Monem Salam:  
Welcome to Halal Money Matters, sponsored by Saturna Capital. I'm Monem Salam, and today we have a show about entrepreneurship. We have a very special guest who initially started off as a lawyer and then moved on, as she found out about their budding industry on hijabs. She kind of switched courses and really got into the business of hijab. And so really excited to have Melanie Elturk from Haute Hijab on our show, and really want to talk to her a lot and maybe get some insights as to what it takes to be able to start a business, keep it running, how to get funding, and those type of things. So I'm really excited. So let's get into it.

[music]

Monem Salam:  
All right. Thank you, Melanie, for being on the show.

Melanie Elturk:  
Thank you for having me.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, it's really, really good. I remember we met a long, long time ago. We were, I was actually in Malaysia when we met, and you were, I think it was in the in the very, very early stages of you starting Haute Hijab, and so very exciting to hear what you were doing at the time and really, kind of where's where it's come to now, Mashallah, but I wanted to start off a little bit earlier than that, if you don't mind, and really tell us your journey, because you're a lawyer, by training and by profession. So talk a little bit about that, and how you kind of made the transition into what you're doing now.

Melanie Elturk:  
Totally. Yeah. So law, the law, was really my career path and my first passion just in terms of social justice, civil rights. I was raised an activist, and so law was like the natural progression for me. But there was always something inside of me that was tugging at me around fashion. Always since, since way before I even knew what civil rights even meant. And so many lawyers are like this. Their left and right brain are both active. And in the law, when you're not using the creative kind of part of you, you feel a little stagnant. And so I just had this idea of, like, you know what, I've got some time on my hands. I had just gotten married. I'm no longer married, but I just gotten married, and I was looking for a job, and it was like, All right, I've got some time. Let me just start something. And so, you know, HH was born, and from there, I was able to kind of juggle both careers. And when I met you, I was working at the DIFC courts in Dubai, but I were running, HH, with my ex husband on the side, so it was always kind of in tandem, until I finally had to leave the law behind, because the company just got so big that it was like you got to pick one now. And that was 2016 when we then decided to move from Dubai to New York City, and run the company full time. And that was, I never looked back after that.

Monem Salam:  
So you're one of the early adopters as well in the fashion, in the modest fashion industry, correct?

Melanie Elturk: 
Yeah, we started in 2010 so certainly, one of the early adopters, for sure, yeah.

Monem Salam:  
And was there challenges there as well?

Melanie Elturk: 
Back in 2010 when we just started? I mean, sure, every, I mean, you know, it's new. Everything new is challenging in some way, in that you have to pave your own path and figure it out for yourself. Um, you know, at the legal career, I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that I had a passion for it. And that's the thing, when you're when you're follow your passionate pursuits, you just the way finds itself, the path finds itself. And it was just like one step after the other, after the other, after the other, and things just became clearer and clearer as we kept moving forward. I never dreamed that we'd get this far. Never dreamed.

Monem Salam:  
Did you always think it was a side gig for you?

Melanie Elturk: 
Yes, from the start for sure, because I was still very much invested in my whole career. And even while I was in Dubai, they were grooming me to become a judge. Yeah, I was very invested in that part of my life. And then, like I said, it got to a point where I had to really make a decision. I prayed Istikhara, and I was like, okay, it sounds like what I'm going to do. You know, there's, there's so many lawyers in the world and do really good work, but how many people are doing what I'm doing right now? And at that time, there weren't many. And I knew that I had a unique voice when it came to the modest fashion space. I had a knack for it from a very practical fashion perspective, but also just my background was social justice and being very, very firm on the fact that I wanted this to be about lifting up Muslim women who choose to wear hijab.

Monem Salam:  
That's a good point. So let's, let's talk about that. So how do you define modest fashion?

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh, gosh, that's such a vague term. Modest fashion, to me, is just however one chooses to dress themselves in a way that does not comply with society standards of beauty today, which unfortunately are not very modest. And so whatever that looks like, I remember in the very early days there were a lot of like Orthodox Jewish brands also that kind of coupled up with like Muslim fashion brands, because we all had the same mission, providing an alternative for women. So whether you covered your hair or you didn't. Some women just wanted more coverage when it came to their clothing. Obviously, we're a hijab brand, so it for us, it's very specific and tailored to the hijab. But you know, I think it's just like the alternative to a woman who doesn't want to dress like the way mainstream tells you to dress and what's available in most stores. You know, it's summertime. Now, if you go to the mall, it's really hard, as a woman who wears hijab, to find clothing that's lightweight, perfect for summer, but also still covers up. So there's still very much a need.

Monem Salam:  
That's a really good point. And I think, and I haven't lived in the Middle East, but when I was in Malaysia. I mean, they really do have an industry for that. You know, it's a very humid climate by pretty much throughout the year. It stays that way. And so, you know, they really have kind of grown that industry organically to a point now which that is even in conventional stores, if you want to call them, you know, like the local department stores and stuff like that, they have just a line of hijabs or a line of modest dressing and that type of thing, which is something that I don't think was there prior to. But do you find this is more of a of what you're trying to do, more of a Western Muslim minority, uh, issue, or is it, is it pretty much all over the world?

