Ahmed Ahres
Growing Up in Tunisia and Competing on the Court
Ahmed grew up in Tunisia in a close-knit, supportive household with two older brothers and parents who encouraged his ambitions from an early age. At 5, he picked up a tennis racket for fun and by 10, he was competing nationally. In his first official tournament match, he came back from seven match points down to win in a tiebreaker, a moment he now sees as a turning point. That same year, he won the national championship, and again at age 12, while training 15 hours a week and keeping up with school. “Tennis is a beautiful sport but it’s also incredibly lonely,” he said. “That pressure forces you to grow fast.” He credits the sport with building his discipline, mental strength, and focus under pressure. Outside of competition, Ahmed stayed grounded by a strong group of friends and a social life he describes as just as formative as his time on the court.
Early Exposure to Tech
Ahmed’s exposure to tech began at home; his father was a tech entrepreneur, and he got his first computer when he was just 4 years old. But it wasn’t coding tutorials or spreadsheets that pulled him in, it was games! Alongside his tennis training, Ahmed spent hours playing competitive Counter-Strike and uploading Call of Duty gameplay videos to YouTube. “Some of those videos are still online today” and through gaming, he built close friendships and discovered what it felt like to be fully immersed in something he loved. By the time he was 15, he knew he wanted to recreate that experience for others which was to build games that sparked joy, connection, and community.
That decision led him to pursue Computer Science. During undergrad, he built and published seven original games — designing, developing, and shipping each one on his own. His most successful title, Shapion, was downloaded over 2,000 times on Android and iOS, earning positive feedback for its playability and polish. As he honed his technical skills, Ahmed’s curiosity started to shift toward machine learning. That curiosity led him to Revolut, where he joined as the company’s first-ever intern and began applying his background in both gaming and software.
Choosing San Francisco for Growth and Community
Ahmed has been visiting San Francisco every year since 2016, where his older brother Youssef lives. “I absolutely love San Francisco. Having him there is a big part of why I’m moving. He’s inspired me my whole life, and I want to spend more time with him.” The decision to move was driven in part by family, but more importantly by environment. Ahmed wanted to be in a place that pushed him to be his best. “If you want to become Roger Federer, you need to play against Nadal and Djokovic,” he said. “You can’t become the best unless you’re playing with the best. For me, San Francisco is that court. It’s where I find the top players in what I do. I love being surrounded by people who are insanely ambitious and deeply passionate about tech. It just fits me.”
Building Nativ
“I’m building a company called Nativ with a close friend of mine, who was my colleague as Revolut and also my manager at the last startup I worked at, XYZ Reality. At Nativ, we’re focused on visual content culturalization: adapting images and videos to fit different cultures and countries. This helps businesses market and sell their products globally, instead of being limited to just one region.”
Companies already try to localize today, but according to Ahmed, there are two major problems. “First, it’s a completely manual process. For each country, businesses need to hire translators and find a localization agency to handle the work. This is slow, expensive, and painful, especially when you’re dealing with thousands of visual assets a month,” he said. “Second, they’re limited to the regions where they have existing vendor relationships. I’ve talked to many companies that avoid entire regions like the Middle East or North Africa (where I’m from), just because they don’t know anyone who can help or they find Arabic too complex.” For Ahmed, this represents a massive missed opportunity—both for companies and for global consumers. “That means they’re leaving huge growth opportunities untapped, and consumers in those regions miss out on amazing products.”
His vision with Nativ is to change that. “Now imagine if it were extremely easy to take your content and launch it anywhere in the world. More companies would expand globally, revenues would grow, and more people would get access to content that actually speaks their language and culture,” he said. For Ahmed, the breakthrough is clear: “We believe AI is the unlock. For the first time, we have technology that truly understands cultural nuances and we’re using it to solve a painful, expensive, and overlooked problem that is gigantic.”
Navigating the O-1 with Plymouth Street
“My experience was extremely smooth! I reached out to Lisa because she was recommended to me from a friend. We had a call in mid-January to start the process, she asked a few questions then I got onboarded onto the platform where I uploaded a few documents and got 4 reference letters signed. 1.5 months later, I got my approval. It honestly couldn’t have been easier! I’d definitely recommend Plymouth to anybody applying for an O-1. They did a fantastic job.”
Advice from Ahmed
"Find people who inspire you and push you to be the best version of yourself, and spend as much time as possible with them. Early on, the people you surround yourself with matter more than anything. Whatever you build, whether it’s a startup, a side project, or a mission, you’ll almost always be building it with others. That could be a co-founder, a friend, or an early team. Choosing the right people is the single most important thing you can do to maximize your chances of building something meaningful and lasting.”
Later he shares that "Our brains are wired for comfort, which is why change is hard. It takes real character to break away from that and choose the uncomfortable path in order to do what you love and, in doing so, inspire others to do the same. I’ve been lucky to grow up surrounded by people like that from a very young age. They’ve shaped who I am and continue to push me to be the best version of myself every day.”
Future Contributions and Impact
Ahmed’s deeper goal is to create momentum for others and his conclusion is that the most important thing I can do is empower more people to chase their dreams. "That dream could be starting a tech company, opening a coffee shop, or launching a clothing brand, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re doing what they love. When someone tells me, ‘You’ve inspired me to go after my dream,’ it’s the most beautiful thing I can hear,” he said. He’s seen firsthand how many talented people never take that leap — not because they lack ability, but because they’re stuck in routine or feel pressured to make safe decisions.
“I want to give younger generations permission to be more entrepreneurial, to take risks, and to create the life they actually want,” he said. After going through a16z’s Speedrun accelerator with Nativ, the company he co-founded, Ahmed now regularly takes time to help early-stage founders with fundraising, product ideas, and application reviews. He’ll jump on calls with people he barely knows if it means helping someone move one step closer to shipping their vision.