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Yusuf Omar is a journalist and co-founder of Seen TV, building the world’s most immersive storytelling company. Creating a more empathetic world by helping people share their lived experiences. Born to South African parents, he has been a foreign correspondent carrying nothing but a phone since 2010, later becoming CNN's senior social media reporter on Snapchat and mobile editor at the Hindustan Times. He was recently detained at Ben Gurion Airport (Tel Aviv), deported, and banned from entry for up to ten years. He is now taking the case to court. In this episode, he breaks down what happened in detention, why he thinks Muslims have failed at media, and the fund he wants to leave behind for independent journalism. Find out more: https://www.instagram.com/yusufomar/ https://www.seen.tv/ https://x.com/YusufOmarSA ------------------- Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f ------------------- 00:00 - Introduction 03:48 - The Watermelon Question 05:36 - 18 Hours in Interrogation 12:33 - Why He Thinks Muslims Have Failed at Media 14:01 - What America Actually Gave the World 17:25 - Boarding the Flotilla With a Six-Week-Old at Home 21:59 - Why the Ummah Won't Fund Media ------------------- Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.

Shahzad Younas is the founder and CEO of Muzz, the world's largest Muslim marriage app. A former VP at Morgan Stanley, he walked away from nine years in investment banking, taught himself to code, and launched the app from his bedroom in 2015. Today Muzz has more than 20 million members, a team of 160, and is closing in on a million people who've met their partner on the app. In this episode, he breaks down turning down Match Group's acquisition offer, the lawsuit that forced a rebrand, and why he's raised just $9 million in over a decade. Find out more: https://muzz.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahzad-younas ------------------- Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f ------------------- 0:00 - Introduction 1:46 - Five Traders Huddled Around One Phone 2:45 - The App He Designed in Microsoft Word 4:45 - Racing Out of Jummah to Hand Out Business Cards 9:17 - Would He Build It Again? His Honest Answer 12:55 - The Billboard That Went Viral Before Anyone Knew It Was Them 31:36 - The Acquisition Calls He Took From a Mosque Classroom 33:39 - Walking Away From $35 Million Over Dinner at The Ivy 34:18 - The Court Case That Cost Them Their Name 36:53 - Why Half His Series A Is Still Sitting in the Bank 45:10 - The Easiest Way for Muslim Men to Stand Out on the App ------------------- Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.

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/ ------------------- Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f ------------------- 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 ------------------- Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements.

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/ ------------------- 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 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

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/ ------------------- 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 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

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 ------------------- 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 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

Subscribe to the Muslim Founder Newsletter: https://muslimfounder.kit.com/32ea939ddd For the latest updates on events, programs and announcements. ------------------- 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. ------------------- https://x.com/taimurabdaal https://www.linkedin.com/in/taimurabdaal/ https://causal.app/ ------------------- LONG-FORM (YOUTUBE) Hire My YouTube Strategist (Ideas, Titles, Thumbnails) - https://trakyo.link/91546e9f ------------------- 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. 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

Apply to Launchpad: https://founderlaunchpad.io/ The 6-week online startup school for working professionals.  ------------------- 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. ------------------- Follow Arib Khan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aribkhan/ https://arib.lol/ ------------------- 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 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

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. ------------------- 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/ ------------------- 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 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

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.  ------------------- 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/ ------------------- 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 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

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 ------------------- 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/ ------------------- 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? 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

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. ------------------- Join Abu Lahya's mentorship: https://application.imaccelerator.com/sohaib ------------------- Follow Abu Lahya: https://www.youtube.com/@AbuLayha https://www.instagram.com/abu_lahya1/ ------------------- 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 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 40:08 "Using Islam to sell your course" 44:31 Meeting Alex Hormozi 49:51 The roadmap for starting. 53:51 Abu Lahya's legacy

