Content warning: this episode contains graphic content. Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy thought she was going to die. She's the Founder & CEO of Consciously, an ethically-sourced and sustainable fashion platform. Between an incredibly tense childbirth, starting a business in the grips of COVID, and contracting the virus herself, it wreaked havoc on her mind and body. But she managed to keep it all together. Being forced to walk such a winding path reminded Maisa of her own mother. Like her, she was an entrepreneur in the garment industry. And at just 26, she became a single mother of 3 after leaving an abusive marriage. This is an episode about determination, grit, and persistence. Maisa talks about the moments where she almost threw in the towel, the importance of buckling down on fair pay, and how the warmth of family keeps her striving forward.
Content warning: this episode contains graphic content.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy thought she was going to die.
She's the Founder & CEO of Consciously, an ethically-sourced and sustainable fashion platform. Between an incredibly tense childbirth, starting a business in the grips of COVID, and contracting the virus herself, it wreaked havoc on her mind and body. But she managed to keep it all together.
Being forced to walk such a winding path reminded Maisa of her own mother. Like her, she was an entrepreneur in the garment industry. And at just 26, she became a single mother of 3 after leaving an abusive marriage.
This is an episode about determination, grit, and persistence. Maisa talks about the moments where she almost threw in the towel, the importance of buckling down on fair pay, and how the warmth of family keeps her striving forward.
Maisa talks about:
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Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "Let Your Enemies Feel the Weight of Your Burdens," "Cylinder Three," "Heliograph," "Short Song 011723," "Short Song 021523," "There's a Special Place for Some People."
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:00]:
Not everyone can grit their teeth and grind for hours a day. They can't cram inventory that isn't selling into their spare bedroom. They won't advocate for their manufacturer's rights if it means taking a sledgehammer to profits. Starting a sustainable fashion venture isn't for everyone. Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy knew the road ahead would be rough when she started Consciously. Today, her platform stalks a staggering number of ethically produced, environmentally friendly clothing brands for men, women and kids. She started the company during the pandemic. She had just had her first child and the two experiences wreak havoc on her body.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:46]:
But toughness runs in Maisa's family. At just 26, her mother left an abusive marriage to raise Maisa and her two brothers, bouncing from La to the UK and then Bangladesh, she's a successful entrepreneur in her own right. In fact, Maisa's whole family consists of hardened entrepreneurs who made their way in the garment industry. She grew up listening to the roadblocks faced by factory owners who often had to cut ethical corners to keep up with the steady demands of Western fashion brands. When the torch was passed to her, Maisa took an even tougher path more demanding, more hands on and more fulfilling. You're about to hear Maisa's best advice for Bootstrapping, an ethically and environmentally conscious venture, how she bloomed as a fiercely determined business owner and the nearly insurmountable difficulties she overcame to forge her entrepreneurial path. I'm Katherin Vasilopolous and this is and so she left the podcast about incredible women founders and the wisdom they uncovered beyond the corporate world. No entrepreneur, not even the most successful among us, has everything figured out.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:16]:
That goes double for Maisa. She recently gave birth to her son and is still finding that crucial balance between work and motherhood. Spoiler alert it hasn't been easy pre or post pregnancy.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:02:31]:
My son is four and a half months old, so to be honest, I haven't figured out what the balance is. I'm like working a little bit here and there when I can, but otherwise I'm with him and I'm at that point where I'm trying to figure out what childcare looks like and if I want part time help or full time help. This is my first baby, and running a business with a baby is really hard. There's a lot of mom guilt. But I'm also really fortunate to have a good team and feel confident to step aside while they run things so I can focus on being with my child right now.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:03:13]:
Yeah. Tell me about what that means to you, mom guilt.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:03:16]:
I don't know. It's like a really strange feeling. I think women always generally feel like they're kind of falling short no matter what they do, just because of how society has conditioned us. But, yeah, I think when I am working, or if I want to work, I feel like, oh, my gosh, why am I focusing on this when I need to be focusing on my child? He's so young, and it is just really hard to navigate, even thinking, is he too young for me to leave him with a nanny? Should I be watching him? Should I put Consciously on pause for a little bit so I can focus on raising my child for the next year? But just think thoughts like that that pop up. And it's really hard because, again, I've never done this before. I don't know what the right thing is to do, and I don't think there is one right thing. I think it looks different for everyone just because I'm so passionate about what I do at Consciously that it would be really hard for me to step aside for so long.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:04:18]:
