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#053 Intellectual Property w/ Siamak Riahi
16 Plays2 years ago
Siamak is the founder and CEO of Riahi Patents, Inc.
He has over 18 years of experience in research, development, and intellectual property.
After spending about a decade in academia, he needed more challenges and decided to use his technical expertise in the Intellectual property world. He started working for an IP search firm in the U.S. and started his own patent research business after a few years.
After moving to Canada in 2018, he started working with startups, SMEs, and investors on IP strategy needs. Currently, the Riahi Patents team is working with startups that have secured government funding through the IRAP program to strategize their IP assets.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Find A Way Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Find A Way podcast, where we celebrate the remarkable journeys of immigrant entrepreneurs who have founded startups in North America.
00:00:12
Speaker
And we are your hosts, Beatriz Anatelli and Ingrid Polini.
00:00:17
Speaker
Join us as we dive deep into the personal stories of these inspiring individuals, exploring their challenges, triumphs, and the diverse range of innovative companies they have built.
Meet Siamak Riyahi: Entrepreneurial Journey
00:00:32
Speaker
This is episode number 53, Intellectual Property.
00:00:35
Speaker
And today, our guest is Siamak Riyahi.
00:00:38
Speaker
Siamak is the founder and CEO of Riyahi Patents, Inc.
00:00:41
Speaker
He has over 18 years of experience in research, development, and intellectual property.
00:00:47
Speaker
After spending about a decade in academia, he needed more challenges and decided to use his technical expertise in the intellectual property world.
00:00:55
Speaker
He started working for an IP search firm in the US and started his own patent research business after a few years.
Advising Startups on IP Strategy
00:01:02
Speaker
After moving to Canada in 2018, he started working with startups, SMEs, and investors on IP strategy needs.
00:01:09
Speaker
Currently, the Riahi Patents team is working with startups that have secured government funding through the IRAP program to strategize their IP assets.
00:01:17
Speaker
Welcome, Siamak.
00:01:19
Speaker
Thank you so much, Bera.
00:01:20
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Thanks, Ingrid.
00:01:21
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:01:22
Speaker
And I'm really glad that I'm the guest of this wonderful podcast and be with you.
00:01:29
Speaker
I know we were supposed to have the podcast four months ago, but due to some personal and family issues, we couldn't.
00:01:35
Speaker
But I'm glad that I'm here with you and excited about it.
00:01:39
Speaker
We're so happy to have you here and you're one of our biggest champions, right?
00:01:42
Speaker
You brought us so many guests over the months.
00:01:45
Speaker
It was great.
00:01:46
Speaker
So before we talk about your journey specifically, can you expand more about your business?
00:01:52
Speaker
So what exactly I know it's pretty straightforward, but just for the people that don't understand patents that well in Canada, for example, what does it entail?
00:02:00
Speaker
What do you do?
00:02:00
Speaker
What do you help startups with?
00:02:02
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:02:04
Speaker
So our firm is doing intellectual property and intellectual property, as you know, is patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, and so on and so forth.
00:02:13
Speaker
But for the most part, when people hear intellectual property, they initially say patents.
00:02:19
Speaker
So what we help these startups with is securing patents.
00:02:23
Speaker
patents or trademarks or copyright, but more important than that, we help them to have a strategy for their intellectual property.
00:02:31
Speaker
So diving into intellectual property or patents is not the way to go for a startup.
00:02:37
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Startups typically, they need to have a strategy.
00:02:39
Speaker
What needs to be filed?
00:02:41
Speaker
What needs to be done?
00:02:43
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What are the priorities when it comes to intellectual property?
00:02:47
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Most important
00:02:49
Speaker
factor for startup is once they're trying to raise money going and talking to investors, no investor is going to invest in your idea of startup if they don't know that their funding or the money that investment that they're putting in is secured.
00:03:04
Speaker
So what if they wake up one day and they realize someone else is copying the same thing, the same idea, and there's no protection whatsoever.
00:03:12
Speaker
So there goes their entire investment of a couple million dollars.
00:03:16
Speaker
So typically having an intellectual property asset, which could be a patent, could be a trademark, could be a trade secret or copyright prohibits others from copying that.
00:03:27
Speaker
Therefore, the investment is secure and your idea could be implemented easily without worrying about others to copy that.
00:03:34
Speaker
So that's basically in a nutshell what we do and how we help these startups with.
00:03:40
Speaker
Um, what,
00:03:41
Speaker
Depending on which industry they're in, what they're doing, the importance of patent versus trademark versus copyright could be changed.
00:03:48
Speaker
Part of IP strategy would be how to prioritize these different assets and walk the startup founders or co-founders or CTOs through the entire process.
Importance of Early IP Strategy
00:04:00
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, Siamak, you're the expert in the business.
00:04:03
Speaker
When is the ideal time to actually reach out to you and make sure that they have their IP strategy in place for businesses?
00:04:13
Speaker
Thank you.
00:04:14
Speaker
Thanks.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's a fantastic question that we keep answering on a daily basis.
00:04:18
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The sooner the better, and I cannot really emphasize on this, how important it is to act quickly.
00:04:25
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Sometimes startup founders or their technical team, they think that I got to develop something.
00:04:31
Speaker
I got to have the MVP.
00:04:32
Speaker
I got to actually go into market and try to sell my product or service or something.
