Foreign Founders

Want to integrate Web3 into your product? Work with MetaKeep

With stints building products at Microsoft, Twitter, and Meta, Naga Samineni knows a thing or two about serving millions and billions of customers. Naga is taking all the knowledge of how to scale high impact global products, and bringing that to Web3 and the next generation of web infrastructure as co-founder of MetaKeep.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Finding opportunities even when resources were scarce
• Demand to his manager to get exposure and “being in the front seat” in exchange hard work
• Seeing flaws at a massive scale while building for technology giants that led to founding MetaKeep
• Why Blockchain is a powerful solution to legacy systems

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Try Authentic Loose Leaf Taiwanese Tea

Founded in 2019 by Shanghai-born, NYC-based millennial entrepreneur Maggie (Ranmu) Xue, Us Two Tea is a premium farm-to-cup purveyor of Taiwanese tea. After noticing a lack of widely known and distributed Asian-owned tea brands in the United States, Xue founded Us Two Tea with a clear mission to make Asian tea culture—and Asian culture at large—more accessible to discerning millennial consumers and tea lovers at large. Sourced from family-owned farms in Taiwan, Us Two Tea's Black, Baozhong, Oolong, and Jasmine teas offer the quality of the time-honored Chinese "kung fu" tea ceremony in under three minutes. All teas are cut as loose-leaf teas, then packaged in premium, sustainable 100% corn fiber tea sachets which can be conveniently brewed up to three times. Us Two Tea has been featured in Forbes, Bon Appetit, Bloomberg, Eater, and more.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Never having the desire to start a business watching her mother
• Career shift from advertising and graphic design to being a CPG founder
• Why most tea brands at stores are American, British or Japanese brands

Us Two Tea Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ustwotea/

Us Two Tea Website: https://www.ustwotea.com/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Get Unstuck with your class work

Sidhant Bendre is the Co-founder of Quizard AI, a Neo VC-backed consumer AI startup that has built a portfolio of products for students and professionals. Since launching out of a college dorm room in 2023, Quizard AI's suite of products has rapidly grown to serve over 4M users globally, generating more than $6 million ARR, and achieving profitability within its first year of operations.

His story growing the company and the product is one of the fastest we’ve heard on Foreign Founders, so if you’re on the consumer AI wave this is an episode you don’t want to miss!

In this episode, we talk about:

• Sid’s journey to the US
• The big problems he wants to solve with AI
• Starting Quizard AI and growing it to 4 million users globally with viral videos and a lot of growth experiments
• Being profitable, launching a second successful product

Find Sid Bendre on X: https://x.com/SidBendre

Quizard AI iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quizard-ai-homework-helper/id1667996582

Quizard AI Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aihomework&hl=en_US&pli=1 Unstuck: https://unstuckstudy.com/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Foreign Founders.

We're creating slightly different programming where we highlight innovation ecosystems around the world, the first is with Yokohama, Japan.

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan, and only 45 minutes from Tokyo, and home to many large Japanese companies, and many startups.

Yokohama has historically been ahead of their time, as they were the first port city to open up influence to foreigners, and today they are focused on becoming an innovation hub for many businesses including climate tech and mobility companies.

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Make Engaging Shopping Experiences For Your Customers with PlayAbly

Angelo is the co-founder of PlayAbly, a gamification platform that drives deeper customer engagement. Online brands generate excitement and curiosity using our playable ads and onsite games. Founded by veterans from mobile gaming and e-commerce marketing, PlayAbly's mission is to make shopping fun again.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Angelo’s immigrant background from Philippines to the US
• Career transition from economic litigation consulting to E-commerce SaaS founder
• Building a startup based on learnings from a big company, and how that was a PMF trap
• Pivoting multiple times and the finding the ability to be nimble with customer input and market reactions

Angelo Ferro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeloferro/

PlayAbly AI website: https://playably.ai/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Waste no more with FridgeGuide AI

Delian Petrov is the CEO and co-founder of FridgeGuide AI, where he’s driving a mission to revolutionize grocery management and reduce food waste. Born in Bulgaria and raised in the U.S., Delian’s journey from earning his B.S. at UC Irvine to leading successful tech ventures like SeaStatus has been fueled by a relentless passion for innovation and sustainability.

His time living in Colombia opened his eyes to the devastating impact of food waste, igniting the spark that led to FridgeGuide AI. Delian is known for his ability to forge meaningful collaborations and inspire those around him.

