Sophia Parsa, 26
Shakib Zabihian, 25
Toot App Inc., a Santa Monica maker of online tutoring products and a text-messaging service that connects students to tutors.
Employees: 4
Financials: Raised almost $500,000 from the Getty family, Tobey Maguire, and other L.A. investors.
What led you to start your own business?
Zabihian: I was born and raised in a Bahá’i family in Iran. As a result of religious persecution, I was denied access to higher education. This denial of my basic human rights did not deter me from the pursuit of higher education. I applied for political asylum in the U.S., and after two months of being in the United States, I co-founded Toot to democratize education around the world.
Parsa: To solve a problem and learning about my co-founder’s story.
Where did you get the startup money?
Parsa: Angel investors, friends, and family.
What’s been the biggest challenge?
Parsa: Pivoting our entire business. Although we spent a lot of time on the original business, we realized that we had a better opportunity with the text-messaging service.
Zabihian: To accept that our original idea wasn’t good enough and that we needed to change.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned?
Parsa: It’s wise to have a technical co-founder if you’re going to build a tech company. The most important lesson I’ve learned is to accept what I’m good at and let go of the things I’m bad at.
Zabihian: The most important lesson I learned is not to build a product based on your own interpretation of what the market wants and to, instead, let the idea shape along the way as you test, implement, and get feedback from your customers.
Has your youth led to any awkward situations, such as when you supervise older employees?
Zabihian: Not at all. We never had a much older employee and everyone has been in their 20s. Some raise the question of whether it’s hard to raise money as a young founder, and the answer to that is also no. If anything, our youth has been an asset to us so far.
Could you ever work for someone else?
Parsa: Never have. It’s not that I wouldn’t.
Zabihian: I like to be my own boss, but it also depends on who that someone is.
What do you do to unwind?
Parsa: I love to host.
Zabihian: I like to keep an active lifestyle.
– Henry Meier
