It looks like we've got a question from Andrea in Hungary. Andrea says, I'm working as a consultant in a brand-building and marketing business, mainly beauty, lifestyle, design, and tech. Do you have any recommendations of tenders in these topics and tips for networking and idea sharing internationally? Kathy, do you both have any thoughts on that? Umama, do you have thoughts on that question? I think I'll answer after Kathy answers. I think she'll be better in answering the question. Well, I have to say the fact that this question came in from social media is great because that's probably one of my number one answers. The social media community is absolutely fantastic for networking and should not be underestimated. And in this particular field with tech and with beauty, which is any personal care item or personal lifestyle brand, very, very popular hot on social media, and you can find people who share similar interests by looking at hashtags, for example. So let's take it down a step further and say, okay, what groups can we look for for networking and idea sharing internationally? So if I were looking around our case study database, I might go to hotmamasproject.org and look for those topics and see if there is somebody who has listed on the right side of their case. Oh, here's my blog, here's my Twitter account, here's my Facebook page, because what they're doing is volunteering themselves as mentors. But what you have to realize is in the social media community, they're also raising their hands and saying, I'm open, I'm available. The people who stay off social media are staying off for a reason. So my first stop would be the social media community, and from there, see what are the popular groups that folks are going to, and then you can refine your question. You can say, well, you know, I said beauty, I said tech, but what I really mean is in my region, or what I really mean is for a startup business, or what I really mean is for an intermediate-stage business, and you can start to refine. And I have to say the centers that the State Department is starting up are just fantastic. So that could be a great resource, and my guess is that those centers will be getting calls even outside the regions in which they've established a footprint. Thank you, Kathy. Umama, do you have thoughts or reflections on that question? I'll second her opinion. I think, yes, social media is a great platform to share your ideas and to get other ideas from other people, and also to connect internationally. I think previously it wasn't possible to interact people apart from your own region because there wasn't any strong source of medium interaction internationally, but now social media has been a very positive aspect in communication, and I think that's the reason we are seeing a number of international linkages increasing day by day. And a lot of folks will go to a local university, and depending on how strong the entrepreneurship program is, they will have a variety of resources. So for instance, they may have events, and you can attend the events. Usually there's a lot of events that will be open to the public, or even if it's just for the students, you could say, could I come in and attend? Could I come in and be a guest speaker? Because it's really amazing what can be attracted to the university community, but social media I love also because it's incredibly cost and time effective, which really works for a lot of the women entrepreneurs demographic. Now talking about social media, we have another question, and this question is from an online viewer, Khaled, from the West Bank Palestinian Territories. There are many, and Khaled asks, there are many aspiring entrepreneurs. At what point can you actually consider someone an entrepreneur? How can you measure success? So this is an excellent question because definitions differ, and measuring success is difficult, so this is always a big challenge in the field. Umama, do you have any thoughts? Well, it is a very interesting question, but I think that entrepreneur keeps growing with time. It's quite hard to measure their success. I mean, they keep growing with time and there's no stop in that growth. I mean, you can't stop an entrepreneur from growing, it just keeps growing from time to time, so I feel it's really hard to actually measure entrepreneur success. Yeah, that's a great point, and Umama gets at something which sort of drives entrepreneurs a little bit crazy, which is sometimes there is not a definition of success. When you are in a large company or you're working for a large organization and you have your review, let's say every January or every June, and they say, oh, you've moved up to the next level. Well, that may mean success. You get your raise, that may mean success. It's not always like that in the entrepreneurial field. So taking the questions in reverse in terms of when is somebody considered an entrepreneur and how do you measure success, I'll take success first. I think the success has to be determined by the entrepreneur, and that's very, very hard, because the entrepreneur sees all the things on the outside and says, well, I don't know. If I have that card, does that make me successful? If I make this amount of money, does that make me successful? But what's really starting to happen, particularly here in the U.S., is entrepreneurs who are happy are successful, and they want to have businesses that allow them to have some time with their families. Maybe they want to write a book. Maybe they want to go back to school. And so it is not just about one box, money, and let's check that box. It's about having