Aras Sheikhi: Bridging Academia and Entrepreneurship for Immigrant Innovators (Part One)

Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepard, brought to you by startupscience.io. Greg is an entrepreneur who's built and sold 12 businesses, a recipient of 4 private equity awards, featured TEDx speaker, and Ben Bella Publishing and Penguin Random House author. Here's Gregory Shepard.

My guest today is Ara Shaikh, a dynamic leader bridging academia and industry, transforming innovative ideas into marketable With a background in electrical engineering and global startup experience, he serves as the entrepreneurial lead at UC San Diego and the chief executive officer at the Janus Innovation Hub, which empowers immigrant-owned pre-seed startups. I really appreciate you jumping on the show. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Greg. Uh, it's my honor. Thank you for having me in your prestigious podcast. Thank you so much for your invitation.

It's very kind. So I wanted to ask you, so you have this background in academia, but then you transitioned into entrepreneurship. So maybe you could share a little bit about your academia background and then explain to the listeners why you would go from academia to entrepreneurship. It's like a very different, a different thing, you know, to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

2 different worlds, really 2 different worlds. When I was in high school, I'm from the top-notch students. We, I'm a bookworm. I was a bookworm at that time and I ranked 14 in entrance exam of the universities in Iran. I born in Iran. And so rank 14 is something special in entrance of the universities in Iran. And Each top-notch students go to the computer science and electrical engineering right now. I'm talking about 20 years ago. This, that was the same. So I entered to the university as an electrical engineer, as electrical undergrad students and, uh, passed bachelor as a first-ranked student, master as a first-ranked student, all without any Ups and downs, very rigid and solid output. A plus, A plus, A plus. The PhD as well. All the session in Sharif University of Technology, the best university in technical and science major fields. After that, I decided to continue my career path as a faculty member at Sharif University of Technology. I selected as a faculty member there. I worked there for more than 4 years, and that's the pivotal point for me. During that time when I was faculty member at electrical engineering and energy systems, I found that just with papers and research, you cannot have a big impact in the world. That was not my character. I'm looking for something else to find a way to be more impactful. So I tried to convert my academia research to products. I have 2 labs that time. First was decentralized distributed data systems. We are working on deep technology in blockchain and cryptocurrencies. And also Industry 4.0, we work on predictive maintenance systems in rotary equipment. In 2016, I found that I need to do a pivot and move to to the area of entrepreneurship. Uh, I did that pivot. I set up my own company, my own startups. That was really tough and hard moments. Very hard. Say goodbye to the universities somehow.

And the easy, predictable lifestyle that's associated with it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

You went, you went from sitting on the sofa to like running a marathon when you go from academia to entrepreneurship, you know?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's 2 totally different pathways.

When you went from academia to entrepreneurship, I mean, that must've been a really difficult transition. What were some of the things that you ran into? Like, you know, entrepreneurs experience self-doubt and imposter syndrome and incredible amounts of anxiety and stress associated with your own ability to live. I mean, these things must have hit you like a truck when you left academia. Can you talk a little bit about that? I find that gray area in between to be very difficult for people. Maybe they could learn from your experience.

Yeah, I, you know, I can write 2, 3 books about that gray area, about that moment of detaching from academia and that transition period and move to the uh, entrepreneur world. If I want to talk about that gray area, that was, uh, really tough, you know. And the most important things that helped me in that, uh, transition period was my team. I had very good co-founders. I have very good teammates. I'm also a good team player. I think so.

Did you have this idea when you were in academia and then move into entrepreneurship, or did you get the idea— okay, got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

Okay, okay.

You know, we work on several ideas, but all in papers and all in the, as a project, not as a product. You know, we're not looking for the sustainable solution. We're just looking for, yeah, let's do some simulation without thinking about how we can make it impactful in the world, in a real practice. The last module of this puzzle is how I can connect these 2 parts. from academia to the, uh, real world. And, uh, the bridge between these two is, uh, one sentence: I have to detach from academia somehow and, uh, invest my time and resource in being entrepreneur.

And as you did this, I mean, it seems like just simultaneously being, you know, sort of leaving academia and going into entrepreneurship It's like having 2 full-time— how did you, how did you juggle this? I mean, it seems like there's so much to do. Both of these things are more than full-time jobs. How did you, I mean, were you just up 24 hours a day? How did you pull this off?

My teammates helped me a lot in this transition, period. Uh, you know, saying goodbye to university is not a one-shot game. It's not a button that you can press it and say goodbye. It takes at least 1 year to say goodbye to all your, um, uh, students that you collaborate with, the connection that you have with university, the lecture that you did in the university. And the most important things that helped me to make this transition, to make this transition was my teammates. They helped me. They offload some of the, uh, loads and burden in my shoulder. And that's the most important things I can share with the audiences. If you have a good team in your company, if you have somehow try to improve your leadership skills, then you can deal with this issue much easier. It's super tough, but you need to be great. You need to be resilient in passing this Uh, period from academia to entrepreneurship.

Well, let's move on to your, to your fashion company. Let's talk a little bit about this because this is pretty cool. Maybe you could tell the listeners what it is, how you got the idea, how you moved into this, and how you got this idea to integrate Iranian culture stories into product design. I mean, this is like a really cool unique way to approach something.

This is, uh, the, some part of my job that I can plug out from. Uh, this is like a game for me. This is like my interest, my hobby. Uh, you know, I'm not getting hired when I go to this part of my, my jobs. This is full of art, full of energy, full of colors. And, uh, somehow it's balanced between tough job in computer science. Solid job and blockchains. I just find a pathway to get there. Hey, hello guys! I'm here to help you. Let me write down something for you as a description of those clothes. Let me help you in designing that part. For me, it's like a best way to plug out. This fashion company—the idea of this fashion company came from Shiraz. Shiraz is the one of the major cities in Iran, full of. Culture and full of fashions and arts. I'm definitely sure that you heard about Shiraz wine. This is, it came from that part of the world. I know a lot of people there working in art and fashions and, uh, uh, I invited them to, let's do something that I can export them into Australia. And we set up the company in Australia. We, tailor-made those kind of special clothes as an art, not as a mass production. Uh, they're just, uh, produced with a, uh, tailor-made, uh, intention, with a tailor-made, uh, attention to the details.

You didn't have the idea to like build a big business. You were just building a hobby.

No, no, this is not, no, this is not a big business. I'm not looking for this big business for this. This is, Just something as my hobby that I do it and I try to make something different, the touch of the art world as my signature in that area.

What a beautiful thing. Let me ask you, you mentioned Sydney. So how did your experience at the University of Technology in Sydney differ from the experience that you had in your academic roles in Iran? Like, what was the differences?

You know, the main differences in University of Technology at Sydney with Iran, as with Sharif University of Technology, the main difference was my experience in entrepreneurship chapters. In Sydney, you know, this is a developed country and Australia is a developed country and they helped me to understand better how I can convert the research into real products, the tangible product that can work in the real world. But you know, when it comes down to comparison with United States, UCSD in United States, really some— somewhere else. But yes, Australia helped me to test my approaches and, uh, converting research into products, into real practice. The things that I can chime into it is we have a great project in Australia, LFI fire detection platform. We learned a lot from those moments. You know, we, I learned that how we can handle a project in COVID era. And that's a big thing for me. That's, it has a very great impact in my career path because we learned how we can manage people from different parts of the uh, country from different parts of the world, because a few of my, uh, teammates were in, uh, Dubai. A few of them live in Canada. A few of them live in Australia because we all moved with, um, startup visa to the different parts of the world.

I mean, I'm really curious also your academic and environmental advocacy influence. You seem to be really big on environmental impact. And you are using this in your entrepreneurial adventures. And I'm really curious where this came from, how you're using it, and what you're doing now. Let's talk about what you're doing now as well.

We traveled because of money. You know, we traveled for looking for money, looking for resources. We moved from Iran to Dubai. We moved from Dubai to Australia. The main reason was resources. As a first-generation immigrants in each of this country, we have plenty of problems to getting to right position to find out what exactly we need to find out, uh, to find out the resources. You know, I think that the, one of the most problem, one of the most issues in the world for every people is matchmaking, to find, to connect between demand and resource in a perfectly good way. When we were in Australia, me and my teammates and my co-founders, uh, had a dream at that time that if we can make a fortune, if we can do something special and make fortune, We have to do something different for first-generation immigrants to help them, to support them, to empower them for creating their own business, for creating their own startups. And at the end of the day, in 2022, when I moved to the US and collaborating with UCSD as an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur lead in A few of projects there. I found that that was the best time to do that. And, you know, United States, I think, is the best up to my knowledge as someone who lived in at least five countries, and United States is the last one. United States is the great resources, have a great, has a great resources, different kind of resources for all immigrants that came across the U. this, but you know, they cannot match well to each other because of mismatch between resource and demands.

Sounds like timing too, right?

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course. This is of course absolutely correct. We think that if we can get a super tiny niche market, first-generation immigrants based on our capacity, our capacity is, is super limited. We are a few guys, okay, with a backpack of knowledge and experience, with backpack of 8 years, 9 years experience of living in different countries. We have a lot, we have a lot to share with the other people. It's a social responsibility. So let's do something different to have an impact in, uh, SoCal, to have an impact in San Diego, uh, for first-generation immigrants. And we established Janus Innovation Hub as an incubator designed for first-generation immigrants to help them, empower them for their journey.

I mean, the United States is all immigrants, right? I mean, the only people that aren't immigrants are the indigenous people. So every one of us are immigrants, right? To the whole country. And I think that it's one of the things that makes the United States so valuable. And I think that, you know, when I look around at the immigrants, at least in the studies and the research I've done, which is extensive on founders, they have a higher success ratio. And I think part of that is because they don't give up. And part of that is because they're used to struggle and they're used to things being different and they're used to going after things regardless of, you know, whether or not they have imposter syndrome and they feel like, They just, I'm going to do this, right? Because I've survived this long and I've come here not knowing any English and now I can speak English and so on. I think that the immigrants are a key to the success of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in any country, especially the United States. So, you know, I bow my head to folks like you who come here and, you know, build companies and make wonderful things happen. And now you've built a company that builds companies.

So, yeah, for sure.

The Janus, it's, it's the most beautiful thing. You've taken an otherwise abandoned and stepped-over crowd of people, created an environment for them to create businesses and not just change their own lives, but change everyone's lives. I think that the Janus Innovation Hub is, is just, uh, the brainchild of somebody that has to be you. You know, to be able to pull that off.

Thanks for your kind wording, you know, and the ecosystem of San Diego, they helped me a lot to make it happen. You know, they're very kind people here in startup ecosystems. They're not in a competitive mood. They all try to connect me to the resources, to connect me to the right people to elevate Janus Innovation Hubs step by step and make it more high profile between first-generation immigrants, between universities, between organizations here. And I really appreciate all the people support me in San Diego. Really love the ecosystem of startups in San Diego. This is something super cool and very inviting.

I think that San Diego is a lot different. You know, I cut my teeth up in Silicon Valley. And it's not the same up there as it is down here. Not everybody is so friendly and willing to help you up there, right? It's a little more cutthroat. All right, Aras, let's stop here. Coming up next time on the Startup Science Podcast, Aras will share what he learned about successful startups during the pandemic.

If you want to be on the same page, you need to communicate as much as possible. You don't need to delve into the old disciplines and know every corner of science, for example, or every corner of that discipline to talk with them. You only need to try to communicate with people well, have a general knowledge of that, and ask people, ask the different disciplines, ask the different teams to talk with each other.

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