Marwan El-Rukby is the COO and co-founder of Kadama and a Forbes 30 Under 30 lister. He scaled a coffee shop idea into the most downloaded tutoring app in the world, generating millions in revenue and reaching profitability within a year of funding. Wikipedia
• Raised
$1.7M funding
• Reached
#2 App Store
charts
• 2.5M followers & 1B views on
TikTok
&
Instagram
• Listed on
Forbes 30 Under 30
Education
• $25K investment,
University of Washington
•
#1 Northwest
student startup ($10K award)
• 3–5x Y/Y revenue growth (Profitable after 1 year)
• Generated $10M+ in sales; $50M valuation
• Led full-cycle product development by identifying issues through quantitative & qualitative insights, brainstorming solutions with the team, building implementation roadmaps, assigning tasks, and conducting A/B testing across segmented cohorts to validate features prior to release
• Bridged product and engineering by leading scrum, reviewing front-end and back-end feature work, and QA/testing
• Built AI + Human Tutor system trained on world's largest dataset of student-tutor conversations
• Designed and implemented in-app analytics system to track user behavior and improve end-to-end funnel conversion
• Developed off-platform prevention algorithm recovering $1M+ in lost revenue
• Improved conversion from user sign-up to pay by 45% through key product features and flow enhancements such as: student-tutor matching algorithm, rewards program, referal program, enhanced tutor review profile, simplified onboarding tutorial, and much more
• Automated recruiting pipeline with an AI-powered screening bot, reducing time from job post to hire to 1 week
• Reduced customer support headcount from 6 to 2 through AI response agents and automation
• Built high-efficiency tutor onboarding system, reducing processing time from 5 min to 1 min per applicant
• Implemented filters that eliminated 35% of unqualified applications before review
• Increased team output through internal employee efficiency system; also resulting in missed deadlines becoming a rare occurance
• Reduced projected headcount through automation of business workflows, AI tools, and ops optimization
• Enabled Kadama to operate profitably by scaling lean infrastructure
• Grew Kadama to 2.5M+ followers and 1B+ views, becoming the #2 most-followed education brand globally
• Managed over $1M in paid campaigns across Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google Ads
• Achieved 3x LTV:CAC with <3 month payback after full funnel and creative optimization
• Directed content team using in-app behavioral data to drive ad performance and engagement
• Drove organic growth by identifying high-intent segments (e.g. college students needing essay help)