Latest news with #Reza
Forbes
18-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Six Lessons Learned From Launching A Space Company From A Laundry Room
Ashi Dissanayake is CEO and Co-Founder of Spaceium. Most people assume launching a space company requires hundreds of millions in funding, massive infrastructure and a team of aerospace veterans. We started ours with an idea and a washer-dryer combo. That is not a metaphor. In the earliest days of Spaceium, we were living in a small apartment to save money. I worked from the floor with my dog's bed as a table and my cofounder Reza took calls from the laundry room, with his legs tucked into the dryer to dampen the echo. Neither of us came from business backgrounds. We were engineers. All we knew was how to build things. Even basic startup terms, such as SAFE (simple agreement for future equity), were new to us. So when we decided to create a company, we had to learn everything from scratch. We had to figure out how to raise money, how to talk to investors and how to build something the market actually wanted. But we knew there was a real problem to solve. We had experienced it firsthand. The Problem No One Was Solving Before launching our startup, we worked on rockets and propulsion systems. One of the persistent challenges we ran into was getting enough power and efficiency from propulsion systems to carry meaningful payloads. We quickly realized that propulsion was a technical bottleneck and an industry-wide constraint. We started talking to other space companies and asking questions. The more we listened, the more it became clear. Space missions were limited by fuel. Refueling infrastructure in orbit simply did not exist. It was, quite literally, a universal problem. So we began building for that need. At the time, refueling was not a priority in the industry. We had to explain what it was and why it mattered. Now, a few years later, customers come to us asking for fuel. That is how fast the industry has evolved and how urgent the problem has become. Lesson One: Move Fast And Fail Faster If you are building something in a completely new frontier, such as in-space refueling, there is no roadmap. You have to build the plane as you fly it. For us, that meant moving quickly and being willing to get things wrong. The best way we have found to accelerate learning is by failing more frequently—not recklessly but intentionally. If we can fail 10 times in a month, we gain 10 opportunities to learn. That's 10 cycles of iteration. A team that fails once a month learns far less. Especially in a sector like ours, where much of what we are doing has not been done before, the speed of learning is everything. Lesson Two: Scrappiness Beats Scale Thanks to advances in off-the-shelf components, shorter-duration mission architectures and affordable testing capabilities, you can get pretty far on a lean budget if you are scrappy. In the past, satellites had to last 15 years. Now, some are designed to last a few months, which brings down capital intensity dramatically. That changes who can play in the space economy. It is not crazy anymore to imagine someone launching a space startup from their garage. It is actually happening. Lesson Three: Listen to Customers (Even When Investors Aren't) When we first tried to raise funding, we were told repeatedly that we would fail. Investors said no one would buy fuel in space. But after every no, we would hop on a call with a potential customer and hear the opposite. One potential customer even asked us for 10 metric tons. The contrast was jarring. However, it taught us a crucial lesson. You need to trust the market, not just the money. Investors come around when customers are already in line. And that is exactly what happened to us. After many rejections, we ultimately closed an oversubscribed seed round with some of the best investors in Silicon Valley. By that time, we had customers lined up for future missions. We built our entire infrastructure based on real conversations with customers. And those conversations did not stop after the first discovery call. We spent hours with them getting beneath the surface, understanding what would make them buy, what their pain points were and what criteria mattered most. Sometimes they didn't even know what they needed until we asked the right questions. Lesson Four: Push Through the Doubt Of course, there were moments of doubt. When you send 100 emails and no one replies, it's hard not to wonder if you are wasting your time. But even the smallest glimmer of interest kept us going. One customer saying 'maybe' was enough. We told ourselves that if there is even one person who needs this, we're going to build it. That became our North Star. We weren't trying to prove ourselves to investors or compete on hype. We just wanted to solve a real problem for real customers. And when you orient around customer need, everything gets simpler. Not easier but simpler. You stop chasing the spotlight and start building what people want to buy. Lesson Five: Be Part Of Positive Change Space is no longer just about moonshots and Mars dreams. There is a thriving ecosystem of startups tackling real-world challenges closer to Earth. From space-based manufacturing to in-orbit servicing and satellite refueling, the infrastructure is starting to catch up to the ambitions. The number of satellites being launched is growing rapidly. Most of those satellites exist to serve Earth-based values such as climate data, wildfire detection and connectivity. That is creating an entire downstream chain of launches, servicing, repositioning and refueling. We are part of the ecosystem to support that chain. One of the things I love about this industry is the spirit of collaboration. Most companies in the space sector are trying to help each other. That is the only way the ecosystem grows. Lesson Six: Keep Going If there is one message I'd like to share with other early-stage founders, especially those building in hard tech, it is this: Talk to your customers more than you think you should. There is no magic answer to fundraising, product-market fit or momentum. Everything starts with deeply understanding the problem you're solving and who you are solving it for. If you do that, the rest (funding, hiring and scaling) gets easier. Also, do not underestimate what you can build with limited resources. Stay scrappy. Stay curious. Move fast. Get it wrong. Get it right. Repeat. I'm not saying you should work out of a laundry room. But that did work for us. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
India.com
01-07-2025
- Politics
- India.com
This country to overthrow Khamenei? Iran's exiled former prince holds back-to-back meetings, the country is..., not Saudi Arabia, Qatar
This country to overthrow Khamenei? Iran's exiled former prince holds back-to-back meetings, the country is..., not Saudi Arabia, Qatar Iran's troubles just do not seem to end and this time, it is not the usual rivals like the US or Israel causing concern. Instead, it is the powerful country where Iran's exiled former prince, Reza Pahlavi, is holding a series of important meetings. That country is the United Kingdom. Reza Pahlavi is currently in London, where he is meeting British politicians one after another. On Monday, he met with several UK Members of Parliament and said he is there to gather support for a secular and democratic government in Iran, a system, he believes, the people of Iran truly need. According to a report by British media outlet Middle East Eye, Reza Pahlavi spoke to MPs in the British Parliament about the current situation inside Iran. He also shared his views on how a change in leadership could take place. In past interviews too, he has said that now is the right time for regime change, as he believes Iran is currently at its weakest point. What is Reza Pahlavi planning? The report say that Reza Pahlavi is explaining to UK lawmakers how things are under the current regime in Iran. More importantly, he is also sharing his plans to help Iran transition from an Islamic government to a stable, secular democracy. What's notable is that these meetings are happening frequently. Another meeting was recently hosted by Luke Akehurst, a Labour Party MP, and Afra Brandreth, a Conservative MP, showing that interest in Reza's message is cutting across political lines in the UK. What did Reza Pahlavi say? While in the UK, Reza Pahlavi not only briefed British lawmakers about the situation in Iran but also posted a message on social media platform X (formerly Twitter). In his post, he wrote: 'The Iranian regime openly calls for the destruction of Britain. This is a danger not just for the Iranian people but for the British people as well. I am in London meeting with political leaders to urge them to support the Iranian people's fight for a secular and democratic Iran. This is in the best interest of both our nations.' Reza Pahlavi's stand against Iran's islamic regime Reza Pahlavi has long been a vocal critic of Iran's current Islamic leadership. He has repeatedly called for removing the ruling regime and shifting to a democratic system. In a recent interview, he said that now is the right time to remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power. He stressed that no military is needed for this — the people of Iran themselves are the real force. He also reminded everyone what Iran was like before the Islamic Revolution and how far behind the country has fallen since then. Reza has made it clear that if given the chance, he wants to help build a free, democratic Iran that respects the rights of all its citizens.
India Today
28-06-2025
- Politics
- India Today
A first-person account from Iran
"Like the battle of Karbala, this war must be fought till the end,' Reza Ahmadi, a juice vendor in his 30s, told me, as he went about his business on the busy Naser Khosro street in Shiraz, a historical town of gardens, wine and poetry in southwest Iran's Fars province. It was just two days after Israel had launched airstrikes on Iran, on Friday, June 13. Reza was invoking the 7th-century clash that, in Islamic history, stands as a symbol of moral resistance against political tyranny. We were talking amid street celebrations for Eid al-Ghadir, the air thick with revelry and the aroma of sweetened drinks. Every 10 seconds or so, the sky lit up with streaks of intercepted drones, followed by a thud of explosions. And yet, Reza barely flinched.
