Symend’s CEO and Co-Founder, Hanif Joshaghani, joins Joe Momoh’s podcast to share his top tips for entrepreneurs, highlight how to achieve customer engagement and give advice for how to properly validate a venture idea before going to market.
The saying money can’t buy you happiness rang true for Hanif as he founded multiple companies but soon realized that money alone isn’t enough. He knew the true fuel to his fire would come from a passion project that he could build from scratch on his own. His upbringing escaping with his family as refugees and growing up without money taught him the power of a growth mindset if you want to follow your dreams.
Overcoming adversity from his past and launching a business idea that hits his own paint points are what drove him to start working on Symend.
He shared Symend’s secret sauce to the science of customer engagement and social purpose: Help large enterprises better engage their financially at-risk customers so that less people fall through the cracks and face the consequences of bad credit.
As an active angel investor and advisor, Hanif shares his top advice for entrepreneurs: Execute due diligence at the early stages of the company to ensure success and prevent avoidable mistakes. Entrepreneurs need to consider what skill sets they need to be successful, question what they lack and secure a strong foundation of mentorship and advisors that can help bridge those gaps.
Entrepreneurs can avoid mistakes and innovate more effectively by asking the extra questions and learning how to synthesize a lot of opinions and data quickly to help inform decision making. Never stop coming back to the data, even after decisions have been made.
“The ability to synthesize and iterate is key while being honest with yourself that you’re at best average at everything; therefore, you have to be a student of the game all the time,” said Hanif.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about:
- Hanif’s favorite book
- Challenges Hanif faced with Symend and how he tackled them
- How hiring decisions impact scalability
- Tips for validating an idea before going to market
The Joe Momoh Presents podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, CEO, investor, non-profit co-founder and economics graduate Joe Momoh showcasing business leader interviews, discussions on marketing and business insights.
