Meet Asiya Modest Activewear | Episode 4

Hussein: You know, why are there not Muslim girls who aren’t participating in sport? They're like, “Oh, you know...I never really thought about it.” 

This is the Lunar Startups Podcast and I'm your host, Twila Dang. 

Lunar Startups launched its first cohort in the fall of 2018—a startup accelerator determined to create better opportunities for women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color. At the heart of this work were six companies, a group of entrepreneurs representing a variety of fields coming together with the support of Lunar Startups to take their businesses to the next level. We'd like you to meet them. We asked the cohort Founders to share the origin stories of their businesses.

Hussein: I'm Fatimah Hussein.

Glover: And I'm Jamie Glover. We are the co-founders of Asiya Modest Activewear. 

The mission of Asiya is to enable Muslim girls and women to be physically active while upholding their religious and cultural beliefs. 

Hussein: I started a nonprofit that worked with East African Muslim girls [in] South Minneapolis. There was a need for them to be really into physical activity. 

We saw a lot of girls and women who were not physically active and they were not using the gym—it was only boys using it. So we decided to really find a time that was special for them to be physically active and also not worry about their clothes and just play freely. 

Right after we started it, we saw a large number of the young girls wanted to play... in their school sports. And when we found out a lot of them were not playing for their school's sports, the big issue was because of their clothing. So I talked to the girls and the mothers and really said ‘What is the big reason why your girls are not playing?” and [for] a lot of them it came back to clothes—not having enough appropriate culturally and religious clothes that they can really play freely [in]. 

And then also a lot of the girls who were playing in the private gym—those who decided to play they would just not where their culturally and religious hijab, which was a big concern. Because when we started that space, it was a place where they should be free and appreciate who they are and not worry about it. But then I was like, oh...it's a whole different thing, taking these girls away from what their parents have trusted me [with]. And that's when we started meeting with the community—the parents, the elders, and found out that we need to find clothes that they can really not lose their culture or religion and play freely. 

Glover: So my background—related to what we're doing with Asiya—goes back to kind of growing up in the world of sports. I played sports through my whole life. My mom was actually the first female athletic director in the state of Minnesota. So sports was a big part of my life from a young age and I went and played through college. Once I started my career in marketing at a few different companies, I found that a lot of the leadership skills that I put forth or my ability to guide a team and kind of work through problems and be resilient all kind of laddered back to things that I learned in those sports experiences—whether it was on the court or on a softball field. And so when I went back to school to get my masters in business, I was really focused on wanting to find something where my next career opportunity could be something really impact focused. When I heard about this work that Fatimah was doing in the community, literally just blocks from my business school, I loved the opportunity to help more girls have access to sports and all those really rich meaningful experiences and developmental opportunities that you get through sports to set you up for success later in life. 

So my background in just, kind of, a passion for sports and then from a career standpoint—kind of an understanding of marketing and an interest in business kind of came together when I met Fatimah and the work that she was doing. It helped us kind of launch together a new partnership in finding a solution for this, you know, large large community both here in Minneapolis, but also around the country, around the world who have a need for culturally appropriate activewear. And who you know, in some cases, there are girls who today don't see themselves as kind of being invited into the world of sports or never thought it was for them who now, we can kind of invite and say that all are welcome here and all can participate.

Hussein: Once I met with the community, we started doing a prototype of what they really wanted to see in activewear. It was a whole uniform—a jersey uniform—that was up to your knee with a sport hijab. We had a big fashion show and the fashion show actually [caught] a lot of media and a lot of attention throughout Minnesota and around the world. One of our house state's senators, Kerry Dix is the one who said ‘Tima, I can see this as more than just the city of Riverside Community. I can see this go out and support more Muslim girls’. I was like ‘oh, yeah, that's a really nice idea’. 

I was like, ‘I never thought about making it a business’. She was like ‘I can connect you to people’. Then she connected me to one of our big mentors, Monica Nassif, who has actually started from a to b what business looks like and what I need. And I was like, ‘Oh my, we have to find someone who understands that background’. So that's when I reached out and I was introduced to Jamie from there who was a first year business student.  From there it became a relationship that has really brought us really close. For me, it was a personal day to day experience when I was young and Jamie was like ‘I can bring the picture when it comes to marketing and really communicate this out to the community—why this is important and it's needed’. 

There, we met with the community again and the girls, which I coach and really still had relationships with. And I said ‘Okay, the uniform is very hard to really introduce to the schools and places where you play. What is the one item that you might need that will help you play and be physically active?’ And they said the hijab was the most important part of the active wear that they would need. So we focused on sport hijab. What we found out is that after our prototype, the girls we made the hijab for were like ‘This hijabs are hot, they're sweaty—we can't play with it, Fatimah’. I was like ‘Oh yeah, we didn't really do fabric’. We did not check any fabric. So we started from zero. 

It was really nice because they gave us the input on what worked, what didn't work—how they liked it. Every little detail. It was the community who was involved in this. It was a co-creation. It was just not Fatimah who would say ‘When I was young, I would like this’, it was the girls who said ‘It hurts my ear’ or ‘It doesn't feel good on my face’. 

And we took that into account. Then, after 80 different fabrics, we found the right one. They said ‘Yeah, this is sweat weakening, its lightweight, [and] it is breathable. We’re like ‘Check, check, check’. Okay, we felt comfortable making the sport hijab now. 

We'll be right back after the break. 

Welcome back to the Lunar Startups Podcast. 

Hussein: From picking the name Asiya—it was not my name. It was the girls who chose that. We had a Sunday afternoon, which we came together and we say ‘We’re creating the company but we need something that represents you—that you feel comfortable with’. Because it's not Fatimah who created this, it’s the community. I always say ‘Fatimah just help and really navigated the resource that is available,’ but it was not something that was from me. 

So they pick the Asiya name and they thought it was a name that really spoke to them because it was a like a house name. So Asiya was one of the Egyptians—his wife—who fought against Injustice. She wanted women to be able to do things. 

She helped the poor. So she was someone who they all were like, ‘Oh, I want to be like Asiya’. I think what made it a relationship, because we both had visions and we both had passions, and that passion was just...we wanted to do a social impact. It was not about making money. It was about yeah, we wanted more girls to be physically active. We want more role models emerging. We know this was not overnight. We knew it was a movement that would take a couple of years and we knew the commitment was not just to get rich and move up.

To this day, I'm still connected to the nonprofit. Still…on Sunday, I'm there. My community and my parents always say the girls are always my first baby. 

It's something that I'm like, I want them to succeed. I want them not to think about ‘Oh, I can't play sports because of the clothing’ and Jamie she understood how important it was for her when she played—all the experience. It was kind of a sad that in this century, Muslim girls were not getting that experience because of clothing. 

Glover: You know, we get asked all the time how we met or how we got connected as founders and the best is when Fatima, without even hesitating, will say ‘Well, we're sisters’. So we just, you know, grew up together and decided to do this. And people just pause. But I mean, for me...Fatimah and I have, you know, come from vastly different kind of experiences and despite kind of a lot of different perspectives and providing a good kind of check and balance in that which I think is important, we agree on a lot of things that I think come back to like Fatima said like just kind of what we see is the true vision for this and what's important versus not. So those foundational components of the business—around its purpose and its path and its vision—we have the same vision. Which I think has made a successful partnership so far. 

The best way to explain it is something that one of our mentors talked to us about early on, when it comes to a partnership is it's like we're riding a tandem bike. Fatimah's in 

the front seat and I'm in the back seat. Fatimah's steering us and pointing which way to go—guiding the way. She's, you know, kind of out front in terms of the representation of the business to the community and to the world and I'm behind her kind of peddling and doing all the things behind the scenes operationally—finance, accounting, you know, marketing, planning, and all those components. So that's kind of high level how we see our two roles.

Hussein: The marketing part—I might have an idea. How do we get to that idea? How do we present it out—because we're not only just talking to our Muslim community. We're talking to other communities who might not understand what the struggle of a young Muslim woman is and a young Muslim girl who is basically in their child's classroom. So every time it's like, okay the visual part. So we really work really well together. The representation—it's me. Jamie might have amazing ideas, but I'm like that looks good, but I think we need to go. So we balance each other. When it comes to that and the roles, I think Jamie explained it really well. 

