Home Interviews We Aim to Empower Consumers With Data, Inspiration and Knowledge: Zama CEO, Abdulhakeem Sadiq Shares remarkable story on his journey into Real Estate

We Aim to Empower Consumers With Data, Inspiration and Knowledge: Zama CEO, Abdulhakeem Sadiq Shares remarkable story on his journey into Real Estate

by Blessing Ubani

Abdulhakeem Sadiq is Chief Executive Officer of Zama.ng, a Nigerian Proptech company championing the drive for digitizing property sales and rentals using technology. In an exclusive interview with Radarr Africa, Abdulhakeem shares his journey into real estate and the vision that led to founding ZAMA.

What three words would you use to best describe your company today?

People, Technology and Process.

What inspired the growth of your company?

The global real estate industry is a $217 trillion asset class. And yet, the industry has been largely untouched by technology. Today, most real estate decisions are made via gut instinct and outdated information. We think that people deserve better.

Give us a brief background about yourself, age, educational and career history?

I am a graduate of Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University, Kaduna and had my MSc in Real Estate Management and development Herriot – Watt. I started my career professionally as a portfolio manager with Jones Lang LaSalle a leading Global provider of real estate & Investment Management company where I managed several real estate portfolios valued at over $50 million and also raised $30 million worth of assets to corporate organization and private investors in Nigeria and diaspora.

 

Family has a huge influence on our lives, which member of your family has the biggest influence on your choice of career?

My father was a huge influence from my childhood days, he believed in my passion and ambition and had encouraged and supported me all along.

Why your chosen career?

Growing up, I was very creative and was fascinated about creating things; like building miniature mud houses with clay and taught other kids in my age group how to recreate and design mud houses as well. My innate creativity led me to my choice of career.

After graduation, I got a job in telecommunications company and later worked for an Oil & Gas company while working, I got bored with the routine of paid employment so I decided it was time to make a change, I applied for a Masters program in Herriot Watt University and chose to receive lectures at their Dubai center simply because the Emirates was a developing nation that I believed would provide good opportunity to practice what I was learning. It turned out that the area where the campus was located had a massive ongoing construction, during lunch break I would go to the site just to feed my eyes with what was going on the site. This happened to be the best decision I ever made because halfway into my program, my professor enquired what my dissertation topic was, and it was ‘Affordable Housing and Its Challenges in the MENA (the Middle East & North Africa region’).

The choice of my topic led my project professor to recommend me to my eventual boss at JLL – Jones Lang Lasalle (Mr. Craig Plumb, Head of Research) one of the world’s largest real estate Investment Advisory firms. I worked closely with the head of Research unit while using my dissertation on affordable housing as a case study, eventually, I was hired as a research analyst, this happened to be a life-changing opportunity that helped broaden my knowledge on real estate and the untapped opportunities in develop and developing countries around the world.

Do you have mentors?

My father is my biggest mentor also the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. 

Talk to us about your company, where is it now and is it in line with your vision?

 Zama is a well thought out product in the first phase of our vision for the Nigerian Real estate industry. We developed Zama as a real estate company driven by technology and also aimed at empowering consumers with data, inspiration, and knowledge around the place they live and work and also connect them with the best local professionals within their communities.

We are building the first modern real estate platform where we pair the industry’s top talent with technology to make search and sell these seamless experiences. We’ve also started by empowering users with relevant data about the place they live, work and hangout, agents and investment advisors are not left out with the data and tools that help them make intelligent and seamless transactions, Currently, we have a daily user base of 1,000 people and we hope to grow these numbers soon.

What is the company’s structure in terms of personal culture, competitive advantage, marketing strategy, and branding?

Our brand is unique and one of its kind. With a mixture of local dialects and international flair, we aim to connect people from different parts of the world looking to buy into the Nigerian property market. We contracted Deloitte as our adviser on financial advisory, risk advisory, and other related fields. We’ve also engaged the services of Google to deploy specialized security features that protect our end users from dealing with issues such as, the duplicity of listings, access to qualified leads and geotagged properties.

Where do you envision your company 5 years from now?

To become Nigerian’s starting point for property investment. 

Technology has taken over the world, tell us how you have leveraged technology in your company?

Google has mapped the world and we reached out to them to enable us to access special API for their map that enables Zama to geotag properties. This is one of the key features our application offers that ensure, only real owners or contracted representatives list a property on our platform.

We also implement machine learning features that can track user activities to develop algorithms that can accurately recommend the best property to an agent or user.

What’s your biggest challenge so far in running your company and how did you manage it?

The biggest challenge has been with human capital. A lot of our youths do not have valid qualifications or work ethics a startup can leverage on, we are tasked with retraining and educating employees on standard job expectations.

How have you been able to sustain your company in terms of financing?

It’s been sustained with personal finance and Equity investment.

In the course of running your company are there decisions you would have made differently?

No.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

Leaving paid employment to start a business. 

What sets you apart from others?

Passion for developing my country and its people.

What’s your definition of success?

When Zama has built 1million contemporary homes in Nigeria.

How do you unwind?

I love the outdoors. I ride horses, skydive, play chess, swim in the ocean, basketball, and football.

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