Rumaiza Fathima Ali | Founder & CEO, Wedy
Rumaiza is a complete and total powerhouse with an incredible story to boot. In addition to running the show at Wedy—the world’s first booking and financing marketplace for the wedding industry—she also consults on UI/UX design and software development for half a dozen startups (and counting) in the tech world. Rumaiza’s dream for Wedy came from a personal pain point in her previous business within the wedding industry—paired with her journey of immigrating to the U.S. from India with a ‘H4 dependent visa.’ Whether you’re a wedding industry pro, a tech enthusiast or looking to build on a dream of your own, this inspiring story is for you.
The Basics:
Hometown: Chennai, India
Current city: Denver, Colorado
Alma mater: SRM University
Degree: B.Arch: Architecture & Interior Design
Very first job: Founder, The Little House of Cupcakes
Hustle: Co-Founder & CEO, Wedy
The Basics:
Go-to coffee order and/or adult beverage?
1. Caffé Latte on the daily! 2. Blended white caramel at ink! Coffee on Sundays: 2x espresso, white powder, caramel, milk, ice! 3. Shaken Espresso + white mocha + sweet cream (shaken in with caramel drizzle). I saw this rec from a Starbucks barista on Tiktok recently, and it’s become my new go-to airport/road trip order!
How do you unwind + recharge?
Disconnecting from social media (I hate mindless scrolling!), practicing deep breathing, playing tennis or taking a walk in the park, playing my power jam (hello, bollywood music,) and great food! But the best recharge has always been traveling to new destinations—I’m currently planning a trip to Italy (with color coded spreadsheets et all).
A podcast you’d recommend to anyone needing some motivation?
I’d highly recommend NPR’s How I Built This with Guy Raz. It’s been a great source of inspiration as I build my business! Guy lets us into his conversations with uber successful entrepreneurs, how they started, their mistakes, troubles, joys and success. I personally LOVE how he demystifies the process of creating and building a business. I have always been curious about the life trajectory of successful entrepreneurs and what their RAW business-building experience looked like. It’s really such a wonderful platform for inspiration, even if you have no desire to be an entrepreneur.
The Hustle:
Tell us about your hustle, providing a summary of your roles and the work you do daily.
I’m the CEO of Wedy, the world’s first booking and financing marketplace for the wedding industry. As the founder of a tech startup, my day-to-day is extremely multifaceted—one moment I’m chatting with partners at Sequoia Capital (Youtube/Zoom’s investors), and the next call I’m presenting a product demo to onboard a wedding photographer into our platform, followed by a trip to Home Depot to buy supplies and paint a piano in pink for our upcoming event! Currently, I am splitting my time between Wedy and my work as a tech consultant for half a dozen startups in Austin. My cofounder and I help these companies with UI/UX design and software development.
At Wedy, you can find me having investor meetings, white boarding with my cofounder about new product features, working with our developers on ongoing sprints, researching + creating brand strategies, and answering a LOT of emails. If I were to breakdown my hustle into categories, here’s what it would look like:
30% software development
30% fundraising / venture capital outreach
10% designing branding assets
7% responding to emails
5% client communication
5% team building + hiring
5% brand partnerships
7% side hustle
1% coffee!
How did Wedy get its start? What inspired it?
Like most startups, it started from a personal pain point—when my wedding photographer almost double-booked me—but a series of other experiences also inspired it. Professionally, I have designed and executed luxury weddings where clients were spending $200K on just decor. I always wondered if there was a better way to plan a wedding without the experience feeling like pulling teeth. I have seen way too many couples feel overwhelmed with the non-transparent processes of wedding planning: the hidden costs, filling out contact forms, comparing quotes between 6 different PDF proposals, and tracking payments on spreadsheets. I realized it is impossible to book a vendor, figure out their availability, and see their pricing online. Drawing inspiration from all my experiences led me towards finding my North Star: co-founding Wedy.
What were some unexpected obstacles you faced when starting Wedy? How did you handle those challenges + what did you learn from them?
After being financially independent from the age of 18, I was given the infamous ‘H4 dependent visa’ to come to the US—except, I was not allowed to open up a bank account, get a job or build a credit score. That was my biggest obstacle. I had $3,000 to my name and a billion dollar vision, but a visa situation that tied me down from going after my dreams.
The thing with immigrants is that you feel like every single decision is a do-or-die situation, and that can be such intense pressure. When I finally got the visa situation out of my way and started to build Wedy, I reconnected with some of the folks from my wedding industry network. I told them about my vision to put prices out there and create a transparent marketplace for the industry. I heard a range of opinions, from “wouldn’t that be too tacky?” to “the wedding industry will never adopt tech”. Mind you, these folks were educators and C-level executives from the space.
