PATHFINDER
It’s interesting about how we’re so hard-wired to think that what’s most urgent is the most important to deal with first—that it’s do or die if you don’t complete it at this time,” says PurelyB co-founder and CEO Raja Jesrina Arshad. “Granted, the urgency of a task depends on the circumstances, but you’ve only got so much time in a day, right? And there’s a million things on your to-do list that have been due since yesterday and are urgent. So, what do you do then?
“You evaluate and prioritise what would most move the needle. Whether it’s your business or your personal life, do what would allow you to reach the biggest goal the fastest. While tunnel vision is understandable, it’s much more efficient if you take a step back and are willing to be more flexible with yourself. If you complete that bigger task, maybe you’ll have more resources to complete the smaller ones.”
But knowing to prioritise smartly and actually doing it was a lesson that Jesrina admits took time to learn. In the first year of preparing and launching the wellness portal PurelyB, the first-time entrepreneur had no social life whatsoever as she threw herself headfirst into the startup while working full-time as a digital marketing media strategist.
Though Jesrina says that there may have been a better, more balanced way of launching a startup, within the year and a half of putting her nose to the grindstone, her efforts paid off: PurelyB went from being a one-woman passion project to a 500 Startupsbacked brand with a lean but passionate team of women who believed in and genuinely enjoyed what they were doing—no matter how fast-tracked it was or how high their objectives got with each milestone reached.
“I think any entrepreneur would tell
