Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
Web3 Experts: The Husband & Wife Reinventing Insurance | Morrad Irsane & Sharene Lee - MMT #35
This podcast episode dives into how Takadao is revolutionising the insurance industry by creating a decentralised, Sharia-compliant mutual protection system powered by blockchain. The guests discuss their entrepreneurial journey, Web3 adoption in Saudi Arabia, and how their innovative model empowers communities to take control of their financial security.
This podcast is hosted by Areeb Siddiqui, the founder and CEO of Kestrl, the app that helps people to grow their wealth without compromise
Find out more about our app here: https://kestrl.io/
And how we help banks here: https://business.kestrl.io/
Show Notes:
00:00 - Opening
3:17 -Muslim vs Western Insurance Principles
5:06 - Tim Draper Investment and Facing Rejection
37:27 - Wearing Religious Identity in Business
46:01 - Saudi Arabia's Growing Tech Ecosystem
1:07:02 - Married Cofounders: Challenges and Benefits
1:13:19 - Investment Strategy and Claims Verification
And that's how I married in masjid Very simple marriage. She didn't ask a big mahar for you should have known better, yeah it was just At the time I was broke, so a mushaf was enough, and that's how I got it, for free almost.
Speaker 2:In truth, what we've built here is really something impactful for the world. I'll tell you why. Essentially, it's a response to how corrupt the insurance industry is today and how broken it is, and it's an attempt to create a better system of insurance by making it a pure mutual, bringing it back to the way it used to be.
Speaker 1:After September 11, we were afraid to be at the beginning. It was very scary. You know People were attacking you, trying to attack you, but the reality the opposite happened Christian and Jewish bringing flour to our coffee shop.
Speaker 3:Attack, try to attack you, but the reality the opposite happened christian and jews bringing flour to our coffee shop before we begin, we actually noticed only about 10 of you are subscribed to the podcast, so if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us and see more things muslim and money related, then please consider subscribing and, of course, leaving this episode a like and share it with your friends, leave us a comment or a review, because it really really does help us out and help more people to find us. Thank you. Now back to the show. All right, marab Tariq. Assalamu alaikum.
Speaker 1:Wa alaikum assalam, wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the show. Thank you. Our first time with some Money talk is on the road in Saudi Arabia. Thank you for having us Pleasure.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 3:And it's my first time with a different co-host who's not actually my brother in the side. He's dying, so dying. Welcome to the co-host position, thank you. Thank you, we're going to be sharing between each other, but I hope we'll be okay. There's so much we want to ask you about. We've come hot off the back of LEAP, which was this four-day Big East conference in the Middle East. We just finished yesterday. How was that for you guys?
Speaker 2:It was very hectic. I'm very tired. Actually, I'm going to crash tonight and you won't see me till maybe Sunday or something. It was great. It Don't see me till maybe Sunday or something. It was great. It was mashallah. Everybody's here. It's incredible to see you know how Saudi Arabia has been a closed country for a very long time and then, in 2019, they started to open up and now just everybody, the entire world is here. It's incredible.
Speaker 3:I see that. What was it like compared to last year? Like even bigger and better.
Speaker 2:Last year was actually kind of a mess, to be honest, because of the traffic etc. And they had moved to this new location for the first time, so they were completely unprepared. This year, I think they did a much better job logistically, which then makes the whole experience better. That's awesome. Yeah, it worked well. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, look, they moved from 50, 150, 350. So it's like a startup, literally. You know they grow so fast. So last year they literally like everything break down a little bit because that was like they didn't expect to have that number, like they didn't expect to have that number. And then they learn this year and mashallah, this year was perfect. You had the multitude of transportation available Uber and car, limousine, and the aisles were bigger. So now it's an amazing, amazing event. I think they are becoming the event in the globe when it comes to web 2. You know it's, it tells the web 2, but not yet that's it. That's why we have our side event during the leap event.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it fantastic, so let's just get break right into it. What exactly is takda?
Speaker 2:essentially is a response to how corrupt the insurance industry is today and how broken it is, and it's an attempt to create a better system of insurance by making it a pure mutual, bringing it back to the way it used to be. So you know, the one liner is we build the technology that powers mutual insurance communities, or what we call in Arabic in Arabic, takafut and it's global from day one and it's affordable and inclusive, and we create that system where people can now pool their money together, mutually insure one another, own the fund. Because we don't own the fund, we simply provide the technology and benefit one another yeah yeah, what's what's interesting about you know, what we're doing there has?
Speaker 1:first of all, we're going back to the origin of what insurance was all about. You know, when you look at in the past, during the pre-islamic era, the businessman, the caravan, they used to actually travel from Yemen all the way to Syria and they had a pact. And the pact was like if any of the camels dies, we have to leave not only the camel but the goods you cannot carry in a desert. And they agreed that if you get penalized, we, the rest of the Martians, when we sell our goods, we'll pay you out. And that principle actually lived all the way to the Lloyd. Lloyd actually used the same principle where the merchants in UK. They used to travel and they say if the boat is in trouble, we got to offload some of the goods, and if we dump your goods when you arrive in the UK, then we also compensate you.
Speaker 1:What was amazing it was that community putting money together in order to support one another, no profit seeking element in the middle, and that's exactly what we do. So, going back to the Arab tribe during the time of the Prophet, he saw that reality in front of him and he didn't, you know, disapprove it or approve it Later on, during the time of Omar ibn al-Khattab. Actually, he was encouraged to practice this kind of community, coming together for the greater good, as a donation, the barwah, you know.
Speaker 3:So is that the idea of something was to happen to the goods? The goods would be distributed along the community. Is that the difference?
Speaker 2:No, no, no. So because the merchants, they would transport their goods across the desert and at some point the camel will die and they'll have to leave the goods in the desert. So the other merchants would just pay to leave the goods in the desert. So the other missions would just pay the person whose goods were left behind.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, they will collaborate. It was a collaboration instrument very much.
Speaker 1:It was a collaboration, so like that, if you get penalized this time, next time I support you. So it was like coming together as supporting one another in case of adversity. So in that case, that's the origin actually of Takaful and I don't like to call ourselves, you know, the insurance. We really go to the origin of Takaful and the origin of the way Takaful has been practiced, removing every single central command, central authorities and stuff like that that control the fund and going back to the community who own the fund and make the decision. That's why we call it Takaful 3.0.
Speaker 2:Just to take that one step further. If you look at insurance generally, it always started as a mutual. It always started as people trying to help one another. You know, they were like we have this shared risk, and so we put money together and we try to help each other. But what happened was at some point in the 19th century they invented actuarial sciences, which is really fancy mathematics and so a group of people were like we have this, you know, science which you science and magic is kind of almost the flip side of the coin. We have this magic trick now where we can accurately predict whether an event is going to happen or not. So now we can bet against it or for it.
Speaker 2:And this is how insurance was born A group of people with capital. They're like we want to bet against the likelihood of this event happening and we'll take the other side of the, the bet, which is the people who want the checks. And then it became a very, very profitable industry as a result, and so you fast forward it to today. It's extremely profitable, nine trillion dollar industry. It's very cutthroat. They're not in it to help anybody, they're in it to make money. And what ends up happening in the world is that something like half the world is completely uninsured. They lack basic insurance because it's not profitable for the insurance company. The element of protection is not the point. The point is how can I bet against an event and make money from it?
Speaker 1:so you have to. Yeah, in order to simplify, it's like a casino the house always win and you have to lose in order for them to win. That's simple as that. And to make a long story short on that, just recently we just come back from the US A guy called Luigi in New York just gunned down the head of one of the largest mutual insurance in the US, and that was crazy, because you know, you can see that people started to don't like the insurance and then hating them and then eventually, what was?
Speaker 3:crazy was the response from the public, like how much public support there was for the murder of a man in the street.
Speaker 1:I think exactly that was shocking, because, you see, you know, nobody celebrates the death of an individual, and that was really shocking. And this is really America for you. They went to the extreme, the reality they were for their own belief. They're like they are doing the same thing to us, because if they don't pay our claim and don't pay our treatment, you're actually killing us, killing us Absolutely so, and that's what. And the funny thing is that this insurance, actually this mutual, I added a layer of refuting claim by adding AI.
Speaker 2:Using AI.
Speaker 1:Using AI, and that was even actually. They used to call it delay, deny, no, deny, delay.
Speaker 2:And deny delay, no deny deny, delay and depose.
Speaker 3:Yes, deny, delay and depose, which was the famous book about it. Yes, so that's the problem that you would like to solve. You want to put the power back into the hands of the people when it comes to a job, yeah, so exactly.
