| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Ali Payani |
| Company: | LookinLA |
| Place of birth: | Iran |
| Employees: | 10 |
Show notes
Ali is originally from Iran but his entrepreneurial journey started when he was living in Dubai. He wanted to launch his startup but the government in Dubai did not allow him to do it only because he was Iranian. He tried so hard for 2 years, but was unsuccessful. So, he took his business idea to Silicon Valley.
He came to the United States to be able to launch his company. He was working on a prototype in the air quality industry but a year later he decided to pivot. So he connected with one of his friends from Dubai and they launched a digital marketing agency without any knowledge, or any experience in that field.
One year after coming to the States, Ali took his business to the streets of Ventura Blvd. in Los Angeles County. In the middle of summer he went knocking on businesses and asking them if they wanted any of his digital marketing services. With his fire and drive he kept on going and saw massive success.
Only 4 years later, LookinLA announces 300% growth and didn’t lose a single client in 2020 during the pandemic. LookinLA is a full service digital marketing agency beating all the odds.
Quotes by Ali
We worked a lot, maybe 14 hours a day, to learn and execute, with me and my cofounder.
I just got some online courses in marketing that were explaining some of the platforms, like Google adwords, or some email marketing tools, or SEO.
We learned a lot and read a lot of articles and watched lectures on YouTube to learn.
We couldnāt even raise funds for our marketing agency.
It was all against the odds. To have a marketing agency in Los Angeles, and you just moved here, while there are thousands of marketing agencies in L.A. and a lot of them are going out of business in one year or two years.
Itās very important not only for marketing, but for business itself, to know how you are adapting to change or if you are finding something that is not working. How fast can you find out that itās not working, and also how fast you can execute a solution?
We have tons of traffic on our website because of our blogs and users/visitors downloading our ebook.
If you develop the right content for the right people, with really high quality it will be really successful strategy.
Make sure to find the right mentor.
I really moved here to establish the best and biggest company, or maybe companies. I think itās happening.
They say, āIn the U.S. if you work hard, you can make it.ā I think itās true, and Iām living proof of that.
No matter what your background is, it matters what your passion is, you can make a company that you want.
Where to find Ali
LookinLA | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
