Faisal is one of those rare entrepreneurs who have managed to grow his business with no outside financing to significant scale. We discuss his journey here.

Sramana Mitra: Let's go to the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Faisal Husain: My roots are from India, but I was actually born in West Africa in Nigeria. My parents had moved from India to Nigeria in search of jobs and they were in the education field. My father was a principal and my mother was a math teacher. While they were doing their jobs and building their careers in Nigeria, I was born there. I lived in Nigeria for 13 years. At that point, my parents decided to move back home to India. I was then home schooled for about three or four years, and then came to the United States.

I landed in Queens, New York. I started at a place called College of Aeronautics, pursuing Aeronautical Engineering. I completed that and then immediately started my Master's. I decided to switch tracks to Computer Science for my Master's because I wanted to go into the software engineering space. That's my high level journey.