Hayk Hakobyan is a passioné for all things (social) entrepreneurship, business and technology innovation and social media.
He is currently a freelance consultant in business development and innovation and advisor for companies in Egypt, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. He was previously the regional (MENA) Ambassador for Board of Innovation, one of the top European business model innovation consultancies.
Hayk had previously worked in professional services, telecommunications and ICT industries for various international (Hewlett-Packard, Pernod-Ricard, TAGorg, Markedu, CleanStar) firms and the UN.
As an entrepreneur, Hayk co-founded the first (in Egypt and MENA region) co-working community space, Elegua, in Egypt in 2009. In 2012, in partnership with Ministry of Health of Mozambique and Mozambique Red Cross, he co-founded a health forum, MozMed.com, which allows the public to post questions and get answers related to all aspects of health on Internet and via SMS. Hayk’s latest initiatives include KarTag.com, the first social carpooling application (launched in 05.2013) in the MENA region, which was among 64 shortlisted projects for World Summit Youth Award 2013, and soon-to-launched Engezni.com, a food ordering and discovery platform for users and restaurants.
Hayk has been volunteering at TakingITGlobal.org, the largest youth portal on Internet, and is currently the coordinator of Member Advisory Committee of TIG.
Hayk has worked towards his PhD in nuclear physics at University of Geneva and a MBA (cum laude) from University IFM in Geneva, Switzerland.
In his free time, Hayk blogs about failures, plays chess and reads books on philosophy and history.
- Peter Thiel was crucial for Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
- Ray Chambers for Jack Dorsey (Twitter)
- Ken Allard and investors Ben Horowitz for Dennis Crowley (Foursquare)
- Paul Graham and Partovi Brothersfor Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox founders)
- Adam D'Angelo for Kevin Systrom (Instagram)
See more of who mentored whom at
http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-mentors-behind-the-visionaries-of-tech-2012-7?op=1
Hi,
First off, it really matters what the idea/concept is on which you want your two teammates to work on. They can say they would go with whatever, but trust me when I tell you, the intrinsic motivation can very quickly disappear if the idea/concept doesnt resonate with them or they didnt buy into it.
I had just a case like this and it usually ends up in a failure, sooner or later.
So when you are talking to them about being part of the team and making them partners (share distribution should be proportional to planned or perceived contribution by each team member), make it very clean they need to buy into the idea or commit to it long-term (6-12 months).
Also to increase the chance of success form the beginning, make sure to get on your team few passionate team members who have complementary skills. Try to avoid have two or more team members with same or overlapping skills. This can create a competition and conflict of interest from the onset - and you dont want that to happen in your core team.
Also getting their commitment to work for free, as partners or core team members, will test their "faith" or how much they bought into the idea/concept. If they ask for money early on or are doing your project just as another 3 or more projects, that you should be treating them as freelancers or part-timers, rather then core team members or partners.