Amanda Nasim

I do realised that most of us not to mention including myself admire most top-notch entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. However, as a Malaysian, we should not forget that our country also have inspiring entrepreneurs We are currently making out stands even at par with top entrepreneurs as well. For this post, I would like to talk about a Malaysian enterepreneur that I admired and lessons I learn from this amazing person. I hope this can maybe inspire you all as well.

To anyone of you who don’t know about Tutti Frutti, here I can provide some brief introduction about this company. Tutti Frutti is the global self-serve  frozen yogurt giant. The customers will fill up their cup with frozen yogurt , 18 flavors to choose from, then selects the topping of their choice and is weighed by the ounce at the end. First of all, about the founder and director of Tutti Frutti which is a lovely Malaysian, Amanda Nasim.

Amanda Nasim is a final year economic and finance student at York University in UK. To my amazement, she was only 19 years old when she stood before 80 bidders at an international conference in Los Angelas last year to pitch her proposal to Jay Kim, the founder of the frozen yogurt retail chain to convince the owner of Tutti Frutti, which is also the popular frozen yogurt empire to give her the master licence to open the first Tutti Frutti outlet in Europe.

She replied in an interview, “I gave a presentation on how we would do well in the UK, which location we’ll have and that’s how they agreed. I think he saw that I have that energy, I proofed to him that even without an initial plan, that I can do it”. She is really a young lady with strong determinations and preseverence as she’s only 19 at that time and to bring a brand to UK really requires a lot of hard work.

Today, at just 20 years old, she is one of the four directors of Tutti Frutti United Kingdom. The four directors were consist of Amanda Nasim herself, 20, her brother, Andy Nasim, 30 and friends Hashraf Hashim, 29 and Ridzuan Nor, 31. These four launched their flagship outlet in Convent Garden in central London making it the first in Europe. They plan to open at least 20 outlets in England, Scotland and Ireland by 2013.

The idea behind Amanda’s success was when she first tasted her vanilla flavoured frozen yogurt when she was back in Malaysia during her holidays. When she returned to the UK, she could not find Tutti Frutti and that’s when she thought of bringing this delicious delicacies to the UK. At first, when Amanda and her brother, Andy walked around Londan looking for places to pitch their ideas, the people  they met all just pushed them away. However, she never gave up and with sheer determination, she finally made it.

What are the lesson that I’ve learned from Amanda ? Generally, as what most of us already know, some Malaysian students are not willing or scared to take risks in doing something complicated like building a start-up, while juggling with our studies. She is currently studying in York University, UK, and even though she still need to focus on her studies, she still can multi-task with her tasks, and it has been proven as recently she has open the first Tutti Frutti franchise in the UK during the years of her studies. Hence, it has also proven that, being as a student is not a barrier to achieve dreams that may look bizarre in people’s eyes.