What does it really take to build a successful startup?
As part of this year’s Up!Stream Festival, we’re going unfiltered with Zakaria Jaiathe — a Forbes-featured, 2x tech founder, TEDx speaker, ex-VC, and former SAP CTO advisor — who scaled two tech ventures from the ground up and has over a decade of experience in building digital products.
But Zakaria’s journey started far from the startup world. Raised in a Moroccan neighborhood where education was rarely prioritized, he was the only one from his elementary school to earn a high school diploma. With no financial support, his mother took out a €2,000 loan—the maximum she could get—to send him to study in France. Years later, Zakaria had worked his way into the CTO Office of SAP in Germany. He had made it.
And then, he gave it all up to chase a bigger dream: building his own company. Everyone told him not to. He did it anyway.
His visa was revoked, and he faced deportation—until a viral LinkedIn post moved the head of immigration to personally call and grant him a new visa. Zakaria didn’t just survive the system. He rewrote the story.
From bootstrapping award-winning AR/VR tech to building a VC-backed supply chain startup connecting 1,000+ retailers, Zakaria has lived the highs and lows of entrepreneurship — and he's here to share it all.
💡 What you’ll learn:
- How to find the right co-founder (and avoid the wrong one)
- Turning a product into something people actually want
- Product-market fit, early sales, and getting those first customers
- Burnout, mindset, and what no one tells you about the founder journey
- The truth about hiring and choosing investors wisely
It’s a candid, practical conversation about what it’s like to build, break, and build again in the startup world — from someone who’s lived the full journey and made it all the way to Forbes.
Whether you're launching your first project or scaling your tenth, this event will challenge, inspire, and equip you.
👉 Secure your spot now – limited seats available.
