Mr Bob Wazneh
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| Born | 1987/08/07 |
| 🏳️ Nationality | Lebanese |
| Other names | Bobz |
| 🏫 Education | Masters in Telecom Engineering, Minor in Psychology, Certified Life Coach |
| 💼 Occupation | Serial Entrepreneur |
| 🌐 Website | https://bobwazneh.com |
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Meet Bob Wazneh, The Entrepreneur Who Growth Hacked Life
Entrepreneurship is becoming the next big social media lifestyle that thousands of so-called entrepreneurs are promoting. For those of you who kept a close eye on social media during the last few years, you’ll know that “entrepreneurship” is being portrayed as this fancy lifestyle full of exotic cars, loaded wallets, and most importantly the escape from the corporate 9-5 slavery. But how true is this? Is entrepreneurship really the heaven of business people, investors and miserable employees looking to quit their jobs?
There’s one thing you should keep in mind in all of this; not everything you see on social media is real, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. Don’t let a video of a 25-year-old asking you to buy his $997 course while riding a Lamborghini fool you, most of this stuff is either fake or a scam.
Read about success stories of real entrepreneurs instead and get inspired by their struggle and breakthrough. Learn from their mistakes and implement them with your own. Don’t fall for the social media trap, not everyone tells you how hard it is to run a business or the countless hours and sleepless nights that you need to put in to make it work.
Take it from Bob Wazneh, a successful Lebanese entrepreneur who’s been through the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. Having worked with multiple clients at a very young age, Bob is the founder of Bobz Solutions, a company that provides IT solutions and web development services for businesses. After finding success early on, Bob started new business ventures in different industries including the construction, marketing and mobile apps industries. In 2020, he partnered with business heavyweight and serial entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, a partnership that is already finding huge success and making waves in the B2B scene. Bob holds a Master’s degree in Telecom Engineering and a minor in psychology. On top of his many technical certifications, he is also a certified life coach and an NLP practitioner.
Get to know Bob as he shares his story and answers different questions about his entrepreneurial journey.
Why Did You Get into Entrepreneurship at a Young Age?
I didn’t know what entrepreneurship meant back then, but I loved to explore new things. I started my own side hustle when I was just 16, doing freelance work in IT. I’ve always had an interest in fixing stuff so having an IT background made sense to me, and I used to read a lot of tech magazines and apply everything I learned with my own computer. I started small and my first few gigs were all about setting up the network connection for the local gaming cafes for a few extra bucks. Things didn’t stop there, and it was not long until I got my first big client. When I was 18, my friend’s dad took me to the Nazek Hariri Foundation who were struggling with a year-long IT issue. I fixed it in under 2 hours… they were simply blown away. They spent a lot of money trying to find a solution, but then comes an 18-year-old out of nowhere, and he fixes it in no time just like that.
Here’s the part that changed my whole perspective of things. When I was just about to leave, they asked me to write them a bill. Funny enough, I didn’t know what a bill looked like, I thought I was just doing them a favor. I wrote a $250 bill for my services, and that made me realize something very important. I made $250 doing something I considered a hobby; it was something I never thought I could do for money. This got me thinking… What if I can get more clients to pay me for my services? That’s when I knew I was about to embark on an exciting new journey called entrepreneurship.
Clients kept coming my way through referrals and I reached a point where I had too many clients and very little time. That’s when I decided to outsource my work and hire other people, that way I was able to double down on entrepreneurship. From that point on, I partnered with different people on different projects. Most of them failed, but some of them made really good money.
What’s funny is that I never intended to monetize my skill in the first place, it was the market demand that found value in my services, and I think this is a key takeaway for anyone looking to start a business. If you can find a gap in a high-demand market and provide a solution, then there’s always money to be made.
How Did You Start Your First Business?
One day, I got a call from a huge learning center in Beirut. They were opening a new branch that had around 50-60 computers, which meant a lot of IT work needed to be done. This was easily one of the biggest projects I ever received, so I met with the client and sent them a quotation afterwards. A week later, they called to tell me that although my offer was really good, they couldn’t work with me because they’d rather work with a company instead of a freelancer (they wanted something more official)
Let’s just say it was a reality check for me. Back then I thought owning a company meant you had to have a lot of money. Luckily, I had a friend who was an auditor and he knew how to set up a company, which turned out to be cheaper than what I imagined. I handed him all the required documents and a week later, Bobz Solutions was an official company.
I went back to the learning center to hand them an official quotation from Bob’s Solutions, and eventually I took the project. It’s crazy because what started out as a side hustle is now a thriving company with many clients under its portfolio. I realized afterwards how different everything is when you run a business. You can literally work on new ideas, work with bigger clients and make good money. Imagine a 20-year-old running his own company, my whole mindset just changed from that point on.
Did Having Your Own Company Help You Become Successful?
Owning a company doesn’t make you successful in my opinion, it’s the other way around. You can be a freelancer and find success, but starting a business is a whole different thing, and it’s never an easy thing to do. I didn’t make any money in the first few months of starting out, and that’s because security doesn’t exist in entrepreneurship. You can’t guarantee you’ll get paid at the end of the month like you would in a normal job. I’ve been punched in the face many times before, but I think those moments are needed because they teach you valuable lessons and help you get out of situations much faster.
How Did University Help You as an Entrepreneur?
University didn’t help me at all to be honest. Even though I was working while studying for my degree, I was only pushing myself to graduate because this is what society expects from you. But if you ask me, I think university doesn’t add to your knowledge, and it certainly doesn’t entitle you to success. It’s still the best option for people who prefer a safe route and a stable job, but even university degrees are no longer the safe investment we once knew. I can say this because many of my classmates are either still trying to figure out what to do with their lives or trying to find a decent paying job to make up for the fortune they forked out on education.
I think the educational system doesn’t prepare people for life after university, and it’s sad because there’s so much talent that just needs guidance. If you think about it, the whole point of university is for you to be able to make money after you graduate, so why is the subject of making money not part of the curriculum. It makes no sense! Entrepreneurship and managing a business are things you don’t learn at university.
How Did You Meet Mario Nawfal & What’s It like Working With Him?
Not many people know this about me, but I’m a Salsa dancer and I was very active in Lebanon’s dance scene. You’d find me in literally every party in town. This is actually how I met Mario, who back then was also breaking into the dance scene and going to the same parties as me. We later found out that we were both into business and entrepreneurship, and that’s when we got to know more about each other. Long story short, we decided to partner together after helping each other with each of our businesses and seeing how well we got along on a business level. Our partnership just flourished, and every business idea we came up with, we’d have it up and running within a week. We launched several businesses ever since and we found huge success together.
Having a business partner can be tricky because it means you have to work with him on a daily basis. The biggest mistake is for a partnership to be one-sided. Both sides have to be compatible for it to work on top of working together and learning from each other. I guess this is why my partnership with Mario worked out well.
What Made You Become a Life Coach?
Back in school, I was that person who was friends with everyone. I just loved making connections with people as much as I love influencing them. I used to go on stage in front of hundreds of people and give out trainings for a German company I once partnered with, and this allowed me to build a following. People started coming to me for questions and advice.
Eventually I got my certification in life coaching at a bootcamp in Las Vegas. It helped me think outside the box in almost every situation and it allowed me to understand people even more. Business-wise, it made me better at influencing prospects, saying the right keywords, understanding body language, and closing a lot of deals.
What Are Your Hobbies?
Salsa and basically anything that gives you an adrenaline rush.
What Motivates You & What’s Your End Goal?
Two things motivate me: knowing my worth to myself and others, and knowing what I’m capable of. It’s important to know if your end goal is financial, social or legacy-related, and in my case my end goal involves all three.
Financially, I’m aiming for a net worth of 1 billion Dollars. I know it’s a big number but you have to aim high if you want to achieve your goals.
Socially, I want to be the person who people come to for help, and the one who positively impacts their lives.
As for my legacy, I want to be known for visiting a third world country with poor life conditions and teaching them basic principles like eating properly and staying clean… things they were deprived of.
What Advice Can You Give for Young Entrepreneurs?
- Whatever you plan on doing, you need to be ready for it, and to be ready, you have to learn from your own mistakes or at the very least from the mistakes of other people. Read and learn from those who did it and don’t listen to people who never tried your idea before. Always evaluate the opinion before letting it affect your decision.
- You have to take risks. Whenever there’s an opportunity that you’re scared of, most of the time it’s worth it. Even if you fail, it will be a great lesson for your next venture.
- Don’t go where everyone else is going, always go for a blue ocean and double down your efforts there. Make sure to do your research first before taking action because you’ll need a proof of concept. Is there demand for it? Is it trending right now? What is the search volume for it? Get your answers first before you get to work.
- Making money is one thing and scaling is another. You need to have a system in place for that. A system is a set of tools and processes that allows someone with no skills or experience to complete a task. It is essential for any business to scale up seamlessly and efficiently.
- Document every step you take and always split-test to know what works and what doesn’t. This way you can double down on what already works.
- Be open for change and don’t let your ego get in the way.
