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George Azih calls himself a “Product CEO.” 

He didn’t set out to build a fast-growing startup like many serial founders and CEOs do. He was an accountant, and he’d found himself in charge of technical accounting and accounting research at a Fortune 500 company in Georgia. While in the role, he realized there was a very big product gap in the world of accounting. 

While there are many lease management software options, none of them addressed the very big pain points associated with lease accounting. Azih was building elaborate spreadsheets to help his company keep up with the intricacies of leases, but he knew those spreadsheets were going to get infinitely more complicated since new accounting regulations were coming down the pike. 

He started looking for accounting software that could help streamline the process and be easier for his entire team to use. But there simply wasn’t a product on the market that could help.

Finding Opportunities 

Azih decided to start LeaseQuery in March 2010, but the first line of code wasn’t written until September of 2011. In between, Azih worked to become the expert on all things lease accounting. Quite literally, it became his obsession. 

“I cannot tell you how many times I dreamt of lease accounting. That was how deep I was into it,” he told Hypepotamus. 

He knew the problem was big, but he actually didn’t realize just how big it was until new customers started seeking LeaseQuery out. 

The company’s first check for $500 came from Alpharetta, Georgia-based restaurant chain Fresh To Order. Initially, Azih thought his target customers were going to be those types of hospitality and restaurant brands, since they are dealing with leases at multiple locations. But it took some time for him to realize that his target customer wasn’t just limited to the hospitality and restaurant industry. The reality is that companies lease a lot more than buildings. They lease vehicles, equipment, planes,…