Dr Umar Saif Reveals the Success Formula (Part 2 of 2)

Below is the remaining part of interview of Dr. Saif for In the Line of Wire. You can find the first part here.

You can watch the complete interview over CIO Webstudio: Part 1 : Part 2.

Should freshly pass out professionals with zero job experience try ventures?

Entrepreneurship is itself a different discipline which has little to do with job experience. Assume you were a software tester in Google. So, although you were doing a glamorous job, you were really not exposed to situations like IPO, exits etc. In summary, its not a necessity that successful entrepreneurs must have worked for someone before their first startup. Although, he has also worked with successful people who quit their jobs and started their ventures. There is no definite answer to it.

Entrepreneurship is not just about money!

Dr. Saif tells that 98% of startups are a failure in USA. [This sentence wouldn’t have caught my attention if he hadn’t clarified he was talking about USA. – Misbah]. There is nothing wrong in being failed. The really successful entrepreneurs are those who have gone onto the next startup after their second failure in startups. Entrepreneurship is not just about failure or success. Who wants to do the same boring 9 to 5 routine job for 20 years? Entrepreneurship is thrilling, exciting and interesting. Dr. Saif has known people who hate their job, even if they are working in companies that pay bonuses worth one million.

Dr Umar Saif Reveals the Success Formula (Part 1 of 2)

Dr. Umar Saif was the first Pakistani to receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Cambridge, where he was admitted to the doctorate program when he was only 19 years old. Dr Saif worked and taught at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) for four years, where he was part of the core team which developed system technologies for project Oxygen– a US$40 million project sponsored by the US Department of Defense and an industrial Alliance of world-class companies including Nokia, HP, NTT DoCommo, Phillips, Acer and Delta.

However, the reason he has caught my attention is not above achievements. Dr. Saif co-founded four technology startups: BumpIn.com (contextual chatting), SeeNreport.com (citizen journalism), ChOpaal.pk (SMS social networking) and TicketMy.com (event tickets) after returning to Pakistan. Dr. Saifis the founder of one of the first startup incubators in Lahore, Pakistan, called SCI. His good work in SCI won him the Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2010.