1. Tell us something about yourself. How did you start the journey of “Pop of Color Ltd.”?
My name is Tinker Jannat Mim, and I’m the Founder Admin of Pop of Color and the Managing Director at Pop of Color Ltd. I’m 26+ years old and I’m studying BBA.
Back in 2014, I thought that there should be a female community where communication would be a little different as women won’t only be hanging out or gossiping, but also helping one another out. And that’s what we wanted to create, and began the journey of Pop of Color.
From the very beginning, we are trying to maintain the service of giving and receiving assistance in the community and also created a direct bridge between sellers and buyers. Now, if you ask me to elaborate the second part: think that you just bought a Sunsilk shampoo and you’re seeing intense hair-fall, or you bought a Pond’s soap that is causing you a type of skin irritation, and you want to inform the company about the problems you’re facing. Pop of Color works as a medium for that direct communication. When you post on our page, there will be representative of all national and multinational companies, who can see your queries and give solutions as soon as possible.
The way you post to encourage store owners when you’re pleased with their service, you can also talk about the mishaps. What used to happen before is that shopkeepers used to ask, “Why didn’t you say anything while making the purchase?”, but Pop of Color has completely changed that with shop-owners taking responsibility 99.9% of the time and giving you alternatives if you have proof that they gave you the wrong product.
When brands launch a new product or service, want to make any sort of announcement, or share awareness, they can also use Pop of Color as a direct medium of communication with their customers. Previously, only a certain group of people used to see advertisements on billboards, TV, and newspapers, but now, since practically everyone has social media accounts, more people are getting access to these commercials through Pop of Color and are even being able to share their thoughts and questions.
Pop of Color also actively works towards helping girls become self-reliant, providing them with information and support to grow. This is because, as a woman myself, I’ve realized that females of all levels, be it rich, poor, or of middle-class, are allowed to make decisions only when they are contributing financially to the family. For example, if a woman wants to start a business, the first thing she’d need is an idea and a boost in morale to overcome the fear of failure. So, when they post about it and people provide words of encouragement, those suggestions and admirations become their inspiration to keep at it. And, Pop of Color facilitates the entire process including promotions, sales, wholesales, and after-sale services.
And while doing business, women can face so many problems such as cyber-bullying, harassment, family issues, and so much more, you know – all of which is what Pop of Culture tries to help them tackle, by connecting them with people who can help. We even have a strong collaboration with Cyber Crime Department since 2016 who understand the urgency and take necessary actions.
Let me tell you a recent incident where it had been 3 months that a woman got married but her ex-boyfriend tried to send some explicit photos to her friends and family-in-law. He first gave it to a distant relative of the in-laws and said that if she tries to cut off contact with him, he’d send the photos to her immediate family-in-law. She contacted Pop and Color and we immediately connected her with the Cyber Crime Department and within 24 hours, they caught the culprit. Since the lady didn’t want to fight a legal case, as she was newly married and didn’t want to get involved in such a long process, the culprit couldn’t be arrested but he was forced to delete everything and even his parents were informed about his wrongdoings.
So, overall Pop of Color works on these 3 important points. Of course, women get to ask for recommendations, which is pretty basic and so I don’t want to highlight that, and focus on other projects that we’re working on such as mental health, domestic abuse, and women empowerment.
I’ve seen that women aren’t paid heed if they aren’t empowered, and to be empowered, they need to have peace of mind. If one is constantly under stress or is facing mental health problems, she won’t find the energy to do anything and find success.
2. What are the main activities of this group?
Like I said, we’re constantly working on expanding awareness on mental health, preventing any form of cyberbullying or abuse, promoting brands, organizing events via which our platform grows, and giving the Poshian awards to show admiration to women who are doing great things so that they feel encouraged and others are inspired to do the same or accomplish even more.
We want women to be happy and fit – both physically and mentally. We want them to grow and evolve in a healthy and safe environment, and tend to help them with whatever problem they may face.
