Washington Business Summer 2019 | Washington Business | Page 45

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“Maintain your convictions. So many people are just
going to tell you all the reasons something can’t work,
but for every reason something can’t work, there are a
number of reasons why it can.”
— Junus Khan, Founder and chairman, Carbitex
“It’s a month over the ocean, and air shipment can be more expensive,” Khan
said. “Luckily, our material is fairly light.”
advice for others
A young entrepreneur may have an idea for something cool, but for a company
to succeed, Khan said the product needs to either solve a problem for customers
— or be something they didn’t know they needed, but once they experience it
they can’t imagine life without it.
“I think I had a very healthy or maybe unhealthy dose of being naive,” Khan
said. “I could see step 10, where we wanted to go, and I could see step one, but
I completely underestimated steps two through nine. But once you dive into
it, if you have the grit to push through and do it in a timely way, you get to the
other end.”
And while it’s important to listen to outside ideas and feedback, entrepreneurs
need to evaluate that input critically and make their own decision.
“If I’d listened to some people in the industry say ‘What are you doing?
That’s not what people want,’ Carbitex might not exist right now,” Khan said.
“Maintain your convictions. So many people are just going to tell you all the
reasons something can’t work, but for every reason something can’t work, there
are a number of reasons why it can.”
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