Conversations with leaders who have built successful companies and organisations.
Our mission is to inspire Muslims to build things that empower the ummah.
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Score global : 52%
The Genius Muslim Who Built a $1B Company By Challenging The Banking System
Season 1 · Episode 37
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 43:42
Raafi Hossain is the co-founder and CEO of Fasset, a stablecoin-powered digital bank built for emerging markets.
Born in Dhaka, he studied at Harvard and worked at the UN before starting the company in 2019.
Today Fasset is valued at $1 billion, with more than 3 million wallets across 125 countries and $40 billion in annualised transaction volume.
In this episode, he breaks down why almost all of crypto is a scam, how he gets regulators and politicians to say yes, and why he thinks Sharia compliance is the wrong way to think about Islamic finance.
Find out more:
https://www.fasset.com/
https://www.instagram.com/raafihossain/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raafihossain/
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Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f
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0:00 - Introduction
4:14 - The Five Banks Standing Between You and $100
7:01 - Why He Says 99.99% of Crypto Is a Scam
8:55 - The Official Who Told Him to Come Back in 2074
10:23 - The Person Every Regulator Actually Answers To
16:15 - John Smith Clears in Seconds, Muhammad Ahmed Doesn't
21:20 - Why He Calls Sharia Compliance a Colonial Mindset
27:55 - The American Banking Problem He Didn't Expect
36:44 - Why He Thinks Western Muslims Are Too Comfortable
40:54 - The Medina Parable He Uses When Onboarding New Hires
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Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
Exactly How This Muslim Kid Built a $14M Startup (with zero funding)
Season 1 · Episode 36
Monday, September 7, 2026 • Duration 31:31
Rayyan Khan is the founder and CEO of Founders Arm, an offshore recruitment firm that places vetted talent from North Africa and Latin America into US startups.
Pakistani, raised between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, he dropped out in his final month of college and moved to San Francisco with no money to go all in.
Today Founders Arm is at six figures a month with no venture funding and not a single North American hire, with clients including Cal AI and MyFitnessPal.
In this episode, he breaks down how he found his first client, why he deliberately avoided the Philippines and India, and what he felt when he finally met his team in Egypt.
Find out more:
https://foundersarm.com/
https://x.com/rayyanfkhan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayyanfkhan/
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Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f
-------------------
Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
-------------------
0:00 - Introduction
1:33 - Dropping Out in the Final Month of College
2:23 - Hundreds of Job Applications, Not a Single Interview
3:04 - How Offshore Recruitment Actually Makes Money
The Palestinian Genius Revolutionizing How Startups Operate ($23M Company)
Season 1 · Episode 35
Monday, August 31, 2026 • Duration 51:04
Jawad Shreim is the co-founder and CEO of MilkStraw AI, a platform that automatically cuts companies' cloud infrastructure costs.
Palestinian, born and raised in Dubai, he spent over a decade in Silicon Valley building and selling a startup before walking away to start again from the Middle East.
Today MilkStraw is backed by VentureSouq and Flat6Labs, with more than 100 startups running on it.
In this episode, he breaks down why he left America, the near-death experience in Mexico City that brought him back to Islam, and what a co-founder breakdown taught him about who to build with.
Find out more:
https://milkstraw.ai/
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Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f
-------------------
Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
-------------------
0:00 - Introduction
2:49 - The Day His Father Walked Away From a CEO Job
4:18 - Watching Dubai Go From Desert to Global Hub
9:47 - The Paper That Concluded Silicon Valley Isn't a Place
11:40 - The USB Dongle He Sold to His Classmates
12:49 - The Running Costs That Killed His First Company
The Muslim Genius Who Made $12M With a Halal Business (just copy him)
Season 1 · Episode 34
Monday, August 24, 2026 • Duration 01:04:36
Ammar Sulthan is the founder of Muslimpreneur, teaching Muslims how to start their service-based businesses.
He started his first agency while working an IT apprenticeship, cold-calling up to 100 businesses a day and taking six months to land his first client.
Today he's on a mission to help 1,000 Muslims become millionaires.
In this episode, he breaks down the middleman agency model, how to land your first client with no track record, and why he checks his deen first whenever business slows down.
