YouSaid · the spoken record

Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim

lines on the record: 54
first: 2021-07-05
most recent: 2021-07-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not yet a subscriber, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is h-bt at npr.org. And if you want to follow us on Twitter or at GuyRaz or at how I built this, you can also find us on Instagram. That's at how I built this NPR or my personal account at guy.roz. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arab Louie. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Derek Gales. Our production staff includes JC Howard, Rachel Faulkner, James Delahusi, Julia Carney, Farah Safari, Liz Metzger, Janet Ujong Lee, and Annelie Sober. I'm Guy Ros, and you've been listening to how I built this. This is NPR.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's Ahmed Rahim and Reem Hassani, co founders of Numi Organic Tea. By the way, those tea houses Ahmed helped start in Prague. Two of them are still around, though Ahmed's not involved anymore. And when it comes to tea, he sticks to Herbal. About four months ago, he completely cut out caffeine, which means no more black or green tea at all.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Reem, when you think about the journey that you guys went on, I mean, you were sort of drifting, right, in your early 30s trying to figure out what you were going to do and it wasn't clear and you had that moment when you were driving home from a substitute teaching gig and you just kind of lost it. When you look back on your life now and what you've accomplished and what you guys have built, how much of that did you attribute to the hard work you put in and how much do you think it has to do with luck?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you think about what you wanted to build and what it is today, Know that you talked about you didn't have a business plan, you kind of haphazard it at the start in the late 90s, but do you think had you had this kind of crystal ball to see where you were today, you would have thought, yep, that makes sense, or you would have been surprised, or how do you think you would have thought about this renew?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know that in twenty sixteen Smuckers acquired a small stake in Numi, and it's still privately owned and you've got some investors and you guys are obviously owners of it. I wonder, Ahmed, I mean, you guys have been grinding away now for a long time at this. I know you recently stepped down as CEO. But is there ever a part of you that just wants to, you know, sell your steak and kind of enjoy your life without having to grind away every day?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When was that what do you remember the turning point being in terms of hitting a point where you were not having to worry about cash flow and money and when did you start to see profitability? Do you remember that?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The other thing is that you aren't just selling if a consumer goes to the grocery store, many of them are just looking for a low price, right? But you weren't just selling premium teas, but you were using really expensive still do. Use expensive material, biodegradable, and I mean your packaging, you go to great lengths not to use industrial inks and things like that, right? I mean, and that, I'm assuming that's more expensive.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What is a normal reaction? I mean, humans were designed to survive. And when you feel like you're not going to, most of us freak out.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What about as you guys grew and had to kind of deal with the challenges of growth? What about the relationship between the two of you? Was it pretty clear what each of you did and did that help you guys kind of have an easy, smooth relationship or was there ever any tension between the two of you”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, even though you had, because $4 million sounds like a lot of money, but you had to pay for the co-packers and the product and the distribution and your employees, but you get an $8 million offer. Would that have kind of, at the time, solved your financial challenges?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we come back in just a moment, what Reem and Ahmed decided to do at the end of that day, and why even though Numi tea was growing, it didn't feel like it was growing big enough or fast enough. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s. Haynes Celestial has just made an offer to buy Numi T, and they've given Rheim and Ahmed a single day to respond. From what I understand, you were already doing $4 million in revenue at that point, right? They were offering you between 68 million bucks to buy everything, your intellectual property, your branding, your business.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if Hane Celestial comes around. With a potential acquisition offer, I mean, I have to assume that that was kind of exciting”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That must have been such a pot. That must have been kind of exciting. I mean, just four years in. Because I have to assume up until this point, you guys were doing well, right? I think you two, three million dollars in revenue a year, but you probably still weren't paying yourselves that much.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, okay, so from what I understand, as early as like three or four years into the business, you guys were actually approached by other food companies who I guess were interested in acquiring you. And one of them was Haynes Celestial, which is, I think, today is one of the biggest natural food companies in the U.S. an 800-pound gorilla. And this is the company that owned celestial tea, right?