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#103 Founder Flow w/ Sheida Mirjahani
15 Plays6 days ago
Today’s guest is a powerhouse in the SaaS world who made a bold move—relocating to Canada with her team to pursue a dream of building an international business from the ground up. And what a journey it’s been!
Sheida is the co-founder and COO of Flowjin, a fast-growing platform helping founders and marketers turn long-form content into high-performing social posts, ads, and sales assets. Since launching Flowjin in late 2022—just after arriving in Canada—Sheida has grown the platform to over 100,000 users in more than 50 countries.
Before Flowjin, she ran a business design studio in Iran, and today, she’s not only building a global brand but also proudly earned her first Canadian dollar through her own business.
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Transcript
Shada's Journey to Canada
00:00:30
Find A Way Podcast
Hello, hello, this is episode 103, Founder Flow, and today's guest is a powerhouse in the SaaS world who made a bold move relocating to Canada with her team to pursue a dream of building an international business from the ground up.
00:00:45
Find A Way Podcast
And what a journey it has been. Shada is the co-founder and COO of Flowgen, a fast growing platform helping founders and marketers turn long form content into high performing social posts, ads and sale assets.
00:00:58
Find A Way Podcast
Since launching Flojan in late 2022, just after arriving in Canada, Shada has grown the platform to over 100,000 users in more than 50 countries.
Building Flowgen: From Iran to SaaS Success
00:01:09
Find A Way Podcast
Before Flojan, she ran a business design studio in Iran. and today, she not only she's not only a business global brand, but also proudly earned her first Canadian dollar through her own business.
00:01:21
Find A Way Podcast
Welcome to the podcast, Shada.
00:01:23
Sheida
Thank you, Beatrice. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
00:01:26
Find A Way Podcast
We're so happy to have you here. Okay, so let's start with the great questions, which is tell us about FlowGen. What problem does it solve and how did the idea come to life?
00:01:39
Sheida
So Flowgine is a content repurposing platform for small businesses. If you are quitting any type of long form content, say podcasts, webinars, educational videos, we turn them into other content formats, bite-sized ones ah for your social media, your ads, your sales enablement.
00:02:03
Sheida
And the result is that you will 10x your content ROI and get the most out of your content. But our most powerful um Secret sauce is that we make short video clips out of the longer ones to make you stand out in social media.
Flowgen's Innovative Platform
00:02:23
Sheida
So that is like our superstar feature, which people may know us for.
00:02:30
Sheida
And ah so how we started this, um initially we started with, ah with credit economy in back in COVID time.
00:02:43
Sheida
we were ah We were trying to understand what we can bring in this market. And we always knew that we wanted to build a software, helping content creators to create better content, to distribute it better with ah less manual effort.
00:03:01
Sheida
um So it was kind of timing wise, it was before ChatGPT was launched and that we came up with this idea that what if we help content creators, inside companies, or even individual like hobbies, like podcasters, like yourself.
00:03:22
Sheida
Um, how can we help you to kind of. stand out in social media with less effort, how to turn that longer, juicy, meaty content into other pieces of content that can engage your audience, can ah like add multiple touches to the relationship between you as a producer and the audience that you have been building on social media.
00:03:51
Sheida
ah So we came up with a an MVP that just cut like kind of broken, kind of broke down the longer content into smaller pieces that are meaningful enough for the creator to share on our social media.
00:04:11
Find A Way Podcast
And it can be like any platform, right? It could be used on Instagram. It can be used on LinkedIn. and You can repurpose that um content in multiple platforms, correct?
Challenges of a Double Transition
00:04:22
Sheida
Yes, we optimize it for different socials.
00:04:25
Find A Way Podcast
Okay.
00:04:25
Sheida
So in our onboarding, you will choose what platforms you are mostly active on.
00:04:25
Find A Way Podcast
Okay.
00:04:30
Sheida
And then based on that, on all the aspect ratios and standards for that social will be applied for the clues that are automatically created for you from with FlowJet.
