How I joined a startup that is challenging a $3 Trillion industry.

In the beginning, that was an Idea.

As you’d expect, it all started with an idea. Though it sounds like science fiction to say it, it all started with an idea that no one in the history of ethical finance had ever tried before.

The Internet Era has unleashed a whole new world of opportunities for the creative and digitally-functional. So low are the barriers to entry that I started Sinofy with barely $500 in my pocket until we landed our first two clients and were able to expand the team. Now, barely a year later, we have helped 50 clients, set up offices in seven different countries, hired more than 100 new team members and hosted events attracting tens of thousands of participants, companies, and industry experts.

We spent our first few months building up our reputation, taking on projects that would showcase our expertise, but also make a difference in the world.

More than anything, we wanted to disrupt entire industries and challenge the status quo. And that is how we came to work with Marhaba DeFi.

A financial system for the masses, not just the Bankers, Investors

When I first met Marhaba DeFi founder, Naquib Mohammed, we barely spoke for 15 minutes. The project was in its infancy and, just like any startup, his team was doing whatever it took to ethnically grow, establish strategic partnerships, and (most importantly) develop a client base. It was his tenacity that struck me, his Terminator-like conviction proved to me that he was more than just financially invested in the success of this project.

Despite the lack of funds, the project immediately caught my attention for being Shariah-compliant and ethical. Having not seen a project like this before, I decided to offer some services entirely free of charge. The gamble would be worth it, I reasoned, if it meant being able to keep an eye on the project as it developed.

Within six months, however, Naquib was ready and able to pay for Sinofy’s services. As we began our deeper engagement with the Marhaba team and dove deeper into Marhaba’s ecosystem, it became quickly apparent that my gamble would pay off. We could not have ignored the project’s magnitude and what it could mean for the entire $2 trillion cryptocurrency market and the $3 trillion Islamic finance industry.

Cryptocurrencies were born of a need to break out of a financial system dominated by Big Banks. For too long, these institutions had dominated the definition of “monetary value”, allowing a small portion of society to get rich while bringing unprecedented ruin upon the vast majority of society. As the financial crisis of 2008 showed, governments forced society to pay for the losses while a small subsection of the ruling elite continued to reap the rewards.

But too many in the industry are cheating, creating sh*tcoins designed to fill the pockets of new-wave millionaires without any real value backing them. Some have even created satirical, parody cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin, which became so popular that it sponsored the Jamaican bob-sleigh team at the Winter Olympics.

Marhaba appealed to my more revolutionary side precisely because it is not about making quick money out of investor ignorance.

Marhaba offers more than just a Shariah-compliant DeFi platform, it offers transparency and security so that people from all walks of life can benefit from the opportunities created in the cryptocurrency world. It is also run by some of the most brilliant minds in global finance who, guided by the urgent need for ethical regulation within the industry, wanted to bring DeFi to the masses.

Meeting Kalid Howladar and storifying Marhaba’s revolutionary journey.

When Naquib arranged for me to have a friendly chat with the Chairman of Marhaba DeFi and a global guru in Islamic Finance, Khalid Howladar, I expected a call lasting a symbolic 30 minutes in which pleasantries were exchanged and little else. After two hours of storytelling and exchanging philosophical viewpoints, however, I realized that Khalid Howladar brought far more to the Marhaba table than his experience as Moody’s Global Head of Islamic Finance and managing 60 banks across the Gulf Cooperation Council nations.

Having discussed my personal interest in storifying everything, regardless of complexity or industry, I realized that Marhaba’s story needed to be told from a very different angle. We needed to capture the imaginations of potential partners and investors, while uniting communities across the globe, regardless of ethnic background or geographic location.

We needed to centralize the revolutionary nature of Marhaba’s DeFi ethics. We needed to let the world know that there is an alternative, an inclusive, ethical and simple DeFi platform designed for the world.

And the first step was hosting Khalid on Synopsis-2021, an international summit organized by Sinofy Group and partners addressing major cryptocurrency industry trends, including DeFi, NFTs, and a fresh approach to digital art.

The ability to tell a story — and tell the story your target audience wants to hear — is more science than science fiction. Thus, in preparing for Marhaba’s Synopsis-2021 debut, we needed to recalibrate its storytelling.

From Day 1, we decided to re-centralize this revolutionary ethics-based approach to DeFi, which defines everything Marhaba does. To do so, we dug deep into Shariah, DeFi, the $3 trillion Islamic finance industry, but also how Marhaba sought to help excluded and low-income communities benefit from DeFi disruption without compromising their faith or financial security.

Marhaba sought above all else to make DeFi participation easier and, therefore, more inclusive.

Taking Marhaba from a well-told story to a global success story

From our side, recalibrating the Marhaba story meant allocating full-time Sinofy associates to the project. Yet more consultants, not least Kema Bae, Nastya Adamova, Oles Kucherenko, Sarvar Shaymatov, and Levi Liang, contributed their expertise to design state-of-the-art visuals, a pitch deck, an NFT marketplace, and other deliverables to ensure the best possible user experience for Marhaba customers. And that was just the beginning.

