[00:00:02 – 00:00:10] Nitin Bajaj

Hey everyone. Welcome to the industry show. I’m your host Nitin Bajaj and joining me today is Siam Hossain. Siam, welcome on the show.

[00:00:11 – 00:00:14] Siam Hossain

Hi Nitin. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:14 – 00:00:18] Nitin Bajaj

It’s great to have you here. Let’s start with the big question. Who is cm?

[00:00:20 – 00:01:03] Siam Hossain

Oh man, this is such a hard question. It’s so, so big. CM is always expanding, I would say for the scope of this conversation. I consider myself who is always learning and growing and one of the best way actually I had learned or have grown is through changing my country or moving to a new country. So I’m an immigrant by like one of the definitions. I’m also an entrepreneur and I feel like these two titles are the most changing or adaptive roles. Both immigrant and entrepreneurships are very demanding for growth. So yeah, that’s who I am.

[00:01:04 – 00:01:20] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. And I relate to you in both those aspects as an entrepreneur and a fellow immigrant. So let’s talk about that a little bit. Tell us what is Algorizin and why did you start doing this?

[00:01:22 – 00:04:15] Siam Hossain

Yeah, let’s, let’s start with the why or let’s, let’s like the backstory. So I came here in 2009 for my studies. I finished electrical engineering degree and then despite having a engineering degree, I didn’t land a proper job because I didn’t know anyone basically back then because first person from both of my sides of the family to ever move to the US So actually from both mom and dad side, no cousin, no one moved to the U.S. i’m the first person. So I had to do a lot of mistakes by my own and break all these barriers before I could crack it. But when I graduated, I graduated from University of Houston which is in Texas and I moved to New York because I thought that I found a job opportunity. But that fell through and eventually despite having an engineering degree, I was working in this food truck. So like in, in New York, I don’t know, I’m sure you have seen this Halal gyro stands, they sell the halal gyros. And I work in all these odd jobs for almost like eight months in New York. Like restaurants and then big party centers. And I met so many smart people. Like I have so many friends who back from back then, engineer from Nepal, from Nigeria, from India, Pakistan, all these countries. I had a friend who was a nuclear physicist who was in Dunkin Donuts. This is hilarious. Like nuclear physics from back home. And then he didn’t land, he just came. So I realized that there is a big gap that America is bringing all these talents but not really grooming them properly or like capturing their talents properly. So I had this idea from back then that okay, I struggled myself a lot. I eventually landed a job self taught myself for iOS development, iPhone application development. This was in 2013, really long ago. And that time iOS was or like iPhones were pretty much going through the same AI kind of mobile, mobile apps, all this. So I caught the hype, I self taught, I landed a job, but then I made my whole career, let’s say in, in technology basically starting with mobile apps and that we and all kind of applications. And the reason for starting was just to help the younger versions of me. I actually started teaching not even seriously, just as, as a side hobby. Then I started a YouTube channel and that blew up and then I’m like, okay, maybe I can have a business around it. And so I don’t think algorithm was a planned move. It organically became a business. So that’s. Quick answer.

[00:04:15 – 00:04:53] Nitin Bajaj

I love that, I love that you found a purpose as you were going through your own journey. And it’s hilarious. But it’s also sad that a nuclear physicist is coming in and making donuts. So but that’s, that’s the reality. That’s the, that’s what we have to go through as immigrants. And you know, now that you’ve been doing this for a bit, give us a sense of the size and scale of your operations. What are you doing, how many people have you helped impacted and what kind of organizations are you working with?

[00:04:55 – 00:07:12] Siam Hossain

Good question. So we are primarily a boot camp. So we help immigrants who are different in different visa statuses like in F1opt or they can also be coming through like green card. Doesn’t really matter what kind of status they’re from, but we help them train and land high paying tech jobs that fang companies jobs. So teach them soft skills, technology skills. And we also work with employers so that the hiring of these immigrants are easier. So many of the times the talents are have the skills but they’re not hired because on the employer side whenever they’re hearing that oh we have to do H1B, they’re backing out. So we work with employers, primarily small and medium businesses so that the hiring becomes easy. So it’s an end to end kind of service. We hit seven figures in revenue since the beginning of last year. So now we are a little bit north than that. Revenue is coming from primarily two sides, but we also have a lot like little revenue sources. But I’ll talk about the two main one is from the student side, which is that they do not pay us anything upfront. They pay us after they land a job, a percentage of their salary. That’s one model and another one is B2B. So we work with all these small and medium businesses also on the B2B side just to make them immigrant compliant. We also actually do the staff augmentation, which is the big. Like Tata Consulting, Delaware, kpmg, they are giants, but we’re like super duper tiny. But we. Our biggest contract is with IBM and the second one is with Accenture, and then we have other little ones. So these are some of our clients. So both B2B and B2C mix sources of revenue impact. In the last four and a half years, we have landed around 220 people jobs in like big Tech. I would say, like, if I combine all of their salaries, it would be more than 13 million in us. You know, like value add in GDP or however you calculate it. Yeah, so that’s. That’s kind of like the impact so far.