00:04:41
Find A Way Podcast
Wow, that's incredible. And impressive that you've grown you know to 100,000 users in over 50 countries. that's Congratulations for that.
00:04:51
Sheida
Thank you.
00:04:52
Find A Way Podcast
ah Now, let's um you moved to Canada right to launch FloGen. Almost at the same time, ah both journeys were ah not only moving to a different country, but also launching a business.
00:05:05
Find A Way Podcast
So what was that transition like, both personally and professionally for you?
00:05:11
Sheida
So I think that's what made it made it very hard for me to ah kind of grow FloGene as fast as what I, and like the fastest that I could and kind of like, sorry, let me go again.
00:05:29
Sheida
So one of the problem was that ah because I was moving to Canada and so I had to settle in personally, and then I was in the phase of launching a new product.
00:05:46
Sheida
the The challenge was that I couldn't grow Phlogene as fast as I expected. And
00:05:55
Find A Way Podcast
Thank you.
00:05:55
Sheida
And and so it's not just me, the whole team kind of moved to Canada, each one at a, and not at the same time, but like with a few months in difference.
00:06:09
Sheida
And so imagine that each co-founder has a few months to settle in and then work, you know, work worked their asses off to just build a business. and um And then it was so hard to be sink.
00:06:26
Sheida
We had to work remotely for ah for most of FloGen's lifetime, I would say. And then it was last year that we all kind of ah reunited in Canada for the first time after ah three or two years working remotely.
Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Challenges and Triumphs
00:06:46
Sheida
So I think, yeah, settling. while working full time on on our business was the hardest thing and um so it's like you have to figure out a lot of things on how to find a home or how to even like um i don't know like apply for a credit card because uh things here are a lot different than things in Iran.
00:07:11
Sheida
So it was a journey of understanding what the hell should we do here personally? How, how can we find our community? How like we should, we should, um, we should find friends here. we should build a community here.
00:07:27
Sheida
We should feel at home and at the same time, be focused enough to work on the business.
00:07:33
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah, and it takes a lot of I always admire. um And i speak very proudly of being an immigrant myself. And I admire so much everyone that goes through this journey because it takes so long so much from your personal from mindset for your personal life, your professional life. It's a lot at stake and we're navigating multiple aspects at the same time. Right.
00:07:55
Find A Way Podcast
So kudos to you and to everyone that is a guest on this podcast because they're immigrants. They go through this journey, which I highly admire. um And even though you said there was a lot of struggles and a lot of ah effort that it took, I am interested in hearing about your growth strategy because, i mean, what has your growth strategy looked like so far and what's been the most effective in reaching those 100,000 users across 50 countries?
00:08:27
Find A Way Podcast
So please share a little bit more about your growth strategy because that is impressive.
00:08:33
Sheida
Yeah, so we were kind of lucky that we like our business model was ah like software as a service. So we kind of had all the learnings while we were in Iran, ah in terms of how to build a software and how to grow it.
00:08:50
Sheida
with our prior experiences. Like it's not just me, my co-founders, they also have like two of them and exited um a software that they have built for 10 years, which is kind of a clone of over Uber Eats in Iran.
00:09:06
Find A Way Podcast
Oh,
00:09:06
Sheida
And so they had experience of building the software, designing it. And um also me and my sister, who is the so CEO of the company, we we both had the design the business design studio prior to flowgen so we kind of mastered how we can how we can build a product that people want how to design it what is the higher strategy of building a product that is competitive and um and people want and also but like the thing that we were not as educated as we should was that how we should go it i think that was the part where we had the least knowledge for um so
00:09:52
Sheida
So because we were a SaaS, it was easier to kind of grow it globally because basically whoever finds out about FlowJane, which is usually people find out about us from Google searching a different queries that we answer for.
00:10:09
Sheida
um So anyone from anywhere in the world can tune in, can sign up, can try the product for free and then. If it solves a problem for them, they convert to a paid subscriber.
00:10:22
Sheida
Um, so that has been kind of the, the main driver of flow genes growth, which is.