Yeah. Are you in touch with other moms who are in the same situation?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:04:22]:
I do have mom friends, but I don't have a lot of mom friends who are entrepreneurs. It's definitely its own unique set of challenges. I think my mom friends who work at companies, they know they have a certain amount of time off, and so during that time off, they don't need to do anything except be with their child. And they know that. They're like, okay, six months I'm with my baby, and then I have to figure out childcare, and then I have to go back to work. Right. So it's like compartmentalized in a bit more of a structured way. Whereas when you're a founder, not just with a baby, anything, you're always having to figure out that balance.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:03]:
Did you think about it during your pregnancy? And now that he's here, is it completely different than what you were planning?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:05:09]:
Yeah, I thought I was going to do, like, three months off, and any mom friend that I shared that with, they were like, that's not enough time. You're going to want more time. And I'm like, I'll be fine. And then I had my baby, and now he's like, four and a half, and I'm like, I just want to be with him all the time as well. It's almost like having to pick between my two babies.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:33]:
That's it. They're like, baby drug. And it's like, I don't want to leave him. This is the most important thing now.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:05:39]:
Yeah, totally. And it is something I obviously thought about during pregnancy. And I was like, okay, I'll take three months off and then I'll go back to work. But it's not been that simple, especially had a really tough labor. And so it took me a while to recover and really start feeling like myself. So now that I am feeling like myself, I feel like, oh, I can actually enjoy my child now.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:06:03]:
Right. Can I ask what happened during labor? I know it could get really graphic, but she as much as you want.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:06:10]:
Yeah, it was rough. I was in labor for 44 hours.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:06:15]:
Oh, my gosh.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:06:17]:
I went in on a Thursday, and I had the baby on a Saturday. I was induced at 40 and a half weeks. And the baby was he's, like, big. And I'm a really petite person, and I wasn't dilated or anything when I had gone in, so we had to do the whole thing. They started with a balloon, and then that didn't work the first time, and so they did it again. That itself took, like, 12 hours to dilate me to, like, four years.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:06:52]:
Wow.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:06:54]:
They gave me a Mesoprostol, which is a pill that softens your cervix, that didn't really do much, and then they put me on Pitocin, which makes your contractions more frequent and stronger. Still didn't really do anything, I guess not much really happened until they broke my water. And when they did that, it really fast forwarded things, and it was, like, immediate contractions, and it was super painful. And they gave me epidural. I learned during pregnancy that epidural doesn't work on everyone. So I was like, oh, my God, that's my worst nightmare.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:07:33]:
What? I thought oh, no.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:07:36]:
So, unfortunately, it didn't work very well on me. Then I had to push, and I pushed for, like, 5 hours, and it was really stressful because he wasn't progressing and his head was big. He was stuck. He was turned in a weird way. So the doctor-
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:07:57]:
He really made you work for it, didn't he?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:07:59]:
Totally. It was so exhausting. When I think about it, I'm like, how did I do that? But I'm like, you're literally on survival mode, and your goal is, like, I need to get this baby out.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:08:11]:
That's right.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:08:13]:
Yeah. It was like at 06:00 a.m on Saturday. They were like, all right, we need to take you in for a C section because baby's heart rate is dropping, your oxygen is dropping. And I was so exhausted by that point. I was like, do whatever you need to to get this. I was in the hospital for a couple of days. I wanted to leave. I didn't want to stay for three days just because I wanted to be at home with my mom and just be in the comfort of my home.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:08:40]:
But then I was back in the hospital a week later because I was, like, throwing up eight times a day because my intestines stopped working. They were blocked, so I was, like, throwing up. And then I had to be back in the hospital for another three days. And, yeah, it was, like, not fun.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:08:56]:
But you showed incredible strength and resilience, and you kept going. And that, to me, is incredible because it's not easy. This is one of the most difficult things, and you're right, it is a blur. And after you come to the other side, you made it. Have you always been a strong person like this?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:09:17]:
