Ahmed Yusuf

Running several different businesses at once without the quality of any of them dropping. Right now that is a design studio, a confectionery brand and a podcast. Each one wants your whole head.

The hardest part is being present in all three without burning out and walking away — I work 10 to 12 hours a day. In creative and design work especially, the hardest thing is consistency. There is no rule that says every month turns a profit, or that every month is the same. There are good months and bad months, and you have to know how to keep a grip on it without losing your focus.

Anything you want to start has its own difficulty. With the ENGO engineering organisation at university we had nothing — no money, no premises, no experience worth the name.

We bought into the Dreams institute with no real business experience, and then Covid and that inexperience forced us to sell it.

With Simpl, the hard part was that it was the first time I had put in an office of my own: rent, salaries, buying what we needed. At that point all I had was a phone and a computer.

With Shklet we had very little money, and I was running another business at the same time. We knew nothing about food and drink — we learned all of it from zero by trying.

The obstacles were the same each time: not much money and not much experience. But wanting it, and sticking at it, is what made the work hold.

I would not call it mockery, but the people close to you always want you to stay in the safe zone. When I wanted to go to Erbil they told me not to — stay where you are, stay safe, do not take the risk.

When I was doing design work they asked why I was not working as an engineer. When we started Shklet they asked how I was going to keep up with all of it — you are an engineer and a designer, what are you doing selling things off a cart?

And when I decided to set up Simpl Studio, I had been working alone off a laptop and my phone. It was a big, hard step. But from the start I knew that one day the work would hold.

Being visible as a designer and making content, so people knew I did branding and design. That is what grew my own personal brand, and then led to Simpl Studio — nearly every Simpl client has come through word of mouth and through that personal brand.

With Shklet it was two things together: a good product and different marketing. We did the work in a different way, and it got to the point where people queued for hours to try it.

Founders was real conversation and a defined niche — there was no podcast that talked about everything; it only tells true business stories, honestly. Everything I have built is specialised. I do not try to be in all of it.

The worst was the Erbil business. My family and I moved house to Erbil to build something. For a whole year we lived in a very small flat — one bedroom, sleeping on a mattress, no washing machine, just a fridge and a small cooker. At night the office room became the sitting room. Away from family, away from our own city. The business did not take. We kept going to the last minute, then made the hard, right decision to come back.

The best was Ramadan 2025, with Shklet. We had started a few months earlier on a three-wheeled bike. We believed in the product, but you are never completely sure. When Ramadan came, people were queuing for hours. That was when I felt the business had worked.

Simpl solves the problem that most businesses in Kurdistan have no proper identity — they exist, but they are weak at looking professional and getting their message across, and that loses them customers and trust.

Shklet fills a real gap — high-quality confectionery with a good design that fits into your ordinary day: not expensive, not complicated. At the same time we want to build a Kurdish brand we will be proud of later.

Founders solves the absence of real business content in Kurdish — people want to learn and to hear true stories in their own language, and there was very little of that.

At Simpl we help businesses look professional and say what they mean clearly — brand identity, logos, campaigns, video, social media, packaging, and everything to do with design, from finding the name through to a finished brand.

At Shklet we make simple, high-quality confectionery — milk and chocolate — sold from our kiosks, in a way that gives you a good moment in your day.

At Founders we host business owners and have long, honest conversations. We tell their real story — not just the success, but the actual journey behind building the thing.