If you could start your business all over again, what would you do differently? For our third RSR interview, I sat down with Hussein Fazal, founder and CEO of SnapTravel, and previously, AdParlor Inc. (acquired by AdKnowledge in 2011). Having founded two companies back to back, Fazal has been able to ask himself that very question and put his answers into practice.
At AdParlor, Hussein grew the business to a $100+ million run rate. His latest venture, SnapTravel, is a service allowing users to book hotels at highly discounted rates over SMS and Facebook Messenger. The growing company has recently raised an additional $10 million CAD in Series A funding.
Fazal enlightens us on lessons learned as a first time founder and what he’s done differently the second time around. Fazal’s biggest piece of advice is to stay focused. “Staying focused is by far the most important thing,” he says. “There’s always a million things you could be doing. Staying focused as a company and as a strategy, and even staying focused as a CEO. Knowing what’s the most important thing for me to get done this week, this month.”
So much gold here. Watch it now: