“In business each setback hopefully teaches you something important”
It’s been a decade and half since we founded the King Khawaja Group and my philosophy in life has always been never say never to anything. Always give everything your best shot before hanging up your boots. That way you’ll never look back with any regrets.
(Below I’ll share some of my success stories and monumental failures.)
Failing with great success
I’ve made some wrong decisions in business but I don’t regret a single one of them because they’ve all brought me a step closer to success. Failure is a valuable lesson if learned from and the key is not to give up dreaming, it’s not necessary that your original dream was your final destination. Very often dreams shatter and we create new ones – Business ventures are very much the same!
My first love
In 2001, I kickstarted my very first venture, Flukemart.com with a friend of mine at the height of the dotcom boom, as an online product exchanging website – an early version of an eBay.
One of our original logo’s for Flukemart.com, 2001 I Image from King Khawaja Group
The concept was incredibly simple and very popular amongst our users. A year and half after starting the venture, we were approached with a surprise offer to sell it – We accepted it!
Celebrating our diversity
A few years later in 2008, I set up King Khawaja Models, a model management agency with a focus on promoting ethnic minority talent. It was one of the first modeling agencies to successfully hold over 400 Bame background models, actors & artists on its books in under a year, promoting them across mainstream TV, film & entertainment industries.
At Britain’s Top Model Event, 2011 I Image from King Khawaja Models
Our models participated in the prestigious ‘Miss Pakistan’ competition in Canada, the hotly contested ‘Miss India’ contest in America, and featured many times in the popular ‘Asiana’ & ‘Asian Bride’ Magazine publications in the UK. Likewise, our talented actors took part in many famous British films like ‘The Infidel’, ‘Naachle London’ and ’51 Degrees’ – to name a few!
Music to my ears
This led to our new venture shortly after in 2009, with King Khawaja’s own record label- K2 Music. The popularity of our record company was so great, we were signing up new artists on a weekly basis. With new acts signed up like AG Dolla, Cirus da Virus, Rizwan Kayani and Tamir Khan – K2 Music was fully funding artists, managing their music careers and marketing them across the UK. Unfortunately, as great as the business venture was, in the long run, the business model financially wasn’t as sound.
Celebrating launch of our first album release, ‘Talaash’ I Image from K2 Music
It served as an important lesson for us, never to treat any two businesses the same. We took the view that if we could run a successful modeling agency then surely we could start up a successful music management company. We couldn’t be more wrong, they were two very separate business industries.
Nothing ventured nothing gained
Setbacks shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your dreams – Always dream big! I remember in 2011, walking into the offices of intellectual property law firm, Mathys & Squire in Central London for the first time to embark on an international trademark for the King Khawaja brand and walking up to the reception and being mistaken for a courier boy. I knew I didn’t fit into my surroundings well, even though I was always well-dressed for our meetings with our lawyers. Each time I visited their office, I was stopped and asked if I was here to deliver something. It was actually quite amusing.
A king size dream
It’s been an extraordinary journey that we’ve been on in the past decade. We went from being a small new kid on the block modeling agency in London in 2008, into a global brand spreading across 3 continents and expanding into the retail & fashion, import & export, and leisure & hospitality industries by 2018.
Fluqe Empire 