START: Faiyam Rahman, CEO & Co-Founder, Blaze: "The AI CFO for Businesses"

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Blaze started by making it easier to move money.

Now it's building a new way to manage it.

Faiyam Rahman's journey into entrepreneurship started at 22, when he walked away from a place at a top medical school in New York.

Coming from a family of doctors, medicine was the expected path. He'd excelled academically, completed the pre-med curriculum, and earned admission to a highly ranked medical school.

But Faiyam began questioning whether becoming a doctor was the best way to use his abilities.

His parents had pursued medicine to build financial security and provide opportunities for their family. Thanks to their sacrifices, Faiyam had the freedom to pursue a different path.

He saw entrepreneurship as an opportunity to apply his abilities toward solving problems and making a meaningful impact on the world.

Years later, he and his co-founder Luke saw an opportunity to improve cross-border payments using stablecoins.

They applied to Y Combinator three times before getting in.

Then came the hard part.

Licensing. Infrastructure. Product development. Fraud prevention.

They built and launched a payments product focused on Latin America.

As AI transformed software, Faiyam saw an opportunity to take Blaze beyond cross-border payments.

What if financial software could do more than help businesses move money?

Instead of juggling multiple financial tools, what if businesses could manage their money through one AI?

That's the vision behind Blaze's AI CFO.

Connect your financial tools.
Organize transactions.
Reconcile your books.
Prepare payments for approval.
Forecast cash flow.

One AI working across your financial operations.

From moving money to helping businesses manage it.

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🎙️ Faiyam Rahman, CEO & Co-Founder, Blaze on Fondo START
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01:08 Introduction to Faiyam and Blaze
02:27 The path from medicine to entrepreneurship
04:12 Why he chose building over financial security
08:13 Meeting Luke and the road to YC
09:17 Building a stablecoin payments startup
11:09 Developing Blaze for cross-border payments
12:14 How AI changed the company's direction
13:07 Rethinking the relationship between AI and money
14:11 Building Blaze's AI CFO
16:09 Faiyam's long-term vision for financial technology

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Check out blaze.money

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