Exclusive: Z Notes founder Zubair Junjunia on his extraordinary success

Finito World meets Zubair Junjunia, the young founder of the extraordinarily successful Z Notes

Let’s begin at the beginning — when you look back at your early years, were there signs even then of the path you would follow? What first awakened your passion for education and equal access?

I was born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Pakistani parents, and studied in a British school. It was a multicultural upbringing, fusing my Pakistani heritage with British schooling and Saudi culture and history. Even then, I noticed a clear gap. I had great resources and qualified teachers, but I saw others around me struggling due to a lack of relevant resources or underqualified teachers. It felt unfair that students faced the same standardised exams that played such a big role in our future, yet the support we received was so unequal. This firsthand experience of witnessing educational inequality was the beginning of my passion to serve the mission of equal access in education.

You founded ZNotes at just 16. Can you take us back to that moment? What was the gap you saw — and how did you begin to build something from nothing?

At 16, I saw firsthand the inequities of the education system as I took an exam alongside hundreds of thousands of others around the world, yet each facing completely different realities. This realisation of the uneven playing field prompted me to start ZNotes.

During my IGCSEs. I had created notes to revise for myself, and after my exams, I thought to share these online so it could benefit others too. That was the first version of ZNotes. What I did not realise was that there were thousands of students around the world looking for just that. When I started getting messages from people in different countries saying how much it had helped them, I knew this had to be built into something bigger. Suddenly, we had users coming from all over the world who not only benefited from the resources but also began offering to contribute, turning it from a solo project to a student-led movement.

Today, ZNotes is an award-winning online learning platform providing free access to high-quality learning resources and peer-learning support that has reached 6 million students and 40+ million hits in 190+ countries.  ZNotes primarily focuses on students between the ages of 14 to 18 completing high school exams across 9 national and international exam boards by providing free access to high-quality learning resources and peer-learning support.

A lot of young people have ideas, but fewer have the staying power to turn them into sustainable, global organisations. What personal qualities or mindsets do you think helped you make that leap?

I think a big part of it is being consistent. I never imagined ZNotes would become what it has today, that I would be running a global startup from an initiative I started as a teenager 11 years ago. But through my schooling and university years, I continued to stay consistent and dedicated. More importantly, I believed in solving the underlying social problem rather than being obsessed about my solution. This enabled for ZNotes to continue to evolve and serve our users in the best possible way, always remaining differentiated and relevant. The habits of consistency appear in my life in other ways too, such as my dedicated to my running streaking (running every single day a minimum of 5km outdoors) that has now lasted over 10 years! Finally, it is about making it sustainable – I dedicated time towards ZNotes during my university years but also maintained healthy academics, social and sports activities. Whether it was racing for the UCL Cross Country team to travelling with friends or going deep into learn about general relativity and cosmology in my maths degree, I maintained a healthy balance across my varied interests.

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started?

To be a leader is to empower every single individual in your team, to identify their unique traits and enable them to contribute towards the mission over a sustained period of time. It is easy to be obsessed with achieving isolated tasks and maximising productivity, but true innovation and growth as a team only happens when everyone is empowered on that journey.

ZNotes has grown into a global movement, but it’s also still personal. How do you stay connected to your users and to the mission behind the platform?

ZNotes continues to be supported by hundreds of volunteers spanning the globe, each contributing across varying levels of engagement and skillsets. With students at the heart of everything we do, we always remain relevant and connected to our student base. Alongside our learning platform that serves millions, ZNotes also cultivates a global peer-learning community on Discord that supports tens of thousands of students. This community is a continuous source of feedback and new ideas as our platform develops.

The education sector is facing immense change — from AI to accessibility to post-pandemic inequality. What excites you about the future of learning? And what worries you?

AI has the potential to truly personalise learning at scale like never before. However, it maintains the critical challenge that any digital tool has – those across the digital divide will have inequalities exacerbated. We must consider how we bring these technologies to those most likely to be left behind. Alongside this, we must ensure the quality and deliver of content ensures cognitive development and accuracy of information. At ZNotes, we have developed a personalised AI tutor bot that answers students’ questions by using only pre-validated and syllabus-aligned learning content. Our future AI strategy continues to leverage our unique data and aligns with learning principles.

Do you believe entrepreneurship should be a bigger part of how we educate young people today?

Entrepreneurship is not just about starting businesses; it is about problem-solving, creativity, and resilience. These are skills every young person should have, whether or not they start a company, and play an increasingly important role in future jobs in an AI-powered world.

