The conversation is in Malayalam. This page is an English summary of it. Watch on YouTube
About this episode
In this episode of The eCom Show, host Shan A Salam speaks with Rizwan Ramzan Ahamed, co-founder and CEO of Haris&Co. Academy, about his transition from corporate leadership to educational entrepreneurship. Rizwan reflects on his childhood as an NRI in Saudi Arabia, his move to Kerala, and his early realisation during an engineering degree that people skills mattered far more than textbook theory. He recounts his tenure at BYJU'S, where he helped scale student operations from a few hundred mentors to around five thousand during the pandemic edtech boom. Rizwan details his choice to leave corporate employment at age twenty-five to build content channels, podcasts, and personal brands, eventually leading to his partnership with Haris to scale Haris&Co. Academy. Throughout the conversation, Rizwan and Shan discuss overcoming the fear of failure, the discipline required for content creation, and the importance of swift decision-making in entrepreneurship.
Key takeaways
- Interpersonal communication and people management often create more long-term career leverage than formal academic degrees.
- Experiencing public failure early helps build resilience and removes the paralysis of being judged by others.
- Scaling an operational team rapidly requires clear systems, transparent communication, and adaptable leadership.
- Personal branding allows founders to build organic trust that directly fuels the credibility and visibility of their businesses.
- Decisiveness is a crucial entrepreneurial skill, as reversible choices should be acted on quickly rather than overanalysed.
- Consistency in content creation functions like building a muscle, where initial discomfort fades with sustained practice.
Chapters
- Career Transitions
- Personal Branding
- Edtech Scaling
- Content Creation
- Decision Making
