Ten years ago, entrepreneurs Waqas Ali and Sidra Qasim had never left their native Pakistan, nor had anyone in either of their families. They didn’t have passports and were barely able to scrounge together $250 to start their first business.
Fast-forward to August of 2018, and the husband-and-wife team closed an $8.1 million investment round for their New York City-based direct-to-consumer everyday shoe brand, Atoms, led by Initialized Capital, the investment firm established by Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. The company quickly made a name for itself by offering quarter shoe sizes (such as 10.25) and allowing customers to mix and match sizes, as most people have two different-sized feet.

Though the pandemic threatened to upend their newly established business, Ali and Qasim retooled their production facility in April, selling reusable face masks at cost, and donating one for each one sold. Today, they’re announcing that…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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