a fuller, richer life, and we start to see that movement in the U.S. It can be a little bit confusing, but it's very real and it's definitely happening. So if you're an entrepreneur, be sure that you are very clear, what is my definition of success? And we saw that a lot with the Hot Mama's Project. It's people who were not fitting into that traditional definition of success, and they wanted to share their story of here's my definition of success. Now, number two, when are you considered an entrepreneur? This is a great question because some people think, well, I'm an entrepreneur when I own a big sports team. I'm an entrepreneur when I make a million dollars. I'm an entrepreneur when I start a business. Here's the truth. You're an entrepreneur when you see a challenge as an opportunity. You're an entrepreneur when you find solutions to challenges. Entrepreneurs think differently. You may work in a company. You might be an entrepreneur. You might think like an entrepreneur. Vanessa here has her PhD. She worked in entrepreneurship education. But instead of going to academia, here she is. She's leading this conversation here today. So there's lots of ways you can employ entrepreneurship. And if you're a natural problem solver, and you don't feel that intimidated by challenges, chances are you may be an entrepreneur. And as we say in my class at GW, George Washington University, you may be an entrepreneur. You may be somebody inside a company that's innovating and making change. So I hope that helps. Thank you so much, Kathy and Umama, on really helping us think through what an entrepreneur is and understand, come to this realization, that there's not a classic textbook answer to that term. All right, let's turn now back to social media. We have a question from Jennifer on Facebook. Jennifer asks, how does the sense of collaboration versus competition vary among women entrepreneurs in the grand body of international cultures? So this is a great question. Thank you, Jennifer. And again, I'm going to turn it over to the experts to get their thoughts. Umama and Kathy. Umama, I'd love to hear your personal experiences of collaborative culture versus a culture of competition. This is a very hot topic here in the US. Well, over here, it's, you know, culture we have already faced. The major issues that we face over here are cultural issues because women entrepreneurs are not really accepted in our culture. They have to work triple harder than men do because we have culture norms. We cannot go out of certain limitations. We need to work in those certain limitations. And to outcome that we need to, we have, we do face a lot of cultural, even in our immediate family, one of them will support you, the rest won't. They think you've lost your mind and you really want to go work between all these men. But yes, it's amazing because now when you, the ratio of women entrepreneurs is increasing, which means they are coming out of their comfort zone. They are keeping their, within their cultural limitations, they are trying to grow. They, and they are actually competing with the cultural restrictions that they have to face over here in our country. I think internationally it's not an issue, but over here it is. It's a very major issue. And I think it's very interesting because you'll see, especially the region that I come from, the Pashtun region, when you, if you, it's a conservative region and if you see women coming out, working and doing such creative work that you cannot even think about, you're amazed at their creativity. So, they are kind of fighting with it, but international collaboration and competition, I mean, I think over here women, they're competing with the culture. Women entrepreneurs over here are competing with their culture, with their cultural norms. That's, that's what it is like here in Pakistan. That's very interesting. Here, in terms of competition versus collaboration, there are some sort of slang terms that have come about based on movies and over here the popular term is mean girls. And so what happens is we'll see corporate mean girls and it's very discouraging to women who are trying to be successful, get ahead, get advice, and they encounter somebody that they feel is against them. There's also another saying called taking the ladder with you. Meaning somebody has achieved a high level and instead of saying, here, come up with me, they take the ladder. They're not helpful. They say, fend for yourself. So this is a very popular discussion and I don't think that there's a right answer in terms of is that legitimate, that feeling of collaboration or that feeling of competition. Because if you feel that, that is your reality. Nobody can tell you, you know, that's not real. That feeling of competition that you're feeling, that's not real. Because that's your reality you may experience every day. So really the question is what can we do? And so I'd like to put a challenge out there today because I imagine the majority of people watching are leaders. You're not watching this because, you know, you could be off having your coffee or off playing a video game or just messing around somewhere. You're here to develop yourself and learn. So you're the perfect audience for this challenge and here it is. The challenge is to be an ambassador and reach out and help somebody today. You may even text somebody, email somebody, call somebody. It could be a woman. It could be a man. You could say, how can I help you with your goal? What are you working on today? How great would it be to get that email or that text, right? Or a Facebook message, whatever. We have so