Reham Fagiri
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- Y Combinator55 min
Starting a Startup After Business School - Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco
Reham Fagiri, Kalam Dennis, Chris Broadfoot
Appdeco, a New York City marketplace founded by Raham Mann and Colman Nordlund, streamlines the furniture resale lifecycle by managing pickup, delivery, and payments to solve the trust fragmentation inherent in platforms like Craigslist. After validating demand through modified Craigslist tests, the company achieved immediate traction and joined Y Combinator, where the founders transitioned from corporate careers to building an in-house logistics network and optimizing unit economics through rigorous A/B testing. Today, the platform operates a light-asset model across three states, leveraging targeted subway advertising, in-house digital marketing, and word-of-mouth referrals to connect aspirational furniture buyers with sellers in the region.
- Y Combinator3h 39m
Female Founders Conference - New York
Jessica Livingston, Kathryn Minshew, Alex Cavoulacos, Mariya Nurislamova, Reshma Shetty, Shan-Lyn Ma, Reham Fagiri, Tiffani Ashley Bell, Alana Branston, Katherine Minshew, Kirsty Nathoo, Adora, Stephanie, Holly Liu, Sharon Pope, Kat Mignolet, Matthew, Carolyn
Y Combinator and a diverse panel of founders, including Jessica Livingston and representatives from Zola and Scentbird, convened to discuss scalable startup strategies that prioritize values alignment, efficient hiring, and rapid product-market fit validation. The discussion highlighted critical insights such as the dangers of bias in "culture fit" evaluations, the necessity of avoiding "crappy yeses" during fundraising, and the importance of maintaining founder-led scrappiness even after significant capital deployment. By contrasting successful pivots in sectors ranging from wedding registries to virtual data science, the event underscored that sustainable growth relies on unique founder traits and disciplined metric management rather than traditional VC heuristics or rapid scaling alone.
- Y Combinator26 min
Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis at Startup School SV 2016
Reham Fagiri, Kalam Dennis, Colin, Raham
AppDeco co-founders Raham and Colin transitioned their furniture marketplace from a capital-dependent platform to a self-sustaining business by pivoting to owned logistics and focusing on unit economics during a 2014 funding drought. The company achieved profitability by acquiring inventory through unconventional cash payments, replacing unstable third-party movers with a dedicated fleet, and eliminating external marketing to drive growth via word-of-mouth. This strategy of ignoring market noise and prioritizing direct customer feedback allowed the firm to survive the funding crisis and expand into new cities while maintaining strict financial discipline.