Find out more:
https://go.halalonlinebusiness.co/muslimfounder
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LONG-FORM (YOUTUBE):
Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f
-------------------
Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
-------------------
0:00 - Introduction
0:52 - What Hajj Actually Felt Like, Weeks Later
3:14 - The One Question Almost Nobody Asks Themselves
6:00 - The Morning Protocol He Makes Every Student Do
9:56 - The Fine Line Between Certainty and Entitlement in Dua
11:58 - Why He Tells Beginners to Start Here, Not With Software
The Muslim Genius Who Built a $50M Startup Destroying Microsoft Excel
Season 1 · Episode 33
Thursday, August 20, 2026 • Duration 46:23
Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
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Taimur Abdaal is the co-founder and CEO of Causal, the financial modelling platform built to replace Excel for finance teams.
Raised in the UK in a British Pakistani family, he taught himself to code as a teenager and studied maths at Oxford before quitting his job to build Causal with a university friend.
Five years and $25 million in funding later, he sold the company to Berlin-based Lucanet.
In this episode, he breaks down going from zero to $1M ARR in a year, raising from Accel and Naval Ravikant, and why so many Muslim founders set their sights too low.
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https://x.com/taimurabdaal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/taimurabdaal/
https://causal.app/
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LONG-FORM (YOUTUBE)
Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f
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How to achieve rapid startup ARR growth from zero to one million. Learn the distribution strategy behind this rapid scaling.
This breakdown examines the specific timeline of building a live demo and launching on Hacker News to capture initial demand. If you are a founder looking to understand how to build a waiting list and secure early traction, the content explores the exact steps taken to reach significant revenue milestones.
This 1 Formula Makes Money So Fast It Feels Haram
Season 1 · Episode 34
Monday, July 27, 2026 • Duration 47:38
Apply to Launchpad: https://founderlaunchpad.io/
The 6-week online startup school for working professionals.
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Arib Khan is the founder of 24 Labs, a portfolio of internet companies built entirely without outside capital.
Raised in San Jose in a Pakistani American family, he built his first company, Musicfy, to a million dollars in revenue at 19 and never went back to college.
Today he owns eight businesses doing over a million a year each, and gives a large share of it away.
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Follow Arib Khan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aribkhan/
https://arib.lol/
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0:00 - Introduction
2:28 - A New Product Every Month and the $10,000 Bill He Couldn't Pay
3:41 - The Middle School Maths That Set His Whole Path
5:19 - Why Most Founders in San Francisco Fail
6:41 - Walking Away From a Big Venture Round
8:45 - His Three Rules for Deciding What to Build
10:41 - Inside 24 Labs: Eight Businesses, Zero Investors
11:48 - Why $20K of Your Own Money Beats $1M Raised
12:20 - Putting His Childhood Friends on Payroll
14:15 - Leaving San Francisco and the Billion Dollar Mindset
15:32 - Feeding 100,000 People During Ramadan
Palestinian Billionaire: They Cancelled Me For Gaza. I Built a $9B Empire Instead
Season 1 · Episode 31
Friday, July 17, 2026 • Duration 55:11
Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, a $9 billion AI company.
Born in Jordan to a Palestinian family displaced during the Nakba, he taught himself to code on his father's first computer - and refused to hide his identity on the way up.
In this episode, he breaks down what speaking up cost him, how he built Replit to a $9B valuation, and his advice for Muslim founders looking to build.
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Join Launchpad: https://founderlaunchpad.io/
The online startup school for working professionals.
Go from idea to paying customers in six weeks.
Start Date: 2nd Aug.
-------------------
Follow Amjad:
https://x.com/amasad
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad/
https://replit.com/
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0:00 - Introduction
2:13 - His Grandfather's Life in Palestine Before the Nakba
5:31 - His Father Buying the Neighbourhood's First Computer
7:22 - Competitive Swimming, Counter-Strike & the Making of a Builder
9:20 - Why He Refuses to Hide His Palestinian Identity
12:02 - October 7th: Why He Couldn't Stay Silent
14:30 - Cancelled: Silent Group Chats, Empty Calendar, Dead Deals
Ex-Goldman Banker Exposes The Secret To Building a Billion Dollar Company
Season 1 · Episode 30
Friday, June 26, 2026 • Duration 47:57
Mariam Ahmed is the co-founder of Menza, an AI intelligence platform for consumer brands.
Born and raised in New York, she studied computer science at King's College London before joining Goldman Sachs.
Today she's growing Menza toward a billion-dollar company, backed by Y Combinator and featured in Forbes.
