Mustafa Koita, Founder and CEO of Koita Milk, joins ‘Tell Me Why’ podcast host Maria Botros to talk about his inspiration behind his business concept and his journey of running a business so far.
- As a father of a child who is lactose intolerant, Mustafa resorted to buying products from abroad
- Mustafa saw the opportunity to introduce new products in the market
- Mustafa: childhood traumas and insecurities were the ‘strongest drive and persistence’ to achieve goal
- Launching a product is about listening to consumers and finding something they want to buy
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
- As a father of a child who is lactose intolerant, Mustafa resorted to buying products from abroad
- Mustafa saw the opportunity to introduce new products in the market
- Mustafa: childhood traumas and insecurities were the ‘strongest drive and persistence’ to achieve goal
- Launching a product is about listening to consumers and finding something they want to buy
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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NewsTranscript
00:00But one thing that I did that got my daughter's attention is I took a Harvard Business School
00:05executive course, and I was like the student asking questions after class.
00:09Nice.
00:09And Professor Linda Applegate one time was like, who are you? And I'm like,
00:12I'm Mustafa Kord, I started a milk company in Dubai. And she's like, how did you do that?
00:15You know, and, and who do you compete against? And I'm like, I compete against a $16 billion
00:20company on the dairy side and a $40 billion company on the plant side.
00:24And she's like, can we write a case study about you?
00:26So Harvard Business School, we're like, of course, so they sent case to case study writers over,
00:31they interviewed all my staff, all of our social media folks, my customers in Saudi and the UAE.
00:37And now they wrote, they teach a Coitamil case study in Boston every year.
00:41That's insane.
00:42And my daughter, Serena, who is in Connecticut, came to the class when I was the guest speaker.
00:48And I think that's the only time I got a compliment from her.
00:51Yes, you know,
00:52I mean, Gen Z's, they're always difficult.
00:54Yeah, they're, they're a hard, hard thing to, a hard group to please.
00:58Yes.
01:04All right, welcome back to our podcast. This is Tell Me Why. I'm Maria Botros. And today,
01:10we're going to be talking to a local based brand owner. It's a milk brand, it's called Coitamilk.
01:20And with me in the studio is Mustafa Koida, who's the CEO and founder of Coitamilk.
01:25And he's going to be talking to us as part of our mini series that we recently launched,
01:29which is get to know the CEO. So today, we're going to get to know this CEO.
01:34We're going to get to know Mustafa. How are you?
01:36Yeah, who am I? Well, my name is Mustafa Koida. I think first and foremost,
01:41I'm a father of three very naughty kids, Serena, Danielle, and Sofia.
01:46If you can't tell from the accent, I'm from Chicago. So I came here as an expat American
01:52about 17 years ago. Was a professional, used to be in the defense business working at Boeing.
02:00I think I went through a midlife crisis. Like all entrepreneurs.
02:03Don't we all?
02:04Like, I think I'm still going through a couple right now. And about a decade ago,
02:10figured out sort of based on what my why was, started Coitamilk. And it started in Dubai,
02:16it's just one employee with one product. And we were just in one country. And I used to have hair
02:23back then. Oh, my goodness. People aren't seeing the video. I'm kind of bald right now.
02:27Yeah.
02:28And now we're, you know, we've got about 30 employees, about 19 different products. And
02:33we're in 10 countries. Amazing. We've come a long way. And I've lost all of my hair.
02:38Oh, my goodness. What is it with the hair? Like my husband is bald as well.
02:42And whenever he introduces me, he's like, this is my wife. She knew me when I had hair,
02:46but then I lost it when we got married. So what is it? What is it with hair?
02:50Well, maybe he's on to something, you know. But nowadays, there's a lot of bald people. So it
02:54works.
02:54I think it was a coincidence. But anyway. No, that's awesome. So can you tell us,
03:01like me and everyone that just wants to get to know your brand a bit more?
03:04Tell us what do you offer? And what kind of products do you offer?
03:07I'll give you the Coitamilk 101.
03:09Yeah, like dairy and non-dairy, that kind of thing.
03:11Absolutely. So in a nutshell, we have premium long life milk. And we have three categories.
03:18We started out with organic dairy, which is hormone free, pesticide free, and whatnot.
03:23Mainly focused on kids and families and stuff like that. The second range that we have is
03:28lactose free dairy. So there's a huge population that's lactose intolerant. They feel bloated.
03:34And so we have a lactose free line. And the third line, which people are very familiar with now,
03:39is the plant based products. That's quite on trend. It's like the almonds and the oat milk.