No, I'm the kind of person who's, like, even paper cuts scare me. My husband always jokes because when we first started dating, I cut my thumb trying to cut an avocado, and I was so terrified, but I was, like, bleeding, but I wasn't looking at the cut. And he was like, what's wrong with you? Why are you not dealing with this? I was like, I'm so terrified I can't look at blood. And so he had to clean it and make sure, put disinfectant, all of that. He'll tell you how terrified I am of all this stuff. I was scared of labor even when I was pregnant. It was the one thing that was kind of like, I didn't know how I was going to deal with it, but I never expected it to be that hard. Right.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:12]:
It's not as planned. Right. It wasn't the way you thought.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:10:15]:
Yeah, I had a healthy pregnancy and my baby was okay. So that's, I think, what matters ultimately. But it's definitely made me think twice about having another one.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:29]:
But I think when you go through something like that, it changes your sense of feeling like a lion or the bravery that comes with giving birth to another human. And then you feel like you can do anything. If you can do that, you can run a business. That's no problem.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:10:45]:
Totally. I agree.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:46]:
Yeah.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:10:48]:
I think that we actually don't realize how much strength we have until we're in that situation.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:53]:
Exactly.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:10:54]:
Like, if I had known that that's how my labor would be, I would have been like, I can't do it. But when you're in it, and when you know that you have to do this thing and it's for your baby, then somehow you just find the courage to put yourself through that and know that you have to go through it to have a healthy delivery.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:19]:
Maisa piqued my interest when she mentioned her own mother, the ability to brave such intense storms in her personal and professional life had to have come from somewhere. As it turns out, her mother is also one tough cookie. You mentioned your mom earlier. Describe her a little bit and tell me what you've learned from her growing up with her.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:11:41]:
Oh, my mom is super tough. We're very different in terms of how we think fundamentally. I think we have the same values, but she's very fierce. She's very feisty. She's very extroverted. I'm more of an introvert. I'm a little bit more calm, reserved. My mom has been a single mom since she was 26.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:12:06]:
She was in an abusive marriage, and so she had three kids. It was me and my two brothers. I have one older brother and one younger brother. And when my younger brother was born, my mom left her husband. So she had three kids under the age of seven and was a single mom at 26. And I really have no idea how she did it, because that's just crazy. I couldn't imagine. And she's had a tough childhood.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:12:34]:
She's had a tough life. But I think she's faced it with a lot of courage, and I admire her for that. She's also an entrepreneur. She's, I would say, probably my biggest supporter. She's a very caring and nurturing mom.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:12:52]:
And you were both in Bangladesh when you grew up there?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:12:56]:
So when my mom got divorced, we were in LA for, like, a year. That's where my little brother was born. She had an aunt there that know, take care of her after her divorce, and then we moved to Scotland. I lived there for, like, eight years. My brothers and I went to school there, and it was really just to get away from my dad. Then we moved back to Bangladesh in 2001, and she's been there since.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:13:28]:
Okay. And so she's been running her business as far back as you can remember. She's been entrepreneurial.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:13:33]:
Yeah, she started her business when we moved back to Bangladesh. She took over a company that my granddad had started, and it was, like, a very small company. It's a printing and packaging business, and now it's like a multimillion dollar business that she grew herself.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:13:54]:
Wow. Amazing. Do you recall seeing anything when you were younger? Or, like, can you describe your experience watching your mom operate?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:14:08]:
Yeah, I guess she's always been really hardworking. She would go to work in the morning, and she would always be back home for lunch to have lunch with us, and then she would go back to work, then come back in the evenings, and then we would spend time together, have dinner, all of that. She's always been really transparent with us about how things are going and what's happening with her business. So it's always been really interesting to hear her journey. And obviously, when I go home and see how her business is expanding year over year is also really cool and inspiring. My family, they're pretty much all entrepreneurial. So business was definitely a big conversation at the dinner table.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:14:54]:
So let's bring it back to your work experience. Tell me a little bit about what that looked like when you were in school and then when you graduated into your first job. What was that like for you?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:15:06]:
I joined the manufacturing business while I was in school here in San Francisco. So because I'm from Bangladesh, which is the world's second largest garment exporter, where most fast fashion brands manufacture several, if not majority, of my friends and family own garment businesses. In my whole life, I've heard of the challenges that factory owners face to meet the ever growing demands on Western brands that come into the country to leverage cheap labor and relaxed policies. I studied fashion marketing. That's why I came to San Francisco. And I always knew that I wanted to start my own thing, but I actually didn't know what that would look like until I got into manufacturing. While I was in school, I was also working at the manufacturing business. And it was that experience that really showed me how apathetic businesses are towards garment workers, because I would be in business meetings with buyers telling them that, hey, we want to pay our workers a living wage.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:16:05]:
Which is pretty unheard of and it's like four times the amount of what they actually get paid. But I would always be met with, that's not our responsibility. We need you to make this product for one dollars a unit. Otherwise we'll just go to the factory next door and they could easily do that because tons of factories are willing to do that. And the more I learned, the more committed I became to bringing about positive change in fashion. And I would say I landed on the idea for Consciously around the end of 2018. So by this point there were enough sustainable fashion brands doing truly incredible work while also creating beautiful products. I realized that people who do want to shop ethically made fashion have a really difficult time navigating the space because it can be overwhelming to research and understand.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:17:00]:
When Consciously did launch, we were only a womenswear platform. But now we're in wellness home goods, men's, children's.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:17:09]:
What's confusing people when they are looking for ethically sourced products and brands?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:17:16]:
There's so much greenwashing and you just don't know what you don't know. Right. It's like if I were to try and figure out how to navigate the food industry, like what's organic, what's not organic, what ingredients are actually good for me, most people, the average consumer doesn't know what sustainable fashion looks like and how to find those brands. It's a complex space and people don't just want to buy things. I think these days they want to feel like they're contributing to a cause through the purchasing choices they make, especially millennials and Gen Z. And consumers are paying attention. There was a report that said 70% of them want to know what brands are supporting or doing to address social and environmental issues. And because sustainable fashion is so multifaceted, I built a marketplace where consumers can already shop the vetted brands by the values most important to them.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:18:14]:
I'm listening to you talk and I'm thinking about people who want to shop consciously and they want to shop at companies that do as you're saying, but then the price tag sometimes is prohibitive.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:18:27]:
Totally. Yeah. I would say that is our biggest pinpoint and that's when we survey site visitors on why did you not purchase with us? It's 80% of the time. It's because the price is too high. And I think what a lot of people fail to maybe not see is that the price is high is because the people that are making the clothes are getting paid fairly. They're not getting paid like five cents to make a shirt. They're making a living wage. And that is obviously a contributing factor to the price of the products that you're purchasing from an ethical brand.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:19:07]:
Yeah, we've been trained to think that a shirt should be worth $8. Yeah, but the reason it's $8 is because someone down the production line didn't get paid what they were worth.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:19:18]:
Exactly.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:19:21]:
Maisa is clearly a learned entrepreneur. She knows her industry from top to bottom and has put in the extra legwork necessary for success in her industry. So what are her biggest takeaways? Do you remember the moment where you said, okay, enough is enough, I need to start my own thing?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:19:40]:
Again, I think I had the idea for Consciously around 2018. The biggest issue people were facing was they don't know where to find these brands because a lot of them are small businesses. They don't have the same marketing dollars as Forever 21s of the world. So most people don't know that they exist. And so that's where I was like, oh, it would be interesting to bring all these brands together and be like a marketing engine for them. A lot of the brands we work with don't have the same. They're maybe spending more on product development research, whereas we are spending more on tech and marketing. And then I decided to go all in on it in 2020.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:20:26]:
I had COVID really bad. I was like, one of the very early ones that had COVID, and I didn't know it was COVID. And there was a point where I thought I was going to die. I was sick for like, seven months. I was bedridden for seven months, and I had COVID. And I thought I was, like, having symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis. I was getting tested for it, and it was just a lot of things happening health wise. And so that really was like, a moment for me to be like, okay, I need to do what I feel like my life's purpose is.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:21:00]:
