Ex-Goldman Banker Exposes The Secret To Building a Billion Dollar Company

Description

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 A Manhattan childhood across the street from the UN 4:26 The pre-med who got hooked on 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