Your Name: Fharzana
Business Name: I Heart Curry, a service offering indian cooking classes
Type of Business: Cooking Classes
Business Location: San Fransisco Bay, California, United States
Reason for starting
I have always enjoyed cooking and cooking with others. I also enjoy building a product from scratch. I married my two interests and started I Heart Curry. I decided to teach Indian cooking classes, where people will learn how to prepare Indian dishes from scratch using fresh, safe, and non-toxic ingredients.
How do you define success?
I measure sucess by happiness – how happy I am doing what I’m doing and how happy my students are. I Heart Curry makes me very happy and my guest students are always very satisfied with the knowledge, skills, and recipes they gain from the cooking classes.
Biggest Success
In my opinion, the relationship between us and food is disappearing. Too many of us find it more convenient to eat out or buy packaged prepared food products. Even when many of us cook at home, for the sake of saving time, we use shortcuts that sacrifice the integrity of the dishes we cook. I show people how easy it is to build good eating habits by changing only a few things, so that they don’t eat preserved foods that are bad for them. They become so motivated and inspired after taking my classes that they begin to cook from scratch at home with fresh and safe ingredients. I am helping to redefine the relationship between us and food – its my small effort and it makes me very happy to see the positive change.
What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
My biggest challenge so far has been marketing and distribution – I have addressed it by improving my SEO, word of mouth, and passing out flyers. Apart from that, I have always talked to my users (guest students) to understand their needs better so that I could address them while implementing and executing the cooking classes. This way, the classes are exactly what the users are looking for and there’s a perfect match.
Who is your most important role model?
Tina Fey – not only is she a great actress, but also a writer, comedienne, and producer. She’s an inspring well-rounded woman who I look up to very much. It isn’t easy to master one skill, and Tina Fey has mastered several, which is worth respecting. I hope to be well-rounded much like her.