Mentorship Q&A with Uri Maxima
Creator — Entrepreneur — Software Engineer
Maxima, born and raised in Belmont, always loved to create and build. Over the years he’s co-founded a number of companies and spearheaded numerous projects. He now resides in Harlem, NYC and you may have heard of him from one of our early Twitter #SPOTTchats. His latest endeavor, Hivebridge Labs, focuses on ‘solving & reducing inefficiencies one industry at a time.’
Here he shares a little about how he got into the software business and his thoughts on mentorship.
SPOTT: What do you do?
Uri Maxima: I label myself as a problem solver. I like making useful things, so that means identifying a problem, finding a solutions and making something that helps eradicate the problem.
SPOTT: How did you get into that?
Maxima: I think I was born with it in a strange way. I always liked solving problems. I always liked making things. I always liked putting my ideas into the world.
So I’m into software [but] I never knew I would have been in software. It wasn’t part of the ‘plan.’ I [was like] “I want to be an engineer when I grow up. I’m going to be making things. I’m probably going to be making buildings, and bridges and cars.” I didn’t really know what it was but software has a very low learning curve. It’s very easy to get into it and it is very inexpensive. You don’t need anything but a laptop and an internet connection.
I’ve always liked making drawings and art and graphic designs. I [then] decided for whatever reason to move away from pen-and-paper to a more digital medium instead, making designs to Photoshop. That progressed into, “Maybe I can make these designs do things?” So then maybe I could get into a little animation. And then, “Maybe I can make it do things on it’s own?” And then I started getting into programming. And then I kept doing more of those, making websites and apps here and there. Then eventually you just keep doing it here and there because one, it’s inexpensive and two, it’s extremely addicting if you like to make things. That was it!
“I think everyone should have a mandatory mentor.” — Uri Maxima
SPOTT: Did you have any mentors getting into this?
Maxima :Not really. Making this jump into software I didn’t really have mentors but I did have people who encouraged me. My parents and family were like, “Keep doing that. That’s pretty impressive. I like it.” Even if it was rubbish they were like, “I like it. It’s good. Keep doing it.”
But the real [mentor] would have been my last employer… I was working there just as a mere cog in a wheel and didn’t like my job very much so I decided to write software to automate some of my work and instead of saying of saying, “Hey, stop doing that, do the work I gave you to do,” he encouraged me and said, “This is very interesting maybe we could use it.”
It wasn’t very good but we still tried to use it and THAT was enough fuel to keep me going it. And I started paying attention to problems his company had and other[problems] other companies had.
I wouldn’t say I had a mentor but I did have encouragement.
SPOTT: What do you think a mentor could have given you if you had one?
Maxima: That’s a very interesting question because there are two parts to it.
One is, I am extremely stubborn and there is a high possibility of me just doing what ever I want regardless but someone who could have just paint some foresight [would have been helpful]. “I see that you could probably be good at this thing over here, maybe you should study it. Or, maybe could just try making something for that over there.” Someone who could help me see best where my skills may apply.
It did take me a while to figure out what the groove is. I don’t know if I figured it out yet but it’s sort of getting to it. A mentor could have helped me realize this a lot sooner.
SPOTT: Would you like to be a mentor to someone?
Maxima: I would because this is a very painful road. I think no one should have to go through the real hardships of life. I think that’s why parents are good. If you grow up without parents or anyone to look after you, you could stray into any dark whole into the world. But your parents in general would say, “You shouldn’t pick things up from on the floor and eat it. It’s probably going to poison you.” So yeah, I think being a mentor and helping young minds get to that thing that ‘it’ best serves … absolutely!
I think everyone should have a mandatory mentor.
SPOTT :What is your ideal mentee? What would make you say, “I want to take time to foster and mentor ‘you’?”
Maxima: Someone who feels like they can get more out of life without taking the traditional route. For example, someone who thinks that maybe school isn’t the best for them or is not doing that well in school but really enjoys painting or really enjoys one subject way better than any [other] one.
Because I think generally when we forget or we ignore when someone has an extraordinary ability but ‘fails’ or isn’t good at conforming to the other molds, we think that, “Well maybe this child is broken or maybe they’re ‘slow.’” I think this is a great opportunity to just grab that [gift] and mold it and help them figure out exactly what that is.
The best kind of person is that, they’re a good person — they mean well for others and they generally want to see themselves succeed. They have a high sense of esteem for themselves but probably aren’t performing well academically or in any mold society has played for them. The ‘weird’ kids. Those are the ones that would probably be labeled weird. Those are the ones that I think I would rather mentor because they have the most interesting things to offer to the world.