00:04:38
Speaker
No, that's the wrong time.
00:04:40
Speaker
When you have the idea, you've got to look into and see what other people have done because you're so involved in what you're doing.
00:04:48
Speaker
You don't really know who else has patented something similar.
00:04:52
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So you need to have a strategy.
00:04:54
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You need to have an expert, whether that expert team is internal or external, that's debatable and it's on you.
00:05:01
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But you got to find out who else has worked on something similar at early stage to differentiate yourself from
00:05:09
Speaker
what they have done, if that's an option, or add features or inventiveness or novelty features to what you are doing, which separates you from your competitors.
00:05:21
Speaker
So waiting for a year, for two years, that's a long time.
00:05:25
Speaker
You've got to do something at early stage.
00:05:28
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For example, these startups that you're currently talking to, some of them, they're very early stage.
00:05:34
Speaker
But since the founders or co-founders, they've had that experience and they are familiar with IP, they act very quickly, as opposed to first timers that they think, let's wait, that's not important.
00:05:47
Speaker
Amazing.
00:05:47
Speaker
Thank you for clarifying that.
00:05:49
Speaker
And looking back in your journey, Siamak,
00:05:52
Speaker
What were the main challenges you experienced in this current business of yours or in your entrepreneurial journey that you'd like to highlight for us?
Challenges of Immigrant Entrepreneurship
00:06:01
Speaker
Being an immigrant and being an entrepreneur is really tough.
00:06:05
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I'm pretty sure whoever is listening to this, and you ladies, I'm pretty sure you can relate to it more than anyone else.
00:06:11
Speaker
It's really hard.
00:06:12
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I've heard numerous times from Ingrid that how many Slack channels you sign up for, how many different groups you try to get into and learn about other people.
00:06:23
Speaker
There is an issue that there is no...
00:06:26
Speaker
school or university, which teaches you entrepreneurship.
00:06:29
Speaker
There are classes, there are so many books.
00:06:32
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You read them, but frankly, whether they make you a good entrepreneur or not,
00:06:37
Speaker
under a big question mark.
00:06:39
Speaker
And no one can say, I became an entrepreneur by reading those books or going to a bootcamp of some sort.
00:06:45
Speaker
Being an immigrant is just another level of difficulty or hardship in front of you that prohibits you from doing certain things because you think that I don't really belong to this society.
00:06:56
Speaker
I don't know the hoops and loops.
00:06:58
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I need to go through those.
00:07:00
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I need to jump through those and find out.
00:07:02
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I'm not an exception myself.
00:07:04
Speaker
But
00:07:04
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But to be honest with you, I'm an immigrant, twice immigrant.
00:07:08
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I immigrated to the U.S. first as a grad student, finished two degrees there.
00:07:13
Speaker
And once I immigrated to Canada, it was slightly easier for me because the language barrier was not there.
00:07:19
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I was bringing the business intellectual property here.
00:07:22
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Having said that, IP world was different in Canada compared to the U.S.,
00:07:29
Speaker
And by different, it was primarily being handled and still being handled by big law firms that they do IP work here.
00:07:38
Speaker
It was some sort of a novel concept to say that I know the technical part and we are a technical slash IP company.
00:07:45
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That was one of the biggest challenges to teach people that are doing some sort of a tech work.
00:07:52
Speaker
and convince them what you do.
00:07:54
Speaker
And that was one of the big challenges that I never thought after being an immigrant for 15 years when I moved to Canada as an entrepreneur, I need to go through that one more time.
00:08:06
Speaker
Definitely, I can say as an immigrant, you need to find a comfort zone and you need to find a mentor, which I did find quite a few good ones.
00:08:18
Speaker
But I really don't like it when people say, go and talk to that person.
00:08:22
Speaker
You need to find who you're comfortable with, who you trust.
00:08:26
Speaker
And many of your guests, I've heard that they were told go and talk to someone or work with someone, but they didn't really find that trust value for the lack of a better term.
00:08:37
Speaker
And then they went and talked to some other people and those mentors, they definitely helped them.
00:08:42
Speaker
So I had those challenges, finding a good mentor, finding some role models, finding people that they can help you out in this country is important.
00:08:51
Speaker
But I have to tell you that you can have mentor or role model anywhere in the world and you can listen to them.
00:08:57
Speaker
Those are some of the obstacles in front of me.
00:09:01
Speaker
And every single entrepreneur, immigrant entrepreneur I talk to, if I can provide any feedback or any recommendations, I always tell them that listen to your heart.
00:09:11
Speaker
But at the same time, use your brain.
00:09:14
Speaker
It's a balance between those two.
00:09:17
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It's up to you.
00:09:19
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You weigh it a little bit more, your heart or your brain at some points.
00:09:23
Speaker
But I'm pretty sure all of us, we can relate to that.
00:09:26
Speaker
And we've been there.
00:09:28
Speaker
I love what you said about mentors.
00:09:29
Speaker
And it's something that we keep coming back.
00:09:31
Speaker
But one point that we haven't spoken yet that you said perfectly is
00:09:35
Speaker
is that basically the best mentor might not be the best mentor for you or like someone that's big that like it might not be the best mentor for you because you need to create that trust rapport.
00:09:46
Speaker
I've been to so many experiences with founders that were trying to work with mentors.