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the United States, it has to be one of the few countries on earth where people, maybe Canada, people drink tea directly in a mug. They put the bag into a mug, right? Because imagine most everywhere else around the world it's in a pot.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How much work did you guys have to do in educating consumers about how to drink tea? Was that hard or was that already being done because other people in the industry had already been doing that work?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People were ordering from you because they didn't want to support the quote unquote corporate Starbucks brand. You guys were seeing this kind of like the scrappy startup.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In that first year, you launched Starbucks bought Tazo tea and started to sell Tazo at Starbucks locations. Did that turn out to be a good thing for you or a bad thing for you? Was it like all rising tides, you know, floats all boats or was it a problem?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What's this? I mean, now, of course, this is not uncommon, right? But in 1999, was it unusual to see like whole leaf tea in the US?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell me what you set up a little booth there and put your teas out there. I imagine you didn't have a whole lot of money to bring an architect. You guys built this yourself, right? The booth?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, alright, so you finally get to launch the moment of launch, and I guess in 1999, the way to go was to go to a trade show. And that's, from what I understand, that's how you guys kind of launched, right?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, that's a, I mean, were you guys nervous about that? I mean $250,000 line of credit, you know, that's got to be paid back at some point. Did that cause any anxiety for either of you?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you had to have some money to import the teas and to work with a co packer and Rim, I can't imagine you had a whole lot of money at the time you were in your 30s and early 30s and kind of doing different jobs here and there. And Ahmed, you had some success running being a partner in a tea company, but you by no means were you wealthy? lots of money. How did you finance the business at the beginning?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So before you launched, I have to assume you had to import tea where you just like, were there just boxes of tea stacked in your apartment ring?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are starting to kind of build out the infrastructure of what to do. And before you launched was the idea to mainly go directly to grocery stores and to have them sell your tea on the shelves or to work with restaurants or both, how did you think of your distribution model initially?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this is in 1999, you haven't launched yet. And this, I think, is sort of the beginning of what would eventually be known as the third wave of coffee. You had Starbucks, which was a second wave, and then now you had La Colome and Stump Town and coffee was what people were excited about in the late 90s. Coffee was just going crazy. Were people coming to you and saying, you guys might want to think about coffee?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember I interviewed Todd Carmichael and J. P. founders of La Colombe, and we talked a lot about the flavor profiles that they were looking for when they were trying to create the right blends of coffee. And were you doing that? Were you just like drinking a lot of tea and just swishing it around your mouth? Kind of trying to find the right balance.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Initially, you thought we're going to, of course, going to sell. I presume you had to sell Numi tea. You had to actually, and were you able to source those from Iraq or could you find another place to get them from?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But what did you say to him? Did you say, hey, we're bringing in tea, we want you to put it in tea bags for us. 10 teabags into a box for us. It was like, was it that literal?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What was the product going to be? Was it just going to be loose tea that you were selling? In bulk, was it going to be? You're going to put it in bags.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I'm still trying to figure out what did you guys. I know you were going to sell this tea. You were going to import it. But then what? Wherever you're going to, because were you going to go to these stores, these natural food stores, and try to sell it to them?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so you are now together in the apartment, and let's talk about did you sit down and write a business plan? Did you, what was the first kind of step you took?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we come back in just a moment, how Ahmed and Reem used the yellow pages, their relatives, and that 600 square foot apartment to launch their business, and how at their very first trade show, they turn their booth into a big attraction. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1998 and Ahmed and Reem have decided to launch a business. Inspired by the lime tea that they both remember from their childhoods. But at this stage, it's really just an idea.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And just to sort of clarify, the idea was we drank this as kids in Iraq. People will love this. People don't know this tea in the US. That was your idea?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, so you are in Prague, and Reem, you are in Oakland. Did you send your brother an email? I mean, this is late 90s, so email is just kind of starting out. Or did you call him and say, hey, I have this idea, can you help me? Is that what you did? Or was it something else?