Former ‘Softie in Question: Shayan Zadeh

Former Microsoft role: Program Manager and Software Development Engineer

Current role: Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Zoosk

People eat up the romanticized story that entrepreneurs are just talented folks with a great idea and the rest takes care of itself (we’ve all seen The Social Network, right?). That said, that vast majority of entrepreneurs build a solid foundation of industry knowledge before striking out on their own.

Shayan Zadeh has lived his own fairytale entrepreneur story: from a kid in the Iranian countryside to becoming the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Zoosk, the largest social dating service with over 50 million members worldwide. But it was not a straight shot from tech student to tech stardom.

Shayan shrewdly started his career at Microsoft, where he learned not only how to create a successful company, but how to run that company once he got it off the ground.

Microspotting recently had a date with Shayan to hear about his past relationship with Microsoft and understand why – although they are no longer together - they had such good chemistry.

How did you get the idea to start Zoosk?
I was actually working for a social media market research startup and we created a flirting application as a promotional tool. It turned out that application was a huge success. The demand was amazing. Suddenly, I was in the online dating business and Zoosk was born.

And what made you think that you could take on the big guys like Match.com in what appeared to be a saturated market?
Those other sites were for relatively older people looking for committed relationships. If you did not end up getting married, the experience could be seen as a failure. We were aiming for something lighter. Zoosk is about meeting other people without all of the pressure. It’s about flirting and having fun.

And it worked. We blew by the others and are now the biggest dating site in the world with over 50 million users. Zoosk is in 60 different countries in 25 different languages.

How’d you get your start in technology?
I grew up in the countryside in Iran with big dreams of working in technology. I got a Bachelor of Science degree from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and then a Master of Science in computer science from University of Maryland.

While at Maryland, I took some entrepreneurship classes and worked together on some projects with business students. That really opened my eyes to putting technology in a business context.

What was the next step?
I went to work for Microsoft first as a software development engineer and then as a program manager. I worked on Windows Media Player and MSN shopping teams before eventually moving to Visual Studio and .NET framework teams.

Why not go straight into the world of startups – even if you were working for someone else’s startup at first?
I wanted to have the opportunity to work in different capacities and in different industries in a relatively short period of time. During my four years at Microsoft, I was able to work in a wide variety of roles on a variety of interesting projects.

Microsoft offered me this opportunity while supporting my goals and career development inside and outside of my actual work role. I was even able to get my MBA at the University of Washington while working at Microsoft.

Most importantly, I wanted to learn from the best and see – from the inside – how a successful company worked.

What were your main business takeaways from working at MS?
Throughout Microsoft there are very established and successful business processes. I learned how to use these processes to attract talent, to evaluate candidates and to manage a team of super-smart, talented, and strong personalities. During my time at Microsoft, I really came to understand the impact of team morale on productivity and the ways that one can create an environment to foster collaboration.

I apply variations of these processes across my company. They helped me to create Zoosk and also help me run it in an efficient manner on a day-to-day basis. I think we’ve been successful and have been able to have fun in the meantime.

What did you learn about work culture from MS?
Microsoft treats their employees very well and understands that if the employees are happy, they will perform better work. At Zoosk, we use the same Microsoft model to be sure that employees know that the company supports them for their hard work.

Any new startups in the works?
I am more than busy running Zoosk right now, but in my little bit of spare time I do advise other startups and do some angel investments myself.

But we’ll see. Entrepreneurs are always thinking of new ideas. For now I’ll just stick to writing about entrepreneurship on my blog.

LINKS:
Zoosk

Follow Shayan on Twitter: @shayang

TechCrunch article about Zoosk