03:43So those are the three ranges that are available in a lot of the UAE outlets online,
03:48and also around the GCC.
03:50Okay. And how did you come up with the concept? Like what inspired you?
03:55There was a lot of things. I mean, depending on how deep you want to get.
03:58Yeah, let's get deep. It doesn't matter.
04:00I mean, I could start with the first level. But you know, as a parent, when I came to Dubai,
04:05I would go back to the US every summer and I'd be shopping at Whole Foods and Sprouts.
04:09And my son, Daniel, was lactose intolerant. And we didn't have a lot of options here. My daughter
04:16wanted organic milk. We didn't have a lot of options. So every summer we'd pack our bags
04:20in the States full of these long life milks and bring them back to Dubai. And the bag would be
04:25out of stock in 15 days.
04:26Oh, of course.
04:27And so I think one of the things is I just saw an opportunity. And I just took something that
04:32was working and growing in other parts of the world and I replicated here. And I wasn't the
04:37only parent that felt that way.
04:38Of course.
04:39And so that sort of led me to the commercial opportunity. And then we started investigating
04:44and talking to moms and built the company off of that premise.
04:48And then on a deeper level?
04:49On a deeper level, I think, you know, the question would be,
04:52why did you become an entrepreneur? Or why did you get to where you are today? And I think that,
04:58um, ironically, a lot of people don't talk about it, but I feel like there are three
05:02components to it. I think one is that your childhood has a lot to do with it, your childhood
05:08engineering. So when I was a kid, I was an Indian, first generation Indian. My father is like, you
05:14know, straight A's, you're going to get like to be a doctor or an engineer. And this is your path.
05:20And you're going to get married right afterwards. And when I was around 13 years old, my mother
05:25passed away. And it sucked. You know, it was like a really traumatic experience for me. And
05:31the first generation Indian kid was getting straight A's after my mom passed away. I was 13.
05:36And the reason it really affected me is I saw she died in front of me. And that and that messed me
05:42up. And so my straight A's went to like D's and F's in high school. Right. And so after that,
05:49you know, I like barely got into college. Like I got in on a probation program to Northern
05:53Illinois University. And like if I didn't get B's or A's in the first semester of NIU,
05:58I would get kicked out of school. Right. So your question, you know, what did that have to do with
06:04this right where I am today? And what it had to do with is that when I got to college, something
06:09happened to me like, you know, two years of like bad grades at school, hanging out with the wrong
06:14people and all that kind of stuff. But I think my father, my Indian father was talking to one of his
06:20Indian friends. And he's like, hey, you know, what's your son doing? You know, what's my son
06:24doing? And the other father was like, and I heard this at a party. He said, yeah, my son's at MIT.
06:29And, you know, he's going to get an internship at Anderson Consulting. And they're like, what is
06:34your son doing? And then my father was like, my son's going to this state school and I'm not sure,
06:40you know, kind of thing. Yeah. And I think something happened in me where I just felt like
06:45sad and ashamed a little bit, you know, and I think that was the first fire or log on my fire
06:51that was like, you know what? I want to I want my dad to be proud of me. I want him to have like
06:55something nice to say to his friends. And it just got me like so amped up. And I started like
07:03getting good grades. I got straight A's. I was really active in student government and I was
07:07taking more risks and I was working really hard. And I think that was the first log on my fire.
07:13And then after college, you know, the next the next layer, it was then, you know, I go to that
07:18party and my dad would talk to his friends and they'd be like, oh, so what's your son doing?
07:23And he'd be like, yeah, I got a job. He got a job at McKinsey. And they're like, what is your son
07:27doing? And he was like, yeah, he's a sales guy at a startup, you know, and or at a software company.
07:33And so what I started doing is I was like, look, I guess the whole thing is I felt like I had to
07:39catch up. You know, I kept wanting to have my father have a good conversation that he could
07:44brag about. So I was like, you know what? What am I going to do? I said I can't get a job at McKinsey
07:49or BCG. They won't hire someone like me from a state school. So I got sales jobs and I got startup
07:54jobs where there was a lot of risk. The base salary is really low. But in sales, you got to
07:59hustle to make a lot of money. But you have the chance of making a lot of money. So I became like
08:04the best salesperson ever because I had that second log on my fire. I wanted to like catch up
08:10to like making six figure jobs and stuff like that. And I remember like four or five years
08:16into after I graduated, I joined a company and I was like the highest paid employee in the company.
