Yasmin Agha: What motherhood can teach an entrepreneur

BEIRUT: Display? Check. Business cards? Check. Mom and dad playing client roles? Check. Caroline, the character played by the child version of Yasmin Agha, is now ready to open her imaginary store ‘Dino Rafaello.’

The child shop-owner grew. 

Years passed, Agha entered university and graduated with a B.A. in sociology from the American University of Beirut and a B.A. in theater from the Lebanese American University.

While majoring in theatre, Agha applied for a Ph.D. abroad. Yet two weeks before her travel, the seeds of entrepreneurship that had been planted in Agha from a very young age flowered. Her inner Caroline woke up. Agha let go of her traveling plan and decided to pursue her dream of owning a store and becoming an entrepreneur.

“I was inspired by my own childhood to open a boutique,” Agha told Annahar. “I believe that my whole life was practice to reach where I am today.”

With her passion and high dreams, the young achiever opened her very own boutique ‘Cookie Dough’ in Beirut in 2009.

As an entrepreneur Agha demanded growth. 

Fast forward a few years, Cookie Dough no longer remained a shop but became an A to Z service community.

In 2011, Cookie Dough launched a Nursing Consulting Center (NCC); which offers free guidance for parents.

“We help them make informed decisions about what they need for their babies,” said Agha. 

NCC also hosts professional speakers from different reputable institutions that are either local or international. Those come together with mothers to tackle diverse topics three times a month. 

The final service provided by Cookie Dough is the events’ services such as birthdays and baby showers. 

“Cookie Dough created a beautiful community of mothers,” said Agha. “Nine years are almost a generation; all this time allowed us to see our business grow and evolve with our clients.” 

With all the success she had gained in a few years, the entrepreneur faced a turning point in her journey when she gave birth in November 2017.

“Motherhood became the biggest lesson for me,” Agha told Annahar. “It taught me how to run my business in a more mature way.”

The entrepreneur’s journey with her baby was quite different. Although she tried denying, her baby insisted to join the world early. 

Baby Mo was born prematurely at 29 weeks after Agha's water broke two weeks earlier.

Considering Agha’s character is one that loves to take control of everything, giving birth at an early stage was seen as a failure to do the most natural thing a woman can do. 

But, the moment she held her baby, her entire thoughts shifted toward him. She no longer thought about where she went wrong. 

Agha took what she considered as a failure as a push to do her best to protect her baby and succeed in this phase. 

Letting go, delegating, focusing, and being open to learning something new where the things motherhood taught Agha. 

“The first thing you need to do to become a mother is to let go,” said Agha. “In my case, not only did I let go, but I also had to leave my baby behind in the NICU.” 

Letting go meant delegating to nurses at NICU whenever Agha is not in the hospital; and to the team at Cookie Dough whenever she is at the hospital.  

“Baby Mo came out of the NICU after six weeks,” said Agha. “Although these could’ve been dark days, they became days we look back on.”

Motherhood also taught her how to always be open to the process of learning something new.

“The moment you open the doors of the NICU, you see lights you have never seen before and hear sounds you have never heard before,” explained Agha. “It’s a new world and I had to learn all about it.”  

“I think a big mistake a lot of entrepreneurs face is reaching a point where they believe they know everything they need to know, but of course, this never happens,” she added. 

She was also taught how to focus on the fine details although she was sometimes told to look at the bigger picture. 

Agha embraced all these lessons and applied them to her business. 

She even adopted a new component to Cookie Dough called “Mom Talks” as a result of her early birth.

“From my experience, I’ve learned that sometimes you do not need a professional to give you advice; sometimes all you need is someone to reassure you,” Agha told Annahar.