As part of CEO INSIGHTS™ interview series, the Chief Executives Council recently spoke with Zain Jaffer, a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with a diverse portfolio in real estate and venture capital. He currently serves as CEO of Zain Ventures and a partner at Bluefield Capital, where he drives strategic investments across emerging industries.

Previously, Zain was the founder and CEO of Vungle, a mobile ad tech company – led to over $400 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Blackstone in 2019. Additionally, established the Zain Jaffer Foundation, the champion underrepresented social causes and promotes sustainable development in disadvantaged communities. Through his leadership and philanthropic efforts, Zain is dedicated to fostering both innovation and positive social impact.

Following are questions from moderator Neil Brown, and answers from Zain Jaffer. If you are interested in learning more, view the full interview video archive here.

Q: Please share a little about your early career, and how did these experiences lead to Vungle?

A: When I look back at my life story and when I was in the moment, everything was chaotic. But from this vantage point now, it’s very clear how the dots connect. So, I was quite fortunate to have discovered the internet, and it kept me out of trouble when I was a teenager. At age 12, I would pick up the yellow pages, call up local companies and convince them to buy a website. Then, I would build the website for them. That was my first stint as an entrepreneur running a services business. I grew so I had employees working for me in India and the unit economics were just phenomenal.

Then I asked myself why am I building other peoples websites? I should be building websites for myself. And so I started to build content websites. I then figured out how SEO works, which basically means how to get the top spot in search engines. I had top spots in most of the search engines for all the websites I would build. And when I got all this traffic, I started to become quite a large, well-known publisher for Google.

Now, as I continue to do entrepreneurial ventures, I then was forced to study in the UK university system. And when I say forced, I’m Indian. My parents are very much about education. I met another British guy, who was running this video company where they’re building tutorials. I thought, this is such a cool startup. I want to join you, and I want to help take this thing and put it online. He was basically selling DVDs when I joined him, and we started building an online platform. That is when we came up with the ideas of creating a mobile app advertising platform where we take their videos and put them inside of other apps.

Q: In your opinion, what are the roles and responsibilities of a CEO, and how have these changed over time?

A: Well, I’ll draw my personal experience first before I touch on how I think the role of a CEO is changing over time. But when I started out, it was literally me and my co-founder in this tiny little shared office space. And every day we’d meet up in the morning and we’d just write down our to-dos. And we just very crudely just split it in half. The CEO title didn’t mean much.  Investors expected that and it needs to be clear who has the final say. But that’s literally how my life was for the first year or two. We had interns, someone’s going to manage the interns, and I guess, I’m called the CEO. Then, we raised venture funding, and well, I’m the CEO. And I started to take on that role. But I had a very hard time letting go because I was just trained to do everything myself and so was my co-founder.

As my company grew to become tens of people and then hundreds of people, this concept came about where we need a management structure, we need an executive team. And over time I learned to delegate, I learned to empower the team underneath me and my role started to become quite clear.

Q: What was the most interesting thing or aspect about your career?

A: We’ll use the word career in the literal sense here because I may never have been an entrepreneur had my career gone differently. My career didn’t get off to a great start, even though I had done a couple of small startups, I needed to pay off my student loans, and I needed to get a job. It wasn’t common back then to be an entrepreneur. It was code word for I’m unemployed and no one wants to hire me. So, I actually had a dream of working for three specific companies: Google, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey. I put everything I had into applying for these three companies. I didn’t want to work anywhere else, but I had a reality check; the recession had just happened or the credit crunch in 2008-2009. Now, I’m getting rejection emails coming in from these three companies, and it was very depressing. But then, a couple of years later, I’m getting Vungle off the ground. The company’s growing quickly. Guess who we get as our lead investor? Google. Google comes in and writes the first check by Google Ventures. A couple of years later, we start getting acquisition interest and the parent Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs was the banker that represented us in the end and our acquire a Blackstone. They brought in McKinsey to do the due diligence on the buy side. So, I look back and I think, wow, when one door closes, so many more can open, and you can redirect rejection into something completely different.

Q: Please share the top 3-4 most significant keys to your success.

1. Be very adaptable from the beginning. Obviously, you have to, if you’re in startup mode, you have to constantly pivot.
2. Being naive is actually a blessing sometimes.
3. Built relationships with partners: I would catch up with them constantly and give them updates in the business

Q: What advice would you give others that seek to launch and lead a startup?

To view this question and learn more, watch the full interview here.