SEO Strategy and Global Growth
00:10:29
Sheida
ah SEO. So we have worked a lot on how to be discoverable through search engines and now also LLMs as well, which is a big driver for our traffic as well um in the past few months.
00:10:46
Sheida
ah And to elaborate on that, our strategy has been to kind of productize FlowJane with different use cases.
00:10:57
Sheida
So as I said, it depends on what type of content do you create and what type of output do you want from you know, you want to post on your social media.
00:11:08
Sheida
So we kind of like what we did initially was we launched a multiple landing pages, each one ah focusing on a different use case, for example,
00:11:19
Sheida
ah Clip your podcast, clip your webinars, turn your webinars into social copy, or like, you know, turn your webinars into eBooks, like these kinds of things that people search for. Marketers usually search for um easy solutions to get this done.
00:11:38
Find A Way Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:11:38
Sheida
And that's how, because we were optimized for these for these keywords, they find and they find the landing page and they kind of knew what the tool is and it was bottom of the funnel. So they were very close to trying it out. And if it solves a problem, they convert to being a paying customer.
00:11:58
Sheida
um So with that, and also... um ah creating content for our blog, creating content ah for our YouTube. Those were like kind of the backbone of our content system.
00:12:13
Sheida
And ah that is why kind of our SEO took off. And right now, 80% of our customers are finding us through Google, Bing, other search engines and LLMs as well.
00:12:28
Find A Way Podcast
No, that's incredible. And what i I'm curious, what are some, do you have any unconventional ways that you've seen founders repurpose their content to drive more leads?
00:12:38
Sheida
Um, so there was this one marketer that turned their webinar into things that we didn't even thought of, which is landing pages for, ah webinars, which is then we understood they, they call it on-demand webinars, webinar pages. So basically whenever you, uh, record a webinar.
00:13:02
Sheida
uh, instead of just publishing it on your YouTube channel or even not publishing it anywhere, or just send a recording email to whoever joined the, the webinar, you create a landing page and you, you kind of gate, keep the webinar, um behind the form.
00:13:13
Find A Way Podcast
Uh-huh.
00:13:20
Sheida
And then you will like, you know, get more leads, uh, out of that as well. So whoever wants to so watch this, fill the form, fills the form and then watches the webinar. So they kind of used FloGene.
00:13:32
Sheida
to to build a landing page by embedding the video using a third-party software like Wistia to just host a webinar, and then the transcript and the summary of the webinar that Flowgene has created for them in order to kind of make it more SEO optimized, even be more discovered.
00:13:41
Find A Way Podcast
ah huh
00:13:50
Find A Way Podcast
yeah
00:13:52
Sheida
That is like one thing that we saw, which was very interesting.
00:13:55
Find A Way Podcast
That is so interesting. I, I, wow.
From Service to SaaS: Mindset Shifts
00:13:59
Find A Way Podcast
Um, you, you and ah your co-founders, you've, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you've bootstrapped your way to global traction, right?
00:14:07
Find A Way Podcast
So what are the main mind shifts that you needed to have or to make while building this for an international market? Is there anything that comes to your mind, any mindset mindset shift that you went through oh while going on this journey?
00:14:25
Sheida
so it wasn't like the thing that i want to mention is not a mind shift ah for bootstrapping but it was a mind shift from being ah a service-based business founder which what i did prior to floating the studio and being a startup founder um so in the first few months i would say
00:14:40
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah.
00:14:48
Sheida
I kind of wanted to build one-on-one relationships with our first users, first customers to kind of give us a try. And, uh, because it was what I was used to in the, in the agency, like in an agency world, you have to build relationships. You have to, uh, like create content on socials and like, you know, build a thought leadership to kind of like build that engine of, uh, being known for a certain,
00:15:18
Find A Way Podcast
Authority. Yeah.
00:15:19
Sheida
Yeah, authority and then book calls with people and then turn them into customers. So it was a different, it was a difficult mind shift for me to really understand well how I can grow FlowGene and what is the right channels and ah ah like growth engine for this type of business.
