Interview with Noubar Tedjirian from Hye Ventures
Hi everyone,
Continuing with our interview series, this week we had the opportunity to chat with Noubar Tedjirian from Hye Ventures. I met Noubar earlier this year as he is actively involved in the tech ecosystem. He is based in Montreal and is currently the Chief of Staff at Wavo.me, the music industry’s leading marketing and analytics platform. Noubar is also the founder of Hye Ventures, an Armenian tech newsletter that is extremely insightful, and I recommend you all sign up! (link at bottom of page).
My interview with Noubar below…
HC: Thanks for taking the time Noubar. Why don’t we start with learning more about your background?
NT: Great. I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. Graduated with a degree in Finance from McGill University. After graduation, I worked in strategy consulting and venture for a bit before getting into the startup scene.
HC: That’s great. So how are you involved in the Armenian tech ecosystem? And what sparked your interest?
NT: I’ve always been involved in the Armenian community through different organizations since my childhood. As I started my professional career, I wanted to combine my support for our community with my love for tech and saw an opportunity to provide news and insights about the community to a broader network, including and not limited to Armenians and tech enthusiasts from all backgrounds and ethnicities. That’s how Hye Ventures started. The first outlet covering Armenian tech and startups.
HC: That’s amazing you’ve been able to combine both passions. Talk a little bit about Hye Ventures. Why did you start this? What is it exactly?
NT: Started in January 2021, Hye Ventures is a newsletter meant for early-stage founders, funders, and operators as well as tech enthusiasts of the Armenian tech community. The goal is to accelerate the success of Armenian founders and funders to build a more prosperous, equitable future. The reason for starting this newsletter was the fact that there was little to no coverage of the growth of the Armenian startup ecosystem. I wanted to create a 1 stop shop where Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora and more importantly non-Armenians could learn about our success stories which could lead to more investment, job opportunities, and success for all involved.
HC: How about the syndicate? Talk about this and what you can offer both investors and companies? Have you made any investments yet?
NT: The syndicate is a vehicle investing in the next generation of Armenian startups. The investment vehicle is looking to invest with a group of angel investors who contribute on a deal-by-deal basis. Portfolio companies will benefit from bringing in investors with a wide range of experience as there is huge value in getting operators on the cap table alongside venture capitalists. We have a couple companies in diligence at this time. If anyone is interested in receiving investment opportunities directly in their inbox, they can sign up through the following link. Read more about it in our post. Founders can also learn more about our strategy from our website and apply directly for financing through it.
HC: Very helpful and seems like a great opportunity… how would you describe the health of Armenia’s tech ecosystem? What excited you the most? Where can it improve? What is lacking?
NT: The ecosystem is growing at an increasingly fast pace. For an ecosystem to be successful, you need a few things, funding, talent, and exits.
Funding. In terms of funding, we have multiple early-stage investors looking to back startups from inception and beyond. That said, we lack growth stage investors from Series B and later which makes it so that some companies stall/fail when they can’t raise those follow-up rounds. This is also an opportunity for outside funds to start backing and leading investment rounds in the growth stages in Armenia. (See picture below)
Talent. We have around 20,000 people working in the tech scene. To keep up with the fast growth, an effort has to be made to recruit more students into this industry by bringing awareness of the opportunities that startups offer vs other jobs. The focus for education in Armenia has always been on engineering talent, but to sustain fast-growing companies, you also need to create HR, business, sales, and Product Manager specialists amongst many other roles.
Exit. To have a healthy tech ecosystem, you need startups to be acquired or have IPOs. Once a startup has an exit, it creates a new pool of wealthy individuals. The newfound wealth of these individuals will push them to either become angels and invest in other startups or start their startups tackling important issues.
What’s exciting is that we are still in the early stages and have so much room to grow with many important problems to solve. Armenia is also an example of how other countries and tech hubs can create equitable environments to foster a diverse and equal workforce as 40% of the Armenian tech workforce is made out of women, which is greater than the global average.
In terms of improvements, we need to make education more accessible. The next generation of startups will need to hire a lot of roles, not only in the engineering department, but also across different business units (i.e.: Product Managers, Marketing, Operations, Finance). Those who specialize in other fields will also be needed in the next few years. The general public also needs to be educated about the growth of the startup ecosystem. Many people outside of the startup “bubble” are not aware of the amazing innovation getting built around them. It will also be imperative to showcase the opportunities that working at a startup could create for someone, either financially or career wise. For example: Armenia offers a higher engineering salary then neighboring countries. See picture
HC: Fantastic overview… and makes sense. Where is there a supply shortage in terms of companies/products/etc.? Where should our future entrepreneurs focus going forward?
NT: Tough question, but outside of getting more late-stage capital and having more talent available to meet the demand, I feel there need to be more startups focusing on fintech in Armenia. With the growth of immigration and remote work, a lot of new immigrants and visitors will come to Armenia. To do so effortlessly, there needs to be some kind of improvement on current financial options (fintech). The solutions could probably be used for neighboring countries as well ultimately increasing the market size and the need to create a such product. Armenia has ~70% internet penetration and the new generation is already a mobile-first generation (the number of mobile connections in Armenia in January 2021 was equivalent to 127.4% of the total population, see the report here!). A lot of opportunities out there looking to be resolved!
HC: From your perspective, what are the 2-3 most common reasons why entrepreneurs fail at scaling their ventures? And how do you recommend they overcome or avoid those?
NT: I would point to two main reasons.
Focus too much time on fundraising and less on finding product market fit (PMF).
Solution: Iterate your product and talk with your customers to understand their needs. Once you find PMF, any investor will be happy to invest in your company if you’re KPIs (Key performance indicators) are at par or better than others in your industry.
Tackle ideas that don’t have large markets.
Solution: Find a problem and create the solution, don’t start by the solution and then find the problem that goes with it. Also, when looking to test your idea, see if your overall market size is in the Billions.
HC: What advice do you have for aspiring and current Armenian entrepreneurs?
NT: Find a startup who’s mission and values align with yours and join them or venture on your own and create something you’d be proud of. Investors always look for companies to invest in that they see themselves working at. Create that if you can’t find it yourself. Also, you make more money selling a need than a desire (Painkillers vs vitamins). Focus on the painkiller ideas.
HC: What resources do you think are most helpful to help aspiring entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground? How about for more established companies that are scaling?
NT: We share a lot of resources that are helpful to both types of companies in our newsletter. You can also find some great resources on Y Combinator website.
HC: For those who are interested in getting involved in the ecosystem, what do you recommend they do?
NT: There are many ways to get involved in the tech ecosystem. From Hye Combinator to HeroHouse to volunteering. You can also reach out to many startup founders and see if you can help out in any way, either partially or by joining their startup full-time, many of them are actively hiring.
HC: This was extremely informative. Thank you so much for taking the time Noubar. How can people get in touch with you if they are interested in learning more?
NT: Thanks Nick. You can receive the monthly newsletter directly in your inbox once you subscribe to hyeventures.substack.com. It’s free! You can also read more about Hye Ventures on our website!