Waseem Alim is the CEO of Chaldal, a grocery e-commerce startup in Bangladesh that he co-founded. He completed a B.Sc. in Finance and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. According to the episode description, Chaldal achieved 9th position among the world's best 500 startups by Y Combinator in 2015, and at the time of this episode (March 2023) it had raised $32.8M and was still growing.
In this episode Ahmed Fahad talks with Waseem about the ten-year Chaldal journey that took him from Silicon Valley to Bangladesh. They cover the founding story of Chaldal, why the team picked grocery, the early challenges and fundraising, getting into Y Combinator after a rejection, and the backend technology behind the company. The second half is more personal: meeting Warren Buffett and writing him a letter, drones, books, Waseem's CFA journey, his love of history and biographies, how he learns, and becoming a father.
What the conversation covers
- Waseem's graduation and early working life
- A plan to open a factory, and how that turned into e-commerce
- Why Chaldal chose grocery
- Early-day challenges and raising the first funds
- Being rejected by Y Combinator, then accepted
- Hiring at Chaldal, and whether the right people matter
- The most crucial fundraise, and Chaldal at the time of recording
- Meeting Ben Horowitz and Vinod Khosla, and writing a letter to Warren Buffett
- Chaldal's patent and its backend tech
- Advice for 15 to 20 year old aspiring entrepreneurs, and how a 20-year-old should invest
The conversation is in Bangla.