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Who would have thought that the viral blue-eyed tea seller would one day demand Rs 1 crore (around Rs 30 lakh Indian rupees) on Shark Tank Pakistan for a five per cent equity in his cafe called Cafe Chai Wala?
Dressed in a swanky black suit, Arshad Khan walked through the doors of Shark Tank Pakistan with his business partner Kazim Hasan. On the show, he talked about his acclaim and urged the judges to invest in his business.
He said, “I had never left Islamabad before that. A lot of people advised me to start my own cafe. I had always wanted my own cafe, even when I was working at somebody else’s dhaba.”
His first cafe took a sad turn when the pandemic hit in 2020 but he relaunched it again in October of the same year, and has been profiting off it. Surprisingly he also has two operational cafes in Pakistan. They also have three outlets operating in England functioning in a franchise model which yields him 35,000 Pakistani rupees for five per cent royalty.
He added that he wanted to open more such profitable outlets all across the world and showed his vision for expansion. He justified his expansion in London citing his strategy to tap into the South Asian diaspora and also to phase in Pakistani culture abroad.
The cafe’s design spells Pakistani motifs and elements, borrowing from street aesthetics which makes it unique.
Two sharks – Junaid Iqbal and Faisal Aftab appreciated Khan’s ideas but rejected the deal specifying lack of insight in the hospitality industry. However, Shark Rabeel Warraich offered Khan and Kazim 1 crore rupees for 24 per cent in equity but finally they got a double shark deal with an addition of Romanna Dada for the same amount. Another shark, Usman Bashir offered a deal to join in with the other two sharks for a combined equity of 30 per cent.
Regardless, after some back and forth, they settled for the previous double-shark-deal of 1 crore for an equity of 25 per cent.
