We welcome Faisal Younus to the couch! Faisal is a recent Harvard dropout who studied Applied Math and Computer Science. Hailing from Long Island, New York, he is the cofounder of Athlane (https://www.athlane.com/), a YC-backed company from the Summer ’19 cohort that is looking to be the connective fiber between streamers and brands, facilitating sponsorship and endorsement deals with more transparent data and analytics and a streamlined communications flow. Athlane has products for both brands and streamers. They recently raised $3.3 million in seed funding from investors like Y Combinator, Jonathan Kraft (President of the New England Patriots), Michael Gordon (President of Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club), and more. What got him into esports? How did Harvard help in his startup journey? What does he think was what got him and his cofounder into YC? When and why did he decide to take a leave of absence? What about the do’s or don’t’s when speaking to investors? Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts.

We welcome Jenny Xu! Jenny is a recent MIT graduate who studied computer science. She hails from the Bay Area. Once a self-described “shy kid,” she is now the cofounder and CEO of Talofa Games, which is building a social running mobile game. So far, they’ve built a playable prototype and are building out their team. They recently won $300K at Niantic’s Beyond Reality Developer Contest. But, this isn’t Jenny’s first company. Seven years ago when she was just a junior in high school, she founded JCSoft to release and distribute her games which garnered over 9.2 million downloads. Jenny’s other accolades include Forbes 30 under 30 in Games, IGDA Scholar and Women in Games Ambassador, and the MIT Outstanding New Leader Award. Why does Jenny love gaming? How does one even make a game? How did she get to 9.2 million downloads? How did MIT help her? And lastly, what's ABS WITH JENNY? Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts.

Today, we welcome Chukwunonso Arinze! Chukwunonso (aka Chooki) is a current PhD student at UChicago studying Physics. Hailing from Nigeria, he is the cofounder of Kaoshi (https://kaoshi.network/), a fintech company creating technologies that enable banks to provide financial services to their citizens living in the diaspora. So far, they’ve built an MVP for their technology which gathers financial data on immigrants in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. They have also gotten two banks to test out their technology. Chooki has mostly bootstrapped the company, but they’re also backed by Dorm Room Fund, UChicago, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. They are currently trying to close an $800K seed round. We talk: How did Chooki's Physics background lead him to fintech? Why bootstrap instead of going to VCs immediately? What are the unique challenges of being a graduate student founder? How does he balance pursuing a PhD and running a company?

As COVID-19 continues to rampage the world, what my guests today are building could not be more relevant, timely, and pressing. We welcome Ibraheem Alinur and Irewole Akande to the couch! Ibraheem is a recent 2020 grad from Northwestern and hails from Florida. Irewole is an incoming MBA student at SMU Cox Business School and hails from Nigeria. The two are the cofounders of City Health Tech (https://www.cityhealth.tech/), a public health startup committed to using technology to build healthier communities and mitigate the global spread of infectious diseases. So far, they’ve partnered and piloted with over 10 organizations and schools and have deployed and iterated on over 100 prototypes to arrive at their first product — Opal. And, they have raised over $25,000 from a multitude of pitch competitions such as: Northwestern's Wildfire Pre-Accelerator Program, University of Chicago NSF I-Corps Grant, Foxconn Smart Cities—Smart Futures Challenge, and Northwestern VentureCat. How did Ibraheem and Irewole meet and get the product to where it is today? How did they make use of Northwestern's entrepreneurial resources? And most importantly, what are the challenges of being minority and international founders? It’s a perspective that I think is so important for many people to hear.

Before an introduction on my guest today, I want to give a quick shout-out to a really cool Black-hosted podcast called Side Hustle Pro. Hosted by Nicaila Matthews Okome, Side Hustle Pro spotlights bold Black women entrepreneurs. Some other great Black-hosted podcasts about business are Championing Women’s Voices and Behind the Brilliance. Go check them out! In addition, I’d love to get more inspiring Black student founders on Founders Couch, so if you are one or know of one, please email me at [email protected]. 

Today, we welcome Moksh Jawa onto the show! Moksh is a senior at UPenn studying computer science and management. Hailing from Fremont, California, he’s the cofounder of Codeflow, a tool that makes it easy for engineering teams to build walkthroughs to rapidly onboard new developers. He’s joined by 3 other cofounders. So far, the company has built an MVP while being on the front page of HackerNews and putting their products in the hands of multiple teams. They were the winners of the Pear VC and MBA Fund Pitch Competitions at Penn. We get into the nitty gritty. What were the exact steps his team took from ideation to MVP to where they are today? What were the main learnings? When did he realize was the best time to test willingness to pay? How does COVID-19 affect them and their customers?

Today on the couch, we chat with Shuyao Kong, a student at Harvard Business School who grew up in Beijing, China. She’s the cofounder and Chief Motivator of the nonprofit humanID, a one-click anonymous login replacing login with Facebook. So far, the company has released one test app and integrated with another client, a COVID-tracking app in India. humanID has received funding from Harvard Social Impact Fund. The team consists of 3 cofounders, 20 volunteers and almost 10 open source engineers, and is looking to bring on more volunteers across business and technical functions. We discuss: Why is Shuyao so passionate about data privacy and social impact? How did the founding team validate market need? How has Harvard helped? Why nonprofit versus a social enterprise? What about COVID-19?

This episode, we've got Stanford CS & Physics junior Amber Yang on the couch! Hailing from Orlando, FL, she is the founder and CEO of SeerTracking. SeerTracking originated as Amber's high school research project for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. She ended up winning the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award and later on that year, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. So far, the company has been working on creating a machine learning-based software capable of predicting space debris orbits for satellite collision avoidance and has been working on a pilot version with several satellite launch companies. Some questions we discuss...What inspired her to work on this idea for Intel? What made her incorporate? What were the most difficult challenges? How has COVID-19 affected her and the space industry?

On our last episode of Season 2 (Season 3 coming this early April), we're graced by the insights of Stanford senior Tanay Kothari! Tanay is studying computer science and hails from New Delhi, India. He's a serial entrepreneur who's previously founded a personalized music discovery platform that had over 2.5 million users and an AI for medical diagnostics company. Currently, he's the founder of FeatherX, which is an intelligent addon for ecommerce brands to personalize reviews on their websites based on what the customer is looking for. So far, the company has a presence in both India and the US, and has built partnerships with venture firms like Fireside Ventures and DSG to launch with their entire portfolio of consumer brands. Some questions we discuss: What initially got Tanay into CS? How did he develop the MVP? How did he price it? Why is he partnering with venture firms? How does he close a sale?...

For this episode, we have Katherine Huang, a freshman at MIT who hails from Lowell, MA and is currently planning on majoring in Urban Planning and Computer Science. During her junior year of high school, she founded “Science and Us," a non-profit organization that runs events and creates online educational resources to help high schoolers learn about science communication. Since starting college, she has continued to plan various talks, workshops, and Hackathons for the program - her passion most recently attracted the attention of The Boston Globe, which featured an editorial that she wrote for their Opinions column. Can't wait to hear more about her story? Join me on the couch now!

Today on the couch, we have Ruthie Lewis, a Stanford senior studying Mechanical Engineering with a focus in Product Realization, who hails from Columbus, Ohio. Last year, she co-founded Stanford Undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering (SUIME) with fellow Stanford student Chloe Evans, who was unavailable for this interview as she is currently interning in industry. SUIME has 120 members and has hosted 4 events ranging from a research lab symposium to a student social. We explore...Why did Ruthie and Chloe decide to start the club? What's the process of starting a club at Stanford? How did they write the club's constitution? And how do they handle club elections?