FridgeGuide AI will utilize AI to help food banks manage donor contributions and sync with affiliated grocery stores. The application will lower unnecessary costs, reduce food waste, and provide analytics on inventory usage, donation patterns, and client services to optimize food pantry operations.

The app addresses a lingering problem in the food bank industry. By modernizing inventory management with FridgeGuide AI, food banks can better track expiration dates, handle surges in donations, and optimize warehouse space. Without a clear system, food banks often face issues with expired goods, underutilized donations, and inefficient resource allocation. These issues contribute to higher operational costs, increased food insecurity, and greater food waste.

When he’s not shaping the future of food tech, Delian finds joy in playing the piano, snowboarding, and exploring new places.

Enjoy the episode!

Website: https://fridgeguide.ai/

Delian Petrov LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delianpetrov/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

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Learn how Rosette Health is preparing healthcare providers on a wide range of patient scenarios.

This week on Foreign Founders, we share a company living at the intersection of maternity care and Generative AI. Gülin Yilmaz, born and raised in Türkiye, studied engineering in France, and built her professional career in the U.S. Prior to starting her company, she was Head of Product at Stork Club, and been an integral part of teams at Meta, CompactCath, Carrum Health and Paypal.

As the co-founder and CEO of Rosette Health, she and her team are on a mission to bridge cultural barriers between practitioners and their patients to improve maternal health and neonatal health.

On this episode, we talk about:

• Gülin’s early life in Turkey and France, before moving to the US
• Being in the room where her father was conducting business, and how that had an impact on her
• Maternal health inequalities in the US, and how Rosette Health is addressing them through AI simulations

Enjoy the episode!

Rosette Health website: https://www.rosettehealth.ai/

Gülin Yilmaz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isilgulinyilmaz/

Connect directly with Gülin to explore partnerships and investment opportunities

Find more of Foreign Founders: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

We create content and have a community for immigrant and first-gen founders.

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and first-gen founders find this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you building an early stage B2B SaaS founder? Pitch Forum VC.

We are back the latest season of Foreign Founders. I’m so excited to kick off this season with the incredible Naomi Goez.

Naomi is an operator turned investor based in New York City who grew up in Israel and then later in Canada. She began her career in supply chain within the fashion industry, initially in mature industry before moving over to the startup ecosystem. Today she is a Principal at Forum Ventures, a B2B SaaS early stage venture capital firm.

Naomi shares:

• Why she was attracted to fashion from a young age
• How the complex business nature of the fashion industry captured her attention
• Tactical ways immigrant founders can get into the room with VCs
• What to do once you’re pitching VCs

and much more

Enjoy the episode!

Forum VC website

Naomi Goez’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-goez-72879484/

Find more of Foreign Founders: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

We create content and have a community for immigrant and first-gen founders.

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and first-gen founders find this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Build your remote team and virtual assistants with Wishup

Neelesh Rangwani is an engineer by education, a marketer at heart and cofounder of Wishup.co. He started Wishup.co to help founders build a remote team within 30 minutes with top 0.1% talent from around the world.

Wishup aims to create 1 million remote jobs to enable people to work from anywhere in the world. Wishup has served 900+ clients in last 7 years and is a well know brand amongst jobseekers in India.

Neelesh can be spotted from a distance due to salt and pepper hair. He loves to play badminton and his interests are investing, geopolitics, and macro economy. He believes he can make the best Chai (Indian tea) in the world. ;)

Build your team with Wishup today

Enjoy the episode!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wishup-services/

X: https://x.com/wishupnow

Neelesh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neeleshrangwani/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Download The Scene on the App Store today!

Ridhima Kalani grew up in a small town in India, where she became the chief coordinator and planner for her family. That continued throughout her school into her time at New York University.

She was so good at finding the right place for her classmates, that she would wake up to random texts asking her to find the “best spot in NYC” for the vibe, the food, the occasion and everything in between.

The personal concierge service became The Scene, a highly personalized recommendation and reservation platform for your New York City outing.

In this episode, Ridhima shares:

• How she was surrounded by entrepreneurship at home
• The realization of business value when strangers texted her personal number asking for recommendations
• The inefficiencies of existing ways to find and book restaurants
• Her successful crowdfunding for an in-person dining app during a pandemic
• The Scene’s special sauce, matching vibes for their customers

and so much more!

Learn more about The Scene

Enjoy the episode!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thescenenewyork/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-scene-nyc/

Download The Scene on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-scene-nyc/id6479357875

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.