Melanie Elturk: 
Great point. I should have caveated that when I was giving my example. You know, as an American Muslim woman, these are my challenges, and so that extends to other Muslim women in Western countries. But certainly, like you said, in Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East, you won't have such an issue. And so it kind of depends on where you live and what your needs are, and whether or not you know you're the clothing that you need is readily available to you. But what we're trying to build is global. So like, I come at it from a very unique perspective, in that I'm an American Muslim, but having lived in the Middle East for four years, you know, and just my background, ethnic, ethnicity wise, I have a really unique view of, you know, like, what are the needs? What do for overseas? You know, those places that I just mentioned, the problem isn't necessarily availability. The problem is quality. So each market has its own special needs that as we move and expand into different markets, we're able to discern like, okay, for them, it's not so much the messaging and the storytelling of like, hey, preserve your identity. Be confident in hijab. It's more so like, Yo, stop buying these 10 Dirham hijabs off the street.

Monem Salam:  
That's true, that's true. And so, so let's, let's kind of go, go back again. And then you basically started this as a side project. Was it basically self-funded at the time?

Melanie Elturk: 
Yeah, we got initially, like, $5,000 for my in-laws. God bless them. And that was, like our seed money to just start going. Started off of that, and from there we I was able I'm from Detroit, and there's one thing we know how to do, is hustle. So I was like, I’ve got to make this $5,000 like last so what we did was I would go to the thrift stores, and I would source vintage scarves, and I'd start putting them up on the website before we officially launched, because we were launching as a clothing brand at that time, and that was just to bring money in. We'd make like, $800, $1,000 a week on that, and that is, was what paid the designer that I brought on to help me create and produce that very first collection of clothing.

Monem Salam:  
So literally, like thrift stores, you're going there, you're kind of picking out scarves, you're putting in on the on the  website, and people are buying them. You're like, Wow, I can't believe people are buying the stuff. Is that? What it was that you knew there was, there was some something

Melanie Elturk: 
I had no idea. At every turn of this company, I'm always in awe of like, wow, people are. They're actually loving this. I didn't know what the response would be. I mean, I knew I loved thrifting, but I didn't know anyone else would care about that. Sure, because, again, it was such a novel idea, and it was so difficult to find hijabs that were beautiful. And, you know, I did a good job of sourcing like, different unique pieces that people had never seen or even thought to wear a vintage scarf as a hijab at the time. That wasn't a thing.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, that's true. And then, and then, so moving on. Then, then you now, you're at the point, obviously, sales are increasing to the point you're like, oh my god, I can't do both of these things at the same time. So then now you're coming to the decision of, do I leave my job and go do this full time? Or what was the other alternative? Was it like you would sell this? Or what were you thinking?

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh my gosh, there were so many times where we tried to sell the brand even before we. We moved to Dubai, because all my operations were in Chicago where we started. We were like, Maybe we should try and sell this thing. I don't know how we're going to keep this up in Dubai. And so I just got to Dubai, and I hit the markets, and I just took a cab. I'm like, take me to your garment district. I know there's one dudes like, I know exactly the place. He just drove me off, and I just explored. And then it's like what I was saying earlier, the path just finds itself when you have that will to figure something out. And I didn't know what to do, where to start, how to start producing, because again, all my production was in Chicago, and we just started again. And then, you know, another there was another time in the company where things were really dire and it was like, should we sell the business? And then God finds another way for us? Like, that's been our story at every juncture. I'm like, God, I'm good, you're not done yet. And I'm like, okay.

Monem Salam:  
You’ve got to keep pushing forward.

Melanie Elturk: 
Yes, the story of my life with this company.

Monem Salam:  
So now that it is a global brand, looking back at it and talking about all these challenges, like, how did you think about funding and scaling? Like, Well, how did you balance between, you know, okay, how do I do I grow this on an equity basis? Do I do it on from a loan perspective, from a bank? Like, what, what were some thoughts you were having in your in your mind going through that?

Melanie Elturk: 
In those early days, I was so in over my head. Finance was not my forte. It was not something that I understood at all, and I leaned heavily on my co founder with the finance piece. Now that said, if I could go back, I would do so much differently. But I'll tell you what we did do, yeah, which was we moved to New York City, and

Monem Salam:  
which is, like, a really expensive place. Well, I guess Dubai is pretty expensive as well.

Melanie Elturk: 
 But New York blows it out of the water.

