Meet Goar Hovhannisyan | Realtor & Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Goar Hovhannisyan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Goar, what role has risk played in your life or career?
As someone who was once afraid of coloring outside the lines, taking risks was never an option. Nevertheless, I began coloring outside the lines and stepping out of my comfort zone, and I can confidently say that I am never going back. Taking risks open up doors and allow you to discover the answers to those what-if questions. You may not always like the outcome, but at least you have a definite answer rather than always wondering what could have been by making up scenarios in your head. Growing up, I was always taught to go for the sure thing, like going to college to get a degree and be a salaried employee with benefits. Everything changed in my third year of university, when the pandemic hit and the whole world had to shift to virtual platforms. The endless Zoom meetings, group projects, and having to teach myself the material after those Zoom meetings got pretty tiring, pretty quickly. So, I began researching the lives and habits of successful people. What I discovered through my readings was that successful people take risks. They are viewed as the “crazy” person by others because they are taking a risk to do what others are too scared to do and they have no problem stepping out of their comfort zone to make things happen. This made me reflect on myself and I realized how many opportunities I had missed because I was too shy to speak up or too afraid to make a move. Then one day, it just clicked. I began changing my mindset and pushing myself to actually do the things that I had always wanted to do. I started off by taking an internship at a Real Estate office. This internship opened my eyes to the world of entrepreneurship, which coincidentally was the complete opposite of what my major was; Business Administration with an option in Systems and Operations Management. Real estate and interior design was always something that I was interested in, but whenever I spoke about maybe choosing a career in those fields, I was told that I would never make it or that’s not where the money is. Unfortunately, at that time, I let those words influence my decisions. Fast forward to last year, with Zoom university, I quickly discovered that I really disliked my major and wanted to be an employER rather than an employEE, but I was already in too deep. This is when I was faced with the decision to either take a risk and start from scratch or stay where I am and settle for a 9-5 job at a soulless place. The first big risk I decided to take was opening up my own online store for streetwear known as SevStreetwear. I created my own logo, website, and designs for the merchandise. It started off with one design that went to charity in Armenia and then my creative juices began flowing, which resulted in more designs. However, I didn’t feel like I had accomplished enough, so I finally decided to get my Real Estate license. Keep in mind that I was a full-time student who had classes Monday-Saturday, and had added studying for a Real Estate license to her already overflowing plate. Now I am a college graduate, with two businesses at the age of 22. In retrospect, I have been able to accomplish more in two years of taking risks that I had when I was afraid of taking the leap and failing. It makes me wonder where my life would have been if I hadn’t decided to step up and be bold for once. Now I am building an empire for myself, rather than working a corporate job that I would’ve had to drag myself out of bed for every morning. The words of advice I would give my younger self would be to take that risk without worrying about failure, because failure really isn’t the worst thing, giving up is.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I am lucky enough to actually have not one, but two businesses and each business comes with its own set of challenges. My first business is a streetwear brand known as SevStreetwear. In the streetwear world, there is little-to-no Armenian influence and after unleashing my creativity, I discovered that most of my designs were influenced by my Armenian-American upbringing. With Armenia being such a small country, a lot of people haven’t even heard of it and I want to change that one t-shirt at a time. My second business is in Real Estate. I am a licensed Realtor who loves architecture, homes, and interior design.

Being that each of my businesses are in completely different markets, each one has different challenges. With the streetwear market being so saturated, it’s become difficult standing out from the crowd. Especially since all social media platforms are shifting from photo-sharing apps to video ones, it is a whole new ball game. Taking some nice pictures doesn’t cut it anymore, so now there’s this world of video content creation that has to be explored in order to succeed. It’s difficult trying to come up with video content and then having to edit it. A 30 second video can take up to 2 hours to shoot and then another hour or two to edit. It has been challenging, but there is such a variety of online resources and tools that makes it easier. You have to accept the fact that your expectations for each post are not always met, since it’s unpredictable what your audience may react to. As for my Real Estate business, it has recently gotten up and running. The challenge with that is the COVID restrictions, in order to be successful in this field, you have to get out there and meet people. Along with that, the current housing market is something that has never been seen before.

Although it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, I love what I do and I can’t wait to see where I will be in 5 years.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Those who know me, know that I love to go out and try out new places. I have multiple bucket lists broken down by category, like things to do and places to eat. Those categories are then broken down into sub-categories. I have a list of about 90 places to eat that are Instagrammable and that’s only one of my lists. For some reason, California is known for Hollywood, when it should really be for the beaches. There are so many beautiful beaches to choose from and beautiful restaurants to match. Los Angeles is really a melting pot of people from all different backgrounds, which is great for foodies because you can try out so many different cuisines. If it was a week long trip, I would say to eat a different cuisine and visit a different beach everyday. There is so much to discover and you can do that here by eating Armenian food on monday, Mexican food on tuesday, and Thai food the next day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The driving force behind me is my family. Seeing how they all moved here from a different country, without knowing the language, in order to provide a better life for their children is really inspiring. The one person in my life who stands out from the rest is my Mom. She really is my hero. She had to play the role of both parents and raised two kids all on her own. Not to mention that she went back to school a few years ago to finish up her Bachelor’s degree in order to further provide for us. She has shown me how important it is for me to provide for myself and never to rely on others. More importantly, she has shown me that it can be done, even when the odds are stacked up against you and life keeps throwing curveballs at you. I can’t thank my Mom enough for all that she has done for us, but I will give her everything she deserves and more.

Website: SevStreetwear.com

Instagram: Goharhovh