Hi, I’m Sajid Islam, Founder & CEO of hubdhaka – Dhaka’s one and only true coworking space. Last month I did an AMA for which I received quite few questions. These are my answers.
[su_note note_color="#fffffd" text_color="#6ba6ed"]Editor's Note: 1) Since most of the people submitted questions by using google form, we are publishing answers as a post. 2) As we received quite few questions, publishing all answers at once would make the post too long for many to go through, so we decided t0 run it in two parts. This is part one.[/su_note]
From Rajesh Koul: Need To Know What Life Means.
Well, life means different things to different people. Often times it seems we are enjoying our life but we are actually just surviving it. What do I mean by surviving? We get into this daily routine that we wake up in the morning, get ready and go to office, work till 8 pm, come back to home, eat and sleep and repeat. On holidays we are just like sit at home and take few frequent naps, and then go for outings with friends. That is I call surviving. Life becomes a routine. We get into this routine because that’s normal, that’s what everyone does. But at the end of the day it does not make a life.
In this humdrum of daily life, we miss life itself. You miss your passion. You do a job just because you have to earn money. And to me that's not life. Life is about doing things you really enjoy regardless of what people think or say about you or about your dreams, about your ambitions. So, for example - here, you know I founded hubdhaka and running hubdhaka. A lot of people told me that this would not work; co-working in Bangladesh would not work. I didn't pay attention. They told me it's a lot of hard work and yes they were right. It's a lot of hard work. 7 days a week, I don't get time, I don't get paid. But I enjoy it. It's my passion and I really enjoy the long hours and you know I have fun with my team and we do things that we love.
[blockquote source]In this humdrum of daily life, we miss life itself. You miss your passion. You do a job just because you have to earn money. And to me that's not life. Life is about doing things you really enjoy regardless of what people think or say about you or about your dreams, about your ambitions.[/blockquote]
I really enjoy what I do. When I go to bed every night I think did I enjoy my day. I say yes. That's life. Even if I went to die tomorrow even if I went to find out that I am going to die in 7 days time, I would not have regret because I have done things that I really wanted to do rather than saying that I will do it after ten years or five years. Life needs to live in urgency. Because it does not give you any guarantee that you will live for five years, ten years, and twenty years. We need to live today.
From Ruhul Kader: What It Takes To Make Things Happen?
It's a very good question Ruhul. And it takes patience, belief and hard work. You cannot just give up just because you know the goal is tough, just because you know the road ahead is not clear. We need to have a firm belief, firm belief that I am on the right track. Yes, pay attention to people’s advises, suggestions, do things but again believe in the mission, believe in the vision only then you can make things happen. Don’t go astray or don’t give up because that things are little harder. Often times the best things come after a hard work after long fights, long struggle. And history has taught us that again and again whether you look at history of our own independence if you look at it you know it was a long struggle and we lost a lot of lives or you look at even recent example of WhatsApp which you know was bought by Facebook for 19 billion dollars, the founder himself struggled.
[blockquote source]It takes patience, belief and hard work. You cannot just give up just because you know the goal is tough, just because you know the road ahead is not clear. We need to have a firm belief, firm belief that I am on the right track.[/blockquote]
He had no money, he had to stand in line for food and today he has more money than most of us will ever have. But he did not give up, he just kept on going because that’s the big mission he believed in and then he eventually succeeded.
From Omar Sharif: What Is The Prospect Of Data Mining Industry In Bangladesh?
Thank you Mr. Sharif for good question. Personally, I think you know there is a big, huge prospect. It’s something we are just getting started in as our businesses go online. As more and more business go online, as more and more businesses start selling online you know, we will gather lots of data. It’s not just data mining I think there is also very big scope for big data. Not everyone is working with data and the future is business as well as the profit going to be with the guy or the person or the team that uses data that leverages data to make decisions. So, it’s not about just wild guesses but it’s actually looking at the data and seeing what the data is telling you, realizing it, getting leveraging the data, getting those analytic done and doing predictable analytic actually. What’s happening in your business, how fast you are selling something, what’s the demand, what people are looking for etc?
There’s so much opportunity there. I hope you know that you really are thinking about the lines of leveraging data to make decisions and applying it in your business. Hope that answers your question Mr. Sharif and you know if you have any further question write back to me and we go from there.
From Mohammed Shehab: What qualifies an internet startup for seeking investors?
Good question Mr. Shehab. If I was investing which I do sometimes, what I would look at is what is the problem you are solving, then how passionate you are about your solution or about your startup and this is something don’t comes across and you cannot fake. Third is the team and how dedicated you are. If you are telling me that you have a job and doing a business on the side and looking for investment to take it forward while keeping your job that doesn’t convince me.
If I am giving you money, I want you to work on your startup full time. I don’t want you take my money, do this as a hobby on the side while you have a stable, full-time job. So, that doesn’t really happen and that’s just personally me but usually most investors, I have investor friends, also have the same belief that if you are doing a startup, do it full-time, take risks. That’s why the rewards are so high. If there will not any risk elements associated with it then the rewards are not going to be that high.
[blockquote source]If I was investing which I do sometimes, what I would look at is what is the problem you are solving, then how passionate you are about your solution or about your startup and this is something don’t comes across and you cannot fake. Third is the team and how dedicated you are.[/blockquote]
Going back to your question again, you have to solve a critical problem for which there is a need for. There should be demand; there should be a big market for it. You have to be passionate about it, work on it full-time, don’t make it a hobby, don’t do it part-time because nobody wants to fund something that you are doing part-time.