I was immediately concerned about the market adoption. If educators did not want a new way of doing things, how would the general audience comprehend the idea? Something in my gut told me these folks were fearful of disruption as it would make their business models redundant. And I started doing what I do best: research. If you pay close attention to most legacy industries, you will notice that the incumbents try to monopolize using their outdated, archaic methods.
So here’s how we took our baby steps. We set out to conduct a user testing session with over 150+ wedding professionals (drawing inspiration from my case study days in Architecture). And it was a smashing hit! The data spoke for itself and we paid close attention to what our vendors were telling us about the market and their day to day struggles with running the business. I have always been wedding obsessed and going through all this data kept me 100% focused on the problem with an obsessive, almost maniacal commitment, because it resonates so deeply.
Walk us through the Wedy app experience. What can wedding professionals look forward to when joining Wedy? What can customers look forward to?
Imagine if Airbnb and Pinterest had a love child. That’s Wedy for you—a tech-enabled, booking and financing marketplace in the $100 billion wedding industry. With the industry shifting rapidly, we saw a need to modernize the way couples find and book wedding services. The platform ties together the discovery and booking experience with its streamlined suite of business management tools for wedding pros. We power the business of weddings!
What were the most important goals and objectives when designing the app? What were some must-have features, and what gap(s) does Wedy fill in the industry?
The wedding industry lacks price transparency and the ability to book wedding services in real-time. Wedy is designed to fill that massive gap in the industry! Imagine a world where you have to call up every airline/hotel/B&B to search, compare and book the offers best-suited for you. Or worse, imagine walking into a grocery store and not knowing an avocado costs $1.99/ea. The familiarity and transparency we rely on for other purchases just isn't there in the wedding space.
Up until now, couples had no idea that a medium sized bouquet costs $325 in Texas and $380 in Colorado. As for venues, the prices start from $2000 and go up to $50,000. When we were designing the app, our team wanted to be very intentional about how we showcase prices to our customers so they don’t feel overwhelmed looking at the exorbitant price tags.
We designed the user experience to help couples enjoy the wedding planning process in the same way you would enjoy shopping at Ikea for your living room. As you are browsing actual local inspiration, you know exactly how much it costs, who you are working with and what their availability looks like—all at the tap of your finger! As product founders, Anas and I conducted user testing sessions with 110+ wedding professionals and 55 couples to test our hypothesis before the launch.
Most of our must-have features were on the vendor side. In order for customers to shop wedding services in an e-commerce user flow, we needed to build a skew-like deliverable system for wedding professionals. For the first time ever, vendors are able to create a true catalog of their services/packages with shoppable deliverables (ex: 10 hours of photography coverage with an online gallery; as a customer, you don’t need to see two PDFs to soak in this info). We have drastically cut down the process from 50 manual steps to 5 beautiful automated steps for both vendors and customers with real-time messaging, scheduling, and flexible payment plans. We are removing the high degree of friction and inefficiency in the wedding industry, just like what Zillow did for the movement in real estate, what Airbnb did for hospitality, and so forth.
How have your past professional and academic experiences and lessons prepared you for the work you do today? How have they not prepared you?
My architectural background definitely helped shape my career. It taught me the importance of creating systems for any project: you start off with a case study, followed by a pen-to-paper brainstorm sesh, creating plans/mockups using softwares like Photoshop or Figma to test the concept, followed by the actual process of building it. I have applied this concept in my former business as a luxury wedding planner, which helped me define a new category in the industry. We were designing 3D visualizations for weddings even before it was a thing!
On the flip side, I think college FAILS to teach about how to run a business. They train you to go into the world and be an employee—not an entrepreneur. How do you incorporate a business? How do you file taxes? How do you buy a property or create a financial forecast? Going to business school shouldn’t be the only way to learn these basic life skills. I strongly believe this kind of financial literacy should be accessible to everyone!
Thankfully, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with some incredible mentors in my life today. I have made intentional choices to cultivate my advice network properly. I have a go-to mentor for literally every sector of my business. From sales, go-to market strategy to team building and a rockstar legal counsel — I’ve made it a point to be brutal and develop a high quality inner circle!
How has being a woman impacted your professional experiences? What can we collectively do to support and empower women in your industry today?
