Sofiat Abdulrazaaq

Sofiat Abdulrazaaq, JD, is co-founder & CEO of Goodfynd, a payments platform & marketplace that harnesses the power of aggregation to boost the accessibility and discoverability of mobile food businesses. An impact-first executive, Sofiat’s entry into the fintech industry was born by her desire to pair her foodie status with an easy-to-use payments platform that would help food truck operators, many of them immigrants & people of color.

Sofiat is a serial entrepreneur and privacy expert, who brings a decade of experience translating business goals into developed products. She has held prior leadership positions at some of the largest Fortune 500 and billion dollar nonprofit organizations and operates her own consulting practice.

It was during her undergraduate studies at Virginia Tech where friendship was sparked with her fellow Hokies and future co-founders of Goodfynd. After graduating with double majors in Political Science and Psychology, Sofiat went on to receive a Masters in Global Affairs from the University of Denver and her Juris Doctorate from American University College of Law with a specialization in Privacy Law.

In addition to co-founding Goodfynd, Sofiat also founded a consultancy practice, SBA Strategies, where she teaches product management and serves as a corporate advisor.

She is always energized by working with small businesses and entrepreneurs to share her expertise, helping them build sustainable, prospering companies. She is committed to heightening the voices of underrepresented and underserved individuals.

Speaking Topics:

Future of Payments: Best Practices and Key Trends

The payments industry is vastly changing, because where people live, work, and socialize has shifted, which is forcing a need for flexibility, proximity, and accessibility. Deep dive into the payments industry to gain practical takeaways and tips to enhance your own payment experience

Diverse Founder Experience

My journey as a Venture-Backed Founder and the five key lessons that have been effective for me in this space as a diverse founder. A look toward the future on what I think this space is going to be like for other diverse founders, and how I’m using these five precepts to make their paths easier.

People Over Profit: Building a Culture First Business

Building a successful cultural ecosystem and business. Evangelizing how to successfully implement a Family First Ethos. Deep diving on how to build a culture that people love, one that maximizes retention, diversity, and respect while continuing to be a constant work in progress. Discussing the importance of knowing and acknowledging when dynamics are off, and when to re-calibrate.

Friendship & Foundership

Starting a business with a friend seems ideal, but there are a lot of considerations you should make before transitioning your friendship into foundership. Learn how to navigate personal relationships when building and scaling a high growth startup. Hear the intimate journey of two best friends, both first generation African Americans, who met at Virginia Tech, bootstrapped their startup, and found venture backing, in the next chapter of their entrepreneurial journey – still building on a 16 year friendship, merging business with bonding.

Building for Impact

What it looks like to maximize ROI while building for more impactful audiences. Building for a niche market. Discovering what it looks like to find pain points, and what to build first when you’re going deeper versus spraying horizontally.