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| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Sid Mohasseb |
| Company: | Venture Farm LLC |
| Place of birth: | Iran |
| Employees: | Now – one… previously from zero to 1000x |
| Annual revenue: | Zero to millions… |
Show notes
Sid’s journey to United States started when he was 16 years old when he attended a boarding school. He always had a curious mind and launched his very first company after 5 years of being in the States.
He was only 21 years old when he launched his very first business. Although he had several different businesses in his immigrant entrepreneur journey, he’s focused his last several years being a venture capitalist.
Sid focuses on investing, mentoring, speaking and being an adjuct professor at the University of Southern California. He’s an author of several books and his most recent one, You Are Not Them, is definitely a must read.
Sid breaks down barriers, and creates innovation in amazing ways. He’s definitely a thought leader and he also has taken the stage on TEDx. In this episode he provides amazing wisdom to all entrepreneurs in all stages.
Quotes by Sid
I believe we are all entrepreneurs.
We have the talent, now how we use it is a different story.
A pilot takes a risk everyday, but that risk is calculated.
Without change, we are stagnant.
Without risk, there’s no life.
You have no choices unless there is change.
We can learn from a bumper sticker on a car.
The more you listen, the more you learn.
Leadership and entrepreneurship are twin brothers.
You have to have your mindset, set.
You are the sculptor and you are the sculpture!
You are always in the making.
You are the artist, and you are the art.
Don’t be them, be better than your previous self.
I would consider every failure, that I’ve been able to learn from, a success.
Life is filled of series of successes.
Take something that you have, turn it into something better, knowing that there is risk.
If you’re an immigrant, and you’re here, whether you want it or not, you’re an entrepreneur.. You’ve already exercised it.
The busier I am, it drives me to make faster decisions which makes me more productive.
Realize that you’re an entrepreneur by nature and turn fear into learning.
Where to find Sid
Links metioned
Book: You Are Not Them: The Authentic Entrepreneur’s Way
(Amazon affiliate links included)
[read more] Alina Warrick (1s):
Welcome to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast Episode 44.
Sid Mohasseb (6s):
I believe we’re all entrepreneurs. Every single one of us.
Alina Warrick (9s):
Oh, I love that.
Sid Mohasseb (11s):
Okay. And because the definition of entrepreneurship in my view, is you have something, and you hope to exchange it for something better, knowing that there is a certain level of risk.
Alina Warrick (24s):
Today we have a Sid Mohasseb on the show. Sid came to the United States at 16 years old to go to a boarding school. His very first job in the US was a teacher’s assistant at the college he attended. He used to clean windows and doors at a store. And his entrepreneurial drive was always within him. So he launched a company at 21 years old. Remember, this is only five years living in the United States. And the company was called Fairfax International. He launched this company when fax machines were the thing back in the day. The company was launched merely by accident, because the company he used to work for went bankrupt.
Alina Warrick (1m 11s):
The things that him and his partner did advertise and to find the leasing or just a pure creativity. Sid went on to create several different companies. He’s a teacher at University of Southern California. He is a speaker and also took the stage on TEDx. Not only that, he’s an amazing author of several books. And his most recent one called You Are Not Them! is just absolutely amazing. As a professional fund manager, and angel investor, Sid has mentored dozens of entrepreneurs met with a hundreds of startup companies, and reviewed countless business plans.
Alina Warrick (1m 56s):
Sid is definitely a thought leader that brings innovation and change wherever he goes. You’re going to absolutely love the talk with Sid. So let’s dive right in. Alright, Sid, thank you so much for joining me on the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast. I truly appreciate your time. And I’m super excited to hear all about your journey. So welcome to the show.
Sid Mohasseb (2m 21s):
Thank you for having me, Alina. It’s great to be with you, and your audience.
Alina Warrick (2m 25s):
So let’s talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from. And when did you come to the United States?
Sid Mohasseb (2m 33s):
1976. That kind of ages me a little bit.
Alina Warrick (2m 36s):
No, it doesn’t.
Sid Mohasseb (2m 37s):
And that’s about 44 years ago. And originally from Iran.
Alina Warrick (2m 42s):
Okay, and how old were you when you came to the US?
Sid Mohasseb (2m 45s):
You are supposed to age me here. I was 16.
Alina Warrick (2m 50s):
Okay, Sid, this is where the story begins.
Sid Mohasseb (2m 52s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (2m 53s):
At 16 years old, how in the world is you come here? Did you come with your family?
Sid Mohasseb (2m 58s):
No, I came alone. And it is actually potentially an interesting story because I have hemophilia, which is a blood disease. You can bleed if you’re hurt, or you get a cut, or if you hit your, I don’t know, leg or something somewhere, and you get black and blue. For me, that doesn’t end there. It just continues to bleed. It’s a deficiency of a particular blood factor.
Alina Warrick (3m 21s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (3m 22s):
So I was rather protected in Iran. And I had a problem that took me to hospital, which proved to be nothing, by the way. And I was in the hospital because I had some pain, and they didn’t know what it was wrong. And I was reading a lot of books and a lot of newspapers. And for some odd reason, I came to the conclusion that I should come to United States.
Alina Warrick (3m 45s):
And books on what just…?
Sid Mohasseb (3m 47s):
Just generally, I was reading a lot of stuff. I mean, it’s so long ago, I don’t remember. But I remember, I was reading a lot of news on newspapers and stuff about what’s going on, and prosperity, and people, and all that sort of stuff.
Alina Warrick (4m 2s):
Nice.
Sid Mohasseb (4m 2s):
And my father came to the hospital one day, and I was 15. Then I said, “Hey, I want to go to America.” He says, “Absolutely, no way. It’s ridiculous. It’s not possible.” My mom had even harsher words for me. And basically I said, “That’s it. That’s the end of that.” Being a little bit of a stubborn guy, I went ahead and I applied to some schools. And got an I-20, got accepted. I couldn’t get my passport, however. I needed my father’s signature.
Alina Warrick (4m 34s):
Uh-oh.
Sid Mohasseb (4m 35s):
So I got all of that sorted, and the applications, and all that sort of stuff. And I went to a great uncle, Middle Eastern countries and some other countries, Italians and others, the family. The elders have a particular weight in decision making.
Alina Warrick (4m 53s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (4m 53s):
So I went to the elder uncle and I told him a story. I said, “I want to go to America. My parents are against it.” He asked, “Why do you want to go to America?” And I started telling him the story, which I’ll share with you in a minute. But I said, “You know, in a small water…” And he said, “Okay, okay, you can go.” So this was a story that my grandfather told my father when they were seven years old, when he was seven years old, coming from a small town in Iran to the Capitol. And the story was that my dad asks my great grandfather, “Why are we going to Tehran?” And my grandfather said, “Because in small water, small fish will grow.
Sid Mohasseb (5m 37s):
In big water, big fish will grow. And I want my children to be big fish.” So the minute I said that, my uncle says, “Okay, I’ll go talk to him.” And I stood outside for about an hour and a half. And finally, they called me and they said, “Okay, you can go.”
Alina Warrick (5m 53s):
So your dad signed the passport?
Sid Mohasseb (5m 55s):
Yes, he signed the passport. And a few months later, I was on a plane, and I came. And I went to a boarding school, and they were first supporting me. But then we had the revolution in Iran. So money was cut, and we had to make it on our own, basically.
Alina Warrick (6m 13s):
So you went to boarding school in United States?
Sid Mohasseb (6m 16s):
Yes. I went to boarding school for high school in Danville, California, and close to Sacramento, and San Francisco. And then I went to school at USC here in California in Los Angeles.
Alina Warrick (6m 30s):
Uh-huh. And so did you have any family or friends in the United States to meet you?
Sid Mohasseb (6m 35s):
I did not.
Alina Warrick (6m 36s):
You were all by yourself?
Sid Mohasseb (6m 39s):
I did. I mean, it’s like a cousin of my dad’s friend was in the same two cities over. And actually one night, I didn’t know that when you go to a boarding school, you got to take your blankets and stuff. I had no idea. So I showed up and there was a room with a mattress with nothing else in it. So I called this friend of a friend of a cousin of my dad’s whatever, and they came out and picked me up, and we went and bought some blankets. And I would probably see them every four months or so. They were, again, about an hour drive from where I was.
Alina Warrick (7m 15s):
And so did anyone meet you at the airport initially? Who did you live with? How did you get all situated at 16 years old at brand new country?
Sid Mohasseb (7m 24s):
Well, interestingly, I came, my father came with me.
Alina Warrick (7m 26s):
Okay, okay.
Sid Mohasseb (7m 27s):
So we came together. And then we went to the school. And then my mom came too, and they were crying as they left me over there. And that was it.
Alina Warrick (7m 35s):
Wow. Okay. And so you lived at the boarding school?
Sid Mohasseb (7m 39s):
I lived at the boarding school for about a year. And then I came to Los Angeles to go to university.
Alina Warrick (7m 45s):
Got it. Okay. Okay, that all makes sense now. Okay. So we’ll get back to that story. But I want to know, what was it like growing up in Iran?
Sid Mohasseb (7m 56s):
Well, it is a very different experience that probably you would hear from a lot of people now. I would say it was an entirely different country. I’ll give you an example, which may sound silly, but it was the truth. Until I came to United States, I had no idea that there is a difference between Muslims, and Jews, and Christians. We were all in the same room, in the classroom. And I had friends that were all, I had no idea that there was a difference. So that’s and the economy was well, and everything was prosperous. As far as my family was they were middle upper class.
Sid Mohasseb (8m 39s):
They weren’t super wealthy, but like we had a good life. I remember in 1978, before the Iranian Revolution, it happened in 1979. My dad said, “Hey, you know, we’re going to go to Europe for a vacation. I want you come over there.” And I said, “No, I don’t want to come over there. I want to go to Iran. Because my friends are there, and there was parties, and there were things that I wanted to be at.
Alina Warrick (9m 3s):
This is when you weren’t in the US already?
Sid Mohasseb (9m 5s):
Yes. Yes. I wasn’t in the US. And I went in 1978. And I wanted to go to Iran because it was as fun as going to South of France or whatever. That was the, you know. And then I didn’t go back for another 17 years after that.
Alina Warrick (9m 20s):
Okay, so then where you grew up in Iran, was it prominent that everyone sought higher education and went to university?
Sid Mohasseb (9m 30s):
In general, if you would in during those days. I mean, I’m sure in rural or places where when poverty was a little more, that wasn’t the case. But in general, in those days, there was a lot of focus on education. It is hard to get into universities in Iran. You have lots of universities, but you also have lots of applicants who are extremely smart, and very hard workers. So yes, education was something that people would value a lot.
Alina Warrick (10m 3s):
Got it. Okay. And was it paid by the government?
Sid Mohasseb (10m 5s):
Yes, yes.
Alina Warrick (10m 6s):
Oh, okay. Universities, universities are paid by?
Sid Mohasseb (10m 9s):
Yeah, I mean, now there are some private universities. Back then I don’t recall, to be honest with you. They were mostly public schools.
Alina Warrick (10m 18s):
Okay. So tell me about the struggles that you had to go through when you first immigrated at 16 years old to a brand new country?
Sid Mohasseb (10m 28s):
Well, part of it is when you’re young, you’re naive. And that naivety helps you get through things, you know. And I think it has to do with your beliefs. And because of the disease that I had, I was a little maybe different mindset than others. I appreciate everything that life brings me because the alternative is not that good. So English was an issue. I couldn’t speak English. So I was mostly quiet and listening. I remember when I graduated in the school that we were, the professors, or the teachers would introduce you when you were getting your diploma.
Sid Mohasseb (11m 7s):
And the guy who was introducing me said, there was a guy, and said, he joined us about a year ago, and he spoke no English, whatever we asked him, he said, “No problem, no problem.” And then we figured out by the end of the year, why it was no problem. He had friends in every places, and aced all of the tests. So that was no problem. But for me, personally, it was not necessarily something that I could engage as much as I’d like to. And the environment was different. I went to an all boys school in Iran, this was a very liberal place.
Alina Warrick (11m 41s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (11m 42s):
So there were changes. And but the things that you learn, I’m going to admit to your audience that I smoke from the age of 16. And I remember I wrote a check for 43 cents to get a pack of cigarettes, and the check bounced. And I didn’t know anything, you know. So quickly, what happens at that age is quickly you learn how to trust, you learn how to be trusted, you learn your friends, you make mistakes, that I think are not as detrimental, if you have a right perspective. So my suggestion is if, you know, I tell people for their kids, “If you think that your kid has the right fundamentals mindset, and is not at the verge of being super depressed or turned to drugs or anything, I would recommend what I did, because I think it’s strengthen the character.”
Alina Warrick (12m 32s):
And what do you mean by what you did? What part?
Sid Mohasseb (12m 35s):
I mean, just the coming here and being alone.
Alina Warrick (12m 37s):
Oh, got it.
Sid Mohasseb (12m 38s):
And being able to make mistakes, and make friends, and see how you kind of evolve yourself, and find your path.
Alina Warrick (12m 46s):
Yeah, you grow up overnight.
Sid Mohasseb (12m 48s):
Yes, we do.
Alina Warrick (12m 48s):
You got no parents around you. You got no one to lean against. Oh, my goodness.
Sid Mohasseb (12m 53s):
Yeah. But it does, I guess require a little bit of a tougher character, I imagine.
Alina Warrick (13m 0s):
Awesome. Okay. So I read about you. And then it mentioned that you wrote a book at the age of 14.
Sid Mohasseb (13m 7s):
I did. Yes.
Alina Warrick (13m 8s):
Okay. And so how did you become a writer so young? And what was the book about? I’m curious.
Sid Mohasseb (13m 15s):
So that book was in Persian, and Farsi. And it was a poetry book. And I was a pretty good writer in Farsi as well, in my younger days. And I like the ability to express with words in a way. Now, the interesting part is that that I didn’t write for a long time, until I picked up writing in English. And now I have written two books. My first one was Caterpillar’s Edge: Evolve, Evolve Again, and Thrive in Business, which is now recommended and used at multiple universities, including Wharton and USC, and other places. And that was a best seller.
Sid Mohasseb (13m 55s):
And my new book, which just came out three days ago, which is called You Are Not Them. And the second book, and this is how it connects, You Are Not Them, by the way has to do with that you are unique. And winning in entrepreneurship has to do with finding your own entrepreneurship philosophy. So this one is actually rather poetic. So when you read it, you’ll see that this combining poetry, and business, and philosophy kind of wrapped into one which is getting a lot of attention with some folks that are in the business world.
Alina Warrick (14m 29s):
Yeah. Congratulations on those book launches.
Sid Mohasseb (14m 32s):
Thank you.
Alina Warrick (14m 32s):
Wow, amazing. Yeah, good job. And Sid, what were some of the first couple of jobs that you had in the US?
Sid Mohasseb (14m 40s):
First couple of jobs?
Alina Warrick (14m 42s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (14m 42s):
So at school, I was a good student. And I think what do they call it, the period where you cannot be criminally charged for anything. I was a TA and a grader for a number of classes. And the teachers liked me. But at some point, I had like four or five classes. I was just not attainable. I couldn’t do it.
Alina Warrick (15m 4s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (15m 4s):
So I had a group of people that I would… I got a good students who didn’t have a greater ship with TA ship. And I would subcontract to them, and have them grade the papers. And they into things like I would provide them guidelines. So that was one of the things I did in school. I did a lot of being a coach, or, you know, that kind of stuff. But I also did some other entrepreneurial stuff with a couple of friends. We thought, “Hey, there is no Persian greeting cards for Iranian New Year.” So we created that and had some prints. And that did well, we made some money. I also worked at a computer shop. This was like, very, very early stages of computers.
Alina Warrick (15m 47s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (15m 48s):
But not as, I mean, by that time, I had a degree I believe, or I was about to get one, as an industrial engineer, but I used to clean the floor and clean the windows.
