He took me fishing on Qatar weekends. The plastic bucket. The hand-held line. The patience of a man who never raised his voice. Every dive I take now carries him in it.
He grew a company in Qatar from scratch. He had electrical and mechanical knowledge and could fix nearly anything. He loved travel and food (Waheed Kebab, our pizza Saturdays). He shut down gossip with two words: "Khali Wali."
He told me once: "Son, do not recite the Quran as if it was only revealed to Muhammad. Recite it as if Allah is addressing it directly to you." Before every speech I have given, I have remembered something else he said: "People are here because they believe you know the topic better than they do. The least you can do is show up."
The night before he passed, I took him to see a new venture I wanted him to head. I bought his Eid clothes. We ate pizza. He refused coffee, "mostly because I don't want to overspend money." I went diving the next morning. Hours later he passed peacefully. My friends rushed me home from the sea.
He never saw himself as a mentor. He just kept saying the right things at the right time and assumed I was listening. I was. I am still listening, even now.
I tweeted Guy in 2016. "Your book inspired me to create a social media management tool." He responded. He used the prototype. He pointed out bugs. He included Social Champ in his next presentation. He even demoed Social Champ on Facebook Live for his audience. On stage at 021Disrupt 2020 he said, "I am Sameer's friend and I use Social Champ every day."
In 2024 he asked to be taken off free, add four team members, and pay. He has been a paying customer since. He has sent me a signed copy of "Think Remarkable." He has reacted personally to my wedding photos, the news of profitability, my father's passing.
In 2023 he asked if I could connect him with Malala Yousafzai for his "Remarkable People" podcast. He offered to lend me his Porsche if I made the introduction.
The lesson Guy taught me, by example, is that the best people in the world will respond if you give them something worth their time. He could have ignored a stranger from Karachi on Twitter. He chose not to. That single choice rewrote our company's first year. Pay it forward.
Jehan built the scaffolding that made my generation of Pakistani founders possible. She ran The Nest I/O, where RemindZapp was incubated. She gave my batch its first taste of a startup community that took itself seriously.
When the US Embassy rejected my visa for Social Media Marketing World 2016, Jehan personally wrote letters to the embassy describing me as one of the first Nestlings whose product had attracted Guy Kawasaki's attention. The second application was approved. The trip happened. It changed everything.
She also sponsored conference trips for me to San Diego, Istanbul, Taiwan, Oman, London, and Dubai. Most ecosystems are described in dollars. The ones that matter are described in the names of the people who put up with the early years for free.
Jawwad has been correcting me since the RemindZapp days. He has the rare gift of looking at a half-built company and telling you exactly which part is going to break.
It was Jawwad who pulled me aside at 021Disrupt and introduced me to Charles Ill at the Oman Technology Fund. That introduction directly led to our first $100K of funding. After meeting our team for the first time, he wrote: "I now finally get why Guy is so excited about this team."
The lesson Jawwad taught me is that the best advice is not delivered in keynotes. It is delivered in 30-second corrections at the right moment. The trick is staying close enough to the right people to catch them.
Emeric runs one of our direct competitors. Years into Social Champ, Meta's API broke us on a Friday night. We were locked out of accounts our customers depended on. The Techstars director told me, "Meta is a black box. No one knows who is where."
I had not spoken to Emeric in seven years. I emailed him anyway. He answered within hours. He picked up the phone. He had the right Meta contact. He helped a competitor save its customers and asked for nothing in return.
He told me: "The most important is to find your path along the way, the path that makes you happy." I have used that line on stages since. I credit him every time.
I now believe in a consortium of SaaS founders helping each other. I believe in it because Emeric showed me what it can look like.
Before there was Social Champ, there was a CS undergrad with no industry contacts. Sir Farhan was the first person who saw that and did something about it. He connected me to Nokia Pakistan. He facilitated the Nokia App Campus on our university grounds. He vouched for me when no one else had reason to.
The Nokia Developer Champion title that opened the next four years of my career began with Sir Farhan picking up a phone.