00:09:50
Speaker
And then I like it's simple things such as the mentor told them to do a specific thing.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I asked the founders like, do you know how to start this?
00:09:57
Speaker
And they're like, no.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, I'm going to teach you.
00:10:00
Speaker
So like sometimes even the communication aspect and when you add the cultural aspect of the immigrants of like maybe not feeling comfortable with speaking up, seeing a power imbalance with a mentor and saying like, I don't understand what you're talking about or like I don't understand the terminology, right?
00:10:16
Speaker
So there's a lot of different aspects of it.
00:10:19
Speaker
I love that you brought this up.
00:10:20
Speaker
So based on a suggestion that we received before, we are asking our guests, our previous guests to leave a question for the next one.
00:10:27
Speaker
So the guests from the last episode left you the following question.
00:10:32
Speaker
Share an instance where a significant setback or failure, setback or failure provided an invaluable insight to your business.
Adapting Business in Canada
00:10:42
Speaker
That's a hard one.
00:10:44
Speaker
No, that's actually a very good question.
00:10:46
Speaker
And I can provide you an answer about that.
00:10:51
Speaker
Um,
00:10:52
Speaker
What traditionally I have in mind to do for our business was do patent search.
00:10:57
Speaker
And we still do patent search.
00:10:59
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Patent search and analysis is really, really important.
00:11:02
Speaker
And traditionally, where I'm coming from is just getting that training and what I was doing in the States was primarily doing patent search.
00:11:10
Speaker
And I thought that's going to bring value to the business in Canada.
00:11:14
Speaker
And that was really a really huge, huge obstacle in front of me because initially we tried to sell this pattern search and convince people they need pattern search.
00:11:24
Speaker
Pattern search by itself is really valuable, but it needs some analysis to show companies that
00:11:32
Speaker
what the analysis is, and more important than that, what IP strategy is.
00:11:37
Speaker
So I was sort of trapped in the entire mindset in what I was really good at and what made the company really great in the States to mimic and copy that in Canada.
00:11:48
Speaker
However, that became a teeny tiny or a part of or component of the services that we were supposed to bring to the table here in Canada.
00:11:58
Speaker
That being said, it took me a while.
00:12:00
Speaker
And I was constantly pushing on that and trying to sell that service, whether to the law firms, whether to the clients and all that.
00:12:07
Speaker
And this is like four and a half, five years ago.
00:12:10
Speaker
Took me a while to understand that this is an add-on or it's something that you need to teach people what it brings to the table before selling that service.
00:12:20
Speaker
It was really hard for me to understand that.
00:12:23
Speaker
And it was really hard for me to accept that
00:12:26
Speaker
And that's something that many founders or entrepreneurs, they go through.
00:12:29
Speaker
You're so glued and married to your idea that you think if someone tells you, give up that, try to change it, add something else.
00:12:38
Speaker
We think that as if someone is insulting our loved ones or family member, and we try to push back and say, no, I know this better than you.
00:12:46
Speaker
I heard that comment and feedback from many people, including my own dad, who's been an entrepreneur.
00:12:52
Speaker
And whatever I've learned from him, whatever I've learned for entrepreneurship has been probably for the most part from my own father.
00:13:01
Speaker
He also provided me feedback that maybe you need to iterate things.
00:13:05
Speaker
Maybe you need to change it.
00:13:06
Speaker
You're working in a different country.
00:13:07
Speaker
You're trying to work with different group of people, which are startups, not well-established tech companies.
00:13:14
Speaker
And then that was that, you know,
00:13:17
Speaker
pivot or that was that turning point for me personally that I need to change my mindset.
00:13:23
Speaker
But believe it or not, I was really stuck there for a while.
00:13:27
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure that happens with many entrepreneurs.
00:13:29
Speaker
They get stuck and someone needs to shake you and get you out of that zone or wherever you got stuck.
00:13:37
Speaker
I love that you're mentioning that Simak, which also leads in part with our next question is that, but relating to your, also your immigration journey.
00:13:48
Speaker
How have your experience shaped your views on the identity, belonging and culture integration, not only as Siamak person, but Siamak business abroad?
Cultural Integration and Identity
00:13:59
Speaker
It's really amazing.
00:14:01
Speaker
And that's a really good question.
00:14:04
Speaker
You know, many of our clients, I mean, I've spent about 22 years outside Iran, outside my own country.
00:14:13
Speaker
Like I've lived here in North America for the most part for 22 years.
00:14:18
Speaker
So definitely, yeah.
00:14:19
Speaker
I've changed and I'm a slightly different person than who I was probably 22 years ago.
00:14:27
Speaker
But part of you as a person, you belong to, as an immigrant, to belong to a new society.
00:14:35
Speaker
But certain parts...
00:14:37
Speaker
they stay the same way.
00:14:39
Speaker
For example, when we have Iranian clients, we work, we speak in English, but part of me, when we want to communicate, we may speak for RC.
00:14:47
Speaker
And then I'm still the same person.
00:14:50
Speaker
Looks like certain standards, they've...
00:14:53
Speaker
change based on North American standard and certain things when it comes to personality and all that.
00:14:59
Speaker
I'm still the same person who I was 22 years ago.
00:15:03
Speaker
But business-wise, I can tell you that if you move to a new country, if you immigrate to a new country, and if you're an entrepreneur, your set of standards, they need to be exactly the same way as the country that you're living and working and doing business in.
