The Imran Hakim episode

In episode 11 of The OT Podcast, we speak to CEO of Hakim Group, Imran Hakim. We talk to Imran about his career as an optometrist, inventor and serial entrepreneur, and find out about his journey to establishing the fastest growing family of independent optometry practices in the UK and Ireland.

Here are five things we learned about Imran when recording The OT Podcast.

1 Imran’s first job was at his local McDonalds

Imran grew up as the eldest of five siblings in what he describes as “working class Bolton,” with his father working “a couple of jobs to make ends meet.”

“Where I grew up, the first experience that most kids had of work was either at the local burger joint or the local supermarket,” he told OT.

Opting for the “burger joint,” he recalls how his manager had explained to him that if he worked really hard, when he was older he could have his job. Unfortunately, Imran was sacked by the same person three days later.

Nevertheless, he quickly secured his second job, at the local supermarket. “I lasted less than a week,” he shared.

Speaking about the experience, Imran said: “I learnt something very important about myself – I was unemployable. I always thought that I had a way of looking at things or doing something that was a little bit better… and that was never going to work in an environment where you were working to rules.”

Imran realised that he had to do something where he could “work by my own rulebook,” and consequently started buying and selling computers while he was at college and throughout his university years.

2 Optometry by chance

Imran stumbled across optometry by chance when he took his mother to their local opticians when she was experiencing problems with her vision. It was a conversation with an optometrist when his mother was dilated that set Imran on the path to optometry.

“[The optometrist] asked me what I wanted to do when I was older. I admitted that I wasn’t completely sure, but knew that I wanted to run my own business and help my mum with her eyes,” he said.

“He said ‘you know you can run your own business if you become an optometrist.’ So that is what I did,” Imran confessed.

3 A supportive supervisor

Imran credits his pre-reg supervisor, John Glover, for both motivating him and encouraging his “crazy entrepreneurial ideas

Working for an optometrist who owned a small group of practices, Imran was inspired to tread the path to practice ownership early in his career.

Before he had completed his pre-reg placement and qualified, Imran had purchased the shop fittings from an opticians that was closing. He used them when opening his own practice from scratch in Bolton.

However, the early days were not plain sailing, as Imran shared. “I learnt that it is very hard setting up a business in your local community where everyone knows your father or your grandma as they all come in, they want a cup of tea and, when they have bought their glasses, they want to sort the invoice out with our father or your grandma as they know them from the village back in India.”

“It was a great community service, but we didn’t get the chance to make the first location very profitable,” he shared.

4 Imran trained to be a Thai boxer

By the time Imran was in his mid-20s, with half a dozen practices under his belt, he began to consider his next career move.

“I think I was a little bit bored,” Imran admitted.

Without any ‘family’ ties, and with three people supporting the running of his practices, he told OT: “I decided it was time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and went off to pursue my ambitions as a fighter.”

Imran trained for three months with the Thai team in Bangkok. He confessed that he retired undefeated after one fight and returned to the UK realising it was not his calling.

5 Imran is also a children’s toy inventor who appeared on series one of Dragon’s Den

The pending first birthday of a niece, paired with friendly sibling rivalry, set Imran on a path that saw him invent a children’s toy that was subsequently manufactured and sold in 45 countries.

Imran and his brother Zubair, a dispensing optician, wanted to make their niece her first birthday present, each confident that they had the better idea.

“I wanted to take something that has been around for over 100 years, something like a teddy bear, and give it a modern twist, combining it with the sort of technology that children find all around them,” Imran explained.

The pair gave themselves a deadline of their niece’s first birthday and appointed her the judge.

Expressing his passionate and competitive nature, Imran travelled to China to manufacture his ‘iTeddy.’

Returning from his trip, Imran attended a B2B networking event where the BBC was scouting for potential candidates for a then-new television show called Dragon’s Den.

“This was the first series, before people knew what Dragon’s Den was. They liked the idea and invited me to pitch,” he shared.

Securing investment from Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones, Imran explained that this set the wheels in motion for what he described as “a three-year journey that was quite incredible.”

“Never had I dreamt that I would be travelling the world selling teddy bears – if you told me that when I was studying for my degree in optometry and vision sciences, I would have told you that you were mad,” he added.

Bonus fact: the theme tune for iTeddy’s advert was sung by OT’s multimedia clinical editor, Ceri Smith-Jaynes.

The OT Podcast

OT will release a new episode of The OT Podcast bimonthly. You can listen to The OT Podcast on our website, or via all the main podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Castbox. Be sure to catch-up and listen to other episodes, featuring experts including Professor Nicola Logan, Ian Cameron, Dame Mary Perkins, Professor Lyndon Jones, and Nick Rumney.

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