So I started consciously. I was like, I'm not going to wait around anymore. I'm just going to do it.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:05]:
And you started it right after you were sick? Or during?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:21:09]:
No, I started right after. I got sick in December, and I was probably bedridden till like, May, June. And I started working on Consciously in July, and then we launched in October, 2020.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:26]:
Wow. So what were the biggest challenges then? Because you're having a pandemic baby business, which is a lot of people did that. I mean, I think that's very courageous to launch into your own business during a pandemic. So describe what that was like.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:21:45]:
I mean, it's tough because I think entrepreneurs are faced with unique challenges every day. But definitely one of the biggest challenges was launching in the midst of a global pandemic. We faced multiple delays in launching Consciously because a lot of my vendors were facing supply chain issues where factories were shutting down or operating unpredictably. And so deadlines weren't being met, they didn't have products in stock. And so that made it really hard for us to plan inventory. And retail was one of the most devastated industries by COVID. So when we did launch, our sales were trickling in so slowly for the first year and a half. And that was something that we had anticipated to some degree.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:22:31]:
But nonetheless, it was really hard and really stressful, especially because we're a bootstrapped company and we'd invested so much capital into inventory. When we first launched, we were actually carrying the products at my house and I was shipping the packages. And then in June 2021, I shifted to a drop ship model. As a founder with very limited resources, we don't have investors. You really have to get your hands dirty in all aspects of the business and constantly learn new skills, which is always a humbling experience, but it really does compel you to intimately get to know the ins and outs of your business. And I think that's ultimately an advantage and a superpower for a business owner.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:18]:
Were you ever thinking that this is a mistake?
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:23:22]:
Yeah, definitely. Especially the first year and a half, even now, so many times where I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Because you grow at a much slower pace when you're bootstrapped and it is really hard to figure things out mostly on your own with limited funding when your business isn't growing at the pace that you would like for it to. It's very easy to think, I just want to give up. And that's why a lot of startups do fail, is because it's hard to keep going when you're not seeing the growth that you anticipate at the rate at which you anticipate.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:24:03]:
Yeah. Again, things didn't go as planned. Right. When things don't go as planned, it's so easy to throw in the towel instead of looking for the opportunity sometimes.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:24:13]:
Yeah. And I kind of kept at it because whenever I think about what else would I do, I don't feel as excited about doing anything else. I'm super passionate about consciously. If I wasn't, I wouldn't keep going. Even though there are times where I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And then I'll sit and think about what that would look like and I'll be like, no, I need to do this. And the business is sort of able to fund itself. Whereas before I was using my savings and my mom had given me the capital to start consciously.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:24:49]:
Yeah, we're growing really well now and I feel super lucky to have gotten to where we're at. But there are still days where I'm like, this is so freaking hard. And there have been days where I've wanted to quit, but I can't imagine doing anything else. I personally believe that it's all of our individual responsibilities to leave the world a better place than how we found it. And I think that I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to do that through my business. Whereas if I worked at another company, I would be working for someone else's mission versus my own. If you are truly passionate about something and you have a problem that you think you're the right person to solve, then just start. Things will never be perfect.
Maisa Mumtaz-Cassidy [00:25:32]:
You'll constantly fail, but you'll constantly learn and evolve. It is incredibly scary, but that's okay. It's part of the journey and you have to be really willing to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:46]:
Thank you so much. to Maisa. You can learn more about Consciously through the link in the episode description. If you liked the show, please rate review and subscribe to And So, She Left wherever you listen, your feedback helps us to better serve current listeners and reach new ones. I also have some great news. And So, She Left is nominated for a Signal Award. Please head to the link in the episode description to cast your vote. Your support helps us to continue our mission to highlight extraordinary women who found wisdom beyond the corporate world.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:26:17]:
And so she left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.