Monem Salam:  
Oh, does it?  Okay, especially the garment industry. I guess, though, that's, you know, where. I guess, in Dubai you can go and still get things made for cheaper. But in New York, and New York. And New York is New York, and you can…

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh, totally, we did not move our production so in the UAE. Until today, our factory out in the UAE still intact, okay, um, but what happened was, while we were in Dubai, we had investor interest from a VC located in New York City. We had never really considered a VC in terms of funding the company that way. But because they were reaching out to us, we were like, okay, certainly we have something on our hands. So we flew out to meet with them. Things looked good. It just felt like this was the next natural step. So my ex husband, at the time, he was already itching to leave Dubai. I was not. I was like, Yo, I've got a great job. I'm about to be a judge, like, I'm good. But life just moved me in a different direction. So when we moved out here, we did get a term sheet from that VC. It sucked. There was no actual money they were giving us. It was all in kind. That was like, We got to use their office, and they were trying to set up this factory in, like, Latin America, somewhere, somewhere in Central America, I can't remember where, but it was awful. But what did we know? We didn't know anything like, thank God. We had people to turn to, like you. I talked to you about it. I talked to so many people about it, and they were like, Don't do this. Like, don't do this. This an awful term sheet. And we were like, oh, okay, so we turned that down. And then that next eight months to a year, we just hit the pavement to find investors. And it was one of the, it was, like, of the most stressful times in the company's history, because we didn't know how we were going to survive, just personally, like be able to pay rent, because this company was all we had. We both quit our jobs to do this full time.

Monem Salam:  
And I think through that struggle, I think you, you begin to learn and really kind of appreciate, you know, looking back, obviously, that that time that was there was so, so basically hard, but actually you grew from that much more, I guess, right?

Melanie Elturk: 
Definitely, yeah. I mean, I learned how to fundraise, I learned how to properly network. I learned so much, and it's so funny, because those skills that I picked up, I don't even use anymore today, because I, like, I said, I've, I don't know. I don't think that the VC world is made for a company like ours.

Monem Salam:  
Well, I mean, I think the important thing people don't realize is that, like, VCs are there for one purpose, and it's just to make money. That's right? And so, you know, a lot of times when people think, Oh, I'm getting this money, the other side of that is you're going to be doing less of your work and more about reporting to them exactly what you're doing. That's right? Because they control you. They're going to be dictating to you what, what it is you're going to be doing in your business. And so, I mean, I think when we had the conversation, that's, I think I find what I remember coming that's what I was telling is like, if you want to sell your soul your company, soul to receive, go for it, right? But it's not for everybody. You. Lot of people want to be able to keep that, that soul of the company, the direction, those type of things there, right?

Melanie Elturk: 
And that's where we got the road like we were able to raise a first pre seed round in that eight months, we raised, I think, 600,000 and then we did a seed round where we raised 2.3 million, and we went on to do some other subsequent smaller rounds. But in that time, when we had very involved investors, as you said, the soul of the company got lost as the priorities had changed, unfortunately, and I have so many, I mean, I don't know if I'd call them regrets, because it's lessons learned. But like I said, If I could go back, I would not do it that way, and I wouldn't recommend that to somebody with a business like mine. You know, at the end of the day, Silicon Valley is about tech companies. We're not a tech company. It never made sense for us, but it was just kind of like what was happening in the time. It was like, in the zeitgeist like you go get funding from VCs. So many VCs were cropping up just trying to, like, you know, be part of that life. And it like I said, no regrets, because with that funding, we were able to really catapult our brand.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, so. But you eventually did get VC funding, or was it still family and friends that you were?

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh, from that first round that was VC funding.

Monem Salam:  
Okay, okay, so you started off with family and friends, like you mentioned, your ex husband's parents were, did it, and then along the way, basically your self funding just based on sales and those type of things. And then you had this offered for this VC was not really giving you anything, so more like an incubator than a VC. Basically, they would give you services for free, like rent, and, you know, they were helping you pay rent, you know, those type of things. But then when you went out and did the round, it was more venture capital.

Melanie Elturk: 
Yeah, that first 600,000 was led by Arlan Hamilton of god, it’s  awful that I'm forgetting these names. That's fine. VC, it was the very first yes we ever had. She put in 50k and that was wild to us, that someone finally said yes after pounding the pavement for months. So that first round was led by VC and then the second round was all VC’s.

Monem Salam:  
And is it? Was it more? What they was around drawn on your idea, or did they want financial statements and everything like right in that, in that step, and you said, you're not, you don't have a financial background. So how did you, how did you come up with that?

Melanie Elturk: 
Right in the very beginning, with that first 600,000 we were still able to provide statements and do the diligence they wanted. But it was far less involved than our seed round. Our seed round got really, really, really involved because you're millions of dollars. We had like five or six VCs come in. We raised 2.3 million all VCs. And it was very intense. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was such a wild time. It was a wild ride. But, yeah, I learned so much from that situation, because you learn who the players are, who eats, who you know, like, what people are really about. You learn. You learn a lot. I learned so much about just people also, you know, like one face they would show you, and then they'd turn around and show you something different. It was just I came in so green, so naive, like I'm a I don't operate that way, sure. So for me to be kind of thrust into this industry was really eye opening for me. Now, put me in, you know, a room full of sharks, I'll do just fine, like, again, I'm from Detroit. I know how to handle myself, but I wasn't prepared for what was to come. It was just a lot. It was, it was a crazy time.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, that's true. And so now, now that you have, you can look back on it and do that. Like, what? What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs, like on the financial side, like, what? What are some pitfalls to avoid? What are some things, either definitely would be a yes or no, you know, those type of things. What would you…

Melanie Elturk: 
Here's one thing that I think of, and for you and your background Help, help walk me through this. But if the purpose I had a real existential, like, crisis in my mind of like, all right? Well, as Muslims, we stay away from interest, right? Cool, and we do this because interest is exploitative, and we're not meant to exploit people, and we're not meant to be exploited. Cool, well, taking a bank loan on interest versus giving someone a huge chunk of my company for little to nothing in return, to me, sounds pretty exploitative, if not more so, because ultimately you'll pay off that bank loan. Okay? Okay, yeah.

