Navigating the AI Frontier: Aarash’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Meet Aarash Abro, a driven entrepreneur based in Saudi Arabia and the mastermind behind Zeta Solutions. With a deep passion for AI and machine learning, Aarash is reshaping the consulting and SaaS landscape, developing AI-enhanced products that tackle everyday pain points. In this interview, he shares insights from his journey, the challenges of being a technical founder, and the lessons learned along the way.

Can you share a brief note about yourself?

Hi, I’m Aarash, and I’m an entrepreneur from Pakistan, based in Saudi Arabia. I’m currently working on several different ventures under my firm Zeta Solutions. Our consulting division provides AI/ML advisory and development services to numerous firms, both in the startup stage and the MNC stage. We focus on providing robust AI-based solutions using custom built or off the shelf models, integrated in a way to ensure the client is maximizing their value.

On the other hand, our SaaS division is focused on building a number of AI-enhanced products that can streamline everyday pain points for consumers and businesses. One of my favourite products in development is an AI-based job board that disrupts the whole space by analyzing all existing listing given certain filters and really getting the end-user (a job seeker) to target building the skills that is statistically most likely to propel their career forward.

Lastly, our research division is currently working on several different open research problems in the AI space. We let the other two divisions focus on the practical side of AI, this division is focused on making genuine contributions to the theoretical and scientific side of AI. One of our upcoming papers is on unsupervised domain adaptation. We feel that it has the potential to inspire new approached in other subfields like distillation and federated learning, both of which have massive real world implications for AI being used in the industry.

Why did you choose to start a business?

I wanted to apply for jobs right out of high school. I’ve been coding since I was 9 and I felt I would do well in the real world, and to be frank, I thought I needed the money urgently (oh the mind of a 17-year-old). Anyways I tried applying and the first big hurdle was building a resume. Now I’ve never been a fan of resumes, since A) they’re not an exact science due to the insane complexity hiring departments have unfolded onto screening a single sheet of paper and B) even If i possessed the merit, there was no guarantee I’d be picked for the job, and the uncertainty ate away at me.

I know that doesn’t answer your question, because what is more uncertain than a business. But I guess at least in this case a lot of things were in my control than someone else’s. Immediately after I experimented with a bunch of different ventures, mostly selling in game items, even dabbling into options and trading (our research division is actually working on a related project right now).

I eventually settled on consulting once I started seeing the inflow of interest in this space, however after getting a formal introduction to the space (the math and the messy parts of AI), I realized the importance of a research division. Currently, thats the most exciting part for me of the business, despite it not directly contributing to the revenue in any way whatsoever.

How did you start your business?

Like I said I experimented with a lot of different ventures. Just before AI, I got my hands wet with blockchain and blockchain consulting. Very very soon, I realized the negative implications of the space and the challenges surrounding it. Don’t get me wrong, crypto as a monetary medium may have high valuations every now and then, but the stigma surrounding it has a tendency to shut down any real innovation.

I soon moved into the AI space. It wasn’t new to me since I’d been experimenting with it myself for quite a while. Very quickly, I landed my first client on a project about embeddings. From there on, I quickly learned how A) what real industry clients require from AI and B) how to parse the requirements of the client to make sense and turn their vision into reality, no matter how ambiguous it may be.

What do you wish you’d known before you started your business?

To be practical, I wish I’d known how to better handle the legal and financial side of the business. The technical side is always important but its almost at the end of the pipeline.The start of the pipeline, the outreach, the discovery and the sales are far more important and difficult to get right for us technical founders. Moreover, I wish I’d spent time cataloguing and logging everything I’ve done and learnt from each project and interaction as I did them instead of assuming I’ll be able to do them later. Also, I wish business development was more of an exact science, and there was a crash course on it, instead I’m sure everyone has to mess around and stumble on their way to learn it themselves. I wish I could say I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I cant, though I do appreciate the lessons it has taught me.

Did you have any support in your journey?

Everything has always been completely bootstrapped using whatever money I had. If I had to name someone, it would be my parents and some of my earliest clients. They helped keep morale up and confidence high, which is more than required to get anything done in this line of work. Other than that, all technicals and particulars I always had to learn and mess around with on my own.

What is your greatest challenge as a business owner?

As a technical founder, the biggest pain point is always sales and outreach. Getting leads is easy enough. But converting the leads is a whole different game and has really changed the way I look at rejections in a holistic sense. Other than that, I’d say one of the bigger challenges is the fact that every now and then, like it or not, you’ll be in a place where you’ll be putting out fires left and right, and that period of your life comes more often than you’d like. Though it for sure could mean I’m not as good at running things as I should be, I treat it all as a learning process.

What advice would you give to your past self before opening your own business?

Reach out. To anyone and everyone. And follow up. If you don’t ask for it, you dont even give people the chance to say “yes”. And if its a no, you don’t lose anything except the effort it took to type out an email or a text.

Reflecting on your path to entrepreneurship, what key piece of advice would you offer to aspiring founders?

If I could do one thing differently, I’d work in sales for half a year to a year before starting my own business, regardless of the line of work. All business, at the end of day, is sales. You’re selling SOMETHING. Even when applying for a job, you’re selling yourself. So learn and know sales, practice outreach, and I have no doubt you can succeed at whatever you laser focus yourself at.