How Allia Mohamed Built Openigloo
Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 8.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
Allia Mohamed is the co-founder and CEO of Openigloo, a platform that connects renters with highly-rated landlords and enables renters to review and research their landlords. With OpenIgloo, Allia’s mission is to bring transparency to rental markets and support tenants throughout their housing journey. Motivated by her own frustrating experiences navigating opaque landlord practices and unpredictable living conditions, she launched OpenIgloo to give renters a voice and access to trustworthy, crowdsourced information about buildings and property owners. Since its launch, OpenIgloo has grown into a trusted resource for renters seeking honest reviews and insights before signing a lease. Allia Mohamed brings a decade of experience from working in finance, venture capital, and consulting. Prior to founding Openigloo, Mohamed served as a VC investor where she managed a startup portfolio as an advisor and board member. She holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Commerce from Dalhousie University
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.2 | This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from IHeart Radio. |
| 0:12.9 | Renting an apartment in any city can be a stressful and daunting situation, but nowhere more so than New York. |
| 0:20.9 | My guest today is the creator of a platform that makes the process of finding |
| 0:26.0 | both quality apartments and landlords easier. |
| 0:30.6 | Alia Mohamed created open igloo after navigating her own frustrations with the rental market. |
| 0:37.9 | Born in Canada, Mohammed spent nearly a decade |
| 0:41.5 | working in international finance, venture capital, and consulting. |
| 0:46.5 | She would eventually leave finance for the startup world |
| 0:50.2 | and chose a cause close to home. |
| 0:53.7 | With Open Igloo, Mohammed hopes to bring transparency |
| 0:57.2 | to rental markets by combining open source city data with feedback and reviews directly from tenants. |
| 1:05.2 | As of this year, 26 Open Igloo has supported more than 3 million New York City renters. |
| 1:12.7 | I wanted to know how Open Igloo gained such a large following since its launch in 2020. |
| 1:19.4 | They find us on social media. |
| 1:22.0 | They hear about us through friends and family and sometimes on on podcasts and radio shows. |
| 1:27.9 | Hopefully. |
| 1:28.9 | But when they come to you, is it a fee they pay now? |
| 1:31.9 | I was told that there's, was there a fee from the beginning? |
| 1:34.6 | And now there wasn't and now there is. |
| 1:36.7 | You've grown so much you need to charge them a fee? |
| 1:38.3 | Yeah. |
... |
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