01
Your idea to a business in 3 months
Two weeks to lock the idea, the rest of the term to build it, and a Demo Day at the end where you show the working product.
AIS-R, RiyadhApplications are openTransform your ideas into businesses
Z Combinator is the student-run startup club at American International School Riyadh. You bring an idea and get three months, entrepreneurship workshops, guest speakers, Claude Pro paid for, and a Demo Day in front of the whole school.
- months, idea to shipped
- 3months, idea to shipped
- meetings a week
- 2meetings a week
- builders in Cohort 1
- 25builders in Cohort 1
- experience required
- 0experience required
Guest speakers from
Where the speakers we bring in have worked and studied. Zaid Farekh from Propeller and Sitech and Imaan Sultan from LlamaIndex are confirmed for this term.
The offer
Five things the club actually gives you
The five things you can hold the club to by the end of the term.
02
Funding to help grow and scale your own business
Finish the term with real traction and you can ask the school to fund the next stretch. Domains and servers for software, capital for a physical business. Written pitch, itemised budget, reviewed case by case.
03
Free Claude Pro for new members
Every new member who shows they intend to build gets Claude Pro paid for by the club, for a month. Use it in Claude Code, for design, or to write your pitch.
04
Entrepreneurship workshops
Hands-on Thursday sessions on shipping to production, talking to your first users, pricing, design, and pitching in three minutes.
05
Guest speakers from the real thing
Founders, investors and operators in the room, taking questions. A managing partner of a $30M fund. A head of growth at a $300M company.
What you learn
Five things you leave knowing
You learn these on your own project, not in a lecture.
- 01
How to become an entrepreneur
Picking an idea, cutting it until it fits three months, and getting the first version in front of someone.
- 02
Real, successful networking
How to ask a founder or investor for something and get a reply, practised on the speakers we bring in.
- 03
Artificial intelligence literacy
Coding agents and model APIs as daily tools: what they are good at, where they fail, and how to check their work.
- 04
How to grow and scale
Finding the first ten users, keeping them, and reading what the numbers tell you.
- 05
Dedication, drive, and commitment
Every Sunday you say what you built that week, in front of people who are building too.
The three months
Week one to Demo Day
- 01Weeks 1 to 2
Ideation
Lock in what you are building and how far you intend to get.
- Pick the idea and set the scope
- Cut it until it fits three months
- 02Weeks 3 to 14
Build
Visible progress every week.
- Sundays you build in the room together
- Thursdays you learn from people who have done it
- Weekly updates keep the pace honest
- 03Final week
Demo Day
The whole school shows up: students, teachers, parents.
- Three minutes to demo the live product
- Two minutes of questions
- 04After
Growth funding
Finish with traction and the school can fund the next stretch.
- Traction means real users, revenue, or clear momentum
- Written pitch and an itemised budget
- Reviewed case by case
The week
Two lunches a week
Build dayLunch
Sunday
The whole lunch is build time.
- A one-minute update from everyone: what did you build this week?
- Then heads down, building in the same room
- Bring whatever you are stuck on
Updates are one minute each, then the rest of the lunch is build time.
Workshops and speakersLunch
Thursday
Learning from people who have already done it.
- Founders and investors in person
- Entrepreneurship workshops run by the club
- Deploying, AI APIs, design, pricing, and first users
Past and upcoming sessions are announced in the member dashboard first.
Confirmed this term
People who have already done it
Both are in the room, taking questions and looking at what you built.
Early OctoberAmman and San Francisco
Zaid Farekh
Managing Partner, Propeller. CEO, Sitech.
Zaid runs a $30 million venture fund that has backed more than 30 startups, and a global UI/UX studio. He decides which companies get funded, so the feedback you get is the feedback a founder gets.
- Managing Partner at Propeller, a $30M venture firm behind 30+ startups
- CEO of Sitech, a global UI/UX studio serving 50 million interactions a week across 100+ completed deliveries
- Angel investor alongside Replit CEO Amjad Masad
- Works across venture capital, private equity, tech and entrepreneurship
- 10,000+ followers on LinkedIn
Late OctoberSan Francisco Bay Area
Imaan Sultan
Head of Growth, LlamaIndex
Imaan went from an international school in Saudi Arabia to Berkeley Haas to running growth at a $300 million AI company. She founded the first UNICEF chapter in Saudi Arabia while still in high school.
- Head of Growth at LlamaIndex, valued at $300 million with 3 million+ downloads
- Previously at Amazon, Mastercard, 11x and Persona
- UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, BA and Public Policy
- Founded the first UNICEF chapter in Saudi Arabia: $10,000+ raised, 100+ members
- Berkeley ASUC Senator and Business Society, and a UVA Jefferson Scholar
- Talks go-to-market, marketing, startups, law, social media and college applications
More speakers are being brought in across the term. Members get the schedule first, in the dashboard.
Who runs it
The people behind the club
Abdullah Sultan
Founder and President
Grade 11, AIS-R
Ships AI products at early-stage startups.
- Software and product intern at FschoolAI, where he built a course-aware AI video tutor and drove a marketing push past 350,000 views
- Built Crosscode, an open-source CLI with 1,400+ users
- Volunteer Sensei at CodeNinjas, where he helped 60+ elementary schoolers build foundational computer science skills
Mehreen Habib
Vice President, Non-Technical
Grade 11, AIS-R
- Runs Frenille Bakery, a successful at-home bakery she built and operates herself
- Member of the National Honor Society
Mrs. Ouazzani
Club Advisor
- Manages the entrepreneurial workshops at AIS-R
- Faculty advisor for the club
At the end
What you walk away with
- A live product with your name on it and a link you can send anyone
- A Demo Day recording and a real audience that watched you present
- A reference from people who watched you build the whole way
- A shot at school funding to keep the project running after the term
Questions
Before you apply
Do I need to know how to code?
No. The application does not ask for your GPA or your technical background, and plenty of good projects are not software. If you do want to build software, the club is a fast way to learn, and every new member gets Claude Pro to close some of the gap.
What if I do not have an idea yet?
The first two weeks are for exactly that. You arrive with an interest and leave ideation with a scoped project.
Is the Claude Pro really free?
Yes. New members who show they intend to actually build get a month of Claude Pro paid for by the club. You can use it inside Claude Code or on its own.
How much time does this actually take?
Two lunch meetings a week, plus whatever you put into your project outside of them.
Can I build with a partner?
Yes. Teams are allowed and often a good idea. Each person is still accountable for their own weekly update.
Who can apply?
Any AIS-R high school student. Sign in with any Google account, school or personal, and use the same one every time so your application and updates stay together.
Is the funding guaranteed?
It is earned, not automatic. Growth funding is a school-backed ask for projects that finish the term with real traction, and every request comes with a written pitch and an itemised budget.
What happens to the club when the founders graduate?
Student leadership gets identified from Cohort 1 onward and handed the club before graduation.
Cohort 1
Bring the idea. We will do the rest
Nine questions, no essays, no GPA, no code required. Rolling review. Cohort 1 caps at 25 builders.