Speaker 1:So what it is is that the insurance was supposed to be a public good. Okay, that's why it started as a mutual. Eventually, the mutual could not, you know, make profit. Then you had a private party starting to kick in and taking over all these businesses and then, as I say, they have to win and you have to lose in order for them to win. So what we try to do I mean it's very simple is putting back the power to the community, creating the protocol, the underwriting, the risk management software technology powered by TakaDAO, and create any kind of community-based pool of protection fund, starting with the live DAO, the insurance DAO.
Speaker 4:So to be clear, TakaDAo is providing the technology yes so you can create your own um mutual or something on the takadao network? Definitely, okay. So is there like anything like the current uh mutuals that is already on the network right now? Yeah, yeah, so for us to be realistic.
Speaker 1:we wanted to prove that we can launch the first DAO Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Who will own the fund and decide what they do with the fund, how they pay claim and all these kind of things. And then we started as a B2C, but the reality is really a B2B play. So if you have a large community who want to ensure against any risk, we can provide the technology for you to do it. So it could be the PADI Association of Scuba Diving, who are losing tons of money because you have to pay every time you dive an insurance that you never use 95%, I believe. I think this is one of the safest sports in the industry, but you have to still pay a fee to dive an insurance. Imagine they keep this money and roll it up. You could be in a homeowner association who wants to be protected against fire, like what happened in California, where actually most of the entrants pull out because they knew of the restriction and they let people with nothing left, no money.
Speaker 3:So how would it work for me as a customer who wants to take advantage of this insurance? Would I sign up to TackDow? I would become part of a DAO, a circle one list, and I would be putting money in every single month alongside maybe 100 other people however many people there are in the DAO and then, whenever an event happens to one of us, that pool of funds would be paid out to that individual. Is that?
Speaker 2:cool, yeah, so we're almost there. So the first thing to be aware of is that there are really two different entities. So the second, who creates the technology platform and it's like that, essentially powers the other dao, which today, the one that we have is called the life dao, which is a life insurance alternative. Now, this is an entity that's not owned by us, nor controlled by us, but it's actually owned by us nor controlled by us, but it's actually owned by you, the members who've contributed the funds to begin with. So you will contribute the funds, and today, with the LifeDAO, we have memberships starting from $25 to $250 a year, so it's a one-time payment. You become a member and you're therefore protected. Now the funds that are contributed by the whole are then invested for a return. Of course, everything is Sharia compliant, and these returns are then put back into the fund, right? And at some point, if something happens to you, then your family gets a payout. So you tell us who you want your beneficiaries to be.
Speaker 3:Oh, I see. So there's two sides of it. There's the one side, which is the insurance side, where I pay the $25. Don't say insurance.
Speaker 1:We're not in insurance.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a mutual protection.
Speaker 3:We have to be careful with the word we. I'm paying in once a year alongside many other people. A membership, yeah, if something were to happen, for example in the lifetime, if, if someone were to pass away, then the money would be paid out too exactly. But the other side of it is that people are investing that one.
Speaker 2:No no, no. So the the first structure, which is this mutual protection structure. You have this situation where, as you've described, if something happens to you, a part of it goes to pay your family or to give money to your family to support your family, obviously. Now, what happens at the end is usually, if we do our jobs right, there's going to be money left over. This is what is called underwriting surplus. Traditionally, this is understood by the insurance companies as their profit, and this case is actually now redistributed among the members, because this is a fund that's owned by you. Why should it be given to anybody else except you? So it gets redistributed among the members. Now, the investment piece there is simply to make sure that the money doesn't sit and that the money gets, you know, um does something useful, which is actually very soon now, uh and also to help bolster the the balance sheet of the fund, obviously. So the more there is, the better it is for everybody else. So this is how the structure works.
Speaker 1:I just want to add. So you have the concept of, as she mentioned, the money is owned by the participant. Claims are paid, if there's any. After claims are paid, if there's any money left, it goes back to the participant as a whole. That's the concept of takaful and tabarroa. I am doing a donation to the community. What is very exciting that, beside the business model, is that when you participate to this tabarroa donation, you're actually getting ajar of helping a family in need. So some brothers and sisters are coming. Is it halal haram? About the insurance concept of it, you know we can discuss this later, but what is important here is that not only you're helping people, so you're getting sadaka jaliya because you're helping somebody get education and stuff like that, and the payout is quite sizable. We're not talking just as a burial cost where we will add we're actually covering maybe six months to a year of livelihood, depending on your age, health, location.
Speaker 1:Yes, and what is important, if we follow actually our religion, you have to prepare for departure for the next life and what is the most important as a Muslim is to prepare your family in the case of an adversity coming up. One of the most important thing as Muslim we cannot die with debt. Debt need to be paid. As a matter of fact, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam didn't wanna pray behind a brother who passed away. He told the companion go pray, and they reacted. You know what should we do? Pay his debt. And then I follow the janazah. You see the importance of not dying with debt. So it's not about, hey, you know what, I don't care. You know I live my life. Allah is yeah, but do not depart this world with that. So our fund actually will not only take care of you, it will take care of paying your debt, it will take care of your family as well, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:And I have a tragic story to really share with you that has something that will shock you as Muslim. I came back from California and I was invited by a friend African American brother, and the brother comes to me and said you know what? What you're doing is very important for our community. We're kind of the poor community in the US. When people become Muslim in the US, especially among the African American community, the first thing they do they stop their wife from working outside, so she cannot work and get job outside, so she will stay home and take care of the home, and that can last 20 years.
Speaker 1:And the tragic story that happened a couple, a very good brothers, married with a sister. Eventually he passes away, okay, and the sister guess what has no money to even bury him. And the state will do what Increment, like they will burn the body if they don't find the money. Why? The brother had no money, she had no work, she could not take care of herself, so overnight she's like stranded with nothing. And then they had to collect money in other Muslim community in order to pay for the burial costs. And since she was shy and everything and she could not reach out, the body could have been really disposed.
Speaker 2:Cremated.
Speaker 1:Cremated by the city, and the cost of burial is 10 to 15 to 25,000 to 25,000 US dollars just this. But the reality is there, so the community need to step in and help out. So what we're doing, basically, is to provide this tool that make this you know great All the hidden costs.
Speaker 4:So coming back to the line dog, right back to the line down right. Is it like a defined payback or something, if they even had to have it, or is it like based on what's left or the indefined, or something like that?
Speaker 2:So this is an excellent question. So what we determined right from the start. You know, insurance is a pool of money betting against another pool of money. This is completely haram, right? So from the very beginning we said okay, for this to be a true takaful, the only money that can be in the fund must come from the insured or the members themselves. There cannot be any external funding. So that's principle number one. Principle number two is there should be no reinsurance either, because the reinsurance or the re-tecaful, at this point, when they come in, they're also profit-seeking. So now you have this problem of okay, if they are profit-seeking, we're going to start denying claims in order to make a profit. So there's no reinsurance either, purely contributions from the members. All right, now to his point. What if you run out of money? That is a problem.
Speaker 2:So we do not have a defined benefit. What we did and this is where the technology came in was we created an algorithm that adjusts in real time to the risk of the fund and to the risk of the individual and the risk of the portfolio as a whole. So we see, we look at the individual who comes into the fund and say, okay, the portfolio as a whole. So we see, we look at the individual who comes into the fund and say, okay, he's X number of years old and he lives in this country and he has he smokes or he doesn't smoke. And we assign him what is called a benefit multiplier, which means, let's say, somebody who is a very young and healthy, the benefit multiplier can be somewhere in the five to 600 X. So for every $1 that he puts in the fund, the family will get between $500 to $600.
Speaker 2:And it's always a range. And then we look at the portfolio as a whole. We say, okay, what is the distribution of members? Are they heavily young or very, very old or whatever? And at every given cash flow event we're calculating okay, what is the expected losses, how many people do we think are going to pass away? And then we're adjusting the benefits. So when you come on the website actually, which is thelifedowio, there's a calculator there. You put in your age, your location, etc. And they give you an approximate range. It's never a fixed amount, it's a range because we are saying, okay, this is going to be adjusted up and down depending on who else enters the fund and what kind of risks are there.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it adjusts. It just automatically adjusts depending on the maker of the fund at the time. Is that a little bit tricky when you sell that to a customer Because essentially their payout will vary depending on the other members, so there's not as much consistency compared to a conventional insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what we do because it's it's the other aspect of this is that we don't it's not freewheeling either. So, uh, to be response, to do this responsibly what we do is reserve funds for this scenario in order that it will stay within the range. Now, we do not guarantee this, because you cannot actually guarantee it, because it's not shadowed anymore, but we say that we do everything possible to ensure that it stays within this range. So how do we do that? For every dollar that comes in, or every hundred dollars, let's say, to make the math easy we take a protocol fee. So TechAdult takes a protocol fee of 22% okay, one-time fee.
