Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Sid Mohasseb

Sid's journey to United States started when he was 16 years old when he attended a boarding school. He always had a curious mind and launched his very first company after 5 years of being in the States. 

He was only 21 years old when he launched his very first business. Although he had several different businesses in his immigrant entrepreneur journey, he's focused his last several years being a venture capitalist. 

Sid focuses on investing, mentoring, speaking and being an adjuct professor at the University of Southern California. He's an author of several books and his most recent one, You Are Not Them, is definitely a must read. 

Sid breaks down barriers, and creates innovation in amazing ways. He's definitely a thought leader and he also has taken the stage on TEDx. In this episode he provides amazing wisdom to all entrepreneurs in all stages. 

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Donizete (Donny) Minchillo Jr. 

Donny's journey to entrepreneurship was definitely not a straight path. He initiallly dabbled with selling random things on eBay and that's where he got hooked. He had several different businesses along the way, one was a furniture company, another one was something similar to Groupon but in the end he launched Pineapple Development which helps customers with Magento and Shopify platforms. 

He didn't stop there! Shortly after, he acquired another business that was completely unrelated to his past experience and unrelated to software development. Both of his businesses now generate roughly $500k annually!

Donny's entrepreneurial journey is definitely one of a kind and in this episode he gives some powerful and transformational advice to all immigrants!

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Abdulhamid Ali

Growing up in Somalia, Abdulhamid had a great childhood, but after the Somalian's pressident got assasinated he had to grow up very quickly. His father went to prison several times and his mom was left with 6 kids to care for. It turns out that his mom became extremely entrepreneurial and made the best out of what they had. 

If you wanted to go to college in Somalia, the goverment told you want you were going to study and you had no other choice. The decision that the goverment made for me, was nothing that he wanted to study so Abdulhamid decided to pursue engineering instead. 

There was no other choice but to get out of the country to study his passions in civil engineering. 

In this episode he shares his journey from the very beginning, his struggles and reveals why he decided to leave the public sector. So.. stay tuned!

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Igor Krasnykh

Igor immigrated from Russia at 17 years old.. He didn't know much of any English and the English that he did know wasn't helping him much. He was always interested in software, and the IT world so he started several different businesses on the side. Some of them failed but he didn't stop there. 

He is a college dropout and one of his side hustles that he started (PowerSync) allowed him to grow that company all organically and without much of any advertising. His startup cost was a whopping $200. 

He is self taught in everything computer related and the software industry. When he saw some traction in the very beginning stages he kept working at it for around 8 years until he finally couldn't take it anymore. Well, he saw substantial growth and he had to make a decision. Does he quit his corporate career or sell his side gig? 

His decision to take PowerSynce full time eventually allowed him to generate $1M in revenue in only 1 year. 

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Gurhan Demirkan

Gurhan grew up in Turkey where his dad always said that he will be living in America one day. He also constantly encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and to be your own boss. That was instilled in his brain at a very young age. 

He immigrated at the age of 18 and didn't know any English at all. He decided that if he was going to learn English, living with his brother is not going to help him. So he decided to live on campus at college. 

His background is in mechanical engineering, but when you listen to his entrepreneur journey he's owned and operated several different companies that have nothing related to engineering. 

Today, he operates two companies. Chattypix is in augmented reality industry and Biavexia is in the health supplement industry. 

His story is definitely one of a kind!

Show notes

Laura Kinser is a startup clinic consultant that has a wealth of experience with startups from the Silicon Valley. 

In this episode she goes over the step by step process of what it takes to open a startup in 2021 for immigrants. She also provides an extensive amount of resources that will guide you in the process. She is highly intelligent in the startup businesses and works with plenty of entrepreneurs in their startup journeys. 

Show notes

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Vladimir Vasilenko

Doctor Vasilenko is a very special guest on my show. He immigrated from Russia to Canada and had a very pleasant immigration process. In fact it took him less than 4 months for all the immigration to be completed and finalized. 

He founded Global Warming Solutions out of survival and needed to get the renewable and energy efficient products out there. He took his company public shortly after creating his company and there is a reason for that! 

Doctor Vasilenko creates innovation where none has been made before!

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Eddie Garcia

Eddie traveled on foot from Mexico with his older brother and his father when he was 5 years old. He had no idea what was going on, and was totally oblivious to the fact that his dad carried their clothes in zip loc bags. On that journey, that came in handy! When they crossed the sewer water, they had to change their clothes and that's when his dad whipped out fresh clothes out of the zip loc bags. 

He was on track to be an employee and his dad always pushed him to become an entrepreneur. His dad always knew that Eddie had so much more potential than being stuck at a job. 

So when Eddie told his dad he was going to drop out of college, his dad made him promise that he was going to become a millionaire by the age of 30.

Without any real plans he got into real estate, by accident. Now, Eddie holds one of the most successful real estate companies in Chicago and he runs his company from day 1 all with cash flow - absolutely no mortgage loans, and no bank loans!

Link to show notes.

alinawarrick.com

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Fiona Gilbert

Fiona immigrated to United States in her early 20s and landed in Silicon Valley. Shortly after coming immigrating she fell tremendously sick. She was so sick she had to get a service dog that helped her move around. She tried many different treatments and nothing helped.

But with her sickness came a blessing. She was able to find something that allowed her to feel absolutely amazing, and Quanta Therapies was born. 

Not only that, her creativity launched her to create several different companies and now she manages 5 of them. Fiona is so full of creativity and helps people every step of her way through many various stages of their lives. 

Link to show notes.

Immigrant Entrepreneur: Irina Alexander

Irina met her husband in China while working abroad on a summer tour program. She never initally wanted to move to America, but because she married an American (while in China) she moved to Texas in her early 20s. 

She didn't have any family or friends in Texas, and on top of that, her husband had to go to work - overseas. She was left all alone. There were many struggles in her immigrant journey from handling basic phone conversations, to driving to the grocery stores and getting around. 

Irina and her husband decided to launch an HVAC company, but little did she know she was about to run the show all by herself. Not only that, she had 2 kids under the age of 2. 

Her immigrant entrepreneur journey is one of a kind, because she was running her business in a male dominated field. 

This episode is filled with invaluable entrepreneurship advice and she shares her entire story and the struggles along the way.

Link to show notes.