08:22I was making more than the CEO because in the States, they give you a commission and they pay
08:26you, you know what I mean? And that that kind of got me going. And so I think to answer your
08:30question, some of my childhood trauma and my insecurities was probably the deepest layer that
08:38has given me the drive and persistence to want to like do it. First of all, thank you so much
08:42for sharing that, that that really matters. And I think what's important is that we have a lot
08:46of entrepreneurs and people who are just starting their businesses who are listening to these
08:51podcasts and listening to this this series about getting to know certain CEOs. And when they hear
08:56these stories, they feel like they're not alone. So thank you for sharing that. And, and honestly,
09:02about starting a business and how difficult it is, of course, I mean, there's, there's so much
09:06going into it. And it's sort of like, as you mentioned, a one man show, when you first start,
09:11you're doing everything, you're the accountant, you're the mark marketeer, you're doing literally
09:16everything. Yeah. So I mean, I applaud you for that, and how far you've gotten. And I'm more
09:24than sure that your dad is really proud. But I mean, I'm sure he's seen the long way you've come
09:34and he's seen how much you've how much effort and, and, and hard work you've put into building this
09:40future for yourself. And to be fair, you were just a child. I mean, it was it was something difficult
09:45that you had to deal with all on your own. So and thank you for sharing that. So just going into the
09:52business and and digging deeper into that. What are some of the challenges you faced along the
09:59way? So especially with with a brand that is that has to do with, I think I think some of the
10:04challenges that we had is, you know, you can never compete with the budgets of the big companies. I
10:09jumped into the milk business, right? I was just gonna say, yeah, full of very well established,
10:14some really good companies out there, right. And so when we started, I think one of the challenges
10:20was in how we overcame it is like, how do you launch a product, right? And I think when you
10:25launch a product, it's not about your marketing budget. It's not about how much how many sales
10:32people you can hire. It's about listening to consumers and finding a product that they want
10:36to buy. That's the first if you have a good product, it'll sell itself, right. So the one
10:41challenge was we didn't have a lot of money, but we spent all of our money listening, like and
10:45listening is not just focus groups, it's like keeping an open mind, you know, so as a parent,
10:51when we came up with our product, specs and designs, a lot of people don't know this, but we
10:56didn't have the money to hire research companies. But we got like 100 moms together over 10 coffee
11:01mornings, and we just asked them questions. And we're like, look, what do you want? You know,
11:05what's missing in the market? And who better than moms, they're the ones that are preparing meals
11:09and everything. So exactly. Just ask your customer before you're going to start a business. So you
11:14put target customer what they want. And so we learned a lot. So we, I would go to like, you know,
11:19prep to go or Costa coffee, I'd buy like 10 cappuccinos, my friends of friends, you know,
11:24the mother of my children was great. Mario would invite her friends and we would just
11:28get people together and I'd be like, well, what are you looking for? And we learned things like,
11:31for example, at the time, there was only one product of organic milk in the entire region.
11:37And they're like, look, I want high fat content. I want whole fat because the kid is growing. They
11:41said, I want vitamin D because it was a vitamin D deficiency. I like paper packaging. I don't want
11:48fresh because it spoils quick, quickly. But if it's shelf stable, isn't that like the cheap milk
11:53or, you know, I want to be able to stock it up in my pantry. So we learned a lot. And then when we
11:58went out, I traveled all over the world. And I realized that through my I blew through all my
12:03frequent flour miles. I realized that the quality of milk depends on what are the cows eat? How do
12:07the cows feel and how you pasteurize the milk? And then we took the learning. So so, for example,
12:13quite a milk, the one liter whole fat and one liter low fat were the two first skews we we put
12:18out there. It had vitamin D. It was in tetra pack, recyclable, friendly packaging. It had high fat
12:26content. Right. We had a no straws policy eight years ago, which was good for the environment.
12:31We're the first in the region. And. It was amazing because, like, we just listened,
12:38it seems like common sense, productize it, and then when it hit the shelf, we just sold out for
12:42three months straight, like it just worked. And the moms that we were talking to felt like they
12:46were part of the journey. So they'd be like, hey, Lucy, like, you know, I remember Lucy Bruce was
12:50one of the first moms that got involved. She owns homegrown. She's like, oh, my God, it's here. You
12:54know, so all these people that were involved, it like helped, you know, they became part of a
12:59community. It was a real grassroots movement. And it's so important to feel like you're heard.