Speaker 2:After that, we don't participate in anything with the fund. $78 then goes into the fund and from this $78, a portion of it is reserved for what is called claims reserves. Another portion is reserved for what is funds reserves and the rest are used for expenses. Now, these two reserves are varying amounts based on the portfolio risk again. So if you see that the risk is is elevated, we're going to reserve more. So if the risk is lower, we're going to reserve less at any given cash flow, and so this helps us calibrate so that you will stay within the range now, however, if you have a black swan event, which happens, covid, right then you might fall outside of the range, and we've you figured out another mechanism to solve that, but maybe we will talk about this later.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:How is this?
Speaker 4:That's where I mean, because we are so used to like buying insurance, right, so we are expecting defined benefits and so on. But I guess that's where the concept of really tabarruk and ta'awun really come in right. It seems it's basically you are not buying anything, just putting money for certain car, so we're not expecting anything from it yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:you know you cannot have it all as muslims. So if you want to reallyaria compliance product, that's the product for our community and the reality is that it's the most fair way of doing quote-unquote insurance and actually non-Muslims also love this concept because they realize that.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to ask you how is the traction and the outtake between Muslims and non-Muslims? Because I can see the appeal for anyone.
Speaker 2:Okay, maybe let me just go back and say I want to flesh out this appeal because I think it's very important. A lot of people don't quite see the difference. They're like, oh, you're just another insurance. What's the difference, right? Is it only because it's shari'i, or is it only because it's shari'i compliant, so it's good for the Muslims? In truth? What compliance? So it's good for the muslims?
Speaker 2:In truth, what we've built here is really something impactful for the world, and I'll tell you why. Number one, our cost basis is between 5 to 25 percent of a regular insurance company, which means we can afford to really serve the underserved. Now we don't have the, the, the life doubt itself is not looking for profit, so they can, you know, really take those risks which other insurance funds won't, so it's affordable. Now we've built this on blockchain rails, which means it is very transparent and it you know it builds a lot of trust. But beyond that, it's also global. So I can go to any country and I can take payments from every country because, as you guys, in fintech world, no payments is such a headache cross-border and I can work with unbanked people as well.
Speaker 2:Then the third piece is again back to the idea of being borderless today, if you try to get life insurance, you're gonna have to be a resident in some place. If you want to buy insurance here in Saudi Arabia, you have to be a resident in Saudi Arabia. You have to be a resident in Saudi Arabia. And guess what? As soon as your iqama or your residence visa expires, they close your bank account, they cancel everything, so you cannot port your insurance with you. I'm pretty sure this is for most of the countries and most insurance vehicles the case, and so we can be borderless in that sense that we are not tied to a specific jurisdiction. You have a membership with a life down. You can go anywhere in the world. So that's another piece.
Speaker 2:And, of course, the one very key thing which may or may not affect people in the west is inflation in many parts of the muslim world actually, malaysia is is also suffering from this the, the currency, has devalued to the point where, if you have an insurance policy let's say for one, one million ringgit in 10 years, on 15 years when you, when you need it, is it still one hundred and a half right? So, using stable coins, we can actually hedge, help people hedge against inflation, particularly in places like africa, indonesia, turkey. They don't want an insurance policy that is really worth nothing at the end. So there are all these combination of factors that make our product very attractive. Not to mention we're digital first, which is to say no medical exams. You can finish this in seven minutes. You don't have to take a long time out of your day and everything gets done the way you're describing it.
Speaker 3:It makes it seem like a no-brainer for someone to sign up to this. But I absolutely get. You're not pushing the sharia narrative. As you know, sharia combined with insect we really understand that as well.
Speaker 1:You need to make a product that just seems like a good product yeah, I mean, look, we build multiple companies before and the reality is that build a good product for everyone, do not discriminate on anything. So the way we do our DNA as Muslims, we cannot hide it. Anything we do has to be Sharia compliance.
Speaker 3:But have you seen worldwide uptake so far? Because, as you say, through the blockchain you're not restricted to a single geography at all. So has it been flow or is it very much?
Speaker 1:in saudi. Still, I'll give you some uh numbers. We we very, almost no marketing spend. It's really, like you know, grassroots and everything. We launched our phone, like the live dial uh, 11 weeks, 12 weeks ago, and we need half a million dollars to make this farm alive and we already got 250 in the DAO. Pre-launch People already pre-ordered the insurance and they're going to be protected in the next three months. 50 people no, we got like thousands of people coming. Yes, and we already secured 250,000 US dollars. So we're halfway there. Pre-launch Fantastic With no mark. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:I want to say look the thing with distribution. It's very much about trust and about being able to speak to a community. So it is the case that we have. The majority of people who are coming to us today are people within our networks and who are exposed to us, who know of us, and they tend to be Muslims. Yes, there's no doubt. But we do have significant minorities who are not Muslim. They just see the value of it. But as we scale across the, you know you got to just get one community, a strong community, together first, and then you scale out bit by bit. So this early community is very much key for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I received, since I'm part of a large startup network, you know digital nomad who have difficulties to get insured and everything non-Muslim, sign up right away. Say this is exactly what my lifestyle is. I live in Thailand and they ensure because the recipient or beneficiary is back home and let's assume you know they pass away. How do they pay them? I?
Speaker 3:wanted to ask you about this because, famously, I think many of us first heard about you through your incredible appearance on the Meet the Drapers show in Silicon Valley, and obviously Tim Draper and his family they're not Muslim, but you guys actually ended up going all the way through that competition and winning the big cash prize. Investment Was it over a million dollars?
Speaker 2:Alhamdulillah. Actually, he invested in the company before we finished the competition. Oh really.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, after our first pitch, a couple of weeks later, this was at the Leap by the way in 2023. A couple of weeks later they reached out. He got on a call with us. He got on two calls with us and he said I'm investing. This was prior to us going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, before. The show. What did he see? The what did?
Speaker 1:he see the Abdel. Look, I'll tell you something. Look, we're experienced founders. We built a successful startup in the region. We were part of the top startup that we're launching with Karim Fetcher Mel2.com, which were acquired by IKEA Group in Saudi Arabia. So what was that startup? What did it do? It was like a peer-to-peer marketplace for secondhand you could sell your stuff and we take care of the payment and the delivery, and we were very innovative at the time, like 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:But so on my cap table, I know everybody in town you ask me any names. I know all the VC, because my previous startup had most of the top VC Ride Venture, shuruk Venture, mevp, 500 Startup. So when we had this amazing, you know idea of going back to the trenches of building Takadao, I say wow, with my exit, my cap table friends, it's going to be a piece of cake to raise capital. To be honest, I sit down. She brought the white paper together, we start looking at it and I say khalas and I went on the road to pitch to all my friends. They're all friends and, by the way, they did an exit with me, so they're happy with my result and they were happy to talk to me and there were three letter and one number that was blocking them. Three letter and one number what w, e, b and number three. They say remove those three letters, one number and I invest in you. So web three was still the big.
Speaker 1:That was a day like they didn't get it, was it at the time of, like the crypto bubble bus? We exactly were during the bear market. Everything was falling, everything was falling and they, like, they were unaware about the thing. The only thing they could hear the bad news, the scam, ftx, we, we, we were building during all those scandals, but the reality, the best web3 company are building the bear market, not the bull market. So we were like, in total opposite. So I got like maybe 30, 40 knows, and Some of them they were clueless about blockchain technology, smart contract. Some of them came back and told me a bit, count is a CIA creation. I was like, okay, my god cross. The region was like, not for us, thankfully. The region was like not for us, thanksfully.
Speaker 1:Uh, she was competing at the leap, where she went, the leap defest. Yes, she went the the, the competition there, and hamdullah got some cash. And then tim draper was coming in town and we had this like maybe two, three days window to sign up because they say, hey, you guys should sign up. Tim Draper, and I was like, after 30 no's, I'm like I'm not going to even bother with that guy, you know, but that was Niyama. You know, when God decides something, he decided and actually he brought us Mr Bitcoin in town. Imagine Riyad was able to, I didn't need to go to Silicon Valley. Allah, when he decided something, he brought us the best possible investor that could actually give us the money to get. So she pitched the competition and actually I was not even feeling that nothing's going to happen. The guy Tim, he's like, he got it. That is exactly the type of investor you want. He understands Web2, he understands blockchain.