00:15:18
Speaker
So you cannot really have a different set of standards when it comes to business.
00:15:22
Speaker
Your clients, they're not going to accept it.
00:15:23
Speaker
You need to have North American standards when you work with your clients.
00:15:29
Speaker
From a personal perspective, you can be who you are and they really welcome that.
00:15:35
Speaker
And that distinguishes you from probably the rest.
00:15:37
Speaker
If you're really a welcoming, warm person, they would really admire that.
00:15:42
Speaker
But I really value certain standards, business standards in Canada.
00:15:48
Speaker
That I think every single entrepreneur who is doing business in Canada, and I speak for Canada at this point, they need to follow that.
00:15:56
Speaker
They need to have the set of standards, whatever is accepted in this country.
00:16:01
Speaker
And you can't really go below that because that's going to look really bad from a business perspective.
00:16:09
Speaker
That's super curious.
00:16:10
Speaker
And I have like two questions in one for you here.
00:16:13
Speaker
The first one, because it's a question that we get from mentees all the time, all the time, which is from your experience living in the U.S. and then living in Canada.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I know it's different environments because academia is a whole other can of worms.
00:16:30
Speaker
But how has that been different for you?
00:16:33
Speaker
Because you lived a lot of time in the U.S. and a lot of time in Canada.
00:16:37
Speaker
And the second part of this question is, we talk a lot about the newcomer immigrants that come here and have to adapt to the culture, but how that has impacted like in you, in your personal and professional life and your relationship towards your country and the people from your culture, right?
00:16:53
Speaker
I'll give you an example why I asked this.
00:16:55
Speaker
I remember when I was much younger, I was like 15.
00:16:58
Speaker
We were traveling through the US and someone that was Brazilian, we saw, I was like,
00:17:03
Speaker
15, we don't have much of a worldly experience then.
00:17:07
Speaker
And there was this girl and she was Brazilian and she said something important.
00:17:11
Speaker
She was like, oh, I never, I've never seen Brazilian in this area.
00:17:13
Speaker
It's like a very remote part in California.
00:17:15
Speaker
And then she starts talking to us, but she say some English words.
00:17:18
Speaker
And then I turned to my mom later, I was like, why did she say words in English?
00:17:21
Speaker
Like we're speaking Portuguese.
00:17:23
Speaker
And now I do that because after six years here and like, you know, I speak English most of the time, I forget words.
00:17:29
Speaker
So kind of things like that.
00:17:30
Speaker
Like how has that shaped your relationship with your country, your culture, even your family, right?
00:17:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:38
Speaker
The difference between the U.S. I moved to the U.S. as a grad student.
00:17:42
Speaker
So I did a master's in civil engineering at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
00:17:48
Speaker
Then I followed with a Ph.D.,
00:17:51
Speaker
And then I went to Michigan, moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan and did a postdoc.
00:17:54
Speaker
So that was pretty much academic life.
00:17:59
Speaker
between 2001 till 2011 for a decade, actually.
00:18:04
Speaker
So all I knew was academia, academia in the US.
00:18:09
Speaker
Right after that, I joined an IP firm.
00:18:11
Speaker
Then I started my own business and I started living there.
00:18:14
Speaker
I'm really thankful.
00:18:16
Speaker
It definitely opened up my eyes as a grad student.
00:18:19
Speaker
I really enjoyed it.
00:18:20
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Then I started my own business.
00:18:21
Speaker
I really liked it.
00:18:23
Speaker
By choice, I decided to move to Canada and that was different.
00:18:27
Speaker
And I can tell you something a little bit funny that when I visited Canada prior to moving here permanently, every time I visited, I said, oh, you guys are like Americans.
00:18:37
Speaker
And I didn't really know that they don't really enjoy that.
00:18:41
Speaker
Later on, when I moved here permanently, I realized, look.
00:18:44
Speaker
you probably should refrain from that.
00:18:47
Speaker
My experience in Canada has been different from the U.S. because I moved here as a permanent resident, as an entrepreneur.
00:18:55
Speaker
I brought the business with me.
00:18:57
Speaker
I was in my, actually, I was 40, 41, as opposed to that 23, 24-year-old guy.
00:19:02
Speaker
So there's a
00:19:06
Speaker
Age difference, as you mentioned, there is different set of standards in how you immigrate and move to a country.
00:19:13
Speaker
Those are two different things.
00:19:14
Speaker
So experience-wise, they're different, but I enjoyed both.
00:19:19
Speaker
So I really enjoyed my time in the States.
00:19:22
Speaker
I really enjoyed whatever I did there.
00:19:24
Speaker
And I'm currently enjoying my life and all the experience and everything here.
00:19:28
Speaker
There are two different experiences, but equally, I love them and like them.
00:19:33
Speaker
When you go back to the second question that you brought it up, yes, you change over time.
00:19:39
Speaker
And I can definitely relate to that Brazilian girl who was trying to speak Portuguese, but just throwing English words.
00:19:47
Speaker
That happens.
00:19:49
Speaker
But I'm really careful when I'm dealing with Iranian community, although there are certain times that you're talking about technical matters, you may throw English words, and culture-wise, if both parties have lived outside the country for a while,
00:20:05
Speaker
They know that you're not really trying to show up or anything in that nature.
00:20:09
Speaker
But I think you got to be very careful.
00:20:12
Speaker
Sometimes people of your own type, if you act in a certain way, they may take it the wrong way and they say, oh, you're acting Canadian, you're acting American, you're acting German.
00:20:23
Speaker
Oh, he was a little bit standoffish when it came to his own type.
00:20:29
Speaker
I try to avoid that.
00:20:31
Speaker
I try to be friendly.
00:20:33
Speaker
I try to, even if there's a room or if it's the two of us, I speak Farsi to potential client or whoever is my own country.
00:20:41
Speaker
Or if I meet them outside and I hear they're speaking Farsi, I try to say something to them.
00:20:47
Speaker
But it's something that you cannot really avoid.
00:20:49
Speaker
And after many years, you adopt a new culture and you try to be the same person.
00:20:56
Speaker
But believe it or not, we are not the same person.
00:20:59
Speaker
I'm not even the same person who I was 10 minutes ago, right?
00:21:03
Speaker
Let alone 20 to 23 years ago.
00:21:07
Speaker
You change, but you try to be...
00:21:10
Speaker
the same person with good qualities and better standards.
00:21:14
Speaker
So that's something that I keep telling myself and I try to practice that whether I'm successful or not, I don't really know.
00:21:22
Speaker
And that's, you just made me want to explore a little bit more on that end.
00:21:28
Speaker
How do you stay connected with your home country and your culture?
Maintaining Iranian Roots
00:21:32
Speaker
Well, over the past four months, I've been traveling a lot because something happened to my dad.
00:21:39
Speaker
He hit his head.
00:21:40
Speaker
He had a hematoma.
00:21:41
Speaker
He had a surgery.
00:21:42
Speaker
So I keep going back and forth.
00:21:44
Speaker
But I still have many friends, whether they're inside or outside.
00:21:50
Speaker
believe it or not, we have many, many clients that are Persians, they are Iranians.
00:21:55
Speaker
And believe it or not, the fact that I chose to put my last name on the company's name as Riyahi Patents, that sometimes triggers something.
00:22:04
Speaker
They say who the owner is, who this person is.
00:22:07
Speaker
And Vivek, our CTO here, that you know her.
00:22:11
Speaker
Sometimes there are clients and they say, Riyahi?
00:22:14
Speaker
Oh, is it the Iranian name?
00:22:15
Speaker
How do you know him?
00:22:16
Speaker
And he says, yeah, the founder is Iranian.
00:22:18
Speaker
He's not here in
00:22:20
Speaker
Waterloo.
00:22:20
Speaker
But that starts so many conversations.
00:22:24
Speaker
And many of our clients, actually, they saw the name, they relate to it, they realize, oh, this person is also Iranian.
00:22:31
Speaker
But that's how I keep up.
00:22:33
Speaker
And to be honest with you, I'm still connected to the community as much as I can.
00:22:38
Speaker
Just do not forget that when you're at the university college grad school, you are connected because there's a huge group or community of people.
00:22:47
Speaker
But when you graduate,
00:22:48
Speaker
and you're working, you are within your circle of friends and whoever you know, and you may meet new people based on that circle.
00:22:57
Speaker
But our clients are a good source of me connecting with Iranian community here.
00:23:04
Speaker
So I've been really fortunate for that.
00:23:08
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:23:10
Speaker
So you talked, you went back to the grad school and I just want to pull one more question out of you on that experience.
00:23:17
Speaker
Because I think it's a common thing that happens
Advice for Academic Entrepreneurs
00:23:20
Speaker
now.
00:23:20
Speaker
So if you were to give a tip for one, two, three, however many you think,
00:23:27
Speaker
For someone that spent like a decade in academia that did their PhD, you know where this question is going, they did their postdoc and wanted to go for entrepreneurship now.
00:23:37
Speaker
What would those steps be or what are the pitfalls that they should watch for?
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:44
Speaker
As far as the entrepreneurship goes, you got to have something in you.
00:23:48
Speaker
And honestly, I don't know how to describe this.
00:23:51
Speaker
I grew up in a house.
00:23:52
Speaker
My dad...
00:23:53
Speaker
is an entrepreneur.
00:23:54
Speaker
We grow up, me and my sister, we saw our dad.
00:23:58
Speaker
We saw him being an entrepreneur.
00:24:00
Speaker
And ironically, I know this sounds really, really funny.
00:24:03
Speaker
I was about 10 that I realized not necessarily everybody's father is an entrepreneur.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it sounds really, really stupid.
00:24:10
Speaker
But then for a while, I thought that's everybody's dad or mom or they do that.
00:24:14
Speaker
But then
00:24:16
Speaker
If you grow up in that environment, you may adopt it, but I have to tell you that not necessarily everyone growing up in that environment will adopt that.
00:24:24
Speaker
For example, I watched our dad working weekends, working odd hours, running the business and all that.
00:24:33
Speaker
Some people see that and they really, really hate it.
00:24:35
Speaker
And they say, this is not the life that I'm going to sign up for.
00:24:39
Speaker
I saw that without even knowing, I realized, oh, this is cool.
00:24:43
Speaker
Growing up, I realized that
00:24:45
Speaker
immediately that I cannot work for other people.
00:24:48
Speaker
I cannot.
00:24:48
Speaker
And you've heard that from many entrepreneurs.
00:24:50
Speaker
You want to get things done your own way.