To be honest, I never once had that mindset of being impacted as a woman in any facet of my life or business. When I was 14, my mom showed a photo of Indra Nooyi and wished for me to become a CEO like her. I was 18 when I told my first business idea to my dad over dinner, and he told me to go for it! As a result of this incredible support throughout my life, I’ve always put a lot of effort into any single thing that I did. I am so grateful to have grown up in a community where being a woman wasn’t something that affected my opportunities.
While venturing out into tech, I truly never thought about being in a male-dominated industry—I just wanted to kick ass. I can’t deny that I’m always the shortest, youngest woman in most rooms, but I’m confident in the value I bring to the table and I go immensely prepared. Having said that, I am aware that not all tables are the right fit for me, so I am OK with the rejections, and simply continue to go in search of folks who align with my vision.
My advice is simple for other women: The historical trap is there and set, but don’t buy into it. You don’t have the time for that. You’re not a girl boss. You’re a boss. It’s your job to make sure you’re a damn good one.
It would be empowering for the younger generation to see behind the scenes vs. the highlight reel of successful people. Imagine how cool it would be if founders like Whitney Wolfe or Melanie Perkins showed us the path to their “overnight success” which in reality, is a 10+ year journey. It would be great to see the actionable steps they took to build their business: What was their networking hack? What did their cold email template look like? Did they source someone’s email from Rocketreach? Who were their mentors? I know 16-year-old me would have LOVED to see that!
What’s one thing you’re proud to have accomplished in your career thus far?
I am incredibly proud of where I came from and what I’ve built. As a destination wedding designer, I won two awards at the International Convention of Wedding Fraternity and have had some incredible early successes in my career. Now imagine leaving everything you have worked for in your early 20s and moving halfway across the world to start from scratch—in a country where you did not go to school, have no family/friends and absolutely NO connections. It sucked that those accolades didn’t mean much around here, as it is a completely different market segment so it felt like all the odds were stacked against me.
The thing that I am most proud of is how quickly I unlearned and pushed the envelope. I stepped out of my comfort zone, picked myself up after each rejection and continued to build on my own terms. At my very core, I know that we are building a once-in-a-generation company and we’ve just scratched 1% of the surface! I’m here to create something that outlives me—and just saying that out loud excites me.
Any decision I make has to be aligned with my passion, values, and priorities. Being true to my values meant that every small business owner (Wedy Pro) on our platform gets paid in full for their service without hidden fees. Setting this principle in our business goes back to my parents teaching me the value of earning a dollar and I wanted to create a space for small businesses to earn meaningful income doing what they love, without charging them exorbitant prices to run their business. This has caused a ripple effect in terms of good will, as a lot of our vendors reached out to us during the pandemic letting us know they were able to pay their bills because of Wedy. This is when I knew I was onto building something special.
Who are some women in your field that you look to for inspiration?
Anna Fieler, the former CMO of PopSugar who is currently on the Board of Shake Shack. I recently connected with her for advice and she asked all the right questions and made me think about my vision and goals for Wedy. She challenged my thinking, which in turn made me dream even bigger!
I also have a digital crush on Melanie Perkins’ hustle! She’s the co-founder & CEO of Canva. Being a non-technical founder, she has built a multibillion dollar company from the ground up. No ivy leagues, no network and no trust funds—just a relentless work ethic!
Last but not the least, my grandma left Vietnam during the war and went to India on a boat leaving all her belongings to start from scratch. Her grit and resilience is something I can never get enough of—she eventually built a real estate empire and is the true definition of WHO RUN THE WORLD?! She taught me to keep fighting for whatever I believed in and to make it happen no matter what it takes!
Career and/or life advice for other babes?
As Mark Cuban rightly said, “It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business.” World-class, iconic companies are almost always founded by people with a high level of obsession, because it equips them to endure for the long haul that it takes to build a company without burning out or losing faith.
Additionally, one of the best pieces of advice I always go back to is a quote by Alex Schleifer, Airbnb's Head of Design, who says “eyes on, hands on, horizon.” He emphasizes on the act of constant prioritization; the act of choosing to work on the right thing at the right time, over and over again, is the thing that will make or break a business. I’m now a lot more diligent about what I spend my time on, and the cost and ROI of those choices.
Also: Manifestation is a real thing—and so is energy. Surround yourself with the positive kind.
Connect with Rumaiza:
Wedy Website / Wedy Instagram / Personal Instagram
This interview has been condensed and edited.
In partnership with: Wedy
Wedy is a wedding marketplace where engaged couples can browse, build and book wedding services. The platform ties together the discovery and booking process with its streamlined suite of business management tools for wedding pros. Click here to check it out, or download Wedy on the App Store or via Google Play.
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