Wuzzuf's Insider Story; What's after Silicon Valley? (2 of 2)

Click here for the first part of Ameer's interview.

What was WUZZUF's journey leading up to the Series A round of $1.7M? And what would you say were the most successful factors in your startup journey so far?

So after joining [500 Startups] accelerator program, they re-invested with us again together with other very well known angel investors from Egypt and the US. In 2014, we grew all our metrics and revenues by 4X. We already had a very strong and passionate team working on growing the business and we recruited some additional world-class team members to help us grow the business even further and to help with fundraising.

We started fundraising for our Series A in June 2014 but closed it more than a year later. We still had so many rejections from regional investors. But the most interested were global investors who were focused on emerging markets – because they saw the huge opportunity in Egypt as a major high potential growing market. We suddenly had multiple offers from different investors. It took us 6 months to close the round, from the time we had initial calls with investors, to term sheet, to due diligence, and then signing final agreements. Having received the previous investments from [500 Startups] did help a lot because it put us on the global map for global VCs to see us. Most investors who sent us offers were the ones to approach us not the other way around.

At the end, we were very lucky to have some vey strong investors in this round. Each of our 3 main investors: Vostok New Ventures, Piton Capital, and 500 Startups, each has at least one “Unicorn” startup in their portfolio – i.e. a startup with a $1Billion+ valuation – and that’s a very rare thing.

In short, growing a startup and fundraising is more of a very long marathon rather than a sprint.

What's next for WUZZUF? 

Growth. And helping more people find good jobs. Our aim is to have 1 MILLION people hired through us per year by 2020.

What are WUZZUF's future plans to take over the Middle East Market?

Our plans are to fully dominate the job market in Egypt and then expand to regional markets. By regional, we don’t necessarily mean Gulf, it could be Africa too. We are very agile regarding our growth plans, i.e. we move towards opportunities right when we see them, wherever they may be.

Are you aiming for an Exit or an IPO? And if you were to be part of any other global startup worldwide? Who would that be and why? 

Good businesses focus on growth and creating value for people – not on exit. In Silicon Valley, investors never ask early stage startups about plans for exit like in our part of the world.

I believe that if we just focus on building a real and successful business the exit will just happen. Until then, we’re growing the business more and more. As for other global startups, I admire many of them, but never thought of which one would I be part of. As a founder and CEO, I have to be very focused on what I have at hand. Nothing else matters than what I’m doing right now.

If you were to advice a young aspiring entrepreneur to start a business in Egypt today which business would that be? 

In the tech and internet space. I would definitely advice entrepreneurs to focus on building SaaS (Software as a Service) for small businesses or marketplace platforms. With enough focus on building a great product, you can build a great business. There are too many problems in our market that can be solved using SaaS and marketplace models – and the potential of monetization is achievable in Egypt.

But in all cases, focus on solving a real problem, validate your solution with clients as early as possible and go lean. Read books on startups. My favorites are “Founders at Work” and “The Lean Startup”.

What’s your advice for young entrepreneurs to survive the challenges WUZZUF passed through? and to be able to join global accelerators like 500 startups? 

When picking a problem to solve. Pick one which you are extremely passionate about. Starting a business is very hard. If you are doing it for the money, you won’t survive. You have to be willing to sacrifice so much for your idea to succeed. So you better be passionate about it and it better be worthwhile.

As for joining global accelerators, you have to research the different ones out there whether in US, Europe, or the Gulf. In the US, they have different accelerators for different verticals. So there are accelerators focused on different areas: on hardware, fintech, education, SaaS, mobile, etc… applying for the right accelerator is very important. But in most cases, you can’t apply with just an idea. You have to have a working prototype and your chances are much better if you have organic traction, i.e. a growing number of users or consistently growing revenues.

But in all cases, build something worth using… and persevere.