[00:07:13 – 00:08:45] Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. Congratulations. And you know, not many people realize the challenges and struggles an immigrant has to go through coming into a country where they have virtually no relationships. And I remember my days not too long ago, not too far from when you came here, where had to pretty much start from scratch, had no relatives, literally no friends, and had to learn through many mistakes. And so kudos to you for doing what you do and helping transform lives. We all make this big transition and we say, you know, we all speak the language when we come to this country, but do we really understand how business is done? And most of us don’t because business is very cultural. And how business is done back in our home countries is very different than how it is done here. So having that bridge and giving them that platform is extremely important. And can. I mean, we know this can save you months, if not years of time and pain of doing something that you’re not passionate about or is much different than what you would rather spend your time and energy on. So now I want to know, as you’re helping others come up and come through a lot of their challenges, what is the one big main challenge that you face?

[00:08:47 – 00:09:38] Siam Hossain

Yeah, that’s a good question. I have so many challenges, man. I would say the biggest challenge I am facing right now with. So first of all, I have never imagined that I’ll be in a position where I’m at even literally like few years ago, I was in a position where I was struggling with my own H1B and it’s just about this whole thing that I’ll be fired and I’ll have to leave. And last year our company got nine H1B approved. I’m like crazy that these are all smart people I’m helping now. It’s like not a joke anymore. I’m still the same person obviously, but it’s, I’m still getting used to it.

[00:09:38 – 00:09:39] Nitin Bajaj

Yeah.

[00:09:41 – 00:11:01] Siam Hossain

What is my struggle is that I am seeing the, especially the tech industry being massively disrupted with, in general with AI and then secondly with a lot of this immigration shifts which are coming because of political reasons but irrespective of which party, like in general immigration is going through a lot and because of this fear, a lot of the employers are kind of backing out on higher images. Too much drama. So, so there’s two factors. One is AI, which is affecting the tech industry and second is immigration. Honestly, I’m really worried about the younger generation now who are graduating because the market is especially in tech is going to be very bad. It’s bad now, but it’s, I don’t see it improving. So that is a struggle. I am trying to figure out a pathway, how to start helping them at scale, potentially maybe helping them, help them build businesses because they’re very smart. But still there is something I have to figure out and that’s the struggle that I don’t, I do not have a clear idea how do we navigate this change, what the industry is going through, that’s the struggle.

[00:11:02 – 00:11:25] Nitin Bajaj

You, me and several million, if not a billion people are going through that. I mean it’s exciting times but at the same time that comes with what’s happening, right, that it’s almost an adventure. We are all on together. So. But on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What’s the one that you’re most excited about?

[00:11:28 – 00:12:46] Siam Hossain

No, I, I think as you said rightly that this is a challenge and an opportunity that I feel like if we, I mean we are I think like very great. I’m very grateful to be in a position where I do not have to worry about day to day survival anymore. Like I don’t have to worry about getting food in my plate next month or where I stay, which is very grateful position to be. And it’s the responsibility I would select both you and me and our friends is to basically help the people to adapt to this change and maybe create. So that’s what I’m also excited about. I’m sad and worried, but also I’m like, okay, this is an enormous market coming opening up, so that, yeah, I just want to help the, the new younger immigrant founders to build let’s say seven figure companies using AI, some a combination of all this. And that’s what I’m excited about. And it has never been so easy to start a company. Like it has been bad for the job market but starting a company is great now. So yeah, that’s what I’m excited about now.

[00:12:46 – 00:13:12] Nitin Bajaj

As we look forward, I’d love to pause and reflect. I’d love for you to share two instances from your history past previous life. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was failure, there was lessons and another instance where things exceeded your expectations and there was success beyond your imagination.

