Start-up Society #89: Ramadan Feature

Keeping the American Dream Alive

Published in

Start-up Society

7 min readApr 4, 2022

Welcome to the 89th edition of Start-up Society! This blog highlights some of the most exciting start-ups in the country striving to keep the American Dream alive.

Make sure you check out the previous issue, if you have not already, here.

Ramadan Mubarak to everyone! To those who aren’t familiar with Ramadan, it is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar where Muslims from all over the world observe a month of fasting, prayer, community, and reflection. Click here to learn more about the fascinating month of Ramadan!

To celebrate and shed light on this month, this week we are highlighting two innovative Muslim-founded start-ups.

JUV Consulting

HQ: New York, New York

Founded: 2016

Employees: 321 (on LinkedIn)

ABOUT THE COMPANY

JUV Consulting is a Gen-Z founded and led consultancy firm that specializes in understanding and driving Gen-Z-based insights.
JUV provides Research services that include quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and field research by directly interacting with the Gen-Z population.
JUV also provides Consulting and Marketing services that offer brand positioning, social media audits, retainer services, campaign strategies and advisory councils.
The company also specializes in Implementation services by offering creative execution, experiential marketing, social media campaigns, and presentations and workshops.

Some of the brands that JUV consulting has worked with include Unilever, BET, VF Corp, VSCO, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, and okayso.

MEET THE TEAM

Ziad Ahmed, Co-Founder & CEO

Ziad is concurrently the Founder and Chairman of Redefy, a non-profit focused on creating resources to make schools more inclusive.
Ziad has given four TEDxTalks, written for Teen Vogue and The Huffington Post, and was named to Forbes 30Under30 for the Marketing/Advertising category at the mere age of 19.
Previously, he was an Executive Board Member at the Yale International Relations Association and a VSFS Intern at the U.S. Department of State.
Ziad graduated with honors from Yale University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, specifically focusing his research on social media’s role in modern geopolitics.
Click here to learn more about Ziad and his great journey as a Gen-Z, American-Muslim entrepreneur.

Shaina Zafar, Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer

Shaina is concurrently a Pennsylvania Ambassador for The United State of Women and a Member of Badassery, a curated community of rising leaders who want to unleash the power of underheard voices together.
Previously, Shaina worked with the Born This Way Foundation, Microsoft, and Verizon Media’s BUILT BY GIRLS Program. She also founded Code for a Cause to encourage young females to tackle social justice issues via coding.
She has been recognized as a Coca-Cola Scholar, StartingBloc Fellow, and was the youngest speaker at the United Nations and World Bank International Young Leaders Assembly.
Shaina graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Affairs. There, she was a part of the Pan Asian American Community House Board of Advisors and Turner Society for Social Impact.

THE START-UP SOCIETY ASSESSMENT

As a member of Gen-Z ourselves, it is truly incredible and inspiring to see a company like JUV Consulting prospering. More often than not, it is extremely difficult for young entrepreneurs to get a seat at the table. However, JUV has used its Gen-Z characteristic as its own value proposition, showing the business world why it understands more about Gen-Z (an enormously powerful target market) than traditional competitors.
Below is an interesting graphic from JUV’s website:

This graphic perfectly incapsulates why JUV Consulting may be here to stay. With a spending power of $143 billion and a population of roughly 1/3 of this planet’s population, Gen-Z will continue to grow its market share as its younger demographic begins to age. Business cannot be done as usual with the rise of Gen-Z influence; thus, JUV Consulting is in an optimal position to hand-hold other companies through this consumer market transition.

GO DEEPER

Ziad Ahmed, CEO @ JUV Consulting: Lets talk Gen Z/Purpose/Story TellingIn Watches, What Does Luxury Mean Now?

In Watches, What Does Luxury Mean Now?

USHUB

Founded: 2020

Employees: 9 (on LinkedIn)

ABOUT THE COMPANY

USHUB is a streaming service focused on exploring an area of content production that many mainstream services do not pay enough attention to, Muslim culture-focused content.

Our library of content and original programming exists to present work that portrays Muslim narratives and champions Muslim creators and artists. USHUB is the one streaming platform that offers diverse, varied, and rich stories that exist within the Islamic world. — about.ushubtv.com

Currently, the platform has raised $1 million from its original founders, Kashif and Ayaz Zuberi. The biggest cost acquiring content and paying for original content through its production house arm.
The company has 100+ individual titles and 500+ individual content pieces including episodes of shows. There are seven original productions, and two in post-production, three in development, and four in preparation to be shot this year. The platform has content from over 60 Muslim creatives and production companies, with over 40 countries represented.

MEET THE TEAM

Kashif Zuberi, President

Previously, Kashif earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto in 1996 and subsequently earned his medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Kashif is still a practicing surgeon specializing in cancer, weight loss, and general surgery. He founded USHUB TV in 2020 with his Brother, Ayaz Zuberi. He and his brothers had taken notice of the gap in the market for Muslim content prior to the pandemic.

We were always talking about having a platform for Muslim content producers that a particular [audience] niche is looking for. Look at Netflix, HBO and others, they are very broad and general, not seeming to have sections for other ethnicities or religions

Sohaib Ali, Chief Operating Officer

Previously, Sohaib earned his Bachelor of Arts from the Concordia University Irvine in Cinematography in 2020. He holds a few other degrees and certifications in Film and TV, which he earned prior to 2020 from the California State University at Fullerton, Saddleback College, and Red Digital Camera.
He began his career in 2013 as a Video Editor for Western Digital, where he spent almost 30 months. He spent another 3 years as a Producer at MuteSix and Karma Automotive from 2017–2020. He then joined USHUB YV in May of 2020 as COO.

Iffat Fatima, Director of Marketing

Previously, Iffat earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Merchandising and Consumer Science in 2016. In 2020 she earned her MBA from the University of Texas at El Paso.
She started her career as a Sales Manager at Dillard's, prior to her MBA from 2017–2018. After her MBA she spent almost a year at El Paso County as a Project Manager.
She currently holds multiple positions other than Marketing at USHUB including, Marketing at AkuCast and a Project Manager position at Thomas p. Miller & Associates.

THE START-UP SOCIETY ASSESSMENT

Currently, There are a few main streaming services that want views, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Disney Plus and a few others that recently launched. How many of these services are global? Just Netflix.
USHUB is specifically looking to serve Islamic communities and Islamic culture. Streaming in over 200 countries already and want to provide content to almost 2 billion Muslims globally. The size of the market is orders of magnitude larger than the roughly 350 million folks in America.
As globalization continues to mix cultures and religions from all over the world with each other, it's important that content producers not only create content for certain cultural groups, but can also find clear avenues to deliver that content to specific audiences. This reason is why culturally specific and sensitive platforms such as USHUB TV will be able to muscle their way into the uber-competitive streaming market, by focusing on a niche that is overlooked by the current basket of streaming services.