There’s a Persian Proverb that goes something like this; you don’t make a suit to fit the button.
That ancient proverb continues to inform Sohrob Milani Zadeh, PhD '24, as he works through his entrepreneurial journey.
When you have a good product in mind, you first need to have a customer for it.
Entrepreneurs call that concept product/market fit. The ancients called it wisdom.
Today, Milani is a co-founder of FuturU, which is utilizing new technology to provide cutting-edge wellness equipment. The company’s first products are 3D full-body scanning devices for fitness centres, gyms, diet clinics, and other enterprises. These scanners allow users to acquire precise body measurements and compositions, 3D body avatars, and future 3D body models.
If that sounds futuristic, the future is now.
The core of FuturU includes Milani, Mehdi Sanjari and Omid Sharifi, MEng’20. All three of them are also alumni of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Northeastern Iran, and have combined their experience and expertise to create in Canada, a brand that can excel and be the best at what it does.
Part of that journey includes Milani’s stint at the Western Accelerator, a four-month immersive program that provides education, mentorship, and $12,000 in funding. For Milani, the accelerator is his first formal education in business and it’s no misrepresentation to say, he is smitten by the field’s practical and academic horizons.
“I know 10 years is a long time to spend in Academia, but I feel that right now, I’m learning the real stuff that I needed to learn,” said Milani.
Milani hopes the accelerator will give FuturU the runway it needs to reach its customers. He also hopes all the skills, learnings and network connections that come through the program, will hold him in good stead on his young entrepreneurial career.
Discovering entrepreneurship
Growing up in Iran, Milani pursued an education in electrical engineering seeing it as a path to introduce new, and innovative solutions.
“Engineering is all about new things, new devices, and new techniques that come in handy when solving daily life problems,” said Milani.
Yet while the discipline provided plenty of know-how, there was a gap. How does that new innovation or technology reach everyday consumers?
As he was exploring the technological landscape, Milani noticed the major potential that lay in the field of biological and biomedical engineering, which is the bringing together of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes. It’s a wide field that includes advancements like bionic limbs, laser-guided surgical devices, new cancer-imaging systems, wearable tech, etc.
After completing a masters, Milani spent the next two years working for a number of start-ups in Iran in areas of civil, electrical and bioengineering.
“I tried to work in all those companies to gather the experience that I thought would be required to running a business,” said Milani.
However, many areas of innovation and technology in Iran are severely hampered by the impact of over four decades of various sanctions.
“The sanctions are the corner stone of all the problems that are going to arise,” said Milani.
When you are sanctioned, you do not have much contact with the outside world. There are limited foreign customers for your company. You don’t have access to the cutting edge technology. You don’t know what is going on in the world, what would be the main concerns for top companies? What is the current need? What are the current requirements to present yourself in the marketplace? You don’t have all that information.
If Milani wanted to find answers to those questions, he had to embark on a new journey - starting a doctorate at Western University in the field of Musculoskeletal Health. After completing a full year of the program virtually from Iran, Milani arrived in Canada.
Still that period of remote studies allowed Milani to meet and work with his Canadian co-founders on developing what would become FuturU. After discussing a few ideas around using AI for the fitness industry or body scanning technology, Milani set to work on researching the two options and discovering which solution had the right market fit; Or which button best fit the suit.
After settling on the 3D scanning technology, Milani and his co-founders set about getting to work. Between the three of them and a number of freelance engineers, the team produced their first prototype in early 2022.
As a group of co-founders that have learnt entrepreneurship on the go, Milani is thankful for having the opportunity to receive a formal education in the step-by-step process of building a new venture through the accelerator program.
His biggest lesson thus far revolves around the idea of having a good understanding of the problem, before presenting that neatly packaged solution.
“You need to do comprehensive research that includes market research, business research, biomedical research, etc. A whole different process of research is needed before putting a solution into action.”
While that might feel intimidating for some, Milani’s whole career thus far has been about research.
Now, it’s time to see if the button fits the suit, just right.