BBC's weekly series The Boss features several business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Shahrzad Rafati, founder and head of Internet video technology company BroadbandTV (BBTV).
Shahrzad Rafati was only 13 when he decided he would one day build a global enterprise.
She also knew that she would not be able to fulfill her dream if she stayed in her native Iran.
Thus, at the age of 17, her drive and confidence managed to convince her parents, Iranian authorities, and Canadian immigration officers to let her go to Vancouver alone to go to university.
Shahrzad arrived in the city on the Pacific coast of Canada in 1996 with only one suitcase and only limited knowledge of English.
"I couldn't communicate what I meant [when I arrived], and I think that was probably the biggest challenge, "he says." But I was determined to make my life a success. "
Today, the 40-year-old continues to run BBTV, a company that helps businesses around the world earn advertising revenue from videos on YouTube, Facebook and other websites and apps.
Launched by Shahrzad in 2005, its high profile clients include everyone from the National Basketball Association, to Sony, Warner Bros and Disney. Canadian newspapers have speculated that the business is worth more than $ 1 billion (£ 760 million).
"It is important for entrepreneurs to think as big as possible," he says.
Shahrzad was born into an entrepreneurial family in Tehran in 1979, the year of the Iranian revolution. His mother ran a textile company and his father owned a real estate company.
Life in the Iranian capital became increasingly difficult for his family following the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war that raged from 1980 to 1988. To escape the bombing of the Iraqi Air Force, Shahrzad and his family moved out of town to a small village .
"Iran has been at war for eight years and much of my family's success had been taken from them," he says. "I knew I needed a different future, and a life where I could make a difference, and where equality was equal." So when she became a teenager, she was determined to move abroad.
In Vancouver she enrolled at the University of British Columbia to study computer science. She didn't know much about computers, nor did she have one to begin with, but she was passionate about math and technology.
Graduated in 2000, Shahrzad then studied French at the Université Paris-Sorbonne and leadership at the Said Business School of the University of Oxford.
Looking back, she says she is interested in how Apple was revolutionizing the music industry and how people consumed music, with its then iPod player and iTunes service. He realized that the video would inevitably follow suit and be streamed over the Internet.
"The shift in the trend of music consumption was a clear indication of where video content was heading," he says. "Audio was at the very beginning of evolution and it was clear to me that video would be next."
So in 2005, at the age of 25, and the same year YouTube was born, he founded BBTV.
It was initially a hardware company that made a set-top box that allowed users to watch Internet videos on their televisions. But not popular with shoppers - people are happy to watch videos online on their computers - in just three months Shahrzad decided to change the company's focus.
"You have to fail quickly and learn from your mistakes quickly," he says.
To run the company, Shahrzad says he noticed that internet users pirated videos and uploaded them to online platforms, such as the new YouTube. Copyright holders, movie or TV companies, would then move on to get the videos removed quickly.
It was then that he had his big idea: to create software that would allow these companies to profit from the advertisements placed on all that content, rather than trying to remove it.
BBTV's software tracks uploaded video content, such as sports game highlights or movie clips.
It does this through audio and video recognition technology and the ads are then placed on the videos. The advertising revenue then goes to the companies or sporting entities concerned, with BBTV taking a percentage.
Just two years after its creation, BBTV gained one of its first major clients - the NBA - with whom it continues to work to this day. "I was 20 and very nervous, but I really believed in our solutions," says Shahrzad.
To help grow the business, it has acquired numerous investors, including Canadian businessman Hamed Shahbazi. Then in 2013, European entertainment group RTL bought a 51% stake for $ 36 million.
RTL subsequently increased its stake to 57.3%, but Shahrzad continues to have one of the largest individual holdings. RTL does not release separate financials for BBTV, but its "digital businesses" division, which includes the Canadian company and two other businesses, posted revenues of € 452 million ($ 539 million; $ 408 million) last year. pounds).
BBTV now also produces software to create online videos and its services are available to both individuals and businesses. It claims that videos linked to its various technologies were viewed 429 billion times in 2019.
Stephania Varalli, CEO of Women Of Influence, a Canadian organization that promotes business women and other women leaders, says Shahrzad's secret is her ability to evolve with the industry.
"It constantly rotated, which kept it one step ahead," says Varalli.
As an entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, Shahrzad says she had to work harder than her male colleagues. "I have less chance of error," he says.
At BBTV it has realized its ambition to create a global business, the 400 employees are distributed in four main centers, its headquarters in Vancouver and offices in New York, Los Angeles and Mumbai.
Shahrzad says there is no wage gap between his male and female staff and that women make up 43% of the total workforce and 46% of executives, high figures for a tech company.
"It gives me great pride," he says. "This is a key factor in why we are so successful at BBTV."