Visi Money
TLDR:
- Amira Yahyaoui, a human rights activist, founded the student aid start-up Mos and claimed it had helped 400,000 students, but internal data showed only about 30,000 paying customers.
- After expanding into online banking, Mos claimed to have over 100,000 bank accounts, but most had very little money in them.
Amira Yahyaoui, a Tunisian human rights activist turned entrepreneur, founded the student aid start-up Mos in San Francisco in 2018. Despite claims of helping 400,000 students, internal data revealed that only about 30,000 customers had paid for Mos’s services by early last year. The company also expanded into online banking, announcing over 100,000 bank accounts, but most users had very small amounts of money in their accounts.
Employees at Mos raised concerns about Yahyaoui’s public claims, with some stating that they were dismissed or disparaged by her when pushing back. This led to a culture of fear within the company. Mos’s success was part of a trend of tech start-ups receiving large amounts of funding with little to show, but as the market evolves, investors, customers, and employees are becoming more skeptical of bold statements made by founders.