[00:13:20 – 00:16:52] Siam Hossain

I mean there are many, many learnings. I mean it can go for hours if we talk about mistakes. But the one thing about businesses in general, what I didn’t know before is that this is not my first business. This is like my third official business. But I have tried a lot of other non business ideas. Many failed. And one of the things about in business is about working with people. Like working with people. Either as a co founder, as an employee, either as a partner, doesn’t matter. Expectation management. Clearly having written expectation is such a untaught skill. Unfortunately I don’t know why people are not teaching this but it’s such a mandatory skill. I had one of my previous companies which kind of failed because of co founder conflicts because we were so dreamy in the beginning, jumped and started the company, revenue started coming and then we realized that we do not have alignment in our values later after the money started coming in. So it’s kind of like you got your kids but the husband and wife is not, you know, like you have to go through divorce and after the kid, the divorce is very painful because you have revenue. Like it’s so, so, so that company I started and kind of like we had to dissolve it after a year. I mean I left the company. That company eventually also died after I left. But the main learning through that was that no one was essentially at fault. But we were so dreamy and young that we didn’t have our values cleared. Nothing was written, nothing was clearly defined. Like okay, we’ll go and figure it out. So I am very proponent of keeping things written now. But okay, this is our understanding, let’s keep it written in email. Simple. And that avoids a lot of conflicts later because two years later all the discussions become oh, I thought you said this and I thought I said that. So email. The best simple thing, keeping things in email and Written. So that’s one learning or simple change. What was the one thing which expected beyond. I feel like my whole life is beyond my expectation point right now. So the I would say like the thing which I’m mostly proud of and genuinely my. I consider my first child in terms of the creativity is that before algorithm I created a kind of like a community which is called higher study abroad where we help primarily people from Bangladesh or Bengali speaking people actually even from India, but Bengali speak of people to go to higher studies all over the world. And that group or community has more than 220000 members. So that is something I started literally as a hobby or just for fun or like helping people. And I cannot imagine that a person like me can create that kind of a massive. Like 220000 is huge. So that is beyond my expectation and I would say like that gave me all the confidence to keep doing more and more. So now I still enjoy but the first one still gets the biggest because I didn’t have any confidence before that. So. So, so that’s life.

[00:16:53 – 00:16:59] Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. That’s massive impact. So again, congratulations now.

[00:16:59 – 00:16:59] Siam Hossain

Thank you.

[00:17:01 – 00:17:04] Nitin Bajaj

Stepping away from work, what do you do for fun?

[00:17:08 – 00:18:33] Siam Hossain

Good question. I actually love anything to do with water. Like that’s my most happy element. So I love surfing, I love scuba diving. Yeah, I saw your pictures other day that you’re into sailing. I want to get into sailing as well. I would say anything to do with water. I. I can be in the water all day every day. So that’s my hobby. It’s a little hard to do in New York City because obviously not so close but I’m. And here I’m just doing like a little bit kayaking and like other activities in the water. And secondly would be second hobby would be like meditation. I like silent retreats. I lead like monthly workshops here with some friends and community. 2030 people. Breathing workshop, meditation, reflection, journaling. I really like that whole segment helps a lot. I would say with clarity, happiness, peace. And I would say like biggest ideas and biggest changes and shifts in life come from those sessions. So yeah, these are some of the hobbies. And then I try a lot of other things which I don’t finish. So. Yeah, yeah, love that consistent one. These are the consistent ones. Yeah.

[00:18:33 – 00:18:47] Nitin Bajaj

Well, we have to experiment. Otherwise how do we know what works for us and what doesn’t? Right? Yeah, we have to keep exploring. Now is there a book or a podcast that you would like to recommend?

[00:18:52 – 00:20:27] Siam Hossain

Podcast or a book? There are so many books which are completely changed my life. There is this book. I mean this is the most common recommended book. The how to influence and influence people. Very basic. But I had zero idea about emotional intelligence and people anything before that. So it helped me a lot personally books. There was another called Mindset. I forgot Carol doing something very good. Very, very simple but very good. Mm, Thinking fast and slow. Also super famous, but also very good. Very hard read but very good at this moment. I mean I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, but now I’m kind of like scatteredly consuming information through all the. I really like one kind of like spirituality slash neuroscience kind of podcast called On Being. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. On Being by Krista Tibet. She brings in interesting like people who are working in mental health, neuroscience and spirituality. Interesting combination. And I like that it’s a different type of podcast, more spiritual aligned, let’s say. I really love Rumi’s quotes. It’s like the old legend is like a top. Top dog.

[00:20:27 – 00:20:28] Nitin Bajaj

Yes.

[00:20:29 – 00:20:43] Siam Hossain

Then we have I. One of my friends recently recommended Muji, who is also another spiritual guru person. I think he lives in somewhere in Portugal or somewhere. But anyway, some scattered thoughts around that.

[00:20:44 – 00:20:53] Nitin Bajaj

Very nice. Now on to my favorite part of the show. We call this the one line life lessons. Cm I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

[00:20:56 – 00:21:50] Siam Hossain

Life lessons, one line. I would say like let’s go with the one. It has to be a one line. It has to be a one line. Well, I mean I have a simple two lines, but it’s technically one line thing I would almost tattoo in my hand, but I didn’t do it. It’s basically what I call take risks, be kind. So on one side there is that continuously try to test risk and try new things. That’s one. But also be kind, be empathetic, try to understand other people, help them. But it’s difficult to put it in one line because these are two energies, but two, both a little bit.

