Al Eisaian: “There is always funding for good projects”

On February 3, Co-Founder at IconApps and Founder at Integrien (both U.S.-based) Al Eisaian delivered a lecture for young IT specialists at Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia and shared his 20-year practice in managing enterprises.

Al Eisaian is an acknowledged entrepreneur and an investor. A number of IT companies were established and jobs were created in Armenia owing to his efforts, and Integrien, founded by Al Eisaian, was acquired in 2010 by Vmware leading international company providing cloud software and services. The latter is going to make an investment to the tune of USD 100 million in Armenia in the coming four years.

We present excerpts from Al Eisaian’s lecture:

Startup is a team sport

Startup is a team sport – it’s not tennis, its football. If you have a project and only your team uses it, it’s not a nice project. Seek first to understand and only then to be understood.

There is not an Armenian market, there is a global market. When people say “I’m going to develop a project for Armenia”, I often say “that’s great but why you don’t create it for the whole world?”

Opportunities are basically waves – you will either catch them or you miss them. But it doesn’t mean that if you miss one opportunity there will not be another one. Opportunities keep coming. Now all of you have that special and significant opportunity to be in action. You can think you have figured everything in your head but it won’t lead to anything if you don’t take action in your life.

No matter what happens you need to have your target and your goal. There will be lots of people who will say you are crazy to do that thing, they will say you are note experienced enough, you don’t have money, but you will show them middle finger when you prove you can do that.

There are no failures in life, there are only lessons

Everyone defines success on his/her own way. For me, there are certain components of success. For instance, caring. You can’t create anything if you don’t deeply care about it. Caring is something internal. You must love what you do.

If you love something, you must give deep commitment. There are no failures in life, there are only lessons. You look at the past, see your mistakes and make your future decisions better. It’s impossible to succeed without failure. If you have to fail, make sure you fail big. It will be the foundation of your next success.

I personally have learnt more lessons from my failures than from my successes

Startups are not for everybody. But it is really fun if you can look behind and understand that you have learnt so much. You have to work on product, marketing, fundraising, you are afraid every second, that something will go wrong. How much more fun life can be? I personally have learnt more lessons from my failures than from my successes. Fear is not an option when you start a company. That fear will force you back and make you mentally sick.

There is always funding for good projects

No one nowadays can say that he has no access to education or resources. World is open anymore and nobody is isolated.

There is venture capital in Armenia and it looks for good projects to fund, but there are only 3-4 companies that are ready. Don’t say there’s no funding, there is lots of funding.

Don’t sit in the office for 12 hours and say that “I have worked so much,” while 6 hours of these 12 hours you were sitting in Facebook.

Be creative. Endless copying is not pleasant and fun. Do something that is the expression of creativity of your team. It’s actually cool to feel that nobody else has done this.

To talk of issues is a sign of strength

Put first things first. Do your primary work first and then chat in Facebook. This will keep you focused and will make you feel more intentional.

Begin with the end in mind. Ask yourselves “if I have this startup and spend two years working on it, what will this startup reach?” Build the future that cools you. And when you start creating that vivid future, it starts pulling you.

You guys are representatives of Armenia’s technology community. It is necessary to create such types of events, where you can talk to each other, and advise each other. To talk of issues or problems is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. If you want to make a change in Armenia, it’s not about shouting – if each of 100 of you go and inspire 10 people in your community to a change, then this process will occur automatically. Talk to them about the stuff that you are building.

If Armenia has 50 thousand skilled IT professionals, we would become number one in the world over night.

Narine Daneghyan talked to Al Eisaian