Sh Mustafa Briggs is an Islamic historian, author, and specialist in Arabic and Islamic texts. He converted to Islam at 13 and went on to study across West Africa, Mauritania, Morocco, and Al-Azhar University in Cairo.  Today he's a leading voice for uncovering the hidden, forgotten, and erased stories of Islamic history, having delivered over 100 lectures across 50+ universities worldwide and authored two books - Beyond Bilal and Islam and the Making of the Modern World. In this episode, he breaks down the lost ring of the Prophet ﷺ and the fitna that followed, the Black poets and scholars who shaped Islamic civilization, and the theory that Muslims discovered America 200 years before Columbus ever set sail. ------------------- Follow Mustafa Briggs https://www.instagram.com/mustafabriggs/ https://mustafabriggs.com/ ------------------- 0:00 Introduction 2:07 How Mustafa uncovers hidden Islamic history 4:23 The lost ring of the Prophet ﷺ 6:44 Why anti-Blackness exists in Muslim history 12:44 The scholars who defended Black Muslims 14:01 The Black Sahaba you've never heard of 15:36 Ubada bin Samit and the opening of Palestine 17:53 Why race matters in Islamic history 23:28 Crows of the Arabs: the Black poets of Arabia 26:24 Antara & Abla: the Romeo and Juliet of Arabia 29:43 Did Muslims discover America before Columbus? 33:33 The 2,000 ships that vanished 36:51 Mustafa's journey to Islam at 13 40:19 Studying across West Africa, Mauritania & Cairo 44:14 What's next for Mustafa Briggs

Omar Waseem is the 21-year-old CEO of Alif, an investment fund for Muslim founders based in Silicon Valley. By 19, he had built multiple seven-figure businesses and served as CMO of Fei Protocol, a startup that peaked at a $2B valuation. Today he invests in early-stage Muslim founders and runs an ecosystem that hosts entrepreneurs and investors from across the world. In this episode, he breaks down how Muslim entrepreneurs can build wealth and start companies in 2026. ------------------- Join Alif Sessions: https://alif.build/sessions  Use promo code "muslimfounder" in your application for 20% off and a guaranteed spot in the program. Program starts on 10th May. ------------------- Follow Omar Waseem: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarwaseem/ https://x.com/omarwasm https://www.youtube.com/@omarwasm ------------------- 0:00 Introduction 2:14 Omar's entrepreneurial journey 4:26 The car accident that changed everything 6:53 The Fund backing Muslim founders 10:14 What Omar looks for in founders 11:26 The mission: 25 Muslim billionaires 12:15 Do Muslims sell out to build big? 14:53 How Alif actually makes money 16:32 The best business to start in 2026 18:56 Why 2026 is the moment 21:22 Building Muslim entrepreneurial power 23:56 Why San Francisco wins 26:44 Is money the real problem? 28:27 How to hire a world-class team 36:42 Omar's role models 38:10 How he made it so young 40:20 Who keeps Omar grounded 44:14 Rapid fire

Humza Yousaf is a Scottish-Pakistani politician and the former First Minister of Scotland - the first Muslim to ever lead a Western nation.  The son of Pakistani immigrants, he entered politics at 22 and, over 15 years rose to the top of Scottish politics. During his time in office, he became the first Western leader to call for a ceasefire in Gaza - while his own wife's family was trapped there. ------------------- Join Alif Sessions: https://alif.build/sessions  Use promo code "muslimfounder" in your application for 20% off and a guaranteed spot with the Alif team. ------------------- Follow Humza: https://x.com/HumzaYousaf https://www.instagram.com/humzayousaf/ ------------------- 0:00 Introduction 2:31 Family background and early political career 5:44 Was becoming First Minister the end goal? 7:18 The moment he became First Minister 9:28 Praying Maghrib inside Bute House 10:13 Islamophobia and navigating politics as a Muslim 13:54 Palestine and his wife's family trapped in Gaza 19:33 Elon Musk calling him a racist 22:04 Navigating conflicts between Islam and politics 25:02 The Prophet ﷺ as the ultimate peacemaker 27:08 What's next for Humza Yousaf 28:31 Standing before God - what Humza would say