00:15:39
Sheida
how can I grow a software which is like scalable, ah which is like low, like, which is self-serve. It is a product-led growth kind of business. And I don't have to kind of talk to people. I don't have to have sales calls.
00:15:54
Sheida
And i don't like, it's more of like understanding what channels are not the right fit for Flowgen than what channels are. I had to, i was, I think I wasted a lot of time trying out a lot of channels there.
00:16:10
Sheida
um And I did that because i it it it took it it took time for me to understand and have that mind shift of how can I grow this type of business and not an agency.
00:16:23
Sheida
um So that is one thing that I can mention.
00:16:26
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah.
Resourcefulness in Bootstrapping
00:16:29
Sheida
But also going back to bootstrapping, A lot of the startup lessons that you read online are for VC backed companies, how you can advertise advertise or even when you should, when you should do paid marketing ah or how much you should, ah you know, spend on paid marketing.
00:16:39
Find A Way Podcast
yeah
00:16:50
Sheida
All of these lessons are for VC backed companies, but for a bootstrap company, you don't have any budget for marketing. You don't have any budget for, um for hiring, you know,
00:17:02
Sheida
one or two more engineers to kind of accelerate the the speed of your product development. So it forces you to kind of be very good at ah using your resources um as as much as possible and try to work twice as hard kind of to get the ball rolling, get attraction. And so I think that that part was ah one of the hardest ones for us.
00:17:35
Find A Way Podcast
Wow.
Future Trends: Video Marketing and AI
00:17:36
Find A Way Podcast
and And if I ask you where, like, what do you see in the future of content marketing? Okay.
00:17:44
Sheida
I would bet on video, video marketing, um because I think we have seen that all the social platforms have added features for for not just video, but short form video.
00:18:01
Sheida
Even LinkedIn has it now and and like all the other socials that we're using. So I think um the biggest shift is that it's not just content creators who are creating videos to entertain or educate people, but it's mostly about like businesses or even B2B businesses going heavily on video.
00:18:23
Sheida
And ah like that is one thing. And the role of AI in in content marketing is um is mind-blowing right now. Like people inside businesses, they are creating their own workflows of how they can produce, sorry, how we can plan how they can produce and how they can repurpose the content that they have been producing inside the company and how efficient they can do this.
00:18:34
Find A Way Podcast
Thank you.
Networking: Virtual vs. In-Person
00:18:51
Sheida
um So that is something else that we are also focusing on. So we are like, ah we are understanding how we can help businesses to ah kind of not only repurpose, but also like plan and produce more content, better content and how AI can help this.
00:19:11
Sheida
um So I can mention like, you know, what we're working on, but I don't wanna hold here.
00:19:15
Find A Way Podcast
yeah but No. um Now, I'm also curious, Jada, what advice do you have for other immigrant entrepreneurs that are building in new ecosystems, especially knowing the, let's say, Canada, knowing Canada's startup landscape?
00:19:33
Find A Way Podcast
What advices would you give them?
00:19:36
Sheida
I think um
00:19:39
Sheida
i have I have learned some lessons of what not to than what to do.
00:19:45
Find A Way Podcast
Please share.
00:19:48
Sheida
um So i I was bullish on making your network when you are an immigrant and ah you want to start your business because um we ah we all know the perks, right?
00:20:02
Sheida
ah But I have found found that many of the networking events or conferences that ah that entrepreneurs attend at the beginning of their kind at the beginning of a journey is unnecessary. I have learned it the hard way.
00:20:20
Sheida
like I have tested many conferences, many many general events, I would say, ah for entrepreneurs. And the ROI of them are ah not that good.
00:20:32
Sheida
And, but rather i would say that if you want to build your network as an immigrant, I think like, um, virtual channels are and much better, ah approach for doing that.
00:20:46
Sheida
But by that, I mean like being present on social media and, uh, you know create content there, try to connect with people virtually and try to find your niche there.
