Parveen Kaler on doing what you love…

One of the best things about this role I’ve carved for myself is that I get to meet really cool, motivated, & driven people. Parveen is no exception.

(source, Straight.com)

QUICK HISTORY:

After graduating & working in the games industry for a few years, Parveen finally decided to start his own gaming consulting & contracting company to focus on the iPhone platform, working on projects he “actually liked & really believed in”. Smartful Studios was born from his first iPhone contract. Two years later & 40 pounds leaner, Parveen feels great and has transitioned his successful consulting company into an iPhone App Development Studio.

What we love about Parveen is his awesome attitude about his work. “It’s not about the money” was used more than once in the multiple conversations we’ve had with him (that’s how much we like him!) and we can tell that he really means it.

Smartful is looking for full time iPhone Developers so give Parveen a shout if you’re interested!

Parveen’s Personal Website – http://parveenkaler.com/
Parveen’s Company – http://smartfulstudios.com/
Parveen’s LinkedIn – http://ca.linkedin.com/in/parveenkaler

VIDEO INTERVIEW:

Unfortunately, the video interview was so poor we couldn’t include most of it. But here’s his #1 advice for student & young startups:

FULL INTERVIEW:

Why are you considered the “iPhone Developer Guy” in Vancouver?
People say that?  I don’t consider myself the iPhone developer guy in Vancouver. I’ve been doing it for two years. I would say it’s all about longevity. It’s early days in mobile & i’ve been focusing on that.

What does your company do?
Consulting & contracting – so if you have development that needs to be done. Mobile Strategy as well: setting up the sales pipeline, customer acquisition, marketing.

It is hard work?
I don’t consider it work. I love doing it.

How do you get to this place? Getting paid for doing what you love.
It’s not about the pay, right? I was doing fairly well for myself in the video game industry but that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to go out & work on my own, projects I believed in, on my own time.

“It’s about waking up every morning and believing in what you’re doing & having the freedom to do what you want to do”

How did you start?
CS degree @ SFU 2002. Computer graphics, then games industry Relic Entertainment, spent a couple years at Slide Six Games, did ps3, sony ps2, xbox 360, pc development. But when W was working on the sony psp & saw the iphone i was like “this is the futre, this is the past”. Jumped on it pretty quick.

#1 advice for students, in doing what you love & still making a living?
Make it simple. It’s simple. Stop complicating the issue. Just wake up every day and do that one thing that you have to do that day to get to the next step. It’s alwasy about the next step. “What do i have to do right now?” Get that done, re-evaluate. What do i have to do?

You make it sound so simple, Parveen.
You know what, if you make it complicated you just lose your mind.

What’s your 4 step process to making an iPhone app?
1. take your big idea, and bring it down to one sentence: your mom should be able to understand it.
2. figure out how you’re going to make your first dollar.
3. figure out how you’re going to scale from 1 dollar to more.
4. figure out how your’e going to get your first prototype

It’s the momentum. Focus on the execution & everything will work out.

Comments, suggestions? Stay tuned for the next interview with Lyal Avery!

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Choose Your Own Interview: Vancouver Entrepreneurs!

Remember those “Choose your own adventure” books when you were kids?

What could be better?

But seriously, I’ve been interviewing so many entrepreneurs &  I’d like to know which interviews people would like to hear! If you really want to see a specific interview (or if you are that person, *cough Parveen cough cough*), feel free to vote as many times as possible. It should send me the message! 😉

Some information about the entrepreneurs…

Jason Bailey – Founder of Super Rewards. Top 4 tips on how he started his company with $0 in his East Van House and sold if for a rumoured $50 million
David Helliwell – Co-Founder of Pulse Energy. How losing his job was the best thing that happened to him
Parveen Kaler – Founder of Smartful Studios. How Parveen went from “working for the games industry man” to being recognized as the “iPhone dev guy” in Vancouver
Lyal Avery – Founder of Outcome3 Media. Doesn’t believe in secret formulas for successful entrepreneurs. At the end of the day it boils down to one thing…
James Sherrett – Founder of AdHack. The secret to finding a successful market/startup idea & how to practically implement it

What’s the value of Community? (inspired by David Crow….)

I’ve been thinking a lot more about Vancouver’s startup community recently.

In the last week, I’ve met with a few genuine & hard-working entrepreneurs here in Vancouver. Two that come to mind  are Ashish Gurung (@AshishGurung), CEO of NuXD, and Ryan Holmes (@invoker), CEO of Inoke Media’s Hootsuite. Great people. If you haven’t met them yet, you should. Looking at them from the outside, there seems to be little connection between the two: One is relatively unknown in Vancouver and the other created an app used by large organizations like the White House & Disney.

But in my meetings with them I found one similar trait: they both genuinely cared. And not just about my questions on startups, but they really exuded a genuine desire to help without much in return for themselves. And this was in the midst of their rushed, busy schedules.

I often forget that in addition to just writing about it, building community takes people who actually care about other people. This has definitely challenged me to rethink the way I interact with people I network with.

However, many people I talk to don’t see the need in building community here in Vancouver. It’s not a direct statement (hey, we’re Canadians), but more of a subtle undertone in many of my conversations. For a while, I was quite discouraged. So you can imagine my catharsis at reading David Crow’s recent post where he addresses the very question & quotes Paul Graham’s What Startups Are Really Like. In particular, 17. The Value of Community:

“One of the most surprising things I saw was the willingness of people to help us. Even people who had nothing to gain went out of their way to help our startup succeed…The surprise for me was how accessible important and interesting people are. It’s amazing how easily you can reach out to people and get immediate feedback.” – comments on What Startups Are Really Like

David goes on to say:

I want a vibrant, connected, accessible community of founders, investors, advisors and others in Canada. And I’m not alone. There are great communities across the country in Ottawa, Montreal, Waterloo, Guelph, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver (and be sure to check out StartupDrinks).”

I had heard lots about David Crow’s StartupNorth.ca community, but never knew if he was the real deal. I wish David was here in Vancouver. I would love to meet him.

What Vancouver’s Startup Scene Needs (part 1): Real Community. Better PR

If you’re lazy like me, this pretty much sums it up….

“What I’m advocating is more stronger, open community between startup companies, tech associations & universities. Start to promote & get encouraged by what others are doing well & don’t be afraid to talk about your own successes or ideas! Attend each other’s events & get to know what others are doing in your technology space as well as out of it! Great companies like Bootup Entrepreneurial Society & TechVibes have already begun. Let’s join them and build a stronger Vancouver tech community!” – Jon Chui

Practical ways to get involved

• Learn more about local tech startups, small-businesses, & their success.
• Then, blog/tweet/talk/write songs about them.
• Start volunteering to host or run startup events. Talk to Maura or me if you’re a student.
• Give your suggestions & feedback.
• Buy Local (Invoke media’s Hootsuite is an awesome way to do that)
• (for students) Get involved with these companies as interns, or co-op students, just to get a feel! Then talk about the cool experience to your friends. (TechVibes intern posting)
• Actually come out to each other’s events! Sign up for [StartupDigest], check Bootups Calendar, or TechVibes Calender.

But on to the original post: