The worst advice is “Be patient.” People think they always have time. Well, maybe in another life, maybe in another situation, but not when you are starting a business from scratch.
Sabina Iman Tweet
Sabina Iman is the founder of the Blink dating app.
As a strategy professional, Sabina Iman has a decade of experience in marketing and sales. She also holds a master’s degree in Business Administration, focusing on tech and entrepreneurship.
Sabina’s company stands out in a competitive space with other tech-based companies because they put human experience at the core of their business.
Sabina goes on to say that Blink is the product that completely changed the experience of dating by making sure it feels more organic, or natural.
With Blink, the world is changing and people are craving human interaction. This creates a playground for women to also meet someone new in an immersive environment that enables you to enjoy your surroundings without having any distractions from screens or technology.
Sabina knows that women usually get messages about hanging out at another person’s apartment, which serves as the first date. However Blink puts people in a controlled environment where everything is happening in a public place in a public mode.
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How did you come up with the idea for your company? Can you share that story with us today?
Sabina Iman: Back then I was living in Madrid, and I’ve been a heavy user of dating apps because for me that was the only way to meet someone. My Spanish was very bad so I couldn’t get a chance to meet other people by speaking to them. Through dating apps it was much easier; however back then I realized that it’s not that easy, and it requires a lot of time.
With my career, with my daughter, with my interests, I couldn’t manage to understand why the dating apps require so much engagement. You have to go through a lot of swipes; you have to match with people, to chat with them. For a long time, in order to meet someone, finally, in a week or ten days, and have a drink–even that didn’t guarantee success in terms of the experience.
In most cases, you realize that people pretend to be someone else on dating apps. When you just meet this person, you understand that it’s not what you’ve been expecting, and there’s no chemistry, there’s no attraction, there’s no spark.
You just instantly realize that it’s not going to work. And I’ve been through a lot of these types of situations, and apparently when I was going back from one of my trips, I was at the airport, and it hit me right there:
“Why is there no app that can allow me to connect with someone who is at the airport right now, at this moment?” This person could be open to have a cup of coffee with me, and we can just arrange to meet at some coffee shop, have a conversation.
And that’s when I thought, “Okay, that can work for dating as well.”
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up?
Sabina Iman: Yes, there were hard times.
I had lost my job and I was an immigrant in another country alone with my daughter. There were days when I couldn’t afford to buy groceries. We had to choose between sugar pie, bananas, and good bread, and we had to prioritize these products and split it into three to last us until the next day.
I lost my apartment, too. I had to stay with my friends, and sleep on their couches for almost four months–all that, with a child. She was six back then.
There were hard times but that was the beginning of the journey. That’s when you are so fired up that you just blindly believe in your idea. You know that if you give up now, that it would be like a betrayal.
At that moment, I never thought about giving up. I thought that if we were going to go through this, we have to have the drive to continue. I was coming from this internal belief that people really need this product.
I’ve been talking to my friends. I’ve been talking to random strangers. Their feedback was something that fueled me.
Of course, the main role was the support of my daughter. Every time, when I got down about the situation, and I started crying and closing the door and trying to stay alone somewhere, my daughter was the one who kept pushing me.
She kept telling me that everything will be okay. Everything will be fine.
Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. What’s the worst advice you received?
Sabina Iman: The worst advice is “Be patient.” People think they always have time. Well, maybe in another life, maybe in another situation, but not when you are starting a business from scratch.
When you have to take care of yourself, take the company to the next level, and take care of the employees, you just don’t have that luxury. The only way to make it through is to take consistent action every day
These actions are seeing the progress, getting feedback from people and investors. Being consistent will help you progress in the startup.
It’s very important to do a lot of things like take consistent action, like send that email, make that call, send requests on their LinkedIn. I get into the conversation. Say yes to the stranger who approached you and asked you for an interview.
It’s a lot of things that you need to do without delay. Take it here and now. To do that, I believe you do need to have a bit of patience, but you need to understand that time is working against you. You’re on this journey of building that time.
You need to beat the odds–they’re all against you. Being patient doesn’t really help in this situation. You have to be impatient so you can enable yourself to take action.
This action requires you to be irritated and not accept the status quo. You must not accept that things will take time. You have to believe in hard work.
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Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Sabina Iman: I would say resilience comes with optimism and the resilient people have a strong feeling of internal optimism. They know that beyond every rejection there is something else, and they understand that it’s not a rejection–it’s a redirection.
If something happens, there is a reason for it. They try to learn from it and then they move on because they have a strong sense of a mission that they need to accomplish no matter what.
The challenges are just a part of the journey. It’s not something where they stop and they kind of give up. They are already programmed to understand the need to push through despite the challenges.
They learn that they grow through the challenges, which makes the journey more interesting. Another thing I would say is that people see opportunities in every failure, and every hardship.