00:20:50
Find A Way Podcast
okay
00:20:58
Sheida
It's a much better ROI for your time ah because you can't really skip not building a network, ah but going on, going into in-person events was, in my opinion,
00:21:05
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:13
Sheida
even like, especially the general ones don't really work. What have been really working for me is attending private dinners with like at most 10 people who are either in our ICP for us, it's like marketing managers or founders and to really build like deep connections there.
00:21:33
Sheida
So try to find events like that to attend to kind of meaningfully grow your network and add them on linkedin and then create content there to like deepen those relationships as well later on this will help you to raise easier to even like if you're launching a new feature you can just get the word out much easier they will like you know share those those inspiring updates that you're sharing ah it's it's a much easier way to do that
00:21:45
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah.
00:22:06
Find A Way Podcast
That's great. Thank you for sharing that. So. Now we're going to dive Sheda into some more personal questions, if that's okay with you. ah If you could have dinner with any person alive or dead, who would that be?
Dinner with Sam Altman and Future Confidence
00:22:23
Find A Way Podcast
And it can be anyone in the world.
00:22:25
Sheida
I would have a meeting with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
00:22:28
Find A Way Podcast
Sam?
00:22:29
Sheida
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:29
Find A Way Podcast
Oh, okay. That's a good one.
00:22:33
Find A Way Podcast
Okay.
00:22:34
Sheida
um Yeah. I'm generally very interested in understanding how, like how their, how their company is evolving in the next few years. And because I recently also, I heard the news yesterday that Meta is kind of head hunting the the good engineer, the good researchers in OpenAI and offering them like a hundred million sign in bonuses.
00:23:03
Find A Way Podcast
ah
00:23:03
Sheida
um So I'm like, okay, like I want to have the dinner with Sam Oldman to kind of ask about his feeling for this, like and how he plans to kind of now compete with Meta and yeah, what is the roadmap looking in like?
00:23:13
Find A Way Podcast
okay
00:23:22
Find A Way Podcast
Well, please share if you ever get that dinner.
00:23:26
Sheida
or Okay.
00:23:26
Find A Way Podcast
Let us know. um And the previous guests we had on our podcast, they left a question for you, which the question is, ah what is the message you would give to your future self?
00:23:42
Sheida
I think i would say that just be more confident in yourself because especially as an immigrant who also started a new business when you enter a new space enter a new country and especially the professional space uh you would you may feel that you you don't know enough or you're not enough or you have to gain a lot of experience to to do whatever you want basically like build your business or
00:24:16
Sheida
get the job that you want. um We often underestimate ourselves and we know enough to do the thing that we want to do So I think it was the same for me when I started, like when I moved here and when I was starting FlowGen that I was like, oh my God, like, you know, the startups in here is so much different or I don't know the VC game or or people here are smarter than me. But but I think it's it's not the case. like you're not
00:24:51
Sheida
you're not ah you know People are not smarter than you. It's okay to just to just have more confidence in you and just do whatever you have in mind.
00:25:02
Find A Way Podcast
I love that you mentioned that Sheda because it's something that I preach so much about the self confidence aspect of an immigrant. um not only an immigrant entrepreneur, but any immigrant um in their journey, you know, as a professional, as an individual.
00:25:18
Find A Way Podcast
And sometimes we don't know how much that aspect of the self-confidence affects our life and our experience in this new country. That's why I'm so passionate about the theme. And that's why I created Smart Goose, so ah because the self-confidence aspect, whether you're, you know, ah million dollar founder already in your home country, whether you've businesses multiple teams in your home country, when you step into a different environment, that underdog syndrome starts um sneaking in and the imposter syndrome. So we go through so many um mental blocks, I would say.
00:25:54
Find A Way Podcast
And knowing that we have as much as so many good things to bring to the table as well, you know, that is just so valuable and we should never overlook that. We should always see that um it's a it's a value added that we bring to this country.
00:26:13
Find A Way Podcast
So we should embrace that and feel empowered by it. So thank you for mentioning that. That just, it sparks, you know, light in my eyes, everybody that does mention that is just like, yes, I completely agree. And self-confidence is so, so important.
00:26:30
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah.