Miami Herald
24-06-2025
- Miami Herald
60-year-old vanishes on mountain hike in forest, CA cops say. Now a frantic search
A hiker vanished while on a mountain trek in a California forest, and now a frantic search is underway, deputies said. Monica Reza, 60, was last seen 'hiking near the Mount Waterman area' in the San Bernardino Mountains in Angeles National Forest the morning of June 22, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Crescenta Valley Sheriff's Station said in a Facebook post. Deputies said they and search and rescue crews from across Southern California have 'worked around the clock' searching for Reza. 'We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Monica, who has now been missing for over 24 hours,' Acting Captain Ryan Vienna said in the post. 'We have deployed numerous resources, including Air Rescue 5 and other technologies, to aid in the search.' Rescuers with the Ventura County East Valley Search and Rescue Team said they joined the search for Reza on Monday, June 23, leaving for the forest at about 5 a.m. to attend a 7 a.m. briefing, according to a Facebook post. 'Hopefully Ms. Reza will be found today, if not, we will be back out tomorrow as well,' rescuers said. Reza, who has gray hair and brown eyes, is described as standing 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds, the sheriff's department said in a news release. At the time of her disappearance, she was 'wearing a red long sleeve shirt, green hiking pants, and hiking shoes,' deputies said. Anyone with information is asked to contact deputies at 818-248-3464.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Helpless and trapped': political prisoners stuck in Tehran jail with no way to flee bombings
When Mehraveh Khandan heard about Israel's evacuation order in Tehran last week, the first thing she thought of was her father. Reza Khandan, imprisoned for his human rights activism in 2024, was sitting in a cell in Tehran's Evin prison on the edge of the evacuation zone. She fielded calls from her friends, who were breathless from the shock of the Israeli bombs as tens of thousands fled the Iranian capital. Her father, by contrast, had no way to flee. He was stuck. 'It was the most helpless and trapped moments in my entire life. That was the clearest image for me of our situation as Iranians: one captures us, so the other can strike us,' the 25-year-old said from Amsterdam. On Monday, Mehraveh's worst fear was realised when Israel struck Evin prison. Grainy CCTV footage showed the entrance exploding and the gate crumbling, with Iran's judiciary confirming damage to parts of the prison. Relatives of prisoners told the Guardian there were injuries reported in wards four, seven and eight – where Reza was being held, though he was unharmed. 'Their heads are slightly injured from the force of the explosion, the blast wave caused their heads to hit the wall and swell,' said Hussein*, an Iran-based relative of the human rights lawyer Mohammed Najafi, who is imprisoned in ward four. 'The prisoners are worried.' The Guardian could not independently verify claims of injuries within the prison. Mehraveh is just one of many whose family members were detained for political reasons by the Iranian government. They now fear for the safety of their loved ones stuck in prisons, unable to flee the bombs. The Israeli defence minister's office said the prison attack was part of a larger assault on 'regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran'. Detainees and human rights activists have called for the temporary release of prisoners until fighting has stopped. A group of detainees, including Reza, sent a letter to the head of Iran's judiciary on Wednesday calling on him to temporarily release prisoners, citing an Iranian law that allows for conditional releases during war time. 'Prisons are not equipped with air raid warning systems, shelters or safe evacuation routes … especially ward eight of Evin prison, which is in an even more vulnerable state and does not even have a single fire extinguisher,' the letter read. Mehraveh and other family members of detainees were not optimistic that the Iranian government would approve the releases, noting a pattern of increasing repression during times of crisis. For Reza Younesi, whose 25-year-old brother Ali Younesi has been held in Evin prison since 2020, conditions have already got worse. On Wednesday, his family received news that Ali had been moved from Evin to an unknown location and that attempts by lawyers to locate him had proved fruitless. 'His cellmates called my mum from prison to let us know. We were hoping that maybe he's moved to another ward or even another prison, but there is no information,' said 43-year-old Younesi, speaking from Sweden. He added that he feared his brother was transferred to ward 209, where interrogations are conducted. According to a 2020 Amnesty report, security forces have been documented torturing detainees in ward 209, including through beatings and electric shocks. Ali, a student activist, was accused of possessing 'explosive devices' by Iranian authorities and of being associated with the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which Iran considers a terrorist group. He was initially sentenced to 16 years in prison, which was reduced to six years and eight months on a recent appeal. 'This is a pattern for the regime. What they do when they are in crisis to show that they can control society is to become more aggressive, they suppress regular people in society, especially prisoners,' Younesi said. Human rights groups shared Younesi's concern. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran warned on Thursday that 54 political prisoners on death row were at grave risk. 'There is growing fear that Iranian authorities may use the cover of war to carry out these executions, using them as tools of reprisal and intimidation to further silence dissent and instil fear across the population,' the rights group said in a statement. Last Saturday, security forces arrested at least 16 people for 'spreading rumours' and residents in Iran told the Guardian they had noticed an uptick of arrests of people critical of the regime. Iran's interior ministry has published a video of someone confessing to working on behalf of the Mossad (Israel's intelligence service) in Iran. Families of political prisoners say Israeli airstrikes on prisons are not the answer to state repression. They say bombing prisons could put political prisoners at risk. 'We don't believe he [Najafi] is safe at all – we know both the brutality of the Islamic Republic and the intensity of Israel's strikes. When he calls us, we can hear the sound of missile launches and anti-aircraft through the phone,' Hussein said. Inside Evin prison, detainees have reportedly started to stock up on goods, fearful that the fighting outside will lead to deterioration of conditions. Ali's cellmates were buying more food from the commissary, Reza said. Checking on loved ones inside prisons has become more difficult as Iran's government has imposed a near-complete internet blackout on its population. Mehraveh, used to speaking to her father from abroad by calling her mother who would put him on speaker on a separate phone, has been unable to hear his voice since the bombing of the prison. For Reza, whose family has not heard from his brother in six days, the lack of communication was deeply worrying. Before, Ali would call his mother every day on the prison phone, comforting her with the mundane details of his daily routine. He had recently begun learning French from other prisoners, and was teaching them astronomy – his passion – in return. 'I always tell him that he needs to do sports to make sure his body is not degrading,' Reza said. 'He always says, yeah don't worry, I'm doing it … Now we have no information from him, it's a very stressful time.'
