Finding my way to entrepreneurship (Part 1)
An opportunity often reserved only for the privileged
My backstory
I am a Bangladeshi-American-Muslim woman. I was raised by my incredible parents in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I lived for the first 18 years of my life. But my story begins before I was born. My parents arrived in New Orleans in 1994. They moved into my aunt’s (what we call Fupi) house, alongside my Dad’s four other siblings, wives and children. There were almost 20 people living under one roof. From the beginning, my mom and dad went out to search for work and got their first jobs at Domino’s Pizza and Wendy’s Fast Food. After I was born, my parents moved into a small condo and my entire family lived in the same complex. I didn’t just have one mom, dad and older brother, I was raised by a village - the Chowdhury family village. I am who I am today because of the work of this village and I want to share my story with you.
Through this open journal, I will tell you about my journey and path to starting my own business, the Mongo App. I will talk about the highs and lows that got me there and the challenges I continue to face today. This journal isn’t about success or achievements, but it’s about reflection and reminders. It is a diary to my future self.
Part 1: Planning my future
Growing up, my parents always pushed my brother and I to work hard in school and focus on our studies. They came with almost nothing to the U.S., with the hope of providing us bigger and better opportunities compared to those in Bangladesh. Ever since I was in elementary school, I was a an over-achiever. I constantly wanted to prove everyone wrong and be the winner of every game and the top of my class. During parent teacher conferences, my parents would get complaints that I raise my hand too much in class. I continue to reflect today on what ignited that drive inside of me to constantly strive to be an over-achiever. Starting in 5th grade, I decided I needed to plan for college, so I started applying to clubs and programs to prep for the ACT before middle school. I thought I always had to make 5-10 year plans and at the age of 10-11 was already thinking about this.
Here’s a pic of baby Alisha, fighting for that #1 spot.
In middle and high school, it felt every decision I made was to get into a top university. Reflecting back on these motivations, I wonder if they were intrinsic or extrinsic and defined by the family / societal pressures to be successful and get into a top university. It felt like that was my only life goal at the time.
When I got to my dream university, I knew I had to plan for the next step, getting a prestigious job. After two years in my job, I knew the common path was to switch to private equity so I did just that. I followed the plan set by others and stayed on a “comfortable” path.
But finally, all the plans started to fall apart when I had a big life change in 2021. It was when someone close to me left my life that I took that moment to reflect and question every decision I had made since I was in 5th grade. How did I end up here? I spent months reflecting and recognized that I had been following the plans others had set for me; the expectations others had wanted of me and I didn’t know what I wanted for myself…so I decided to do what I wanted and not follow anyone’s plan. This was the first step in my entrepreneurship journey.
Join me in my journey
The path I’ve decided to take is not an easy one. It requires a lot of unlearning, a lot of endurance, failures (and wins!) along the way and honestly, a lot of guilt. But at the end of the day, it’s a path worth taking for me at this stage in my life. I will share my highs, lows, ups and downs with you.
In my next post, I’ll share the challenges of being a child of Asian immigrants and making this decision.
Feel free to reach out if you ever want to chat.