The Caravan Podcast

Youssef El Sayed Built a 350K Audience Telling One Man's Hajj on Horseback What does it take to turn an 8-month, 7,500km pilgrimage into one of the most compelling stories on social media — with no marketing background and almost no budget? Youssef El Sayed, co-founder of Hajj on Horseback, joins the Caravan Podcast to share how a promise made 30 years ago turned into a journey from Spain to M...

He built the UK's first AI rental agent — and watched it fail. Instead of quitting the game, he moved to San Francisco, rebuilt from scratch, and exited his next company, an AI ops platform for real estate, before most people get their first promotion. This week, Rowan Aldean (founder, Opsansa) joins Caravan to talk through the real, unfiltered version of a startup journey: the day he quit a c...

Six hours of marking, done in 20 minutes — that's the promise that won Hamza Mughal £30,000 and the top prize at Muslim Tech Fest Pitch. Hamza is the founder of Running Paper, an AI tool built to grade exams, and in this conversation he walks us through the hard problem: how do you teach a machine to mark like a thoughtful teacher? We get into the business model, who's actually paying for...

Salman Bari, a leading member of the Redwood Founders team, joins the Caravan Podcast to break down how a Warwick University Islamic Society meetup turned into one of London's fastest-growing young builder communities — one that charges zero fees, takes zero equity, and is fully funded by founders who just want to give back. We talk about the failed first attempt (Summer Launchpad), the pivot...

At Muslim Tech Fest in London, the Caravan Podcast interviews Saqhib Ali, founder of Zeropa, about building an interest-free microfinance alternative for essentials. Saqhib shares how hearing distressed customers while working in Lloyds’ financial distress unit inspired Zeropa’s model, why he chose not to operate as a charity to enable scale, and how the platform lends only when repayments are aff...

On the Caravan Podcast in London during Muslim Tech Fest, host interviews Hani Chihabi, 24-year-old co-founder of Thaura AI, an ethical alternative to big tech AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. Hani explains Thaura’s mission to counter “surveillance capitalism,” protect users through encrypted data stored in Europe, and avoid reliance on AWS, Azure, or GCP. Launched with Tech for Palestine, Th...

Join us on this episode of The Caravan Podcast as we sit down with Yusuf Omar, the visionary co-founder of seen.tv.  From hitchhiking 12,000 km across the African continent to reporting from the front lines of the Syrian Civil War and the Arab Spring, Yusuf shares his incredible journey of becoming a "one-man band" storyteller. In this deep-dive conversation, we explore: 00:00 Apartheid...

In this episode, we sit down with Abubakar Sheriff, founder of Qariyb — a platform reimagining how Muslim organizations discover, manage, and host events. Born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Philly, and shaped by time in the Middle East, Abubakar brings a truly global perspective to entrepreneurship and community building. We dive deep into his journey from instructional designer and online education...

On the Caravan podcast, Babar Bhatti (founder of Dallas AI and Chief AI Officer at Prism Skills) discusses why “technology is never neutral,” how AI’s recursive improvement is creating rapid change, and why society and policy are not moving fast enough to address risks like bias, misinformation, erosion of trust, surveillance, and warfare. He recounts building Dallas AI from 2017 with a focus on a...

On the Caravan podcast, host Hamza interviews Mohammed Musa, founder of Deepen AI, about moving from the Bay Area to Dallas for stronger Muslim community infrastructure, identity reinforcement for youth, and programs like iThon Robotics, which has grown to 44+ locations and won the Texas state robotics competition. Mohammed shares navigating Muslim identity in post-9/11 Silicon Valley and in Japan...

Maryam Ishtiaq didn't take the easy road — she took every road. From pre-med at Georgia Gwinnett to international marketing, from New York influencer to Dallas entrepreneur, her journey is one of the most honest stories of reinvention we've ever heard on The Caravan. In this episode, Maryam opens up about the pregnancy loss that nearly broke her — and how cooking pulled her back from the e...

They told you economics started with Adam Smith in 1776. They left out a lot. Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali — an 11th century Muslim scholar writing in Persia — described hoarding, currency manipulation, speculation, and institutional corruption with a precision that maps almost perfectly onto the financial crises of the modern world. In this episode, we break down Al-Ghazali's economic framework and w...

