When people think about the consequences of a war, they think about destroyed cities, families moving, casualties, or even oil prices. Entrepreneurs are a rare part of that picture. But while building Bond, my teenage-focused fragrance brand in Pakistan. I learned that conflict doesn’t have to happen in your area to affect your business. Sometimes it only needs to affect the route your product travels.

The bottle designs I made were supposed to come from Dubai by sea back in March 2026. When the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran stretched across the Middle East in early 2026, shipping through the Gulf became slower, more expensive, and less predictable. I had already chosen the bottle cap and shape I wanted and was moving into the testing stage before the conflict started. Cargo ships were rerouted, ports started to overcrowd, and the air freight costs increased. Transport by air was an alternative, but at the time, especially just for testing the bottles, the cost was too expensive to justify. What looked like a regional crisis very quickly became a business problem; without the bottles, I couldn’t finalise them and test them, and without that, I couldn’t move towards launching my business. So that left me with a choice: wait for the shipment with no timeline, or move forward with what was available locally. At first, I wanted to wait, and I did. The bottle cap and shape might sound like small details, but for a fragrance, it matters a lot. Fragrances are something visual just as much as you can smell.

Entrepreneurs shouldn’t have to limit their products just because global supply has risks.

Entrepreneurs shouldn’t have to limit their products just because........

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