many different ways we can communicate now. And for women, I'll tell you why this is especially important. So how many times will your friend or your mom or your sister say, you know, I just don't feel like I'm really good at this? I really am feeling down. And you'll say, oh, no, you're great. You're the best ever. You're fantastic at this. Well, this is what we do. Studies show that women are really great at advocating for others. But when it comes time to do it for ourselves, not as great. Not as great. So just imagine if we have those five, or even if it's just somebody you do today, you email somebody you've just got two here. And the power of advocating for another can be shared. So that is the power of understanding the research. And there's a study by Hannah Riley Bowles out of Harvard. And she literally shows that women who are negotiating for other women achieve a higher raise for them, more money than when they're doing it for themselves. So let's take that power and use it for others and have them use it for us and foster collaboration. That's excellent. So we've heard today already about the role of mentors in our lives, but we've also heard about the way in which we can all be mentors for one another. All right. Now let's return live, or back, sorry, to our live audience in Islamabad. What is the next question that we have? Hi. I'm Mahbara Bari. I'm manager outreach and communications at the We Create Center. And my question is actually I'm relaying a question that a lot of entrepreneurs as mean come here. They always ask about funding. And there's very, very little investment opportunity in Pakistan. And a lot of the philosophy we have at We Create is that you don't need funding, you need revenue, which is great. It's a great philosophy, and we all believe in it. But how do we convince these women of this philosophy when they come and they feel like they don't have enough resources to bootstrap and the risk involved is so large? How do we, what's a good way to either safeguard them or convince them? So is the question about convincing them that finding funding is OK or that bootstrapping is a legitimate path or both? I just wanted clarity on that. A bit of both. Because the concept of bootstrapping is very, it's not something that's actually termed. Obviously people are bootstrapping, but they don't know they're bootstrapping. But they're also very wary because they know if their venture doesn't succeed, then all of the input they put in it will also, you know, it wouldn't have gone through. So what is your advice? How do we convince these women to take that lead? OK, got it. So again, we're a little bit getting back in one sense to fear of failure, right? And it's, this is a little bit difficult to say, but I believe that it's what allows entrepreneurship to grow and foster. And one way is fostering a culture of acceptance of failure. And so in Silicon Valley right now, which is a tech hotbed on the west coast of the US, there's a trend to just start up companies, see what happens, and if it doesn't work, just fold it. That's it. And this is an acceptable trend. And so if we can adapt more of this mentality and say, I'm just going to try this, I'm going to pilot this, I'm going to pilot this for six months, I'm going to pilot this for a year. Here's goal number one, here's goal number two. If I don't hit this, then I will be on probation or probationary period for the next six months. But to have such an absolute view of failure or success, I think makes it like a cliff that an entrepreneur feels that they have to jump off of. And I also think in terms of funding, this is a real issue. Funding is a real issue in access to funding for growth. Now, crowdfunding, again, getting into the social media wave is something that has revolutionized the face of funding for women-owned businesses. And so there are number one, more women angel investors now than just a few years ago. And so access to funds just from women who say, oh, I like this idea, I'm going to invest in this idea, whether it's $5,000 or $500,000 or $5 million, there are more of those benefactors or female angels out there. But then number two, you could put your idea on a crowdfunding site and put it out to the social media community. And that is marketing and it's fundraising. But I do think that those two things can help take it down from up here to this level and call it a laboratory, call it an experiment, but set those intermediary goals so it's not so absolute. Kathy, thank you so much. Umama, would you like to share some thoughts? I understand what she's saying, what the reference that the question comes from, because over here women entrepreneurs, but they don't understand the fact that entrepreneurship is all about taking risks. It's all about experimenting your ideas. And yes, funding over here is very hard. It's difficult because our banks are not really friendly and they, you know, the loan schemes and they're not really friendly and women are actually really scared to move ahead. I remember while working for Women Chamber of Commerce in Peshawar, every day we would sit and listen to five women at least in a day saying that you're not doing anything for us because you're not giving us money. So over here it's a concept that if you open an organization, if you are helping them putting in their ideas and you know, training them to how to go about it, how to communicate and make your networking strong, they feel the only thing we can do for you is give them finance, which is not possible, obviously. No one can finance you just like that. But what they need to understand is