Rashid Azarang
My Professional Journey
2009: Rashid's entrepreneurial journey begins. Overcoming numerous challenges, he embarks on his first business initiatives.
2011: Rashid collaborates with a 16-person team, including six students from Tec de Monterrey, to develop Mint, a disruptive technology. They innovate using Japanese infrared sensor technology from the Nintendo Wii to create a multi-touch camera prototype.
2013: The Mint initiative concludes due to various challenges.
2014: Rashid opens his technology studio, collaborating with diverse talents globally to develop web platforms, mobile applications, and other digital products.
2015:
- Rashid associates with his father, Mohammad Azarang Esfandiari, Ph.D., and Abbas Rahimzadeh Kalaleh, forming a joint venture with the U.S. company, Loma Marketing, investing in digital mediums for online sales across over 25 countries.
- The team grows to become a team of 60 remote workers. Through meticulous blueprint design, role delegation, feedback loops, and culture-building initiatives, Rashid fosters a cohesive remote culture, ultimately achieving collaborative success.
2018: Rashid takes on the role of CTO at Grupo Inmobiliario Sun Mall, integrating advanced technology into the real estate sector.
2019:
- Rashid starts building tudelega.com, a service marketplace for the LATAM community.
- He undertakes a deep dive into product design, focusing on Figma and other tools.
2020:
- Rashid develops a platform in response to COVID-19, managing over a million tests in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
- Rashid and his wife spearhead community initiatives, introducing yoga and meditation sessions in parks and launching "Dialogos", a personal development event.
- Rashid pivots the statup’s initial idea, to incorporate “As remote work began to flourish, I conceptualized a marketplace where people could offer their available time through video calls, in a way that they could leverage their online following into scheduling a call with them and thus, providing a tool to transfer knowledge. I quickly pivoted my approach and started building this idea, where we aimed to democratize talent, making it universally accessible and enabling people to capitalize on their unique talents. The platform would operate as a transaction facilitator between service providers and users, building a trustful community and lowering transaction costs.
I faced significant challenges with developers and finances, pushing me into a tough decision to pause the development and empower myself with a deeper understanding of computer science. It led me to take two online courses from Harvard: an introductory course to computer science and a subsequent specialization. The learning journey involved delving into languages like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.”
2021: Rashid explores the no-code and low-code development realm, developing tools integrated with platforms like Calendly and Stripe.
2022:
- The rise of Chat GPT-4 draws Rashid into AI's potential applications.
- AyudaLocal is conceived, merging marketplace and social network features, focused on strengthening communities in Mexico.