An Interview with TransferGuru Founder Omid Pakseresht ā Part One ā The Road to TransferGuru
As part of our drive to build trust between our staff and you, the users, we sat TransferGuru founder Omid Pakseresht down for an interview about founding the company, how he got where he is and what the future is for Fintech.
Always candid, refreshing and insighful: Part One covers the early years, but keep an eye on our page this week for parts Two and Three ā Omid will be discussing his vision for the potential of fintech, and what companies like TransferGuru can do to help people.
Meet the Founder ā Early Days
āItās one of the most significant things thatās happened in recent history, or, you know, history.ā
Omid, today you are a successful fintech start-up founder and part of a really interesting project; but before that you were a young guy who left his finance job for an unknown future. So letās start there. Can you tell me a bit about your background and what got you here?
I grew up in Iran, in a little town. Not a very small town, actually, just outside Tehran, with my parents and two brothers. Then I moved to Norwich when I was 16, by myself, so I was in a flat for six months, just watching TV and learning English ā which was the best way possible.
You learnt English watching TV?
Yeah! There was a lot of āFriendsā, there was āHome and Awayā. āScrubsā! That was a big one. Mostly āFriendsā.
My parents were planning to retire in the UK, but they hadnāt made the move themselves, yet. It was a big shock to the system, I lost 16 years of work building a social circle. And you come here and you donāt know anyone.
I tried for about six months, but the place that I lived in had really early broadband, and it was absolutely terrible. I used to spend hours on the phone trying to troubleshoot. It just never happened. That was really suffocating. Without internet you canāt speak to people back home ā and already, all of my social circles had formed online as well. Those were the days of Yahoo messenger, and MSN messenger. So I lost people in my proximity, but also there was six months in the UK that I lost a digital life too. And that really, you know, living by yourself not knowing anyone ā that was a bit of a strange experience.
So you could say that it started quite early ā your experience of the break when you move to another country, and how useful online services could be at making that easier?
Yeah. I mean, thatās the thing, right? Electricity, the telegram, the telephone came in ā they made a huge impact. But nothing has ever had the power that the web has had, which is to connect so many people together like that. It just opens up endless possibilities ā itās one of the most significant things thatās happened in recent history, or, you know, history. Youāre doing global trade. You have digital currencies. You have things that ā youāve got a gazillion global micro-finance initiatives, all because people have mobiles now. And, you know, that is unbelievably powerful, all within the space of 15 years. At my age, you sort of grew up feeling that happening, gradually. Whoās to say whatās going to happen in the next 15.
But I was pretty digital from the start, even in Iran. We had dial-up for a good four or five years before I left ā me and my friends used to play FIFA 2001 together on the computer via LAN connections.
It was great. The family used to get very pissed off, obviously, with the phone bill. And then when they picked up the phone, the game would break. And it would be, like, 2-1 down, 90th minute, then crashā¦ āOh my god.ā
And now your Xbox comes pre-connected-
-Yeah! Iāve lived through all of that 15 years, and Iāve grown up through that. And thatās been really exciting.
Would you hazard a guess as to the next 15 years?
Haha ā Iām currently trying very hard to guess what could happen in the next two years. Once Iāve covered that, I will start thinking about the rest.
āI ended up missing business studies every week to work on this small businessā¦I got an Eā
You started out running a market stall in Norwich ā How much of that younger guy who ran that market stall do you carry around with you today?
The hustle days. Thatās a long story, maybe I should just tell the story, and then we can talk about how that stayed with me. So my family moved here, and my parents retired here, I was expected to go to university when I finished my A levels. The idea was that I wouldnāt pay international student fees because we were due to get citizenship before University started. Then there was a big immigration re-think, and the Government changed some rules, and suddenly that one-year gap year turned into three years. That was very frustrating.
When I took the first gap year, I thought I would be okay by next year. But then the rules changed. I thought it would be okay the year after.
So that really put me at a weird place in life at the age of 18 ā Iād been doing a bit of this and that, I worked for a guy at a market stall. I remember we had to go set up the whole thing at 5.30 in the morning. We sold biker clothing and hip-hop clothing. A strange mix.
