We at Startup Pakistan recently had an opportunity to sit down with Muneeb Mushtaq, one of the most renowned Pakistani tech entrepreneurs in North America and CEO of Canadian based company called Airzai.
Muneeb has an excellent track record of initiating innovative start ups, scaling them and when the time is right, exiting them. Graduating from University of Toronto specializing in accounting and business, Muneeb built and sold his first start up at a young age of only 20 years. His claim to fame is his second tech venture called AskforTask, an online platform to hire well-reviewed and trust-worthy service providers. The company grew fast and become the leading platform in Canada with over one million users. It was also awarded as the fastest growing start up in North America by the prestigious U.S based media outlet, Tech Crunch.
Muneeb then went on to start his third and latest venture called Airzai. It’s a smart home tech company that is disrupting fragrance industry with the launch of its flagship product called Airzai Aroma, the smartest diffuser in the world. Airzai has raised over $4M USD in seed round alone which is one of the largest seed stage funding in Canada. During the time when COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak in Pakistan, Airzai team was proactive in donating disinfectant products to the welfare institutions across Pakistan, such as Sahara Foundation.
Muneeb is also a motivational speaker and has amassed quite a following on social media. He has over 250,000 followers on Instagram alone and has also given a TEDx talk.
If you wish to follow him on social media, click here.
Now, let’s head to the interview and share with you some of the questions we asked Muneeb mostly on the topics of leadership, success and business.
1. How can team leads and CEOs adapt themselves to the mindsets and practices of the current environment?
The number one way to staying in the current environment and keeping up with the world is to look around and learn from your peers, mentors about what are the best practices that are happening in the industry and other organizations in the segment their company is operating. The worst thing any CEO or leader can do is contain themselves in a box and not be open to adapting the ever-evolving new processes and new expectations.
2. How do you balance between caring for your employees and running your business?
It’s not hard to keep the balance between the two. It’s essentially understanding what’s of the utmost importance in the business. According to the research and multiple case studies, businesses who have successfully seen high growth are the ones who actually care about their employees first. So, when you place your employees as a priority, they would start prioritizing the customers and offer an elevated service. In return, there will be a lot of repeat business and there’s going be a lot of positive referrals, resulting in faster growth.
The key is to prioritize your employees, your team members before anything else.
3. How do you push yourself and your organizations to achieve higher aspirations without burning yourself or your employees out?
In order to achieve higher results and faster growth, I think it’s not about pushing yourself or your team, it’s more about motivating yourself and your team by offering them a vision and a purpose to dedicate themselves to. The difference is that motivation is temporary while dedication to a certain cause is long lasting. And when you offer a focused mission to the team, they get dedicated towards it and then they have the motivation to work harder towards achieving that common goal. Simply “pushing” yourself or someone means working out of fear. Any time you would have a team working out of fear, you would always see a burn out, you would always see people quitting, and you would always see negative impact overall on the business and your own wellness as well.
4. How do you as a leader stay connected to the people – and help them stay connected to each other?
As a leader staying connected with others is not just an option, it’s an essential part of your job, if not the most important part. That means, not only staying connected with your peers or other people in your industry, but also the people who are both above you, such as your mentors, board members, or other people who could bring in further value to your company. And then also the people who are below you in the organizational structure, such as your team reporting to you.
Making sure that you schedule time on daily, weekly, and monthly basis to keep up with your team, to check in with your peers, or your mentors, or potential mentors is part of the job as a leader so you keep growing. When you stay connected to whatever is happening around you, you will be the first one to detect if any issues come up and are also able to seize any opportunities that might be coming in the future.
5. There is so much more that comes with the job description of being the leader. What is something that is overlooked when people talk about the work of CEOs?
Depending on the size of the company, a CEO’s job is not only leading the company from the front but being right there in the middle of the team, motivating them, inspiring them, and making sure that, you know, everybody is driven towards the goal. In fact, one thing that I like to normally say is that, if you are part of a start-up or a growth company, the abbreviation CEO doesn’t stand for Chief Executive Officer but rather Chief Everything Officer. This means that you are responsible from everything in the business, A to Z. Anything that is happening in the company in early stages, you have to get involved in it, or you at least need to know that it is being handled properly.
If you have a team member taking care of it, then it’s important to make sure that its delegated properly in order to drive that task to the finish line. No job is too small for a CEO because again, as a leader, you want to be setting example and being on the front to showcase that no job is too small.
6. How do you manage to have a clear sense of purpose while tackling something?
These days, it’s very hard to have a clear sense of purpose when tackling something, especially with all the distractions around us; number one being cell phones, social media and a lot of stuff happening in our digital lives. A trick to timely and properly achieving something is to have a laser focus on one thing at a time. What that means is that once you draw up your to-do list for the day; pick up a task, unplug from the phone and focus on getting as much done as possible in a certain amount of time.
There is a well-researched and widely used technique, called Pomodoro technique where you focus on putting in 100% of your attention into one thing for about 20 to 25 minutes and then taking a 5 minutes break. So, if a task can be accomplished in that 20-25 minutes, great! You accomplish that, take a 5 minute break, and then move on to the next one. If it’s a longer task that would take more than 20-25 minutes, then you follow the same technique; work with focus for that long and then take a 5 minute break, and then get back to completing the task before moving forward. That way you would not have any distractions and you will be able to execute and accomplish all the tasks that are needed to complete your to-do list.
7. What has been your drive? What motivates you to get up and seize the day?
That’s a very interesting question. I think the number one driver for me to wake up, get off the bed and kick start my day is just having a true sense of purpose. I feel like whatever I do, from the projects I have done in the past with two tech companies that we sold and now with our current venture called Airzai, where we are inventing a smart home diffuser in the fragrance and technology industry, is that I always get involved in projects that are based on something that I am very passionate about. Meaning, I don’t get involved in projects or don’t start anything that I don’t necessarily think I would love doing for the next 10 years of my life at least. So, when I work towards starting a new start up, I try to make sure that I am in an industry that I am personally passionate about. And when you are personally passionate about something, it’s no longer work…it’s more of a mission. It’s more of something that you enjoy doing anyways, and that is, what will make you jump off your bed, make you stay motivated and make you stay focused on achieving that goal.
8. How important is the role of a leader in the success of an organization?
A leader can literally make or break an organization, a company, a project, a team. It’s irrelevant if you’re looking at a startup or a Fortune 500 company; A cricket team or even a country. The rules remain the same. A leader sets the tone of what is expected, how to go about achieving it, and shows the team how to make it happen.
The main difference between a manager/boss and a leader is that; the leader shows, leads the way. And if the leaders set a good example, if they practice what they preach, and stay disciplined and set an example for the rest, it can literally change the dynamics of any team, any organization and they can easily be on the way to achieve success and the growth.
So, for anyone starting a new business and starting a team, the number one thing they need to realize is that more than the idea, more than the funding, or more than anything else, is how good of a leader you are and what kind of example you are setting.
If you’d like to ask any other questions from Muneeb Mushtaq, simply comment below or follow him directly on IG (@muneebmushtaq) where he does a weekly Q&A every Monday!
