How Shiza Shahid Launched a Viral Cookware Company
Anyone on Instagram has seen the Always Pan. A glossy piece of cookware offered in a spread of pastels that purports to bake, braise, steam, fry, boil, roast, pressure, sear and sauté. It’s the one pan you want, says Shiza Shahid, co-founder of Our Place, the corporate behind the Always Pan. Along together with her husband, Amir Tehrani, and good friend Zach Rosner, Shahid launched Our Place in 2019—a big swerve from her earlier place as co-founder of the Malala Fund. The cookware’s pleasing aesthetic design set the web on hearth, garnering 665,000 followers on Instagram. Appealing product movies on social media ignited the corporate’s e-commerce gross sales, making it a number one direct-to-consumer (D2C) model. When first launched, the Always Pan, reportedly, had a 30,000-person waitlist. The firm has since launched a limited-edition line with Selena Gomez and courted each Cameron Diaz and David Beckham as devotees. And this 12 months, Our Place moved into the small-appliances house, launching the Wonder Oven (a six-in-one air fryer and toaster oven with steam infusion) and the Dream Cooker (a multicooker that strain cooks, gradual cooks and sautés). Each new launch reinforces the corporate’s objective of offering protected, sustainable, well-designed instruments that make cooking enjoyable once more.
Title: Co-CEO, Our Place
Degree: B.A. in International Relations, Stanford University
Age: 34
From: Islamabad, Pakistan
Currently lives in: Los Angeles
The childhood moments that helped form who I’ve grow to be: I had a modest upbringing in Pakistan. My mom didn’t have the chance to pursue increased schooling or construct a profession. And she actually needed to present her daughters each alternative on the planet. So, I used to be lucky to develop up in a loving house and go to faculty. But I used to be additionally rising up within the post-9/11 world in Pakistan, which meant there was rising terrorism and violence. Barricades went up nearer to my house each week. And, as is all the time the case when there’s poverty, when there’s struggle and when there’s instability, girls and women bear the brunt. I needed to assist. So, I started displaying up on the doorways of nonprofits that supported girls and requested them to let me volunteer.
The largest takeaway from my schooling: Growing up, I hadn’t actually been uncovered to start-ups or girls constructing companies. I’d solely seen the nonprofit mannequin as an choice. At Stanford, I spotted I may construct a business that did good on the planet and that scaled. And possibly even had a much bigger impression than a nonprofit.
My first job ever was: Working at McKinsey in Dubai. That was proper out of school. But rising up, I did lots of volunteer work. The very very first thing I did as a volunteer intern was carry medical provides right into a girls’s jail.
A big problem I needed to overcome: Three weeks earlier than I interviewed at McKinsey, I’d by no means even heard of the corporate. I didn’t develop up within the United States. I didn’t have lots of the profession counselling or alternatives that my classmates at Stanford had. But I had created a summer time camp in Pakistan for ladies being denied their proper to go to highschool and the Stanford Magazine had written about it, so consulting corporations heard about me and reached out. I threw myself into interview prep and was lucky to have of us at Stanford who have been keen to assist me catch up. I feel the lesson from that’s in case you don’t attempt, it’s the identical final result as a rejection.
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The motive I switched industries: I used to be working at McKinsey and I had no plans to give up my job a 12 months in, transfer to New York and begin a nonprofit. But Malala Yousafzai and her father requested me to assist them. I had met Malala when she was 11 and attended the summer time camp I organized. When she acquired in contact about beginning the Malala Fund, I needed to decide. In these huge pivotal moments in our lives, we’ve got to do our greatest to be guided by hope and never by concern. I knew that there was an amazing quantity of hope in Malala’s story and her message, and that due to the volunteer work I’d completed with nonprofits and due to my very own upbringing, I used to be uniquely positioned to assist get it on the market. That was extra essential to me than being at McKinsey.
