Bangladeshi-born Enam has a lot to be thankful. His startup EkkBaz is making waves in the community and he’s not stopping there. Coming from humble beginnings, his eagerness and drive is apparent in everything he does.

This experienced former Microsoft employee started Ekkbaz just one year ago (March 2017), with the goal to empower and transform small businesses across the world.

He has worked with small businesses since his time working with a family-run grocery store in Singapore. He experienced firsthand the challenges faced by the small business owners to operate and survive in this digital age. This motivated him to start EkkBaz where he hopes to make a difference in millions of small business owners lives across the world.

If you can’t find him in his office, he’s likely to be trekking or sitting on a beach somewhere in the region.

Read more about his story below.

Sell us your company/service in 300 words?

We developed the EkkBaz Business mobile app so that grocery store owners and manufacturers can connect seamlessly. Grocery stores can bulk order, list space for booking and collaborate directly with manufacturers.

Our mission is to connect, empower and transform grocery stores to enable direct interaction with manufacturers in any remote corner of the Earth

As part of that mission, we will be developing BAZ Protocol, a next-generation B2B collaboration for FMCG businesses, powered by blockchain, artificial intelligence, social and collaborative technologies to significantly simplify B2B interactions and empower the root level business users. It’s a decentralized and intelligent network with purpose-built components for FMCG businesses.

The mobile app will act as a gateway to bring the innovation of BAZ Protocol to a ready user base for adoption. The eventual circulation currency for BAZ Protocol when its ready will be an EKK token. This token will also give business users access to privileged features, award loyalty rewards and will be used for the various types of transactions like ordering, booking etc in the app.

What is stopping you from having the largest company in the world?

To us its not about having the largest company in the world, rather it’s about having the most useful impact on our users that drives us. To achieve that, we are always tinkering, breaking things, failing fast and moving fast to ensure we achieve the vision we set out to. We are a strong believer of “The Lean Startup” methodology and practice that across all expects of our business. As per the original plan, we are in closed pilot phased now to work with select few customers across developing and developed countries to ensure product suitability and on schedule for general launch in September this year. The appropriate resource is always limited during the early phase of the startup journey and it’s about choosing your battle right to get to the end outcome.

Read about the lean startup method and why it matters

If you could change one thing about the tech industry in Southeast Asia, what would it be?

We are too scared of failing.

To me, it’s perfectly alright to fail, make mistakes. If we aren’t failing enough, we are not learning and pushing ourselves. Failure pushes us to reflect deeper, analyze what went wrong, learn from it and employ that learning to be better next time.

Name one person in the region, who is making a difference in Technology?

In the last few years, this region has become very vibrant. In Southeast Asia, I love the work of Nadiem and his Go-Jek team, and how they are empowering millions in Indonesia. Their focus on hyperlocal truly sets them apart from rest.

What would you want people to remember you for, 100 years from now?

I lived a very challenging life and it always made me focus on what I have, and how I can utilize that to help others the most. So I hope people appreciate the work we want to do with EkkBaz, and it can really help the millions across the world to transform their lives for better.

About Enam

Enam Chowdhury founded EkkBaz in March 2017 after more than 5 years in Microsoft. Through EkkBaz, Enam aims to empower and transform community-based small business in any remote corner of the earth. EkkBaz will make available Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain powered sophisticated tools that small business can use with ease and transform their own lives. The desire to help the small guys is rooted in his upbringing.

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Views expressed by the interviewee are not necessarily shared by Tech Collective. Some minimal editing is done for clarity’s sake.

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