Shabab Shahriar Khan and Muhammad Saeedul Alam are the founders of biniyog.io, a Dhaka-based halal investment platform that connects regular people to profitable businesses.

Finding meaningful investment opportunities can be a challenge in Bangladesh. It is a complex problem exacerbated by a lack of personal finance education and investment knowledge, a lack of accessible investment opportunities, and a crisis of trust. If you’re looking for reliable halal and Shariah-compliant investment opportunities, it can further limit your options. Shabab and Saeed said it is a challenge they faced themselves — “we could not find any easy and transparent way to make halal and Shariah-compliant investments in Bangladesh.” So they decided to build a solution and biniyog.io was born.

Biniyog.io is still in its early days — the company just turned one last month. The company says it has worked with some hundred retail investors and a handful of businesses. It’s a relatively new vertical. There are various infrastructural and policy challenges. But the problem is real. And it is a fascinating space that offers genuine opportunities. 

I recently had an opportunity to speak with Shabab and Saeed. The duo comes from interesting backgrounds. A BUET-trained engineer, Shabab worked for five years as a software engineer before starting biniyog.io. Saeed studied finance at IBA, Dhaka University, and then worked in finance in the telecom industry. We talk about how they met and came up with the idea of biniyog.io and got started, their motivation behind starting the company, what biniyog.io does, its business model, challenges, and ambition going forward. We discuss how biniyog.io ensures investment safety, and how it assesses companies and policy status in the space in which it operates, and we reflect on the challenges founders face and their lessons in venture building. 

The interview is fascinating in its entirety. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it. Build great things! 

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Ruhul Kader  
Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I want to begin by learning about you. Can you tell us about your background? 

Shabab Shahriar Khan 
I did O levels and A levels from Mastermind and then went to BUET where I studied CSE. Then I worked as a software engineer for about 5 years before starting biniyog.io.