13:03It's so important when you're a decision maker in a house to feel like, OK, someone's actually
13:07listening to your needs and delivering. So we still do it today. You still do focus. Ten years
13:13later, we do. No, we do coffee mornings with mom. OK, coffee. So we don't know the big budgets,
13:19but we it just grassroots. And I'm there and I listen to them and I learn nice so much, you know,
13:25and they tell me things that they don't like, you know, and that's the best criticism because
13:29there's feedback. It's it's it's constructive in a way. OK, so this might seem like a simple
13:35question, but I feel like a lot of people would have this question. I remember asking my friends,
13:39preparing for this little chit chat. I told them, do you know what the difference is between
13:44organic milk and regular milk? And they had no idea. They had. I don't know. You got the right
13:50person in the studio to answer. Yes. So the biggest differences from a health perspective
13:55are that organic milk is, you know, the cows eat organic food. All right. That's one thing. So the
14:02cows are eating organic food. The second thing is it's antibiotic or hormone free, antibiotic free
14:08and pesticide free. And what happens is two things really, is that the milk is a cleaner milk and it
14:14also tastes cleaner as well. And those are the main big health differences. That's it. Yeah. And,
14:21you know, if you drink milk that is clean like that, you know, what you ingest affects your body
14:27and your health. And so, you know, people don't want to people want clean foods. They don't want
14:31to have toxins in their body. There's numbers of, you know, food nowadays that has toxins in it.
14:37And so they just want to eat clean. And that gives you a healthier lifestyle. Amazing. OK,
14:41so we spoke about what you have existing on the shelves. Do you plan on adding more products?
14:47You know, one thing that I've learned as an entrepreneur is focus is very important.
14:52And we've built out quite a robust SKU range right now. I've got a board of directors for
14:58the first time ever. Wow. So I've got people that tell me where to stick it and they're not shy.
15:03Like my board is hardcore. I got really two awesome board members. And last December,
15:09they were like, focus on doing more with what's working. Right. And so we were in the I was kind
15:16of it's it's hard to say no, you know, personally and professionally. And so we started saying no
15:21more and we started focusing on fewer products. So to answer your question, I don't plan on
15:26launching a lot of products, probably a few variants, like maybe another flavor or more
15:31barista style. But we're not in we're not at the stage right now where we want to expand too much.
15:36I always believe that you should grow both your product set and your sales channels and baby steps.
15:42And it's not go big or go home. You got to take a little baby experimental steps,
15:46test and learn a lot of tests and learns and then and then grow. So that's my longer answer for your
15:51short. OK, no, no. But that's that's good enough. I mean, if it's not a product, like if it's not
15:55a new product, are you thinking about like certain collabs with like different brands?
15:59Absolutely. Like, you know, we've been approached by a lot of cereal brands because milk and cereal.
16:04Yes, a lot of coffee brands because people mix it with their coffee. Of course, a lot of family
16:09like kind of like, you know, younger child type products. We love collabs. They're really good.
16:15They help both both brands, you know, but you got to the collabs have to be have to work and fit
16:21well. You don't do a collab for the sake of a collab. So I think we've learned that some collabs
16:26work and some don't. But you should always try. OK, this is kind of like a personal question.
16:31What do your kids think about all of this? I mean, they're the they're the hardest to please.
16:36So it's hard to get. So Serena, who's 17, it's hard to get a compliment out of my 17 year old.
16:42OK, the one time I think so my kids are really proud of it because they were I had all three
16:47at ASD for a while. OK, and we was we would do a lot of collabs with them and they would see it
16:52as they got older. They were a little too cool for school. But one thing that I did that got
16:57my daughter's attention is I took a Harvard Business School executive course and I was like
17:02the student asking questions after class. Nice. And Professor Linda Applegate one time was like,
17:06who are you? And I'm like, I'm Mustafa Korda. I started a milk company in Dubai. And she's like,
17:10how did you do that? You know, and and who do you compete against? And I'm like, I compete against
17:14a 16 billion dollar company on the dairy side and a 40 billion dollar company on the plant side.
17:19And she's like, can we write a case study about you? So Harvard Business School, we're like,
17:23of course. So they sent case to case study writers over. They interviewed all my staff,
17:28all of our social media folks, my customers in Saudi and the U.S.. And now they they teach a
17:35quarter mill case study in Boston every year. That's insane. And my daughter, Serena, who is
17:39in Connecticut, came to the class when I was the guest speaker. And I think that's the only time
17:45I got a compliment for myself. I was like, yes, you know, I mean, Gen Z's, they're always difficult.
