“While everyone was busy learning how to write a business plan, I was just busy writing invoices.”
That’s how Safeer Qureshi, entrepreneur, investor, TEDx speaker and eight-figure success story, describes his unconventional entry into the business world. He didn’t follow a planned-out curriculum drawn up by an MBA grad. He did it by solving real problems with real customers and generating real revenue.
“School teaches you to manage risk. Business teaches you to live with it. You don’t get timeouts, extensions, or second chances. Just real stakes, real pressure, and real consequences. That’s where you either learn fast or lose faster.”
Qureshi’s perspective is shaped less by theory and more by lived experience. While many of his peers spent their early careers preparing presentations and analyzing case studies, he was navigating real-world decisions. He was chasing down late payments, managing real client expectations, and finding out what people were actually willing to pay for. Not what sounded good in theory, but what worked in the real world.
Given his stance, some might say he is anti-education. However, Qureshi sees it differently. He is not against learning but rather against mistaking credentials for capability. In his view, formal education has become a socially acceptable pause button. It is a polished way to delay real risk while collecting titles, taking on debt, and earning approval. He believes real learning does not happen in theory. It happens under pressure. It happens when something breaks and you are the one expected to fix it.
“I have nothing against school. I just think the market is a better teacher. It is faster, harsher, and more honest. School matters. It gives you structure, language, and a way to think. But business does not care how well you think. It cares how well you act. The real lessons begin when the safety nets are gone and real risk shows up.”
And he brings receipts. At the core of Qureshi’s investment infrastructure is CodeStack Capital, the firm he uses to deploy capital across early-stage ventures and high-potential operators. In 2025 alone, the firm has deployed multi-seven-figure capital and resources in just start-ups alone. These investments are not passive. They are designed to accelerate execution, validate traction, and create meaningful outcomes quickly.
One of the most visible engines of that strategy is Datafluent, a Silicon Valley tech company that works with some of the most recognizable names in global business. More than a consultancy, Datafluent operates as a strategic incubator. It identifies overlooked opportunities, shapes early-stage ideas, and launches companies in sectors such as sales, insurance, medtech, and aviation. Qureshi plays a pivotal role in that process. He works directly with teams to move concepts from sketch to scale, often turning early traction into sustainable growth.
Qureshi’s criticism of the education system is not rooted in rebellion. It is rooted in realism. He does not believe school is useless. He believes it is incomplete. What concerns him most is who ends up doing the teaching. In most business programs, the people at the front of the room have never actually built the thing they are teaching. They have not sat across from a client who is ready to walk. They have not had to hire under pressure or fire when it hurts. They have not taken personal financial risk or watched a product they believed in miss the market completely. And yet, they are positioned as experts.
To Qureshi, that gap is not just misleading. It is damaging. It sends the message that business can be mastered in theory. That you can learn how to navigate chaos without ever stepping into it. That selling, managing, scaling, and leading are academic exercises. In his view, none of that holds up when the stakes are real.
“Here’s the thing. I don’t have a problem with school. I have a problem with the way it’s taught. I’d be one hundred percent for it if the teaching came from real entrepreneurs. But most business professors are academics, not operators. They haven’t built successful businesses. They haven’t shipped products. They haven’t managed a team, signed a deal, or survived a market downturn. You have people teaching entrepreneurship who have never sold anything. Not a product. Not a service. Nothing. That would never be acceptable in medicine or engineering. But somehow in business, it is the standard.”
Qureshi is not trying to spark a war with academia. He is not claiming everyone should skip school or start a business at nineteen. What he is challenging is the assumption that credentials equal competence. In his experience, they often do not. He believes the ability to think critically is important, but the ability to act under pressure is what separates winners from spectators. That is the part most schools cannot teach.
His path has never been conventional, but it has been consistent. Solve problems that matter. Move fast. Learn directly from the market. Surround yourself with people who are better than you. And when in doubt, build something and ask someone to pay for it. The rest, he says, will either fall into place or reveal what needs to be fixed.
“Business is not about being perfect. It is about being useful. If you can do that, you will never be out of work. If you can do that for the right people, at the right time, and in the right way, you will never worry about money again.”
Today, Qureshi continues to invest, consult, and incubate ventures through Datafluent, applying the same philosophy he started with. Less theory, more traction. He builds with speed and hires for instinct. He launches before the market is ready, and listens more to paying customers than to panel discussions.
He does not follow the traditional playbook. Instead, he writes his own and teaches others to do the same. He believes business is not a science to be studied but a language to be spoken fluently under pressure. It is not about credentials. It is about clarity. About action. About knowing when to take the risk and when to walk away.
Qureshi never set out to disrupt the system. He simply chose not to wait for it. That decision led to the creation of a more practical model for how companies are built, how people are hired, and how business gets done. And it seems that somewhere between his first invoice and his first eight figures, the old system started to feel a little outdated anyway.
