Aisha Chottani of Moment: Inside the Strategy to Make Daily Mindfulness Accessible Through Botanical Beverages

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Aisha Chottani.

Aisha grew up between South Asia and the Middle East. She has over 10 years of supply chain and logistics expertise on four continents. She moved to the US to complete her MBA at Harvard Business School, and has also worked at McKinsey & Company. She loves to travel and has been to 45 different countries.

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 Pakistan and started off my career in supply chain and logistics at the world’s largest shipping company, Maersk. Whilst at Maersk, I got the chance to spend two weeks on a container vessel docked off the coast of South Africa, and upon disembarking in Cape Town, immediately feel in love with the continent.

I would move to South Africa a year later, where I would later meet my husband Faheem. It was in South Africa that my passion for personal development really flourished, and I came to the US a few years later to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School.

It was at Harvard that I first started experimenting with meditation. I would continue to practice when I started with McKinsey and found that it was incredibly helpful, not just for managing stress, but for increasing focus, enhancing creativity, and improving my overall performance. It brought out my best self.

We started Moment because we wanted to make that feeling easy to access for anyone out there and a portion of our proceeds goes to supporting kids in their mindfulness journey.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

For most people, meditation is intimidating. It looks difficult — and it takes even more discipline to perform when you’re really busy or stressed out — which is probably when you need it most.

We started Moment because we wanted to make a little bit of the feeling of meditation accessible to anyone, in the middle of their busy day.

Moment is a botanical beverage which uses natural ingredients that have been shown to replicate the feeling of meditation, helping you reset and find clarity.

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?

Haha, we’ve made so many mistakes!

One of the early mistakes happened after our first production run. We had driven up to a copacker and spent the day making our product. We came back home late that night, totally exhausted, and then just realized that we had no place to store all our bottles!

We live in a tiny, walk-up apartment in Manhattan, and had to spend the next few hours walking up and down the stairs with cases of Moment. There was hardly any space left in our apartment after we got all the boxes inside and got a really good fitness session.

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?

We are so grateful for all the people that have taken time out of their busy schedules to advise and mentor us. In particular, having a network of food and beverage founders has been really helpful for everything from small daily problems, like finding the most affordable way to pack boxes, to more strategic decisions, like raising investment, and lastly, to inspire us to stay strong and continue despite how tough starting a business can be.

Right now, I try and pay it forward too and am always excited to help out new entrepreneurs starting off on their own journeys

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?

We’ve grappled with this question a lot at Moment.

We are huge advocates and practitioners of regular meditation because it genuinely works. I don’t think disrupting an industry, is helpful if you’re going to provide an inferior solution.

For us, we wanted to create something that made it easier for people to start accessing some of the benefits of meditation. The goal is that once you start taking little moments during your day, and experiencing some clarity through drinking Moment, it will help you start being more mindful in your overall life.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Be scrappy. We started this business by mixing thousands of different flavor combinations in our tiny kitchen. It would often take days and days of prep, but it allowed us to keep our costs down.

Never give up. There are far too many examples to share here. Frankly, starting a business is tough — real tough. You face rejection each and every single day, and you need to just pick yourself back up and keep pushing the business forward.

Listen to your customers. We created Moment to fit a specific need in our life, but have been amazed at all the novel and interesting ways our customers use our product. Some use it as a pre-yoga drink to get into the zone, others use it as a way to deal with quarantine stress in the morning, and some use it as an alcohol replacement.

Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business. Can you share some of the strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?

We find that our best lead generation happens through our customers. We’ve created a great product and we’re always encouraging customers to review our product and share their experiences with friends. Right now, we have a five-star rating on Amazon and we’ve had people with hundreds of thousands of followers share Moment on social media.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We have a lot more work to do with Moment. People all over America are dealing with more stress and distractions than ever before — even more so during COVID — and we want to make sure that it’s accessible to everyone who needs it. Our primary focus is on building partnerships with others that can help us broaden our reach.

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 Second Sex” — Not only did it reinforced my belief that I can do anything as a woman, it also inspired me to do things that are my true calling and chart my own path

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“If you don’t play, or take risks, you can’t win.” This has manifested throughout my life, from moving to South Africa, to now, investing and working on Moment!

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. :-)

Be more mindful. It’s as simple as that. Spend time appreciating the little things around you.

How can our readers follow you online?

Follow us on Instagram at @drinkmoment

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!