mariam ahmed

about this episode

Customer Obsession, AI Insights, and Brand Intelligence with Mariam Ahmed Can a small brand really compete with enterprise giants using AI? Mariam Ahmed is the CTO and co-founder of Menza, a brand intelligence platform serving consumer and e-commerce brands across food, beverage, fashion, and beauty. A computer science and AI graduate who was an early engineer at one of the first commercial large language model companies, she went on to co-found Menza through Y Combinator, building a platform that now boasts 100% customer retention over 18 months. In this episode, Mariam explains how Menza centralizes fragmented business data into a single AI-powered platform that surfaces proactive insights, automates workflows, and helps small consumer brands make decisions that were previously only accessible to large enterprises. In this episode, we explore: (01:01) Mariam Ahmed's background in AI and founding Menza (03:36) How Y Combinator accelerated Menza's early growth (05:33) Menza's 100% retention rate and customer-first philosophy (10:58) How Menza connects fragmented data from brick-and-mortar businesses (13:56) The Menza platform: dashboards, proactive insights, and workflow automations (20:02) Evolve Beauty case study: uncovering a 300x ROI on free samples (25:56) Using Menza to sharpen brand voice and inform marketing campaigns (28:23) How agencies can access Menza alongside their clients (30:18) Mariam's vision for scaling and democratizing AI access (32:22) Why founders need delusion to survive the startup rollercoaster (33:35) Mariam's predictions for AI and its potential in healthcare and social good Resources mentioned: Website: https://menza.ai/ Enjoyed this episode? If this episode resonated, subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend navigating career, family, or creative transitions. Leaving a review helps more people find these conversations.

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