Speaker 3:He was known as a Web2 investor already.
Speaker 1:He's a Mr Bitcoin, so he become a multi-billionaire because of that fact?
Speaker 3:Did the Sharia aspect interest him at all, or was that?
Speaker 1:Good question.
Speaker 3:Not even a fact.
Speaker 1:So you have two types of VC. You have the formal VC, which is mainly what's happening in the region. Unfortunately, they're catching up. If there's something happening, they try to follow. And you have the visionary VC and, as a founder, you want those VC. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the headache, the bigger the things. The bigger the headache, the bigger the things, the more excited they become. And that's the type of VC.
Speaker 1:So when Tim Draper heard what she was talking about DAO, blockchain, decentralization, killing the insurance industry that was Korhant, who is here. He stand up. He stand up and he's like hey, I want to get in. And, as she say, we already closed the deal. In in in when he was standing and you can watch the video. We closed the deal. She won the competition. A week later, phone call and debate, of course it's team Draper and he's like Murad, you know, I want to invest. This is how much I want to make, take it or leave it. And we had a little bit of clash. And then I say pay me in Bitcoin. I've paid me. So I was trying to get this Bitcoin at the time. It's like no way not going to get my Bitcoin. And then the one question Tim had. That was quite an interesting question because he came to me and he's like I have one question as a non-Muslim because can I invest in Sharia compliance? Yeah, that's what they said. I said, of course, there's no problem, you can be an investor.
Speaker 2:I said the only thing.
Speaker 1:No, he said can I join the fund? Can I join the fund?
Speaker 2:That's what he said, like the life.
Speaker 1:The life Dao and everything I said, of course. Second I say but one thing I want from you is that you have to invest in the Sharia compliance way with us. Imagine many VC here who are Muslim and everything. They run the show. When I told them, remove this clause because it's not Sharia compliance, they said no. When I told them, remove this clothes because it's not Sharia compliance, no, no, we're afraid to remove this clothes because American VC they come along and non-muslim say remove everything that can block you to for you to success. So yeah, a very good VC, very good guy and, I think, the best VC you can get, and it's not easy to get his money back compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price.
Speaker 3:I founded Kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that. If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan in whatever bank account you have and it will create a auto budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for and we'll save towards them automatically into pot and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia compliant investment and savings products as well. So download Kestrel today and try it out for yourself. Now back to the podcast. There was a very interesting moment in the show where I remember where I think it was tim draper's father, I think when shireen was you were pitching and I think he said something along the lines of I don't think you should be the face pitching because your face is covered yes, because there's no face.
Speaker 3:You handled yourself so well. But what were you feeling in that moment? Because I assume it was all unscripted. It was just in the moment.
Speaker 2:You know what? Funnily enough, this happens to me on a regular basis and it doesn't happen. But usually it doesn't happen on stage and usually it's a Muslim who's telling me this Very often. Yeah.
Speaker 4:No, not on stage, and usually it's a Muslim who's telling me this very often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so no, no, no, not in Saudi Arabia, not in Saudi Arabia, but in a previous startup in Dubai, etc. We would get these comments a lot.
Speaker 2:And even Murad with the beard yeah, this was before beards were fashionable, so I think before beards were hipster exactly before, beards were like cool, so I wasn't terribly thrown off by it and you know, as a niqabi, I'm always aware of it. You know I'm always aware of the impression that I make on people, so I do make an extra effort to, you know, overcome this. So I think it was. It's not something I was unprepared for. Actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, coming from a non-Muslim, to ask this question to be honest is legitimate, I agree. So if he's an old man and he didn't actually try to attack the religion, alhamdulillah. You're talking about an American guy who was an advisor to multiple presidents, so he's not a small guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I think. But the way he approached it it was very in a professional way and you know that was it.
Speaker 3:I didn't take any like issue with it and I think, sharon, you put it best in the behind the scenes, you respected him, that he addressed the elephant in the room instead of just ignoring it exactly all the time and maybe not engaging and therefore not being interested in the best day.
Speaker 2:Exactly correct, and you know a lot of people. I don't know why people think this way, but how do you actually make da'wah to the rest of the world if you don't want to engage with them, If you get offended if they ask you questions, or if you simply say, oh, they're not Muslim, so we don't want to engage, we don't want to talk to them? That makes zero sense to me. So the more people ask questions and feel comfortable asking questions, the better it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually, as she was mentioning, to be honest, when I started in Dubai, among Muslims themselves, they are actually the most prejudiced about your appearance Muslims, practicing Muslims. The first startup is in Dubai Because, look, yeah, because if they have, look, they have the assumption they are managing a fund, they have money in the bank and everything. They are not doing it because they think that, hey, you're not the type of guy, you're too religious looking or whatever. They are looking at the investment and they put in their mind that, non-muslims, we might not invest in your fund or in your startup if you look that way. Actually, it's the opposite, habibi, you actually yourself bringing less trust. A non-Muslim will trust more Muslim practicing people than a non-Muslim Is actually the non-Muslim. They look at you and they say why you don't have a beard? You know why you don't have a shishia, why you don't have it's not being authentic.
Speaker 1:It's not being authentic. And when I talk to young entrepreneurs, and young entrepreneurs, muslims they come to me. They try to look fashion, they try to look that, they try to blend to a non-Muslim. I see you sending a wrong signal. Imagine you are in front of a human being that has no power and you already sold, quote unquote you didn't have you be yourself, pitch who you are, what you do, and Allah, first of all, will put into these people, and then the trust the non-Muslim. Actually, they want authentic people and we have it all wrong this complexity, inferiority, complex. I used to have a coffee shop in Los Angeles. Okay, yeah, I used to have a coffee shop in Los Angeles. Okay, yeah, I used to have a coffee shop in Los Angeles Back in 2001.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, we started it together.
Speaker 3:Together.
Speaker 2:That was our first business.
Speaker 3:Is Takado, your third business, fourth, fourth, yeah, okay, wow, so the coffee shop was the first in LA.
Speaker 2:And then we did candy. We imported it from Malaysia, indonesia, to Europe. Halal candy.
Speaker 1:Fruit plus, yeah, marshmallow fruit plus Yuppie, yuppie candy. So, going back to the coffee shop okay, it was right during the September 11. Imagine, september 11 happened and one week later I opened my coffee shop. Okay, I'm an obvious Muslim beard and everything. When I come back from Jumu'ah I used to wear the top and everything. I was only a coffee shop in central LA selling halal food and all my customers were Jewish, christian, very little Muslim, even though it's all halal. And I look the way I look in everything. In my library I had Quran Mus'haf in English and I had template who is Isa ibn Maryam. So every Christian. They were so Christian fundamentalists, they like to talk about Jesus. So I told all the Muslim MSA at the time bring me a template about who's really Jesus. So what are you going to do? Templates I put them in every single table.
Speaker 4:Templates Don't say that word anymore. Templates how did I say?
Speaker 2:Templates with a P.
Speaker 1:Not templates. So I put the things there and they were like what is this? And then they come challenge me and we had a good time. And he imagines after September 11, when they were looking at every single reason to to do something against you as a Muslim. I had no, I Could not find any, because after September 11, we were afraid to be at the beginning. It was very scary, you know, people were were attacking you, trying to attack you, but the reality, the opposite happened. Christian and Jewish bringing flour to our coffee shop, yeah, saying like, oh, you know, we feel for you. My coffee shop had few customers at the time.
Speaker 1:After September, I was packed, packed Full of those students coming and guess what they could not buy on a bouncing Nobel Quran, quran, yes, I was giving all those Quran that I had in English. And then I called my friend at the Saudi embassy and I'm like some student, I say, hey, I need mushaf. And they, I called my friend at the Saudi embassy and I'm like some student, I say, hey, I need Mus'haf. And they're like, no, no, no, no, leave me alone, I will. You know, we're in September 11th, you know, don't ask me for Quran. What are you going to do with it. I said I need it because there's to tell you the challenge. It was so amazing story. So, like I say, be who you are, do your things, treat the people right. You are the best ambassador of your religion.
Speaker 1:And if you start business-wise to start, imagine Malaysia was converted through business, trade and everything. They didn't. Nobody went with a sword to make them Muslim, indonesian, indian. So if you give up you as a Muslim, your identity from day one, in the best practical world model which is business, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the best businessman, enter Jannah. Imagine the power because you impact life, people and everything.
