Hejab Malik

Buckle up, cause I’m bout to tell you about Hejab Malik, this guy’s a total beast in the startup game, especially when it comes to tech and beauty. So, he’s the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Potion AI, a San Francisco startup that’s basically changing how beauty products get made using AI. Founded in 2019, and he jumped into Y Combinator’s S21 batch, that’s some serious cred.

Here’s the scoop: Hejab’s all about making R&D in beauty way smarter and faster. His platform uses AI to help teams come up with formulations more efficiently, think of it like Google but for beauty ingredients. He’s built this crazy popular ingredient search engine used by thousands of R&D folks around the world. Super original, right? It’s like democratizing access to top-tier formulation tools that, before, only big brands could afford.

But here’s where it gets interesting. He’s not just some random tech guy who jumped into beauty out of nowhere. Nah, he’s been deep in the design and branding world before Potion. Worked at Syndicate Sub Rosa, a creative agency, doing design work, and even freelanced for some big names like VICE, Refinery29, and Frank Collective. Started his career as an intern at Milk Makeup, the real deal in the beauty space, so he’s been around beauty and branding from early days. Plus, he co-founded another venture called Et Al., so he’s got that entrepreneurial hustle in his blood.

What’s dope is he studied graphic and communication design at Parsons, and anthropology at the University of Kentucky. That mix? It’s like he’s got the perfect combo of creative skills and a deep understanding of human behavior, both key for building stuff people actually want to use.

His process screams motivation: he jumped into startups, learned from the ground up, and then jumped into YC to level up. He’s all about solving real problems, not bullshit. His work at Potion shows he’s driven not just by tech for tech’s sake but by making a tangible impact, making beauty product development more accessible, faster, and less wasteful.

Bottom line? Hejab Malik is one of those founders who’s combining creativity, tech, and real-world problem-solving in a way that’s legit changing an industry. The dude’s not just riding the wave, he’s pushing it, and I think he’s just getting started.