17:50They're they're a hard, hard thing, a hard group to please. Yes. So I think there have been ups and
17:55downs. I think they they've grown up around their mom also is in the food business. They've grown
18:00up around branding companies. Yeah. So I think they think it's OK, but I think they will roll
18:06their eyes to you. I think inside they're kind of proud. I mean, yeah, inside they feel like,
18:10wow, it's so cool. My dad has a milk brand. Everyone's talking about it. OK, I know that
18:15you're in a rush and I know that your your time is super valuable, but I wanted to know what's
18:20next with you, like just in general. Look, I mean, we're we're looking to scale up the company now.
18:26OK, we've done a really good job here in the UAE. We've built a really good foundation in a few
18:31countries, you know, mainly. And I think I want to scale it up now and because there's a lot of
18:37potential for our brand. And I think, you know, our corporate culture, listening to consumers,
18:44you know, for me, my why is that right now the big pain is that families have problems trying
18:51to figure out their milk. One kid's lactose intolerant. The mom wants almond milk. The
18:56husband has a milk or gluten free allergy. Someone needs has no sugar issues. I get so confusing.
19:03And so I just want to help families eat healthier. Right. And I want them to be able to find their
19:08perfect milk. And my personality is like easy, simple, premium, you know, straight to the point.
19:16No bullshit. Right. And I want moms out there to be able to go to the milk and just be like,
19:21I'm just going to get the quota and there'll be a quota for everyone. Right. And that's kind of
19:25the vision. And now I'm really excited. I want to scale that up and enable a lot of families to
19:30find the perfect milk, you know, beyond where we are right now. Yeah, of course. You mentioned
19:35that you you're actually in several countries. Can you name a few? Yeah. So UAE. We're obviously
19:41in Saudi, Kuwait, Jordan, in Asia, we're in Vietnam and Singapore. Amazing. You know, so
19:49so we're in some smaller countries like Mauritius. But the core focus, the real focus right now is
19:55is this region is really is really like the GCC in the MENA region. And I think we've learned that
20:01we need to focus on where we where we operate more. OK. OK. Lastly, what's your advice for
20:07people who are starting up? Oh, I mean, based on personal experience, I would say, look, starting
20:15a company is not for the faint hearted. You know, I mean, people watch a couple episodes of Shark
20:20Tank. Yeah. Start something to get that PR. You know, it's like, oh, my God, I'm going to hit.
20:25You know, you've got to be ready for the tough, tough moments. I mean, you are there's peer
20:31pressure and there's failures. There's going to be failures throughout your journey. But I can tell
20:37you that it's changed me as a person. Right. It's humbled me. I have no ego whatsoever. Plus,
20:45I have a couple of daughters, you know, and I think you have to look at failures as part of
20:51the process of learning and failures and tough situations are your best learnings. So you've got
20:58to be ready for a real tough stretch and you've got to be able to approach failure as a learning.
21:04And I think that would be my kind of advice for now. OK. But then. OK, sorry, there's like a
21:09follow up to that. But then when do you know that that failure isn't necessarily the end of the road?
21:17It's just like a fall that you can easily get back up. That's a great question. Look, I don't
21:22think there's a specific one size all, one size fits all answer for that. You know, as an entrepreneur,
21:30you know, you know yourself and you know your business and you hopefully know your customer
21:34better than anyone from the outside, including me. And I think that's where that's a very good
21:40question, is that. It's not about do I shut it down or not, but you can pivot. So you have to
21:49use your own common sense, and I think the other thing I would advise is go with your gut. I think
21:54a lot of time when I started out, I was going with like, you know, just because someone had a lot of
21:58money, I would take advice from them or because they had a big title. You want to you want to
22:02ask people that are in your industry that are maybe one or two years ahead of you that are
22:07going through the same struggles that you have. But to answer your question, you only will know
22:14and how you I wouldn't say shut it down or not, but how you pivot. Yeah, maybe you got to just
22:19shift the focus. Yeah, my business plan changed 100 times while we were growing, you know,
22:24we and we did a lot of testing and learning and we had little we had little tests and learn. So
22:28the failures were little before we bet hard and invested our limited cash on one thing or another.
22:35Amazing. Mustafa, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Yeah,
22:39and we'd love to have you back. So always feel free to like, you know, hit us up at any point.
22:44I'll swing by D.I.P. whenever. Yeah, you know, because it's just on your way.
22:49It was really a pleasure. Thanks for thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much.