Hussain Shabbir is Co-Founder and CEO of Gigsta, a brand new app that pairs up students looking for part-time work with hospitality businesses.
He is passionate about making flexible part-time work the norm, to ensure staffing is more efficient and seamless and mutually beneficial for employers and employees alike.
- Tell us a little bit about your business…
Gigsta is an app to help connect students looking for part-time and flexible work with local hospitality businesses that have vacancies. Its aim is to reducing operating costs, while helping students find flexible part-time work that fits around their studies. Our mission is to remove the hassles that come with finding part-time work for students and offering staffing solutions for businesses within the hospitality industry.
2. How did you get into the industry?
I got into this business purely out of frustration, after I came to the UK as an international student in 2019 to complete my Masters at the University of Birmingham. When I was looking for part-time work to support myself, it was really challenging to find something that would match my busy schedule.
Even within our family business back home in India, we still face ongoing issues with staffing shortages and high turnover due to limited availability which then leads to a loss of business amongst other problems. These recurring issues at home and here in the UK ultimately inspired the idea of Gigsta in order to create a viable solution for both workers and businesses.
3. What are the biggest opportunities and challenges in your industry?
The biggest opportunity in this industry is that the gig economy is growing day by day, and people are getting more comfortable with the idea of working on a shift by shift basis which allows them to take more control of their schedule and ultimately more control of their life.
Within this changing marketplace, we want to establish ourselves as the go-to place for part-time jobs for both job seekers and business owners. However, the biggest challenge in this industry is making sure that there’s always enough gigs for everyone on the platform.
4. How would you describe your leadership style?
My leadership style is very fluid, I like to give people the freedom to work in a manner which allows them to be the most productive. However, if the situation arises that they need my help, I am glad to get stuck in with them and help them navigate towards the results we want!
5. How do you get the most out of the people who work for you?
I think the most important elements are setting expectations and communication. Also, understanding what motivates a certain individual and working with them accordingly to make sure their personal goals are achievable through our company.
6. What are the most crucial elements to your business running smoothly and being successful?
The most crucial element in building a successful business has been really understanding what the customer and market needs while removing personal biases. This allows us to make decisions based on logic and data without getting carried away with what we think is best for our customers.
7. How has the past 12 months been for you?
The past 12 months have been really challenging for us! From developing the app to navigating through employment law, it’s been a real learning curve for the business. Being a duo of international entrepreneurs, we had to jump through multiple hoops for everything; from something as basic as opening up a bank account, to dealing with visa extensions alongside trying to build a successful business!
8. What will the next 12 months look like for your business?
The next 12 months are looking really exciting for us! We are looking to launch our app soon and look forward to growing the business while expanding our operations to multiple locations by raising some capital and doubling in on our sales and marketing operations. All of this will support our mission to make part-time work more flexible, one gig at a time.
9. What are the highlights of your career so far?
I am 23 years old and my career has just started; this is my first real job and I am stoked to be about the future! With that in mind, I’d have to say running my own start-up has been the highlight of my career so far.
10. What’s the biggest business mistake that you’ve learnt from?
The biggest mistake we have learnt from is to not get stuck in analysis paralysis as a business. At one point, we started overanalysing every decision we had to make and that led to us being stuck in the same place for a long time. Now, we make decisions quickly and try to iterate continuously based on data and new information.
11. What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve been given?
Something that has really resonated and stayed with me is “You fail at something only if you give up! Until then, setbacks are just stepping stones to success.”
To learn more about Gigsta, visit: https://gigsta.co.uk/.