00:26:31
Sheida
One thing I can also mention is ah ah for me, it was true, which is i oftentimes think less of myself when i talk with accent and not as fluent.
Embracing Multilingualism
00:26:48
Sheida
um I mean, like sometimes I'm not as fluent as I should be, but like even talking with accent, it just in a room where everyone is native, everyone is everyone has Canadian accent.
00:27:00
Sheida
It makes me feel bad about myself, but it's not like it's something that you just feel about yourself. And I think a lot of immigrants may feel that.
00:27:09
Find A Way Podcast
A lot of them do. And one of the things I really tackle on with my clients personally is reframing that to yourself. So your accent is your superpower because you have an accent is because it means that you speak more than one language.
00:27:28
Sheida
Exactly.
00:27:28
Find A Way Podcast
So, right. So it's something that we should be empowered by not diminished, like under, you know, underseen by that. So I see accents as superpower.
00:27:40
Find A Way Podcast
I personally, and I try to reframe everybody that does struggle with it. um Just say, hey, it means you speak more than a language. That's something very, very valuable.
00:27:51
Find A Way Podcast
and So, right? re Reframing that. um And if anybody anybody questions that, just say, well, do you speak Persian? So we can talk in Persian, right? so that's just a way of reframing that.
00:28:05
Find A Way Podcast
But never should be ah seem seen as... not valuable or I, it's just a way of reframing that in our brain.
00:28:16
Find A Way Podcast
And I work a lot with that too, but, um, thank you for sharing that and being so you know vulnerable vulnerable in this conversation.
00:28:20
Sheida
Exactly.
00:28:28
Find A Way Podcast
ah what is, if you could describe in one sentence, what is success to you?
Defining Success
00:28:34
Sheida
I was actually talking about it um with my sister last night.
00:28:39
Find A Way Podcast
Wow, okay.
00:28:39
Sheida
um
00:28:41
Find A Way Podcast
What a coincidence.
00:28:43
Sheida
Yeah, so I think When I'm very proud of myself, that is what success. That is how, that is like the moment where I say I'm i'm successful.
00:28:55
Sheida
And to me, um that means that I have accomplished everything that i had not everything but like some of the things that i had in mind like i'm a very visionary person and i know exactly like the quality of work that i want to do or or the amount of impact impact that i want to make in in in this sort of board like you know specifically um and i want to know and i know sorry and i know uh like
00:29:29
Sheida
kind of my my passion has always been that I want to build great software that solves problems for people. And when I reached that, that moment where I know that like millions of people are using my software and I'm making lives easier.
00:29:49
Sheida
And during this time i have accomplished to manage a good team. I'm a good leader. ah i'm I'm very good at what what I do, which is like growing flow chain.
00:30:03
Sheida
I think that is a time where I think that I'm successful. But even though like this is like future success for me, but right now, when I think of the journey that I have been through,
00:30:16
Sheida
I consider myself successful right now as well um because I think it's not an easy job to immigrate to a new country to start a business and get past the survival mode of it and kind of like think of the growth.
00:30:34
Find A Way Podcast
Yeah.
00:30:34
Sheida
um So I think I consider myself successful right now. as i And I think everyone, every immigrant entrepreneur should feel the same way.
00:30:44
Find A Way Podcast
I agree 100%.
00:30:47
Find A Way Podcast
um Okay, some rapid fire questions. I'll give you two options. You choose one that resonates more with you. Books or movie?
00:30:56
Sheida
Movie.
00:30:58
Find A Way Podcast
City life or countryside?
00:31:01
Sheida
Definitely city life.
00:31:03
Find A Way Podcast
Phone call or text message?
00:31:05
Sheida
Text message.
00:31:07
Find A Way Podcast
Game night at home or night out at a restaurant?
00:31:12
Sheida
Hmm, this is a tough one. I think night out at a restaurant.
00:31:17
Find A Way Podcast
Thank you for that. What we always leave, both Ingrid and I, we're bookworms and we love collecting our guest insights and book recommendations.
