{"id":51850,"date":"2023-06-14T13:28:51","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T03:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-328533-4778250.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=51850"},"modified":"2023-06-14T13:29:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T03:29:25","slug":"mika-siddiqui-co-founder-ceo-at-focia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balancethegrind.co\/interviews\/mika-siddiqui-co-founder-ceo-at-focia\/","title":{"rendered":"Balancing the Grind with Mika Siddiqui, Co-Founder & CEO at Focia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Mika Siddiqui is the Co-Founder & CEO at Focia, a platform for aspiring content creators and social media analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Are you ready to rewrite the stories you tell yourself about success? Sign up for Balance the Grind’s newsletter<\/a> and get inspired by stories from people in all walks of life!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with your background! Can you share with us your career journey and what you’re currently up to?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My first job was working as a Data Science intern, and initially landed the role because of some stuff I worked on during a case competition at University. This role started my career as a Data Scientist for about 3 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My startup journey started recently, but was always on the back of my mind. It’s not so much the fact that I always wanted to build a startup, my goal was to do what my 16 year old self did for fun but professionally!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up watching VFX tutorials as a kid, because it made me feel like I had superpowers. Watching a tutorial for 20 minutes would give you the ability to create something amazing. I felt that nothing was hard to learn if you had the time, which is what led me down the path of programming and machine learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My co-founder Umesh and I both went to high school together and found common ground with creating VFX, photography and coding projects after school. We always knew that we would eventually work on something cool together, and kept this up even throughout our working lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little project my co-founder Umesh and I were working on after work was this tool that could predict how much engagement your online content would get before posting it, which a bunch of our friends found quite useful. We both decided to take it more seriously and it eventually turned into a startup which became Focia!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’d love to know what a typical day is like for you. Could you describe a recent workday?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In all honesty both of our schedules are unusually chaotic and change quite often. We typically have one or two overarching goals that we want to encompass the next month (e.g. next iteration product launch).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of how that translates into day-to-day tasks, it’s usually 1-2 main focus areas daily that contribute toward that main milestone for the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My usual day starts off by either picking up yesterday or starting on the next focus area. I make time for Muay Thai training in between as well as cooking and meal times. My schedule is normally as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n