After about 5 years, as soon as I had helped set up the muse of the Malala Fund, and there was an unimaginable staff in place, I knew I needed to construct one thing of my very own. That’s once I started engaged on Our Place.
The motive Our Place has grown so rapidly is: We have modern merchandise. I feel lots of manufacturers, particularly in e-commerce, they’re entrepreneurs. They’re not product builders, they’re not designers. Our staff labored on the Always Pan for 2 years earlier than it launched. We’re obsessive about design. When we make one thing, it’s higher than what exists available on the market from a useful perspective, plus it’s lovely and it’s sustainable. If you’re launching a D2C model and also you’re simply going to a manufacturing facility and holding up the pan and asking the manufacturing facility to make it pink and put your brand on it—which is what each different D2C model within the house was doing—it’s not going to work. Ultimately, you want a product that’s really higher. That’s what’s helped us develop so rapidly. In the final 12 months, we opened two bodily places in L.A., and we’re increasing to different nations—Our Place was the primary cookware model to be stocked in Liberty London, the posh division retailer.
Something that should change within the cookware trade is: Brands have to cease utilizing PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene), generally referred to as Teflon. It’s a type of PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), that are colloquially referred to as “forever chemicals.” They’re dangerous for the surroundings. They’re dangerous for human well being. They’re dangerous for employee security. There has been growing regulation—Minnesota banned it beginning in 2025, and the EU is attempting to do the identical—however after all, there’s lots of strain as a result of most corporations are nonetheless utilizing it. On our merchandise, we use a ceramic non-stick coating that lasts 50 per cent longer than Teflon and doesn’t embrace PTFE and different PFAS. It’s largely composed of sand by-product and water.
The factor that retains me motivated is: My work fills my life with deep that means. It takes all of my consideration and focus, nevertheless it provides me again inspiration and power and pleasure. And my staff. You’re solely nearly as good because the individuals you’re surrounded by, so I present up for them. I wish to give this business each ounce of power that I’ve in order that we might be profitable, as a result of I’ve a duty to them. Also, I do know that many women and girls around the globe don’t get to stay the life that I stay, have the alternatives that I’ve, so I wish to make it rely.
When I would like inspiration: I journey. We have artisans and factories around the globe. I additionally take inspiration from our groups’ cultures, that are very numerous. We have a good time all the things from Lunar New Year to Eid. We prepare dinner collectively, we share our tales. We even have a big and numerous group of shoppers, and we regularly attain out to them and say, ‘Hey, what do you want us to make next?’
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The largest false impression about being an entrepreneur is: That it’s glamorous or attractive. I feel being an entrepreneur actually is lots of onerous work, no less than when it’s completed proper. If you’re constructing one thing from the bottom up, it’s terribly onerous and taxing emotionally. And yearly, you need to work out how you can get higher and provides extra. We hear so many tales of entrepreneurs being in a single day successes—I’m not saying no one’s ever simply gotten fortunate, however there’s a unprecedented quantity of strain. You must be doing it for greater than cash or materials success as a result of that’s not going to maintain the extent of ardour you want.
The recommendation I give to different entrepreneurs beginning out is: To work on your self. Building a business will expose your entire flaws, your entire weaknesses, the entire belongings you’ve been avoiding, and also you’ll need to work by them. So, decide to it, as a result of you could have an outsized impression in your group and the individuals who work there. When you fall brief, it’s felt. That’s to not say that you must be excellent. I actually am not. But you’re going to need to constantly work on being a greater human if you wish to be a greater chief.
The factor I wish to accomplish subsequent is: Continuing to develop Our Place. This 12 months, we entered the equipment class with our Wonder Oven and our Dream Cooker. We now have our personal dinnerware line with knives and textiles. I’m additionally excited to proceed creating collections and tales round tradition and traditions, like our Tangine pots which can be handcrafted by Moroccan artisans. Ultimately, meals and residential cooking is about coming collectively. And that’s actually what the model stands for.
