Born in DC yet a true Los Angeles native, Vahid has been a part of, consulted, or lead corporate development and strategy for some of the most admired, innovative and disruptive companies on Earth. After law school, Vahid focused on the connection between digital/physical commerce and experiences joining United Talent Agency’s newly formed Digital Talent, Innovation, and Ventures Department. After almost 2 years with UTA, Vahid joined Dollar Shave Club as employee number 8 recognizing DSC’s potential very early on. Within 5 years he helped launch, scale, and define the business and strategy of the company leading it to its billion dollar acquisition by Unilever. Soon after Vahid joined Reformation where he helped secure the company’s $25m Series B and revamped the company’s strategy by doubling the number of branded physical stores, implementing Reformation’s unique shopping experience, and further pushing corporate development by structuring deals with Farfetch, Browns and Nordstrom. Currently Vahid is with Six Ounce Studio as a corporate development and strategy consultant for some of the most exciting brands and influencers within the apparel and footwear space like Chinatown Market, Central High, Never Made, PizzaSlime, Round 2 and Sean Wotherspoon.
Where in the world are you right now? Where will you be next?
Los Angeles, CA. “Where will I be next?” Not sure, but I’m going to put out in the universe that I’m going to next be in either Boston, MA or Portland,OR.
What does “education” mean to you? How would you define it?
To me, education is definitely not what it is now, which is a disgusting cycle of memorize, regurgitate, repeat. Real education is guiding someone to find the thing or things they are good at/passionate about and having someone guiding and encouraging them to dive deeper in order to become an expert and then pass that on. I might not fit here, but here is one of my favorite quotes whenever I think of education: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (Albert Einstein).
Where do you think education is headed? Where will it be in 10 years? 100?
I think education will be flipped on its head and the current system will be gone. The Baby Boomer generation that defined the current education system will be gone and the system will be altered because what worked in the 80s and 90s doesn’t work now and definitely won’t in the future. In 10 years I think it’s going to be the same. In 20+ years I think education will be similar to the Apprenticeship method of the Middle Ages. There will still be general education (K-12), but after that there will be a combination of in class education and deep real world/hands on application.
Most frequently received (advice related) question?
How do I launch a company? How do I get funding? What’s a convertible note? What should be my first hire? Where do you see commerce going? What’s the most important thing to keep in mind while scaling? How do I excite my team? How should I structure this collaboration/partnership? How should I assess my 3rd party partners and what should I look for? How do I open a physical store? What should I look for from a company I want to work at?
Why did you join th-oughts?
I think being able to pass on some lessons I learned along the way so a person can be more informed, better prepared, and not commit the same errors I did. Even though each “failure” I had was a lesson, it’d just a lot better that someone else knows that yes that path was tried and these are the results I had. Not to say that someone shouldn’t try the path, but maybe they can be on the lookout for some potential “canaries in the mine” I point out to them.
