Four founders we previously featured at Future Startup have recently launched exciting new companies in three different verticals, from enterprise AI to developer tools and collaborative interfaces to AI-powered bookkeeping software.
This is an interesting trend where former founders are launching new companies, and hopefully, it will lead to the next chapter in Bangladesh's growing startup ecosystem.
There are several reasons to be hopeful.
Obviously, these founders come with real-life experience and thus have a deeper understanding of the market and the reality of entrepreneurship.
For all four founders, this is their second act. They burned their fingers before; they understand the challenges and tribulations of building businesses.
Second, this makes us hopeful about the markets and overall entrepreneurial energy in the country.
Starting a company takes an unreal amount of optimism. These founders making a second attempt means they see it is possible to build meaningful businesses. It is an encouragement for the rest of us. As such, building successful businesses is an iterative process. You try a bunch of times, you miss a few times, and hit a few times.
We briefly take a look at what they are building based on our secondary research. We hope to speak to some of them in the coming months as they build out their new ventures.
Mohammad Oli Ahad, the former founder of Intelligent Machines Limited, which built practical AI-powered solutions including Retail AI, has recently launched Dhaka AI Lab. Oli left Intelligent Machines following disagreements with investors and has now embarked on this new venture.
Dhaka AI Lab positions itself as "Dhaka's hub for AI innovation" and appears to focus on cutting-edge AI research and development. Building on Oli's extensive experience from his previous venture, which specialized in enterprise AI products and analytics, Dhaka AI Lab represents his continued commitment to advancing Bangladesh's AI capabilities.
The venture comes at a crucial time when AI adoption is accelerating globally, and Oli's proven track record of delivering practical AI solutions for large-scale implementations makes Dhaka AI Lab a company to watch in the regional AI space.
Shah Paran, the former founder and CEO of HandyMama, along with co-founder Ahad Ali, a CPA, has launched Tabby, an AI-powered bookkeeping software designed for small businesses, self-employed professionals, and 1099 workers. The company primarily targets the US market for now.
Tabby leverages cutting-edge AI and machine learning to intelligently categorize transactions, detect patterns, and optimize deductions automatically. The platform claims to address a critical pain point for self-employed professionals who "miss thousands of dollars in deductions every year due to messy bookkeeping".
Tabby's core functionality includes automatic transaction categorization, real-time expense tracking, AI-powered deduction detection, and tax-ready report generation. The platform claims it can save users "up to 10 hours a month on manual data entry" by connecting securely with banks and financial institutions and automatically processing all transactions in real-time.
The mobile-first approach ensures that small business owners can manage their finances anywhere, anytime. With Shah's experience in building consumer-focused solutions and his co-founder’s experience in finance and accounting, we’ll be closely following Tabby as it targets the underserved market of self-employed professionals and small business owners.
Samiha Tahsin, Omran Jamal, the former co-founders of peer-to-peer wifi sharing startup Bonton Connect, and Tanvir Hossen have launched AirState. AirState says it provides "powerful primitives to add real-time features into any webapp" with the mission to bring back "the magic of the internet" by making collaboration happen "at the speed of light". The company is "helping developers ship realtime features 100x faster", positioning itself as a developer-focused platform that addresses the complexity of implementing real-time functionality in web applications.
AirState is "on a mission to bring back the magic of the internet by making real-time features simple to implement and scale". The platform appears to offer SDKs and development tools that allow developers to easily integrate real-time collaborative features into their applications, addressing what they see as a gap in the current internet experience where "lag, screen sharing, awkward remote desktop solutions run rampant with embedded real-time being a rarity."
These are interesting businesses. Oli Ahad's Dhaka AI Lab continues his mission to advance AI adoption in Bangladesh, Shah Paran's UseTabby.com appears to target productivity and workflow optimization, while Samiha, Omran, and Tanvir's AirState focuses on empowering developers to build better real-time web experiences.
As these companies develop their offerings and gain traction, they'll be worth following for insights into how experienced entrepreneurs approach venture building, iterate, and tackle new opportunities.
