Nothing fuels a business like having the freedom to focus on customers, innovate and think about the future.
Tamim Hamid is the inventor, founder and CEO of Theradome. Prior to Theradome, Tamim was Senior Vice President of Sanmina, a $13 Billion NASDAQ-listed company. He was the leader of the company’s Worldwide Medical Division, and was responsible for sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing and logistics services globally. Tamim grew the division from annual revenues of $280M to over $800M with operations in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Tamim also served in senior executive roles at two start-ups, Outreach and QuVis, which were both sold to Motorola and Johnson & Johnson respectively. Tamim began his career at Kennedy Space Center (NASA) where he designed and implemented various leading-edge biomedical technologies including designing and implementing various types of laser and photonics systems, for the prestigious space shuttle program and its astronauts. His education background consists of a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Master of Science in Computer Engineering and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.
Where did the idea for Theradome come from?
The name Theradome is a combination of the word Therapy and Dome. Since we market a product for the scalp, some people refer their thinning head as the chrome dome and the fact that our product is shaped like a dome, we went and combined the two words to create Theradome.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
We are now a global company in about 57 countries. My days start early and end late, but overall it is very productive as we have automated a lot of our operations and have plenty of tools and dashboards to check the status of our company.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Bringing an idea or product to life is extremely difficult in our space since there are so many factors such as regulatory approvals, software and hardware integrations and making sure the device is safe to use. We strongly believe in rapid prototyping of products and testing them out quickly and get feedback before creating a final version. This type of concurrent engineering reduces the time to market but also makes sure that the user experience is maximized.
What’s one trend that excites you?
We are starting to see a lot of hair loss professionals starting to believe in our technology and the fact that light does indeed promote hair growth and slows down hair loss. With the fact that more and more people are realizing that hair loss can be controlled, this is a very exciting time to be in the aesthetic medical device space.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
I think that being a little bit OCD and mild form of ADHD is a great combination for an entrepreneur to possess, as this creates opportunities to create almost perfect products in record time!
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would absolutely urge myself to fully implement modern tools and processes right from the start and let those processes grow with the company. Right when it’s time to break through and really achieve explosive growth, there’s nothing worse than having to stop and figure out basic operations. Nothing fuels a business like having the freedom to focus on customers, innovate and think about the future. If your operations become an anchor to the business, you lose that freedom and spend too much time putting out fires rather than growing sales. Find a system to cover those operational bases and focus on growth.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
All humans are good people, I strongly believe this, but what ruin humans are bad parenting and a bad environment. Convincing people that humans have good in them can be very difficult.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
The number one thing I do on a daily basis is create my to do list. I hate to recommend software, but Microsoft OneNote is simply amazing!
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?
Putting real automation in place to optimize operations. We are almost 90% automated. No one within our company touches our product and we don’t have one single filing cabinet. We’re completely in the cloud. The goal is to operate with minimal errors, fast turnaround, and being amazingly efficient.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
Even though this is my fourth start-up, the only time I truly was very stressed was at my last company. We went through hard times. I had a board of directors which did not agree on anything. We eventually solved the issues but I made a promise after that, no more board of directors and keep the investors out of the board of directors.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Automation and robotics, I think that investing in robots for all kinds of labor replacement technologies (i.e. fast food, mfg, janitorial, healthcare and other labor intensive tasks) should be something to invest in.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
We recently spent $79 on a cart abandonment software and it’s been the best investment ever! Recovering abandoned carts is truly amazing!
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
We use Microsoft products. The new Teams app within the O365 suite is extremely efficient especially for virtual teams like ours.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
The best book a CEO should read is all of books by Henry Ford, his vision for automation and efficiency still applies today.
What is your favorite quote?
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 1,000 ways that won’t work”.
Key learnings:
- Stay organized and start your day off with a “TO DO” checklist
- Automate the workspace as much as possible so you can optimize the way you work and scale your business.
- Spend time vetting out tools and software before adding it to new and existing processes. Think long-term.
- A simple and small investment can make a huge impact and have a significant amount in returns.
- Don’t give up and keep trying. You will find a way.
Connect:
Tamim Hamid on Linkedin:
Theradome on Facebook:
Carlyn runs the day-to-day publishing operation here at ideamensch and interacts with our awesome customers and entrepreneurs. She is likely editing this with a cat on her lap.