Riaz Lalehzari founded GlobalPatron after his wife had to stay in the hospital for 3 months on bed rest due to a high-risk pregnancy. This motivated him to start his own business with more flexible hours. He began working on concepts for an online product late at night and on his commute. His goal was to create an affordable, universal forms solution for organizations. GlobalPatron provides enterprise-grade forms functionality at lower prices than competitors. Profits also support social causes, in line with the founders' vision. The remote team works independently due to the founders' desire to avoid outside funding that could influence social giving.

1. Our Startup Story
How a Hospital Room Paved the Way for
Creating GlobalPatron
By Riaz Lalehzari | July 28, 2020
For years I’d always wished to start up a business so that I could have
more flexible time to be a better dad, and to have more financial
capacity to be able to better contribute to the needs of wider society and
make a positive difference in the world, but for various reasons and
despite my wish for it, this hadn’t happened yet. However a series of
events in 2016 changed that.
It was October 2016 and my expectant wife and I were at the hospital
for a routine pregnancy checkup for our second son when our doctor
gave us the bad news that the pregnancy was at high risk of very
premature birth and that my wife must not leave the hospital. She was
to stay in hospital on strict bed-rest with minimal movement for three
months.
This really un-ideal situation we were in, where we were so time-poor,
unclear about the future, and so dependent on my employers flexibility
and graciousness (which they were thankfully), was really a massive
reminder and motivator for me to put the pedal to the metal and try as
hard as possible to get things moving and start up an independent
business, despite the odds.
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2. Photo of the hospital in Sydney which became our regular home for some
months
I immediately started working on concepts for a product, till the early
hours of the morning, even bringing my notepad of ideas with me to the
hospital to scribble screen designs and ideas on whenever the
opportunity allowed. Having a notepad or piece of paper available
became a necessary travel item and I’d always have one nearby to
write down notes whenever ideas would come to me.
This carried on for a very long time, our son was thankfully born into the
world at a healthy 37 weeks, and despite the regular exhaustion and
lack of free time, I kept chipping away at the goal in the early hours of
the morning, very late in the evenings, the bus commute to work in the
morning, and the bus commute back home.
"I would always hope to get a spot in
the left or right corner of the back seat
of the bus so there would be enough
space to use the laptop without
constantly bumping my elbow into the
person on my right whenever I needed
to use my mouse."
In the meantime, as an attempt at service to wider society I was working
with some friends to provide them with employment and the freelance
project I’d assigned to them was coming to an end. I was basically
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3. running out of ideas and work for them to do but wanted them to still
have work opportunities and a source of income.
The idea simply occurred to me that forms systems are notoriously
complex and never-ending, and that if I’d ask them to work on a forms
system I’d never have the problem of running out of things for people to
do!
There was no commercial reasoning behind it really, but the more I
thought about it though, the better the idea seemed! I did serious
market research into the idea and the industry, and thought of all the
times I myself as a software engineer at work had personally attempted
to find a forms system strong enough to replace our own forms at work
without being excessively expensive and it was non-existent. I ended up
dumping the ideas of my original product altogether and went all-in for
forms.
Having been working for large companies most of my life and having 20
years hands-on experience in software engineering and secure online
systems I felt confident that with a team I could help make something
world-class that really anyone could afford, and the quest to produce a
Universal, Secure, Enterprise-grade forms solution at affordable prices
began.
Finally I must add that thankfully I also had my dear wife's support all
the way through, otherwise this could never have transitioned from a
series of ideas and paper notes, into reality.
Where did the name Global Patron come from?
The domain name was registered more than 18 years ago back in
2002. Around that time I’d quietly decided to start a website to help the
family. It had over 700 registered users (free users), but for various
reasons including lack of funds I had to sadly abandon it.
The name is associated with having a global vision, and being of
service.
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4. It took many years to create this platform. What motivated
you to keep going for so long?
A big motivator and source of energy for me to keep persisting even
when very fatigued was being regularly aware of the unjust and difficult
circumstances that many others live under. It was especially close to
home for me because I also personally knew some relatives and friends
who were (and still are) under severe economic pressure and injustice
in their home countries.
In an increasingly interconnected world, more light is being cast on the
social conditions of every people, giving greater visibility to their
circumstances. While there are developments that give hope, there is
much that should weigh heavy on the conscience of the human race,
and we must redouble our efforts to use our skills, whatever they may
be, to make tangible improvements in the well being of our societies.
In the words of Bahá’u’lláh:
 Do not busy yourselves in your own
concerns; let your thoughts be fixed upon
that which will rehabilitate the fortunes of
mankind 
Why not a minimal form builder, but rather an enterprise-
grade forms solution?
There are already numerous minimal form builders in the market. What
appeared to be lacking in the industry though was Enterprise-Grade
functionality that was affordable, as well as an outward-looking service
focus beyond "supplying an I.T service".
A major goal of GlobalPatron is to contribute to a new mindset towards
business and wealth, where wealth is used for the progress of society,
and not accumulated unnecessarily by individuals. We could not reach
this goal by being a minimal platform. We were obliged to be a strong
platform from the get-go so that this mindset would be taken seriously
by others in the industry. For example if the executives at wealthy large
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5. companies like TypeForm, SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics are to notice
what GlobalPatron is attempting to do, and to do the same in their own
organisations.
What pain points does this software platform solve?
A universal platform to replace all data capture needs of an
organization:
From drag-and-drop conversational survey needs of the marketers, to
complex code-exportable application forms for the technical teams, the
platform acts as a one-stop solution for the data collection needs of every
department of the organization.
Access Enterprise-grade forms at the most affordable rates:
Now you don’t have to pay top dollar for enterprise-grade form systems.
Existing users of competing enterprise forms systems can also have
massive cost savings by switching over to our platform instead.
Contribution to Social Causes:
A primary underlying goal of the business is contributing to social projects
that benefit wider society. For this reason from the very beginning my wife
and I told ourselves that if this venture succeeds we would use its revenues
for the greater good, and not simply wealth accumulation.
"The world has no real need for more
millionaires, what it needs at the
moment is personal sacrifice for the
greater good."
How does your team operate?
The entire team is spread out across the globe and we all work
remotely from our homes.
I couldn't afford to leave my day job for the many years it took to create
this platform, and did not want to get outside funding otherwise the
investors would be able to have a say and prevent the amount the
organisation contributes to various causes, so the workplace for me
was crazy late hours at home when the kids were asleep, weekends
and holidays (when I could), and the bus trip to work in the morning,
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6. Photo of my remote "office". The 617x commute
and the bus trip back home.
Here's a photo of my remote "office". The good old 617x commute. The
prized seat for getting work done on my laptop was the far left or right
space on the back-seat.
A Final Note...
Our platform provides clients with an enterprise-grade ‘universal’ data
capture solution that is powerful enough to build anything they please
as far as data capture is concerned.
And what it lacks is just one thing - an enterprise price tag.
Play around with our enterprise-grade forms platform. Be it a
sophisticated or simple form, you can effortlessly create the complete
range of data collection forms, all from a single platform with minimal or
no coding knowledge required.
You don’t have to take our word for it. You can see it for yourselves:
www.globalpatron.com/
We have just started on our journey. There’s a long way to go and more
prospects to be covered at every stage of growth. At this juncture, we
would love to hear your genuine feedback on our product, so that we
can keep improving it and serve you better.
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