What is a legacy? Is it important to leave a legacy? For some, these are questions that are left too late to be answered, but for 27-year-old tech billionaire Shadman Sakib, these answers are intrinsically tied to his fundamental vision. “I already have plans for after I die … I want to build products that last for generations,” the founder of short-form video platform Vurse tells CEO Middle East when we sit down.
“Everything that I have, everything that I will ever accumulate, and everything that I’m working towards, all of this has to be for all of humanity in perpetuity,” he says. For Sakib, his “most important objective is to contribute to the advancement of humanity. It sounds broad and utopian, but that’s what I’m always thinking about.”
Our conversation turned to the melancholic subject of the lifespan of a human life when discussing the legacy that Sakib plans to leave behind, a subject that he feels very strongly about. “In the broader scope of the history of our universe, humanity is a mere miniscule. Yet, we have accomplished a fair amount in our relatively short history. To keep that legacy alive is what keeps me going. If there’s no advancement of humanity’s legacy, there’s no point in me spending days and nights building,” he comments.
To have such an all-encompassing, uncompromising focus on legacy is somewhat striking in such a young, albeit very successful, entrepreneur. Put simply, for Sakib: “What’s the point of being given this blessing of a human life if you’re not willing to contribute to the legacy of humanity as a whole? Everything that I build is for our legacy.”
Vision
It starts with a vision. Startups are easy to come by in the UAE. Indeed, the small business sector dominates the country’s non-oil economy, and represents that majority of the job market. However, finding success in the hyper competitive startup world is no easy feat, with the road paved with challenges. Sakib puts his own success down to building and managing a team of like-minded individuals through a “rock-solid vision,” a belief system which brings him personal happiness too.
“I have been a man without money, and I have been a man with money. When I was with money, I was happy, and when I was without money, I was still happy. The only reason for that is because I’m not driven by money, I’m driven by passion, vision and happiness. When I’m chasing my passion and vision with reckless abandon, I’m at my happiest, both mentally and physically. And money is a by-product of working hard towards your vision.”
On the subject of money – Sakib disagrees with the age-old adage that money doesn’t bring happiness, noting it as “absolutely not true,” but brings his own caveat. “It depends on the person. For some, a million dollars makes them happy, while for others just $100 makes them happy. The reason a small farmer in Bangladesh could still be happy earning relatively less money is because he/she knows that they’re adding value to the lives of many people around the world. And that’s what’s most important. Every single human being working towards creating value in their own small or big ways.” he adds.
This belief is something that Sakib has brought through into Vurse, a self-described “hyper-interactive” short-video platform. “With Vurse we have our own Creator Programme, backed by the latest Web 3 Technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence where we try to help content creators and our users with their livelihood as much as we can. We make sure that the platform will reward creators and reward regular users for spending time in the app,” Sakib explains. “We want to make sure that spending time in the app will contribute to the financial happiness of the users and content creators.”
Given the nature of the platform, with its roots firmly set in the futuristic world of Web3.0 technology, it’s perhaps no surprise that Sakib chose Dubai to set up shop. The city has announced big plans to become the global hub for metaverse, blockchain, and other Web3.0 technologies, revealing its goal to add $4bn to its economy via a “metaverse strategy.” The decision to open his company in Dubai was one that came to the tech entrepreneur “quite easily.”
“Dubai will become the next Silicon Valley, and the reason is that the quality of living here is so much higher. If you compare the lifestyle, entertainment, security, and, most importantly, the quality of people that are moving here, it’s highly motivating.”
In particular, Sakib highlights his quest to solve the talent equation as an important facet in the decision to be based in Dubai. “If I want to build a team and bring them to any country in, say for instance, Europe, it’s very difficult. First of all, here [in Dubai] the regulations from the authorities help, but to bring foreign talent in is a lot easier than in Europe or the United States,” he says, before noting that the quality of talent available in Dubai is “top-tier.”
“You have the best and the brightest coming here. People who understand technology and people with imagination and ambition. This satisfaction can only come from people who work in a city that “provides them with the environment to enjoy their life,” he says. The security of Dubai is like “no other city on earth,” Sakib adds, before applauding the emirate’s leadership as “phenomenal,” noting the leaders deserve a large amount of credit.
“The culture key. While it may be a fantastic city for attracting and retaining talent, the key remains in successfully building and managing a team of highly skilled and driven people. Sakib is no slouch in this department, stating that he’s “often in the trenches with the team.” “Managing people becomes difficult if you’re a difficult founder, and I don’t think I’m a difficult founder…Even if the team is working 20 hours a day, I’m right there with them. I’m their friend.”
In the discussion of management and culture, the topic of vision returns. “As founders, our most important job is to align everyone in the company with a vision. If everyone buys into the vision, it encourages them to work hard, and to build something long-lasting. They don’t do anything for me, they do it for the company, they do it for the team, and, most importantly, they do it for the vision,” he says.
Sakib’s work-hard mentality is self-evident throughout Vurse’s sparse skyscraper offices. As previously mentioned, the founder puts a lot of emphasis on happiness, and he states candidly, “my happiness is to see other people happy.”
Sakib adds: “If I see my team members are happy, or the products VURSE is building makes my users happy, that makes me happy. That makes me successful,” he says. Simultaneously, if the entire company is aligned to one vision, then it’s able to move forward despite any roadblocks. And you can only reach there by continuously focussing on building, making mistakes, and reinventing,” Sakib says. “Move fast, make mistakes, and reinvent”. Sakib, thinks this expression should be applied more broadly.
“We should be encouraging our society to make more mistakes, and not be afraid of making mistakes. But at the same time we have to ensure we’re working hard towards learning from these mistakes and putting our best foot forward through experiential learning,” he says.
The culture of making mistakes, learning and reinventing has bled into the way in which Vurse has designed its short-form video app.
Vurse
With Vurse, Sakib is determined to improve the social media landscape for both content creators as well as users. “Social Media is at the epicentre of human interaction today. We have seen the impact it has had on people from all walks of life. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. The Creator Economy has taken the world by storm, giving birth to a whole new paradigm of wealth generation, but the little guy is still left far behind. The centralized nature of social media platforms favors the bigger creators, but we want to make sure we create an inclusive environment where everyone gets a level playing field.” Sakib notes.
Another key aspect of Sakib’s vision behind Vurse is a highly user-centric approach.
“The amount of time an average person spends on social media today is extremely high. This is a fact that we must come to terms with and its addictive nature implies that this is not going to go down anytime soon. Therefore, my team and I at Vurse, believe that we must reinvent what it means to be a user on social media. Through gamification of user activity, coupled with the latest cryptocurrency technologies, we are able to create a new ecosystem of solutions where users can generate passive income from the time spent on social media.
“Along with this we are also working on narrowing the gap between users and content creators. Through some very interesting features in our app, we are able to connect these two stakeholders like never before. This gives users much deeper relationships with their favorite creators and allows for users, as fans, to get something in return for their loyalty as well as giving them great insight into what it takes to be a successful content creator and build a living out of it, if they aspire to do so.”
As the interview finishes up, Sakib turns to walk us back through Vurse’s office, wherein we find the majority of the team huddled at one end working on an undisclosed new feature. On the wall are large, vivid signs, perhaps each an expression of the firm’s “rock solid vision,” including phrases designed to, as Sakib explains, “evoke brilliance.”
When asked though why he works in “the trenches” and endures the 20+ hours a day of work though, he had a simple answer, with the subject of legacy never far from his mind: “I want to be remembered for something that really made a difference.”