So it would be like getting up at 5, leaving 5.30, youād be setting up by 6 for 8 oāclock when people start coming. And itās ā I mean, itās tough. Itās not what I was used to, exactly, but I still enjoyed doing it. I was earning a little bit of money, and doing my A Levels at the same time.
I ended up missing business studies every week to work on this small business. They told me to do the exam anyway, but they didnāt tell me about the material you were supposed to reference. I got an E.
Haha, and now youāre a start-up founder? What happened then?
Well my parents were really insistent that I go to university, Iād been offered a place at Imperial, so they still tried to pay the international fees. But it wouldāve absolutely broken them. So instead they invested Ā£5000 for me to go and start something in the meantime. Iād always planned to go to university at the end of it, so you know, I was not planning to build a unicorn before going to uni. It was just something to keep me busy for a couple of years. The company was called āGiftie Limitedā.
Haha it was a terrible name. I didnāt allow myself to choose the name for TransferGuru. So I learned my mistake there. Yeah, I mean I guess anything could be a gift, right? Haha ā¦ no?
We didnāt really do much to do with gifts anyway!
It was basically e-commerce, I did everything. E-commerce with a small shop front. And I got hold of a converted container, and used to go round the markets every week. I learnt a lot.
Yeah, like a shipping container. It turned into a shop, you could just pack it away and go and come back next week, and your shop was waiting.
It was really fun. By the end Iād had an offer from Oxford ā I just packed away the business, sold all the stock, was ready to go. And then there was another year to wait! I ended up doing a music course, to pass the year.
So there was a real series of frustrations. Firstly, moving to a new country and learning the language. Then again with getting into university, negotiating the market scene in Norwich. Do you think youāre more equipped to do what youāre doing now because of them?
It made me very wary of what could go wrong so easily.
But these were problems handed down by Government, by authorities, that as an immigrant you didnāt have the ability to adapt to as easily?
No, you canāt. And itās a problem. But it ties back to why I love the web so much, because you can just connect to anything. You can get help.
So at that time, did you embrace the potential of the internet as a way to get round these frustrations?
The core was there. I had been very reliant on it, so I really felt it when it was taken away after the move. Try to live without Internet for six months now ā people struggle!
Haha ā I relied on free wi-fi for a long time
This was 10 years ago. There was no free wi-fi anywhere!
So when you were running this market stall, were you dreaming of running another business eventually?
At that age, If someone really pushed me to say something I would say I wanted to be manager. My dad was a manager for a very long time ā and a lot of people that worked with him really respected him. I looked up to that.
Was it an ego thing at that stage?
I wouldnāt say it was an ego thing.
Itās very common for a young man to want to be in charge.
Haha Iām talking about when I was 10. So thatās all I ever said as a kid, whereas my brother would want to sell chewing gum, and then the next day he would want to be a lorry driver. He would change his mind every day. Theyāre not connected!
So did you look up to your dad a lot when you were younger?
And your older brothers as well?
Yeah. In different ways. But yeah, definitely. And I still do, I have to say.
But you had to leave them to go to university ā when you finally did ā and study Maths. Why Maths specifically? Could it have been any STEM subject, or did you have that special affinity for Maths?
I went to school in Iran at the age of 10, a school that you had to take loads of exams to get in to, and you had to start specialising in maths and physics at the age of 11. So the maths came easy ā they start prepping you for Olympiads really early. Then when I came to Norwich I interviewed to finish off the GCSEs with everyone else, and they were just said āNo, donāt worry, come back for A Levelsā. Then they called me a week later and said, āYou should do Further Maths as wellā. So it wasnāt a big decision for me to do Maths, it just happened and itās quite useful now. I mean, itās given me ways of thinking that I didnāt really have before. Thatās great, but I wouldnāt want to do a PhD in it!
Weāll put part two up tomorrow ā Omid talks about the state of the fintech scene, how he got into start-ups and the future of finance.
