Meet Mihri Minaz, Co-Founder of Beams
“When there’s no space for you, build your own—and make it generous.”
When Mihri Minaz co-founded Beams, she wasn’t chasing a startup trend—she was solving for a real gap that kept showing up in her work. “I constantly saw teams wasting time managing their operations in ways that were inefficient, disconnected, or just not designed for growth,” she said. “It didn’t make sense. We’re living in 2025, but so many companies are still stuck in outdated workflows.”
Beams is her answer to that inefficiency—a next-generation workforce operations platform built for modern teams, particularly those scaling quickly. “It’s not just about tracking licences or roles,” Mihri explained. “It’s about preserving how work actually happens inside an organisation—before that knowledge disappears.”
What led her here
There wasn’t one pivotal moment that shaped Mihri’s path—there were many. “Experiences stack,” she said. “Over time, I started to see that the operational chaos wasn’t just an annoyance. It was a threat to scale, to culture, to the things that make teams great in the first place.”
She took that pattern and turned it into a product. Beams captures how work gets done—not just what’s on the org chart. It helps teams retain knowledge, reduce compliance risk, and operate with clarity across functions and time zones.
“We’re building the system people wish they had before things got messy.”
How she builds and leads
Mihri’s leadership style reflects her product philosophy: structure meets flow. “I believe in leading by example,” she told us. “I show up with discipline, but also with energy. That combination helps me move the team forward with intention—and with a bit of humour, too.”
It’s not about controlling everything. It’s about creating space for clarity, contribution, and momentum. That same mindset is baked into Beams: tools should support people, not the other way around.
The problem she’s solving
Beams was built for growing companies—ones that need better ways to document their workflows, manage responsibilities, and keep institutional knowledge from walking out the door.
“Too many startups focus on product-market fit and forget operational fit,” Mihri said. “You can have the best product in the world, but if your internal systems don’t support the people building it, you won’t last.”
That’s where Beams steps in—with a flexible SaaS platform that captures not just data, but context.
What she’s building now
One of the projects Mihri’s most excited about is the development of Beams’ dynamic knowledge base. “It’s not your typical dusty internal wiki,” she said. “We’re designing it to evolve with how teams actually work. It’s compact, scalable, and built to reflect the way people think—not just the way managers want to organise information.”
A mantra that guides her
“When there’s no space for you, build your own—and make it generous.”
It’s a philosophy she brings to her product, her team, and her presence in the ecosystem. “I’ve worked in spaces that weren’t built with people like me in mind,” she said. “So I stopped waiting to be invited and started designing better rooms.”
The challenges behind the scenes
Building Beams hasn’t been without friction. “There wasn’t just one challenge—there were many,” Mihri said. “From finding product-market fit to structuring the right team, it’s a lot. But what keeps me moving is remembering why I started: I wanted to build something useful, and I wanted to do it my way.”
She’s candid about the pressures too. “There’s a lot of noise in tech. I’ve learned to filter it out and listen to my instincts. That’s been my edge.”
The community that sees her
Founderland, she says, has offered a sense of grounding. “It’s one of the only places where I don’t feel the need to over-explain,” she said. “There’s this shared understanding—of how hard it is to build, of how invisible we’re made to feel, and of how powerful it is to be witnessed without translation.”
Advice she’d give her past self
Without missing a beat, Mihri replied: “Document everything.”
“I’ve learned so much through this journey, but if you don’t write it down, you lose it. And it turns out, those reflections become incredibly valuable—whether for future hires, future products, or future you.”
Who inspires her
Mihri finds deep inspiration in the builders who came before her—especially those who weren’t given a blueprint. “There’s something about seeing someone operate with both clarity and imagination,” she said. “That’s what I look for in people I follow.”
She cited founders who’ve led with vision, but didn’t lose touch with the human side of building. “The ones who show up without a mask—they remind me that leadership doesn’t have to be performative. It can be precise, and still personal.”
Staying motivated
When asked how she stays in it—through the pivots, the pace, the unknowns—Mihri said it comes down to one thing: interest.
“As long as I’m curious, I’m motivated. When I stop being curious, I know it’s time to shift.”
Follow Mihri’s Journey
Stay connected with Mihri and the team at Beams: