FWDstart

About FWDstart

The FWDstart Podcast is a weekly show at the intersection of venture capital, startups, and strategic industries shaping the MENA region. Each episode features candid conversations with founders, investors, and operators behind the region’s most ambitious companies, from frontier AI and fintech infrastructure to climate tech, construction, energy, and space.

Publisher

Jamie Lane

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Dec 2025

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

7 of 26 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   SPICE's Zeid Husban on Shaking Up Saudi Dining and Building His Third Startup

   Host Jamie Lane interviews SPICE founder Zeid Husban about his innovative restaurant financing model and the challenges of building his third startup.

2. 

   13 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Stride Ventures’ Ishpreet Singh Gandhi on $1B in Credit, Equity Dilution and Expanding to the Gulf

   Host Jamie Lane interviews Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, founder of Stride, about venture debt strategies, equity dilution, and expanding into the Gulf market.

3. 

   6 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   COLABS’ Omar Shah on Saudi, Coworking Economics and Building Across the GCC

   Host Jamie Lane interviews COLABS founder Omar Shah about scaling coworking businesses across the GCC, focusing on Saudi Arabia's growth potential and the economics of flexible workspaces.

Inside a recent episode

SPICE's Zeid Husban on Shaking Up Saudi Dining and Building His Third Startup

Published 20 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] But there is this interaction with the customer. We try to understand the daily habits of this customer, not only what they like to eat, because the daily habits really affect your reference. As I told you, you go to the gym, most likely you want protein. So this is also something that we're incorporating. Do you have any interesting insights, actually, from having, I suppose, access to that now for however many of months that have maybe surprised you? The majority of people who dine out in Saudi are female. Majority. Really? Yeah. Like a good majority. That's... Yeah. I would not have. This is, yeah, surprising. […]

Who has been a guest on FWDstart

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Zeid Husban
• Ishpreet Singh Gandhi
• Omar Shah
• Jawad Shreim
• Nauman Ali

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Contact FWDstart

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about FWDstart