Speaker 1:So if you're already giving up you as a young Muslim entrepreneur, this principle I don't tell you just go and bring and have the top and schmuck, but be who you are, be authentic. If you hear Muslim brother telling you I'm not gonna give you money for the, tell him my salam, don't take his money. Take the money from a non-muslim who will give you and support you. Okay, and then move on and I'm sometime I laugh because say I become like we become famous because Team Draper, we had successful business before being who we are. Team Draper is a nocta. It's just a small thing. It's a nocta in the history of life, in the history of investment, in the history of anything. It's just a small dot, you know.
Speaker 3:I don't know what a beautiful story, how you really flipped a really bad situation on its head, or what could have been a really bad situation. You just had to relearn setting up your own business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was scary, I swear, you know I want to.
Speaker 3:There's so much I want to know about your guys back story as well. Yeah, because you know the coffee shop, the sweet business, what you guys are doing in dubai, I know what you're doing here, but, subhanallah, it's not often that you see a successful married couple running not just one business, but having run four businesses before and past. How did you guys meet? How did it all occur? And then did you always know you wanted to be entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to share my entire personal life. I know that some people they have a dating app, whatever that I don't want to promote them on the Muslim dating app. It didn't exist back then. Yeah, it didn't exist back then. No, actually I was a student in America, in the US, coming from Algerian-French background, grew, grew up in France with a very Algerian culture, moved to the US. She's from Singapore, chinese origin, and she also moved to the US very young and when I was back in the US practicing more and be very careful about what I do and everything and be mindful that the best religion is Islam.
Speaker 1:Actually, and I was actually challenged through my cultural upbringing, the French people did a very good job to erase any bad and good in the human being, meaning removing Shaitan and removing Allah from the microchip that every single human do, and that's how French are the Almanine, like the atheistic model. So they remove, yeah, secular model. So they make sure you grew up with this education, as I say, removing the bad and the good, shaytan and Allah. So you grew up in a very open-minded, godless society. But then when I went to the US, you see a church there. You see church there. You see too many churches, like what's going on? How many Christians do they have here, you know? And then you see them. They always God bless you. You will never see God bless you in a French-speaking tongue, wow. So it was a real culture shock. Yeah, it was something. I'm like they really in God, we trust in the. So you see, very you know, and I'm like, okay, I gotta study my religion better. Here there's something wrong. Because the reality, I was challenging my own religion, saying why are we the quote unquote, the last message, the best one, and so on and so forth. So I did the opposite. I studied most of the religion backward Hinduism, christianity, all type of religion. I was taking world religion courses and the last religion I was interested in was actually Islam, because I was like I'm Muslim by name, so what do I need that? Eventually, when I start reading what Islam was all about, I'm like it erases every single religion one by one and actually fully embrace purely my religion by denying and unifying everything else. That was the most powerful. So when I saw that, I say I'm not going backward. And then I was challenging the American because they were very open-minded on my religion, actually Islam, and then you're proud of being who you are.
Speaker 1:Your 1400 years of history? They're like 250. How many years? What is the American house news? In the San Diego, in LA? And that's where, actually, I was more inclined into marrying finally and finding a sister that would align with my Islamic vision as Algerian. We have a lineup of cousins that we can marry. We don't marry outside of the clan. Alhamdulillah, with the blessing of my mother and father, I met Sharon in San Diego, where she was also discovering Islam, trying to understand the religion and convert from Catholicism to Christianity. And that's how I married in Masjid. Very simple marriage. She didn't ask a big mahar for at the time I was broke, so a mushaf marriage. She didn't ask a big mahar for, like yeah, it was just at the time I was broke, so a mushaf was enough and that's. I got it for free, almost Joking, alhamdulillah.
Speaker 3:You got that one out.
Speaker 1:No no leave it.
Speaker 4:Leave it and please.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, at the time, as I say, I had no money, nothing.
Speaker 4:How was your parent reception back in Singapore then?
Speaker 2:So I was already living in the US at the time, so my parents were also in the US. So it tends to open your mind a little bit so that you know in Singapore I always like to say we're de facto.
Speaker 1:The true stereotype of Malaysian-Chinese relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying, if you learn. I always say we're de facto segregated because in school you're channeled into the mother tongue. So if you speak Chinese, if you're Chinese and you speak Chinese, you go into a school that only teaches Chinese. And if you're Malay and you speak Malay, you go into a school that teaches Malay. So you never cross's very rare. Only when you start working you actually cross the cultures. So I never met Islam until after I left Singapore. It's so strange, I think. Towards the end, when I started working, I mean, I finished my O-levels and I and I took a job in between you know, when you, when you finish O-levels, that was the only time I had exposure to Muslims. And then I really learned about Islam when I left in America. So for my parents they came from this culture where, you know, didn't really understand. They thought Islam and Muslims were Malay.
Speaker 4:That's the saying you become Malay if you convert.
Speaker 2:Exactly this is the opinion of the Chinese in Singapore. They don't realise it's actually. You know, it comes from Arabia. Muhammad, it was an Arab, it wasn't a Malay. No clue. No clue of you know how much we don't mix. So at the beginning it was very awkward for them and to his point it's almost like a betrayal of the culture. I want to say at the beginning but fast forward. Alhamdulillah, my mother became Muslim when my daughter was born. My daughter is now 20. My father just became Muslim not long ago, mashaallah. So Alhamdulillah. You know the human being. When they see the truth and they see what it does for people, they don't hesitate.
Speaker 1:And they had the big stereotype because the Chinese actually they don't hesitate. And they had the big stereotype because the Chinese actually they are the elite in Singapore and they look at the Malay and I have to be frank, the way they look at the Malay as lazy, they don't want to work, they don't do anything, they just have children, so it's a completely different Chinese thing. So you have this kind of and the Malay they're like who cares about this? Dunya, alhamdulillah, actually I embrace that better. But yeah, they have this big, big gap, you know.
Speaker 3:They do have a lot of kids. I mean mashallah, I don't mind, Mashallah.
Speaker 2:Fila, otherwise there'd be nobody less in Singapore.
Speaker 1:But you in Malay, malay, but Malay, singaporean, they have this kind of you know, I would say prejudice is there and stereotyping and everything you know, and they do live segregated, literally.
Speaker 4:And so political point in Malaysia like don't become like Malay. In Singapore, become a city.
Speaker 2:First part of the world.
Speaker 4:Because I mean technically, Singapore were a Malay state right for like long before. Now it's no longer.
Speaker 3:I mean you can see Singapore from our offices. Yeah gosh, what a beautiful story. I wasn't expecting all of that, except I'm out in this and also to be talking about the political and cultural states of singapore and malaysia. But there you go. Um, everything you could expect in what's the money took. Bring this back to to sally and web three, especially web three. We addressed this a little bit before but people being a little bit worried about it, they've felt there'll be negative stereotypes because of the likes of and decks, crypto crashing, all of that. Have you guys faced similar sorts of, I guess, stereotypes here in South people's view it quite negatively and maybe are less trustful, or is Saudi quite open to work theory?
Speaker 1:I'll give you a lot of great insight of what's happening. Of course, we've been building now for the past two years and a half, so we have some history, present and future vision. So, first of all, the location Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy in the world and in the region. Strong population you know I compare Saudi Arabia to Malaysia strong local population and everything. So you have a country with citizens. Next, you have Qatar, dubai, and if you want to look at Dubai, for example, 90% of expats. You cannot build a country on expats only coming and doing this. Of course, it's also a place where every type of innovation is welcome, but, as I say, easy come, easy go in Dubai. So they attracted all the Web3 community and people. Now in the region, they look at Dubai as the magnet for Web3 blockchain and that's the place to be for all the Web3 community and people. They're like Murad, you have to move to Dubai. I say no, I'm going to be the one you call it. Whatever you call it now, mr Web3, they are calling me here in Riyadh or KSA but I believe in the future of the kingdom and what the kingdom has to offer from the 2030 vision, but not only that everything around from cultural standpoint, sport, activity, entertainment everything is happening here in the kingdom.
Speaker 1:You want to see the best players in the world? You have to come to the kingdom. You want to see the best fighters in the world? You have to come. You name it so they did a good job. So you cannot. As an entrepreneur, you have to be smart. You have to go to the next wave of growth. Location, location, location. This is a prime real estate for startup Riyadh. I don't need to go anywhere. The VC, vc are coming to me. Tim Draper came here, a16z are coming, everybody's coming. That's the first thing you have to know. Second thing the Kingdom is doing it out out most to help all the ecosystem web2way ecosystem, any type of development funding, accelerator program, you know, giving you talent. They have top university, by the way, in the kingdom, so you have a pool of talent as well. Of course, we're lacking top talent from all over the world, but with the welcoming of the MoMAISA premium visa, which I'm now one of the holders, they welcoming top talent the welcoming top talent.