that even if you need to go on about funding, you need to build your networking strong, you need to interact with people, you need to meet with right people of your specific field who you want to work with. So it is hard to, I understand what you say, is to convince women over here that, you know, it's not only about getting the funds. Yes, getting the funds is one of the important aspects and it's the difficult aspect in our country or anywhere around the world. I mean, no one gives you money just for the heck of it. But the issue that these women fail to understand initially is that you need to take risks. You will have to put in your idea. You need to be a little creative. You will take risks. You will go through loss in the beginning. You cannot just gain and gain. You know, entrepreneurship is all about taking risks and experimenting new things. You will fail, but you are going to cover it and, you know, be successful at one point at least. And if you're not, then that's when you know that this is not your field. You need to switch or maybe make some changes in your ideas. But, yeah, it is hard to convince women entrepreneurs in our culture that, you know, all organizations cannot fund. Right. And one other thing I wanted to mention is we're back to this, you know, people that we're surrounding ourselves with. This is what Umama mentioned and about sort of networking, connecting with people and the right people. And the second thing is a breakthrough for many entrepreneurs in the U.S. and now these competitions are global is business plan competitions or business pitch competitions. And there's even ones that have to do with social entrepreneurship. And so if you follow the hashtag, for example, SOCHANT, S-O-C-E-N-T on Twitter, you'll find the social entrepreneurship community. If you look up things, for instance, like the Clinton Global Initiative or the Skoll Foundation or Ashoka, again, these are more social entrepreneurship ideas or competitions and leaders. And then if you literally just Google business plan competitions, there are sites that list business plan competitions and events happening all over the world. And this is fantastic, not only for potential access to capital and funding, but access to people. And who's attending these? And then just practice and having a goal as an entrepreneur. Would you really get your pitch as ready and as fine-tuned if you weren't doing this competition? Maybe not. So these can be a tremendous motivator and springboard for entrepreneurs who are looking to advance and make the next step. And maybe their community right there is a little bit of a roadblock. Excellent. Thank you, Umama and Kathy, for sharing such a great list of resources as well that our viewers can access. So let's turn back to the viewers online and take another question. Samar in Kuwait asks, how do you deal with corruption when you're trying to start a business? Great question. I'm going to hand this over to Umama first. If I'm not wrong, did she say corruption? Corruption, yes. Well, everybody knows that here in Asia corruption is like the most biggest issue that we face. It's part of our society now. It's part of our government now. We're just used to the corruption now. I think it's part of our system now. That's how we've learned to deal with it. It is a major issue. And we still do not have any solutions for it, but we do hope for the best. All you can do is, on your part, you try to do the best that you can. You try to stay away from the corruption as much as you can, be a little bright enough to know the people that you're dealing with. But you are going to face corruption, but it's just a small hurdle. It doesn't stop you from your business or your success or your work that you're doing. It is going to make some issues during the process, but corruption is just there. And to get away with it, I think we'll have to work from generation to generation to be away from the corruption. But here in Asia, at least, corruption has just been part of our society. Common people are also part of it now. Even unintentionally, but we do end up being engaged in it, because we're just surrounded with it. Thank you, Omama, for sharing that information. Kathy, do you have any thoughts on how individuals should approach this very real issue that many entrepreneurs face around the world? It's a big challenge. And as I've spoken with a lot of IVLP groups over the years, they've handled it similarly, which is it's an accepted part of a culture. How do we work around it? And sometimes when they're together, even in the IVLP groups, they'll rely on each other to say, here's one way that I worked around it. Here's another way that I worked around it. So there's really, you can't put enough emphasis on not doing it alone and having the support of others. Now, I have seen, in a few instances, people start to band together to not exactly take it head on, but to start to present different solutions that wind up being effective so that even the corrupt source that they're dealing with views it as favorable. So for instance, if somebody is employing a group of people in their village and it winds up being, okay, now there's less crime. It's not exactly a win-win, but there's something that, strangely, is of mutual benefit. And then people who are really already in a powerful position who then decide, okay, I'm going to go with a new venture in my life or I'm going to take on a new business venture, I've seen that actually, those folks are successful in taking it head on. They may start a legal action or something of that nature. But I think when we're talking