00:31:27
Find A Way Podcast
If there's a book that you could recommend to our listeners and it could be business or podcast, just fiction, nonfiction, whatever you like, what book would that be?
00:31:38
Sheida
I think I really love ah the book called Crossing the Chasm. ah it The book really describes about how you can cross ah the border between having early stage
00:31:59
Sheida
Sorry, it it explains like the, how we can cross the border between having early adopters of your business to really scale the company, sorry, scale the product in and to be appealing as a company and as a product to the mainstream and not just, you know, in each group that you have to targeted, and which is a very different thing to do.
00:32:23
Find A Way Podcast
I love that.
00:32:26
Sheida
it it was a concept that i have never heard of before and the the book really beautifully explains this
00:32:35
Find A Way Podcast
No, I love that. I'm going to add it to my list of books to read ASAP. Thank you for that. And what question would you like to leave before we close the episode to the next guest that we have?
Challenging the Canadian Startup Ecosystem
00:32:50
Sheida
so i would say if you
00:32:54
Sheida
like to challenge how the how the Canadian startup ecosystem is working right now, how would you change it?
00:33:02
Find A Way Podcast
I love that. Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much for telling your story and for your time, Shida. Is there anything that you'd like to add before we close the episode?
00:33:14
Sheida
um I enjoyed the conversation, first of all. um
00:33:17
Find A Way Podcast
So did I.
00:33:18
Sheida
i think the only thing that I would add is
00:33:24
Sheida
My sister and I have kind of have an unconventional opinion about building a business when you move to a new country, which is if you move to a new country and you work as an employee, ah you know, in in companies, small, like big tech or small tech doesn't matter.
00:33:47
Sheida
We think that it's harder to take the leap and and being an entrepreneur.
The Immigrant Entrepreneur Experience
00:33:53
Sheida
then starting it right away because in the in the first path you you will you will be very convenient in terms of like earning good money like building a lifestyle that you want But when you take the leap and build this, like we start a business, ah you have to let that go, let that let that convenience go for at least one or two years.
00:34:20
Sheida
And it's very hard for people to just say goodbye to that convenience and that lifestyle. ah But when you are a new immigrant, you don't have that convenience. ah So it's much easier to survive and ah kind of build everything from the ground up.
00:34:39
Find A Way Podcast
I personally, um in my personal opinion, I agree with that as well. I um i think it's how you step into that country, the persona you're entering as an entrepreneur, especially in countries that value entrepreneurship like Canada.
00:34:56
Find A Way Podcast
it's You're going to be immersing yourself into those connections that are strategic for the business. You're going to be immersing yourself in events or ah tables that you're going to be taking a seat at that are strategic to entrepreneurship. So when you are and it's about the, you know, your own survival mode anyway, you're already navigating so many new aspects of your personal life, right?
00:35:19
Find A Way Podcast
And might as well just do the bundle and just do the professional. So yeah. I personally have, um luckily, I have a really good story to tell about this journey as well. So I share that thought with you.
00:35:31
Find A Way Podcast
um And maybe that will, you know, encourage people to do the same, follow the same steps, hopefully, and This is why we're so passionate about this podcast. It's just giving ah platform for people to hear about, you know, not only the the triumphs, but also the the struggles that we go through and the learnings. And if we can make this available to more and more people out there.
00:35:55
Find A Way Podcast
I think it's a contribution we're leaving out there to the world. So I truly appreciate you being here with us and sharing your story. And it's just so lovely. Every time we get to interact, it's so good to to talk to you. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
00:36:10
Sheida
Likewise, i really enjoyed this.
00:36:12
Find A Way Podcast
Oh, I'm so glad you had fun. um So, okay. This was our episode number 103 founder flow with Shada Mira, John Mira, honey. Did I pronounce that correct?
00:36:22
Sheida
Mir Jahani
00:36:23
Find A Way Podcast
Mira. Mir Jahani, thank you. We'd like to thank all of our listeners and would like to remind you that we will be posting one episode bi-weekly, always with a different guest. So make sure to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform.