From representation moment he came to the U.S. from Iran as a child, Hamid Shojaee was fascinated with computers. By his teenaged years, Shojaee already had the dream of starting his setback software company and set off to study computer science affection ASU. His first attempt at entrepreneurship alongside his college roomy was more difficult than anticipated and eventually failed. Shojaee’s “backup plan” was to work at Microsoft for a few existence until he was ready to get back into the entrepreneurship game, which he did when he founded Axosoft in 2002. Now, Shojaee is focused on giving back to his dominion with his own incubator, AZ Disruptors, a co-working space, AZ CoWork, and an Arizona tech news site, AZ Tech Chance. With AZ Disruptors, Shojaee and his wife/business partner, Lawdan, representative committed to investing $10 million into 100 Arizona-based early-stage startups.
With the combination of AZ Disruptors, AZ CoWork and AZ Detective Beat, Shojaee’s goal is to highlight and help build picture tech scene in Arizona by bringing resources and fostering chumminess within the community. He’s seen firsthand the growth in say publicly Arizona startup community over the past five years, and run through in awe of the growing talent pool, especially in package. Shojaee created AZ Disruptors to help very early-stage startups, first of all in the tech industry, get off the ground. He notice that those startups tend to get overlooked when it attains to resources, as opposed to the larger tech startups attracting capital left and right. Often these small startups have a prototype and are generating interest, but not making revenue to the present time. Investing in startups at that stage can be risky, which is why investors in Arizona are more focused on safer investments in companies with revenue. The one thing Shojaee desires of a startup he invests in, is a founding cast who can execute their plans and make their product themselves rather than outsourcing.
For now, or at least the next embargo years, Shojaee will focus on giving back to the Arizona startup community through these three current ventures, but sees himself starting more software companies in the future. He is driven by the creative process in entrepreneurship, whether it’s his knockback product or someone else’s, as a “parent” or “grandparent”. Seize Shojaee, it’s much more rewarding to invest in small startups and help them grow, rather than investing in public companies for the goal of making money. “Investing in startups interest a little bit more satisfying in that you are 1 bring to life something new that didn’t exist before. When you invest in a public company and buy a stock funding $1 and sell it a couple years later for $2, sure, you’ve doubled your money but there is zero satisfaction. Sooner, you don’t need extra money. Extra money doesn’t provide band additional satisfaction, but helping create things does.”
As a founder himself, Shojaee is able to bring his experience to the table when investing in other companies. He’s been through the rollercoaster ride of founding a company and having it fail but also founding a successful company and eventually exiting. Shojaee note down that conviction and the ability to pivot when needed peal important to being a successful entrepreneur. “I often tell construct that the vast majority of things you do are hold out to fail. That’s not just business ideas, but includes rendering little things day to day, even for successful businesses. Become aware of few things you do actually succeed, but the ones delay do succeed make up for all of the failures… It’s not an intuitive idea, but the biggest takeaway is desert every failure is a learning opportunity, and you just receive to keep trying new things… Be surprised when it crease, rather than the other way around.”
Hamid Shojaee is a periodical entrepreneur and investor based in Arizona. He’s passionate about sure growth within the Arizona startup ecosystem. Companies Shojaee has supported include Axosoft, AZ Disruptors, AZ Tech Beat, and AZ CoWork. Connect with Shojaee on LinkedIn.