00:24:53
Speaker
And it ends up being either my way or highway, which is not a good thing.
00:24:56
Speaker
But then you realize, if I could, I would have done it this way.
00:25:00
Speaker
Therefore, maybe I want to do it my way.
00:25:03
Speaker
So entrepreneurship is something that you have it in you.
00:25:06
Speaker
It's something that you don't really wake up one day and say, I want to be an entrepreneur.
00:25:11
Speaker
There's an itch.
00:25:13
Speaker
There's an edge.
00:25:14
Speaker
Definitely there's an edge.
00:25:15
Speaker
You go back to be an employee halfway through that process, you realize I can't do it.
00:25:21
Speaker
But there's something that they need to watch for, actually, that do not be glued to your ideas.
00:25:30
Speaker
Do not be married to those ideas.
00:25:32
Speaker
Please listen to other people.
00:25:34
Speaker
I'm going back to what I said earlier.
00:25:38
Speaker
Sometimes some of the ideas that you have, they're really fantastic, but how do you know that there are
00:25:43
Speaker
Practical.
00:25:44
Speaker
How do you know that you can implement that?
00:25:46
Speaker
Often we may get into a place that we burn money, we burn time, and we get really tired.
00:25:53
Speaker
And that will kill it.
00:25:54
Speaker
the entire entrepreneurship ego that we have in ourselves.
00:25:59
Speaker
I know many entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that they had that itch, but they went to the wrong direction and they killed that.
00:26:07
Speaker
And then they're scared of being an entrepreneur and they're scared of entrepreneurship.
00:26:11
Speaker
So listen, listen, listen, get help.
00:26:16
Speaker
from your family members, from mentors, whoever you trust.
00:26:20
Speaker
But just be careful.
00:26:21
Speaker
Since you think it's a novel idea, it doesn't mean it's a novel and cute idea and it's going to work.
00:26:26
Speaker
So that's the entire rabbit hole that all of us feel very vulnerable to get into.
00:26:32
Speaker
So try to avoid that.
00:26:35
Speaker
I love that.
00:26:36
Speaker
I was just going to say, and I don't know if you agree with me, but one thing that I always ask people that came out of academia to entrepreneurship to keep in mind is research is important, but it's not just everything.
00:26:48
Speaker
In the sense that you have a lot of people from academia that have perfectionism because you have to be in order to, you know, like publish articles and all that.
00:26:56
Speaker
But they come to the market and they was like, no, no, no.
00:26:58
Speaker
But if only I do a 80 page business plan and I pour all the data from the database, like, yes, but have you talked to the customer?
00:27:05
Speaker
Have you actually sat down with 10 people that might be your ICP, your ideal customer profile, for those of you who don't know the acronym, you know?
00:27:15
Speaker
have you sat down with them and asked them like, it's, it's a small thing.
00:27:18
Speaker
So like the research part is also, yes, like, don't, don't think that just yours is a novel idea and get out there and ask people that would actually use this to see, because there were cases where people were working in platforms for like two, three years that works great and solve the problem, but no one was willing to pay for it.
00:27:35
Speaker
Right.
00:27:35
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:27:36
Speaker
Do you agree with that research part?
00:27:38
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:27:39
Speaker
The truth is, uh, yeah,
00:27:41
Speaker
The truth is when you're in academia and people, please don't get me wrong.
00:27:46
Speaker
I've been on podcasting.
00:27:47
Speaker
both sides, so I know a thing or two about both.
00:27:52
Speaker
Research is really valuable and you're doing research.
00:27:56
Speaker
Not that you have unlimited time, but often when you're running a business, clock is ticking.
00:28:01
Speaker
Execution matters.
00:28:02
Speaker
So no matter what you've planned, no matter how much research you've done, as Ingrid mentioned, you need to execute.
00:28:09
Speaker
And then during the execution, you realize how well it's going to work out.
00:28:13
Speaker
You find out the shortcomings, you find out the flaws and all that.
00:28:18
Speaker
And you get a feedback, you put it into account and consideration, iterate, go back to square one sometimes, and you may change the entire thing.
00:28:26
Speaker
Not that it doesn't really happen in academia, but sometimes when you are an entrepreneur, you have limited resources, whether it's time, whether it's funding, whether it's money, whether it's your...
00:28:38
Speaker
personal resources, you've got to take those into consideration as well.
00:28:43
Speaker
So research is important, as you mentioned, very valuable, but at the same time, you've got to realize that running a business and being an entrepreneur is slightly different and you need to also take so many different factors into account when you want to be an entrepreneur.
00:29:02
Speaker
So it's not really one or two things.
00:29:05
Speaker
Agreed.
00:29:06
Speaker
Thank you for your inputs on that.
00:29:09
Speaker
Siamak, what is success to you?
00:29:13
Speaker
Very good question.
00:29:14
Speaker
Had you asked this question 10 years ago, I would have provided you a different answer.
00:29:19
Speaker
But I am from a personal and professional perspective, I'm in a different place these days.
00:29:27
Speaker
Success could have been something making more money probably 15, 20 years ago.
00:29:32
Speaker
But as an entrepreneur, you get to a point that success is something that you –
00:29:41
Speaker
You get to a point that when people talk about you, they remember great values of what you've done for them, for the business, for the employee.
00:29:51
Speaker
May I add a real story?
