Story of my life

Hello. Hope all is well with you.

My name is Arash. I go by AJ or Froozle too sometimes. I’m a 27 year old geek who recently made the transition from the tech world into the business world. We’ll get to that a little later, but first a little bit about my background.

I was born in Shiraz, Iran. Left my birth town when I was a little kid and moved to the capital city of Tehran. Lived there for a good 10 years before my dad packed us in a suite case ( not literally ), and moved the whole family to Canada. I’ve lived in Burnaby, Coquitlam and now in Vancouver, British Columbia and love it here. If you have never been to Vancouver, get on a plane right now ( literally, like now !! ). Anyways, I attended highschool here, and then straight to Simon Fraser University, which is one of the top two universities in BC and one of the best in Canada. I’m not exactly sure how they do these rankings, but whatever we’ll take it. I took my time a little bit at SFU, played some intramural sports, goofed around a bit, did some coop etc. Got my degree in Computer Science and started working for the Feds at Public Works and Government Services Canada ( PWGSC ).

I worked at PWGSC for a few coop terms, a bit of contract work, and then full time for about a year after my graduation. It was cool there. I loved the people that I worked with, they were all super nice, some really smart. I still keep in touch with most of them, and we go out for a drink here and there sometimes, or take a trip up to Whistler and do some snowboarding there. As much as I liked the people there, I disliked the job. Well not the job, but the way we went about doing the job. Everything there was old school, and wanting to change was like a sin. The people at the very top that made the final decisions were, let’s just say, not the youngest or the brightest. That was very unfortunate, because we certainly had the talent to revitalize Tech in the Government of Canada. One my friends there, Adam Soltys was one of the purest and best software programmers I’ve ever met. Another one, who works with me now, Lo Chan is a code Nazi. She’s always on my case about standards, testing, commenting and all the goodies. She’s on maternity leave right now, taking care of a cute little boy.

OK, back to the story. So yeah I worked at PWGSC for a bit and then got introduced to Mr. Terry Beech, and his brother, Doug. We started to work on this crowdsourcing business of graphic design. We called it Designtourney. At that time, I was still employed with PWGSC, and my evening and weekends were dedicated to Designtourney. I got tired, fast, and had to pick one. It was an easy choice; I picked Designtourney, and quit my cushy stable government job. After a little while, we decided to expand the business and enter the freelancing space as well. Good decision. Another good decision was coming up with a name that we liked. After a good night of drinking with the Beech Boys, we came up with HiretheWorld. It was beautiful, and we loved it ( we still love it ). At the same time, we were looking for some investment, and were participating in a competition for one hundred thousand dollars, at New Ventures BC. That was a lot of work, but well worth it, as we won first place among many super start ups. We also closed our first round of financing on December 24th, 2010 ( best Christmas gift ever ).

Come January of 2012, we started looking for people that could help us grow our venture. We found plenty of good young talent, who were just as excited as we were, about kicking this thing into second gear. Ever since, we’ve been going at it beyond full time and have made HiretheWorld a force to be reckoned with. We spent the majority of 2011 developing the product into a great website. 2012, is the year of marketing, financing and improving our product. If you haven’t checked out the site, do it now ( like literally right now. Here’s the link https://www.hiretheworld.com ). It’s a great resource for getting work done on a contract basis, all over the internet, from professionals that live all around the world, and are absolutely one hundred percent ready and geared to work. It’s fast, secure, with great results. You’ll love it. Trust me.

Anyways, that’s my life right now. I’m the Chief Technology Officer and the Co-Founder of HiretheWorld. I spend day and night on this venture, and have super high hopes for it, and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished over this short period of time. I also love sports. I’m really good at soccer. I train hard and play hard. I’m also a HUGE Miami Dolphins fan ( those are the american football guys from, well Miami ). I have a beautiful and amazing girlfriend, who I really love. I have the best parents and siblings in the world, and I’m really really blessed to be where I am today ( took that line right out of Tebow’s playbook ).

I enjoy talking to young entreprenuers and people that are passionate about what they do in general. If you are one of them, and want to chat, let me know. You can follow me on twitter at twitter.com/arashafrooze, or email me. My email address is my first name at hiretheworld.com .

Cheers,

Froozle