Monem Salam:  
Maybe, I mean, they could destroy you.

Melanie Elturk: 
Um, but it just felt to me like, what's the real answer here? Because the reason why we were being so pushed into the investor route was because of this need to avoid usury and interest and riba. Now, if I could go back, would I do it that way? Like no regrets. I'm glad that I did it that way, but I don't know if that's the right way. I don't know if you know. And speaking very candidly and frankly, in the last like since Covid hit, especially since 2022 Covid was a good time for us because of, you know, the E com boom that happened in 2020 2020, 21 it slowed down at the latter half of 22 then we hit some real hard times, because investors ran dry like they were not shelling out money, even though there's a lot of dry powder out there, like they just weren't investing. And they certainly weren't investing in my vertical. It was very much like a wait and see approach from a lot of the VCs. So then at that point, we were like, Okay, well, how are we going to sustain ourselves? Because we had, that's the other thing I'm taking on that much money. You grow so big because you feel like you have access to unlimited capital, and then your operating expenses far outweigh your revenue that's coming in. So we weren't profitable, and we have to make ends meet.
So we take on some term loans. We also engaged a inventory financing entity, you know, basically they pay our PO’s and it's kind of like a revolving line of credit. Oh, my God, this was a whole other era of financing for the company that it's like you can't win, like either way. You're dealing with sharks and you're dealing with really murky situations finance wise. So to answer your question, what I would say to any entrepreneur is, focus on profitability. You have to self sustain yourself. And if you can't get there because your margins aren't right, or the project product is not connecting, if you need to pivot, because if you can't self sustain yourself, relying on outside funding is, is it's not a route that you it's a death trap.

Monem Salam:  
You know, it's interesting that it's historically, business has always been there, even small mom and pop shops or whatever it is there. There always was, how do I get to profitability as soon as possible? Right? And then when what happened was, is, though, there was a shift along the way, and part of it has to do with zero interest rates, which is basically, people were like, there's free money out there. Might as well just take it and free. From the from the interest perspective, it's free, but from everything else that happens and not free, right? So, so then it became more a matter of, Okay, how many hijabs am I selling rather than my profitable is it? How many factories Can I can I produce to be able to sell those jobs, and what is going to make the profitability went out the window because they kept pushing it down the road. You'll get there in 10 years, then you get there 15 years, in 20 years, and that's where you get into trouble, when all the money drives up.

Melanie Elturk: 
Well, they don't care if you die in the meantime, because they've invested in 50 companies, and they only expect one to survive anyway. They're counting on that unicorn that's going to give them back their returns so they don't even care if you live or die. Yeah, it's a, it's a really cutthroat game that they…

Monem Salam:  
Did you buy them out. Are you done? Or you're still kind of in the trail?

Melanie Elturk: 
Pray for me, not yet. Goal. In fact, right now, I'm at a point to be, like, completely transparent, where financially, we have to figure something out, whether that, like a recap, where everyone you know, the entire cap table just gets wiped out and we start fresh, or what, I don't know. I mean, I am actively fundraising, but, like, I've also kind of burned a lot of VC bridges, just because I've been so vocal with what's happening in Palestine since everything popped off. Like, I don't have to say more, right? It's like, you kind of get blackballed, and then it's like, all right, you're done here, which is probably to my benefit, to be honest. So I've been going trying to reach out to a lot of family funds, a lot of like. A high net worth Muslims. But again, there isn't. There's this disconnect with the finances in our community, unfortunately and in our community, it's like we'd rather donate all this money we have than invest in a company because that's safer for us. We know what that is. We know what that looks like. But when you come to me with this term sheet and ask me for this money to invest in your company. Like, I mean, over my head, you know, like we're doctors and lawyers and engineers, like, we're not like you right background.

Monem Salam:  
Well it's hard to compete with 700 times 700x return, so which is promised in the Quran. So, you know, like, that's that part was there. That's going to be there, but, but I do think that now more than ever, you do have a lot more wealthier Muslims that are willing to take on, you know, maybe some investments within the different VC space or the private equity space. The problem it's, we're not a mature industry yet, and, and there's no like you don't know exactly where to go to find them, right? That that's where the disconnect is happening from, from, from, from, from just the industry perspective. But I but, but I do think that's happening more and more. I'm beginning to see more and more funds that are being started that actually are funding businesses like yours or others. You know, the others are there because you're no longer in the VC phase, you're more of a private equity mezzanine, you know, that type of thing, so.

