NOLA Cupcakes
Interview Transcript
Interviewer: Farah El Deeb
Narrator: Noor AlMarestani
Date: 22/09/2010
Place: Noor AlMarestani’s home
12 Hassan Sadek Street
Heliopolis, Cairo
Egypt
Noor AlMarestani
Noor AlMarestani was born on February 17th, 1986 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She began her
career in October 2008, as an investment banker at Beltone Financial. Noor spent a year and a
half at Beltone Financial where she met her current fiancée. She successfully executed a large
transaction before she resigned in May 2010 to pursue Entrepreneurship. She is currently the cofounder, co-owner and Executive Manager of NOLA Cupcakes, a home-grown cupcakes
boutique in Zamalek, Cairo. NOLA Cupcakes commenced operations in October 2010. Prior to
her career, Noor began her undergraduate degree in September 2004 at the American University
in Cairo where she spent two years studying her Bachelor’s degree in Finance. She then decided
to continue her education at Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada where she graduated in
July 2008 with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance. Noor is currently in the process of leaving
NOLA Cupcakes due to partnership disagreements and is considering continuing her education
at Concordia with an MBA degree.
The main reason why I chose to interview Noor is because her work experience inspires me. She
is only 24 years old and yet has accomplished a lot. Noor graduated at 21 years old. Two months
later in October 2008, she was training at Beltone Financial for a position that she had longed
for, and after three months, Noor was officially employed as a Junior Analyst starting January
2009. Furthermore, after proving her success in Investment Banking and closing a transaction at
such an early time in her career, Noor was presented with an opportunity to start her own
business and once again did not hesitate to pursue down that path. Personally, I see Noor’s
achievements aspiring because she went for every opportunity that came her way even though
nothing was planned out from before. Despite the turbulences she had experienced throughout
her career, she still kept a strong determination to succeed in everything she does.
Noor discussed the following topics:
*Her work experience as an investment banker at Beltone Financial and how it benefited her
*Her experience with Entrepreneurship and her learning outcomes from her first personal
venture with NOLA Cupcakes
Noteworthy events that Noor mentioned in her interview:
*Her achievements at Beltone Financial and the execution of the 1 billion Egyptian Pound Bond
transaction that she did for GB Auto
Noor made no references to documents, photography or other people we should interview. From
her words however, I understood that there are many media publications that they were presented
in. A few of the ones I found during my research of Noor were The Daily News Egypt and Al
Masry Al Youm. Furthermore, Noor referred to TBS (The Bakery Shop) as the inspiration
behind NOLA Cupcakes. I would say that that is an indirect reference to interview the owners of
TBS assuming that their career history too would be just as inspiring as Noor’s.
Glossary
Concordia University – A renown school in Montreal Canada, where Noor spent two years
completing her Bachelor’s degree in Finance.
Beltone Financial – A leading financial bank in Cairo, Egypt where Noor worked as a Junior
Analyst in the Investment Banking department for a year and a half. Noor had initially completed
a three month training program with the Company prior to being employed.
NOLA Cupcakes – A home-grown cupcake boutique in Zamalek Cairo which Noor and her
partner founded.
TBS- A bakery shop in Zamalek that Noor was inspired by.
Interview Transcript
Interview
Farah El Deeb
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22 September 2011
Persons Present: Farah El Deeb
Noor Almarestani
El Deeb: Today is the 22nd of September 2011. I am Farah El Deeb and I am interviewing my
friend Noor. This interview is taking place in Noor’s house. Hi Noor, how are you?
Almarestani: Hi Farah, I’m good thank you.
El Deeb: Noor, I am conducting this interview for Story Corp Project which is an assignment for
my Multimedia Writing class. I was asked to interview someone who I thought was interesting
and I chose you because your work experience fascinates me.
Almarestani: Thank you that’s very nice of you.
El Deeb: So in regards to that, let’s start. Can you please tell me about yourself?
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Almarestani: My name is Noor Almarestani. I am 24 years old. I currently live in Cairo, Egypt
and I have been living here for the past 3 years and I am currently the Executive Manager at
NOLA Cupcakes.
El Deeb: Did you start your career with NOLA?
Almarestani: No, I started my career with Beltone Financial. Beltone is a leading investment
bank in Cairo. I joined their Beltone academy in October 2008 where I was part of their 3 month
training program and after that I was officially employed in January 2009 as a junior analyst in
the investment banking department. I stayed with them for a year and a half.
El Deeb: Was Beltone a good stepping-stone for Entrepreneurship?
Almarestani: Yes, Beltone was an excellent stepping-stone. It taught me how to discipline
myself, how to multi-task, how to work well under pressure and how to deal with customers
which basically is everything about customer service at NOLA Cupcakes. Besides the financial
aspects of what Beltone taught me, I think that a lot of the stuff I learnt over there, I applied at
NOLA Cupcakes and were very very useful.
El Deeb: What was your biggest achievement at Beltone?
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Almarestani: I executed a one billion Egyptian pound bond transaction for GB Auto. It was
basically my biggest achievement over there.
El Deeb: And how did you come up with the cupcakes idea?
Almarestani: My partner had just came back from Canada and she wanted to open something of
her own and because I had already spent a few months at Beltone, I realized that the best
industry and the most sustainable one is the Food and Beverages industry and I also noticed that
there was a growing demand for cupcakes and but there wasn’t a store that was open yet and the
bakers were all baking from their house. So I basically advised her that she should go ahead and
open a store like that and after that she executed the plan through and I joined her afterwards.