to a community of startup entrepreneurs who are wondering about resources, that's not really the level that I tell people to shoot for or have them aspire to, but know that they can read about that person as a role model. But it sounds like Umama has come to a place of acceptance and trying to work around it and talking with other people about how to do that. And that's very difficult, I would say is my area of expertise and this is what I really learn from the IVLP visitors each time they come here. Thank you, Kathy, and thank you, Umama. And I think that this goes and speaks to the role of finding mentors as well within a community that you can reach out to and ask for help and their thoughts. Let's now turn back to social media. We're going to go to Twitter and we're going to take a question from Pixie Carlisle, who wants to know as a woman and entrepreneur, how do you balance a day job with new endeavors and your personal life? So a great question about balance and finding that balance between work being an entrepreneur and your personal life. I'd love to hear from you both about how you both do this and do this so well. Umama, how do you swing this? How do you balance between your multiple commitments? It was hard because as I mentioned in the beginning I didn't even want to be an entrepreneur. My aim was to become a journalist and write for a newspaper for as long as I work. But that kind of changed, circumstances changed and I had to move to the business and become an entrepreneur. But I'm still single. I don't really have to take care of my husband or kids. So I didn't really have that... I didn't really face the major difficulty as a woman that you face while working. So I didn't really experience that as yet. I will in future. But as a... I mean, yes, you do have friends. You do have to give time to your family and with work and it does get hard. It's hard to balance. But you need to figure out that this amount of time I have to invest in work and this amount of time I have to give my family. As a rule, in my house, since I come from an entrepreneurial background, we've tried to balance as much as we could and give time to our family, comparatively, and to our work. But for me it was easy because I was working with my father. So family was kind of with me all the time even when I was at work. It wasn't really hard for me to balance that out. As women over here face issues after they get married and they have kids to look after, they have a house to look after. I did not really experience that till now in a home. My mom takes care of everything and is single as yet. But I would want to know from your experience if you've experienced that since... and then deal with it in the future. Well, this is my life. We're talking about my life. And this is a huge question that happens just everywhere. It's a universal question. I think the world's largest human resources study done a few years back which said that work-life balance is a key concern in almost every single area of the world. So whether you actually agree with the term work-life balance or you call it something else, it equates to we have a whole lot of things going on and how is this all going to work? That's really the bottom line. So one of the things that we found in the Mamas Project study of working women a few years ago is that they most value control over their time and location. And not just time, but their schedule. So for example, let's say they're not an entrepreneur. They're working for somebody. But they can leave to go to a doctor's appointment and come back. Let's say that they can work from home one day or telecommute. So these are trends that are really helping women get time back, sort of save an hour here, save an hour there. And those hours can be invested in let's say they care for an elder relative. They have kids. Or they just want to do something on the side which is their business. So that's just some data that helps place some boundaries around work-life balance. What I do personally, because entrepreneurs have lots of ideas. It can sometimes be a problem. And so a lot of times I will keep literally a written list. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs who do similar things to this. And one, two, three. What are my top projects right now? And everything else gets a no. And it's hard to say no. We want to say yes. We want to be helpful. We don't want to have what's called FOMO, fear of missing out. But when you're laser sharp with here are my priorities. Here's what I'm trying to do right now. And you say no to everything else. It's fascinating how that creates a lot of time. And as much as I've said, go social media. Social media is great. Sometimes you have to stay off social media to get some work done. I feel like I need to edit my to-do list down from 10 to 3. OK. Thank you both again. And before we actually move on to more questions, I actually want to give a shout out to our viewing group in US Embassy, Colombo. Hello, Colombo. Thank you so much for participating in our program today. We're so happy that you could all join us. All right. Let's go now back to an online question from Hanouf, an alum of the Middle East Peace Initiative in Kuwait. Hanouf asks, in your opinion, what is the biggest challenge entrepreneurs face in running their projects? Thank you, Hanouf, for this great question. Kathy, Umama, thoughts on the biggest challenge that entrepreneurs face? Well, I have my opinion. But I'd love to know what Umama has experienced there as an entrepreneur, but also just with other entrepreneurs. What's the biggest challenge, do you think? There are many challenges. I wouldn't say an entrepreneur just faces one challenge. A lot of challenges are on different levels that you face. As I said over here, the cultural issue is the first challenge that throws on our face and the first restriction that's there and we have to tackle that. But otherwise, I mean, over here, capital is a major issue. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, funding is not really easy over here. The banks are not too feasible and they're not too flexible. So over here, I mean, and then convincing entrepreneurs to go on with their idea without getting proper funding. But over here, yes, what we face, what I faced initially, the biggest challenge was funding, was the capital, where to get it, how to get it from. And building up a pharmaceutical industry, all on yourself, it's not easy without, I mean, capital. It's nearly impossible. And to do the right networking, to meet proper people and, you know, to, I mean, it was really, really hard to go on and to collect all those funds to put the idea in place and to start. And because we're here, back here in Pakistan, it's finances like the major and the most important and, you know, the biggest challenge that you face. So for me, the biggest challenge I faced was capital. I mean, it wasn't really easy to provide funding for my project and to go on with it. And it's, even now, even though now it has started, I do have to step down at times because of less funding and less finance, but then with time you do, I mean, you know, you get all of it and you try to work on it. But this is, it still did the biggest challenge that we face here in Pakistan. Thanks so much, Ima. Kathy? Yeah, I really appreciate hearing that because here, it's fairly easy to start a business. It's not as easy to grow a business. And in fact, there's an elite group of entrepreneurs, EO, Entrepreneurs' Organization and YPO, Young Presidents' Organization, and you have to have a million dollars or up to be, you know, even as part of these. And so the question is, how do you get to that level, which is a minority of businesses in this country and people typically want to be on that pipeline? So assuming that's the pipeline, which is a larger business, growth, et cetera, what's the problem from getting, let's call it the missing middle from the $250,000 level to the $999,000, a million dollar level. And around the world, one of the things that researchers pointed out is education and access is key. And so, Umama was specifically talking about funding and access to funding. And here, there's a couple things. Education and access can be easier in terms of we have a large online community, a lot of times education can be free, there's a large community college movement, et cetera, but the structure and focus needed to execute on your idea, what is the one, two, three? Am I fully passionate and committed to this? Because if so, usually you can find a way, at least here. But when that passion or the commitment decreases, it's harder to work through the barriers. It's harder to say, I'm going to go for it, I'm going to implement this. But I do see a lot of entrepreneurs who have fantastic ideas, but the implementation is sometimes lost. And that's when people are talking about business planning. They don't literally mean, oh, do the plan, the plan will make you successful. It's the process of coming up with the linear thoughts, the dates, the goals, and the measures with actual metrics. I will reach ex-sales by this date. And there's research that shows those businesses are not only more successful, they're more successful raising funds. Now, why is that? Is it because they're more focused? Or is it because they're speaking investor? Further research would be needed to know what the answer is to that. But I can tell you from having pitched to the investor community over and over again that they want to see something that works and something that has not only potential to make money, but these days is already making money. And then number two, that you know your numbers and that you have a fantastic team. So the commitment really needs to be there from the entrepreneur side. Money is not just going to fall from the tree. And that's in the U.S. They're really looking in a microscopic way at this. Abroad, there's a whole set of access issues which are completely different than what we face here. And much more challenging politically and socioeconomically. Thank you, Kathy. And thank you also, Umama, for shedding light on the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face from your perspectives. Let's turn back now to our live audience in Islamabad and take a question from the We Create Center. Do you have a question, a final question actually, for our speakers? Hi, my name is Saima Amjad. And I'm really glad to listen to Kathy. I mean, it was like self-explanatory, whatever she has told. Why I'm here is I'm a banker by profession. And I'm an aspiring entrepreneur. Still, I'm saying that I'm aspiring entrepreneur. Like all we have heard and talked about is taking risks and implementation and execution of the ideas we have. And first of all, the passion. So when we talk about what to do and how to do, we should also analyze and look into what not to do. Why? Because I'm an example of what not to do in front of you. Like I started up with my own enterprise, with all that passion and everything which was required was there. But somehow, as it grew gradually, again, something happened that virtually this enterprise, that social enterprise is unfreeze in the virtual world, the tags sweating out and all