By: Sarah Zomaya
I had the pleasure of interviewing Mustafa Nuur as our March Entrepreneur of the Month. Mustafa was born and raised in Somalia as the eldest of eight siblings. But unfortunately, Mustafa was born during Somalia’s civil war. His family escaped to Kenya for eight years before settling in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 2014.
When his family moved to the United States as refugees, the first thing Mustafa observed was that he “came to a very diverse country that has so many different people from so many different places,” when he was coming from “a country with one nationality and one language.” Mustafa was so excited to be in this kind of culture. But, he immediately saw that everyone was “living in a silo”; nobody knows each other, nobody talks to each other.
One day, Mustafa was involved in an incident with someone who didn’t understand his story and was sending harassing messages. Mustafa sat down with that person, shared where he is from, and connected with them on a personal level. From that experience, Mustafa realized there has to be a way people can connect with one another, because that will allow people to understand each other in these very polarized times.
Building Bridge
This is where Mustafa generated the original idea of having people sit down together for a meal, “but it took a couple of sleepless night to finally come up with the concept of Bridge.” If you ask him what he does for a living, Mustafa would say he’s “in the business of bringing people together.” But more technically, through Mustafa’s business, Bridge, a local refugee can be a host and any guests who want to learn about the refugee’s culture and story can sign up online to have a meal with the refugee and eat their county’s traditional cuisine. Bridge also provides refugees the opportunity to supplement their income.
Many people travel so far to experience different culture and cuisine. Mustafa says, “it’s available in everybody’s backyard, if they only took the time to get to know their neighbor who is from another country.”
Mustafa was working full-time at a marketing firm when he started Bridge, and he continued full-time for the first five months of operation. One day, while working at the marketing firm, he decided he was either going to close down Bridge or walk out, so he “walked out and started to follow what I enjoy doing every day and it’s been the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Mustafa began by hosting meals for free to see whether people would show up, and they did. News about Bridge spread by word of mouth, then there was a Facebook page, and before they knew it, so many people knew about Bridge and they were being covered by local press.
Today, Bridge is made up of Mustafa, one employee, and one intern. They have so many different things to do, and everyone wears multiple hats – they joke and call each other “magicians.” Mustafa says, “No day goes by without me interacting with at least six different cultures, I switch between three languages throughout the day.” (Somali, English, Swahili, and some Arabic).
Socially Conscious Attorneys
Mustafa started using attorneys right when he began charging for Bridge experiences. Although this was a significant cost for a brand-new business, Mustafa recognized involving attorneys was necessary to protect his business. Mustafa has worked with a number of attorneys and he’s observed, “there are traditional attorneys that do everything by the book, and I’ve noticed there’s a new type of attorney who is socially conscious.” They have helped him figure out the best path for this unique business. Mustafa prefers the latter.
Lately, Mustafa has been working with attorneys to expand Bridge into different cities. Almost every state has reached out to Bridge, wanting to have Bridge in their cities. Bridge is considering cities all over, such as Portland, Boise, San Francisco, and Syracuse. Because of Bridge’s unique business, there are many atypical considerations when making legal and business decisions, such as the number of refugees in a city. Mustafa says most attorneys have to do a lot of research due to the type of business.
What makes Bridge so successful?
When asked what makes Bridge so successful, Mustafa explained that it’s all about timing. Right now, so many people are “getting really tired of not feeling like they know their neighbors or feeling like they are part of the ‘other,’” and Bridge provides a unique opportunity to connect. Additionally, Mustafa says, “when you’re really trying to bring good into the world, people try to support it.” And finally, Mustafa attributes Bridge’s success to upholding their values. Although sticking to their values may have cost Bridge certain opportunities, “at the end, it made us successful.”
Advice for the Socially Conscious Entrepreneur
To the socially conscious entrepreneur, Mustafa says, “Anything that’s going to be changing the world is going to be considered weird – so swallow your heart and if something is different and nobody knows what box it fits in, it’s usually the next great invention.” He continued, saying, “Just get something started – you don’t have to wait until everything is perfect to start your business.”
How can we all help refugees?
To wrap it all up, I asked Mustafa how everyone can help refugees. He said the best way to support refugees is to “give them a sense of belonging, because it can be extremely overwhelming to come to a new place, without knowing anybody, without knowing the culture and the best thing you can experience is something as simple as a neighborly smile or a greeting.” Mustafa explained that just asking a refugee where they are from and hearing about their home country will have a major impact in allowing the refugee to feel welcome.
Mustafa was recently featured on NPR’s Planet Money podcast – you can listen here!
Follow Mustafa on Twitter: @RealMustafaNuur
Sarah Zomaya, at the time of this post, is a third-year law student at Penn State’s Dickinson Law. Following graduation, Sarah will practice corporate transactional law at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell. Sarah is currently serving as Vice President of the Business Law Society and as a Comments Editor for the Dickinson Law Review.
Photo Sources:
https://www.unrefugees.org/news/meet-mustafa-this-former-refugee-is-using-food-and-conversation-to-build-community-in-lancaster-pa
experiencebridge.com