Melanie Elturk: 
Absolutely, absolutely.

Monem Salam:  
So that's something that that's been slowly kind of germinating over into in the community. I think, I think that'll continue to do that.

Melanie Elturk: 
And I'm happy to hear that, because, you know, ultimately, one of my goals of this company was beyond the hijabs, beyond the community we're building. It is to create wealth for our Ummah, because if I can create wealthy individuals, if I can, if I can do so well with the business, and then put that, pour that wealth into the community, then it becomes like this great cycle and that's why I'm here, that's why, you know, why I want art to elevate our ummah. We have so much to do, and so I'm happy to hear that, because everybody plays their part. And I think the more that we can fund ourselves from within. I mean, if we learned anything in these last couple of years, it's that we need to unify ourselves as an ummah and help each other instead of going outside to, you know, like beg other people, whether it's financially or what have you. And the problem is, I think for so long, it was like dog eat dog within the Muslim world, because we felt like we were competing with each other for these resources outside of our community, because there's, there's only so many hijab runs that are going to get funded, right? There's only so many, you know, like, Muslim doctors who are going to be the head of the hospital. And so it became this dog eat dog type of, like, culture we had created. Correct me, if I'm like, if you think I'm wrong here, but I felt it certainly in my space when I'm like, There's room for all of us. There's enough for everybody to eat. There are enough air for all the butterflies. Like you guys, we need to think about this differently. Like Allah is infinite. He's like, his abundance is infinite. Yeah. So if we can take on that mind, within, within, help each other out, we’ll thrive.

Monem Salam: 
Well, I think the issue is, in a in a small industry that's beginning to grow, where you don't know what, what eventually the market size will be, it's very It has become, it becomes that way, becomes a competition to do that, but, but once the industry matures, and you realize, well, there are more studies done and those type of things, and people are like, wow, you know, this is actually a much larger industry than we thought it was going to be, then you begin to kind of ease off a little bit on the on the competition and more of the collaboration that's actually there, which brings up a good point. Did you ever look for outside us funding when you were, when you were doing that, like for the factory in Dubai.

Melanie Elturk: 
I did, I did. I fundraised a lot in the UAE, and we had a lot of really good meetings with a handful of VCs out there. But ultimately, I don't think again. It's like, because, because we were a Muslim company doing hijabs for them, it like wasn't sexy enough, if that makes sense. Like they wanted to be in with the big boys, like in Silicon Valley, and they weren't investing in stuff like us, even though, like, all of our funding came from American VCs that would give us like that would pique their interest and be like, Oh, this Silicon Valley VC invested in you. Like, let me look at your deck. But they wanted to fill their portfolio with, like, other things. And that became really clear that we were like, We're just not what they're looking for, but, but there is a lot of money out there. I will also say, though, that they're very like, they're not as sophisticated as the VCs out here, too. So I also kind of feel like it was a blessing. Because I do have friends that were funded by some VCs out there, and oh gosh, their ending was just like, awful. Just awful, yeah, the way that they would just like, yeah. So I ultimately…

Monem Salam:  
Also, you know, a lot of the VCs are, are either government backed or government run. And if you, if you, if you part terms, they can literally destroy you, you know, so you're not only married to them for life, you're married to them for life and the hereafter. So, yeah, yeah, that's so true. And then so and then again, now looking at it from the perspective of again, going back and like looking at it from the industry, I mean, you know, you have competition that had come in, and the competition actually, what I would argue would actually has grown the industry more than it has kind of, you know, taken part. It's not a zero sum game. In fact, the more people players come in, usually it actually expands the market, because more people get to learn about and saying, Yeah, I would like to do that as well. You know, those type of things. Has there been more of a collaborative effort going on in the industry now, or was it still pretty much…

Melanie Elturk: 
No, everyone does their own thing. For the most part. I think there's a collaborative effort outside of, okay, like, let's say there's two Muslim brands, but they have completely different product to sell, but to the same type of customer. You'll see some cooperation there, but amongst the actual brands themselves, I haven't seen that. Not to say that we shouldn't or anything, I just haven't. I think there was a time like back when I had met you, there was so they were, like modest fashion forums, and there were a lot of places where we were meeting all in one place. And it was really cool, because we all these founders got to come together and kind of share their woes, and we got to talk to the founders of, you know, monisa and ah, about of the UK, and meet all these really cool people doing cool stuff in different places of the world, and that allowed a really cool collaborative initiative just among founders of like, hey, let's share our stories. I would say, in like, in them here in America, I don't see that too much, but I also have to admit, I'm in my own little bubble, like I just have hyper focused on what I'm doing.

Monem Salam:  
Well, I don't think you have any major competition in America, if I would say, I mean, like I said, there's the there's the moms and the wives, maybe, or the daughters that are out of the garage selling it. But I haven't seen any other brand like your brand in the US. You can modernist and other ones in Turkey and stuff you can call the global brands, but in the US, I haven't seen anything else, so.

Melanie Elturk: 
Yeah, agreed, and that's probably why.

