Amine Ait explains why a Muslim-focused ecommerce brand works now: the halal economy hits $5 trillion by 2025, mainstream ecommerce is saturated, and geopolitical boycotts drive demand for ethical alternatives. He walks through finding niches by listening to Muslim problems, then pitches three examples: Khushua (lion's-mane coffee for prayer focus), Eye Skin (snail-mucus skincare for eczema after wudu), and an insomnia brand.
Chapters
Why a Muslim e commerce brand? So do you know that during COVID pandemic we were all stuck at home for almost two years. We know which companies really grow e commerce companies selling products and services. Companies like Shopify, Amazon, Netflix, Zoom, they grow like crazy. And the growth that was experienced during COVID is 55%. The e commerce industry was able to hit almost 30 trillion globally, Mashallah. So there's a lot of wealth out there. We just need to take a little bit of that buy. Which brings us to what happened since 2023. A rise of competition happened in the e commerce space, especially in the US Canadian market, European and Australia. It became saturated, especially the advertising costs on social media. And if we look at the halal industry, this is the global halal industry. The halal food, for example, is almost a $2 trillion market. The modest fashion, 361 billion. Talal travel is estimated to 274 billion. And halal cosmetic, 90 billion. Halal pharmaceutic, 131 billion. And these are actually some of the best niches. Halal pharmaceutical supplements, cosmetics and fashion, they're one of my favorite niches actually. And another reason here to focus on the halal Muslim industry. It's projected to actually hit 5 trillion by 2015. InshaAllah. And as of today, one person on four on earth is Muslim. That's the official numbers. I'm pretty sure there's many more Muslims that didn't state it, you know, so we're looking at 2 billion Muslims world and since October 7th and what's going on right now for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, the boycott of all these companies that finance the genocide. Muslims are looking for alternative products and solutions, but are ethical, that are aligned with our Muslim values. So there is a huge opportunity for us to look at what's already in the market and what we should boycott and create alternatives. So that actually is a great opportunity for us. Then we can obviously take some of these profits and invest them back into rebuilding Gaza, helping our brothers in Yemen, in Iraq, in Syria, in Pakistan, everywhere in the world. When whatever social cause that is really close to your heart, you can actually redirect those profits to give back back. That's how you build a Baraka brand, by giving back to the communities, Inshallah. So step a of our market research here. We need to find one problem that Muslims are suffering from. What I like to do is I like to look at myself. What are the challenges that I've gone through? What are the solutions that really worked for me or problems that my loved ones, friends, colleagues have gone through. And what are, what are they also still suffering from here? Their daily life. And usually as humans, we complain a lot, right? So whenever I I hear the same complaint coming back or I can see those patterns, subhanallah, I just try to connect the dots. So just active listening is super important. And to give you an example here, one of the the main problems that I've been suffering from is state of mindfulness and presence during salaj or dhikr or reading Quran relates to the three areas, I would say, but mainly drink salaj. So during my spiritual journey I had the chance to test different compounds, especially being heavily involved in the health and wellness space. I've tried so many nootropics, so many practices like meditation, yoga, breath work. And I've seen the things that really work for me. And mushrooms, adaptogens, especially two kind of mushrooms, lion's mane and chaga. When I compound them with meditation and breath work, subhanallah, I will get deep into my salah. I will reach that connection with Allah. Like time will stop. You lose track of time during that subhanallah. I wish to every Muslim to experience that inshallah on all our five daily prayers and also in our Sunnah. And even better when those mushrooms are combined with coffee. I'm a big coffee drinker, by the way. All in the family, we love coffee, especially Arabica coffee. So you get lion's main shaga, you get the best of mushrooms. And these are not psych, psychoactive or psychedelic mushrooms. They have no side effects. They're just natural mushrooms to help us Subhanallah, gifts from Allah. And then we created Khushua brand Alhamdulillah. And I looked at the data because I looked at social media, blogs, videos, a lot of scholars, a lot of muftis, they're getting asked the same question. People are suffering from Khushu. And usually it's something that people not going to talk about it. They're like, we're ashamed to talk about that because it's really private, right? But when you ask the question, people will tell you like subhanallah, like even me back in the days, I'm, I'm praying and sometimes I'm just, you know, calculating. Okay, this is, this is, okay, this is how we make profit on that. Okay, this is the revenue, okay, what are the things that I should have done? And then I'm thinking about the future, what I'm going to eat, what I'm going to do next. So it's about the state of Taqwa, it always comes back to Taqwa being in a state presence with Allah. And if we can use those tools to help us and then we can lower the coin when we get used to it, we can then remove it. The good. The goal here is not to get people addicted to these compounds. So whenever there is like I have prayer, I need to drink coffee. Coffee. Or take gummies. No, it's all about, you know, getting yourself used to control your subconscious mind whenever you, you, you get used to it. It's like when I were kids and we try, we learn how to bike, right? We have those small ways to help us. And then we remove one, keep one, remove the second one, and then alhamdulillah, we're able to, to ride a bike. The same thing here. It's just these are tools to help us achieve state of Taqwa and then we don't need them anymore. Alhamdulillah. And the same thing happened with dry skin. I have been suffering from eczema since I was 5 years old. So my mom tried so many things, so many products like pharmaceutical, natural, nothing worked for me even as of today. You know, I still struggle sometimes, but it's like a little bit compared to before. But I found out that snail mucus is actually one of the best products for that subhanallah. Who would have thought about that? And then I found out that there was a brand on TikTok shop that was selling like 10 million a year of snail. And the reviews are amazing. And it's trending in the US right now to non Muslims. And since we usually, you know, have wudu five times a day and with all the fluorine and chemicals that are actually in our water, you don't want to know what chemicals they put in our water, but that breaks up the skin. And subhanallah having the best hydration and keeping our skin glowing, especially after wudu, that's super, super important for Muslims. And it's, it's a huge problem as well. So that's why we created the eye skin. Now third problem that I've seen a lot of my loved ones, close ones suffering from. And I check the data, the data match as well, is insomnia. So that's why I have a surprise for you. During this course, we're gonna be building together a brand to help Muslims get rid of insomnia.
