You’ve Got To Be Happy in Your Work Before You Start Reaping The Rewards of it With Adam Farah - a podcast by Daniel Maw

Adam is the co-founder and CTO of Zazu, a logistics supported trading platform connecting farmers to markets. Previously, he used to work in the financial services industry with a background in big data, analytics, and software engineering. Adam has a deep interest in solving problems using simple technology. 
Adam’s Key PointsAny opportunity that presents itself to you, should be handled with open arms.
No matter the situation you’re in, do some research and get the backing of people you’re closest to.If you are thinking of moving from one industry to another, try doing something in your spare time and learn something.
Guest LinksWebsite – http://www.zazuafrica.com (http://www.zazuafrica.com)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/adamfarah (https://twitter.com/adamfarah)
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-farah-271ba713/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-farah-271ba713/) 
Top QuotesWhen I got sacked, I realised that there is more to life than a standard job.
Things were alright but I got bored again and that’s the true financial servers game started.Things had to change because I knew I wasn’t quite happy.
I was kind of living in a world of not having financial certainty.My girlfriend now wife broke down whilst heavy pregnant.
I saw some problems in the breakdown industry that I thought I could do something to help.I spent every evening doing research and ideas of what I wanted to build.
I think I want to quit my job.I got the blessing from my wife and went for it.
I don’t think I’d have had the balls to follow through with it without my support network.In the startup scene and I knew I wasn’t going to get any revenue for a good 12 months, I thought let’s do some serious budgeting.
Quick tip, if you have quite your job and have 12 months of runway, don’t have a child and get married in another country because that will absolutely ruin your budget.I love building, it so happens that software is my preferred method of building things.
I didn’t want to manage people who didn’t really want to be there.Any opportunity or any event can help you.
I thoroughly and wholeheartedly believe that you shouldn’t regret anything.I had exactly 12 months to try and build this startup.
I only learnt later on that I actually did it completely wrong but this is only something that I could have learnt by being in the start-up world.People have this idea that start-ups are in America because that’s where it’s all happening and that’s just not true.
Through conversations and meetings, we got accepted onto Londons first program.We live in Barnsley and London is 180 miles away and it just wasn’t commutable.
The program managers are there to push you to progress.Some people just ripped your product to pieces.
50% of the mentors really didn’t think Cavalry would work and 50% were the polar opposite.The reason 50% of people didn’t like it was because they thought in 20 years who’s going to own a car but they were city people not rural.A pivot normally is you stick around the same sort of company but change your product
We decided to park Cavalry and do something completely different.I was down about it all, it was like having a funeral for Cavalry.
I’d properly burned through all my savings.I started to think what is all this for.
One of the mentors said, “Go out and get really drunk and think of it as a wake for this and give it a send-off and then come back and leave it there.”In a few days, we managed to get double the amount of people using Pip than we had using Cavalry in a year.
You don’t realise how much you’ve taken in until you’re thrown in at the deep end.We focused in on a niche to test Pip.
I have thought about doing it again, I’ve just done a week in London and leaving my family was so hard.Just do your research.
Don’t worry about asking the wrong questions, there are none.Just get out there and speak to people, there are so many people in the same...

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