ApplyBoard and Passage founder Martin Basiri discusses working 80-to-100-hour weeks and why extreme workloads feel sustainable when making progress.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Basiri: ApplyBoard became the largest immigration company in the world
“It became the largest technology, the largest immigration company on planet earth.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Basiri: ApplyBoard brought 0.5% of Canada's population, generating 0.6% of GDP
“To give you a sense, like .5% of population of Canada, we brought to Canada. Not population of immigrants, population of Canada. Like all the students that we brought are producing more than .6% GDP of this country.”
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Basiri: ApplyBoard Never Had Trouble Pitching Immigrant VCs
“We never have problem with immigrant VCs. Which there are not that many immigrant VCs. That's why the fire racing was hard. But like, any immigrant VCs, right away, they were getting it. I didn't even have to tell them about problems.”
Disclosure
Basiri: Passage requires employees in-office five days a week
“We are five days a week in office, which is like, I still like get questioned.”
Opinion
Basiri: Elite VCs failed to grasp demand for tier-two universities
“The fundraising for the first couple of years was extremely hard. Because a lot of the VCs, they go to very top schools like Harvard, Sanford, Yale, Columbia, and those schools, UPenn, and the fact that someone's like, sell their home and belongings in India t…”
Insight
Basiri: Training junior talent beats hiring seniors even when well-funded
“So we had to, like, get a lot of junior people, train them to be, to act even better than seniors versus get a lot of senior people that they do the job. However, later on in the company, I realized that that is actually the big model, even when you have the m…”