Alina Warrick (15m 59s):
Alright, where?
Sid Mohasseb (16m 0s):
In LA and at a store basically.
Alina Warrick (16m 3s):
Oh, okay.
Sid Mohasseb (16m 5s):
So I remember this story that the guy had me bring boxes to the car when the customers would come in and whatever. And one day I got out, and I saw some of my relatively wealthy friends who work from the school. And I didn’t want them to think that I’m doing what I was doing. So I handed the box to my boss and say, “Put this in the car.” And the boss was looking kind of like, ”what the heck?”. But I started my first company and business as an entrepreneur, also, kind of the last as I graduated, and I entered my master’s program. So right at middle.
Alina Warrick (16m 45s):
Okay. And was that at 21 years old with Fairfax International?
Sid Mohasseb (16m 50s):
Correct. Correct.
Alina Warrick (16m 51s):
Okay, so let’s talk about the journey, because you’ve opened several different companies. The very first one, at 21 years old, Fairfax International. How did you open that up? And I want to know, was there… Is something along the path of you’re in school, you’re in college, and you kind of just knew that you were going to be an entrepreneur? Or where was that spark lit for you?
Sid Mohasseb (17m 17s):
So I got a job for the summer as a management training position.
Alina Warrick (17m 24s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (17m 25s):
For Flying Tigers. And most of your audience may not remember that unless they’re as old as me. Flying Tigers was a major competitor of FedEx and DHL. It was a big, big place. And one of my friends and I, who actually, she and I went to high school together. We both got a summer job. I don’t know if she got it. And then she introduced me, or I got it, and I introduced her, I don’t remember. But both of us ended up working for Flying Tigers over the summer. And the job was to do market research on the applications of a facsimile service.
Alina Warrick (18m 7s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (18m 8s):
So let me explain. A facsimile is making a copy out of something that’s called a facsimile. And that same word later on turning to be fax, and fax machines.
Alina Warrick (18m 18s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (18m 19s):
And therefore Fairfax comes from there. And we would go, I can easily say, that I’ve been to thousands. I don’t know, 5000, or 10,000, or 3000, but thousands of offices in that summer, doing market research, and some of them kicked us out. And some of them actually answered. And, “Hey, can you use a service that would be a facsimile service?” And they would say, “What is a facsimile service?” “Where you put a document here, and then it could go there.” And the idea was, at that time, fax machines were about five grand. And obviously, you have to have two fax machines, and two ends for people to be able to communicate.
Alina Warrick (18m 57s):
Right.
Sid Mohasseb (18m 58s):
So the idea was, you have a service that you called me, I will come to you, or you come to my office, you would fax something, and it would be delivered by some messenger service on the other side to the other party.
Alina Warrick (19m 12s):
And how did you come up with that idea?
Sid Mohasseb (19m 14s):
So this was their idea. This was their idea. But they
Alina Warrick (19m 37s):
Wow.
Sid Mohasseb (19m 38s):
So I went back to school after summer, and my friend stayed there for another month. And then she called me one day and said, “Hey, Flying Targets is filing for bankruptcy tomorrow.”
Alina Warrick (19m 50s):
Wow.
Sid Mohasseb (19m 51s):
So we got together and looked at it. We obviously didn’t have $200 million. So we scrambled $20,000. I borrowed 2500 and she got something from, I think her parents, and we got two other people involved, and we started the business. And we changed some of the tenants of it, obviously. One was that we would get these portable fax machines. We were pretty heavy. And you would call us, we’ll come to your office, we plugged the fax machine into your phone, and fax it directly from there, and to our office, which would then fax it to one of our locations, which was basically a messenger service. So we would put one of these machines in a messenger service and say, “Hey, whenever you get this, it’s kind of like you get a call from somebody, you just deliver it.”
Sid Mohasseb (20m 36s):
So we went from, I don’t know, 24 hours or 48 hours, I think at that time to two hour delivery of documents.
Alina Warrick (20m 44s):
Okay, so you basically took that same model tweaked a little bit and launched the business.
Sid Mohasseb (20m 48s):
That’s right. And we did some interesting stuff along the way. So we didn’t have money to get an office. So we negotiate it with a building owner. At that time, I think real estate was not doing that well. With a building owner, we said, “Hey, give us for 200 bucks or 250 bucks a month, a suite in your building. And whenever you want us, we’ll move to another suite.” We are, we didn’t have any money to market ourselves. So one of our partners said, “Hey, why don’t we start our own weekly newspaper, local newspaper.” So we created something called the Wiltshire collection, and get some articles here and there.
Sid Mohasseb (21m 31s):
And we got some ads from other people. And that would help us put our own ad in it.
Alina Warrick (21m 37s):
Wow.
Sid Mohasseb (21m 38s):
So it became a zero dollar ad opportunity.
Alina Warrick (21m 41s):
That’s genius. Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (21m 44s):
So that was a journey. And at some point, then my father wanted me to go back to Iran. So I sold my shares to my partners. This was 1983, I believe. And as I mentioned, I had a little bit of a pain in my stomach. That was how the whole journey started in Iran. And the minute I started to pack up my bags and go back, guess what, one evening, I had the same pain. And I went to the hospital. And after a couple of days, I was reminded, “That, hey, this is the same thing. Maybe I’m not meant to do this.” So I stay.
Alina Warrick (22m 19s):
Oh, okay, okay. Did your father come and visit you?
Sid Mohasseb (22m 22s):
No. He was telling me, “Oh, and my heart is this.” And there was nothing wrong with him. He just want me to be back.
Alina Warrick (22m 29s):
Uh… Okay. Okay. So, after the Fairfax International, did you get yourself a job? What did you
Sid Mohasseb (22m 38s):
Yes, I got a job.
Alina Warrick (22m 39s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (22m 40s):
Again, when I was in the hospital, again, I sent four applications or resumes out. And amazingly enough, those were the days nobody was able to find a job. I was lucky. I got three offers. And out of the three offers, I picked the one that paid the least. So I went for an interview with these guys. And I had my suit and tie on. It was like, I don’t know, in the afternoon, some time, two o’clock, one o’clock, three o’clock, somewhere on there. And we did the interview, it went well. And through Los Angeles traffic, I drove back to I had a little place a studio. And the minute I got in, I took off my tie, and my jacket, and the phone rang.
Sid Mohasseb (23m 22s):
And you know, we didn’t have any cell phones or anything. The phone rang. I picked it up. And the woman on the phone says, “I’m Carol. I’m Jim Steinmetz–By the way, Jim lives in, I think Tahoe in Sacramento now. “And Jim wants to meet you.” Jim was the president of the company. And I said, “Oh, that would be wonderful. Next week, when do you want?” It says, “No, no, no, he wants to meet you tonight.”
Alina Warrick (23m 44s):
Oh.
Sid Mohasseb (23m 44s):
I said, “Okay.” So I said, “Fine, okay, I’ll come back.” So I put on my jacket and tie, and got back, just closing the door and getting out when the phone rang again. And it was Carol says, “Oh, by the way, don’t put on your tie and jacket. Jim wants to meet you at this bar.” “He wants to meet me at the bar? This is a weird.”
Alina Warrick (24m 8s):
Uh-oh.
Sid Mohasseb (24m 9s):
So you could imagine what was going on. Oh, what the heck, this is just, you know.
Alina Warrick (24m 13s):
Uh-oh..
Sid Mohasseb (24m 14s):
So I went to a bar on Sunset Boulevard, and it was a sports bar. And the Lakers were playing. And this was the heyday of the Lakers.
Alina Warrick (24m 25s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (24m 26s):
And the Lakers. Were playing. I said, “Hello.” And we said, hello. And we sat down. We had a beer. And for about two hours, we just watched the Lakers game and talked about stuff. Nothing about jobs, nothing about, nothing.
Alina Warrick (24m 42s):
Wow.
Sid Mohasseb (24m 43s):
And at the end, he said, “So you want to start, Monday? And this was a Friday. And I like the guy. I said, “Yeah, I’ll start Monday.”
Alina Warrick (24m 54s):
And out of those four applications, he was the lowest?
