Exit Strategies: How We Scaled & Sold our Startups

// Panel

Location: The Landing Upstairs

Time: 2:30 PM – 3:15 PM

Moderator: Mustafa Ammar

Speakers: Dawood Khan, Zohaib Rattu

Abstract:

What happens after the build? This panel features founders who have successfully scaled and exited their startups, offering rare insights into the strategies, negotiations, and timing required to sell. Attendees will learn how to build companies with exit potential, avoid common pitfalls, and chart paths to long-term wealth creation.

Speaker Biographies:

Mustafa Ammar — Mustafa Ammar is Managing Partner at BlueNexus Ventures; former pharmacist, international diplomat, investment banker at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and reskilling coach who has led over $1.2B in financings. He is a trusted startup advisor to founders in EdTech, AI, healthcare, and manufacturing, with a passion for shaping the future of work. Host of the Career IQ Show and author of Time to Move On, he is on a mission to help reskill millions of people to future-proof their careers in the age of AI and to inspire one million orphaned children to dream big about their lives and careers.

Dawood Khan — Dawood Khan is the co-founder of Gradio. A startup acquired by Hugging Face. Gradio is used by a million AI developers every month to create full fledged web applications from machine learning models and aims to make ML more accessible.

Zohaib Rattu — Zohaib Rattu, current Partner at Social Snowball, is a growth strategist and community builder. Social Snowball is a word-of‑mouth marketing platform that automates affiliate, referral, and influencer programs for eCommerce brands. He played a leading role in scaling Social Snowball and shepherding its successful acquisition by Dotdigital at a $35M cash exit. Zohaib also co-founded muslimprofessionals, now among the largest free Muslim professional communities in the U.S. where he built and led a slack and event based group that continues to serve over 10,000 members across North America.