We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mona Daiban a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Mona thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I have always had a soft spot for cooking and baking. I started an Instagram page in 2017 to share my recipes online. I come from a very unique background and I wanted to share my culture with the world and put my bilingual abilities to good use. I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii but I have a Yemeni background. I wanted to share with the world just how beautiful the Yemeni cuisine is. My page led me to start thinking about making a cookbook. In late 2020, I was encouraged to start creating my cookbook. The year that followed was filled with achievements, disappointments, setbacks, and perseverance. I had to start my book from scratch at least 4 times. The hardest part was urging myself to start over after each failure. Failures and setbacks shook my confidence and that affected the whole process, but as soon as I would remind myself of my end goal I would start over. Finally, in late 2021 I got my first copy and i’ll never forget the feeling of achievement and victory. Seeing all my hard work become a reality was worth it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Mona, and I work in IT. My true passion lies in the kitchen. I come from a family of amazing cooks, and I started my cooking journey from an early age.

My product is a traditional Yemeni cookbook. It is a bilingual cookbook, which makes it unique and distinguished. My book describes traditional Yemeni cooking techniques, fun facts, history, and of course, Yemeni recipes. For those who haven’t tried Yemeni cuisine, you’re missing out. It is one of the richest, most unique cuisines in the world. My cookbook shines a light on this wonderful cuisine in a positive and beneficial way.

I’m proud of the fact that I created this cookbook from scratch. It is 100% homemade. I made the dishes, took the pictures, wrote the recipes, formatted the book, did the marketing, etc. This wasn’t an easy thing to achieve, but the fact that i’ve sold hundreds of copies worldwide makes all the hardships worth it.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe my sincereness and consistency helped give me a good reputation on social media. When I share a recipe, I never hold back and people appreciate that. I’ve had hundreds of followers send me their remakes of my recipes and they were all very appreciative of the fact that they finally found a recipe and page that they can trust. This greatly helped in the marketing of my cookbook because people were sure that all the recipes were going to be accurate.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I started selling on Amazon to gain buyer trust. Once I gained that trust, I migrated to my own website. Having my own website is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I can control everything on it, the fees are drastically lower than selling on another website, and the commerce functions are user-friendly and efficient.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.monasdaimah.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/monas_daimah
• Other: Tiktok.com/monas_daimah

Image Credits
All images are taken by: Mona Daiban