those women, rural women which were involved in my project, disheartened. But again, I couldn't kill that passion inside me and I wanted to come and know that once you start off with your idea, again, we have talked enough about that it's the capital gaining capital and pinching the investors is a big task. Then how should we deal with that? Like once we have started it with your own investment, but again, at a certain level, when your business starts growing, it increases the appetite for bigger investment. At that time, you have two choices. Either to freeze it, either to quit or either to look for investors. At that point of time, when you have a running business and still like you have something to show, how to go about it and how to deal with this challenge like once you are actually in it. So your question is really about once you're in it and you have a choice, am I going to stay? Am I going to grow or go down another direction? How do you decide what is the right course for you? Is that it? A budget constraint? Why? Because initially once at a certain point of time, your business increases the appetite of the investment. And then at that point of time, you don't find anyone. So you try to connect with people around you. So how do I get over it? Well, I think we're talking about funding again and about growth. And so I think the question is creative solutions for growth. And for instance, there is a local business here. They're doing really well. They have a lot of orders. And when you have orders, you can often receive financing. You're a banker by profession and receivables-based financing, for example. And if you have to go outside your community to get backing for receivables-based financing, that's great. You may have to look a little bit beyond, for example, what you've done in the past and not just go the traditional routes. This is where sometimes people get discouraged. They think it's just ABC, but there's in fact a whole alphabet of options out there. But it's work. It's tiring. And it can seem like a full-time job. And so I think sometimes it helps to have partners, what I call accountability partners. So let's say that on your goal list for the year is, I've decided I want to make this decision to grow by X percent in my business. I have gone ABC in the past with my funding options. I'd like to look into others. Can we meet weekly so that I can share my goal with you and you can ask me how I'm doing? They may have a goal that they want to discuss with you and then you are accountable. You're their accountability partner as well. You know, people don't get some secret gas tank that they plug into and they go, go, go. These are tricks that entrepreneurs use to trick themselves into staying motivated and keeping going even at that one million dollar, that multi-million dollar level. They do this. They rely on each other. And beyond that group of five or whether you have eight or 10, many of them will have accountability partners. And they say, you know, I want to do this, but you help me make sure I'm going to do that. And that's an extra little bit of motivation to know you're meeting with that person for lunch on Friday. And you better have called D, E and F on your list by them. Kathy, thank you. Umama, do you have some thoughts on that question? Yeah, I think a lot of my questions have been answered by Kathy. And it's actually very nice to see actually why I wanted to come here again because I couldn't kill that passion. And I just wanted to see that how, like how are the people out there managing it so beautifully. So we'll get back to the facilitator now and she'll move on further. I think I'll agree with Kathy what she said. It's the trick that you need to use. I absolutely agree with what you said. I just think it can guarantee, explain more beautifully the way you did. It's, you know, I mean, no one's going to come and serve you your solutions, you know what I mean? It's just that you need to think about it and tackle it out. How are you going to come out of it? That's great. And I think we're giving away, I don't know if it's happening on social media. Hopefully Phoenix will be running that and telling the folks out there, they're doing some giveaways for the an hour of coaching with me via Skype. They're in charge, but just tune in on social media. I'm not sure what they're giving away. One of you may wind up with my dog. I'm not sure. But I'm pretty sure there's an hour of coaching going on just to one of you to thank you for your participation in this. This has been really fun. Excellent. Well, thank you both. And before we move on to our final question of the session this morning, I want to give a shout out, a big shout out to our viewing group in Chile. Thank you so much for participating in the program today. All right. So our final question is from Chile and Sri Lanka. And the question is this, I work for an NGO and we offer free entrepreneurship courses for startups. Our biggest challenge is engaging the public and promoting a culture of innovation. In your opinion, what is the best way for motivating and inspiring people to start a business, especially if they are afraid of using social media? Now, because we're short on time, I'm going to have to ask you both to keep your answers brief. But I'd love to hear your thoughts. Umama, Kathy? I'm a fan of business plan competitions and even shorter than that is pitch competitions. And there are several examples of that just right here in the Washington, D.C. community. So I'd refer to those and those models and see how they're happening. But it really motivates people when there's an actual date and event and hey, come share your idea and look at this important person, that important person and this important person who are attending to hear your ideas. That generates a lot of buzz even if they are afraid of social media. Thanks, Kathy. Umama? Well, I'll also second to what Kathy said. I mean, the only way to convince people to come into entrepreneurship is to, you know, if you tell them about all the motivational entrepreneurs in your region or worldwide or internationally, that's the only way you can be inspired by listening to other successful entrepreneurs to hear out their challenges and the hurdles that they face. Over here, I mean, these days it's kind of easy because there are a lot of events going around in every city actually about entrepreneurship. The institutions, they're giving short courses on entrepreneurship. So it's become really easy now. Back then it wasn't, it was like a new thing. But now even people have become social media friendly also and the events and all those organizations who are handling all these events on entrepreneurship, it's kind of started helping people and the number of entrepreneurship is increasing. That's great. Excellent. Thank you both. And now before we close, I'd like to hear your brief final thoughts and anything else that you'd like to leave with our listeners today. So Kathy, Umama, final thoughts that have come up during this web chat. Yeah, Umama, please. Well, firstly, it was an honor being part of such an interactive session. I don't really find myself to that success level where, you know, who, I mean, I'm not a very inspirational entrepreneur as yet to come up and do a session and, you know, talk to other people and try to inspire them. It's an honor and I'm really privileged. I thank U.S. Embassy. And I think it's great. I mean, when I started, I remember when my father used to tell people six years back that my daughter's going to be an entrepreneur. They would laugh out that, you know, you've lost your money, all you're going to do and get married and that's it. Or just a nine to five job. I mean, that cannot happen. But today I see him proud of me and sitting among entrepreneurs and, you know, seeing the society change gradually with time. It is really inspiring. I mean, the situation that we go through in our country and, you know, people are scared to come out and take risks, but it's amazing how in spite of whatever's happening all around the world, I mean, entrepreneurship is just increasing and it's just inspiring people day by day. I mean, I see young, really young students who are, during their studies, they're so inspired that they start working, they start doing social, they're doing work in all social media. So I think it's just great. Thank you, Umama. Cathy? Well, I'd love to, first of all, give people a little assignment which is summarizing some things we've talked about today. First of all is to be a mentor yourself and really taking what Umama was saying about the exciting culture of entrepreneurship. Even if we're not entrepreneurs right now, or we are, we can inspire that by, in that way of thinking, by reaching out to somebody and saying, what are you working on? How can I support you in that? That's a really fantastic thing to do. Entrepreneur, entrepreneur, it's just that way of making things happen. And then I'll, I'll call this extra credit. Extra credit will be, think of five areas, whether it's in your career, in your life, in your entrepreneurial venture that you want to get smart about. That's what we call it. Get smart about these areas. It could be tech. It could be transportation. Maybe you want to add work-life balance in there and match that with five people. And over the next six months, over the next year, try to add those people to that, to your table that you sort of have pictured in your mind. That's going to be your mentor table, your personal board of advisors. And then last, this is really super duper extra credit, is if you have a goal in mind and you find yourself stumbling, maybe find an accountability partner. See if somebody would meet, have coffee or tea with you once a week, once a month. Maybe you meet once a month and then you email every two weeks. Try that. Reach out, find five, and have an accountability partner. I think it could be the answer and a starting point for not only a culture of entrepreneurship, but with a lot of the questions we've had today, I think it would be helpful for those folks who are struggling in a lot of different areas, and that could be their own little island of entrepreneurship. Thanks, Kathy. And thank you all so much for your thoughtful questions. It was truly an engaging discussion and one that I hope will leave you all inspired to turn your entrepreneurial aspirations into a reality. That wraps up our web chat for today. Kathy and Umama, I'd like to thank you both so much for joining us this morning. You've both clearly inspired entrepreneurs around the world. Finally, I'd like to thank Nadia and Mavra at the We Create Pakistan Center, our live audience in Islamabad, as well as all of the International Exchange Alumni who joined us online from around the world. My sincere thanks to the enthusiastic viewing groups at We Create, Santiago, Colombo and those watching us from Luxembourg. Thanks also to everyone who logged in to watch. A recording of this program will be available on the International Exchange Alumni website and Facebook page, so share it with your friends and stay tuned for our Next Entrepreneurs Exchange Interactive Program. Thanks again and have a wonderful day. Thank you.