Published in January 2003 The book ‘Anyone Can Do It’ by Sahar Hashemi has become the 2nd highest selling book ever published in the UK on entrepreneurship after Richard Branson’s book - according to Nielsen Bookscan. It is ‘suggested reading’ at London Business School entrepreneurship course and Chapter 1 has been included as part of the syllabus of the Entrepreneurship summer school. The book has also been endorsed by the DTI, Prince’s Trust and IoD.
• The book has received wide press coverage: (Management Today: “the combination of advice and anecdote works well…essential reading for budding Richard Bransons”) Sahar has made the cover of Director and Business 550 magazines. Her media appearances include CNN Business breakfast, BBC2 Working Lunch, Midweek on Radio 4, LBC with David Prever, FIVE LIVE with Simon Mayo, BBC Good Food Show, BBC London, BBC South West, British Airways in-flight radio, and numerous other radio shows
• Sahar has been listed in the '100 most influential women in Britain in 2003' by the Daily Mail and in the '20 most powerful women in Britain under 35' by the Independent on Sunday. She is speaker ambassador for the Princes Trust and has spoken at various high profile events including Institute Of Directors Women’s 2002 Summit, Wall Street Journal Europe Women In Business Summit, Price Waterhouse, 360 degrees and Enterprise 100.
• Sahar lectures at the London Business School Entrepreneurship summer school on ‘So you want to be an Entrepreneur?’ and ‘Dealing Your Demons’. She is a verybusy speaker to book her for your next event please contact: carol@select-speakers.com.
In 1995 Sahar Hashemi together with her brother Bobby founded Coffee Republic, and grew it into one of the UK’s most recognised and high profile coffee bar brands with a turnover of £30m. Giving up highly professional jobs, she a lawyer in London and he an investment banker in New York, they staked everything on a dream- and made coffee Republic into one of the main players in the ‘coffee revolution’ that transformed a nation of tea drinkers into one obsessed with triple decaf half-caf lattes.
This unlikely combination of siblings in business knew nothing about coffee or retail. They just followed a passion Sahar had for skinny lattes and fat free muffins she had seen in New York. How they got from the first conversation to building a high street coffee chain is a fascinating and inspirational tale of the ups and downs of following your dream. From the first conversations (when the seed was planted) to writing the business plan, finding the name, 19 cruel and duly ignored bank rejection letters, getting a DTI loan from the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, nicking their first employees from Pret a Manger- it is a personal story about two people who stopped ‘thinking about it’ and ‘did it’.
Sahar left the day to day management of Coffee Republic in 2001 and has written a book called ‘Anyone Can Do It- Building Coffee Republic from our Kitchen table’ to help tackle some of the fears and answer some of the elusive questions about what it’s really like to leave the comfort zone and follow (what can sometimes seems like) an unattainable dream and what it really takes to become an entrepreneur. The book also includes ‘57 real life laws on Entrepreneurship’ which offer a myriad of lessons for those aspiring to act and think like an entrepreneur and blow apart the myth that entrepreneurs are born not bred.
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