This week's FS newsletter features 5 beautiful interviews with 5 founders who have built enduring businesses in Bangladesh.
Find links to all the interviews below.
Mohammad Rashed Ali Bhuiyan is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Star Tech, a fast-growing Bangladeshi conglomerate specializing in technology and electronics products retail, distribution, and services. Star Tech was established in 2007 as a small retail outlet. Since then, the company has evolved into a rapidly expanding tech and electronics products retail, distribution, and services conglomerate, now comprising three separate and independent strategic business units. The rise of Star Tech is a remarkable story, offering valuable lessons in the nature of our personal journey, entrepreneurship, and venture building in Bangladesh.
In this excellent interview with Mr. Rashed, we discuss his journey to what he is doing today and the path of Star Tech to where it stands today. This is an incredibly insightful read for anyone interested in understanding the importance of intentional living, the unfolding nature of life's trajectory, and the art and science of building an enduring business from the ground up.
Ratul Rahman is the founder and CEO of Hubxpert, a Dhaka-based HubSpot Platinum Partner, that has carved out a niche in the competitive world of customer relationship management (CRM) and digital transformation. Ratul, a self-taught entrepreneur with a background in accounting, has grown the company from a small team experimenting with HubSpot implementations to a full-service agency serving clients across the globe.
In this fascinating interview, Ratul talks about his personal journey and his experience of building Hubxpert.
When Zeeshan Khurshed Mazumder first appeared in our pages in 2019, his company, BeshiDeshi, was a fledgling one-year-old e-commerce platform with 350 artisans and 12,000 products. Five years later, we found an organization transformed. What began as a modest online marketplace has evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem supporting 4,000 craftspeople across Bangladesh and more than 30,000 products on the platform, with Mazumder quietly changing how rural artisans and thus Bangladeshi products reach national and international markets.
In this first installment of our two-part interview, Mazumder reveals the fascinating transformation of BeshiDeshi from a simple ecommerce marketplace into an integrated platform for craftspeople and Bangladeshi products.
Wahid Choudhury is the founder and CEO of Kaz Software, a leading software outsourcing company based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, serving clients from around the world as well as in Bangladesh. Mr. Wahid has not only built one of the most fascinating technology companies in its vertical but also built a distinct organization that gets credited for consistently producing leaders for Bangladesh’s tech industry. This is one of the best conversations we have had in a long time on life and venture building.
In this conversation, Mr. Wahid and I try to demystify this phenomenon of what produces consequential founders and organizations through the fascinating personal journey of Mr. Wahid and the remarkable story of Kaz Software.
Hasnaeen Rizvi Rahman, is the founder and managing director of Astha IT, a software development company in Bangladesh. From his early fascination with chess and computers to building a thriving tech company, Hasnaeen's entrepreneurial journey is a testament to the power of conviction, perseverance, and clear vision.
In this conversation, Hasnaeen shares a raw and honest account of his path, including the challenges of starting a tech company in Bangladesh, navigating the early challenges of entrepreneurship, and his candid reflections on the mistakes and lessons learned along the way.