They understand that there’s probably something they need to reconsider, so they dig for new ways. They dig for new opportunities, even during situations where everything can collapse.
Their internal optimism helps them see the light and opportunity. They know they must go there. They must think about it. They need to try it.
In your opinion, what makes your company stand out from the competition?
Sabina Iman: What makes us stand out from the competition is that despite the fact that we are a tech company where we have human experience at the core of our business. So we’re not the product that is about the features. We are the product that completely changed the experience of dating by making sure that we make it more organic and make it natural. We make it real life. We push people out of their homes. We push people out of their screens to actually go out and meet people in real life and this creates a safe playground for women to also be able to meet someone new in a completely new environment. When they don’t have to go through these situations where they receive the messages about hanging out at someone’s apartment as the first date.
So by creating this product we eliminated the negative experiences by putting people in a controlled environment where everything is happening in the public place in a live mode. And this is something that we will be pushing through and promoting as the new way of dating and is a new way of creating real authentic connections with with the people around
What do you consider are your strengths when dealing with staff workers, colleagues, senior management, and customers?
Sabina Iman: I would say that treating staff, colleagues, or senior management like customers helps us navigate through the challenging times. At the end they are the customers.
You do have end-users and you really understand the value you want to bring them. When they complain, you know exactly what you need to tell them.
But at the same time, I believe that looking at employees as your customers helps you navigate through a lot of challenging times and helps you see things from their perspective.
This is rather than looking at things in a one-sided way, because at the end these people work or join the company not for the salary or equity but because there is something beyond that. You need to treat them as part of that.
You also need to help them feel valued so that they can take care of the customers. They can deliver the value to the customers. I think this is one of a leader’s strong points; of course I still struggle to be consistent with this from time to time. I’m still working toward that, especially when we are facing something.
It’s super stressful to switch to that mindset but it just helps me navigate and understand this mindset. It’s not just the employees working for the company. It’s also me working for them, and making them choose between us and someone else.
What have you learned about personal branding that you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Sabina Iman: I wish I could have known early about the impact personal branding has on business. This was something that I discovered recently during the past year when I started to be very active on LinkedIn, to be very consistent with the posting, and take part in different activities.
Of course this year it’s all been online, but still I do believe that you gain a lot of value from personal branding. It shows something that is beyond the company and it’s really easy to communicate your values through personal branding.
When people understand you better, or understand what’s your life about, your weaknesses, the things that bother you, or the hardships you’re going through, I think that helps to humanize the brand or the company itself.
When you’re exposed to these people and bringing your personal branding to these life experiences, I also think that helps to humanize the brand.
At some point it helps you to move faster with relationships and form new connections easier. People just trust you more, and that’s why I believe it has a really strong impact.
I wish I could have known that early in my career. That could have helped me boost it faster, get many things done in a more efficient way. But I’m so happy that I discovered it during the past year.
How would you define “leadership”?
Sabina Iman: For me leadership is giving an opportunity for others to grow, and giving opportunities for others to be part of success, and making sure they have everything they need in order to succeed.
It’s more about asking what they need to accomplish the tasks, to reach the objectives, and to be there to help them with that. It’s not about the investment into someone else to lead the company. It’s about creating the culture, of creating the process that fosters this type of experience.
I believe that when people think they are a part of success, they are also more willing to help the company during bad times because they associate themselves so much with that success. They feel more responsible to help when something bad happens.
They feel more a part of it, rather than being just an employee of it. That is something essential for leadership.
Do you think entrepreneurship is something that you’re born with or something that you can learn along the way?
Sabina Iman: I’m a strong believer in habits. And I believe that entrepreneurship is something that you can develop if you define the patterns or the habits that entrepreneurs must have.
It’s the same as becoming a pilot, or becoming an athlete, or becoming a successful musician.
So it’s all just a matter of consistent action you need to take so you can get where you want. It’s all about habits. If you develop these habits that the same successful people have developed over the years, you start implementing them in your daily life.
You will find yourself out there as an entrepreneur. I don’t believe in talent that is given at birth. I believe in hard work, consistent action, and habits. These will help you build the person you want to be.
What’s your favorite “life lesson” quote and how has it affected your life?
Sabina Iman: My favorite quote is from Nelson Mandela, who said “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
I believe it’s a super powerful message because it shows you that something can move from one state to another by making it real, which you can do by taking action.
Every action you take toward a goal, even if it seems unachievable or unrealistic, will help change the situation. When you arrive at that moment, you will realize that it actually didn’t seem as impossible as it was in the beginning.
This quote affects me a lot because it allowed me to see that the only way to make the impossible a reality is to stop listening and start doing what you think is right in order to get there.
ValiantCEO would like to thank Sabina for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Sabina or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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