Aquibur Rahman

Aquibur Rahman is the CEO of Mailmodo, an email marketing solution that enables users to send app-like interactive emails. He has 7+ years of experience in marketing and growing brands. He has helped many B2C and B2B brands, including early-stage tech startups to fast-track growth using agile and data-driven marketing processes. When Google released AMP emails, Aquib saw great potential in it for reinventing email marketing. This led him to start Mailmodo to help businesses get better ROI from email marketing.

Where did the idea for Mailmodo come from?

I’ve been a marketer since the beginning of my career, and I soon realized that email is associated with all other growth metrics. So, it’s imperative to get email marketing right for a business, and it was this realization that got me interested in AMP emails.

When Google announced the AMP for email, I knew this was a turning point for emails and how a marketer could use this tech to change the game. However, AMP emails require technical know-how, and a marketer wouldn’t be comfortable using them. None of the ESPs supported creating and sending AMP emails.

This gap in the email marketing landscape gave rise to Mailmodo so that marketers could get better conversions from email marketing using interactive widgets and forms within the email.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

A typical day in my life starts with looking at data, following up with the team on important actions to be taken, completing work that has to be done, and having customer meetings. I also spend 15 minutes solving Sudoku or playing chess. I strongly adhere to the calendar. All tasks and meetings must be on the calendar. If something is not on the calendar, it is not done. The calendar is my tool.

How do you bring ideas to life?

All ideas have to be documented first. I use short notes and bullet points to list ideas and the tasks required to achieve them. Once the idea is documented, it must have relevant owners. Work without owners never gets completed. Lastly, deciding timelines & priorities.

What’s one trend that excites you?

People spend more time on shorts than on longer forms of content across formats. I will not be surprised when we start seeing feature films of less than 30 mins. It shows that people’s attention spans are decreasing, and marketers must adapt. Marketers must become more creative to create stronger hooks and adopt brevity to convey their messages.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

It has to be listing down all my tasks on the calendar and following it to the T.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Take more risks. Higher the risks, the more the returns.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

PLG doesn’t mean that you don’t require a sales team. It’s just a way for better prospecting and qualifying leads before your sales team can reach out to them.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Learn new things every day. Meet new people every day.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Social selling has been our number 1 strategy. From day 1, we have been publishing about our product and asking for suggestions and feedback on social media. This strategy has helped us get attention from the relevant people across the internet and helped us get our first few customers. When we became more active on social media, it helped us further grow our business.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

In the initial days, we wanted to build a perfect product and delay launching our product for a long time. In hindsight, we could have launched sooner. Now, we have a weekly sprint to launch new features and get feedback from customers immediately.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I wish someone could build an app or service to help elderly people adopt tech products easily and perform online for them. For example, if my father needs to go somewhere, he doesn’t know how to book a cab. If someone can access his location and book a cab for him, that would be great. Someone ordering medicine or his food cravings for him could be great, too.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I recently did Scuba diving in Phuket, which was an enthralling experience. The thrill of witnessing the underwater ecosystem is an out-of-body experience, it brings so much perspective. I am glad I took the chance.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

No other productivity tool can beat the good old calendar. It helps document your tasks, reminds you to complete them, and helps you prioritize without any fuss.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Start with Why by Simon Sinek is a must-read. It shows you how understanding and articulating the “why” can help you inspire people, build relationships, and lead people with a genuine vision.

What is your favorite quote?

Brevity is the soul of the wit – William Shakespeare

Key Learnings:

• Learn the art of communicating better with lesser words and in a shorter time.
• Never shy away from new experiences and new people. There’s always a lesson to be learned.
• Prioritization is the first step towards better time management and efficiency.