Ali Abdullah Claims his Place in the Tech World
Nestled in a recently renovated East Harlem building, Ali Abdullah runs around his office in preparation for our interview. This Harlem born and raised entrepreneur is in a good mood. His latest endeavor, Claim It!, recently scored $1.1 million in seed funding from angel investors and is preparing to launch the second round of fund raising in hopes of gaining much more.
“If the guys could do it in San Diego or in Silicon Valley, why can’t we do it here in Harlem,” Abdullah said.
His app, Claim It!, allows users to win free swag such as gift cards, headphones and cameras after watching 15-second ads. Brands such as Starbucks, Garmin, Ultimate Ears, Kettle Chips and Crumbs Bake Shop have all partnered with his barely two year old company. Claim It! also attracted high profile sports investors including NBA star Al Harrington and former Detroit Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson, as well as some big names from the finance world such as current and former directors at Blackstone, Saks and Goldman Sachs.
At 29 years old, Abdullah’s success makes him one of the few Black tech CEOs in an industry where Black and Latinos make up only 2–3 percent of the overall workforce according Fortune Magazine.
“I always have to work harder than the next man but I find a way in,” said Abdullah. “My mentor always told me that there is not such thing as no.”
While in school Abdullah says he excelled in math but his dyslexia affected his other school work. He later attended Bread and Roses High School in hopes of becoming a basketball star but as a junior he was introduced to coding.
“At the time I wasn’t too happy,” Abdullah joked. Back then, the class was mandatory at his high school. “It’s something I feel that every school should have.”
It wasn’t straight sailing from there. He came up with the idea for Claim It! in 2008 but there was still a long road ahead.
By the time he had officially founded his company in 2013, Abdullah had transferred from Alfred State to Columbia University only to drop out one year later. He then left a stable job at NYC’s Department of Education, became homeless and had a kid on the way.
These tough times taught him how to hustle.
After getting back on his feet by becoming a freelance coder, he found his way to Google as a senior engineer. His time there taught him the leadership and management style he tries to emulate in his own company today.
“[Google] opened my eyes to how you treat your employees. It opened my eyes to the importance of culture, of what a company culture should be,” said Abdullah.
Even at Google he wasn’t content. Abdullah wanted to build a legacy of his own from scratch and he knew uptown was the place to do it. He connected with Khalid Mills and Kaza Razat at a Harlem tech mixer and the three became the founders of Claim It!
“My thing was to get a group of people from the neighborhood who could innovate but have credibility,” Abdullah elaborated. He wanted not just to build a company, but to motivate people as well.
The company is now based out East Harlem and has 10 employees. His office space looks like any modern tech startup should — large windows, multilevel floor plan layout with lots of white boards, video games and motivational quotes painted across the walls. From the roof-top there are views of Harlem and the Upper Eastside.
Abdullah is looking forward to expanding his company into new cities, adding 20–30 people in coming months and rolling out his app Android. Even with his company’s expansion he doesn’t expect to be moving from his neighborhood anytime soon.
