Within the Eighties, Payam Zamani was rising up in Iran as a member of the Baha’i Religion — a gaggle persecuted by the Iranian authorities, which killed a whole lot of Baha’is within the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Life for Baha’is within the nation had been powerful even earlier than the rebellion, nevertheless it turned more and more so after the actual fact, Zamani tells Entrepreneur.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of One Planet Group. Founder, chairman and CEO of One Planet Group Payam Zamani.
When Zamani was 10, a mob incited by college officers chased him off campus and tried to kill him. He survived, and by age 16, was lastly capable of flee the nation. Zamani recounts the 1987 escape in his ebook Crossing the Desert: The Energy of Embracing Life’s Tough Journeys, which was revealed earlier this yr. Finally, Zamani would make a life for himself within the U.S., however his first cease was Pakistan, the place he turned a stateless refugee.
“I bear in mind the day that I used to be admitted to enter the U. S. Embassy in Pakistan as a result of the U.S. knew what [I was] coping with as a Baha’i from Iran,” Zamani says. “That was the primary time in my life, on the age of 16, I skilled human rights. There was a rustic midway all over the world that valued my life greater than my very own nation did. And that’s one thing that at all times caught with me.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of One Planet Group
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Zamani stayed in Pakistan for a yr earlier than he and his brother Frank Zamani arrived in San Francisco, California in 1988. The brothers had $75 between them and labored no matter jobs they may to make ends meet. Zamani completed his final yr of highschool and attended UC Davis whereas his brother enrolled at Chico State. Zamani studied environmental toxicology with the concept of going into medication; his brother majored in laptop science.
Nevertheless, by the point he graduated, Zamani had a unique skilled purpose: He wished to begin a enterprise within the environmental area. “I knew little or no,” Zamani says. “I used to be solely 23 years previous. I had simply come to the U.S. I had simply realized English. I used to be talking the language with a thick accent.”
“I had owned 16 vehicles already, low cost vehicles. I might purchase and promote them to expertise totally different vehicles.”
However Zamani would notice one other entrepreneurial alternative. In 1994, his brother landed a job at Microsoft and was available on the market for a brand new Honda. He referred to as Zamani to tell him of a discovery: Honda did not have a web site. Zamani did not know a lot concerning the web on the time (few folks did), so he wasn’t essentially stunned that the automobile producer did not have an on-line presence.
Nonetheless, when his brother steered they begin a web site dedicated to vehicles, Zamani was intrigued — as a result of vehicles had been his ardour. “I had no cash,” Zamani says, “however I had owned 16 vehicles already, low cost vehicles. I might purchase and promote them to expertise totally different vehicles. And I cherished the concept of arming shoppers with extra info than the automobile sellers and salesmen had.”
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Zamani describes a typical situation: You negotiate the value of a automobile, buy it, then come dwelling, and a pal or member of the family who is aware of vehicles tells you it was a nasty deal. Zamani wished to take the entire guesswork and remorse out of the equation; he wished folks to have the main points they wanted to navigate the transaction successfully. They’d name their enterprise AutoWeb.
“We had been the primary firm ever to supply bill costs of vehicles to shoppers,” Zamani says. “Sellers didn’t prefer it, however our view was, ‘Look, if the shoppers present up, the trade will inevitably present up. So, it’s our job to make it engaging to shoppers, after which the sellers will compete for the shoppers’ transactions. And that turned out to be the case.”
“It was towards all odds that we had been capable of construct that enterprise and develop it to what it turned.”
Within the Nineties, Zamani says he and his brother had been “the oddballs in Silicon Valley.” They knew nothing about beginning a enterprise. They’d no community within the U.S., so that they had no mentors. They did not know the time period “enterprise capital” till a VC reached out to them. But no problem appeared insurmountable after what they’d already overcome, Zamani recollects.
“It was perseverance and being on the proper place on the proper time and assembly some phenomenal folks alongside the best way that ended up serving to us,” Zamani explains. “However it was towards all odds that we had been capable of construct that enterprise and develop it to what it turned.”
