Meet The Disruptors: Salman Moghimi of Peyk On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
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Great disruption is when a business is created to fill a void, capitalises on where other businesses fall short and keeps on exploiting the gap further by utilising new technology. There are so many great examples of how this has worked in other industries such as Air bnb and travel, Uber and taxis or Deliveroo and takeaways.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Salman Moghimi.
Salman Moghimi is the 22 year old entrepreneur behind the London-based person-to-person delivery platform, Peyk — the fastest and most cost efficient way to send personal parcels across London.
Peyk, which celebrates its 2nd birthday this month and has 3,000 riders on the streets of the capital, is on a mission to revolutionise the courier service industry by normalising the concept of an instant delivery service for friends and family.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs with over five decades of experience running manufacturing businesses related to the automotive industry; so I always knew I was going to run my own business.
From an early age, the subjects I studied were geared towards giving me the theoretical knowledge to actualise my ambition of launching a business that would impact society, positively by using the power of technology.
As I studied for A-levels and university, I experienced first-hand the inconvenience of trying to quickly send a personal package across London. At the time, my only options were to send the package the next day or to transport it myself. This was the inspiration for Peyk.
I then worked day and night to design a business plan that would allow me to pitch for funding. While preparing the plan, I spent several months working with Amazon as a self-employed delivery driver. This allowed me to garner first-hand understanding of the logistics used in their 24 hour operations and which helped me to finesse the concept for my platform and refine the business plan.
I then founded the business in 2018, when I was 20 years old and studying Business Management at Cass Business School at City, University of London.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
On a mission to revolutionise the delivery industry by normalising the concept of instant delivery Peyk enables individuals and households send or receive anything they wish (as long as it’s legal) via their own personal courier, known as a ‘Peyker’, placing their booking through a hassle free and convenient mobile app.
Often described as the Uber or Deliveroo of instant person-to-person deliveries, the business is disruptive because it offers the fastest, safest and most cost efficient way to send personal parcels from A to B in London.
The idea behind Peyk is a simple one. Friends and family, as well as businesses, often need to quickly send things to each other quickly and yet there is no dominant solution for doing this, with the options being to do it yourself, wait 24 hours or send the item across town in a taxi. The advent of Covid-19 has more than proven the business case both during and post the UK lockdown.
Although peer-to-peer couriers aren’t a new thing, and are widely used across Asia and the Middle East, they are yet to take off in Europe. Peyk has brought a similar service to the capital but has bolstered it with great tech in order to revolutionise and transform the way Londoners send items to one another. That’s why it’s disruptive.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Having a build it and they will come mentality. Naively when I was setting up the business I thought that once
An app was submitted to the App Store, thousands of users would start downloading it straight away. They didn’t.
Back in the early days of Peyk, I used to sit there in front of the apple analytics panel and wait for the thousands of downloads to appear. Funnily enough, it just didn’t happen over a night. I slowly started to realise that triggering app downloads and gaining users requires lots of marketing and hard work.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Building a start-up is not just about financials, it’s about combining a series of facilities and resources to unlock a world of opportunities. I had the privilege to have several great mentors during my career.
The mentorship and commitment of my grandfather, an entrepreneur who started his career at the age of 12 has been the source of my greatest learnings so far. He began trading automotive parts at a young age and soon became known as a leading manufacturer of automotive equipment in the Middle East. With his first manufacturing site opened at the age of 24, I knew I had inherited his entrepreneurial spirt.
In recent years, the mentorship of my investors has been invaluable, they believe in the business and are always there to support and mentor both me and the rest of our team, no matter what arises.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Great disruption is when a business is created to fill a void, capitalises on where other businesses fall short and keeps on exploiting the gap further by utilising new technology. There are so many great examples of how this has worked in other industries such as Air bnb and travel, Uber and taxis or Deliveroo and takeaways.
Peyk is disrupting the delivery industry by taking a model similar to that of Deliveroo and Uber and applying it to the courier industry and enabling individuals and households, rather than just businesses, to send or receive packages via their own personal courier using groundbreaking tech.
Fundamentally disruption in business is about understanding the customer and their needs, then introducing or adjusting a business model that meets these needs. When disruption isn’t positive it’s usually because it’s simply just innovation and not actually disruption, or it’s not rooted in a real need for change and is simply being driven by new tech.
However, sometimes negative disruptions can also create positive outcomes. Covid-19 has undoubtedly been one of the most disruptive things to happen to business in the last 12 months, and companies both big and small have had to adapt and pivot as to ensure that they continued to serve their customers’ needs. And, while the impact for some businesses will unfortunately have been negative, there has been a lot of positive change and I think we will see some truly innovative and disruptive businesses arise as a result of this period in the world’s history.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Try to create the best team that you can. Create that cosy and friendly start-up environment.
- Have trust in what you are doing! Don’t let demotivation get a grip on the direction you want to go.
- Don’t jump away from any challenges that you experience.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We’re just at the beginning of the Peyk journey — we just turned two in September. In the coming months, we are releasing the Peyk Marketplace, which will allow thousands of Londoners to access hundreds of local stores powered by our fast deliveries. Our next big innovation is also coming down the line, which will be Peyk’s first patented product.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
The Outsiders by William N Thorndike is a book which I really enjoyed. It’s about the challenges CEOs face, and how with experience, managers become more seasoned in their field. For me, this really resonated as I have developed so much in the two years that Peyk has been operating and my management style and skills have both improved and grown during this time.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“If you win, you will be happy. If you lose, you will be wise”
As a young entrepreneur, I have to be prepared for good and bad things to happen at any time. I believe that experience is the greatest earning you ever make in business and so if things go wrong, I don’t necessarily see this as failure — every experience is a chance to learn.
There is a power in previously earned experience and failure that can provide the motivation to stand up and fight for another successful venture again. There is always a new chance to build things up again from scratch but next time you take more experience and potential into the venture with you.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would like to make an impact in helping to protect the environment. The world’s natural resources are becoming scarce and will eventually run out if there is no investment to encourage technological advancements within this sector.
I want to create a VC-style community that is focused on supporting young talent with ideas that will help save, replace or generate more natural resources. We would have these ideas and concepts accredited by international governments and implemented by the talent with the support of the community.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow, connect or tweet me on my social media channels or alternatively be in touch via email at salman@peyk.uk.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About the Interviewer: Jason Hartman is the Founder and CEO of JasonHartman.com, The Hartman Media Company and The Jason Hartman Foundation. Jason has been involved in several thousand real estate transactions and has owned income properties in 11 states and 17 cities. His company helps people achieve The American Dream of financial freedom by purchasing income property in prudent markets nationwide. Jason’s Complete Solution for Real Estate Investors™ is a comprehensive system providing real estate investors with education, research, resources and technology to deal with all areas of their income property investment needs. Through Jason’s podcasts, educational events, referrals, mentoring and software to track your investments, investors can easily locate, finance and purchase properties in these exceptional markets with confidence and peace of mind. Jason educates and assists investors in acquiring prudent investments nationwide for their portfolio. Jason’s highly sought after educational events, speaking engagements, and his ultra-hot “Creating Wealth Podcast” inspire and empower hundreds of thousands of people in 189 countries worldwide.