Speaker 1:Now for the Web3. It's still quote unquote at the government. Crypto is an issue. So when you go to talk to well, I talk to different people you have the venture capitalists who have no access to invest in blockchain crypto investment because the LPs have banned them to do so, because there is no yet a regulator in the kingdom to do that. Then the funny things now joke 20% of the Saudis have at some point bought some crypto, which is one of the fastest. 20% at one point bought some crypto. So it is one of the fastest 20%. 20% At one point bought some crypto. Wow, so it's one of the fastest growing crypto adoption in the world. It's crazy what's happened. It's like six of a million people. Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1:Funnily speaking, people were mining crypto. I was visiting some farm outside of Riyadh and they were mining. They were miners here in the kingdom five, six, seven years ago, even today, mining different type of altcoins. So they get it. They get it big time. Why are they more open than other places? Look, they have disposable income. They have free electricity.
Speaker 2:Demographically, I think 60% less than age 30. So there's a very young population. So you have look Very digitally native and digitally sad.
Speaker 1:And gamers gamers.
Speaker 2:Gamers yes, absolutely. And also there's not that many things you can do to invest money in Right, if you have, like you said, disposable income and you wanted to invest your money in something Sharia compliant, there's really not that much.
Speaker 1:Not even they will. You have, like you said, disposable income and you wanted to invest your money in something Sharia compliant. There's really not that. Not even they will go. So they are very look, they are very entrepreneurial by their DNA. For example, for the mining, I was shocked.
Speaker 1:Long story short, I was trying to raise money, not through VC but through local, because I knew most of the local had crypto, say, if the guy has Ethereum or Bitcoin, stuff like that, it'd be easy for me to close him as an investor because I see you invest in blockchain business. So I went through the angel road to raise the first money and what was funny, I see some local guy older than me and I'm starting to talk about my project. I'm telling him and he's like which coin are you going to use? I'm like like, how do you know about coin? He said I'm mining. I'm like what mining? I go to his farm a few kilometers away. You know the guy and then I, yeah, no mention, no mention. And I go to his farm. I go to his farm and somewhere in between palm trees and everything, I see a big block. I say what it is all rings. And he was mining, yes, mining. He put like half a million dollars in mining rings and everything and was mining. Different cons started with italium and everything, so they understood the game. So I was like, okay, the best way for me to raise is through people like him. So I raised through a network of people who understand what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Long story short, the kingdom actually closed one eye in that industry. So you have a no-no for crypto but you have okay for token. Okay, you don't have an exchange yet, you don't have this. But the reality now, for two years it was a no-no, but what you see the big potential in the kingdom in, when you see the kingdom investing actually in crypto projects and people when I tell them that say how is it possible? The reality is that Neon Fund invested $50 million in one of the largest accelerator program or investment fund crypto focus, which is Animoca Brand. So Animoca brand actually raised $50 million with who, saudi government. Saudi government actually directly own crypto project because they're all crypto project. But that tells you something's going to happen. Pretty much. That's the signal. Second signal Last year a UK-based largest investment and accelerator program called Outlier Venture a friend of mine, stefan, got money from who, nttp, nttp to launch the first crypto-focused Web3 program in the kingdom. Again, most of the investment comes from PIF.
Speaker 3:So there's a concerted effort to bring new crypto or Web3 startups here. Are they seeing homegrown Saudi companies or more people?
Speaker 1:coming in to the country. I'll tell you so. The last one I want to mention is Adiverse Venture. Adiverse Venture is the first Web3 blockchain investment firm who invested in 60 startups globally and set up office here last year, and they're one of my investors.
Speaker 1:Now to go back to your question what's the future of technology? What's the future of? Do we need an extra one-minute delivery, last mile company? How fast do you want? You want an injection of your food? I mean no, no, honestly. So I deliver in five minutes, half an hour, ten minutes.
Speaker 1:What's next? You know? So that's the reality. How are you going to improve? Sick and tired of those boring business to be in, even for fintech solution Tired. You guys are building just to please the bank. You're not reinventing the bank. Uh, same thing for any industry. Now you have the buzzword ai. They're all generative ai. There's few players who really build ai and it's all ai, nonsensical words.
Speaker 1:The reality if a country, a nation, wants to lead the world, they need to invest in technology. And what is this technology that's really going to transform economy, efficiency, transparency, blockchain, open ledger. If you want to become the better, the best country in the world, the fastest country, you have to automate all that and you have to have a smart government who will deploy all these tasks and only through technology, so that, to tell you, young population growth technology, everything will be setting up here. If you invest in that, saudi Arabia will be leading the world in terms of anything you mentioned, and they will attract talent, as they are doing now to make sure, and Muslim talent from all over the world in terms of anything you mentioned, and they will attract talent, as they are doing now to make sure, and muslim talent from all over the world. They want to come and build this nation based on that principle.
Speaker 3:Are there many startups from the outside entering, or are you saying exactly?
Speaker 2:there is. There's a little bit of both. There is some organic startups that we know of, but yeah, I think a lot of them do come from out.
Speaker 1:I can answer this question Two things that are interesting. Saudi diaspora are one of the brightest in the world. Saudi diaspora, saudi intellect, are all over working for Google, working for Silicon Valley, working for all over. Actually, as a matter of fact, when the Crown Prince started to attract the talent, the first thing he did he did the Saudization and he brought back all those super smart people to attract the talent. The first thing he did he did the Saudization and he brought back all those super smart people to build the country and they were leading big company outside Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you have a pool of extreme talented people running the show. Now what you need? You need to have the outside talented, like in deep tech, blockchain, ai. Of course, still very difficult to build this pipeline of talented developers and everything. But if you bring the experts, so you have a mix like 60% of the experts coming and setting up at the discount here and taking advantage of everything that's happening, and you have a huge university pool of talent that joined. And, as a matter of fact, now for the past five years, when we first come here with our first startup, we didn't meet so many tech entrepreneurs and now we have so many unicorns coming from Saudi local talent. So it's happening. La Mayonnaise is taking shape. My friend, that's what it is.
Speaker 3:So do you have any advice to a Web2? Web2? Who's looking to enter?
Speaker 1:Innovate or die. You know, I'm sorry to say, I believe the future is. If you haven't yet in your roadmap plan for Web2.5, web 3, honestly just uh, go big, go go home and just you know, just forget about it you heard it here monzo rebeli, it's dying.
Speaker 3:You got to get on the road there, okay, fantastic. Um, we're running a little bit short on time, but I just wanted to get one final thing from you. What advice would you give to people today who are looking to move to Saudi, to maybe enter the market, to come up with something? What do you think they should be focusing on?
Speaker 2:I think, generally speaking, we talk about startups, which is the field that we understand. First of all, you're built a real product that is multitudes better than whatever the existing solution is. So that has to be the basis, because then nothing else will work. You know you can move anywhere you want in the world, but eventually this will all go away. So that's the foundation Now, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2:The doors are wide open now and it is a time like no other time where there's opportunity. There's still multitudes of problems to be solved and they're welcoming people with pretty much open arms. And I would say you guys are already a little bit late. So if you had come maybe a year ago, you would have seen it was even easier. Now it's getting a little bit more challenging because more and more people are coming. So that sees the day essentially, and a lot of people, strangely enough, they still see Saudi Arabia as this very mysterious, strange place. But as soon as you visit you can see that you have to come. So just make that trip and you will see. You will discover where you can fit in.
Speaker 1:You know why I hate to let her speak before me? Because she sometimes steals my tagline. You know it's the opposite, you know. So she's building the company and I'm the business guy and developing this, but sometimes she, anyway, I give it Little late. You guys are late, definitely, like what's happening. Let's, let's be frank.
Speaker 1:These, uh, ben salman, his excellency, his highness, mashallah, when he's he, he came like seven years ago, he, he said I want to become the renaissance of the world and actually he did execute on that. There were nobody. We were all like what is he talking about? The guy I still have to go through Silicon Valley Singapore, France, UK to raise capital. I still, you know there were two or three VC at the time, Two or three VC. Actually, you had to be very good friend with the VC who say no to you because you're married. Your guy, if he say no to you, you're dead, Cannot raise capital. Bunch of angel investor because the region is rich, but the VC were few. Now you have maybe hundreds of VC Look at that. And the Saudi Arabia is writing checks. It's one of the leading investment hubs now and every week you hear no, the new VC.
Speaker 1:So what I want to say let's rank Brexit and all this kind. You guys are dead British. Forget about it. Europe is starving, Europe is starving. Europe is starving. Actually, America is actually breaking down the German industry, which is a driver for the European economy, and taking them piece by piece. You know, BMW and Mercedes-Benz would become like New York brand companies. They are all going to take away whatever Europe has, and that's what it is. You know, that's the reality. All the talents are moving out. So you have an old and, by the way, European in general. They produce what a quarter human being per year, per couple, and you have like two, three kids in the. So, just in the demographic principle, already they are already dying. Okay, that's the reality.
Speaker 1:The Muslim, the Muslim community, is the fastest, also growing population in the world and the youngest population in the world. So you have all these elements in Middle East, Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia. The center of the world, by default, is still, you know, the kingdom, Saudi Arabia. So what if you put all these elements together? You put all this together. Any startup, my advice whatever Muslim, non-Muslim, but I encourage my Muslim brothers and I don't understand why there's so little risk. You know, blockage. No Muslim are coming more than Muslim startup inups in the region. I'm like shocked. What is the blockage here? What's going on? You have a country where you can pay five times a day, you have a masjid, you have a one-hour flight from Mecca, Medina.
Speaker 3:So you're saying you're not seeing?
Speaker 1:many Muslims Not enough. They are still like, oh, I'm okay, in America, in France, they're still enjoying, like we call it, ac and hot water, because in the country back home maybe they don't have hot water. We have hot water and cold water in the kingdom as well. If it's what attracted you and your parents to those countries and I'm saying that because Algerians, just when they came from Algeria to France, there is hot water I can imagine that. You know, if you want to have an insight of what's going to happen next, saudi Arabia will create a zone similar to Hong Kong, china, pretty much looking at both the Hong Kong model versus the Dubai model, with a free zone where any type of technology can have existence in that free zone Neon, and then you can cover the entire Middle East with that.
Speaker 1:But they are very smart. They are going methodologically, or whatever you say it in English, step by step. They also try to be careful because they don't want to give you know free license and then cancel it, and then you have the concept of Sharia, compliance and everything they try to really be. Yeah, I mean, I see a lot of debate in the UK. The guy is like I'm getting married, how are we going to be? Can I take my wife into building something?
Speaker 3:I don't advise it to be honest, I forgot to mention that on the podcast it's not an easy play.
Speaker 4:I was asking the guys here.
Speaker 1:If you survive the first business because unfortunately, if you put women and men together in the same, first of all you have income coming together in the same. So it's more challenging because you don't have another diversification. But it is a young couple fight a lot and through business you fight even more and then if you survive, actually we had big, big fight at the beginning. You know subhanAllah, and we survived this because she's really extremely the opposite of who I am and I'm extremely the cross exactly usually, yeah, iron water exactly. So this is and that was kind of right, yeah, usually usually I'm white and black and opposite color
Speaker 2:opposite color so then you copied me yeah, so this is uh.
Speaker 1:So that's why it's an advice to make sure that we can do a behind the scene. If you want to record, we're still recording.
Speaker 3:Here we are. Is that one? Yeah, that one's still going. Did you record that? Yeah, still recording.
Speaker 1:So that's good, you have content. So this is important that. So if you survive this difficult first I would say hype then alhamdulillah, you notice that, okay, I know what I do. Then, alhamdulillah, you notice that, okay, I know what I do best, she knows what she does best. And then you give this freedom, then it could be the best combination.
Speaker 3:I guess it made you guys stronger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stronger, and we defy our. We live our life on our own terms. That's the beauty of it, because imagine you working for a company, she does something, and then you know. So the way we did it is really becoming very unique in that sense that we can, you know, take our holidays when we want. We work mostly remote with the team.
Speaker 2:It solves the mahram problem I don't have to deal with oh I have to. No mahram, I can't go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a no-no for me from day one. When we got married, I said the only person you will work with will be me.
Speaker 4:Does it bring reservation from investor seeing couple?
Speaker 2:People do ask, actually, and then Tim Draper did ask. He was like what if you have to fire him? The question was directed to me what if you have to fire him? He did ask, you know, and I was like we'll cross that, you can come to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So now the married couple as a non-Muslim startup founders. What's happening? The reality a lot of VC would say, oh, I don't invest in married couple, I've okay before, yeah so. But the reality when you look in this, the most successful startup are all built by married couple.
Speaker 3:So it's a kind of funny I remember when we got into tech stars london, um, there was a big thing because one of the co-founders, the biggest shareholder, is my father. Yeah, so they said the riskiest startups to invest in are married couples. And then father-son relationships, because there's a power dynamic between father-son I mean it's.
Speaker 2:It's probably not untrue. It's probably true, yeah, but then again it's, it's just depends. So if you have like a track record, like we do, yeah then it becomes the safest startup.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they're like okay, they have been together for 20-odd years.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What are the odds of another startup, let's say the founders? They fight. They just started working together two or three years Exactly.
Speaker 3:Famous case of Tinder and Bumble, right when I just got as bad as I could. She leaves and starts a rival startup.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now there is a lot of interesting, but again, if you cannot handle the heat and you want to protect your family and your marriage, business at the end of the day is not the ultimate, the only thing, yes, and then you know, know, it's very important. At the end of the day, it's not also a a fast race, it's not a. You know, this is a marathon, so you have to also pace yourself, you know. So most of the time you need to find, of course, the right founder to spend a lot of time with you. You know, it's actually like being married.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you've already gone through a selection process with each other, so this was just an extra step. Thank you so much for all this behind-the-scenes content. It's a really interesting one because we've never had a married couple, we've never had two guests on at the same time and we've never had four different accents, and we're French, I think, almost like American Generic.
Speaker 1:I have a generic accent International, american, british and then the Malaysian. Yeah, there you go. Look, there's a lot of, for example, a question that comes into mind a lot of people say what makes the life insurance halal? You know, yeah, actually the insurance itself. If it's done properly, it's halal. But the reason you cannot use conventional insurance because they are using interest. You know, reba, uh and certainty and uh, gambling as well, which is a massive yeah, so those three elements actually makes a muslim uh, not allowed to.
Speaker 1:But the concept of insurance. There's nothing inherently non-halal about it. No, it's just how. So those three elements actually makes a Muslim not allowed to.
Speaker 3:But the concept of insurance. There's nothing inherently non-halal about it. No, it's just how it's performed.
Speaker 1:How it's performed. So that's why Takaful removed those three concepts of riba, gambling and uncertainty as well. So when you remove those three elements from that and you give back the fund to the community, then you have a perfect Sharia compliance model, and then the investment fund should also align and invest in Sharia compliance companies.
Speaker 3:I guess the other benefit of building this on the blockchain is that you don't have to worry about the licensing and the regulation, yes, or like. What license do you have?
Speaker 2:So the thing with this is that we can launch, but if you truly want to scale, you really want to be regulated, because people don't know how else to evaluate whether something is trustworthy. So what we did was we actually went to Singapore because the holding company is in Singapore and we submitted a legal opinion that examines the legality of our business under the Insurance Act and the Payment Services Act, and we submitted this to Monetary Authority of Singapore. So we engage with them actively to say, hey, this is what we're doing, is it okay? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And there are no laws on the books for what we do, because insurance is such a complex product, a lot of people don't understand it. But what we're doing is outside of the norm of insurance, which is why we always like to say we're an insurance alternative, because if you look right into what we do, it's not insurance, it's a mutual fund, it's a club, it's an association, it's not for profit, and so it's a difficult, it's kind of challenging at this point to get regulated as much as we would like to, because there's simply no laws on the books.
Speaker 3:You remind me a lot of FIDA. I don't know if you've heard of them in the UK, but they're disintermediating home mortgages, creating a real compliant way of doing it which is entirely equity-based. So, similarly, it's funds. People invest into a fund together, which then purchase houses and move people into them. They try to get regulators and spoken to the UK regulators on three different occasions but the regulators don't really know how to deal with them because it's not a typical debt-based mortgage product and they feel like it doesn't fall within their scope. So for now, that's how they're functioning, but I do understand that there is a hurdle. If you want to get mass market adoption, yeah, you need to get a licensing card.
Speaker 1:So so for us, of course, already is DeFi project. Even if we want to get regulated, we're not touching the fiat money. So the beauty of what we're doing is actually people are paying in USDC, stable coin, and eventually you could use CBDCs. You can pay with any kind of cryptocurrency. The reality is what the blockchain technology, takadao is just a software technology that you can use, so we don't need license to be a software-operated company. That's one thing. The second thing is that, in terms of the licensing, the licensing shouldn't come from us. It comes from the decentralized, autonomous organization.
