#84 - Merouane Zouaid - Why I left Morocco for Silicon Valley at 22 yo

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A year ago, I saw a great video on YouTube.

It was about “finding opportunities as a student”, and was published by a young Moroccan engineering student under a nickname: Kaito.

Kaito explains in this video that there are many ways to find opportunities: volunteering, attending events, participating in hackathons, making content, etc.

Since this video, I saw others, and followed his journey as he was, indeed, finding lots of opportunities.At 23 years old, Merouane Zouaid (aka Kaito), has already:

- Started multiple projects at the intersection of tech and content creation

- Joined Entrepreneurs First program in a castle in Germany- Met a co

-founder (in the castle!) and started a tech company- Raised a pre-seed and moved to San Francisco to pursue his dreams

While sharing everything through his videos on Instagram and YouTube.

He is an inspiration not only to students, but to everyone.

Merouane Zouaid is the founder of Odysser, and he was my latest guest on Next Wave.In this episode, we talk about his journey from Agadir to San Francisco, from studies to launching his company and raising funds.

He also shares his vision for Odysser, as he wants to help millions of people share their stories easily thanks to AI.

Thank you Kaito for accepting my invitation!

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ TIMELINE ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

00:00:00: Who Is Merouane Zouaid

00:02:20: What Is Odysser

00:03:52: Starting content creation

00:09:11: Finding opportunities as a student

00:11:59: Hackathons

00:12:45: Buildspace experience

00:19:43: From content creation to tech

00:22:20: Joining Entrepreneurs First

00:30:48: Moving to the United States

00:33:34: The San Francisco experience

00:38:14: Building a company in San Francisco

00:42:45: How to move to the US

00:44:20: How Odysser works

00:51:03: The vision behind Odysser

00:57:04: On storytelling

00:58:22: Building in public

01:02:15: A video to watch

01:06:41: Where to find Merouane Zouaid