{"id":5445,"date":"2022-10-17T06:07:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T06:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/?p=5445"},"modified":"2022-10-17T06:07:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T06:07:13","slug":"driving-social-change-one-vehicle-at-a-time-with-openauto-app-founder-souren-khetcho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/driving-social-change-one-vehicle-at-a-time-with-openauto-app-founder-souren-khetcho\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving Social Change One Vehicle at a Time with OpenAuto App Founder Souren Khetcho"},"content":{"rendered":"
Are entrepreneurs born or shaped?<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the age-old question that begs the attention of many social psychologists and business enthusiasts across the world.<\/span><\/p>\n Entrepreneurs are often outliers by nature\u2014 a blend of intense curiosity in which they explore through experimentation and creation. Their deep desire to create solutions for problems (that most people wouldn\u2019t even think of) tends to lead them to stray away from the conventional job trajectory, and instead, build systems from scratch. These systems then result in products, teams, and services. And because the monetary reward is often very insignificant at the beginning of this journey, sometimes for years, many tend to look at their endeavors as something outrageous and risky.<\/span><\/p>\n When we spoke to <\/span>Souren Khetcho<\/span><\/a>, a tech entrepreneur, Syrian refugee, and founder of <\/span>Zappy.ca<\/span><\/a> among other innovative startups, this question sprung immediately to mind. An eloquent speaker, evidently cheerful, yet humble about his feats in the short amount of time he went from having nothing to having built an NLP and voice processing solution, <\/span>Vocally<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0 and having part ownership in several auto and transmission shops across the greater Vancouver area.<\/span><\/p>\n Khetcho had fled several war-torn homes in his early days, landing safely in Canada in August 2015, without a speck of English. These days, he\u2019s working arduously on the latest venture, <\/span>OpenAuto<\/span><\/a>, an app that is designed to transform the way people get their vehicles serviced and returned to them.<\/span><\/p>\n This is the story of how curiosity and adversity led Souren to not only create a new life for himself in a country across the world but how he intends to impact future generations through technology.<\/span><\/p>\n Interviewer: How do you think your experience as a refugee from a war-torn country contributed to your career as an entrepreneur?<\/b><\/p>\n Souren: <\/b>My family and I were refugees because of the war in Syria. We had lost our homes right when it became a fire zone between the Syrian military and the opposition forces. There was a period of time when we used to dodge sniper bullets on a daily basis. I got shot at, and twice, I escaped bombs that were going off 10-15 meters away from us.<\/span><\/p>\n It reached a point where economically we couldn’t sustain ourselves. We had no food, no electricity, and no water for very extended periods of time. That’s why we left and we became UN refugees in Lebanon. Then, we came to Canada around seven years ago in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n When you\u2019ve been through such harsh adversities, you develop a certain kind of resilience. The things people usually find challenging or perceive as a hindrance, I personally think it\u2019s manageable to overcome and to keep going.<\/span><\/p>\n I think resilience is <\/span>critical <\/span><\/i>if you want to be successful in any type of entrepreneurial pursuit.<\/span><\/p>\n Interviewer: How did you get started in tech?<\/b><\/p>\n I didn’t have a laptop, but I had a cell phone at the time. I was able to borrow internet from our neighbors, and I used to spend 10 hours a day by the window because that’s where I could get the most internet connection. I would try to download YouTube videos on how to write software and different hacking methodologies. That’s how I got into cybersecurity.<\/span><\/p>\n Interviewer: What led you to start auto shops in Vancouver, Canada?<\/b><\/p>\n Souren: <\/b>It’s a journey that began with our first software company. I built <\/span>Vocally<\/span><\/a> with my co-founder who already owned a few auto transmission shops.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When we started Vocally<\/span>,<\/span><\/a> we were building voice machine-learning algorithms. We were successful on the taxi dispatching side, then, we started getting into the hospitality industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The technology facilitated conversations and fulfilled requests in customer service areas like the hotel front desk. For example, if a customer asked for a towel or something else, this process would be automated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That’s how we got started, and then we came across an opportunity. One of Vancouver’s larger privately owned repair shops was about to shut down. We got a wind out of that news, and we decided, “Why not negotiate with the owners to sell it to us?”<\/span><\/p>\n It was a great start for us because we saw a great opportunity in the auto industry, You start to develop this sense of noticing certain opportunities within different industries, that you know are under-innovated.<\/span><\/p>\n For this opportunity, in particular, it was intuition mixed with opportunity.<\/span> `<\/span><\/p>\n We acquired the shop, started with zero staff, and had to put new technology in place because they were using outdated systems that are 20 to 30 years old. Going through a journey like that was eye-opening.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then, we attempted to integrate Vocally’s technology into streamlining the conversation between customers and the front-desk staff as well as between the front-desk staff and the shop floor mechanics.<\/span><\/p>\n Then we noticed that as a startup, there’s nowhere for us to really plug our technology in. There’s no infrastructure that’s built for the auto industry. We developed relationships with other repair shops, and we noticed this trend that there’s really no technology and it’s difficult to penetrate the market, but once you crack that egg, nobody’s leaving you. That’s why we decided to build <\/span>OpenAuto <\/span><\/a>as a bedrock for future startups to build on top of us.<\/span><\/p>\n Interviewer: What are some major challenges your current customers face with the conventional repair shop model? How do you aim to solve them?<\/b><\/p>\n