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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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brought to you by Startupscience dot Io. Greg is an
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entrepreneur who's built and sold twelve businesses, a recipient of
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four Private Equity Awards, featured ted X speaker and ben
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Bella Publishing and Penguin Random House author Piers Gregory Sheppard.
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My guest today is Aras Shaky, a dynamic leader bridging
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academia and industry, transforming innovative ideas into market ready solutions.
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With a background in electrical engineering and global startup experience,
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he serves as the Entrepreneurial Lead at UC San Diego
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and the chief executive Officer at the Janus Innovation Hub,
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which empowers immigrant owned precede startups. I really appreciate you
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jumping on the show. Thank you for your time.
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Thank you so much. Greg, it's my honor. Thank you
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for having me in your prestigious podcast. Thank you so
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much for the invitation.
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It's very so I wanted to ask you. So, you
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have this background in academia, but then you transitioned into entrepreneurship,
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So maybe you could share a little bit about your
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academia background and then explain to the listeners, why you
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would go from academia to entrepreneurship. It's like a very
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different a different thing you know, to do.
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Yeah, yeah, two two different wards, really two different wards.
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When I was in high school, I'm from the top
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NUTCH student, I'm a bookworn I was a bookwarn at
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that time, and I ranked fourteen in an entrance exam
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of the universities in Iran. I'm born in Iran, and
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so rank fourteen is something special and in trance of
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the universities in Iran, and each top NUCH students go
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to the computer science and electrical engineering right now, I'm
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talking about twenty years ago. That was saying. So I
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entered the university as an electrical engineer, as electrical undergrad
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students and past bachelor, as a first ranked students, Master,
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as a first ranked students, all without any ups and downs,
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very rigid and solid output A plus A plus, A plus,
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the PhD as well, all the session in Chariff University
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of Technology, the best university in technical and science major fields.
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After that, I decided to continue my carrier pass as
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a faculty member at Sharif University of Technology. I selected
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as a faculty member there. I worked there for more
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than four years, and that's the pivotal point for me.
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During that time, when I was faculty member at Electrical
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Engineering and Energy Systems, I found that just with papers
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and search you cannot have a big impact in the word.
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That was not my character. I'm looking for something else,
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to find a way to be more impactful. So I
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tried to convert my academia research to products. I have
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two labs that time. First was decentralized distributed data systems.
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We are working on deep technology and blockchain and cryptocurrencies,
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and also industry four we work on predictive maintenance systems
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in rotary treatments. In two thousy sixteen, I found that
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I need to do a pivet and move to the
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area of entrepreneurship. I did that pivet. I set up
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my own company, my own startups. That was really tough
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and hard moments, very hard. Say goodbye to the universities somehow.
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And the easy, predictable lifestyle that's associated with it. Right, Yeah,
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I mean exactly. You went from sybbing on the sofa
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to like running a marathon. When you go from academia
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to entrepreneurship, you know.
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Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's two totally different path me. When
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you went from academia to entrepreneurship, I mean, that must
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have been a really difficult transition. What were some of
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the things that you ran into, Like, you know, entrepreneurs
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experience self doubt and imposter syndrome and incredible amounts of
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anxiety and stress associated with.
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Your own ability to live. I mean these things must
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have hit you like a truck when you left academia.
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Can you talk a little bit about that? I find
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that gray area in between to be very difficult for people.
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Maybe they could learn from your experience.
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Yeah, you know, I can write two or three books
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about that's gray area, about that's moments of detaching from
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academia and that transition period and moved to the entrepreneur world.
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If I want to talk about that gray area, that
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was really tough, you know, And the most important things
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that helped me and that transition period was my team.
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I had a very good co founders, I have a
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very good teammates. I'm also a good team player. I think.
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So, did you have this idea when you were in
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academia and then move in entrepreneurship or did you get
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the idea Okay, got it, okay, okay, okay.
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You know we work on several ideas, but all in
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papers and all in the as a projects, not as
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a product. You know, we're not looking for the sustainable solution.
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We're just looking for Yeah, let's do some simulation without
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thinking about how we can make it impactful in the
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world in a real practice. The last module of this
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puzzle is how I can connect these two parts from
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academia to the real world. And the bridge between these
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two is one sentence. I have to detach from academia
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somehow and invest my time and resource in being entrepreneur.
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And as you did this, I mean, it seems like
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just simultaneously being you know, sort of leaving academia and
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going into entrepreneurship. It's like having two fold How did
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you juggle this? I mean, it seems like there's so
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much to do. Both of these things are more than
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full time jobs. How did I mean? Were you just
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up twenty four hours a day? How did you pull
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this off?
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My teammates helped me a lot in this transition period.
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You know, saying goodbye to university is not a one
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shut game. It's not at a bottom that you can
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truss it and say goodbye. It takes at least one
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year to say goodbye to all your students that you
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collaborate with, the connection that you have with university, the
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lecture that you did in the university. And the most
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important things that helped me to make this transition. To
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make this transition was my teammates. They helped me. They
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offload some of the loads in burden in my shoulder.
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And that's the most important things I can share with
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the audiences. If you have a good team in your company,
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if you have somehow try to improve your leadership skills,
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then you can deal with this issue much easier. It's
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it's stuper tough, but you need to be great. You
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need to be resilience in passing this period from academia
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to entrepreneurship.
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Well, let's move on to your to your fashion company.
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Let's talk a little bit about this because this is
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pretty cool. Maybe you could tell the listeners what it is,
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how you got the idea of how you moved into this,
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and how you got this idea to integrate Iranian culture
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stories in the product design. I mean, this is like
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a really cool uni to approach something.
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This is the some part of my job that I
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can plug out from. This is like a game for me.
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This is like my interest, my hobby. You know, I'm
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not yet hired when I go to this part of
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my jobs. This is full of arts, full of energy,
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full of colors, and somehow it's balanced between tough job
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in computer science, solid job and blockchains. I just find
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a pathway to get there. A hello, guys, I'm here
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to help you. Let me write down something for you
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as a description of those clothes. Let me help you
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in designing that part. For me, it's like a best
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way to plug out this fashion company. The idea of
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this fashion company came from Shiraz is the Uh, one
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of the major cities in Iran, full of culture and
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full of fashions and arts. I'm definitely sure that you
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heard about Shira's vine. This is it. It came from
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that part of the world. I know a lot of people.
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They're working in art and fashions, and I invited them
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to let's do something that I can export them into Australia,
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and we set up the company in Australia. We tailor
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made those kind of special clothes as art, not as
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a mass production. They're just produced with a tailor made intension,
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with the tailor made attention to the.
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You don't have the idea to like build a big business.
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You were just building.
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No, No, this is not no, this is not a big business.
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I'm not looking for this big business for this. This
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is just something as my hobby that I do and
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I try to make something different. The touch of the
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art words as my signature in that area.
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What a beautiful thing. Let me ask you. You mentioned Sydney,
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So how did your experience at the University of Technology
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in Sydney differ from the experience that you had in
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your academic roles in Iran, Like what was the differences?
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You know, the main differences in University of Technology at
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Sydney with Iran as with Sheriff University of Technology. The
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main difference was my experience in entrepreneurship chapters in Sydney.
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You know, this is a developed country and Australia is
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a developed country and they they helped me to understand
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better how I can convert the research into real products,
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the tangible product that can work in the real world.
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But you know, when it comes down to comparison with
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United States UCSD in the United States, really somewhere else,
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but yes, Australia helped me to test my approaches and
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converting research into product into real practice. The things that
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I can chime into it is we have a great
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project in Australia, eld White fire detection platform. We learned
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a lot from those moments. You know, we learned that
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how we can handle a project in covid Era and
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that's a big thing for me that it has a
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very great impact in my career past because we learned
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how we can manage people from different parts of the country,
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from different part of the ward. Because if you have
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my teammates were in Dubai, if you have them live
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in Canada, a few of them live in Australia because
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we all moved with startup visa to the different part
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of the world.
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I mean, I'm really curious also your academic and environmental
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advocacy influence. You seem to be really big on environmental
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impact and you are using this in your entrepreneurial adventures
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and I'm really curious where this came from, how you're
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using it and what you're doing now. Let's talk about
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what you're doing now as well.
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We traveled because of money you know, we traveled for
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looking for money, looking for resources. We moved from Iran
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to Dubai. We moved from Dubai to Australia. The main
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reason was resources. As a first generation immigrants in each
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of this country, we have plenty of problems to getting
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to write position to find out what exactly we need
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to find out to find out the resources. You know,
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I think that one of the most problem, one of
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the most issues in the world for every people is
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matchmaking to find to connect between demand and resource in
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a perfectly good way. When we were in Australia, me
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and my teammates and my co founders had a dream
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at that time that if we can make a fortune,
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if we can do something special and make fortune, we
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have to do something different for first generation immigrants, to
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help them, to support them, to empower them for creating
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their own business, for creating their own startups. And at
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the end of the day, in twenty twenty two, when
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I moved to the US and collaborating with UCSD as
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an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur lead in a view of
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projects there, I found that that was the best time
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to do that. And you know, United States, I think
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is the best up to my knowledge as someone who
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lived in at least five countries, and the United States
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is the last one. United States is the great resources,
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has a great resources, different kind of resources for all
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immigrants that came across the US. But you know they
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cannot match well to each other because of mismatch between
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resource and demands.
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It sounds like timing too, right, Yeah, yeah, of course,
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of course there is, of course, absolutely correct.
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We think that if they can get a super tiny
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in each market first generation immigrants, based on our capacity,
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our capacity is super limited. We are a few guys, okay,
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with a backpack of knowledge and experience, with backpack of
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eight years, nine years experience of living in different countries.
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We have a lot of We have a lot to
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share with the other people as a social responsibility. So
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let's do something different. You have an impact in SoCal,
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to have an impact in San Diego for fast generation
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immigrants and the established Jenus Innovation HAP as an incubator
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designed for first generation immigrants to help them empower them
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for their journey.
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I mean, the United States is all immigrants, right, I
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mean the only people that aren't immigrants are the indigenous people.
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So every one of us are immigrants right to the
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whole country, and I think that it's one of the
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things that makes the United States so valuable. And I
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think that, you know, when I look around at the immigrants,
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at least in the studies and the research I've done,
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which is extensive on founders, they have a higher success ratio.
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And I think part of that is because they don't
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give up. And part of that is because they're used
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to struggle, and they're used to things being different, and
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they're used to going after things regardless of you know,
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whether or not they have imposter syndrome, and they feel
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like they just I'm going to do this right because
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I've survived this long and I've come here not knowing
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any English, and now I can speak English and so on.
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I think that the immigrants are a key to the
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success of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in any country, especially the
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United States. So, you know, I bow my head to
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folks like you who come here and you know, build
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companies and make wonderful things happen. And now you've built
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a company that builds companies. So the janis it's the
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most beautiful thing you've taken a otherwise abandoned and stepped
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over a crowd of people, created an environment for them
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to create businesses and not just change their own lives,
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but change everyone's lives. I think that the Janus Innovation
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Hub is just the brain child. There's somebody that has
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to be you, you know, to be able to pull
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that off.
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Thanks for coming warding, you know, and the ecosystem of
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San Diego they helped me a lot to make to
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make it happen. You know, they're very kind people here
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in startup ecosystems. They're they're not in a competitive mood.
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They all try to connect me to the resources, to
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connect me to the right people to elevate Jana's innovation
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hops step by step and make it more high profile
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between first generation immigrants, between universities, between organizations here. And
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I really appreciate all the people support me in San Diego.
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Really love the ecosystem of startups in San Diego. This
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is something super crul and very inviting.
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I think that the San Diego is a lot different.
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You know, I cut my teeth up in the Silicon
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Valley and it's not the same up there as it
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is town here. Now, everybody is so friendly and willing
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to help you up there, right, it's a little more cutthroat,
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all right, rs, let's stop here. Coming up next time
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on the Startup Science Podcast, Ross will share what he
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learned about successful startups during the pandemic.
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If you want to be on the same page, you
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need to communicate as much as possible. You don't need
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to delve into the old disciplines and know every corner
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of science, for example, or every corner of that discipline
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to talk with them. You only need to try to
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communicate with people well, have a general knowledge of that
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and ask people. Ask the different disciplines. I've asked the
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different teams to talk with each other.
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The Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought to
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you by Startupscience dot io. Founders can log on too
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startupscience dot io and use code Thorbes to get free
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access to connect and find out more about Greg Go
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to Gregory sheeppard dot com. The Startup Science Podcast is
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a production of Forbes Books.
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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd,
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brought to you by Startupscience dot Io. Greg is an
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entrepreneur who's built and sold twelve businesses, a recipient of
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four Private Equity Awards, featured ted X speaker and ben
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Bella Publishing and Penguin Random House author Piers Gregory Sheppard.
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My guest today is Aras Shaky, a dynamic leader bridging
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academia and industry, transforming innovative ideas into market ready solutions.
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With a background in electrical engineering and global startup experience,
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he serves as the Entrepreneurial Lead at UC San Diego
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and the chief executive Officer at the Janus Innovation Hub,
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which empowers immigrant owned precede startups. I really appreciate you
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jumping on the show. Thank you for your time.
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Thank you so much. Greg, it's my honor. Thank you
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for having me in your prestigious podcast. Thank you so
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much for the invitation.
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It's very so I wanted to ask you. So, you
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have this background in academia, but then you transitioned into entrepreneurship,
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So maybe you could share a little bit about your
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academia background and then explain to the listeners, why you
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would go from academia to entrepreneurship. It's like a very
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different a different thing you know, to do.
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Yeah, yeah, two two different wards, really two different wards.
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When I was in high school, I'm from the top
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NUTCH student, I'm a bookworn I was a bookwarn at
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that time, and I ranked fourteen in an entrance exam
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of the universities in Iran. I'm born in Iran, and
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so rank fourteen is something special and in trance of
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the universities in Iran, and each top NUCH students go
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to the computer science and electrical engineering right now, I'm
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talking about twenty years ago. That was saying. So I
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entered the university as an electrical engineer, as electrical undergrad
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students and past bachelor, as a first ranked students, Master,
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as a first ranked students, all without any ups and downs,
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very rigid and solid output A plus A plus, A plus,
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the PhD as well, all the session in Chariff University
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of Technology, the best university in technical and science major fields.
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After that, I decided to continue my carrier pass as
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a faculty member at Sharif University of Technology. I selected
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as a faculty member there. I worked there for more
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than four years, and that's the pivotal point for me.
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During that time, when I was faculty member at Electrical
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Engineering and Energy Systems, I found that just with papers
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and search you cannot have a big impact in the word.
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That was not my character. I'm looking for something else,
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to find a way to be more impactful. So I
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tried to convert my academia research to products. I have
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two labs that time. First was decentralized distributed data systems.
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We are working on deep technology and blockchain and cryptocurrencies,
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and also industry four we work on predictive maintenance systems
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in rotary treatments. In two thousy sixteen, I found that
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I need to do a pivet and move to the
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area of entrepreneurship. I did that pivet. I set up
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my own company, my own startups. That was really tough
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and hard moments, very hard. Say goodbye to the universities somehow.
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And the easy, predictable lifestyle that's associated with it. Right, Yeah,
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I mean exactly. You went from sybbing on the sofa
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to like running a marathon. When you go from academia
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to entrepreneurship, you know.
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Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's two totally different path me. When
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you went from academia to entrepreneurship, I mean, that must
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have been a really difficult transition. What were some of
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the things that you ran into, Like, you know, entrepreneurs
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experience self doubt and imposter syndrome and incredible amounts of
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anxiety and stress associated with.
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Your own ability to live. I mean these things must
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have hit you like a truck when you left academia.
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Can you talk a little bit about that? I find
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that gray area in between to be very difficult for people.
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Maybe they could learn from your experience.
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Yeah, you know, I can write two or three books
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about that's gray area, about that's moments of detaching from
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academia and that transition period and moved to the entrepreneur world.
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If I want to talk about that gray area, that
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was really tough, you know, And the most important things
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that helped me and that transition period was my team.
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I had a very good co founders, I have a
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very good teammates. I'm also a good team player. I think.
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So, did you have this idea when you were in
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academia and then move in entrepreneurship or did you get
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the idea Okay, got it, okay, okay, okay.
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You know we work on several ideas, but all in
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papers and all in the as a projects, not as
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a product. You know, we're not looking for the sustainable solution.
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We're just looking for Yeah, let's do some simulation without
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thinking about how we can make it impactful in the
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world in a real practice. The last module of this
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puzzle is how I can connect these two parts from
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academia to the real world. And the bridge between these
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two is one sentence. I have to detach from academia
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somehow and invest my time and resource in being entrepreneur.
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And as you did this, I mean, it seems like
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just simultaneously being you know, sort of leaving academia and
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going into entrepreneurship. It's like having two fold How did
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you juggle this? I mean, it seems like there's so
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much to do. Both of these things are more than
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full time jobs. How did I mean? Were you just
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up twenty four hours a day? How did you pull
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this off?
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My teammates helped me a lot in this transition period.
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You know, saying goodbye to university is not a one
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shut game. It's not at a bottom that you can
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truss it and say goodbye. It takes at least one
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year to say goodbye to all your students that you
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collaborate with, the connection that you have with university, the
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lecture that you did in the university. And the most
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important things that helped me to make this transition. To
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make this transition was my teammates. They helped me. They
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offload some of the loads in burden in my shoulder.
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And that's the most important things I can share with
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the audiences. If you have a good team in your company,
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if you have somehow try to improve your leadership skills,
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then you can deal with this issue much easier. It's
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it's stuper tough, but you need to be great. You
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need to be resilience in passing this period from academia
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to entrepreneurship.
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Well, let's move on to your to your fashion company.
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Let's talk a little bit about this because this is
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pretty cool. Maybe you could tell the listeners what it is,
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how you got the idea of how you moved into this,
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and how you got this idea to integrate Iranian culture
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stories in the product design. I mean, this is like
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a really cool uni to approach something.
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This is the some part of my job that I
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can plug out from. This is like a game for me.
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This is like my interest, my hobby. You know, I'm
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not yet hired when I go to this part of
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my jobs. This is full of arts, full of energy,
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full of colors, and somehow it's balanced between tough job
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in computer science, solid job and blockchains. I just find
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a pathway to get there. A hello, guys, I'm here
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to help you. Let me write down something for you
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as a description of those clothes. Let me help you
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in designing that part. For me, it's like a best
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way to plug out this fashion company. The idea of
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this fashion company came from Shiraz is the Uh, one
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of the major cities in Iran, full of culture and
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full of fashions and arts. I'm definitely sure that you
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heard about Shira's vine. This is it. It came from
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that part of the world. I know a lot of people.
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They're working in art and fashions, and I invited them
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to let's do something that I can export them into Australia,
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and we set up the company in Australia. We tailor
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made those kind of special clothes as art, not as
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a mass production. They're just produced with a tailor made intension,
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with the tailor made attention to the.
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You don't have the idea to like build a big business.
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You were just building.
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No, No, this is not no, this is not a big business.
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I'm not looking for this big business for this. This
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is just something as my hobby that I do and
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I try to make something different. The touch of the
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art words as my signature in that area.
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What a beautiful thing. Let me ask you. You mentioned Sydney,
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So how did your experience at the University of Technology
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in Sydney differ from the experience that you had in
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your academic roles in Iran, Like what was the differences?
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You know, the main differences in University of Technology at
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Sydney with Iran as with Sheriff University of Technology. The
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main difference was my experience in entrepreneurship chapters in Sydney.
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You know, this is a developed country and Australia is
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a developed country and they they helped me to understand
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better how I can convert the research into real products,
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the tangible product that can work in the real world.
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But you know, when it comes down to comparison with
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United States UCSD in the United States, really somewhere else,
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but yes, Australia helped me to test my approaches and
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converting research into product into real practice. The things that
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I can chime into it is we have a great
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project in Australia, eld White fire detection platform. We learned
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a lot from those moments. You know, we learned that
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how we can handle a project in covid Era and
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that's a big thing for me that it has a
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very great impact in my career past because we learned
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how we can manage people from different parts of the country,
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from different part of the ward. Because if you have
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my teammates were in Dubai, if you have them live
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in Canada, a few of them live in Australia because
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we all moved with startup visa to the different part
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of the world.
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I mean, I'm really curious also your academic and environmental
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advocacy influence. You seem to be really big on environmental
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impact and you are using this in your entrepreneurial adventures
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and I'm really curious where this came from, how you're
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using it and what you're doing now. Let's talk about
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what you're doing now as well.
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We traveled because of money you know, we traveled for
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looking for money, looking for resources. We moved from Iran
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to Dubai. We moved from Dubai to Australia. The main
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reason was resources. As a first generation immigrants in each
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of this country, we have plenty of problems to getting
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to write position to find out what exactly we need
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to find out to find out the resources. You know,
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I think that one of the most problem, one of
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the most issues in the world for every people is
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matchmaking to find to connect between demand and resource in
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a perfectly good way. When we were in Australia, me
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and my teammates and my co founders had a dream
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at that time that if we can make a fortune,
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if we can do something special and make fortune, we
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have to do something different for first generation immigrants, to
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help them, to support them, to empower them for creating
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their own business, for creating their own startups. And at
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the end of the day, in twenty twenty two, when
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I moved to the US and collaborating with UCSD as
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an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur lead in a view of
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projects there, I found that that was the best time
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to do that. And you know, United States, I think
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is the best up to my knowledge as someone who
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lived in at least five countries, and the United States
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is the last one. United States is the great resources,
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has a great resources, different kind of resources for all
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immigrants that came across the US. But you know they
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cannot match well to each other because of mismatch between
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resource and demands.
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It sounds like timing too, right, Yeah, yeah, of course,
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of course there is, of course, absolutely correct.
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We think that if they can get a super tiny
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in each market first generation immigrants, based on our capacity,
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our capacity is super limited. We are a few guys, okay,
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with a backpack of knowledge and experience, with backpack of
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eight years, nine years experience of living in different countries.
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We have a lot of We have a lot to
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share with the other people as a social responsibility. So
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let's do something different. You have an impact in SoCal,
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to have an impact in San Diego for fast generation
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immigrants and the established Jenus Innovation HAP as an incubator
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designed for first generation immigrants to help them empower them
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for their journey.
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I mean, the United States is all immigrants, right, I
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mean the only people that aren't immigrants are the indigenous people.
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So every one of us are immigrants right to the
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whole country, and I think that it's one of the
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things that makes the United States so valuable. And I
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think that, you know, when I look around at the immigrants,
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at least in the studies and the research I've done,
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which is extensive on founders, they have a higher success ratio.
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And I think part of that is because they don't
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give up. And part of that is because they're used
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to struggle, and they're used to things being different, and
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they're used to going after things regardless of you know,
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whether or not they have imposter syndrome, and they feel
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like they just I'm going to do this right because
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I've survived this long and I've come here not knowing
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any English, and now I can speak English and so on.
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I think that the immigrants are a key to the
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success of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in any country, especially the
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United States. So, you know, I bow my head to
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folks like you who come here and you know, build
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companies and make wonderful things happen. And now you've built
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a company that builds companies. So the janis it's the
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most beautiful thing you've taken a otherwise abandoned and stepped
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over a crowd of people, created an environment for them
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to create businesses and not just change their own lives,
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but change everyone's lives. I think that the Janus Innovation
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Hub is just the brain child. There's somebody that has
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to be you, you know, to be able to pull
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that off.
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Thanks for coming warding, you know, and the ecosystem of
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San Diego they helped me a lot to make to
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make it happen. You know, they're very kind people here
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in startup ecosystems. They're they're not in a competitive mood.
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They all try to connect me to the resources, to
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connect me to the right people to elevate Jana's innovation
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hops step by step and make it more high profile
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between first generation immigrants, between universities, between organizations here. And
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I really appreciate all the people support me in San Diego.
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Really love the ecosystem of startups in San Diego. This
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is something super crul and very inviting.
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I think that the San Diego is a lot different.
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You know, I cut my teeth up in the Silicon
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Valley and it's not the same up there as it
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is town here. Now, everybody is so friendly and willing
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to help you up there, right, it's a little more cutthroat,
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all right, rs, let's stop here. Coming up next time
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on the Startup Science Podcast, Ross will share what he
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learned about successful startups during the pandemic.
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If you want to be on the same page, you
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need to communicate as much as possible. You don't need
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to delve into the old disciplines and know every corner
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of science, for example, or every corner of that discipline
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to talk with them. You only need to try to
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communicate with people well, have a general knowledge of that
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and ask people. Ask the different disciplines. I've asked the
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different teams to talk with each other.
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The Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepherd is brought to
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you by Startupscience dot io. Founders can log on too
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startupscience dot io and use code Thorbes to get free
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access to connect and find out more about Greg Go
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to Gregory sheeppard dot com. The Startup Science Podcast is
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a production of Forbes Books.
