Followers of the Philippine startup scene might already know the name Shahab Shabibi.
Before migrating to the Philippines at the age of 16, the Iranian tech prodigy had already built a digital music platform and a leading football fansite. However, it was only in the Philippines where he realized he could use his talents to make a more meaningful impact. As an answer to Manila's dense traffic, Shabibi co-founded the carpool app Tripda. Then, to digitize specialty services, he came up with HeyKuya, which gave users access to everything from personal shopping to appliance repair. Although he sold HeyKuya to an Indonesian company, Shahab felt there was still much to improve on the supply side of Filipino services. With the succeeding MyKuya, he plans to empower local businesses and create a million jobs for Filipinos.
With service-oriented small businesses struggling to pivot to remote work, MyKuya assists contractors with everything from payments and logistics to customer feedback. Such tools are now essential in the pandemic age. In this episode, Shahab Shabibi encourages entrepreneurs to solve the problems that matter to most people.