IBJ Podcast: Fast-growing MOTW Coffee and Pastries expanding to Chicago with pro-Muslim message

Two years ago, Sajjad Shah entered the Indianapolis coffee shop market with his eyes wide open and a hook that could help differentiate his locations from the herd of java joints. His coffee shops would have a built-in audience through a popular Instagram account that he founded in 2014, and they would be tied to the account’s overarching mission: promoting the Muslim community and raising millions of dollars for Muslims in crisis around the world.

Indeed, the name of the Instagram account is Muslims Of The World, and it currently has about 680,000 followers. The coffee shops are called MOTW Coffee and Pastries. In just two years, Shah has gone from one shop to four, located in Carmel, Fishers, Castleton and on West 38^th Street in the International Marketplace district in Indianapolis.

In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Shah reveals that he’s planning an aggressive expansion outside of central Indiana, starting with a 3,000-square-foot shop expected to open within a few months in the Chicagoland area.

He also tells host Mason King that within five years he hopes to have 40 to 50 MOTW shops in the U.S.—a mix of company-owned and franchised locations. Shah didn’t have a lot of experience with coffee when he got started, but he did have many years in corporate accounting and consulting, and he thinks he’s landed on a formula for lean and mean coffee shops that’s easily repeatable.

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Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ’s The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana’s business community.