Speaker 1:That DAO technology is actually being now validated in many jurisdictions. That's where we get our in. So now you can go in Ras Al Khaimah have a DAO. Technology is actually being now validated in many jurisdictions. That's where we get our in. So now you can go in Ras Al Khaimah have a DAO. You can go to Switzerland have a DAO. You can go to Lichtenstein have a DAO. Singapore has a DAO, so the DAO actually can register as a non-profit organization and that's where we're going through that channel. So you have to divide both. Technology play that channel. So you have to divide both. Technology play for our investor. They invest in the right thing. No risk at all, because technology play and then, in terms of the regulator, is not us who has to be regulated, is the dow, and the dow is being 7g rejection. Actually there is two now in the, in the us as well, welcoming the dow structure.
Speaker 2:So that's how we play in, you know, and we have to bet on the future, and that's what it is but yeah, the idea is that if you have a large enough community to come to us and say I want to do some protection for this community for specific risks, we can help you build it.
Speaker 1:But that's the roadmap in the future. That's something you need. Yes, yes, you could have thousands of DAOs, thousands of ventures, no risk.
Speaker 3:Have you guys spoken with? We have a shared investor, wahid Ventures or Wahid X. Have you spoken to them About investing in their community?
Speaker 1:Yes, so Wahid, one of the mashallah great investors. The community is also massive. We are planning on rolling up something with them, particularly in Malaysia. There will be something interesting because takaful is huge in Malaysia, so we try to roll something up with them. They're heavily regulated, which makes them a very little move into what they can do, but their users are free. So the thing is to find the right combination. We are finally bringing a pure takaful play global for them, and I think that's be an exciting moment when everything comes off.
Speaker 4:Yes, I understand a bit more of it. How is the?
Speaker 3:We should introduce him. He's Wasab, our head of data. Is Wasab appearing on camera?
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, how does the claim work, because is that the human convention as well? And how does the investment? For example, basically it's fine to invest, yeah, what's the effect? Excellent question. And then how to pay out for the.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let me talk about the investments first, because that's a little bit um easier. Now. What we have is we have a uh again. Everything is more or less fully automated. So we've defined these rules whereby we said okay, for the first three months of cash flow which we need for the fund, and again cash flow needs our offshoot of risk, etc. We will take this and these can only go into protocols which can be liquidated within 24 hours.
Speaker 4:This is for Codate, I mean.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, yeah, exactly. So then these protocols have to be DeFi, on-chain protocols that we are not controlling. So we are not managing the funds, we're not picking tokens, none of this stuff. We say, okay, these are the ones we're going to use, everybody agrees to it, and then we just deploy the funds there. Then it goes crescendo. It's like okay, the six months cash flow you need to be able to liquidate within seven days, then the one year cash flow can be up to six months before we lock up period, et cetera, et cetera. So those are the investment strategies. Now, when it comes to the long-term investments, we actually place them with digital asset managers, and here is where we get wealth managers and asset managers to actively manage the funds. So they're the ones who are now picking the portfolio, etc. Now, these guys obviously have to be approved by the DAO members, right? So we have a vote, we have a proposal, we have a vote and people say, okay, yes, we're going to place our funds with these guys and these should be regulated.
Speaker 4:Should it be just within Takarao managers or outside?
Speaker 2:No, not us, Definitely not us, anything but us. We try to stay neutral, so it's always going to be a third party player. So you know there are a bunch of us, mashallah, working in this space. Marhaba, you have a facet, you have, um, you know a bunch of different, should I compare it as well? Yes, everything has to be sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all has to be sure so this is on the investment side, um, and what we will be launching very soon is because we're already doing all this work, and our work here is really to build that dashboard where we're exposing what are the things that are being invested in, so we are allowing people to track the fund performance, et cetera, in real time.
Speaker 1:So the claim, the claim system we have a blind system. She can elaborate on that the payment of the claim, the payout of the claim.
Speaker 2:Yes. So this is on the investment side. Now, on the claim side, what we're doing, what we made a very deliberate choice at the beginning. We said, look, if we are involved in managing the claims, then it's no longer decentralized. Number one and number two there's always a temptation to deny the claims, right, because you want your fund to have more money. So we said, okay, let's take this out of our hands and let's create a system whereby the members themselves can approve the claims or deny the claims. All right. So we call this a verifier system, so the members will opt in into being a verifier.
Speaker 2:Every time there's a claim, we push out a notification and say, hey, who wants to verify this claim? So there's a standing pool of verifiers. They will then say, ok, I want to do it. And there is the three stage process. So stage one is documentation. We have the death certificate, we have the police certificate, we have the medical certificate. We have the police certificate, we have the medical certificate and for each one of these documents, three people are verifying and they have to come to a consensus. So we will give them a checklist. Does this match with the official format? Is the information provided the same as the kyc is the method of the cameras cameras.
Speaker 1:No but.
Speaker 2:They can see you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I can't see that you're blocking my Just.
Speaker 2:Why does me always have to move? Anyway, you see, now you distracted me. I forgot what I was saying. They have to come to a consensus and if they come to a consensus, and if they come to a consensus, then it moves to stage two. Now, if they don't come to a consensus, or the consensus is this is not authentic, then it's denied, it's a majority base.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And then it comes to stage two, and this is now manual verification. So here we're calling the government registrar, calling the employer registrar, calling the employer, calling a family member. Is this individual still around? How did he pass away From what cause of death?
Speaker 1:And don't forget the whole promise of Web3 blockchain. Just let me finish, please.
Speaker 2:So again, consensus. So we have multiple people make multiple phone calls and if they all come together and say, yes, everything checks out, then it's approved. Now the key piece of this is once that process is done, everything is put on chain. Now we don't mention any personal data, it's just wallet addresses and results. But at least the claimant, if he gets denied, he can see where did it fail, at which stage and which document was it so you need to empower them as well for them to execute this process?
Speaker 4:Yes, because for regular someone who looks for alternative insurance, they just put money. They don't care. This is correct. The issue will come later, when there's something that happens and they have to fight with the insurer, right, but this it seems like you have to empower the members when they sign.
Speaker 1:Okay, we have to do this as well, yeah you know, that's the beauty, that's transition, exactly what I was going to say. That's the beauty of blockchain, web3, decentralized. It's all the power of the community, so the community has the power to do that. There's something called, as we all know, proof, proof of work. For, you know, proof of stake or proof of work. Now, finally, with Takadao, you have the proof of useful work. You know that really does something. That so the training actually not everybody will do it, but there will be a lot of members in a certain country that generating some you know, token money or return to do that kind of work.
Speaker 1:Go through a process of training, then you get validated as a verifier and so on and so forth, and then you can do the proof of work, useful work within the blockchain, things which create tons of jobs, tons of opportunity, tons of everything. At the end of the day, it's not very complicated to give you phone calls, verify everything. The most important you will honesty through not colluding way of getting those people getting together and putting verifying everything on chain. That's the beauty of it. The last but not least, is that we still believe that the DAO member might have maybe a conflict of not deciding if the claim is valid or not. At that level, we will hire a claim a professional manager to settle this claim. You know, and at the end of the day, the community is not, uh, are here to pay claim. That's the beauty of it. You know, there is no profit seeking, nobody is making money out of it do you think the frame is right?
Speaker 4:it it seems like it defines the whole ecosystem towards together from the investment side, the underwriting side, everything like the consumer side is very hard to understand. It's probably, I feel, like this is a big challenge because you need the whole ecosystem right.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, you never know. Timing is something we cannot control.
Speaker 4:You can have a time to time, you know.
Speaker 2:So what we focus on is just we need to build a product that is so good and that you know. People don't even think about these other factors. They don't even really think about how does the engine work. They just say, oh nice, shiny car.
Speaker 1:Oh look reliable. That's what we focused on. And then to go back also to be more concrete, on the timing and adoption, we know that the adoption of crypto is the fastest growing adoption in the world in any industry. Now it's happening, we're still very small amount. Maybe 1% of the total global population is on chain, which is nothing. But look the the potential upside here is like a blue ocean. And then you have all these dj, all young people who are kind of crypto native. Through gaming, through everything. Are you building for the past? Are you trying to build for the future? Yeah, and they all actually understand the airdrop concept. You know I, I'm getting that, I'm getting that. So there is already an economy that's coming and our vision is to build for this future generation. A startup should build for the future generation, not for the Not for the past.
Speaker 3:Exactly, those are beautiful words, and this For the third time. All right.
Speaker 1:Jazakallah khair.