We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Salim Skaf. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Salim below.
Hi Salim, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I have learned resilience through multiple challenges in my life. Even today, I believe that resilience is like a muscle: the more we practice it, the more we develop it.
My life journey has always had its challenges; however, some events in my personal life led me to the need to strengthen myself.
I grew up in a very united family, the son of a Lebanese father who had immigrated to Brazil. Our life has always had its challenges, and our father always taught us to fight for the future and seek a better life. He also justified his immigration process to escape the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s.
There were 4 brothers, me, the second oldest, and two younger sisters.
When my father passed away, it was a great challenge in the family’s life. As a provider and also a solid paternal figure within the family, it was up to my mother to take her place in the company after decades as a stay-at-home mom with no experience. All of us brothers were underaged back then.
Seeing my mother’s struggle to make things work, I made myself available to start working and help with part of the household bills. A few years later, this small decision became even more relevant. As if the lack and challenges of losing such a dear person were not enough, my mother went through a crisis at the company due to the country’s financial situation worsening and went into bankruptcy. It was up to me to help her pay the household bills and finance the college education of my sisters, who had just started college.
I had to learn to share the fruits of my labor with my family to ensure their well-being and support them all in recovering and continuing to move forward with their lives.
A large part of these challenges made me develop resilience, mainly because I saw how my effort, suffering, and dedication brought stability and happiness to the people I love.
Fast-forward in life, my sisters all graduated, I developed my career in finance, working tireless hours a week in private equity, and when I felt that these missions had been accomplished. The need for a constant cash flow, I felt prepared to undertake.
Then, my wife and I decided to move to the United States and start a new business selling furniture for the Florida market.
We spent a year analyzing the market, developing the brand, products, and the company until we closed our first rental contract for a small store in a warehouse in Miami, where we invested all our resources. Once again, we were surprised by the beginning of the pandemic of COVID.
We were desperate, not knowing what would happen, but we never gave up; we thought of innovative ideas like doing virtual tours of the showroom and products via ZOOM meetings and taking advantage of the fact that the market had slowed down a bit and that extremely busy interior design firms would have more time to know us and see us. Our idea became a reality, and sales started.
It was a challenging period; all the company’s money and our money came to less than 10 thousand dollars, but thinking differently and without giving up, we started our first sales.
Challenges in entrepreneurship are endless, but also fast forward here today; we have two stores and two warehouses. We built a factory in Brazil to verticalize our production, and today, we have more than 100 employees between Brazil and the United States.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am focused on expanding my business across the United States.
I started with a store in Miami, and then we opened one in the Boca/Delray region. Soon, we will be opening one in West Palm Beach. Our future is to open more stores in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California.
Our commitment to sustainability is at the heart of our business. We are not only creating a brand from scratch but also constantly developing better and more exclusive products. Many of these products have an eco-conscious footprint, such as our high-quality contract-grade velvet made from recycled polyester and performance carpets made from recycled materials, both PET and PVC. We ensure that all waste from our factory is directed to material manufacturers for recycling in Brazil. Our approach ensures that nothing is wasted, reflecting our dedication to environmental awareness.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first one is resilience. You go through several painful moments during the first months and even years of a new company. Especially for self-funded entrepreneurs, you have many financial challenges besides the company’s growth. Growth is also never linear; after six good months comes a bad month, and so on. You must be resilient and constantly remind yourself of your VISION to strengthen and keep you on track.
The primary way I see to develop this is to write down your vision and reread it constantly. Communicate it continually to all stakeholders and have people you trust (family, directors, friends) with whom you make a “promise” that they will remind you of your vision when you need reinforcement.
Following resilience, the next key to business success is leadership. This skill is paramount in building a team that will grow the company alongside you, and in charting paths that you may not have envisioned. A great team is a testament to excellent leadership, and it’s this kind of team that will take your business to new heights.
The advice here is to always be attentive and genuinely listen to your team. Be open to feedback and understand that even as a founder and CEO, it is also important that you continue to evolve as a leader and support your team in the various challenges they face.
Trusting relationships are the bedrock of successful business partnerships, customer relations, and supplier interactions. They are the key to everything you will need on your entrepreneurial journey. By being authentic, honest, ethical, and genuinely attentive to all stakeholders, you can foster such relationships. Always consider how your actions and words today could impact your relationships in the future. Even if the chance of meeting that person again is slim, make decisions that will bring you closer in the long run, not drive you apart.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Among the many books that inspire me, I believe that I have the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins as my “bible” for my entrepreneurial journey.
On the other hand, outside the scope of entrepreneurship, there is a book that inspired me a lot and was the beginning of my journey of studying Neuroscience. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer was one of the books that opened my mind to understand how the brain works and the importance of understanding how other people’s thinking can be different from mine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.harmonyluxuryfurniture.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyluxuryfurniture/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salim-antoine-skaf-43413b23
Image Credits
Photo by Gabriel Volpi
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