00:29:53
Speaker
Recently, we realized something about our own dad, and that was an alarming thing to me and my sister.
00:30:00
Speaker
When he was at hospital and he was at the ICU unit for 27 days, he
00:30:05
Speaker
People came and talked to us and they brought so many things to our attention.
00:30:10
Speaker
We didn't know our dad has done so much for people from business perspective, personal perspective, you name it.
00:30:17
Speaker
Some employees, they showed up at the door.
00:30:19
Speaker
They started to cry.
00:30:20
Speaker
And me and my sister, we tried to calm them down.
00:30:23
Speaker
Some people could have looked at it and thought that they are the children that
00:30:28
Speaker
We are the employees, which was the other way around.
00:30:30
Speaker
So you get to a point in life that whatever you do as an entrepreneur, and it may sound really cliche, but believe me, I'm at a point in life that I believe in that.
00:30:40
Speaker
You get to a point that you say, whatever I do for business, 10 years from now, I want people to remember me, that I made a huge change, made a huge difference, and I did some good for society, for people working with me and around me.
00:30:55
Speaker
That's something that I consider success.
00:30:59
Speaker
And let's talk in 10 years and see if I still believe in that or not.
00:31:03
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:31:04
Speaker
I love that.
00:31:05
Speaker
I know how important informing your relationship with your dad was.
00:31:10
Speaker
And I think that seeing that as an entrepreneur has moved a lot of things for you as well and seeing the impact that he has.
00:31:17
Speaker
So he's still...
00:31:18
Speaker
Like in your, I don't know if you're still in your 40s, but like later in life, he's still teaching you about entrepreneurship and teaching you about the next steps.
00:31:25
Speaker
And I love that.
00:31:27
Speaker
It is.
00:31:27
Speaker
I mean, believe it or not, a day or two prior to his incident, he still tells me, he still told me certain things about business.
00:31:36
Speaker
And I was still amazed and surprised.
00:31:37
Speaker
How come a person who lives in
00:31:41
Speaker
100,000 kilometers away, he's got the vision.
00:31:46
Speaker
He doesn't really live here, but from a business perspective, he's got the vision.
00:31:51
Speaker
And yes, I'm in my 40s.
00:31:54
Speaker
And that's something that still to this day, I think no matter how old you are and no matter how well you know the business, you still need
Role of Mentors and Fresh Perspectives
00:32:03
Speaker
mentor.
00:32:03
Speaker
You still need mentorship.
00:32:04
Speaker
You still need people that you need to listen to.
00:32:07
Speaker
You may take certain things with a grain of salt and pepper, but still listen to them.
00:32:12
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:32:13
Speaker
I'm successful.
00:32:13
Speaker
I've done this for 10 years.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:32:16
Speaker
But believe me.
00:32:17
Speaker
A junior person can come and shed light on it and then you learn from them and you take that and the business will go to the next step.
00:32:24
Speaker
I still believe in that.
00:32:26
Speaker
I believe in that a thousand percent.
00:32:28
Speaker
Like it's one thing that before we go to the next question, it's one thing that.
00:32:33
Speaker
For me, like we have, whenever someone new enters our team, I say like, look at the platform, test it out and tell me what your feedback is because of getting fresh eyes.
00:32:42
Speaker
And it can be an intern or it can be a, like a, a person that is like higher level manager, always like, it's like fresh perspective is like, and.
00:32:50
Speaker
everyone might have a different perspective.
00:32:52
Speaker
They can always teach you something because one thing that I've learned throughout this journey, and I started entrepreneurship very young, which was, I don't know everything and I can't know everything.
00:33:02
Speaker
So who are the people that can teach me something about this so I can develop this business better, right?
00:33:06
Speaker
So it goes right to the point.
00:33:08
Speaker
I love that.
00:33:09
Speaker
So a question not related to that, but a bit more out there.
Dream Superpower: Supporting Startups
00:33:13
Speaker
If you could choose a superpower, what would that be and why?
00:33:16
Speaker
Huh?
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:19
Speaker
Nice question.
00:33:20
Speaker
I never thought about it.
00:33:23
Speaker
Like many other people, I wanted to predict future.
00:33:27
Speaker
But that being said, it's very, very scary.
00:33:30
Speaker
I think as an entrepreneur, we are really, really lucky that we don't know what's going to happen to us the next day.
00:33:36
Speaker
Because if we knew, we would have been so scared that we would have never, never taken any action as an entrepreneur.
00:33:44
Speaker
But I
00:33:45
Speaker
Um, joke aside, if there was a superpower, um, I don't know.
00:33:53
Speaker
It's a very interesting question.
00:33:56
Speaker
I would, I would, I would.
00:34:00
Speaker
Pick a power that I could support startups in any way that I could have done.
00:34:06
Speaker
Because we work with startups and every day it's a little bit heartbreaking to see there are many good startups that they're suffering, particularly financially.
00:34:16
Speaker
And if someone can give them a little bit of push, believe me, they would be really successful.
00:34:22
Speaker
If I could...
00:34:23
Speaker
have some sort of a superpower, I would help these startups.
00:34:28
Speaker
I would still need to vet some of them out though, but I would help many of them.
00:34:33
Speaker
Every day I run into a founder or co-founder and I realized that they deserve, they deserve to get that extra push in order to go to the next level.