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Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
-------------------
Follow Mariam Ahmed:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariamaahmed/
https://menza.ai/
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0:00 Intro
2:07 Growing up in New York
4:26 From medicine to coding
7:40 Inside Goldman Sachs: how to find winners and losers
11:21 The dinner that ended her finance career
15:02 Last day Friday, flew Saturday, YC on Sunday
17:11 The real reason they got into Y Combinator
20:56 100 conversations in one week to find the idea
22:40 What Menza actually does
23:40 Why 80% of her YC batch is already dead
27:09 The brutal truth about having no boss
33:14 How to build with zero money in 2026
What the Prophet ﷺ Understood About Islam That We Forgot
Season 1 · Episode 30
Monday, June 8, 2026 • Duration 01:00:27
Iqbal Nasim is the former CEO of the National Zakat Foundation.
He studied economics at Cambridge before going into investment banking, then left a seven-figure package to build NZF, transforming how Muslims across the country give their zakat.
He's the founder of Transform My Prayer, helping Muslims connect with their salah, and the Last Day Leadership program, helping them find purpose.
Over the past year, his podcast "In Good Faith" has become a home for the conversations most people avoid
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Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd
For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.
-------------------
Follow Iqbal Nasim:
https://www.youtube.com/@UCZ4GnufkU9g_wWUmmfaOKrA
https://www.iqbalnasim.com/
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0:00 Intro
1:25 "There's no such thing as Islam"
3:38 What does the Quran say on this?
5:09 The misunderstanding of the word "Islam"
8:23 How we lost the original meaning
10:33 The trap of "Islamic everything"
13:07 Why "non-Muslim" is a dehumanizing word
15:57 Do you believe in Allah because you're "Muslim"?
20:40 Would a non-Muslim really not understand halal?
The Muslim That Makes Millionaires: This Dua Habit Turned $0 to $10k/mo
Season 1 · Episode 28
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 • Duration 56:50
Abu Lahya is a Muslim entrepreneur specialising in influencer marketing agencies. He spent 3 years failing in business before making his first $100K.
Today, after building a multi-6-figure marketing agency, he runs one of the biggest business mentorship programs in the Muslim space - with over 40,000 applications and students who've changed their lives, quit their jobs, and made hijrah.
In this episode, he breaks down the exact roadmap from broke to your first $100K, why your relationship with Allah determines your success in business, and how dua became the foundation of everything he built.
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Join Abu Lahya's mentorship:
https://application.imaccelerator.com/sohaib
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Follow Abu Lahya:
https://www.youtube.com/@AbuLayha
https://www.instagram.com/abu_lahya1/
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0:00 Introduction
2:07 The art of sales & never taking no for an answer
3:25 The origin story: rejection and failed businesses
4:39 Why beginners should start with service-based businesses
8:40 Zero to one: the $100 course that changed everything
10:12 Why Muslims avoid business
13:17 Why most people quit and fail
15:36 How the influencer marketing agency model works
16:54 Finding influencers & how to price deals
19:47 The outreach strategy & how to stand out
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4:14 - Why Selling to Everybody Means Selling to Nobody
4:52 - The Content Funnel That Brought Clients to Him
6:12 - Six Months of Running Every Interview Himself
7:27 - Why He Avoided the Philippines, India and Pakistan
8:18 - The First Four Months Were Really Tough
9:07 - The Client Who Hired 22 People Through Him
10:43 - What Gets You to One Won't Get You to Ten
11:36 - A Seven Figure Company With No North American Hires
12:33 - The Lake Tahoe Trip That Didn't Feel Like Winning
14:13 - Failing School and Knowing It Since Fourteen
15:24 - Why He Never Wanted Venture Money
16:50 - Figure Out Who You Are Before You Pick a Model
22:33 - The Criticism of Offshore Hiring, Answered
24:43 - Flying to Egypt and Meeting the Team
28:00 - Why Building Something Deepened His Tawakkul
30:00 - What the Next Ten Years Look Like
15:52 - Six Months Living Inside One Italian Restaurant
18:41 - When the Side Product Became the Real Product
20:25 - The Co-Founder Signals He Kept Explaining Away
22:15 - The Acquisition That Arrived Mid-Fight
27:59 - Losing His Grip on His Own Identity
29:29 - The Taxi Ride in Mexico City
34:10 - The Shahada He Couldn't Bring Himself to Say
39:54 - Why the Exit Money Meant Nothing
41:11 - A Year Before He Knew It Was Depression
42:31 - Becoming Muslim for the Second Time
45:14 - The Trip That Convinced Him to Come Home
47:53 - Silicon Valley Level Engineers, in Jordan
50:13 - The Company Name That Came to Him in a Dream
18:33 - The Middleman Model, Explained
22:06 - Six Months, Business Cards, and Still No Clients
23:32 - Selling Like a Doctor Who Has the Remedy
26:31 - How to Land a Client With Zero Testimonials
27:20 - Authority Jacking and Why He Tells People to Send a Brick
32:34 - 100 Cold Calls a Day and the 561 Nos
36:23 - Charging 5K a Month When That's Someone's Whole Salary
38:14 - Audit Your Time: The Exercise Most People Avoid
49:11 - What Stops the Freelancer Going Straight to Your Client
52:31 - The Unfair Advantage Muslims in the West Have
54:16 - What Happens After Your First 10K Month
1:01:44 - The Mission to Make 1,000 Muslim Millionaires
Effective distribution serves as the primary engine for growth. By analysing the journey to a Series A funding round while at 600K ARR, you will see how focusing on the right channels early on dictates your startup ARR growth. Learn why getting the product in front of users via Hacker News was the catalyst for the zero to one million journey and how to apply those lessons to your own startup ARR growth strategy.