Our biggest challenge right now is that there's not a lot of young Muslim girls who are playing. So it's really hard when we're explaining to the athletic directors. You know, why are there not Muslim girls who are participating in your sport? And they're like ‘Oh, you know, I never really thought about it’. And so it's a lot of—right now—educating, really talking to the coaches. It's like a grassroots movement right now. It's from PE classes. 

That's when I started loving playing sports. It was—I had the right shoes. I had the right scarf. So explaining to the PE teacher that if you want the next generation of young Muslim girls to play sports, you need to be able to provide this equipped sport hijab so they can feel welcome and be part of it. So, our challenge is that there's not too many Muslim girls who are playing with the hijab. There is lot of Muslim girls who are playing because they want to continue to play but they have to take off their hijab. We're saying ‘You can have both worlds, you know, you don't have to lose your religion...you can have both worlds’. Just like the football, you cannot play football without a helmet so it's the same as that. The hijab for young Muslims to be involved in sports is that equipment that they need. 

Glover: Something that I wish people understood about our company that is kind of a challenge that we face, is that it is a social business—that we do kind of first and foremost need to build awareness and education around this discrepancy and participation in sports and physical activity and that we are trying to make a change in our culture around how to create access to sports and physical activity in different ways. For young Muslim women, what that looks like in terms of the equipment you provide. And like Fatima said, it's really starts with this early stage conversation and working with youth sports organizations and, you know, schools who are eager to find new and Innovative innovative ways to welcome emerging populations into their communities. 

And so we're, you know, we're still at the very kind of forefront of that. [We’re] building awareness around this as we're trying to also build this as a business. So we kind of view these first few years almost as nonprofit work because it's impact-focused and we're making this huge shift in our culture. Then at the same time, as a business, we're basically building our market in the process. We decided to be a for-profit entity because we do see it as a sustainable business down the line because there's a real need and there's a real market. But this upfront change has to happen first. And so when we're talking to people about the stage our business is in or what we need from a capital standpoint, that kind of dichotomy is something that takes some time to understand because it's different. The world of social businesses is emerging but it's, you know, as an apparel company, I think we have even more challenges because you know, we deal with inventory and a lot of upfront costs. It's just a it's a new model and [it’s] something we're excited about we think is right, but it just takes some extra time for people to understand.

Fatimah has a great sense of humor, which is important for any life situation and helps us really, I think, navigate some challenging times and when things come up. I really appreciate that about Fatimah. 

Hussein: The thing I appreciate about Jamie the most is that we trust each other. There [are] some decisions that you have to make [and] one of us might not be there. But we always say ‘If you believe that's a decision you have to make, just do it and we'll talk about it’. Our trust is very important and I think this is...why we're still together, why we feel like we can continue to be together and we know we're going to be together for a long time—it’s that trust.

Glover: We are, kind of, divide and conquering the work that we do and when we do have issues come up, we just jump on the phone and talk through it. 

And you know, we have a lot of respect for each other. And so appreciating...the speed we have to go at and decisions we have to make, that all comes down to kind of a mutual respect and communicating through it. 

Hussein: Yeah, communication is very important. So when conflicts happen, we always communicate and we always get it clear and once we're done with the phone, we're like, ‘yes, that was understood’. So it's like [a] sister—you might get mad at your sister but, you know, she's there.

If we had an endless resources, Asiya would look like—we would have a swimwear. [We’d have] a full appropriate swimwear and would also have a sport athletic tunic that a Muslim woman can wear. And it's not only Muslim women to be honest with you, modesty is all around and every woman has been asking us ‘When are you going to do that?’ 

So we would go into...the swimwear and the athletic activewear. Which right now—it's a challenge for us because we really want to be the experts when it comes to the sport hijab. That's why we really made that decision—that we're going to focus on the sport hijab and really once we get that we can move to the second part of it. 

Glover: And we'd be global. We'd be in every...muslim-majority country. Our brand would be a household name with a whole line of products that help really enable and empower Muslim girls to be active in whatever way. 

Thank you for listening to this podcast. 

If you'd like to learn more about Lunar Startups or apply for an upcoming cohort, check out the website at lunarstartups.org. 

We'd like to extend a special thank you to the Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media, Knight Foundation, and Osborn370 for their continued support of Lunar Startups.

This podcast is a Matriarch Digital Media production. Executive Producers: Twila Dang, Brittany Arneson, and Josette Elieff.