Pardees Safizadeh: Starting in the Startup World

{Ed. Note -The Greenhorn Connect team is growing! We're pleased to announce that Pardees Safizadeh is our new Director of Social Media.  She'll be helping us improve and grow our communication and outreach so we can more effectively interact with and help the Boston entrepreneur community. So please give a warm welcome to @Pardees.  

We are always interested in how we can help young people get integrated in the community, so we asked Pardees to share her story of getting into the community, getting excited and finding Greenhorn Connect!}

Rewind life back two months—it’s June, and I have no interest in joining the start up community. To be fair, I had no idea a start up community existed in Boston. I had no idea there were so many start up companies in Boston, and frankly, I didn’t care. I was interning in Boston and enjoying my life like a normal person. I wasn’t a business major in college and I didn’t intend on starting anything now.

So right now you’re probably thinking why am I (the reader) reading this? Why do I (the reader) care about this random girl and her lack of involvement in the start up community? Why? Because I did get involved.

Discovery

In the end of June I saw a tweet from a Boston College professor who is also one of my dad’s friends. He had tweeted about an event in Cambridge at SCVNGR headquarters. I had applied to work at SCVNGR, so I decided I should see this place. I had no idea what the event was about. I told a friend that was a business major and actually knew more about the start up community than I did to come with me. She agreed.

Two weeks later I found myself at SCVNGR headquarters at one of DartBoston’s Capitalize events, and my eyes were opened to a whole new world. A world where people networked to get to know about each other and their companies. A world where everyone was involved to some degree in this community. Everyone was really fun, I enjoyed myself, and then I decided I should get involved.

Getting Involved?

Now here’s where it gets interesting: how does an enthusiast with little work experience (I just graduated college) and no knowledge of business/web development get involved in the start up community? For starters I applied to jobs. My specialty—public relations. My tactic? I applied to work at SCVNGR (again). That failed. I went to one of their events where a guy who worked there said why don’t you apply to other start ups? Other start ups? What other start ups, I replied.

It’s now August (in the story and real time). I decided to look for other start ups. Easier said then done. I joined DartBoston’s email list, but they just let you know about events. I felt like I was falling through a dark hole of hopelessness. Where are these companies hiding? Why isn’t there a start up job board, I thought.  I found a couple, which weren’t helpful. I wanted to get into a community that apparently had a glass wall around it. Finally, I accidentally found myself on some website called Greenhorn Connect. They had a job board. And a posting for social media help. Ta-da! Mission accomplished!

Results

Was it really that hard, you ask? Yes, but I did really doesn’t need to be. You hear about these random companies that suddenly succeed. But what about the companies that are working to succeed? Don’t they need help? Instead of working at a company that’s cool right now, why don’t you try to make a company become cool and successful? That’s what Jason and Ashkan do. They’re making it easier for enthusiasts to get connected to the start up world. They also give start ups resources to help make them more successful. They’ll continue extending these resources. What will I do in the meantime? I’ll make sure you know about them!