Subscribe for weekly startup growth breakdowns, and comment below what you want to learn next.
0:00 - Introduction
1:28 - One Shared Family Computer and the Fight to Use It
2:20 - Fake Psychic Readings and Other Teenage Side Hustles
3:10 - The Film That Made Him Learn to Code
4:47 - Oxford, and the Careers Website That Shaped His Whole Plan
8:20 - Meeting Two Guys Who Made Startups Feel Possible
11:03 - The Spreadsheet Problem That Became Causal
12:14 - The Hacker News Launch That Got Them 600 Signups
13:17 - What Made the Co-Founder Relationship Work
16:08 - 18 Months of Not Knowing Who the Customer Was
18:07 - The Six Months They Wasted on Marketing Agencies
21:31 - The Microsoft Excel Killer Headline
24:03 - Zero to $1M ARR: Future Selling and Price Discovery
25:48 - Why Technical Founders Have to Get Over Hating Sales
28:31 - Naval Slid Into the DMs Over a GIF Thread
31:11 - Selling the Company and the $25M Preference Stack
37:24 - What He'd Do Differently Building Company Number Two
41:56 - The Mistake He Sees Muslim Founders Make Most
44:00 - Why He's Staying in the UK Instead of Moving to SF
16:45 - The One Thing All Eight of His Businesses Optimise For
21:15 - Why You Have to Be a Little Delusional to Win
26:36 - Burn the Ships: The Real Story Behind the Saying
30:14 - Imam Bukhari and the Gold Thrown Overboard
35:05 - Do Muslims Have a Bad Relationship With Money?
44:00 - His Advice to Muslim Founders Starting Today
17:14 - Using His Influence for Palestine
19:22 - His Advice for Muslim Builders Navigating Their Morals
21:40 - Clashing With Silicon Valley's Most Powerful VCs
23:36 - The Quran Verse That Changed How He Sees Struggle
25:56 - The Role Models He Admires
27:54 - Paul Graham Advice He Thinks About Every Day
29:35 - The Legacy He Wants to Leave in 20 Years
32:14 - Meeting Mamdani & Breaking the Rules of American Politics
35:13 - Internet Cafes in Jordan to Inventing Replit
41:13 - Turning Down $1 Billion While His Mother Fought Cancer
44:18 - $2M to $1B ARR: Inside Replit's Explosive 3 Years
51:30 - There's No Playbook: How to Build in 2026
34:06 "You don't need to fundraise anymore"
36:18 Building a billion-dollar company on Islamic values
39:46 America's abundance vs Britain's scarcity
45:59 The failures she's most proud of
26:47 Are Islamic schools a help or a harm?
30:05 The hard lines we draw between "us" and "them"
32:29 "The Muslim ummah is a complete myth"
36:42 Muslim pride & the obsession with "Muslim power"
45:01 "There is no ummah" - so what do you belong to?
49:12 "Why should anyone even care about this?"
52:27 The real harms of clinging to the label
54:38 What keeps Iqbal up at night: NDEs & psychedelics
57:48 Panentheism
24:39 Is your niche saturated, or is it a skill issue?
30:06 This sounds too good to be true?
33:05 "I was crying how broke I was, making dua"
35:01 Fix your relationship with Allah before your business
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