On: 2012-09-13 13:58:50 |
Guest: Sam and Tariq Zaid
Transcript:
Basel: This is Basel Kilany with N2V. We`re delighted to have Sam Zaid
and his brother Tariq Zaid. They`re very bright Canadian entrepreneurs from
the Arabic origin of Getaround. I`d like to start by giving a little bit of
information about Getaround and also the award that you guys won.
Getaround is a car rental marketplace where you can rent a car
by the day, by the hour, or the week through a smartphone app.
Getaround`s all inclusive package includes insurance, 24-hour
road assistance, a Getaround car kit, iPhone app and a mobile, I
mean a web app, and that makes it very convenient for people to
car share anywhere.
You guys won the TechCrunch`s Disrupt Award, which is quite
huge. The TechCrunch`s Disrupt, in my opinion, is the largest of
all for startups to pitch their offering. I believe there were
about 32 startups that pitched their companies and that was done
over the course of three days, so that`s huge. First, I want to
congratulate you guys on winning this award.
Sam: Thanks a lot. It was definitely a fierce competition, so it was a
great feeling to win in the end.
Basel: Absolutely, absolutely. Let me actually ask you this question.
How many users do you have right now? I fail to recall that
question.
Sam: That`s a good question and we don`t actually disclose all of our
users, but suffice it to say we have tens of thousands of users.
Basel: Fantastic. Yeah, that was remarkable and, again,
congratulations for you guys. So, let me dive in straight to the
questions, I don`t want to take so much of your time. I know you
guys are quite busy right now. First question is how did the
idea of Getaround come about?
Sam: That`s a great question. It actually came about originally when we
were spending some time at Singularity University, which is a
school very much focused on accelerating technologies and
looking into the future. We were very much looking at the future
of transportation and the autonomous vehicle and how that would
change everything we know about cars. Then, from there, we
started looking back, we started stepping back to what would be
the steps along the way to autonomous vehicles. It really became
clear to us that owning a car is a bit of an antiquated concept
and that`s how we stumbled upon the idea of Getaround.
Basel: Fantastic. And how long have you guys been working on, I mean
before the pitch, how long did it take you guys to evolve the
whole thing?
Sam: Quite awhile. We started in late 2009.
Basel: That`s awesome. I was blown away with the smartphone app when
you guys had the car in the back and you had that thing turned
on. That was awesome.
Sam: That was fun, yeah!
Basel: So, a question about talent. How do you guys find people to
bring into your organization that truly care about the company
and the spirit of the company and the culture of it?
Sam: That`s always a really tricky thing for our start ups, especially in
our early days, until you have enough of a nucleus to attract
other similar, like particles. I think, early on, it was just a
hard challenge for us. When we started we were pretty small and
we stayed pretty small. Thanks to TechCrunch, more people know
about us now, we get more press, so it`s easier to find people
who are both bright and talented and also a culture fit.
Basel: Absolutely. How many offices do you have right now?
Sam: We just have one main office which is our office in San Francisco.
But, we have a few remote satellite offices in different parts
of North America where one or two people work.
Basel: That`s awesome. [inaudible 03:56] up in Ottawa, is where the
mobile stuff is being done.
Sam: That`s awesome. I can see a big smile on their faces, so I`m sure
you`re having a great time there.
Basel: Yeah, it`s a lot of fun.
Sam: So, I guess Getaround is not the first business for you guys and
probably not the last. Tell me a little bit about the ventures
you guys had, starting with Plan 9 Solutions, if I`m not
mistaken.
Sam: That goes way, way back. I was basically just a high-end computer re-
seller, selling tech computer systems and build them yourselves,
back in the heyday of the beige box PC. I think at that point,
Apple was almost non-existent. So, from my end, that was one. I
went on after that to start another company called Apption,
which was more in the enterprise software consulting space. Then
Gazaro, which was in the consumer web, retail pricing,
intelligence space. And, I think that`s it for me.
Sam: How about you, Tariq?
Tariq: I basically joined Sam in his venture at Apption when I was in
university, just to get some experience, to get out there in the
world and start to really work as an entrepreneur.
After that, I did a small time at IBM where I did an internship called
Extreme Blue, which basically teaches students about
entrepreneurship by pretty much immersing them in a role of
product development engineer and business marketing type roles,
to create a new product for IBM in a period of four months. It`s
a very, they teach you a lot about, a lot of the principles that
go into entrepreneurship.
After that, I started a company with a couple co-founders called
Select Start Studios. We do pretty much high-end mobile
development for [inaudible 06:02], android, Blackberry, so it`s
a lot of enterprise mobile applications as well as consumer
products such as [inaudible 06:10]
Basel: That`s awesome, and that`s still existing? You`re still running
that?
Tariq: Yeah, that`s correct. That`s actually what I do full-time right
now. I am a CEO at Select Start.
Basel: Fantastic. So, Sam, you were awarded the [inaudible 06:25] 2009
Young Entrepreneur Award, which, again, is also huge, at the age
of 31. What pointers can you give to college students at an
early stage, to pursue their entrepreneurial dream?
Sam: I guess I`d only say two things, at least as they were to apply to
me. The first is to just do it. I think you can read all about
it, you can read as many textbooks as you want, but nothing
beats just going out there and trying to do it. I think that
first piece of advice is just do it.
The second is just don`t give up. You`ve got to be tenacious.
Certainly, there`s been a lot of down periods in everything I`ve
done and not everything has worked. But, if you keep trying,
eventually something will work. I think just doing it and
getting started and being tenacious along the way, and just
resourceful and not giving up easily, is probably the best
advice. That`s all you need, really.
Basel: Certainly. So, I guess, connecting this to the Arab world, how
do you see the connection with that? In my opinion, and we`re
seeing at N2V, that there`s a big, I guess, an internet wave,
we`re in the cusp of a big internet wave. How do you see the
Arab entrepreneurs pursuing such a big dream?
Sam: I`m not very well connected into the Arab entrepreneurial stuff
outside of the U.S. or Canada. I know a lot of guys down here
who just relocate to Canada or the U.S. to really start
companies. I think what`s probably important, having been, I
myself born in England and was in an around the Middle East when
I was very young, and then relocating to Canada. I think, from
at least some of the perspective I`ve seen, having traveled and
started companies in Canada, I think it`s really important to
have some linkage to San Francisco and the Silicon Valley,
because, it really helps give you perspective and a lot of the
leading edge viewpoints on things. And the ecosystem here is
just much stronger than anywhere else.
I think one piece of advice would be to somehow try and form
some bonds with either fellow entrepreneurs or companies or even
just have a satellite office in the Valley. I think it will
really help accelerate any business anywhere, including
different parts of the Middle East.
Basel: Well, I`d like to thank you, Sam, for this comment because we
just did that. Actually, I represent N2V in the Bay area and we
just started the operation a few months ago. So, I`m glad we`re
on the right track.
Sam: Well, then I think that`s a great move.
Basel: Awesome. So, I guess, if one of you guys wants to name the
three top skills for successful entrepreneurs, what would these
skills be? I guess I`ll take this question to Tariq first.
Tariq: Yeah, sure. I think vision is really important. You need to
have a really strong idea of what it is you`re trying to
achieve. If you don`t have a clear vision of what you want to
get in the end, it becomes difficult along the way to realize
what your objectives are and what you need to do to get to that
final end vision, as well as to realize when you need to
potentially pivot if you run into hurdles along the way. So, I
think vision is important.
Perseverance, as Sam mentioned previously, is huge. It`s
probably the most important one, which is just don`t give up no
matter how hard it gets. Being in business isn`t easy and if it
was easy, everybody would be doing it. I know you hear that all
the time, but it`s true.
I know when I started Select Start, I started it initially to
make a mobile gaming technology, which proved to be very
difficult. We never ended up getting to market with a product
and, to be honest, our competitor [inaudible 10:27] did before
us. I mean, look what happened to them. They got pretty big
pretty quickly. So, we had to pivot quickly.
So, again, vision, important, and perseverance, not giving up
and trying to find a way to make your business fit. That`s what
we did, turned into a professional services start up. It`s going
very, very well and we`re doing a lot of really, really cool
technologies now. We`re in the process of spinning out another
company in the impulse space called [Adaptive], getadaptive.com.
It`s an eClinical EMR viewer on the iPod for large health
organizations, so big hospitals, essentially.
And, a third one, that`s a good one. Give me a minute to come
back to that, I`ll think of one.
Basel: Sam ought to jump in on that.
Sam: This is one of those weird questions where I`m not sure if there
really are just three top things. I think one of the things
about being an entrepreneur is that you have to be good at a lot
of things, not necessarily great at all of them. But, if I had
to pick three, I`d go with passion, because that will inspire
people around you. Tenacity, because if you give up, everyone
else will give up, and resourcefulness, because you`re just
going to have to be very agile and adaptive as you start a
business.
Basel: Absolutely, you`ve got to be a fighter. Otherwise, it`s just
going to tumble down and it`s going to fail.
Sam: Yeah.
Basel: So, I`m certain that every entrepreneur, successful
entrepreneur, most likely has failed at some point in his life
or her life, and I`m one of them, actually. Could you guys tell
me a little bit about failures and how you actually learned from
those failures and they should help you succeed in later stages?
Sam: Yeah, sure. Actually, before I started Apption, which was the company
I started back in 2004 or 2005, I actually tried to do consumer
web play. That was my first attempt at consumer web. It was a
company called [Natari] and we were doing basically an online
training system for video games and DVDs. So, this was back when
physical media was still a very popular thing. You had solutions
like eBay, where people could buy and sell things, but if you
just wanted to swap products, there wasn`t really a great
solution.
That was probably my, call it first real start up. I mean I had
done some before that, but they were more like small, small play
businesses that made some money, but they weren`t all or nothing
things. It didn`t actually work out. I learned a lot from it. I
learned the value of technology. When I went into it, I hadn`t
done software for awhile, so I had to re-learn everything from
scratch and I realized pretty quickly that it was a great
experience for me to get back up to speed, but there`s a lot of
stuff you`ve got to do right on the tech and product side. So, I
learned a lot about technology and product. How to build a
product that`s not feature crazy, how to make tough decisions on
product choices, teams. We had some people come and go really
early on, so there`s a lot of lessons learned on being able to
bring in the right people and get rid of the wrong people
quickly.
I also learned some interesting lessons about trying to do a
consumer web start up and I know I`m consumer web town in terms
of pitching investors, and that actually made it really
difficult, the people that didn`t get it. For them, in 2003,
during this timeframe, this was around 2003, internet was a
failure, right? So, raising money at that point in time was
really tough.
Basel: Tell me about it!
Sam: Despite that, what I learned from it was a lot of the basics of
entrepreneurship. I learned how to think about product and it
forced, it was almost a real-life exercise in figuring out how
to differentiate, how to launch, how to raise funds, how to
build a team, how to screw up building a team, how to screw up
building product.
At the time, I was just reading every book on entrepreneurship
and tech start ups that I could - what was I doing right, what
was I doing wrong, because I really had no mental framework for
how to do anything. For instance, when you`re choosing between
two options, I was like, well, how do I weigh which is the right
option? I didn`t really have a lot of background for that. For
me, actually it was just a really great opportunity to learn a
lot about what entrepreneurship really means. That actually
really helped when I started my next company. I was just much
more aware of all of the different aspects it takes to really
start a company and build a business.
Basel: Absolutely. You replicate experiences that you go through.
Sam: Yeah, you try not to replicate other ones.
Basel: Certainly. How about you, Tariq?
Tariq: I already touched on it a little bit, but our first product was
a turn-based multi-player game solution for mobile devices. The
idea was mobile phones had really poor data connections and we
were providing a way that you could store game [inaudible 15:45]
on a server to play turn-based games and make it easy for the
developer to create these types of games. So, it was basically
an infrastructure that you`d see behind a game like Words with
Friends on the iPod, for example.
Basel: Right.
Tariq: That was the overall goal. It was a first attempt for us at
building a product and we had no idea about feature creep and
coming up with a minimal, viable product. Essentially, new start
up principles. That`s something that we follow pretty
exclusively right now at Select Start when we`re coming up with
new products or helping companies achieve their objectives with
their new products, which is to really iterate quickly and
define a lot of metrics that you can really measure the success
of a new product that you`re bringing to market.
I would say the biggest thing I`ve learned so far, I haven`t
been doing this too, too long yet, would be, from my failures,
is to try and keep things really lean and iterate quickly.
Basel: Absolutely. It`s about being fast in L.A., supposedly because
nothing lasts, so you`ve got to be out there pretty quickly,
absolutely. I guess the surprise, with the daily life of
Getaround and Select Starts, how fun is this working, how many
hours do you guys put in a day?
Tariq: I`ll go first. We have a pretty fun, easy going culture. It`s a
work hard sort of culture, but nobody takes themselves too
seriously, so there`s a lot of poking fun at one another,
shooting people with Nerf guns or whatever, what have you,
right?
The work hours are pretty long. Myself, I try to work at least
12 hours a day. I probably end up putting in 12 to 14 hours each
day and putting time in on weekends too. I think that,
generally, everyone at Getaround puts in much more time than
they would, otherwise. But, it`s partially part of the culture
and it`s just a passion people have for what we`re doing and
it`s fun.
I think if it feels too much like work, people won`t do it. But
if it feels like it`s fun, and you`re really doing something
that has meaning, then I think almost anyone would put in more
time in that type of affair.
Basel: Now, you said the magic word, passion. If you have passion,
then you won`t actually consider this as work. It`s just part of
your life that`s fun and you want to pursue.
Tariq: Yes, totally, totally!
Sam: I was definitely going to say the same thing. Realistically, I don`t
even know how many hours a day I put into work.
Basel: I like that answer!
Sam: I`m at the office-
Basel: He can`t count, that`s why!
Sam: Yeah, maybe. 25 hours a day, how`s that? Realistically, I`m at the
office during standard working hours, but outside of those
hours, I`m answering emails, I`m reading up about new
technologies or really cool products that are coming to market,
or just out at a social networking event, meeting new people
that are doing different things. To me, I don`t really think
that it ever really stops. When you`re really passionate about
what you`re doing, it`s always on your mind.
Basel: Absolutely! So, I guess jumping into the financial side, how do
you guys go about the funding and raising funds? That`s always,
I guess in the San Francisco and the Bay areas, a complete work
by itself when it comes to funding. I hear there`s a lot of
money flowing around and people are looking for opportunities.
But, a general question about finance, how did you guys go about
funding and presenting yourself and selling your case and what
not?
Tariq: I think that`s one of those questions, it does vary a lot
depending on where you are. Certainly, out here in the Bay area,
you can raise money. I won`t say almost on the back of a napkin,
but essentially, you can raise it on the back of a napkin. It`s
really just having a good idea of some basic proof points and
you can raise a little bit of money. You can`t raise a lot of
money that way, but you can get going.
I think that`s one of the great things about the Bay area - if
you come out here and you raise a little bit of money, a lot of
people can raise little bits of money and not everyone really
makes it, but it at least gives everybody a shot.
I think it`s a little bit different if you`re on the East coast.
You have to be, I think you probably have to be-
Basel: Adventurous.
Tariq: Yeah, you`ve got to bootstrap a little bit longer and move
things to a point where they`re a little more tangible. At
least, that`s my experience.
As far as pitching, I think there are lots of good resources for
how to pitch. I really like David Rose`s how to pitch a VC type
talk that he gave. I think it`s a really good one, it`s a good
model for a lot of entrepreneurs. Short and to the point, it
touches on the core concepts that investors are going to look
for. That`s my reference frame for pitching investors.
Basel: That`s quite a mouthful! So, in your business, what, and again
I hate those list the top questions or the top whatever. Can you
tell me, both Tariq and Sam, a moment that you feel was the most
satisfying moment in your lifetime of business, up to this
point? Apart from the award, because I know that`s quite huge.
Sam: Yeah, I was going to say, that an easier one. I think if it`s not
that one, then it`s probably when we got our first rental for
Getaround. Before that, everything was very theoretical, it was
life. How quickly are you going to do this, is it just some
crazy idea? Then, in two months when you start doing it, you`re
like wow, what I drew on a whiteboard, whatever number, 12
months ago, is actually becoming real. I think that`s a great
feeling, when something you do becomes tangible and people
actually pay you for it, it`s just a great indication. So, for
me, that`s always, in every business, a great feeling, that
first sale, so to speak.
Basel: Absolutely. How about you, Tariq?
Tariq: So, specific to Getaround, it would be the first time I saw the
car actually get unlocked with the iPhone. That was pretty
interesting, really cool and definitely started to really make
you feel like, this can really work, and you can really
eliminate key exchange and make it hassle free to rent someone
else`s car.
On the Select Start side of things, it would be the pilot that
we did at the Ottawa hospital, where we put iPods in the
physicians` hands and got rid of clipboards, where they would
normally be using those to diagnose patients with printed
patient records. We made everything just completely digital and
integrated into their EMR. So, seeing physicians who were happy
to pick up this technology and felt like it was really improving
their ability to heal people, was pretty revolutionary for me.
Basel: Are they quite open to change? Because, I feel that people,
especially doctors or people who are used to doing something
over the course of many years, are pretty adamant about changing
their habits or changing the way they do things.
Sam: You know what? Surprisingly, with the iPod being such a heavy
consumer product, it`s a product that they were almost already
familiar with, so they were definitely really open to that
change. It`s more the health care institutions that aren`t ready
for the change. They don`t have the infrastructure in place to
support it yet, which is the main barrier there.
Basel: That`s a great point, it`s a fair point. So, I guess jumping
into a personal note, what sort of hobbies do you guys have?
Obviously, you put in a lot of hours, both of you guys, and you
combine work with--and Tariq does not count the hours that he
puts in. So, when you find time to do something, what sort of
stuff do you guys do to take a break from work in a way?
Sam: I guess I`ll go first. It`s probably a better question as to what
hobbies you used to have versus you have. I think things to do
right now is that we have a habit of trying to get one game of
foosball in at the Getaround office every day, so I guess that`s
a hobby. We pass around the title belt, depending on who`s
winning each day. So, that`s [inaudible 24:55] a very small one.
It`s interesting, I used to personally be very much into martial
arts and I like programming computers and hockey. I guess those
would be the three for me. Most of the programming of computers
I do mostly relates to Getaround at the moment. Martial arts, I
haven`t done for a long time. I`d love to get back into it, I`ve
been trying to.
Hockey, I haven`t done for a long time with the exception of
playing a game on Saturday up in Vancouver. That was a lot of
fun, after eating ice cream cone, which wasn`t the greatest
idea. It was an opportunity I wasn`t going to pass up, but it
went well. I paid for it a little bit I think on Sunday and
Monday as I was really sore in all these places where I didn`t
even know I had muscles. But, it was a lot of fun, that`s sort
of neat.
Basel: That`s cool. I haven`t played hockey myself, but I`ve heard a
lot of good things about the sport itself. It`s really fun.
Basel: How about you, Tariq?
Tariq: For me, probably my biggest hobby that I used to have was music
producing, specifically electronic music. But, with work, I had
to take a bit of break on it. I`m getting back into it now, more
on the DJ`ing side of things. But, when I have time, I just like
to put on some nice music and just relax. I can really just
relax and just forget about everything and do that when I get
into it. So, that would probably be one of my favorite pastimes.
It`s still a hobby, I`m trying to get more into it again.
Traveling is something I`m starting to get big on now that
Select Start is on two feet. I`m thinking about starting to take
some vacation. So, if that works out, I`ll be doing some
traveling a lot, a bit more.
Basel: Wow, that`s awesome. I`d encourage you to visit the Middle
East. Maybe, some countries you may want to stay away from these
days, but I`d encourage to visit countries like Jordan or Syria.
I mean, I`m sorry, Lebanon. Right now, a lot of good things are
happening and it`s really quite interesting, especially now,
like I was saying, there`s a big boom coming in terms of people
trying to do things from an online or mobile apps sort of speed.
So, that`s really exciting nowadays.
I guess before we close, I wanted to ask you guys about what are
the big plans. Usually, I`m not expecting you guys to answer
that, but I really want to answer to my question. In terms of
strategies, do you guys have plans to go beyond the North
American market and, again I want to plug in the Middle East as
much as I can, but I understand that you guys are not too
plugged in with that market. But, what sort of plans do you guys
have for the future for both businesses?
Sam: That`s always a good question. We definitely have aspirations beyond
U.S. borders and North American borders. Where we go from there,
I don`t think we`ve really determined yet. We`re certainly
interested in everywhere, through Europe, the Middle East, out
to the Far East. We really feel that in a lot of areas Getaround
really can work, it can help people.
I know I`ve seen how many cars exist in Cairo, for example, and
how people drive down there. It certainly would be good to take
a few cars off the road in that type of an environment. If we
can help people save money and share cars in a way that made
sense, we`d probably be for it. It`s a bit of an interesting
market in a lot of ways that-
Basel: Absolutely, it`s insane. How about Select Start Studios, Tariq?
Tariq: At Select Starts, we`re actually just in the process of getting
in to the U.S. now. We`re setting up a couple sales offices. On
the Adaptive front, we are actually looking at the Middle East
as a market that we will probably have to play in soon. Health
care down there, there`s a lot of countries that are really
starting to invest money in infrastructure. So, it`s an
opportunity for us, if we can convince them of the benefit that
mobile brings to the institution, then we can definitely make a
play down there.
Basel: There you go, you`ve got your vacation right there.
Sam: That`s two for one!
Basel: So, thank you guys for your time. We really appreciate it and
we hope to see you guys soon with more success stories from both
sides. We look forward to seeing you in the Bay area soon.
Sam: Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much. It`s great.
Basel: Thank you. You guys have a great day.
Tariq: Thank you.
About the Guest:
Sam and Tariq founded Getaround.com back in 2009. Getaround is a car rental marketplace where you can rent a car by the day, by the hour, or the week through a smartphone app.
Sam founder and CEO of Getaround holds a degree in Engineering Physics with First-Class Distinction from Queen’s University, Sam won the Ernst and Young 2009 entrepreneur of the year award at the age of 31.
Tariq the co-founder of Getaround also the CEO / Co-founder at Select Start a mobile application development company which was acquired by Shopify, Tariq holds BSc in computer science from Carleton University
