On December 10th, 2019, undergradute students in Dr. Muhammad Shehryar Shahid's Entrepreneurship course learnt firsthand the experiences of the dynamic team behind GharPar: an IT solution for at-home beauty services. Co-Founders Shamila Ismail, Mehvish Arifeen, and Arooj Ismail discussed their journey and inspiration for a social enterprise intended to empower beauty industry workers.
GharPar's unique model starts with training beauticians to high professional standards. Beauticians specialize in one or more trade, and after successfully completing their training are connected with clients through a mobile app. GharPar provides its beauticians signature cosmetic products. The company has nearly 30,000 clients in Lahore alone, and a team of more than 100 beauticians.
The trio discussed the IT enabled transformation in cosmetology. They further discussed inventory management, data driven decision making, and the importance of having Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) from day one in order to make an entrepreneurial enterprise successful. In response to a question from a student, they highlighted the importance of constantly reevaluation and adjusting course in a startup. While discussing lean startup strategy, the co-founders highlighted that they had maintained a clear division of work and accounted for minor details to calculate the financial performance of the enterprise.
The session ended with a presentation of souvenirs by Dr. Muhammad Shehryar Shahid.
