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Aisha has high hopes for Donut

Aisha Kasim, founder of Madame Hair, addressing the audience at the Elevator Conference in Aberdeen in November 2015.
Aisha Kasim, founder of Madame Hair, addressing the audience at the Elevator Conference in Aberdeen in November 2015.

The world is entrepreneur Aisha Kasim’s oyster . . . or “donut”, depending on your perspective.

Ms Kasim, 31, developed her business in Aberdeen but is now living a dynamic lifestyle among London’s creative elites. She has a groundbreaking product on the market and is riding the crest of a publicity wave created by her participation on hit BBC series The Apprentice.

Although her bid to go into business with Lord Sugar fizzled out following her second round elimination, she feels privileged to have been “given the opportunity” to show what she can do.

Before being interviewed for this article, Ms Kasim had spent a typically busy London morning working on an advert for her Hot Donut Hair Bun – it’s a styling product, not a snack – with a production team that got in touch on the back of her involvement in the competition.

Ms Kasim, daughter of a Nigerian father and Scottish mother, said: “People reach out to you, thanks to being on The Apprentice – it’s a point of reference.”

There are no sour grapes when it comes to rivals on the show. She said: “I got on well with my fellow contestants, though there are times when people are at each other’s throats. We’re all attracted to similar things and have things in common on some levels.

“Since the show, we have invited each other to events and helped market each other’s products. I’m not going to say to a contestant: ‘I’m never going to speak to you again because of what you said about me on one of the challenges’.” She has no qualms with Lord Sugar’s choice. “I think Joseph Valente was the right winner,” she said.

Now all her energy is channelled into promoting her Hot Donut Hair Bun, designed as a gentle alternative to hair curlers. The entrepreneur, who moved with her family to the UK from Nigeria aged 15, initially settling in Laurencekirk, Aberdeenshire, did not just come up with the idea – she made it herself.

“I did it all by myself, though no one ever believes when I tell them that. I had the inspiration to make the product; I went home and started drawing it out and made little prototypes.

“That took about one and a half years from start to finish, with crowdfunding, testing and feedback. It would have been quicker to give it to a design company but I enjoyed the creative process. I’m proud to have done that, start to finish.”

The response to the “donut” has been encouraging so far – Amazon had to order more after selling out the first batch – and Ms Kasim is now bent on mass production. The Glasgow University business graduate said: “I followed one of my passions, which was hair, and that led me on to inventing the donut.

“I now have something unique that works and I can see why people want it. With The Apprentice behind me and the donut ready, I feel like the world is my oyster. It’s still a struggle and nothing is set in stone but what’s happened to me so far is fantastic.”

She also wants to keep her Madame Hair business going, having started up the hair extensions, wigs and ponytails specialist in Aberdeen in 2007. At one point, it had a presence in the Granite City and Dundee, but Ms Kasim, a former Mearns Academy student, eventually decided to switched her focus to online sales. Bricks and mortar retail went well for her, but consumers’ preferences changed and commercial property owners now needed to expect less rent.

“In Dundee, I said we could not afford to pay more rent while sales were going down. They were increasing it every year.

“A year after pulling out, I got a request from the same shopping centre asking me to come back and offering me half-price rent. By that time it was too late. I would have had to build up my customer base again.”

While Ms Kasim now manages her business interests from London, she puts much of her success down to the solid foundations she put in place in Aberdeen, where the Kasim family home is now based.

Ms Kasim, whose father, Sola, is a research fellow at Aberdeen University, is keen to give back what she can to the city’s business community.

In November, she travelled back to the north-east to give a talk at a conference aimed at stoking entrepreneurial spirit in the region.

She said: “I would not feel as inspired or confident about going to London if it wasn’t for the supportive environment I had in Aberdeen, where I tested out my ideas.

“Aberdeen’s business organisations and consumers were very supportive. You would not get that elsewhere. London is too big to start off in. It’s good to be in a smaller community. There is more one-on-one attention; it’s not as competitive – people have time for you.”