Canadian tech entrepreneur shares success recipe

Parth Patel.

It was a tough sell, convincing his parents, admits Parth Patel. After all, he had dropped out of a degree course in computer science to work full-time in software development already.

Now he was talking about chucking that up to pursue entrepreneurship. And it wasn’t even for what they thought of as an actual business, all he had at the time was an app and the big dream.

Patel went ahead anyway, investing nearly $10,000 of his savings.

“I was pretty much all in!” he says. “But I would say the bigger investment was the faith I put into my venture, the risk I was willing to take.”

The initial platform, called iHired, was born in his bedroom in his parents’ Scarborough home in 2017 – with Patel moving out his bed to make room for two desks, one for himself and the other for co-founder Vivek Patel. This evolved into Tazwiz in 2018, a platform that connects entrepreneurs with students with the skills to get task-based jobs done.

They expanded their platform, secured pre-seed investment and moved to their first office. They are now a team of 21, including 10 overseas. With a mobile app developed and a successful soft launch, they received their closed seed round from a Houston-based investor.

Then they went and donated half of what they’d received.

“We were blessed to receive 500k in funding just before the pandemic hit. So, we decided to pay it forward by giving half of it to other entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs who were trying to survive during this unprecedented time in our economy.”

Patel came to Canada with his parents from Gujarat and the family settled in Scarborough. When he walked into his first day of school in Canada – in grade two – he didn’t speak English.

“The first few months were very hard as I didn’t even know how to ask to be excused to go to the washroom. Fortunately, there were a few other kids in my class who spoke Gujarati who could translate for me.”

They had come in winter and he still remembers the first time he saw snow. “They sent us out at lunch time to get fresh air and though I had a jacket, it wasn’t warm enough. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that cold in my life! Luckily, a teacher saw my plight and brought me inside to warm up. Over time, I picked up the language, got warm clothes and even began to enjoy winter!”

He tells newcomers and those wishing to embark on the journey of entrepreneurship that it is not easy. “Before we got our first angel investor, I had pitched the idea to over 20 others. It was like having some guy tell you your baby was ugly. Basically, it’s like asking someone to believe in you before you have anything concrete to show them. But our attitude is not to be disheartened, we don’t take no for an answer, we find a way. I also learnt along the way that as an entrepreneur, if you have just the idea, don’t pitch the company, pitch the person you are.

“There will be many a time when it will look like it’s not going to work. Even your friends might say you are wasting your time. So do this only if you’re willing to give it your 100 per cent. Anything less is not enough because creating a company demands a lot from a person, it sucks in money, time, effort, but is ultimately so very rewarding.”