What role do you see for policy, government, or cross-sector collaboration in fixing the structural problems in education?

Access and equity in education is a wicked problem, and it needs collaboration across the third sector, governments, corporates, and startups to really solve it. In the startup world, we have the ability to move fast, adapt quickly, and use the latest technologies to solve problems. But that mindset also comes with limitations, startups often lack resources and capacity and need to focus on narrow use cases to build sustainable models. That is not necessarily a bad thing, though, and the focus allows for innovation.

What really matters is how we collaborate with others to scale those innovations. Larger organisations like governments, multilaterals, and non-profits bring the structure, networks, and scale that startups cannot always reach on their own. That is why collaboration is key.

For ZNotes, we have worked with amazing partners like UNDP, who have not only elevated our work but also helped us access country offices and bring our work to the ground. We have partnered with non-profits to co-create content, especially around skills. And we have had support from corporates through accelerators, funding, and credits, organisations like Samsung, AWS, Meta, EY, and many more. That is how ZNotes continues to operate and scale impact: staying agile as a startup but growing through the strength of this wider ecosystem.

Who have been the key mentors or inspirations in your journey so far? Are there writers, thinkers, or figures you return to when you need perspective?

I have always drawn inspiration from social impact leaders like Muhammad Yunus, who pioneered microfinance with Grameen Bank. I also look up to other founders in the EdTech space like Haroon Yasin from Taleemabad, Mathieu Nebra from OpenClassrooms, and Luis von Ahn from Duolingo, who have built impactful, scalable education platforms while sustaining strong, values-driven companies that support their teams and create real employment opportunities.

I am incredibly fortunate to have a global advisory council of people I admire and can turn to for honest advice when it matters most. And beyond the professional side, the founder’s journey is deeply personal. I have been lucky to have mentors and family members who share my values and aspirations, and who have been essential to my own growth as a leader and to ZNotes’ evolution as a mission-driven organisation.

You’ve been featured by Forbes, Samsung, and UNDP — but you remain grounded. How do you stay balanced amid the demands of visibility and leadership?

I am incredibly grateful to be recognised and given the chance to share spaces with inspiring leaders and young changemakers. But it has not always been like this, much of the ZNotes journey happened without the glitz and glamour, without the visibility or global moments. That is actually the heart of it. I did not start ZNotes for recognition, and I do not keep going because of it either.

What truly fills me with joy is hearing a meaningful piece of feedback or running into someone who tells me how ZNotes impacted their life. That is the kind of real, tangible change that matters more than any global stage. At the same time, I understand how powerful these platforms can be. They open doors to partnerships, governments, and global collaboration. So, I see it as a balance, staying grounded in the mission while recognising that visibility can help scale the impact. The mission has to stay at the centre of everything.

What does success look like to you now — and has that definition changed over time?

Success is shaped by our experiences and the things we value most at a given moment. There was a time when the only image of a “successful” startup was one with a hockey stick growth curve and a massive valuation. But that definition is already changing. Today, smaller teams with sustainable revenue models and deep impact are often seen as more successful than companies with inflated valuations and huge employee bases. Mission-driven and impactful companies are gaining more recognition, and rightly so.

My own definition of success has evolved in that same way. I see success in how much impact an organisation can create, not just externally for its users, but internally for its team. A company’s success shows up not just on its balance sheet or in its impact report, but also in the way it becomes a catalyst for others, how it inspires and supports its ecosystem.

And then there is a whole other layer of success we often overlook: the personal, quieter parts. Success in relationships, friendships, starting families, developing as a person, maintaining health and balance, these matter just as much. In fact, they might be the only things that remain when everything else is gone.

Finally, what’s next for you and ZNotes? What are you most excited about over the coming year?

ZNotes now reaches over a million students each year with 85% of them in emerging economies. In the last year, our largest user bases have been in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, regions with young populations and strained education systems. What is exciting is that this growth has mostly been organic, driven by students sharing it with each other, grassroots communities, and teachers adopting the platform.

Looking ahead, we are focused on scaling this impact further by going deeper. That means expanding our localised content, adding more language support, and increasing adoption through our school-focused initiative. We have already launched pilots for national curricula in places like Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, and India, and we want to keep growing our support across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Leveraging AI to accelerate content development and facilitate peer-learning allows us to scale impact faster.

At the same time, we are building partnerships with NGOs, EdTech, and ministries of education so we can reach even more learners and create stronger systems of support. Through emerging AI technologies, sustainable education models, and a proven ability to execute, ZNotes is pioneering the future of equitable, technology-driven learning.