Wuzzuf's Insider story: An Egyptian Startup from bootstrapping to $1.7M (1 of 2)

An Egyptian startup dominating the Egyptian online recruitment market. From an official tough launch in 2011, when most companies freezed a lot of vacancies and more employees were laid off, to one of the top global accelerators [500 startups]. Ameer Sherif talked to EgyptInnovate where he told us more about how they raised their fund and how can Egyptian entrepreneurs start their fundraising journey.

In brief, why did you start WUZZUF in the first place?

We saw an opportunity. There was no one channel in Egypt which was successful at connecting people looking for jobs with companies. The job market was very fragmented on many small sites online and printed newspapers. We always find employers complaining that they can’t find people to work and job seekers and graduates complaining there are no jobs available. The internet penetration in Egypt was also fast growing. In the past 5 years since we started BasharSoft, the company managing WUZZUF, until now, the number of internet users in Egypt doubled. In short, we saw the opportunity to utilize technology and the internet in solving a huge problem in Egypt – employment. 

What was WUZZUF’s most challenging milestone and how did you manage to survive?

Our initial launch was one week before the revolution in 2011. Imagine launching an online job matching platform right before internet outage for weeks and also most companies freezed their hiring efforts. We were simply running out of cash. We had to bootstrap (operate on minimal expenses and investments) for months and take on consulting and custom software development jobs to bring in some cash and survive until we were able to re-launch in mid-2012.

During most of 2012 and 2013, we barely had cash to pay salaries and rent. We had to downsize considerably. But the good thing, is that we had to optimize our operations to survive. Which later proved very useful because operational efficiency was then engineered into our DNA. We survived in bootstrap mode until we became positive cash flow and only then investors became interested to invest.

The online recruitment space is already occupied by big giants. And even locally there are other competing platforms? (What makes WUZZUF standout?)

The online recruitment space is extremely crowded globally, regionally, and locally. There are more than 100,000 job sites in the world. What makes us stand out is that we have a product that’s better than most other job sites out there – better usability and job matching algorithms.

In addition to this, we provide much better customer service to companies. The big global and regional players are not local enough to satisfy the customer needs in Egypt. Our team is much more passionate about helping connect people with jobs. We didn’t invent online recruitment – it was there since 20 years ago – so there isn’t this one thing that puts us apart. As they say, the devil is in the details (of product and execution).

What are WUZZUF’s biggest achievements that you're personally proud of so far?

Thanks to God then everyone who supported us and the team behind the company, we had so many achievements along the years. But them biggest ones are:

1- Helping more than 50,000 people get hired in more than 4,000 companies in Egypt.

2- Being the 1^st Egyptian startup to join [500 Startups] – a global tech accelerator and seed fund based in Silicon Valley in Jan 2014.

3- Raising the largest Series A VC funding round for an Egyptian internet startup from global VC funds in Europe and the US (not just from regional VCs). Our announcement was the first positive news on Egyptian tech since 4 years on TechCrunch.

How did WUZZUF make it to [500 Startups]? 

We first applied to their accelerator batch #7 application round and were rejected. A couple of months later, Con O’Donnell, one of our angel investors set me up to fly to Amman and pitch some US investors with other startups from Egypt. I wasn’t interested to go. I already had pitched 100+ investors all over Egypt and the region. But many people encouraged me to go and give it a try. I didn’t have much hope.

There, I met Dave McClure, [500 Startups] founder and the world’s most active global VC investor with more than 1000 startup investments so far. He liked my pitch, and the thing he liked the most was that we were able to survive the difficult challenges we faced and still came out positive cash flow and having fast growth. He encouraged me to apply again for their accelerator program and we were accepted after being put on their waitlist. They were mostly very hesitant because they didn’t have an Egyptian startup joining their accelerator before.

So in short, we were very lucky. But then again, you create your own luck by persevering and working hard.

Do you want to know how WUZZUF secured a 1.7 million dollars funding? What are their coming plans? And how can other Egyptian startups follow their path to global accelerators? Ameer was generous to share all the details of his entrepreneurial journey. Click on the second part of his interview here!