El Deeb: And on a typical day in this position what do you do?
Almarestani: You do everything. Yeah, in all departments of all the business, you basically,
everyday there is a task that needs to be done in more than one department. We go in the
morning we check that the store is clean and if it isn’t clean we end up cleaning and fixing things
that need to be fixed. And then we go upstairs to the kitchen to make sure that all the cupcakes
are of a certain quality and standard that we want them to be. We fix the designs. And, we, after
that we pertain to all customer service requirements, everything they need, their complaints,
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their. We see the accountants, we check the previous day figures, we see the HR issues,
everything everything, you can’t really focus on one thing.
El Deeb: And what personal qualities or abilities are important to being successful in this job?
Almarestani: You need a lot of patience. You need motivation. You need a very strong
determination. Your leadership skills must be very good. And you really need to know how to
manage people and by managing I just don’t, I don’t just mean that you know how to basically
answer to their demands or, everything everything to do with people’s management. I think those
are the most important qualities.
El Deeb: And how did you manage to achieve public awareness so quickly?
Almarestani: With NOLA I think it basically came to us. We didn’t put a lot of effort with the
media, other than the fact that we just put a lot of effort to make everyone aware that NOLA
Cupcakes was opening and it wasn’t that great of an exposure because we just sent out mass
messages to the people we knew. But, starting from the day we commenced operations in
October 2010, I think the media was mainly coming to us because NOLA was a relatively new
idea, yes it has been done before by young people but I think it was the first time that it was done
by two girls. We had paid so much attention to branding and the image and that was relatively
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also new in Cairo, so the media was coming to us and for the first six months if I recall correctly
all our media publications were done for free because the magazines wanted us to be in them.
El Deeb: And how was it being interviewed?
Almarestani: It felt very weird just as much as it’s feeling weird right now. Usually I used to see
the people that were being interviewed and I just look at them and it just it feel’s, it’s a very
weird feeling that I am in their shoes there, but it’s also a very nice sense of accomplishment and
I don’t know it’s just, it’s a very nice feeling.
El Deeb: And from your perspective, what are the problems you see working in this field?
Almarestani: In Egypt, it’s very difficult working with the Egyptian workforce and the labor
force. I think when we were preparing the store we faced a lot of difficulties regarding deadlines
and time management from the workers and the carpenters and everyone. Just everyone was late
delivering, the work wasn’t done well and it was difficult to communicate what you wanted with
them because that’s how Egypt is. And in regards to employees it’s sort of the same thing. I think
working with a certain social class makes it a bit difficult. Sometimes they don’t understand the
level of products you want and to them it’s superior and vice versa so I think that’s the most
difficult thing that you could find.
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El Deeb: What part of your job do you find most satisfying and most challenging?
Almarestani: Most satisfying is definitely seeing customers happy and the smiles on their faces,
when you get compliments about your product and when you over hear people on the table next
to you over lunch talking about your product and how great it was. Reading good reviews and
reading nice articles and magazines written about you, is just a very very nice feeling, I will
never, I mean I’ve collected all, every single magazine article because they’re just very special to
me. But most challenging, was definitely managing people. Sometimes it becomes very tricky
and I’m not just talking about the hours but basically trying to make sure that your employees are
constantly motivated and if one of them becomes de-motivated you need to try to motivate them
again without having to affect their colleagues or just keep the overall mood the way it should
be.
El Deeb: And what opportunities for advancement are there in this field?
Almarestani: I’d say business development. Basically you can do it in one of two ways, you can
either expand locally by yourself or internationally, or you can seek franchising which is
basically selling your brand to other people who are interested to open a store like yours with the
same brand name and the same products and I think that’s the most rewarding and the best thing
that a company can do for its brand.
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El Deeb: And how do you see jobs in this field changing in the future?
Almarestani: It definitely already has changed a lot. Over the past two years I have seen a
significant increase in these small medium enterprises in Egypt and I think a lot of young
entrepreneurs are arising with excellent ideas so there’s definitely great potential and they’re all
trying to achieve international standards which I think they are doing very successfully. I mean
I’ve seen a few concepts here and there. TBS was the inspiring one that lead us to create NOLA
because they did a really good job at their concept and they eventually sold parts of it very
successfully. So I think there is huge potential for these types of businesses in Egypt.
El Deeb: And if you could do this all over again, would you choose the same path for yourself?
Almarestani: (Agitated) I don’t think I’d do everything exactly the same, I would definitely not
hesitate to do another concept and go down that risk of, that path of uncertainty because it
definitely was very fun, it was a great experience and I learnt a lot from it, but certain things for
instance I’m having a few problems with my partnership so I think I’d either try to do it alone if I
could or if I’d have to seek partners id lay down a more stronger foundation to secure my rights
afterwards, so I think that’s what I would do if I would do it again.
El Deeb: And what special advice would you give a person entering this field?
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Almarestani: I’d definitely tell them to go for it and to face any fears they have because if its
done properly it can succeed very well and I think, I mean it’s a wonderful opportunity and I
think anyone should just go for it and everything has a solution so any business can be turned
into a very good one just with the right mind and a strong determination and motivation. That’s
it.
El Deeb: Well thank you so much for taking the time to help me with this assignment.
Almarestani: You’re welcome, thank you
El Deeb: It was nice getting to know you on a more professional basis. And definitely if I ever
choose to be an entrepreneur, I know where to go.
Almarestani: Thank you, that’s very sweet of you Farah, good luck.
El Deeb: Thank you.