Jeffery:
Welcome Azam. Very excited to have you here today. Today we’ve been doing interviews with a lot of different Angels. It started off to be in Canada. Now, it’s become Angels across North America. And today, we want to learn a little bit more about you and what you’d like to invest in, why you invest, why you got into this space, and we’ll go into a bunch of those different details. But maybe today, you can just give us a little bit of a background of yourself, where you came from, and then today of course where you are, and we’ll go from there.

Azam:
Thank you so much the same here for having me. My name is Azam. I’m a pretty new like Angel investor. I’m being tech I can tell you that from the day that I graduated from university because my background was back to computer and after that I moved to business. I understand there is something in business area so I started to like hear everyone you know working in the corporation. At the very moment that you know back to 2013 that we started our first business which was a mobile application right training and all of this journey started and it was too much and the excitement the moment and also too much lesson learned so I started to jump into this ecosystem. I’m super happy to be honest. So far have been a lot of up and down as you know that the nature of sort of how is that but in general I’m very excited to take a decision in order to move to this area. So I’m here and open to answer any questions you may have.

Jeffery:
Awesome so you mentioned that you’re kind of new to the space so what got you interested in startups? What was the what kind of pushed you or changed the whole mindset from going corporate to something small?

Azam:
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. So the point is that you know as you may know from investment points of view probably investing sort of especially for the people that you know they are safe in a corporation side. Is not is risky you know the majority of the new companies and the new products simply don’t make it because there are a lot of reason why and a lot of competition the market especially in North America. But you know to me it’s more than dollar sign you know because you know during the past experience that I had in there I mean dealing with investors and also you know trying to build trust with them to invest in my dream. It was kind of challenging and too much stress and too much lesson learned so and the very moment that I was thinking if I can make our business successful and if I can be I mean safe to you know from startup ecosystem and one day I became investor. I see I tried to see the soul of a sort of an entrepreneur as I you know I expected from the besides of the investment and the money and all of this conversation and the capital and all of the financial information. The majority of investors they are thinking about that. Someone see the soul of the people behind of that and support their value and also the self-sacrifice that they did in order to build something matters to them and their society. So that is the main
reason that I decided to become investor.

Jeffery:
Well, that sounds pretty exciting and a good way to do it. Yet you wanted to learn both sides and then figure out how to help a startup balance what they’re going through to get funding. You mentioned that what you were looking to do is you’re getting people to invest in your dream. So, maybe you can explore that a little bit more with us because I’m curious to see was there something that you did to help de-risk the investors so they would want to come into your dream? But how did you get them to do that and what did you start to see throughout this journey of convincing investors and de-risking
the whole opportunity so that they’ll want to invest? Is there a tactic or a trick or something that you’ve learned or you’ve done over time to get investors ready for this. Now you’re an investor so you’re investing in other people’s dreams, right? So, is there something you did to get people to help you?

Azam:
To me I’m based on my experience you know a sort of is a dream game. Of course there are a lot of items behind of that the market and the idea and etc. the team. But the point is that the the person is going to build something and start dreaming about building something. All the games started from that moment and how much this person is I mean serious about this game. So for me, what’s that you know when we started from I mean because the first application that we have started it was cool application mobile application back to 2013. Uber came up to the market a lot of stuff regarding to technology and the technology behind the traditional. I miss the ecosystem in the market. So we’re dreaming about okay let’s make something customized based on the specific market because we have started from Latin America and you know how is the market of Latin is that completely different, completely different structure, and the people, and culture, etc. and also different needs. So when we started to build this dream and adapt it you know with the North America make some mixing of these two we have seen that you know I’m sorry to we learn that we have to talk at some point with the investor because you know at first we just you know count on ourselves and dream and the money and the fun and we invested a lot and risk to be honest that’s why I told you that about the sacrifice. So we learned that okay at some point since the business goes very well it’s the momentum that you know we have to bring investment and also this gold player in the market. So we started to you know communicate with them. We understood at earlier stage especially we didn’t have any experience to become you know entrepreneurs. So at first we have seen that you know this is we are not prepared for that you know so we have to deal with them. We have to sell this idea they have to trust on us and trust our an idea beside of all of the elements that we have tried to put in the right place you know. I mean the team, the projection, the model, etc, etc, so all of our relationship or the properly the secret sauce that we have it’s about the personal connection and the trust that they made on us you know because they have seen us that we are you know fully 100% dedicated for the business and we have seen that something it has a proposal for us you know. It was not just you know let’s make something you know to you know because that moment I sort of and this idea came up and everyone wanted to try it. So it was not that it was serious job for us 24 hour all of the family everything the financially focused on that to make it happen and actually I can tell you that we made it happen. But the point is that the challenge for investors especially for the venture-based or venture-backed investor that we have started to to talk to them it was seriously it was a too much software regarding, the trust regarding, who we are the how we are going to do that and that is the I mean something I can tell you that it is what drove me in order you know to even one day I became that kind of an Angel investor or investor. Try to see the other side of the game as well you know because if you have a good team, if you have a proper business model, the rest is done execution. These people that they are making too much sacrifice and risk they can make it happen you know even though if necessary they can pivot on change the business model this is not the big deal the team who they are stay for up to end you know. So that is the kind of you know I told you that they are regarding the relationship with the investor that it’s good to build that at first and after that the rest of the items came up.

Jeffery:
And that’s that’s some good advice. And I think you kind of rounded out a bunch of different things and I i think you’re really looking at how you de-risk the business. Again is the biggest thing for the investors so that they’ll have interest. You’ve got the right team, you’ve got the right product, you’ve got the right drive, you’re working 24 hours a day. It sounds like you’ve kind of full rounded all of these things that you do and you did in order to get the investors attention and get them feeling comfortable with what you guys were doing. You mentioned one thing and I think it really stands out and maybe it’s something that doesn’t get talked about a lot and that was count on ourselves. And you mentioned that you got to count on yourself and it’s interesting to say that because I’ve never actually heard anybody say this when it comes to a startup but that’s believing in yourself and driving that business and doing all these things that really get behind what you’re trying to achieve. And then finding like-minded people like you mentioned on the team side they get behind you. Is there a certain trick that you might have or a way that you can change your mindset so that you can tell other founders hey you know you got to believe in yourself. Is there something you got to do like write it on a wall like be