Building a company is phase one — the real game is learning to sell it, acquire more, and use capital to move the Ummah forward. Hamza Abdallah is the founder of CATA Leads, a real estate lead generation agency based in Dallas, TX. In this conversation, we trace his path from immigrating at age nine — leaving Bangladesh after his father, a retired Major General, refused to be bought by a corrupt r...

What happens when NIH funding dries up, industry doors close, and your postdoc interviews get canceled — all at once? For Dr. Suhaib Hashem, founder of Luminar, it became the push he needed to bet on himself. In this episode, we sit down with a USC biomedical engineering PhD graduate who turned a crisis moment into a MedTech startup focused on saving lives and cutting costs in the emergency room....

Morad Bouzidi came to the U.S. from Morocco at 19 with big dreams, limited connections, and a willingness to do whatever work it took to build a life. In this episode of The Caravan Podcast, we sit down with the founder of Moroccan Fusion inside Boston Public Market, where he shares the real story behind going from immigrant hustle (bakery jobs, serving tables, driving Uber) to launching a food tr...

In this episode of The Caravan Podcast, we sit down with Yusuf Siddiqui also known as “Yusuf The Truth” to unpack a story that’s way deeper than content creation. Yusuf opens up about being sent to an Islamic boarding school in New York at just 12 years old , what it really felt like to grow up in an ultra regimented environment, and how that experience shaped his identity, discipline, and relatio...

In this episode of the Caravan Podcast, we sit down with Tarek, founder of Pistache , a DFW bakery blending American desserts with Mediterranean flavor. Tarek shares his journey growing up between New Jersey and Lebanon, navigating revolution, economic collapse, and identity, before rebuilding his life and business in Texas. We talk about starting Pistache during COVID, learning the hard truths of...

In this episode, we sit inside a tiny New York City kitchen with Zeeshan Bakhrani, founder of Nishaan, to talk about what it really costs to build something personal. Not just money or hours, but certainty, comfort, and the safety of a predictable path. Zeeshan is a product manager who took time away from stability to build a restaurant rooted in memory, migration, and community. What began as a f...

Asim Jetpuri left corporate to go all-in on opening a Goddard School in Garland . We break down franchising vs starting from scratch, leasing vs buying land, the real costs of DFW childcare, and how community leadership + barakah shaped his leap into a 20–30 year business.

We hit “record” and built Caravan in real time — six months of filming, traveling, collaborating, learning, and a few chaotic moments we’ll never forget (including the time we almost lost the footage 😭).In this end-of-year recap episode, you’ll meet more of the Caravan team beyond the faces you always see:Rimsha (Media Optimization Manager), Yousuf (Program Manager), and Ramiz (Producer / the guy...

Adil didn’t set out to build an app — he set out to change how power works. In this episode, the founder of Boycott traces a journey that starts with childhood dreams of being a superhero, moves through disillusionment with performative activism, and lands on a radical idea: if power speaks the language of money, then resistance must too . We unpack: Why “social justice” without infrastructure fai...

Nadim Ahmed took a leap most people only talk about: he put nearly everything on the line—401k, savings, stability—while his wife was pregnant… to open a Venture X coworking space in DFW. In this episode, we unpack: Why he chose Dallas before he chose coworking The real risk (and reality) behind franchising a coworking brand What WeWork got wrong (and what operators still get right) Why “ideas are...

In Episode 26, we sit down with Riaz Surthi, founder of Hearty Foods, to unpack what it really takes to build a mission-driven food brand in today’s competitive CPG landscape. Riaz shares his journey from early experimentation to scaling Hearty Foods, navigating distribution, brand storytelling, and staying grounded while growing a values-first company. We talk about the realities of food entrepre...

From MBA school → startup grind → Friday Ventures. In this episode, Arshan Ahmad breaks down his journey and how being visibly Muslim shaped the way he leads, builds, and invests.

Welcome to WaZu Capital Partners – Building Wealth Through Smart Real EstateIn this video, we dive deep into WaZu Capital Partners: who they are, what they do, and why they’re turning heads in the real estate investment world.🏡 What is WaZu Capital Partners? WaZu Capital Partners is a U.S.–based real estate development and investment firm focusing on:🏠 Land acquisitions and development of single...