[00:21:53 – 00:22:43] Nitin Bajaj

So I’ll pause this one and we’ll cut this out. But in the questions I had sent you, like we typically try to get five of these. And in the questions I had sent you some examples and it’s okay, you know, the one you shared is perfect. I mean it doesn’t have to be, you know, a comma or a full stop is not the question. It’s about what are some of these things that you have come to adapt that somebody else may have said it, but you’ve made it your Own. And you’re following it or what are some things that you have come up with on your own. Right. So that’s really what we are going for. There is. We have a website. There is a couple thousand of those. I mean, I don’t know if you can do that next couple of minutes while you’re still here.

[00:22:44 – 00:22:56] Siam Hossain

Yeah, let’s do it. Yeah. Can you give me some. Some. Actually, I’m trying to look at your email. This part. So that I like. So that I. Yeah. What’s the website? I can. If you can give me something.

[00:22:56 – 00:22:59] Nitin Bajaj

onelinelifelessons.com.

[00:23:11 – 00:23:12] Siam Hossain

Is this your website?

[00:23:13 – 00:23:13] Nitin Bajaj

Yep.

[00:23:15 – 00:23:30] Siam Hossain

I love this. So, like, I love this thing. And then I have to choose one out of them.

[00:23:30 – 00:23:36] Nitin Bajaj

5. And you don’t even have to choose these. This is just so that you kind of get an idea of what these are.

[00:23:36 – 00:23:52] Siam Hossain

This is great. Yeah, I mean, this is great because I can clearly see which ones I like and which ones I don’t like more. Yeah. So definitely face your fears. Favorite. I love that. Since top.

[00:23:53 – 00:23:57] Nitin Bajaj

So make a note of those so when you start you can, you know.

[00:23:58 – 00:23:59] Siam Hossain

Okay. Okay.

[00:23:59 – 00:24:00] Nitin Bajaj

You can speak through those. Yeah.

[00:24:00 – 00:24:42] Siam Hossain

Five. Okay. Okay. Just give me a second. I got two already. Okay. I got. Oh, this is a big list. Is it okay when I kind of like, look. Say it. Like, look at it and say. Or better to have this mentally ready.

[00:24:43 – 00:24:44] Nitin Bajaj

Keep it open.

[00:24:44 – 00:24:44] Siam Hossain

But.

[00:24:46 – 00:24:52] Nitin Bajaj

You’Re not going to literally read from it. Keep it open and reference it.

[00:24:52 – 00:24:56] Siam Hossain

Yeah, sounds good. It’s a big list.

[00:24:58 – 00:24:59] Nitin Bajaj

There’s about 2,000 of them.

[00:25:00 – 00:25:11] Siam Hossain

2,000? Yeah, I’m looking at them. Okay. Okay. Right.

[00:25:11 – 00:25:17] Nitin Bajaj

If you’re ready. I mean, I can. I can start my part again. So we can kind of be in the flow and we’ll edit out all of this.

[00:25:19 – 00:25:21] Siam Hossain

You know what? Yes, I’m good.

[00:25:22 – 00:25:22] Nitin Bajaj

I.

[00:25:22 – 00:25:29] Siam Hossain

What I’ll do is that it’s just too much. So I’ll write it in a cute, like, small separate mode. So that.

[00:25:30 – 00:25:33] Nitin Bajaj

And you should be able to copy paste from there from the site.

[00:25:36 – 00:26:10] Siam Hossain

No worries. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. And you said five, right? Five. There are some which are a little bit silly. Like people on the. What is that? Always bet on the house. Okay. This is great. Okay, I. I found five. Five. Five.

[00:26:11 – 00:26:37] Nitin Bajaj

So your camera is off now. It was. Oh, there we go. Perfect. Awesome. So I’ll start from the top, I’ll ask you the question again, and then we’ll just go in the flow. Okay. All right. CM now on to my favorite part of the show. We call this the one nine Life Lessons. I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

[00:26:39 – 00:27:01] Siam Hossain

Yeah, definitely. So I would say be bold and face your fears. Then it’s okay to slow down, be authentic. And this too, shall pass. These are a couple of my life lessons.

[00:27:02 – 00:27:29] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Short and sweet, to the point. It comes with a lot of clarity. So, Siam, thank you so much for taking the time to share your journey, for sharing your story and your life lessons with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you also for doing what you do for our immigrant community, for making life better and enriching this community. Really appreciate it.

[00:27:30 – 00:27:33] Siam Hossain

Yeah. Thank you, Nitin, again, for inviting me to this.

[00:27:35 – 00:27:37] Nitin Bajaj

Awesome. Thanks a lot.

[00:27:37 – 00:27:38] Siam Hossain

Thank you.