Recently, I have met with Syeda Sabera Arefin, Director & COO, Valiant Tech Ltd, Proprietor, Shuktara Travels. Let’s start our conversations here.

1) Hi Sabera, hope you are doing well. Would you please tell me about your background, your childhood, education, and what are you doing today?

 

Hello! I hope you are doing great as well. I have been brought up in an affluent Muslim family and completed my secondary and higher secondary studies from Mohammadpur Preparatory School & College and Dhaka Commerce College. After that, I had my graduation from North South University majoring in Marketing. Currently, I am a full-fledged travel & tech entrepreneur.

2) How did your entrepreneurial journey begin?

My mindset to be an entrepreneur started during my undergrad career in event management services which was my first business that I founded in 2013. Partnering with my husband in that firm, we expanded to become a boutique graphic designing studio. Later I founded a Govt. approved travel agency Shuktara Travels which had a 300% growth in the pre-COVID era. Currently, I have fully invested myself as the Director and COO of Valiant Tech Ltd.

3) Tell us a little bit about Valiant Tech Ltd.

 

From the very beginning, I had a keen interest in technology and was eager to bring in hi-tech solutions to the country. Moreover, in an effort to support in the process of digitalization of the nation and a knack in technology, we founded Valiant Technologies back in 2018 with four employees. Recently it got incorporated into Valiant Tech Ltd. and moved into its new office in Gulshan, Dhaka.

Valiant Tech Limited is basically an IT engineering and technology services agency, specializing in scale-able, and heavy-tech solutions. Our expertise expands in three major business verticals, which consist of being an EPC Contractor, Engineering Solution Provider, Enterprise IT System Integrator (SI) and an Integrated Marketing Communication agency with decade-long industry experience in relevant fields. In the recent years, the company has worked with some major government, defense & private agencies having 100+ satisfied clients in its portfolio. Today, Valiant proudly serves several local business conglomerates including franchisee cricket teams and world-renowned hospitality brands. Its worth mentioning, Valiant Tech is the member of partner networks of Microsoft, Google, Zoho, Hoteza, Mikotik and local implementation partner of world’s leading ERP software called Odoo.

4) Who and what were your motivating factors throughout the journey? To whom do you attribute your success?

Mostly my father and mother who taught me to be an independent, self-sufficient person since childhood. The other motivating factors was my entrepreneurial family background which pushed me to strive for excellence and a better entrepreneur.

I would attribute my success to the Almighty. Next my family – my husband who has also motivated me to run along with him this far and supported in every other work after my parents.

5) What hurdles did you face in establishing this platform? And how exactly did you overcome those?

There were few external challenges of-course and there will be. I have brought myself facing the challenge into IT industry acknowledging the fact that hardly female works in this sector. I have seen the male colleagues wondering about my engagement in the IT sector and I believe, I have surpassed the challenge or the taboo by engaging in this sector and keep moving on.

I always believe in Kaizen which is a Japanese term meaning “continuous improvement”. I overcome the challenges only believing that I will serve the society for the betterment of people by actively working for a positive change.

6) How many hours a day do you work on average? Can you describe/outline your typical day?

I wake up earlier for the Fajar prayer on the day as I believe being early is being healthy and wise. I plan my daily work outlines while having my breakfast. I prepare a list aiming to achieve my goals for that very day. Then I meet my family and start for my office. On a typical work day, I attend to stand-up meetings physically or over video conferences with the executives and follow-up the activities. I work roughly for four hours a day if not there is any complex project going on.

7) What are your ideals? How do you define success?

My ideals are to be persistent, stay positive & neutral, and serve people for the betterment not as an achievement and showing the proper attitude.

Success is a rational term which people may define as money or fame. To me, success is to serve my people, family and society, to serve them even better. My success would be to live a balanced and happy life. I fend for inner peace to be successful.    

8) What do you do to make sure you are ahead of your competitors?

I believe, an entrepreneur’s duty is to fulfill a market gap and offer uniqueness to its customers. From my background as a marketeer, we extensively research on what we do, analyze market trends and stay up-to-date as technology alters in every six months. In this industry, staying relevant with the latest innovations and having a unique selling proposition is the vital to stay ahead – I believe.

9) As a woman, did you face any kind of discrimination throughout your career?

Luckily, I have never faced any discrimination from my male colleagues however, personally, I have faced various challenges throughout the career being a woman.

10) How hard is it to keep the balance between work life and personal life?

There is only an idea to balance the work and personal life only by living them. Being present there is the only solution I believe.

11) What are your future plans?

My future plans are to utilize the expertise skillsets of young Bangladeshi people to provide them with success and to create a team of virtuous people.

12)  If not an entrepreneur, which profession would you go for?

I would choose to be a lawyer if not an entrepreneur.  

13) Five books would you like to recommend to our readers.

• The power of habit by Charles Duhigg
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrarazzi
• The 4-hour work week by Timothy Ferriss
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• The Leader of the people by John Stenbeck

14) Lastly, what key activities would you recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs to focus on to establish their own business? Any piece of business advice you would like to share with the youth?

The key activities I would recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs is to learn and enhance their skills; to work with the current problems and to establish a business only if its itself a useful innovation.

“My advice is to the youth is to keep working, practicing over their potential and stay consistent on what they do. In this way, it won’t be necessary to panic for success, rather success will find you anyway.”