Monem Salam:  
Maybe that's why your bubble, you know, that's, that's true, but that is something that is there from, from, and then did You find when Nike came up with their brand, and then you found also other larger brands, maybe trying to come into the space? Did you see that a moment of when we've made it, or was it a moment of, oh, if they can do it, they might be able to destroy me.

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh, Never did I think they'd be able to destroy us, but I, I did. It was like, equal parts this is so cool, like, so awesome, and then equal parts feeling like, like, let's talk about Banana Republic for a second. Like they came out with the line of hijabs. The way that it was advertised was not by any means in line with like, what hijab is to be. And so I took issue with that, because as a corporation, like, be responsible if you call it a head wrap, but if you're going to call this a hijab which has religious significance, then respect it. So it was equal parts. Like, this is awesome. Like, finally, these mainstream brands are acknowledging us, but then equal parts like, wait, but should we be getting so excited about this? Because clearly, this is just a money grab. Clearly, there is no that our pockets are deep and we have a real need for this product. So I was, like, weary and excited at the same time, and like, optimistic, but also like, Hey.

Monem Salam:  
I do think that over the years, you know, as this idea of modest fashion, particularly in the case of hijab, has come out, I've seen this in my kids and other people as well. There has been a redefinition of what hijab really means. That's true, right? And so what? What hijab in the 90s is not different, different than what it was in the nuts, and different when it was 10 years ago, even now, and I think it's become looser. And are you saying that's because of these corporate brands coming in?

Melanie Elturk: 
Oh, definitely not. Unless of that whatsoever. It's just the trend of the times. It's like these. That, you know, like things ebb and flow. We have times where we're far more conservative, or times where we're far more liberal. Like, if you look at pictures of our parents in the 70s, like they were really liberal, and how they dressed, and you know thing, and then things got more conservative towards the 80s and 90s, and then, you know, like, now we're seeing it's just the ebb and flow of life. And like our Ummah, it's always going to be like that. That's true. And when, if I can just add to that point, I don't think it was these mainstream brands coming in. I think it was social media, a whole bunch of like influencers who wore hijab, showing women like there's more than one way to wear hijab, and I'm not going to keep myself away from the hijab, because I'm not wearing it the way you tell me I should wear it, I think is really beautiful, because no two women are going to wear it the same and wherever, whatever level she's at in terms of her own Iman and her own belief, like, let her express that for whatever that looks like for her. We're all on this journey together, and it's going to look different for each of us. So I actually really celebrate that, because not a zero sum game with hijab, either, like, either you wear it this way or you're not hijabi was the 90s understanding of hijab. It was like, either it looks like this or it's not hijab. And I took issue with that because I didn't wear it that way. I would be in spaces where I felt really judged because I was wearing pants or, like, whatever, right?

Monem Salam:  
Or even a colorful I remember the 90s was always either black or white. And so if you wear a colorful phone, you are like, Oh my god, what is this? You know?

Melanie Elturk: 
And so I think I love the fact that today you can see so many different arrays of styles and ways to wear it, but it's all in the name of like, Hey, this is where I'm at, and this is what her job looks like for me right now. And I love that.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, that's true. And one, one other thing I was going to go back to, if we can go back to the VC part of it, we talked about this idea of, you know, zero rates and free money, and what, what you actually get for it. And then businesses being profitable. Then the other point that I wanted to make was, is that, you know, a lot of, again, businesses traditionally, has always been about, how do I make money, right? And then it became matter of, how do I get to a point where I can get by bought out, right? And then that would that became the kind of, even now a lot of times in Silicon Valley, that's what it's about. You're not really creating a product. You're creating a part of a product that fit into a bigger hole for the larger companies that are there when you're thinking about your business is, does that thought come to your mind as well? Is that? Is it like, how do I exit this thing? Or is that no blinders on? I'm just going to go as fast as I can to where we are. And what would you recommend for other people when, if they want to get an entrepreneur, women entrepreneurs?

Melanie Elturk: 
Depends on what you want like for some people, it is about starting something that they can sell cool. It really depends on your preference and what you're trying to build, and for what reason, for me, I want this to be a privately held company that long outlives myself, that can have the longevity of a fashion brand the way we've seen Ralph Lauren or a Chanel, like a fashion house that can continue even after the founder is long gone. And so for me, it's never been about like, hey, let's make ramp this up as much as we can, make as much profit as we can, and then go out and sell this thing and make a bunch of money off of it. No, it's like, let's carefully curate a brand that will last the test of time, because this is meant to go on for ages in order to serve them with some community, whatever that looks like at the time, and her needs as a hijab wearing woman. And so for me personally, like my specific plans is I have to get through this, like financial hump I'm in right now, and then laser focus on profitability. We were profitable in 2023 and then October 7 hit, and our community was like, you know, I mean, we couldn't, I couldn't go on social and advertise the way I typically did. It just wasn't the time for that stuff. And so our revenue took a hit. And then there goes our profitability, like we, we finally got there, and then, you know, Alhamdulillah, like, it is what it is. And but like I said, right now, it's like, All right, get over this financial hump I'm in right now. Laser focus on profitability. Self sustain ourselves. Continue to expand and grow intentionally. I'm not trying to go as fast as I can. I did or I crashed and burned. What I'm trying to do is build intentionally, even if that's slow. Be very strategic about your next steps, because this is a marathon. This isn't a sprint, like from now until you know the time when I'm too old to run this thing anymore, I have many visions in terms of like, having actual retail stores in different areas of the world, and it takes time to build in that. Way that is sustainable, because I really believe in the third law of physics, every action has an equal opposite reaction, and the higher and faster you go, then accept that, expect that drop to be just as fast. And we see that so many times in this space, like something becomes so trendy, it becomes, everybody's talking about it. It's just this, like, Buzz brand.

Monem Salam:  
Gast fashion, right? Basically, you have to kind of keep up with the latest.

Melanie Elturk: 
Yeah, and then the next day, it's like, nobody, nobody cares about it anymore. And that is not what I'm trying to build. What I want. I'm building something evergreen that stands for something, you know what it is, high quality. You can rely on it. It's like, like Ralph Lauren is probably the best example I can use. You know what Ralph Lauren is? It's not going anywhere. When you want those high quality pieces that are staples in your closet, you go and you know what to expect, and you get it. That's exactly what I'm doing. Of like, this is what it is. Come and get it. Even from a marketing perspective, I mean the amount of money people throw into Google and meta because they've convinced you that you need to pay them to grow your brand. To me, is such a fallacy. If you don't, if you can't do this by word of mouth organically, you don't have a good brand. Your product is not connecting if you have to rely on paid ads, sure, like I'm not saying don't engage in it at all, but if that's how you're making your money, and if you turn off your ads, your business would go under you don't have a good business. That's what I mean. In terms of sustainability, you have to make sure that you have a product that connects and that you can actually make money off of it. And if so great, you've got a good thing going, then decide for yourself. You know you were asking like, What advice would I give? Decide for yourself, what do you want? You want to be in this thing for the long haul, or do you want to build your brand, get to that place where you're profitable and now go, go out when you're in a position of strength and try and sell this thing? Up to you and your own commitment. For me, my commitment is way beyond the physical hijab. It's about, as I said, creating wealth for our community. It's about elevating the Muslim community. It's about having a platform where my voice can be heard and the voices of others. So like, I'm in this for the long haul, that's for sure.

Monem Salam:  
That's great Mashallah. And then the other thing I was going to talk about, talking about profitability. I mean, as, you know, in the fashion world, I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of stuff that happens to make yourself profitable, which is, you know, their slave labor, or, or those type of things. How do you, how do you balance the two together? I'm not saying that was extreme. I was giving about the Chinese labor and stuff like that. Or, or even in Bangladesh, you know what happened, in the last decade? What happened there with the fires, but, but how do you balance between that and and how do you keep to your core principles as a business? Say, No, I'm never going to do this. This is something we're never going to do. And how do you stay to that, stay that focus?

Melanie Elturk: 
And again, this is where the social justice, civil rights background comes in. Because when I first started, every SLA I ever created had terms in there about working conditions, about part time, full time, overtime pay, like making sure you know that things were not just to their standard of their factory to my standard.

Monem Salam:  
So, just for the audience purposes, what is an SLA?

Melanie Elturk: 
It's a service level agreement, basically the contract that you're getting into with your vendors, your warehouse, your factories. And so because I had that very strong, strong background, and I was very firm about this, like when I would approach someone, let's say, to start producing. For me, that's the first conversation I have. I say, look, I do things by the book, I'm very straight, I'm very clean, I don't cut corners, and I don't do anything shady. If that sounds good to you, we'll have a nice working relationship. If that's not you, then let's part ways. Now, I don't want to waste your time. I don't want to waste mine. And from there, you establish like they know exactly who you are, and you don't mess around. And then, like I said, I put those terms in the SLA to make sure we're all on the same page. Now, for us, you asked about you asked about profitability. Look, it's all about like, you have to know your margins and how much you need to make to survive, and if that means that your product has to be at a price that makes you cringe a little, because you're like, oh, man, Muslims are cheap. Get over it. Like, get over it. When we first started, our brand was considered very expensive. Now why is that? Because we were used to paying next to nothing for our hijabs, but like, how does it make sense that you're paying hundreds of dollars, if not 1000s of dollars, for the purse you're wearing, but you won't pay $20 for a hijab? Up, like, I don't get that, like, put some value into this thing on that is such a sacred garment you're wearing. So to me, it felt like, all right, this is going to be an uphill battle for us, but this is a worthy one. We have to shift the mindset of the community to consider putting something of higher quality on their head that is going to cost more, because I don't sacrifice on quality. That's the reason we've stayed around this long. It's the reason why, when we take we turn off our ads, we can sustain ourselves. Why, if I don't go on social for two weeks, we sustain ourselves. I don't have to rely on marketing tactics to survive, because the product sells itself. And in that is a quality product, that people know that they're going to get something that'll last and that will be up to, you know, like their requirements. I'm such a stickler on that, because that's how I live. Yeah, I don't. I cannot wear something that isn't of high quality. I can't explain it like it just I can't. And so, because I live by that, that's how I run the company.