We had just eight weeks to develop Marhaba DeFi’s “brand story” along with their new deck, which can be found here. During that time, we successfully secured $3.5 million, of which 80% came from individual retail investors who now form part of a growing Marhaba community, but who also entrusted us with their life savings in the hopes of realizing Marhaba’s vision.

Again, this just goes to show that there is nothing more powerful than a community that collectively believes in your cause.

Behind all this success was an incredible PR and media campaign designed by Cecilia Wong, which resulted in more than 700 publications, mentions and interviews — and counting. As a result of this incredibly effective PR campaign and a great story

Telling Marhaba’s story at Synopsis-2021

As a member of the organizing committee, I invited the Marhaba team to share the story of the world’s first ethical, Shariah-compliant DeFi project at Synopsis-2021. Over 60 leading industry experts shared their perspectives and take-aways, allowing for a full immersion into the world of decentralized finance and the crypto-economy.

“The entire industry is an experiment. The teams that build sustainable solutions, will be the ones to survive in the long run. Most of the projects taking part in this experiment will just vanish. It will be the survival of the fittest”

When Marhaba higher-ups and partners shared their story at Synopsis-2021, it became instantly clear that so many previously-overlooked aspects of DeFi are what makes this project stronger and more important than ever before.

The Marhaba DeFi project would have been impossible without the firm belief that money and greed will prove the death of this industry, faith in the role of women and the continued power of emotional intelligence as a driver of investment decisions, and, most importantly, the power of community.

But what does this mean in regards to the wider crypto industry and its members? In the following interviews, we put these questions to the experts.

Dr. Farrukh, Naquib and Deniz explain the community-led approach behind Marhaba and how it seeks to invite excluded communities into the financial revolution. They explain their ethical investment partnerships model, the software development going on behind the scenes, and the gaps in the market that Marhaba seeks to fill.

Khalid Howladar answers the question of where the $3 trillion of untapped Islamic capital comes from, and how Marhaba aims to give this back to communities underrepresented in DeFi. Jillian Godsil brings 35 years of experience to the discussion, talking about the value DeFi should and could give back to communities.

Harly Zappino, a legal specialist in cryptocurrency and blockchain, looks at the challenges this financial revolution has brought with it. He also discusses the rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), what their actual value is and how we can make sense of this, and whether they can be Shariah-compliant.

And if you found yourself curious about the possibilities these new technologies bring, this interview goes into more detail on how NFTs are redefining who curates and profits from artwork, bringing opportunities to a younger, more diverse, and digitally mobile community of creators, great panel to watch where Cecilia Wong, Faizin Kanwal, Mufti Billal Omarjee, Erin Magennis, Nastya Adamova.

Challenging a $3 trillion industry to step up to DeFi

Marhaba is the first, ethical DeFi platform that explicitly sets out to serve excluded and underrepresented communities rather than just make a quick buck. Until now, a lack of regulation and basic moral good conduct meant that potential new users of cryptocurrency and DeFi platforms could never be sure what their involvement might entail.

Inexperienced new users face losing everything to a scam-coin, unknowingly financing arms deals, destroying the environment or undermining their faith.

For the estimated $3 trillion worth of capital sitting in the Islamic finance industry, this is a big deal. Marhaba has challenged this industry to step up, to use the ethical basis of Shariah to serve those communities who risk getting left behind as the DeFi revolution redefines investment and capital worldwide.

More than anything, however, Marhaba is a grassroots movement. Almost 80% of initial funding came from communities who want to see an ethical, Shariah-compliant DeFi platform succeed. The remaining 20% came from VC funds which want to see a good return on their investment. Marhaba is run by the people, for the people, integrating democracy into protocol changes, allowing users to be involved in decision-making.

But this fight is far from over, although we’ve won our first challenge. We challenged Islamic finance, called upon excluded communities, and set up the world’s first ethical DeFi platform. Once the scale of available Islamic capital and the potential of ethically-minded DeFi becomes mainstream, however, the vultures will descend. That’s where you come in.

A simple question: What do we want from DeFi

Is it enough to simply take business away from traditional banking and funnel it into another, more modern set of institutions? Are we simply looking to import and replicate the power structures — the unadulterated selfishness — of traditional banking? Is it enough to simply make a quick buck off others’ lack of knowledge and access?

Do we want to streamline traditionally opaque processes so that normal, honest people can benefit from the opportunities of DeFi? Do we want to give entrepreneurial young minds access to financing, so that we can all benefit from their innovation and talent? Do we want to develop and lift up left-behind communities?

The list of questions goes on, but this is a good beginning to stop, think and then act.

Pur Proud investors include New World Group, Acreditus Partners , NewTribe Capital, Sheesha Finance, Contango, Influx, Sinofy Group, and many more will be announced in the coming weeks.

Interested in being part of the project? Click here.

For partnership opportunities email at: a.roberto@marhabadefi.com

Simply want to catch up? Ping me on Linkedin

To Be continued…

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Special thanks to Abbey Heffer and Jillian Godsil for helping me to put this article together.