3. How do women help each other on this platform?
If you need information on something, like when seeking the best or the least-expensive doctors, others who have faced the same problems as you would come forward to help you.
When you’re posting a complaint about how a product or service didn’t give you best results, representative of those companies would comment to give you solutions. And sometimes if nobody works at the respective organization, people always know someone who does, and are kind enough to connect them or pass on information.
4. What makes “Pop of Color Ltd.” different from other female oriented groups?
Generally female-oriented groups revolve around makeup, beauty tips, and wardrobe. But our focus is to make everyone feel welcomed. If you know how to put on makeup or to pull off the best outfit, we’re very supportive, and if you don’t, that’s fine too, we encourage you to improve by providing you guidelines rather than making you feel bad about your skills.
So you’d get help regarding what you get in other female-oriented groups but in a much more open and friendlier manner. We understand that a lot of people like to doll-up to pose for pictures, even though most people are concerned about other things at Pop of Color, but if you post a photo with no makeup, nobody would bully or belittle you. If they think something is inappropriate, they won’t comment on the post but send you a private message, providing you with constructive criticism.
Pop of Color is all about positivity, we make absolutely no room for any sort of negativity since day 1.
5. Tell us about some of the organizations that are affiliated with your group.
We have at least 850 collaborative partners and they’re of different categories.
For charity work, we teamed up with Mission Save Bangladesh. And during the ongoing pandemic, we’re cooperating with 7 organizations and their volunteer groups because if we collect funds and give it to them, they’d distribute it amongst people living in remote areas.
If you talk about hotels, then we work with Le Meridian, Six Seasons, Amari and Pan Pacific. Beauty salons include Gala Makeover, Powder Room, etc. And we also collaborate with 50-60 renowned restaurants in Bangladesh.
Pop of Color is the 1st female-oriented platform that introduced its privilege card using which women can avail special privileges from our partners. Not all members get these cards, even though all of them can enjoy certain benefits, and once a year, we open for its registration for about a month.
6. Are there any groups or communities that inspire you?
In Bangladesh, there’s Wander Woman, Shreya, and many groups whose admins are pretty inspiring. Some of them are also involved in multiple brilliant projects. When I get disheartened or feel discouraged by something, seeing them do their work inspires me to be confident again.
7. How does it feel to be the admin of Pop of Color?
When people praise it, it feels great. I love when they tell me how it helped them in their lives and even allowed me to lead such a vast community of wonderful women. I received so much love and advantages whenever I travelled wherever because of Pop of Color.
Apart from these, on 26th March 2019, I was invited, as the founder of Pop of Color, to an event for the Prime Minister. I think that was my biggest achievement.
The annual event that we have is very unique – I don’t think any other Facebook group has such grand occasions. So I think to be able to gather so many women, some of whom are renowned enough to be considered idols, at one platform is itself an accomplishment too.
Oh, and Pop of Color is the first community in Bangladesh that got registered to get a trademarked name and logo.
8. As you might get a lot of join requests in the group, how do you decide whom to add or not?
In 2018, we started to think about making Pop of Color an ‘invite-only’ group – and we did in 2019. Before, we had a team of 7 ladies, including myself, who used to add women who fit certain criteria but since last year, we only add those who got personally invited.
Other than that, if an existing member requests to add someone and takes their liability, we seriously consider the request and look into the profile they’re trying to add. If the person fits the criteria, they are definitely added to the group.
Pop of Color is a niche group, catering to a certain niche group of women, and we maintain it accordingly. We were never focused on increasing group members, we never will. Even though Pop of Color is one of the oldest female-oriented groups, the number of members is still stuck at 27k, and we’re content with that.
9. What are your future plans for this group?
We were supposed to have an event in April which got postponed due to the ongoing pandemic. And, so when this is all over, we tend to start in all Bangladeshi major districts first and then expand to creating a Pop of Color Hub, where any girl can come to look for solutions to any kind of problem, including mental health, gynecological concerns, sexual misconduct, and any type of trauma or struggle.
