Episode 2: Good and Bad of Uni years and start-up trials
Good morning everyone, in the last episode I tried to summarise early years of my life and how it led to starting a company in Scotland in 2016. If you remember, I mentioned in that episode about my social activity during the university years and my start-up trials. I thought long about the structure of the episode and decided to tell you about the key lessons I got from leading the large university societies and early-day start-ups. So, let’s get started without wasting much time.
In the university I was involved in many societies, but the one I was the most committed to was the International Students Association. I started as a just a member, which was followed by the board position and ended with the Presidential position in the last year of my studies. ISA, short for the International Students Association was founded in 2006–2007 by the very first international students at TRNC campus, mainly from Angola, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. The way the associations worked at the university was representation and charity-focused. The association would become a bridge between the university administration and international students, whilst also holding student events where half of the earning would go back into society and the other half would go to select charities. Some example events were the “International Food Festival”, “Country nights” and others. In the first year of the university there were only dozens of members, whereas in the last year the number was in hundreds. With the increase in numbers the group became more diverse, more creative but also more challenging to manage.
Here are top 3 lessons I have learned from being part of ISA:
- New member: The first thing I have learned as a new member was that you need to have passion in what you do, trust in the team and hustle as much as you can. When I joined the association, I was only 16, thus the board was not only older, but also was more experienced. They helped me to adapt to the university, taught me about planning, organisation and taking responsibility. Having this mentorship and support has pushed my confidence as well as my passion, therefore encouraging me to take over every kind of a duty I could find. From carrying the tables to ordering the supply I took on every role, but the most humbling and teaching experience was selling the event tickets to other students on the street. Cold sales and approaching people will always be cringy, awkward and uncomfortable, no matter who you are and what stage of your career you are at. Therefore, learning it while you are young is very helpful.
- Board member: The next year I was lucky enough to be chosen as a board member. Although, I was as passionate as before, now I also had a team to manage. Having that balance between managing a team and reporting to the administration of the university became very handy when I started the company later. Similarly, I had to manage a team and report to our investors.
- President: Probably the most challenging role I ever took was the role of a president. Being responsible for all of the outcome and for your people is not as straightforward as it may sound, whereas sometime you may sacrifice your own role to save the organisation or association you are leading. I recall one particular instance where we have organised the largest event we have ever had and have made the largest ticket sales. However, the challenge has started when we were going to transfer to a charitable organisation. As the group was very diverse with various beliefs and views, there was a massive disagreement on the charity we aimed to transfer the money to. The crisis grew when my public social media post blaming one side, was screenshotted and shared within the campus. I have learned that as a leader and public figure, you shall not take sides and be biased in the decision-making. So, one side has threatened to leave the association and start a new one that would jeopardise the years of efforts of members before us. To find the compromise I have decided to make an offer, where we transfer the money to agreed charity and in return, I would leave the post and hold new elections in the new semester. That ended my leadership role, but saved the association and the reputation. As said previously, when you lead an organisation, even if it is just a student one, you are responsible for decisions, outcomes and people first.
You may know from previous episode, that I attempted to start my first start-up, Azmetr after graduating from the university. Here is how it started and what it was exactly. My good friend, Orkhan is an incredible software developer and was a lead guitarist in a band where I was drummer. As an engineer he loves building new exciting products and asked me to join in his new idea. Back then Google Maps was not available in every city and small businesses were not visible online. Inspired by that, Orkhan create an incredible mapping product that would give detailed information to the user about small business, including the working hours, the premises, the services and the bus routes. Considering how the Google service is still not available in the small city of Azerbaijan, it was definitely the right product, but the wrong timing and was not focused on the main customer, the small business owner. Back then smartphones were just growing in popularity and the average shop owner was not tech savvy at all. That being the case I went door-to-door, collecting the information from hundreds of businesses. They were happy to give the details, but had no intention of updating the information and keeping it up-to-date, as they had no experience of managing a platform or a page. Additionally, the monetisation of the platform was not clear and before it is settled for revenue generation, it would require large amount of investment, that we did not have access to.
Having realised the project was not viable, we paused the works and soon I found myself at Sumaks. Sumaks is an IOT company, making various smart devices for individual and commercial usage. I was invited to the company by a friend Tural in Spring of 2014, where I joined Cavid Sinan Elgun and Cahangir. My primary goal was to conduct the market research and later to take over the business development side of the business. However, the signs of the different visions was apparent at early stages. For me the company should have focused on few key products that is the most needed in the market and create the ecosystem of products thereafter. The team, on the other hand was working on variety of solutions and products, inspired by the engineering team. Besides the vision-based differences, not having clear shareholding structure made my commitment not concrete. These factors, plus my acceptance to an MSc programme in Scotland, ended up me leaving the yet-to-be-formed company several months later. Although, the goals and aspirations change at every start-up, the vision and the team trust have to be set from the very beginning for lasting effect. I am happy to say that the company has grown and still going strong and we are all still friends, which is also should be consideration while making such decisions.
Finally, I would like to talk about Sovqat or in another name, Shareclever. We started this project with Orkhan, the same guy from Azmetr. We started this project mostly because of personal social responsibility to decrease the food waste around us. Our marketplace allowed households and businesses donate their leftover and unsold food to the people around them. The platform was loved by the users and we got several cafes around Edinburgh trying it. Myself, loved the free food and helping others. It was fun during the student years as a side project, but the fate of Shareclever was under question after that. The reason being was that we could not simply find a way of monetising it, that would cover the cost and with wll funded competing apps with better business model, we could not raise cash. It was unfortunate that we had to shut down the project later, it thought me that not all projects will become a busines, no matter how much fun and good it is.
Overall, I have a mindset of learning from all experiences, good and bad. The experiences I listed above taught me many lessons, important ones of which I listed above and shared with you and I assure you that I used them at GetGuided. Talking about GetGuided, the net 4 episodes will be focused on GetGuided, where we analyse rights and wrongs of our journey. But for today, thanks for joining, make sure to sign up to our Podcast channel under the same name and have a great day!