Monem Salam:  
Sure. So it's really about really perfect, figuring out your price point for profitability, and really just saying, this is the brand, this is the quality I want to stick with, and not moving down on the quality.

Melanie Elturk: 
You don't cut corners at the production phase. You don't cut corners at the people who are making your product like their hands are literally making your product. It better be infused with equity and fairness and love that is the product that then is going to get moved to your customer's hands, so the cutting corners like you cannot cut corners there and then once that finished product goes to your customer, whatever price you need to sell it at to keep your business afloat, you have to sell it, and if that means that it's too expensive, then, you know, like, look for different, I don't know, partners.

Monem Salam:  
Yeah, we look for different partners, yeah,

Melanie Elturk: 
Or just trust that the right customer will find you, you know, like, that's what I had to do. I had to just trust that. Like, look, I know this is expensive. I pay for it. So there must be other women out there like me, And Alhamdulillah was right. So…

Monem Salam:  
That's good. Any final thoughts, I really appreciate all of all of the advice. So any final thoughts you'd want to give to on the financial side of what did doing, what you did, and what's in for the future for you?

Melanie Elturk: 
You know, final thoughts, I would say this because looking back on the finance side, the places in my heart where I look back and I'm like, ugh, was whenever I compromised the brand for our investors. Like, how could I have allowed that? How could I had this baby, this thing that I built so carefully from the ground up. How could I have lost sight of the customer and the community and what and me and my own reason for doing this, because I was trying to please an investor like that, to me, is something that was a very important and valuable lesson. So stay true to your intentions. Write them down, revisit them often, and know why you're doing this. And it is so easy. I mean, I was just talking about this with my team like, you know, it's a hijab brand. You're doing something quote, unquote righteous, but you can get caught up chasing dunya while convincing yourself you're chasing Akira. Yeah, truly, true. And I had to take a long, hard look and pause and like, be like, er, like, We gotta stop, because I have to reassess. And if I keep going in this direction, there will be no Baraka in our company. And so, you know, like, if you truly rely and trust in Allah to continue to purify your intentions, to keep you on that right track and to bring to you the good people that he loves to help sustain you, it will happen. But when you take it into your own hands and you think, No, it's my hands that have to build this thing, and then you get into that matrix of consumerism and capitalism that America instills in us since birth, it will not end well for you, and I can testify to that, and I thank God, because in many instances, we could have crashed and burned for good, but Allah always gave us a lifeline. I believe it's because I've always tried to be sincere, and when I've gotten off track, you know, I've been like, a lot, please bring me back, like, if and when I get off track. And he does.

Monem Salam:  
And sometimes those are painful lessons, but in the long run, it actually works out to be better, right? Yeah, I'm from the Alhamdulillah. So as we leave, what do you think is next for the just your industry in general, and specifically for Haute Hijabs as well?

Melanie Elturk: 
Well, as we're coming out of a really turbulent tough time, it's been one tough thing after the other, I would say since 2020 i. For us on a personal level, and for us as a collective, as Muslims, and also just in the world, we, I believe, are going to come into some sort of Renaissance. I can already feel it, where creativity is going to burst at the seams, because we have so much pent up energy, especially creatives, because we haven't been able to express ourselves fully, literally, since covid, all the plans we had, you know, pre covid, like, just kind of went to the back burner, and we've never been able to catch up. Um, now I'm not saying we'll go back to those plans, because the world has changed. I don't think we should. But what will be true is there is going to be a creative explosion, and I think it's a beautiful thing for our community. Let's see how what happens within the modest fashion space, I assume, and I anticipate, a lot of new brands to crop up and a lot of old brands to die. Just the cyclical nature of things like, we're in a transition period where thing like the old is not going to work anymore, and the new has to come in. And I don't, I don't specifically mean old brands versus new brands. What I mean is old ways of doing things, and if people are holding on to the old ways of doing things, you will not survive. You have to learn how to adapt. And the strongest of us who will continue on will learn how to adapt and figure stuff out in this new world that we're moving into so and that, I think, is in every industry and in every vertical. That's just how it in entertainment. Look what's happening with movies and TV. Like you have to learn how to adapt, otherwise you will not survive. And so, yeah, I think for us, I'm really excited to continue where we left off, which was continue to build and expand globally. Our plans of exactly how we're going to do that have changed, certainly, but the vision has not the vision is still intact. Of let's get as many women who want this brand in their hands as easy as possible.

Monem Salam:  
That's great. That's exciting. I'm looking forward to your success. May Allah bless you and keep you safe. And profitable.

Melanie Elturk: 
(Laughs)

Monem Salam:  
Thank you so much.

Melanie Elturk: 
Thank you.

[music]

Monem Salam:  
Thank you for listening to Halal Money Matters. If you like what you hear, please do rate us on the app stores and also leave us a review. It helps other people find us a lot easier.

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