"It's all about the customer", said Sohaib Zahid, Co-Founder and CEO of Railz

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

Hey, everyone! I’m Sohaib Zahid, the co-founder and CEO of Railz. I am a serial entrepreneur and have spent over a decade successfully building teams, products, and companies. Prior to founding Railz, I was a founder of Vanhawks. In my free time you can find me with my family or cycling.

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Railz provides fast and direct access to commercial customers’ accounting software through a single API.

What is the origin story?

Interestingly, my co-founder and I came up with the idea for Railz separately.

I realized that getting normalized accounting data is a massive pain point for companies building various business applications within the Intuit ecosystem. There was no one building the developer’s first API tools for companies to access normalized accounting data to build new SME fintech applications.

For Derek Manuge (our co-founder and CTO), the idea was born out of the struggles he faced while working as a quant. Obtaining data to build better models or make better decisions was 50-80% of his time and he knew there had to be a better way.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

Our team is on a mission to build the foundation for the future of finance by making the largest financial data network. Building and managing a fully remote team during a global pandemic is a challenge yet everyone has stepped up to the plate. Our team is driven, customer-centric, and proud of what we’re doing. That’s an incredible feeling.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

I have a 20 month old daughter that takes up most of my time and I love spending time with her! If I do get some time for myself, then it's cycling! 🚴 I’m always exploring new routes and trails when cycling and trying to take advantage of the summer weather here in Toronto.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

For Railz, it’s all about the customer. How our customers are currently using our product and how often. Secondly, pipeline: how many people we bring through the site, the deals we close, and making sure our customers are happy and involved with what we’re building.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

We’re so grateful to our team, investors, and advisors for Railz to be at the point we are now. A year ago, our company looked so different and it’s hard to believe all we’ve accomplished in a short time.

We’ve partnered with some incredible companies, like Visa, Citadel, M&T Bank, Prodigy’s IDVerifact, and have more integrations coming to provide access to different types of financial data. Beyond that, we’re part of the FIS 2021 Fintech Accelerator and we’ll be demoing live at FinovateFall this September!

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

Blockchain is one of the most exciting techs of this century. Democratizing data is a massive initiative and implementing open access to data is an insanely exciting preposition. This not only gives access to more customers to companies but also gives more optionality to the customers. Security is still a concern when you are dealing with sensitive data. Security breaches are any data company’s nightmare and blockchain technologies remedy this.

The advancements around artificial intelligence (AI) are amazing but it's also a technology which can have negative impacts. I believe, we have to put controls in place to ensure the technology is safe, effective, and unbiased. Sam Altman and Elon Musk has started a non-profit OpenAI which is a kind of strategic-defense initiative around AI.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

I love the opinion pieces on HackerNoon. There are great insights from people in fintech that I really appreciate, too.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

When I was around 21, I made a decision to leave medical school to pursue entrepreneurship. It was not necessarily an easy decision but I really believed in taking a chance on myself, and that’s the advice I would give to anyone. The risk led to me leading my previous startup, Vanhawks, through exciting and challenging times towards an acquisition.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

NFTs are here to stay! I am a big believer in adopting the change and being part of it - nothing is permanent except change.