00:34:43
Speaker
I would have picked that superpower to financially help many startups, honestly.
00:34:48
Speaker
I love that.
00:34:50
Speaker
Thank you for that, Siamak.
00:34:52
Speaker
We're going to move into some rapid fire questions.
00:34:54
Speaker
We're going to give you two options and then you pick whatever is more your profile, your style.
00:35:01
Speaker
Awesome.
00:35:02
Speaker
First one is Android or iOS?
00:35:06
Speaker
iOS.
00:35:08
Speaker
Camping or luxury hotel?
00:35:12
Speaker
Really depends.
00:35:13
Speaker
I would go with camping.
00:35:16
Speaker
A true West Coaster.
00:35:17
Speaker
A true West Coaster.
00:35:20
Speaker
Dancing or singing?
00:35:23
Speaker
Oh, dancing.
00:35:24
Speaker
I really suck at singing.
00:35:25
Speaker
Believe me, I don't have the voice and it's not a surprise.
00:35:31
Speaker
And I'm not good at dancing though, but I pick dancing over singing.
00:35:37
Speaker
Introvert or extrovert?
00:35:39
Speaker
Extrovert.
00:35:41
Speaker
Perfect.
00:35:42
Speaker
Thank you for that.
00:35:44
Speaker
And also, I'm sure you're familiar with that.
00:35:48
Speaker
We love getting book tips.
Book Recommendations on Immigrant Experiences
00:35:50
Speaker
We have Ingrid, which is the major bookworm.
00:35:52
Speaker
I'm a little bit behind on the amount of books I read comparing to her, but I also love a really good book recommendation.
00:36:00
Speaker
Would you be willing to share any books that you think would be good?
00:36:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:07
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:08
Speaker
Actually, I have three options and I'm going to go over them really quickly.
00:36:12
Speaker
And believe it or not, they all cover us as an immigrant.
00:36:15
Speaker
The first one is Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Brazilian author.
00:36:22
Speaker
I read it numerous times and many of the things that he has written in the book, they have happened to me in my life.
00:36:29
Speaker
Ironically, many of things.
00:36:31
Speaker
And I really love that book.
00:36:32
Speaker
The second one is Funny in Farsi, written by Firouze Douma, a Persian-American-Iranian writer.
00:36:42
Speaker
Funny in Farsi is a really fun slash sarcastic book about an immigrant, young immigrant,
00:36:49
Speaker
And there's another book that followed up by that, that Laughing Without an Accent, again, by Fusa Duma.
00:36:57
Speaker
Those books for immigrants, those are really valuable.
00:37:00
Speaker
And it goes through many of the challenges that we have gone through and we still go through on a daily basis from language barrier, cultural barrier, you name it.
00:37:09
Speaker
The third one is Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
00:37:13
Speaker
And I really love that.
00:37:14
Speaker
And ironically, he lives between Vancouver and California, I think, these days.
00:37:20
Speaker
So I covered Brazil, Iran, and Vancouver with three books.
00:37:25
Speaker
So those are three books that I recommend.
00:37:28
Speaker
I'm pretty sure many of your listeners, they probably already read all of them.
00:37:32
Speaker
But those are my go-back books whenever I feel like reading something interesting.
00:37:37
Speaker
I love that.
00:37:38
Speaker
Those are amazing.
00:37:39
Speaker
I have never heard about the two, the funny and farsi that you recommended.
00:37:43
Speaker
I'm definitely going to check that out.
00:37:45
Speaker
Before we close the episode, and we can continue talking for another two hours because I think I have so much to bring to the table.
Reflections on Entrepreneurial Regrets
00:37:52
Speaker
What would be a question that you would like to ask our next guest?
00:37:56
Speaker
I thought about it and I have two questions, but they can be combined in one question.
00:38:02
Speaker
As an entrepreneur, would they do the same and
00:38:06
Speaker
go through the same path as an entrepreneur, what they regret about it as an immigrant, would they immigrate to a new country if they go back and what they regret about it?
00:38:16
Speaker
Because all of us, for one reason or a couple of different reasons, we immigrated, we became an entrepreneur.
00:38:23
Speaker
What are the things they regret about it?
00:38:25
Speaker
Because we still have regrets as an immigrant.
00:38:27
Speaker
We still have regrets about as an entrepreneur.
00:38:30
Speaker
What are those regrets that they have?
00:38:32
Speaker
Um,
00:38:33
Speaker
Those are two questions that can be combined in one question.
00:38:37
Speaker
And I'm particularly looking for the regrets.
00:38:40
Speaker
I love that.
00:38:41
Speaker
It's so important for us to share the challenges, the regrets and all of that, because that's the things that we might teach to people that haven't gone through them yet, right?
00:38:49
Speaker
Like if we can avoid other people to go through the same thing.
00:38:52
Speaker
But thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story.
00:38:55
Speaker
It was amazing having you here.
00:38:57
Speaker
Thank you so much, ladies.
00:38:58
Speaker
It was a pleasure.
00:38:59
Speaker
And as you say in Portuguese, obrigado.
00:39:03
Speaker
This was our episode 53, Intellectual Property with Siamak Iriah.
00:39:07
Speaker
We'd like to thank all of our listeners and would like to remind you that we'll be posting one episode a week, always with a different guest.
00:39:13
Speaker
So make sure to subscribe to your favorite streaming platform.