Fundraising proved a big hurdle. In these days, for those who weren’t a white man from an Ivy League college, you would not get funded, Zamani says. So, despite the fact that AutoWeb continued to develop and see success, it wasn’t attracting buyers. “In the present day we see that that is commonplace, in fact, for girls in Silicon Valley, that they’ve a really arduous time getting funding,” Zamani notes. “And again then, that problem was prolonged to even males if they didn’t match the mould.”
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The Zamani brothers needed to go all the best way to Fort Lee, New Jersey to elevate cash — and “at a a lot decrease valuation than any firm in our state of affairs would have raised.” What’s extra, it wasn’t till the spherical earlier than AutoWeb’s IPO that enterprise capital in Silicon Valley was keen to again it, albeit nonetheless at a considerably decrease valuation than peer firms would obtain, in line with Zamani.
AutoWeb went public in 1999 and reached a $1.2 billion valuation, with shares peaking at $50.
“Our pockets are full, however we really feel empty. There’s one thing basically lacking.”
Zamani was in New York on the day of the IPO. “I am embarrassed to say this at present, however what went by way of my thoughts at that second when the corporate was going public for $1.2 billion was, Now I’ve received to do one thing larger,” Zamani recollects. At simply 28 years previous, Zamani wasn’t ready for that stage of monetary success, he admits.
The corporate additionally wished a brand new CEO. “Silicon Valley cherished hiring gray-haired folks for CEO roles, and I didn’t get that mould both,” Zamani says. “So we employed a CEO who I didn’t suppose was the appropriate man for the job, and he proved that very quickly after. So I made a decision it was time to maneuver on and do one thing else in my life.”
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Zamani was disenchanted together with his expertise on Wall Road. He says that whereas founders try to construct firms, VCs and Wall Road need to maximize the share worth, even when it means manipulating it earlier than they’re “capable of dump it on the proper time and transfer on.”
“That type of capitalism is what has left us all, even the entrepreneurs, founders and executives, feeling that we’re empty on the finish of it: Our pockets are full, however we really feel empty,” Zamani says. “There’s one thing basically lacking.”
“I wished to make it possible for no matter I construct considers the true essence of who we’re as people.”
So Zamani determined to lean into his religious upbringing for his future enterprise endeavors. In 2015, he based One Planet Group, a non-public fairness agency that invests in early-stage firms specializing in the way forward for mobility, training enhancements, well being expertise and environmental options.
Zamani says the group’s title evokes the concept that we’re all residents of 1 nation: Planet Earth.
“I wished that idea of unity to be an essential a part of no matter I used to be constructing,” he explains, “and I wished to make it possible for no matter I construct considers the true essence of who we’re as people, because the religious beings that we’re. I do not need to take a look at you or anybody else I will work with as a client, as a competitor, as an worker, as a token of financial worth, however slightly one thing a lot larger than that.”
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“For those who’re making that journey one thing that is price residing, you’ll at all times really feel fulfilled.”
Zamani says he could not perceive why nonprofit organizations needed to stand for the folks and companies for greed, so he is doing what he can to bridge the hole.
In 2022, Zamani and One Planet Group skilled a full circle second: the acquisiton of AutoWeb. The deal, valued at just below $5.5 million, was not solely a compelling monetary alternative, but in addition one with private significance, Zamani says. “It was an opportunity to convey closure to a chapter that had remained unwritten for years,” he explains. “Returning to the place all of it started and guiding it ahead was each significant and fulfilling.”
In keeping with Zamani, aspiring entrepreneurs who need to make an influence with a enterprise of their very own ought to discover a mentor, before everything — not a member of the family, however somebody who will inform you the reality.
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Then floor your self in values that fulfill your wants as a human and elevate your online business to assist different folks.
“On the finish of the day, that may make your journey way more fulfilling,” Zamani says. “The very fact is the overwhelming majority of companies do not survive. So that you need to make that journey price experiencing, and never simply looking for an exit, looking for an IPO which will by no means occur. Then you definitely really feel like, ‘Ah, that was a failure.’ However for those who’re making that journey one thing that is price residing, you’ll at all times really feel fulfilled whether or not or not that climax comes about in your online business.”
