With StartupHouse's exterior painted in vivid pinks, yellow and red murals, you wouldn’t know what lies inside is a collective of entrepreneurs tapping away at their keyboards, or dreaming up the next big business idea. One of which is Elias Bizannes (@EliasBiz), the founder who recently wrote a blog post inviting politicians to join the tech community to see first hand what it’s actually all about. To his surprise, a 2016 presidential candidate took him up on the offer!

As I waited on the bright orange couch, I couldn’t help but soak in the contagious energy flowing in that open space. With his magnetic smile and warm demeanor, Elias welcomed me to one of his many business endeavors. The native Australian came to the United States because of the potential to grow as an entrepreneur. I sat down with him to discuss how he fell into business, what he thinks about the Tea Party, and what it takes to survive the cutthroat tech industry.  

What’s your backstory? How did you get into business?

When I finished my studies I became a Chartered Accountant in Australia [CPA in the U.S.] then decided, realized, what I really wanted to be was an entrepreneur. I had a passion for business and combined with my creativity, I wanted to move things.  

I was also very passionate about the Internet and the impact it was going to have on society. That’s when I decided, if I’m going to launch a business I might as well do it in California which has twice the size of an economy compared to Australia: 800 billion in Australia vs 2 trillion in California back in 2008. So I decided to find a job that would bring me over and would sponsor my visa, build my network, and from there the ideas would start. Parallel to that, I built my business to the point where I had cashflow to sponsor my own visa. I spent two years at a startup and a year at a venture capital firm. 

At the time, who were your business influences?

Good question. My first big influence would have to be my father. He’s very much the reason why I did a business degree. When he said to me do a commerce degree at the age of fifteen I felt like I had that direction. Another big influence was my older half sister who was and is a very special investment banker. She’s the one who told me to do accounting/finance and she gave me insights into the business world which had a big impact on me and still does.

A third big influence would have to be... I read the autobiography of Jack Welch, and I actually only read it up to the point he became CEO of General Electric and something stuck out where he said that he became a general manager at the age of 31 and that’s when he was on the radar. I had in my head that’s a good way to think and breathe, start off as an employee, leave as an executive. So I developed a philosophy up until the age of thirty to develop myself on the opposite of what I was actually good at. Although there were many other influences, I reckon, those are the three biggest ones.  

Do you have any tips or advice for people starting their own business?

Yes. I think the first thing to realize is, well it would depend on the type of business. If you’re building a technology product like a lot of people here, understand that you need to get out onto the market as soon as possible. And to be honest this applies to any business. You might have this notion of what you think the product needs to be, but until you start talking to your market, what that means is you actually have people paying you money making you bigger, but you don’t really know. So you need to get to market as soon as possible then decorate. A lot of first time entrepreneurs tend to spend years trying to pull together a good product, then run out of money in the process so my biggest advice is get out into the market as soon as possible.

My second piece of advice is working in this industry is emotionally traumatizing so be prepared for that. If you are not a very strong person mentally, you won’t be able to withstand it--but they won’t admit to that. And unless you have a strong network that will support you, you’re not going to be cut out for it. So you need to be up for that challenge because of the emotional rollercoaster ahead. If not, you’re better off being an employee.

Is there a misconception about how much time it takes to create a successful business?

I think the big thing, and I got this reconfirmed last night when I was talking to my friend who created the company Instacart which is now worth 2 billion dollars. What he said is it doesn’t get any easier, even after you’ve raised 200 million dollars. It never actually gets easier, just different types of challenges. For instance, I had a business one year that made a million dollars in revenue and the following year nearly went bankrupt.

So even when you’re having initial success it’s not a full party and that’s just part of the game.

What was your first reaction when you found out Rand Paul had accepted your invitation?

What he has is a membership into our community. The point of it is he can engage and be part of that and gets access to our workspace among other things. My initial reaction was definitely surprise because I don’t see us as a business at the presidential level in terms of the money we can donate or the impact that we can have, but I do think we have a very interesting community.

Whilst I was surprised, I actually had a lot of respect for the fact that their publicity reached out to us in response to the initial blog post that I did. Since I’ve dealt with a lot of media before, I’ve crossed politicians since my university days. I’m a little desensitized so I don’t get starstruck at all and I actually see through them. For me it’s more practical, so even though I was initially surprised, I also expected that the right people would do it.

What kind of influence/impact does Rand Paul have here if so many of his stances counter the stances of those in the tech industry?

Just to put some context, I can’t stand the Tea Party, but at the same time just because I’m frustrated and angry with them doesn’t mean I think anyone else… even though I’m biased to the democrats I think they’re just as hopeless.

For me what I think you need is to have an open mind and to discuss. What happened with Rand Paul is by coming here I told him what I thought about things and I also listened to what he thought about things. What that’s done is actually given me an appreciation that what is out there in the media isn’t actually always the truth. A lot of people are freaked by Rand Paul, especially on the social issues but spending that time with him behind closed doors, I actually realized, you shouldn’t be scared. And I don’t want to say anything that will impact him in future elections but to put it bluntly, these people have to put on a show and sometimes they have to sound a lot more extreme than they are.

So it’s important to get politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, inside the tech community so that they can know what’s going on in terms of the issues.

Yes.

Speaking of issues, what more needs to be done to educate the public about policies that affect the Internet and technology?  

To use net neutrality as an example. I understand it, I think about it. I’ve been heavily influenced by a lot of high profile people who created the Internet and the web supporting it. I just thought net neutrality was the right thing to do but just this last week I know have a different stance. I’m realizing that there are a lot of prominent people against it.

Has that shifted your view?

Yes, so right now I actually don’t know what to think and I don’t know what to think about what I’m reading. Pushing net neutrality sounds really good, maybe it isn’t the right thing. Now that said, I still support net neutrality as a principle but if you look at how the architecture of the Internet is now working, it is actually a bad thing to be honest. Net neutrality isn’t really how the net works or content works. So I think the way to educate the public is really through more discussion. If it wasn’t for this event that I’d been, I don’t even know if I would have a different view on net neutrality, so I think by having people actually discuss issues, that’s how things get done.

What’s next for you?

… I feel like I’ve found my vocation which is to be an entrepreneur and I’m passionate about the impact technology can have on society, so I feel like this is something I can spend the rest of my life doing, not necessarily only in business but always creating things that I think can benefit society and improve what I think will be a high point for a lot of things.

I love your philosophy. When you look at the different businesses that have gone through the StartupHouse, what separates the winners from the losers?

I think it’s Intelligence and… ambition. You need to be a cockroach to be an entrepreneur. What that means is you just won’t die. You just keep going. Cockroaches can survive a nuclear attack. And I link it back to the emotional trauma you go through as an entrepreneur, is only the strong survive, so I really think it’s a combination of that ambition to succeed, but also the intelligence. But intelligence isn’t just being good with numbers; emotional intelligence is probably more important because as an entrepreneur you’re dealing with people.

People, all the time. I’m learning about that too with my experience: you need to be in the know and get involved. You have to, not only have the technology to launch a business, but be able to connect one on one and go out there and meet those people.  

Exactly.

In that respect, thank you so much for welcoming me to the StartupHouse. I wish you the best and I’ll see you around since I’m just a block away.