What Makes Asif Ali Gohar a Modern Entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurs are people that firmly believe in innovation. Usually entrepreneurs operate using three notions, notably risk, uncertainty and prediction. It allows them to create a product or service which they can then market and earn profits.

There are different kinds of entrepreneurs. Some entrepreneurs find a market gap and try to address it while others tend to create a market for their newly introduced product. Entrepreneurs operating under the view that opportunities are found start by looking at the traditional growth areas of a market and the largest unserved segments in that market.

This information helps them select the best possible opportunity. 

Once they’ve made their choice, they develop a business plan based on extensive market research and a detailed competitive analysis. They then look to acquire the resources and stakeholders required to implement the plan. Entrepreneurs adapt the venture to the environment, in an attempt to sustain a competitive edge.

The “found” view assumes that the budding venture is sufficiently similar to an existing business for historical information to inform decisions, and the environment is sufficiently stable for outcomes from the past to be relevant to the current situation and to the future.

Entrepreneurs that operate under the “opportunities are made” view imply that it is important to do more than simply recombine existing resources or transfer them from their current use to one that yields better returns. In reality, one should create or transform, thereby generating new opportunities from mere possibilities.

Asif Ali Gohar is a German entrepreneur with Pakistani roots who has been living and working in Germany for the past two decades. Veganism was becoming increasingly popular in the West when he moved to Germany with his family. Asif soon realized that killing animals for human needs and consumption was not just and was selfish.

Therefore, he became a vegan. In school Asif was curious about finding vegan alternatives to daily life products and a school project allowed him to investigate vegan alternatives to leather. During that time he conducted several home based experiments but was unable to reach a conclusion.

Later on, when he enrolled in the University of Hamburg for his Business Administration Degree, he was able to run a series of experiments that allowed him to produce vegan leather sheets. He used rice as the main raw material and added a few other chemicals such as acetic acid and yeast to create a rice slime that resembled leather.

Over the years, Asif was able to perfect his methods so that they could be used commercially. Now Asif can produce vegan leather sheets that look similar, if not identical, to animal based leather. 

While rice was used due to its unique properties and rich water content, there was also another motivation that led him to choose rice. Asif Ali Gohar is a patriot with respect and sympathy for his country and the people back home.

He realized that Pakistan was one of the biggest exporters of rice but that the country was not able to benefit from the rice trade as it should. Therefore, he believes that using rice as a raw material for the production of vegan leather can allow him to transform a raw material into a finished product and generate more profits from it. 

It is important to understand that Asif Ali Gohar first made an opportunity by creating vegan leather through rice and now wants to expand his business and transform the leather and rice industry of Pakistan. However, he lacks a team and investors that can help him set up operations in his home country.

Therefore, he is currently looking for people that can become a part of this project. Pakistan is one of the largest exporters of animal based leather but with the surge of vegan philosophy, chances are that the use of animal based leather products would reduce over the years. Asif believes that Pakistan should build on this trend and dominate the vegan leather industry. 

Similar Stories