Meet Khalid Shams

Khalid, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
This all started back when I was college, I realized I had a problem with my pictures. Every time I wanted to find a picture that a took a week or month ago even it was a task. I would have to scroll up through my phone gallery to find what I am looking for. One day it clicked for me. Why isn’t it already a thing? There should be one big picture with all of my pictures inside of it that I can easily search and access immediately.. (perhaps a tag of sorts). A picture, a Mozay rather that has all of my memories in one place, where I can search and easily find what I am looking for. In the beginning, this vision was all I had. A dream and my creative imagination this was all just a dream. But I fell in love with the idea, become so passionate about the vision I see for the future of pictures that I began to obsess over it. How can I make this revolutionary? I am solving a problem that many people have. I started custom designing, and printing Mozay’s with peoples own pictures they would send to me. At first manual all the way, through time, it started becoming more and more automated and still has a very long way to go. My passion has always been to create. I’ve created music for years on in, which I am now still on Spotify, apple music youtube, etc. www.RaKalid.com. But as I got older and found this new passion of photoshop, in design and graphic design, I work on that full time. I work 74 hours a week open-close at the mall, doing a full-time MBA in Applied Computer Sciences, LOVE to play basketball at night, and built the entire website recently and run the social media pages. The secret to not getting burnt out is NEVER to believe or even think of that being a possibility. I focus on the end result, the vision I see in my head as being the leader and standard in the picture world, there is still a long way to go. For now, I am in the mall in my kiosk selling custom wood prints, metal prints, canvas and more-so have transitioned into a picture problem solver. People explain to me what their issue is and I instinctively find a way to creatively solve it For example, a man came to me in the mall, told me he has this big wall in his home and he knows he wants to fill it with art but has no idea where to start or how to structure it. I told him to send me the dimensions of his wall, take a picture of the wall, tell me a bit about his interests, and I will make a mockup with a Mozay Wall Plan. Mind you, I have never done this before; this is all on the fly. I created a phenomenal mockup that he loved, purchased, and thanks me about to this day. This is only one of the many examples of my day to day that came to mind. I love to act (https://vimeo.com/159181874), do spoken word, play chess, and of course, basketball. It is very important to me to take care of my body and my mind. I believe there are so many options, endless possibilities. As of the end of July, I won’t be in Chandler mall as I want to do art festivals and all types of events. The mall was a good experience, but it had me very limited in my movements.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been everything but easy. Some of the biggest struggles right now is having the funding I need to advance to the next level. But despite the struggled, I always find a way to get through them. I will let you know when I get there since I am still on the way.

So let’s switch gears a bit and tell us more about the your work.
I have been a very creative individual. Even when I doubted myself the most, everyone who has ever known me can tell you undoubtedly I see things in a unique way. Simply put. I am an understander, I listen, and I hear what people say and what they don’t say. I use that to create solutions. The most thing I am most proud of about my organization is the trust behind the Mozay brand. The trust people have in me to come up with a solution, build a piece of art that will last forever. See, pictures are memories that are printed. It taps into the emotions of people. You have to be careful with this craft and to handle it with care. What sets me apart from everyone else is my resilience and my mindset. Growing up, many people could never understand why or how I do certain things the way I do. But what they all soon learn shortly after is there is always a method to the madness.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is a summation of all of your everyday choices combined. Always set aggressive goals and deadlines. My goal is to always find a way to exceed my milestone I have set in place for my self, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. My motto is to become at least 1% better every day.