<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Entrepreneurs tend to be busy, but Soraya Darabi is in a league of her own as a co-founder of the culinary photo app Foodspotting, new media strategist at ABC News and an adviser to a handful of startups. Mashable spoke with her about entrepreneurship, her inspirations and the many hats she wears.\nName: Soraya Darabi, 27\nCompany: Foodspotting and ABC News\nFun fact: While at the New York Times, Soraya tweeted for \"The Gray Lady.\" When there was an uproar in the wake of a typo on the Twitter feed, she knew that social media was something big.\nHow did the Foodspotting story begin?\nFoodspotting began when Alexa [Andrzejewski] and her husband were taking a trip to Japan, and she noticed that everyone around her was taking photos of food, and she really wanted to understand where those photos were headed. But more importantly, she became inspired because she was trying all these dishes that she hadn\u2019t tried before, and when she got back to San Francisco, she didn\u2019t know how to identify those dishes.\nFoodspotting also began as a coffee table book where one could sift through gorgeous photos of all of the most unique dishes in the world \u2013 and we still think that\u2019s a good idea! But it wasn\u2019t until she met up with Ted Grubb, one of the early engineers at Get Satisfaction who was developing a food app himself. Over time, they decided that it was a great idea to make Foodspotting into an app, together.\nShortly thereafter, Randy Reddig (a Square co-founder) introduced me to Alexa and Ted. I flew out to [San Francisco] on his recommendation \u2014 it really felt like a blind date. I was still at The Times and was so intrigued by the concept! I acted like an overly-caffeinated cheerleader when I met them and said repeatedly there are a lot of ways to get other people excited about this company, because it\u2019s a recommendation engine and a discovery platform and an activity rolled up into one.  We all knew food in particular is something people naturally convene about and we were certain we could create a strong community within an app.  \nI advised Foodspotting while I was at The Times and then I went to Drop.io to gather product development experience, which was also a great entrepreneurial experience. Foodspotting launched at SXSW 2010 with a beta version of the iPhone app. I went down and saw all the traction, and it made me want to be more involved and to be a better adviser for the project. I found myself feeling very passionate about what Ted and Alexa were building \u2014 a community around the technology, just as we had planned. We came together last summer and were all feeling mutually confident that raising a seed round together and starting a company based around what it means to love food and travel and discovery made a lot of sense. We hired our first employee in September.\nWhat about Foodspotting is game-changing?\nFoodspotting is game-changing because there are thousands upon thousands of restaurant recommendation engines for helping you decide where to eat, but until Foodspotting, there was nothing as granular and pointed as what you should eat when you\u2019re at a restaurant. Whether it's the best street food in Vietnam or what to order to impress a girl on a first date, there are thousands of ways in which Foodspotting helps users make smart culinary decisions in their day-to-day lives.  We help our users discover what's possible. So many of my busy twenty-something friends in New York order Thai food three times a week and rarely take risks with what they eat. I was raised in a food family \u2014 my grandmother was a chef and my aunt was a caterer \u2014 so I've always been surrounded by delicious food. When I moved to New York, I was excited most of all about the restaurants and new cuisines I didn\u2019t have as much access to growing up in Minneapolis.\nThere are three co-founders \u2014 what's your role?\nThe company is beautifully managed by Ted and Alexa. Ted is the CTO, and he manages the product side so well. And Alexa is in the driver\u2019s seat \u2014 it\u2019s her vision. I\u2019ve learned so many things from watching her take her vision and make it a reality. My core contributions have been in marketing, business development and product partnerships. We\u2019re a company that believes very strongly in the importance of playing well with others.  \nMy role has included facilitating ongoing brand partnerships for the company, creating symbiotic relationships with organizations like the Travel Channel, Bravo, New York magazine and Gourmet. I work on bringing great ambassadors like Marcus Samuelsson, who add tremendous value. I work to forge relationships with product teams at other companies \u2014 BlackBerry sponsored our SXSW event, for instance, which helped us create a great relationship with RIM, and now we're launching a BlackBerry app. We've worked closely with Facebook and Google \u2014 most every opportunity I bring to the table requires development integration, so we\u2019ve been selective to-date about the partnerships we enter into. \nWhat is your vision of success?\nI think it's healthy to not to have one distinct vision, and instead I try to feel successful with life as I know it. Whether it\u2019s my work at ABC News or with Foodspotting or working collaboratively with the companies I advise, I feel really lucky to work with inspired individuals who share my passion for all things geeky and disruptive. Meanwhile, I do think success outside of the workplace is equally important to success within it. So quality and balance of life and the ability to choose projects will always be high on my list of goals.  \nWhat inspires you?\nMost risk-takers inspire me. I just got off the phone with a 23-year-old who called for career advice, which I found funny because I\u2019m not a power CEO. He said so earnestly, \"I really want to create value and in order to do so I should be an entrepreneur so I can help folks out, but I also want to run the show with a team of friends who feel as strongly about what we are building as I do.\" It was classic Gen Y, but you know what? That will never fail to inspire me. Our generation believes we can change the world and because we believe that, we will.  \nAlexa inspires me for taking the concept of Foodspotting and executing on that vision diligently. She\u2019s a non-traditional CEO. In fact, I think we need more UX-driven entrepreneurs now that I\u2019ve worked with her.   \nAaron Koblin's TED talk on data visualization and making art out of technology was so inspiring to watch. I'm inspired by the bands I discover daily on The Hype Machine. Right now I'm listening to Japanese Surf Rock per a recommendation of a musician I met at a dinner party recently. It's the perfect work music \u2014 mellow but avante garde. \nAnd then, outside of tech, so much inspires me, I studied literature and art history in college, so I'm constantly reading fiction (right now it\u2019s Dr. Zhivago \u2014 sort of strange for a balmy summer) or going to exhibits, most recently the Cory Arcangel show at the Whitney. Whether it's inspiration from flipping through a monthly edition of Harper's Bazaar every month or from a twist on a dish I never thought I\u2019d try, everyday life is what excites me. \nEconomically, I\u2019m inspired by culture shifts in art and news and technology \u2014 because that\u2019s what makes the world move.\nWhat was the turning point in your career?\nThe first turning point I remember happened while I was in college in D.C. \u2014 I worked at Sony Music for a couple of years as a college marketing rep, but I was downloading music more on Limewire than I was listening to the physical CDs [that] the company sent me each month for distribution to local radio stations. It occurred to me then that the Internet is transformative and it is changing the music industry dramatically, and while many people in the music industry are afraid of it, I felt it was changing things for the better. I remember thinking \u201CI'm discovering more music now than I ever would have before these engines existed,\u201D and it felt like magic. Then I became obsessed with the idea of convergence and really wanted that internship at washingtonpost.com to see if similar synergies were happening across industry. But mostly, [I wanted to see] if the news business was also experiencing  what some perceived to be a tumultuous time and others perceived to be a great awakening. So at WaPo, I was able in 2004 to really see how a newsroom was experiencing a transformative time because of revelations like RSS.\nThen I came to New York and worked in media for several years. When Conde Nast acquired Reddit in 2006, I worked on the best way to communicate that acquisition. I watched as three young guys entered the Conde Nast building, and they were about my age and they had just created this amazing product that millions of kids were using and I watched how a big media  institution \u2014 an aspirational one at that \u2014 was incorporating the Reddit tool across the board in order to update their web properties. That's the moment at which I began reading tech news sites every day and poring [over] news about social media because I was so fascinated by how the media world was being transformed by tools built by 23-year-old dudes. Smart dudes.\nIn addition to your own work with Foodspotting and ABC News, you also advise startups. What compels you to do so?\nI advise a few companies, but I tend toward the ones that add a lot of value and are creatively focused. One is Architizer, a creative network for architects. What excites me about them is that you don\u2019t have to be an architect to feel passionately about structure and the art of industrial design and landscape. They make it accessible to everyone. Architizer has over 360,000 fans on Facebook now, and they're one of the most popular Tumblr feeds [about] architecture. I\u2019m so proud of the work their team was able to accomplish in just over a year and I\u2019ve learned so much about how to be an entrepreneur from watching them grow.  \nIt's a great learning experience for me, but it's also a way to stay current on all of my various interests. And they help me as much as I help them.\nWhat's your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?\nFor up-and-coming entrepreneurs, my advice would be don\u2019t just jump in to working at a startup or creating a startup because you think it will be a world of fun and games. It will be so much harder and so much more intensive than you imagine. Also, the tech industry can be volatile, so toughen up!\nHowever, if you aren\u2019t risk-averse, and you want to put your heart into something with lasting value and you know you have the right team making the product a reality, you must do it. There\u2019s never been a better time in our history to take this chance. With the recession, everyone and their mother is an entrepreneur, and most everyone I meet is sitting on a great idea they should be executing. We all know that the market is incredibly hot right now, investors are more excited than ever to invest in smart product-driven ideas. \nJust know full well realizing those ideas depends on your team and on really listening to what your customers want. But thanks to social media, we've never been more tapped in to what our customers want, and we can really listen to the community. Get Satisfaction FTW!\nLast piece of advice: Distance yourself from the hype and what everyone's calling a \u201Ctech bubble,\u201D and really just focus sincerely on making a product that people want to use. It\u2019s hokey, but it\u2019s true.  \nWhat are your thoughts on women in tech?\nI think I'm ready for the focus to not be \u201CDo women make great entrepreneurs?\u201D and instead for there to be an overall acceptance that there are kick-ass ladies out there making really great products. Period. I want the focus to be less on the two X chromosomes and more on their visions. As Sheryl Sandberg said so well in her TED talk, it\u2019s just about demanding a seat at the table.  \nCaterina Fake was one of the early female founders I looked up to \u2014 Flickr was such a beautifully exercised vision that it's impossible to ignore her contributions to the industry. Every single day I seem to be meeting another exceptional woman entrepreneur who has an idea to change the landscape of media and technology.\nI know that it\u2019s a matter of time before we forget we ever talked about women in tech as if they\u2019re an anomaly."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/08/02/soraya-darabi-foodspotting/>