Interview with Atif Azim, Co-founder & CEO - VentureDive

Atif Azim  

Co-founder & CEO, VentureDive

Give us a quick overview on VentureDive. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?

VentureDive is a full-service software development & product design partner, founded in 2012. The founding team of Stanford and MIT alums, shared a vision of building high-quality, user experience-driven solutions to solve customer needs, and doing so with a remote, global workforce.

I had co-founded and sold a couple of technology companies during my time in the Silicon Valley; the last of which we sold to Cisco Systems. Shehzaad had led large engineering teams in the valley, the last one being at SalesForce. And, Saad is an expert in user experience. He led the Nokia HERE division, and contributed heavily to their mapping solution.

In a very short time we have built a team of over 300 experts at VentureDive with a proven track record of building & growing digital products from zero to millions of concurrent users.

What is your role in the management and development of VentureDive?

I am the founder and CEO of VentureDive. However, if I look at my role, it is more about motivation, inspiration and of course, strategic guidance.

It is important to remember that as leaders, the best thing we can do is create the right culture and environment for our people.

It is the culture of collaboration, respect, inclusivity, and empowerment that helps foster an environment in which people can succeed.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry

There are so many to choose from. For example, we were the technology company that developed the entire platform for the Careem ride-sharing platform. Careem was the first unicorn in the region, and went on to get bought out by Uber for $3.1B. It was a unique achievement in the region and we could not have done it without the exceptional developers and UX designers in our team. We have helped create platforms for two other companies that went on to become unicorns.

However, I think our best achievement to date has been when we were awarded the best IT company to work for in Pakistan in 2019. This award is a testament to the culture and environment we have created. It is a well-known fact that you get the best productivity out of colleagues when they are in their happy zones. I believe this reason contributes to why we are able to churn out successful and happy customers on an ongoing basis.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?

We do this by acting as technology thought partners, not just as technology outsourcers. We schedule development phases customized to our clients’ needs. This means taking into consideration their business goals, the functional needs, and of course their time to market. All of these, when taken into context together, result in the best technology solution.

How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?

In line with my previous answer, the right platform is only right if you take into consideration the business needs, time to market, total cost of ownership and not just technical needs. Our solution architects are all trained to keep this perspective in mind when designing solutions from the ground up.

Which would you suggest for a successful and profitable business progression, Native or hybrid apps? How do you define the factors that influenced you to make this choice?

First, we should clarify that the idea of hybrid apps has evolved into a couple of flavors. An example of the first flavor is something like ionic where the app runs in a web container or is viewable on the device.  The second flavor is frameworks such as React Native and Flutter where development is happening in a higher-level tech stack but the application is compiled down to the native platform.

Our experience across the board of these flavors of hybrid apps as well as native apps really has taught us one thing: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Using cross-platform frameworks such as React Native and Flutter (where Flutter has gained a lot of ground recently) we just have to build the business logic once, to be run everywhere, with decent options to escape into actual native platform development if there is a need for a particular module. So, we have adjusted our approach to start there and then convince ourselves that this won't work and we should go native for the entire application.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget? 

We generally opt for a value-driven pricing model, flexible to suit customers’ needs.

We work with customers’ budget and business requirements, and propose solutions that take both into consideration. This enables us to draw on our considerable experience working with large enterprises and fledgling high-growth startups, alike.

How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?

Our focus is always on working with customers and engagements where together, we create an impact on society. This is why, by and large, we can confidently say that all of the apps we have developed have not only delivered on the business needs, but we can also say with surety that they have resulted in a positive impact to their end-users.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

Whenever we have any prospective clients come onboard with us, our intention is to foster long-term relationships with them and we engage with them in a way that they perceive us as their long-term partners as well. To make this possible, we really keep three major things in mind:

Razor sharp focus on quality of engineering deliverables

Understanding our clients business

Strong and transparent communication

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?

The one mantra that we have at VentureDive is ‘measure, analyze, identify (problems), and solve’. And then repeat. This means collecting data about how we are doing at all levels of our operation. From sales to writing proposals to negotiations to project execution to deployment and support, every action of our team that affects a customer is an opportunity for us to measure, analyze, identify, and solve. The use of tooling, a mix of internal development and customization of externally available tooling, uniquely applied to our processes and strengths is the key. But, of course, the trick is not to let any of this get in the way of efficient collaboration and creativity.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?

The enriching of the human-computer interface has made possible the blurring of the boundary between human experience with the physical world and technology. Keyboards, mice and monitors are being relegated to the background. On top of all this new hardware, there is a huge opportunity to build software applications, where tech enables enriching experiences instead of getting in the way. Our obsession with usability has always been about tech being an enabler of a great story, not the story itself.

Regarding IoT, we in the tech industry have to be ready to handle the deluge of data that is already coming through the floodgates. Billions and billions of devices generating data about their environments every couple of seconds means exciting opportunities in infrastructure - both computing and communications - as well as applications that can turn all those packets of data into decision-enabling intelligence. And that's where VentureDive's understanding of how to move, store, process and transform data stems from.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?

The direction that Mobile technology is heading in is turning a lot of old paradigms on their head. In the consumer space, the fact that over 45% of the entire human population owns a smart-phone means that services and information that so much of the world was entirely locked out of, are now opening up. The responsible deployment of tech will break down barriers, create opportunities and more importantly, make people aware of their rights and the possibilities that come with them. On the other hand, mobile tech has blurred the concept of a physical office - which probably has been catalyzed by changes forced on us by the pandemic. The momentum towards actually being able to do critical business functions on mobile, hand-held devices means that software should no longer be designed to expose some small subset of functionality on mobile devices. Mobile use cases must be front and center. At VentureDive, we are keenly aware and well-paced to put momentum behind these trends.