Sid Mohasseb (24m 57s):
Yes, he was the lowest. And I liked them. And he was as a management consulting entity, and I was the sixth employee, together, we helped that company grow to about 250-300 people, I don’t remember exactly what, and opened offices in different places. And about six or seven years later, I was their partner in strategy and corporate development.
Alina Warrick (25m 21s):
Okay, so you went from studying engineering? What did you study in your masters degree?
Sid Mohasseb (25m 27s):
Industrial engineering.
Alina Warrick (25m 28s):
Industrial engineering. And then now you’re, go ahead?
Sid Mohasseb (25m 31s):
I’m operations research, Alina. Operations Research, is now what is very sexy, and it’s called Data Science.
Alina Warrick (25m 38s):
Data Science. Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (25m 39s):
It wasn’t data science, then it was just, it wasn’t as cool.
Alina Warrick (25m 43s):
Yeah. Okay, and then you got a job that you worked for six, seven years for a marketing company?
Sid Mohasseb (25m 49s):
No, it was a management consulting firm.
Alina Warrick (25m 52s):
Management consulting, which is completely different from what you studied, right?
Sid Mohasseb (25m 55s):
Well, no, it’s basically industrial engineering is a lot about systems and performance, and all that sort of stuff. So I was just applying the same techniques. And I was about to use computers then. And I had a different flavor of things that I brought to the table.
Alina Warrick (26m 11s):
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. And so after that, you decided to open another company?
Sid Mohasseb (26m 18s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (26m 19s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (26m 19s):
So, I was the partner — Oh, by the way, I was making like 400 bucks an hour, 450 bucks an hour as a consultant.
Alina Warrick (26m 28s):
Wow. And that then was really good.
Sid Mohasseb (26m 30s):
Yes. It was really high up on the scale. But I was working a lot with these folks that were… there was a lot of leveraged buyouts then. Leveraged buyouts are where usually they were Wall Street companies, or they would identify a company, and then they do a lot of leveraging, and get loans and mezzanine loans and buy a company. And then they have to improve its performance or whatever. So I was doing a lot of consulting for those kind of people. So they would buy the company. And I was the consultant. When they were paying us well, but they were making hundreds of times more than we were making. So I thought, “Wait a minute, this is an hourly gig.
Sid Mohasseb (27m 12s):
That’s a different story there. I like that.”
Alina Warrick (27m 16s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (27m 16s):
And I started thinking about doing my own business and doing my own consulting firm. And actually, there was a guy, who was a friend of my dad, who made me kind of jump ship, essentially. And at that time, I was making good money, and for I was 26-27 years old, 28 years old.
Alina Warrick (27m 35s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (27m 36s):
And I was making really good money for my age and what I was doing. And I met with a friend of my dad’s when he was here for, you know, we went out to lunch, and he asked me. And this guy had his sixth grade education. But in Iran, he had a lot of factories and a lot of employees.
Alina Warrick (27m 53s):
Wow.
Sid Mohasseb (27m 54s):
And he said, “So what are you doing?” I said, “Well, I’m a partner of this firm. I’m thinking about going on my own. I’m going to do it slowly. Take the project here, take your project there.” And then he said, “You know, you can’t ride a horse or a camel halfway. You’ve got to fall. Be committed, you’re committed.” So I came back and thought about it. Then I thought, “Yeah, I’m committed.” So I started my own firm.
Alina Warrick (28m 17s):
You quit and you did this the whole time?
Sid Mohasseb (28m 19s):
Yeah.
Alina Warrick (28m 19s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (28m 20s):
I quit a pretty decent job. And I started my own firm. And the next day, this is I’m not joking the next day. Literally, the next day, I got a call from Mattel toys. And they gave me a project for $250,000.
Alina Warrick (28m 35s):
$250,000?
Sid Mohasseb (28m 37s):
And that was a lot of money.
Alina Warrick (28m 40s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (28m 41s):
That was a project, a consulting project, right?
Alina Warrick (28m 44s):
Okay, so you open the firm doing what?
Sid Mohasseb (28m 47s):
Doing management and consulting.
Alina Warrick (28m 49s):
Oh, the same thing?
Sid Mohasseb (28m 50s):
Same thing, but my intent was, let’s create some cash flow. And then I would slowly move and do this leverage buyout thing and buy companies.
Alina Warrick (28m 59s):
Got it.
Sid Mohasseb (29m 0s):
So I got a project to where Mattel toys. And then here is the kicker. And for the next two and a half years, I got no other projects. None, zero. zilch, nothing.
Alina Warrick (29m 12s):
Wow. Where did they find you?
Sid Mohasseb (29m 14s):
So, Mattel toys people knew about me from because my old firm was talking to them about me.
Alina Warrick (29m 20s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (29m 21s):
Now, here’s the thing. And during that time, I sat in boards with presidents of McDonnell Douglas and board members of Union Bank and Federal Reserve Bank. I mean, I was at a young, young guy and a lot of interesting places. And what I remember is that for that two and a half years, I couldn’t sell anything. I couldn’t do anything. When I was with the other firm, I had like a 97% closing ratio. That means every time I would go 97 out of 100 times, I would go to a client, I would walk away with a project. That’s pretty amazing. But I couldn’t do any after I left. And what I figured was that was the business card, it was the ecosystem.
Sid Mohasseb (30m 3s):
And that was really good for my ego. You know, I thought that I was really all that and —
Alina Warrick (30m 12s):
And then some.
Sid Mohasseb (30m 14s):
And then some. And I realized, no, it’s that’s not the case. Somebody was building me up and marketing, and all that, and it wasn’t me alone. Then that was a good lesson in ecosystem and having teams.
Alina Warrick (30m 27s):
Okay, so the project was for two and a half years.
Sid Mohasseb (30m 30s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (30m 30s):
With Mattel toy –? I believe.
Sid Mohasseb (30m 31s):
No, no, no. It is the project for, it was for six months.
Alina Warrick (30m 34s):
For six months?
Sid Mohasseb (30m 35s):
Yeah, but then I couldn’t get another project. So went into debt in the tune of a few $100,000 on my credit card.
Alina Warrick (30m 45s):
Wow. Okay, and so what did you decide that you didn’t do market? Market yourself?
Sid Mohasseb (30m 50s):
Yeah. Then slowly, you know, I picked up projects, and then I actually was able to later on buy a company with a group and turn it around. We bought a company from DuPont and turn it around. And then another one. And then I saw lots of small opportunities to start technology companies, basically software and data companies. And I did four or five of those, three or four of them, before I had another breakdown when in 2000, with the dotcom era. And then with the carve out, that means taking a piece of a company out of another company, and built that in two and a half years to about 30 times revenue increase.
Sid Mohasseb (31m 32s):
And then got out of that and became an investor.
Alina Warrick (31m 36s):
Okay, so Sid, how does that normally work? Do companies go out there and sit in bunch of meetings and say, “A portion of us is for sale. Who wants to buy us? And what’s the investment returns?” Or how does that normally work?
Sid Mohasseb (31m 51s):
On which side? The buyer side or the sellers side?
Alina Warrick (31m 53s):
If a company wants to, I guess sell some of their portions? Yes, how does that work?
Sid Mohasseb (32m 0s):
Okay. That’s a carve out as they call it.
Alina Warrick (32m 3s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (32m 4s):
That means carving a little piece of a business and bringing it out.
Alina Warrick (32m 9s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (32m 9s):
So, usually it’s done for a number of reasons. And one is that, that entity is not doing well.
Alina Warrick (32m 15s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (32m 16s):
So, you want to separate it, sell it, and it may be a turnaround of some sort, because it’s impacting the effectiveness and the profitability of the main business. So that’s one reason. Another reason that it’s doing really well. And the main company can use the cash flow. The third reason is for to create focus. So we have three companies. They are all doing three different things. And we say, “Hey, really, this is a better company for us to put all our efforts on.” So that’s normally one of those three reasons would drive a transaction.
Alina Warrick (32m 52s):
Mm-hmm. Do they go to Venture Capitalist to do this productions? No?
Sid Mohasseb (32m 57s):
No, no, no. So depending on the size, they would go to some sort of investment banker or a business broker. If the size is small, I go to a business broker. If the size gets a little bit Becker, they go to an investment banker, which would then find who would be the right buyer for this. And it could be strategics. That means somebody else who’s in a similar business, that could use the customer base, or the asset or the technology of this company, or it could be a private equity firm, which is companies that would buy a piece of the business, a piece of another company, and try to inject more money in it and grow it.
Sid Mohasseb (33m 38s):
Venture Capitalists like the angel investors, which is where I had played in the past 10-15 years, they play in earlier stage companies. So it’s not a carve out of something else. It’s somebody some business that has can grow really big, and they attract investments, you know, the Ubers and the Googles of the world type of stuff.
Alina Warrick (34m 1s):
So is that what Chipotle did at a period of time where they had McDonald’s own a portions of their company?
Sid Mohasseb (34m 10s):
So that’s what, you know, they would go out people and have investors as a round of investments. Those kind of things are usually private equity deals. Some of them are VC deals true. And some of those investors could be other corporations. So it could be McDonald’s and making investments in Chipotle, or it could be a Venture Capitalist making that investment. But basically, it’s the investment arm of McDonald’s. It’s not McDonald’s, as you know it very
Alina Warrick (34m 41s):
Yeah. Okay. And so then did you say you open to several IT companies?
Sid Mohasseb (34m 45s):
Yes, I did. I opened up a couple of software companies. And then one of them was in basically creating software for courts. It was a process reengineering idea which was that that time hot.
Alina Warrick (35m 1s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (35m 2s):
So I did some of that. One of them was creation of what we called competitive knowledge was aggregating data. This was before internet was internet. Now, you see a lot of this happening, but that was a little too early for the time. And we did attract venture investment into that. And then after that, I became an investor for a while. So in that period, I had a lot of investments in a whole host of companies. One of them the last one, I sold to KPMG, which is a large advisory and an audit firm.
Alina Warrick (35m 35s):
Okay, and so the other IT companies, you sold them as well?
Sid Mohasseb (35m 40s):
Yes, yes. One of them didn’t work. And the rest, I sold them at different ways.
Alina Warrick (35m 46s):
Okay. And why did you decide to exit from those?
Sid Mohasseb (35m 49s):
I am exit minded, you know.
Alina Warrick (35m 53s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (35m 53s):
There are different DNAs for people. And I’m not one who can… I get bored. I like to create, I like to build them. And that’s just in my nature. And I mean, people say, “How do you do this?” I write books, I write articles. I teach at USC on the both business school and the engineering school. Now, and I have a whole host of investments and advice, and people that I advise, and they’re an entirely different businesses, from technology to medical devices to, you name it, distribution, and banking. And the reason is that it keeps me alive.
Alina Warrick (36m 32s):
Yeah, so much energy.
Sid Mohasseb (36m 33s):
It keeps me motivate, yeah.
Alina Warrick (36m 35s):
Yeah. And so Sid, in the questionnaire, you mentioned that you had employees from zero to 1000, is that 1000 in one company, or just overall, you’ve managed 1000 employees?
Sid Mohasseb (36m 48s):
I’ve had, I mean, thousands of employees. And, you know, when you ask the question, I guess in your form, I’ve had 300-400. I’ve had the companies where I had a few thousand, under my direction. And I’ve had companies that we had one employees, just like what I have now. I have one engagement manager who manages my speaking engagements and things like that.
Alina Warrick (37m 13s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (37m 13s):
Because of the nature of things that I do. But I have companies that I’ve sit on the board or work for that have hundreds of employees.
Alina Warrick (37m 21s):
So how did you manage the leadership from becoming here, 16 years old? Did you know that you were going to be an entrepreneur all your life, and you’re kind of born for this? How did you manage the leadership and managing all these employees?
Sid Mohasseb (37m 39s):
That’s an excellent question. And it may sound like I’m promoting my book, but I’m not this is who I am.
Alina Warrick (37m 46s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (37m 47s):
So the book is a reflection of who I am. And I am a believer. And this may sound again, a little bit philosophical, because, you know, some people call me, The Entrepreneur Philosopher because I sometimes philosophize things.
Alina Warrick (38m 2s):
Yeah, so good.
Sid Mohasseb (38m 5s):
And I use a lot of analogies. So stay with me.
Alina Warrick (38m 8s):
No worries.
Sid Mohasseb (38m 8s):
So here the thing, I believe we’re all entrepreneurs. Every single on of us.
Alina Warrick (38m 13s):
Oh, I love that.
Sid Mohasseb (38m 14s):
Okay, and because the definition of entrepreneurship in my view, is you have something, and you hope to exchange it for something better, knowing that there is a certain level of risk. So a mother who goes out, works hard, gets a paycheck, brings the money home, maybe saves it for a Christmas gift for their kid. They’re exchanging something that had, or they’ve earned, with something that they gives them more joy, which is the happiness of their son or daughter. A student that goes to college, works hard, spends a lot of money on tuition, stays up all night for many, many nights in order to get a degree.
Sid Mohasseb (38m 59s):
And he or she would think that this degree would make his or her life better, but knowing that there is a risk. So we’re all entrepreneurs. The question is, first, do we know that we have this — and the key is the talent. We have the talent. Now, how we use it is a different story. Some of us would look at the Elon Musk’s, or the Jeff Bezos, or the Henry Ford’s, the Warren Buffett’s of the world said, “Well, we’re not them. So we’re not entrepreneurs.” No, we’re not them because they’re all different. They’re not like each other either. They’re all different. And the question is, how do we take our origins and shape our originality?
Sid Mohasseb (39m 42s):
How do we create our authentic entrepreneurial way. And I believe that’s in our, the way we build our entrepreneurial philosophy, which is unique to us, which is how we see risk, how we build an ecosystem, how we dance with challenges and opportunities, and our mindset. How I actually actuate our mindset, how we deal with change, how we create more choices for ourselves. And those are all things that are very, very unique to each and every one of us. So, I’ll say one of the things is, let’s look at risk as a pilot. A pilot takes a risk, every day, as a commercial pilot.
Sid Mohasseb (40m 24s):
You go from A to B, from B to C. And always take a risk. But that risk is calculated. You look at the weather, the engine, there’s a checklist. But first, do you think the pilot make takes more risk or the passenger who’s sitting in the backseat?
Alina Warrick (40m 40s):
Probably the passenger.
Sid Mohasseb (40m 41s):
They both are.
Alina Warrick (40m 42s):
Oh.
Sid Mohasseb (40m 43s):
The risk is the same. The question is the passenger has delegated leadership, in that case to a pilot. Now, that lesson. In entrepreneurship, we can look where we need to lead, and where we need to delegate, but we’re taking the risk. Without risk, there is no life. This is not. I’m going to tell you another thing. Without change, we are stagnant. Right? Imagine it was always, you would always have McDonald’s for lunch. You will always be 22 years old, or 62 years old. You will always work as a teller at a bank. You will always have the same clothing. It would always be spring. It would…
Sid Mohasseb (41m 23s):
Can you imagine that?
Alina Warrick (41m 24s):
So Sid, so I have to say it, doesn’t Warren Buffett eat McDonald’s every single day, though?
Sid Mohasseb (41m 30s):
Well, I guess it’s working for him. That’s why his philosophy. But he makes investments in a whole lot of stuff.
Alina Warrick (41m 38s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (41m 38s):
So the fact is, the question is, there has to be changed, before there are choices. You have no choices unless there is change. And you either embrace change that’s coming at you or you ignite it. You create it. In order to have choices.
Alina Warrick (41m 55s):
Oh, my goodness, so, so powerful. I am going to have to find all your books and link them to the show notes for people to grab ahold of your books. And I’m going to get copies of them too. Wow. It’s amazing. And Sid, so Venture Farm, is that your only baby right now?
Sid Mohasseb (42m 11s):
No. And so I do, again, multiple things. One is Anabasis, which is an advisory firm. And under that I do a lot of speaking engagements. Large or small, I do stuff for CEO conferences, for entrepreneurs, for, I don’t know Microsoft partner, events, and all sorts of different speaking engagements.
Alina Warrick (42m 33s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (42m 33s):
And I also do advisory work for relatively larger organizations. Then I have more has some investments, which makes investments in early stage companies, which is done only by me without any partners. And then I have Venture Farm, which is a conventional fund that makes investments in early stage companies as a fund. So those are the three different vehicles. But then I’m on different boards and different places. So it’s a mixture of things if you would.
Alina Warrick (43m 5s):
Yeah, yeah, you still have your hands in a lot of different places.
Sid Mohasseb (43m 8s):
Correct.
Alina Warrick (43m 9s):
It’s so awesome. Yeah. That’s awesome.
Sid Mohasseb (43m 11s):
And as I
Alina Warrick (43m 20s):
Okay, and what classes? Is it the entrepreneurship classes?
Sid Mohasseb (43m 23s):
No, I teach dynamic strategy, which is a combination of analytics and strategy, because I believe that all of our strategies are now temporary. The old days are gone. We need to be able to change shift, and we need to create strategies that are in waves. And the thing that says, “Hey, here’s what I’m going to be for the next 10 years.” And that those days are gone.
Alina Warrick (43m 47s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (43m 47s):
And that means you have to have a whole different approach to building strategy.
Alina Warrick (43m 52s):
Yeah, you’re a busy guy. That’s awesome. I love it.
Sid Mohasseb (43m 55s):
You have a struggle.
Alina Warrick (43m 58s):
Yeah. So, Sid, I’m really interested. Did you have any mentors that helped you out to start any of your businesses?
Sid Mohasseb (44m 4s):
Of course. Now, let me tell you what I have concluded now, and I tell you about some folks that have impacted me greatly over the years.
Alina Warrick (44m 12s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (44m 12s):
And this is what I have come to believe today. And this is again, one of those concepts I talk about in the book. There is an Indian phrase called up guru. Like, up, up and down. Up guru, like a guru. An up guru is the guru that is next to us now, at any time. So my up guru may be one thing now, and it could be 10 minutes from now, or a day from now, something else. And here’s the idea. It is not the guru that matters. It is us and if we’re listening, that matters. We can learn from a bumper sticker on a car.
Alina Warrick (44m 53s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (44m 54s):
We could be motivated by. We could learn from teller on a bank. We could have a conversation together. And I mean, I’ve done interviews where the speaker or the interviewer asked me a question, and I said, “Boy, you are my up guru now.” And they say, “What the heck? What do you mean?” “You just thought me of something. I hadn’t thought about this, not in this angle or not in this form.” So the mentor relationship, if you would, or the guru relationship, whatever you want to call it, has a lot to do with the listener, and not the one who’s talking. So, I have I had, many Yes.
Sid Mohasseb (45m 34s):
I’ve had people. I used to teach philosophy for a little bit, which was influenced by a guy, who was basically a philosophy guy, and he helped me. Jim Steinmetz, that I mentioned earlier, the who was the guy who got me a job at a bar.
Alina Warrick (45m 49s):
Yeah, right.
Sid Mohasseb (45m 50s):
He taught me a lot. And I have stories to tell about him. I’ll tell you one. I one day, I was leaving the office. And he called me is his office was a corner office that was kind of a glass window, kind of a thing. And as I was leaving with seven, eight o’clock at night, he called me in and said, “Hey, come on in, I want to talk to you.” I said, “Yes.” And I had written a report, this was within the probably the six to seven months, I was there. And he truly reported me, all red marked. And he said, “You are a brilliant guy, but you would never…” and he used the profanity. It wasn’t that bad in those days. “You never make Bapa consulted.
Sid Mohasseb (46m 32s):
You can’t write anything.” So that motivated me. And as you can see, I’ve written a lot of articles and I write a lot of books. So I mean, it was how open I was. And I could have taken that the wrong way. As, oh, is this guy…I know him. And I’m a foreigner. And his started do with this. But it’s how you take things. I think at the end that makes it a positive or a negative feedback with people.
Alina Warrick (46m 58s):
So you had mentors along the way that were really not like “official” mentors, but you grabbed pieces from every conversation you could that was valuable for your life in that period of entrepreneurship.
Sid Mohasseb (47m 15s):
That’s right. And I believe that the more you listen, the more you learn.
Alina Warrick (47m 21s):
Yeah. So I have a very serious question for you now, Sid.
Sid Mohasseb (47m 25s):
Yes, ma’am.
Alina Warrick (47m 26s):
Can you be my up guru?
Sid Mohasseb (47m 30s):
I hope that we did that just the past 10 minutes, and I sure would be happy and delighted to. In the past 10 minutes, you twice, you said, “Oh, that’s an interesting way of looking at things.” And I hope…
Alina Warrick (47m 41s):
Oh, my goodness.
Sid Mohasseb (47m 41s):
When you go home, you’ll say, “Ha.”
Alina Warrick (47m 44s):
Yes. The last 54 minutes. Yes. So much powerful advice. But you know, there has to be a follow up to this.
Sid Mohasseb (47m 52s):
Of course. Anytime, Alina.
Alina Warrick (47m 54s):
Okay, okay. Alright, so I gotta ask, how do you reinvest in yourself to keep up to date with your market or niche?
Sid Mohasseb (48m 6s):
So you asked me about leadership.
Alina Warrick (48m 8s):
Yes.
Sid Mohasseb (48m 9s):
So leadership and entrepreneurship, I call them twin brothers. They are the two sides of a coin, in a way. And I have this thing that you have to be an authentic leader. That means, in general, I’m not a how to proponent. I mean, it’s great to read a lot of books on entrepreneurship, read a lot of books and how to do this. And but first, you have to have your mindset set. You have to know who you are, and what is your philosophy, because you’re not them, right?
Alina Warrick (48m 40s):
And how do you do that without reading books, and learning for others?
Sid Mohasseb (48m 42s):
The book reading, if it’s teaching you the mechanics of how do you do cash flow? How do you… “Oh, Mark, do marketing this way?” Marketing doing marketing this way, or sales that way, or closing this way, or closing that way, is a mechanics of how you do certain things. But life is not an entrepreneurship is not like an Ikea bookcase. It doesn’t come with any kind of thing that you could say, “Okay, put piece A, and screw number B, and then then you have a bookcase. Life is not like that. Yes, we do need bookcases, you know, we do need pieces, we do need to learn about accounting, we do need to learn about marketing, we do need to learn about…
Sid Mohasseb (49m 27s):
those are the wheels of our car. But we are the engine. And the engine, nobody else can give it to you. Nobody can motivate anybody. I say you are the sculptor and you are the sculptor. You are the artist and the art that has to constantly be chiseling yourself, and constantly be able to cover yourself. Never being perfect, always in the making. So, back to that leadership stuff. So I say there’s four or five things in order to be your authentic leader. You don’t have to make a decision about a few things. One, is you have to be able to figure out how you are situationally aware.
Sid Mohasseb (50m 10s):
And here’s what I mean. Situationally aware of the people that work with you, situationally aware of the needs of the customers, aware of your financial capabilities, aware of the capabilities of your team, aware of your ability to deliver, that’s being situationally aware. So no two situations are the same, no two people are the same. That leads us to the second thing, which I’ll say, “You have to have variable communication.” You and I talk in a certain way, but you need to talk to somebody else in a different way. The key is not to use a lot of big words, the key is to be effective.
Sid Mohasseb (50m 51s):
And the only way you get people to do what you want is for them to first understand what you want. They have to understand it. And the second thing is there has to be trust. So I believe that there has to be a three way trust, not a two way trust. People say you trust me, I trust you. No, there has to be a three way trust. The first trust is if you trust yourself, because when you trust yourself in who you are what you do, then I can trust you. Then you can convey trust. So first, you have to trust yourself. Then you have to have the ability, and the courage, which is the next thing I mentioned, is to have the courage and the ability to trust others. And when you trust others, then they will trust you.
Sid Mohasseb (51m 34s):
Which is that you keeps an organization together.
Alina Warrick (51m 38s):
Got it. Got it. Okay, so when you created these different companies in different markets and niches, you didn’t pick up any books, you kind of just to got yourself into the mindset that you can do it?
Sid Mohasseb (51m 51s):
No, no, no. I read a lot of books. I read a lot.
Alina Warrick (51m 54s):
Okay, okay.
Sid Mohasseb (51m 56s):
I read a lot. I mean, hours a day. I have a believer in reading. What I’m saying is, none of those is me. Pieces of all of those are in me.
Alina Warrick (52m 10s):
Oh, got it.
Sid Mohasseb (52m 13s):
So I can read the story of Steve Jobs and try to be him. I am not him. He comes from a different background. He has a different intelligence level. He had a wife, I didn’t know he had a kid. I didn’t know he had this. I didn’t he lived in a different era. He smoked this. And you know, he was born in a different place to a different family.
Alina Warrick (52m 34s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (52m 35s):
I will never be him. Can I learn pieces of his behavior from him? Of course. I will never be Warren Buffett. Even if I have McDonald’s every day.
Alina Warrick (52m 47s):
Yeah. We just got to stop by the McDonald’s that he visits every day and steal his secret.
Sid Mohasseb (52m 57s):
It is sound and clear. Look at those guys. They’re not the same.
Alina Warrick (52m 60s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (53m 0s):
So why don’t we expect that if we read somebody else, we exactly like that guy? We can’t.
Alina Warrick (53m 5s):
Yeah, no, but you’re totally right. You’re totally right. And that’s what a lot of people don’t talk about. And you bring a very fresh perspective to this because a lot of people can see the Warren Buffett’s, the Bill Gates, the Mark Zuckerberg and say, “Okay, they did that. How can I be the next them?” You know? So they read about all these awesome biographies of these really cool people and say, “Okay, well, they’re billionaires, or they’re millionaires. How do I become them?” But you’re totally right, we cannot become them. And I’m really eager to grab a hold of your book, because now I’m talking about, you’re not them. No, that’s totally right. And this is what we need to really convey to all the immigrants and all the entrepreneurs, stop looking at the people, and envying those people, but learn in different perspectives, and apply every bit of knowledge to your specific journey.
Sid Mohasseb (54m 4s):
That’s right. I think it was Bertrand Russell is somebody who says, “There is no nobility in being better than others. Nobility comes by being better than yourself.”
Alina Warrick (54m 14s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (54m 14s):
So the idea here is an evolve process, an evolution process. And that’s why, I’m saying, “You are the artist and you are the art. You are the sculptor and the sculpture.” And the sculpture is never done. So can you be better than yourself? Can you be better, when don’t be them, be better than your previous self.
Alina Warrick (54m 36s):
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Wow. So powerful. Thank you so much. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so we do talk about successes on the show. Are there any successes that you would like to outline from your immigrant journey, Immigrant Entrepreneur Journey? And I know you mentioned so many, but anything else that you would like to add?
Sid Mohasseb (54m 55s):
I’m not sure what you mean by success. And let me explain that because my view is, I would consider every failure that I’ve been able to learn from a success.
Alina Warrick (55m 8s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (55m 8s):
And if failure is when I haven’t learned from something, that’s a mistake.
Alina Warrick (55m 13s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (55m 14s):
So, if I’ve learned from it, I’ve tried to consider that a success. And if I haven’t, I tried to learn from it then it into success.
Alina Warrick (55m 24s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (55m 24s):
So there’s no one event that I could say, “Hey, I did this, or I sold that.” or I… I think life is filled with a series of successes. Let’s do a little math geometry thing together.
Alina Warrick (55m 37s):
Uh-oh.
Sid Mohasseb (55m 37s):
There is a point A, just imagine a point A in the air, and then assume a point B in the air, maybe a couple of feet away, maybe 10 feet away, whatever. You can imagine, where you’re sitting between the door and their hallway, or between the desk and the wall. Two points. Call one A and the other one B. If you draw a line between those two points, A and B, mathematics tells us how many points are between those two lines? Do you know that?
Alina Warrick (56m 8s):
Mm-hmm.
Sid Mohasseb (56m 9s):
Infinite. There are infinite points on that line that connects point A and B. Doesn’t matter how far apart those two lines are? There are infinite points on any line between any two points. Now, if I draw a line C between A and B anywhere on there, there would still be infinite points between A and C, and C and B. You follow me?
Alina Warrick (56m 32s):
Yes.
Sid Mohasseb (56m 32s):
Now, imagine A is when we’re born, and B is when we die. And C is any age 8, 18, or 80 years old. There is infinite number of points and opportunities ahead. And infinite number of points and opportunities behind us, equal amount. Doesn’t matter where you are, doesn’t matter how you are, doesn’t matter how age you are. They’re not the same opportunities. But they are instances for us to change, instances for us to evolve instances for us to be something different, and be better, to improve, to experiment, to learn.
Alina Warrick (57m 7s):
Yeah. And there is an infinite amount of journeys that we can take to be on that path, right?
Sid Mohasseb (57m 13s):
Exactly, right.
Alina Warrick (57m 14s):
Yes, yes.
Sid Mohasseb (57m 14s):
So I say don’t leave change to chance.
Alina Warrick (57m 18s):
Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much. So, Sid, what does the American dream mean to you?
Sid Mohasseb (57m 24s):
The pursuit of happiness. And the pursuit of happiness, to me is the same as the pursuit of entrepreneurship, which is take something that you have, and turn it into something better, knowing that there is risk. And we do that every day.
Alina Warrick (57m 41s):
Can anyone achieve their American dream?
Sid Mohasseb (57m 43s):
Anyone who wishes can.
Alina Warrick (57m 46s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (57m 47s):
We are in the middle of us and our future. The future is unknown, but it’s controllable. The past, maybe all known but it is uncontrollable, it is done. So if the future is unknown, that means there are lots of lots of probabilities and possibilities. And that’s being able to exercise our talent of entrepreneurship, what we have, that may be our ability to make something, our ability to find something and resell, our ability to be a writer, an artist. Whatever we are. A baker, a cook, to take what we have, and exchange that because that’s not the core of entrepreneurship, this idea of exchange.
Sid Mohasseb (58m 31s):
To exchange that for something better. And that is pursuit of happiness. That is at the heart of every entrepreneur. And that is at the heart of I believe every immigrant, when they started the journey to come here, they said, “I have something. I’m going to turn into something better, knowing that there is a risk.” You are, I, if you are an immigrant and you’re here, whether you want it or not, you are an entrepreneur, you’ve already exercised it.
Alina Warrick (58m 58s):
Wow. So amazing. Oh, my goodness, I’m soaking it all in. So, Sid, I’m really interested to know, how do you stay productive throughout the days to ensure that all business things are getting taken care of? Because you have your hands in so many different fields and you’re a teacher, your professor, you’re investing, you’re doing so many things, how do you stay productive?
Sid Mohasseb (59m 22s):
We all have good days and bad days.
Alina Warrick (59m 24s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (59m 26s):
So it would be foolish to say that, you know, you’re always productive somewhere. Sometimes you get frustrated, sometime you’re behind.
Alina Warrick (59m 32s):
Right.
Sid Mohasseb (59m 33s):
My approach is that the more I have actually on my table, the better off I am. And this may not apply to everybody. I mean, everybody is different. This is going back to we’re all different.
Alina Warrick (59m 45s):
Yes.
Sid Mohasseb (59m 46s):
Some people like routine things that happens in a certain time and a certain way. I don’t. If I go from my house to my office, I usually take different routes. I don’t like to go the same route. I get bored. But some people like the consistency and the comfort of knowing that that’s the route they take. They eat at certain time, they do certain things. And so depending on who you are, you have to build your own way of being productive. And for me, the busier I am, it drives me to make faster decisions, which makes me more productive.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 19s):
So you do write like daily goals, or weekly goals to ensure that you knock them all down, or you’re just running
Sid Mohasseb (1h 0m 28s):
I do have a to do list.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 29s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 0m 30s):
Which probably has 54 things on it.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 33s):
Today?
Sid Mohasseb (1h 0m 34s):
Yes. And I cross them off, and some are left, and you know, some move up because I get an email, some things are added to it. So it’s a constantly evolving thing.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 44s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 0m 45s):
Now, let me say something that I know a lot of people love. And I’m not a proponent for the game.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 50s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 0m 51s):
That’s vision boards. Are you a vision board person, Alina?
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 55s):
I have created one a long, long time ago. It’s gone somewhere. I don’t have an active vision board. No, I don’t.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 1m 3s):
Good for you. Our vision board says that, so you build a vision board at 20, 30, 25, 17, whatever age you are.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 11s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 1m 11s):
It assumes that you have enough knowledge to know what you’re going to be at 27.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 15s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 1m 16s):
Its stupid. You don’t have the knowledge. If you’re confining yourself in who you are going to be based on the knowledge and expertise of when you were 17 years old, boy, you’re shortchanging yourself. Now, we have to have a vision. We have to have ideas, but they are evolving ideas, changing idea. You can’t have a vision board that that’s my vision of life.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 42s):
Yeah. So everyone listening who has a vision board, burn them right now.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 1m 48s):
No, put them in your mind and constantly change them and evolve them.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 53s):
Yes, yes. I love it.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 1m 55s):
It’s not having a plan. It’s having an evolving plan that is not driving you. You are driving the plan. You are the driver, not the past.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 6s):
Yes. yes, thank you. I love it. Thank you so much. So Sid, is giving back either volunteering time or giving back to the community something that is part of your business values?
Sid Mohasseb (1h 2m 19s):
Absolutely.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 19s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 2m 20s):
Absolutely. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, mentor, a lot of students. Do a lot of talks for non for profit stuff. Donate my time here and there. Absolutely. But my main thing is to help entrepreneurs because I am a believer that that’s our future. Let me say something, today actually is one of those interesting days. And, I don’t think this would ever happen to me again.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 49s):
Okay.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 2m 49s):
And it hasn’t happened to now. So today, I had four articles published at the same time. Three of them have the same kind of a theme, which I want to mention. So I had an article on Time, an article on Newsweek, on Independence, and on USA Today. All published today, which is extremely rare. I have no idea how this could happen. With the idea that I believe that the time for the trickle down economy is gone. And it is time for bubble up economy. And by that I mean, the future belongs to the entrepreneurs. And we have to in America go back to our core competency.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 3m 30s):
And folks can find the articles if they put my name in, and time, or Newsweek, or whatever. But here’s the idea. The idea is, we have gone to a place where we have elitism in a way that if controlling a lot of small mom and chop people and their opportunities, I believe that the next 10 years or 20 years is the time that will go back to what a lot of people call the 20s, or the 30s, or the 50s in America. There is tremendous amount of job opportunities, tremendous amount of innovation, creativity ahead of us. Tremendous. And this pandemic has just accelerated the opportunities. The question is, are we ready for them?
Alina Warrick (1h 4m 12s):
And Sid, it’s interesting that you say that and I love it. But you’re a professor at a university. But don’t this schools and colleges these days in United States specifically, shy away from entrepreneurship? Because when we’re in school, we’re meant to believe that we’re going to become employees, if not employers, right?
Sid Mohasseb (1h 4m 35s):
You know, we have the reason
Alina Warrick (1h 4m 37s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 4m 38s):
One of the reason is what gets measured gets done. What gets measured gets done. Their ranking of universities is centered around a few things. The money they get for research, and how many of their graduates are employed immediately after they graduate?
Alina Warrick (1h 4m 56s):
Yes. Isn’t that a screwed up system?
Sid Mohasseb (1h 4m 60s):
Yeah. So this is what I’m saying. This is where I say, here’s what will happen. We didn’t want to be a socialist country, we want it to be a capitalist country. But what has happened is the capitalist country turned into a trickle down situation economy. So the government helps the big companies with taxations, and whatever, who would then give you an eye a hand down job. They give us a hand down. They give them a job.
Alina Warrick (1h 5m 25s):
Yeah.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 5m 26s):
And that’s not the core competency of America. Core competency of America is true entrepreneurship, when a man and a laptop, who when mother and father, create a business and thrive it.
Alina Warrick (1h 5m 39s):
Yeah, but that’s not taught in colleges.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 5m 41s):
Here’s the thing. So everything is connected, everything is designed around feeding that mentality.
Alina Warrick (1h 5m 48s):
Yes.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 5m 50s):
Right? And my guess is, and my hope is that in order for us to be as Americans or as America, the thriving force in the world, where we have China and others who are actively attacking on their from front, it must be for us. As a country, whether we are Jews, or Muslims, whether we are blacks, or whites, whether we are from Russia, or from Iran, or from anywhere else in the world, is if we have chosen as an entrepreneurs, or as people who have migrated here is to begin to be entrepreneurs, to practice it, to build things, to create things.
Alina Warrick (1h 6m 28s):
Drop out of school.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 6m 30s):
Drop out of school, if you have to. If you have to, if you have to.
Alina Warrick (1h 6m 36s):
Yes, yes. Sid, and do you think as you became an entrepreneur that allowed you to give back more to the community and volunteer? And was that a key resource for you to allow you to do that? Do you think if you remained as employee that it would have had no impact on your…?
Sid Mohasseb (1h 6m 59s):
I don’t think so, Alina. I don’t think so. I think it’s a mindset of who you are, what you do. And you may say, “Hey, if you’re working someplace, you have a lot more time on your hands to spend at your church, or in your community, or take the kids to a baseball game, or be a coach, baseball coach, or whatever. And your weekends are for you, and now all that, I know somebody else may say, “Well, if I’m an entrepreneur, I’m successful, I have a lot of money, I can do, I can throw that around.” I think it’s a mindset like anything else. It’s a priority. It has nothing to do with money. And I don’t think money necessarily is a good indicator of being a philanthropist. You know, if you’re giving money to a school and you want your name on top of it, that’s not philanthropy.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 7m 42s):
That’s just telling your kids and others how successful you are. If you want to do it without your name on it, okay.
Alina Warrick (1h 7m 50s):
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Last question. Oh, my goodness. And we’ll wrap it up. What are some things you would advise the next aspiring immigrant that wants to start their own business? And you’ve shared so many nuggets so far, but if you have anything else to add.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 8m 6s):
First, believe in yourself, and create that trust. Second, realize that you are an entrepreneur by nature, and turn fear into learning. Third, build your own entrepreneurial philosophy, you’re not them. You have to be you to win, authentic you. And that means the way you lead, the way you build an ecosystem, I call it your oceaness, how you build an ecosystem around you, you have to be your kind of pilot, the way you deal with risks. You have to be mindful of what is ahead. But at the core, I would say if you have your own entrepreneurial philosophy, you will have a higher probability of success, than if I just give you a bunch of Legos and say, “Hey, if you put these things together, you will have a great building, and follow this map.”
Sid Mohasseb (1h 8m 58s):
It’s hard to get there with that.
Alina Warrick (1h 9m 2s):
Yeah, so powerful. Wow. Such invaluable advice. Thank you so much, Sid, for coming on the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast. Oh, my goodness, I just absolutely loved all the philosophical topics that we discussed today. And I truly appreciate your time. And I wish you all the best of successes, and I’m absolutely honored to share your journey.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 9m 24s):
Thank you so much, Alina. And I wish you and all your audience the same.
Alina Warrick (1h 9m 28s):
Thank you.
Sid Mohasseb (1h 9m 29s):
And I hope that they will never leave change to chance, as I said. Take care.
Alina Warrick (1h 9m 34s):
Alrighty guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If there are any links that were mentioned in this episode, make sure to check them out on my website under this episode to find all the links conveniently located in the show notes. I just wanted to ask for a quick favor, if you could please leave a review wherever you’re at listening to this podcast. Also if you’re an Immigrant Entrepreneur and would love to be on my podcast, please email me and we’ll get connected. I’ll see you guys all next time for another exciting and impactful episode. Take care.
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