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the T, I mean, we talk about T, but because a lot of people think of tea leaves, but is it basically dried lime peel?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Meantime, Reem, you were living in the Bay Area. Is now in the late 90s. What were you doing professionally at that time?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did you have at that time? Do you remember having any anxiety about your future or any pressure from your parents in a sense? Because did you ever have any anxiety about whether you were kind of just drifting?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, do you go off to art school and would eventually make your way back to the Bay Area where you now live? In the meantime, Ahmed, you would you like kind of left. You left the US, you moved to Europe. What were you doing?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You were kind of on this track to become a doctor or be a researcher, but you went back into the direction of art, which sounds like that was your personal passion. How did that happen? Because you decided to go to art school, I guess, in your 20s, right?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Should mention you were like a really good tennis player. Like you were an athlete. That was presumably part of your identity.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess something you went through pretty traumatic experience in your third year of college. You got in a car accident that really seems to have had kind of a big impact on the direction that your life took. Is that right?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I read Reem that you really want to be an artist, but your mom said, You're too smart for art and encourage you to study biomedical engineering, which is what you studied at college.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ahmed, you went to NYU to study psychology and theater. What was your intention? I know that you had done some photography in high school. Was that what you thought you wanted to become a photographer?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It sounds like you were going through a fair to say a pretty rebellious stage. I mean, if you were kind of experimenting with drugs, and I mean enough to mention that your parents probably weren't aware of that, I guess at the time.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ahmed, do you remember when you were a teenager? Did you feel different? Did you feel like you were sort of primarily white environment around white Christian kids? Or did you feel included?”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Type called Numi Basra, a tea made from dried limes that's popular in Iraq and in the Gulf States. Their parents immigrated to the US from Iraq in the early nineteen seventies when Reem and Ahmed were kids. They settled in Cleveland where both their parents established successful careers. Their dad was a doctor and their mom ended up as a home contractor and interior designer. But they still kept close ties to Iraq and their relatives there.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What people were used to paying for tea bags. But they knew that part of what they had to do was to educate consumers about the difference between what they were offering and what you might find at a church basement potluck. Numiti was going to be more expensive because it was premium tea, not just green and black tea leaves, but herbs and dried fruit peels and spices that were sourced from sustainable producers around the world. When Reman Ahmed founded Numi, they were both going through transitional phases in their careers. Reem was bouncing around doing odd jobs, substitute teaching, language translation, art projects Ahmed had been spending about a decade in Europe living a bohemian lifestyle and tinkering with different entrepreneurial ventures. But both Reem and Ahmed grew up with tea as part of their culture, especially a particular”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Period alliance with two important trends in the food and beverage industry. The first was the third wave coffee scene that started in the late nineteen nineties, brands like Intelligentsia and Chicago and Stump Town in Portland, the quality of their coffee elevated the experience for customers and inspired a whole new type of coffee shop. The second trend during that time was the movement towards organic, fair trade, environmentally conscious sourcing in all things food and beverage, and customers started to understand that these things would cost more money to buy, which is how the premium tea market really started to gain traction in the US. When Numi Organic tea was launched in nineteen ninety nine by brother and sister Ahmed Rahim and Reem Hassani, their prices were five or even ten times higher than one.”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“T is the second most consumed drink on earth after water. And of all the countries in the world, Turkey holds the top spot. They drink the most tea. And surprisingly, given that so much tea comes from eastern and southern Asia, not a single country from those areas lands in the top ten. And when it comes to the US, there is no doubt where Americans stand. Each year they drink more coffee than soda, juice, and tea combined, and unlike the rest of the world, about eighty percent of the tea consumed in the US is iced tea. But even though coffee is king in the US, the domestic tea market has grown from under two billion dollars in nineteen ninety to more than thirteen billion dollars today, which is interesting because that time period”
2021-07-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT