Daniel Ahmadizadeh · Start With One

Founder Interview

Nov 5

Written By Xiao He

Interviewed by Xiao He for Mother of Success

Early Life & Cultural Roots

Xiao He:
Daniel, thank you so much for taking the time. Could you start by introducing yourself a little bit?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Sure! Thanks for having me.
I’ve been based in New York pretty much my whole life. I’ve spent my entire career in startups—founder, investor, coach—and I teach my own entrepreneurship classes at Columbia and Stanford every summer for the last three years. One of my dreams is to make entrepreneurship education more practical rather than theoretical. I'm now growing Crustdata, a F24 YC startup.

I was born in Paris to Iranian parents and moved to New York when I was one. English was technically my third language: Farsi at home, French at school, and English on the basketball courts.

Xiao He:
How do you feel this multicultural background shaped you?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Oh, it shaped me a ton. Growing up in New York already means being surrounded by the world—languages, cultures, religions. I went to a French international school, and most of my classmates were children of diplomats from Africa and Europe. I later attended middle school in Harlem and grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx. So from every angle—culture, faith, socioeconomics. I was immersed in diversity.

Being Iranian, American, and with that French influence gave me deep appreciation for blending identities and understanding perspectives. It also made me curious about people. I’ve been lucky to travel a lot since I was young, and that helped me learn how to connect across differences.

Discovering Entrepreneurship

Xiao He:
When did you know you wanted to go into entrepreneurship?
I remember from your TED Talk (2016) that your parents had four career options for you: doctor, lawyer, engineer, or a “failure.”

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
(Laughs) Yes, my parents definitely encouraged the academic route: college, then grad school, then maybe another degree. But in college I started a bunch of random projects—not thinking of them as startups. The turning point came sophomore year, when I discovered startups through a close friend from high school, Vineet Singal, founder of Caremessage.

He was pre-med at Stanford, and I was pre-med too. But he was building software that could help thousands of people, maybe even millions of people (which he now is), while a doctor could only treat one patient at a time. That insight—how technology scales impact—hooked me instantly.

From there I dove deep: learned what “VC” even meant, flew to Silicon Valley, and attended the Thiel Summit in New York. Meeting other ambitious young people felt like finding my tribe—people who believed they could change lives through technology. That’s when I knew this was my path.

The Serendipity of Opportunity

Xiao He:
Would you mind retelling the story you shared in that TED Talk? It captures your courage beautifully.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Of course. When I first learned about the VC world, I started emailing everyone—founders, investors, anyone who might reply. Eventually I got a chance to interview at a VC firm in San Francisco.

I met two of the three partners—both meetings went okay, nothing spectacular. That night I was sure I hadn’t landed the job. I asked the hotel concierge where I could get my “last supper” before flying home. He suggested a Chinese restaurant called R & G Lounge, just down the street.

As I finished my meal, I heard someone call my name. It was the partner I’d met earlier—and the third partner I hadn’t met yet—sitting across the restaurant. They invited me over, we chatted casually, and that spontaneous conversation changed everything. They hired me.

That encounter taught me something I now teach my students: put yourself in positions where serendipity can happen. Send the cold email, show up in person, take the shot. You can’t connect the dots looking forward—only backward, as Steve Jobs said.

Even this conversation we’re having now is a dot connected from all those chance moments.

Connecting the Dots · Shared Stories

Xiao He:
That speech means a lot to me too. I grew up in China and first heard Jobs’s speech when I was learning English. I would play the mp3 over and over to memorize it. Only later do the dots make sense.

I started out as an art student—painting, design, photography—never thought I’d work in tech.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
That’s amazing. Who would have thought? And now you have your own media platform!

Xiao He:
Yes, when we met at the conference I was still running my previous startup, RegHero, focusing on medical-device regulatory filings. The market was real but very niche—around 3,000 FDA Class II clearances per year—and dominated by established players. We helped startups find predicate devices and navigate filings, but it wasn’t scalable. Still, it was a great learning experience.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Exactly—good learning. Every page adds to the book we’re all writing.

Breaking the Ivy Barrier

Xiao He:
You mentioned you went to Stony Brook University, not one of the Ivy League schools.
In both your TED talk and today’s conversation, you pointed out that venture capital firms and accelerators like YC often recruit from elite universities—Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, etc.

What advice would you give to students who aren’t from those circles? Do they still have a real chance to become founders, investors, or part of the startup world?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Absolutely. You don’t need a Stanford degree to build something great.
But you do need to understand why those schools produce so many founders. It’s density. The density of ambition, curiosity, and collaboration is incredible—just like San Francisco itself.

If you’re in a school or community that’s less connected, it just means you’ll have to create your own ecosystem. That’s a skill in itself. Learn to maximize limited resources, reach out cold, build community from scratch.

On the Power of a Good Handshake

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
One of the very first things I teach in my entrepreneurship class—literally the first lesson—is how to shake someone’s hand.

Most people underestimate how important non-verbal communication is.
Ninety-five percent of communication isn’t the words you say—it’s body language, eye contact, posture, presence.

So when I meet students, the first thing we practice is that handshake. Because if you can convey confidence, humility, and curiosity in a few seconds, you already stand out.

Xiao He:
That’s so true. I remember during the SaaStr conference, I met dozens of founders and operators, but you stood out. Your energy, eye contact, and how genuinely you asked about my work. It was unforgettable.

You even followed up afterwards and sent me an API key you’d promised, long after I’d forgotten about it. That small gesture meant a lot. It showed reliability and sincerity, which are rare these days.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
That means a lot, thank you. And you’re right, those small moments are everything.

Curiosity and follow-through can’t be faked. It’s hard to teach curiosity, but it’s essential.
The best founders are the best learners—they ask questions, test hypotheses, observe like scientists.

Whether you’re at Stanford or a state college, you can practice that mindset every day. You can learn to listen deeply, ask better questions, and take feedback seriously. That’s what makes great founders and great collaborators.

Learning, Resilience, and the Book of Your Life

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Startups come and go. But the journey—the people you meet, the lessons you gather—those stay.

I often tell my students: we’re all writing a book. Every startup, every cold email, every win and failure is a page.

Some founders build fast-growing companies yet feel miserable inside because their company grows but they don’t.

We have the opportunity to enter a new age where success isn’t measured by valuations or exits, but by how many people’s lives get meaningfully better because you existed.

What is the purpose of your startup? Why are you building, and who will meaningfully care if you shut it down? Does that even matter to you?

There’s nothing wrong with being financially motivated — this is merely a reminder that perhaps there’s a world where purpose and profit don’t have to live in conflict.

Do something that genuinely gives you energy. When you’re energized, the handshake becomes natural. The conversation flows. You enjoy the process.

Don’t start something just because it looks cool or because everyone else is doing it. Start because you can’t not start—because you care.

Reflections from San Francisco

Xiao He:
That’s beautifully said. Here in San Francisco, I meet so many founders—sometimes even my Uber driver says she’s met 200 founders this year!

She told me many of them have raised money but don’t know what to do next. Some build companies not because they’ve found a problem, but because everyone else is building something.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Yes, and that frustrates me deeply. I rarely get frustrated, but that one gets me.

At Columbia Business School, I sat in on entrepreneurship classes that were entirely theoretical. Everything started with “What’s your idea?” instead of “Whose problem are you solving?”—and not some theoretical person or “persona,” but an actual human being. What’s their name?!

As a result, people spend their most precious asset—time—on ideas no one truly needs. They raise money, become accountable to investors, and end up stuck chasing returns rather than solving problems.

That’s why I’m passionate about changing how entrepreneurship is taught.
We know the stat: 90 percent of startups fail. But my goal is that 100 percent of that 90 percent still make an impact—even if they help just one person.

If every project changes one life meaningfully, that changes the world. At its core, Start With One isn’t just a startup philosophy. It’s a way of re-humanizing innovation. It reminds us that behind every metric, every product, is a human being whose life can be changed for the better.

Xiao He:
That makes me feel better about my own startup journey! I might not have built a unicorn, but I did make FDA regulatory knowledge clearer and helped at least one founder succeed.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Exactly. You helped your “one.” That’s the essence of entrepreneurship.

On MBAs and Real-World Learning

Xiao He:
You’ve completed an MBA at Columbia, but you’ve also lived through what I’d call “the startup MBA of real life.” What’s your take on MBA programs today—would you still recommend them to aspiring founders?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Great question. My short answer: a full-time MBA isn’t the right fit for anyone truly focused on entrepreneurship. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I'm confident the curriculum and environment are far from ideal, except maybe HBS and Stanford.

If you’re 25 and considering a startup, skip school and go build something. Move to SF, join an early-stage team, learn from reality.

That said, I personally did an Executive MBA at Columbia—a two-year Saturday program, 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.—and I loved it. Every Saturday I’d learn something new and apply it Monday morning. That tight feedback loop was everything.

My classmates were experienced professionals—people from finance, supply chain, healthcare—and every discussion had depth. When I occasionally sat in with the full-time MBA students, the contrast was stark: brilliant people, but far less lived experience. The learning hit differently when everyone in the room had ten years of real-world context.

Becoming the Best Teacher You Can Be

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
My main motivation for going to Columbia wasn’t networking or credentials—it was to become a better teacher.

I teach entrepreneurship at Columbia and Stanford, and I wanted to study under world-class professors.
One day, at an airport Hudson News, I picked up a Harvard Business Review. The entire cover featured one headline: Personal Leadership—authored by the professor whose class I was starting the next week, Hitendra Wadhwa.

That moment crystallized how special this was. I was learning from the very people shaping global business thought.

Another unforgettable mentor was Professor Joel Brockner. He literally grew up on the same street in the Bronx as I did, went to my Bronx High School of Science, then Stony Brook, then Columbia—my exact path.

That semester, my schedule was surreal:

5 a.m.–7 a.m. — I taught entrepreneurship on Zoom for an MBA program at the Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth Global Business School & Research Centre in India.
5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. — I was an MBA student at Columbia in Professor Brockner's class.

So, mornings I was a professor, evenings a student. That dual perspective taught me humility and empathy for learners everywhere.

The Value of Academic Curiosity

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
There’s a strange culture in Silicon Valley that glorifies dropping out—“I got into Stanford so I can leave.”
But I’ve always thought, why not both? Why not pursue knowledge and build companies?

Who says I can’t get an MBA—or even a PhD? That’s my next step.

Xiao He:
Wait, you’re serious about the PhD?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Totally serious. One of my role models is Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and How Will You Measure Your Life? He was a practitioner, teacher, and researcher all at once.

He spent thirty years in the field, taught innovation, and researched it. That triad—practice · teaching · research—is the gold standard.

Most startup teachers, even in Silicon Valley, teach only from their personal experience. That’s valuable, but limited.
I want to complement experience with academic rigor—back my frameworks with data, case studies, and theory.

So yes, I plan to pursue a PhD or DBA focused on entrepreneurship pedagogy. I want to prove academically that every company we admire—Airbnb, Uber, Stripe—began by meaningfully helping one human being.

Airbnb’s first customer was a man named Amol Surve.
Every great company has its Amol Surve. I want to document those stories and show that changing the world starts with changing one life.

My hope is to help rewrite the curriculum of entrepreneurship itself — to prove, through research and data, that empathy can be taught, and that the next generation of founders can scale both impact and integrity.

A New Framework: Start With One

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
That’s what my framework—Start With One—is all about. Before scaling, before raising capital, before anything, ask:

“Who’s the one human being I’ve truly helped?”

Prove first to yourself that you can do this. The best way that I have found to give yourself that confidence is to meaningfully help one person. I think we can all agree that before you help millions, the road there starts with one. If a founder can name that person, it tells me they’re learning, iterating, and solving something real.

That one story builds empathy and reveals the market. If your “one” is a trucking dispatcher named George in New Jersey, now we can ask: how many more Georges are there? That’s market sizing through empathy.

Xiao He:
That’s powerful. And if a reader wants to learn more about Start With One, where should they go?

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Every Saturday at 10 a.m. ET, I host free group office hours, open to anyone. It’s like YC partner office hours: founders join, share their biggest block, and we solve it together.

People can book directly through my website. This isn’t a side project; this is my passion: helping founders rethink success as starting from one meaningful impact.

Closing Thoughts

Xiao He:
Daniel, this has been incredibly inspiring. Thank you for your time, your stories, and your generosity.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh:
Thank you, Xiao. As my late grandfather said, we never graduate from learning. I hope your audience takes away that lesson and I wish them all the best.

Xiao He