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Advice for the solo (for now) founder

Advice for the solo (for now) founder

If you are still searching for the right co-founder, or weighing up whether to go it alone, know that you are far from the only one.

Sep 17, 2025

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4 min read

How to choose a co-founder with complementary skills

How to choose a co-founder with complementary skills

Finding a complementary co-founder is about balance. Know what you need and what you don’t have – then find someone you respect enough to handle that realm completely.

Sep 17, 2025

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7 min read

How to find the right co-founder

How to find the right co-founder

Co-founders are like a marriage, the cliché goes. But beyond the saying, how do you actually choose the person (or people) you’ll build with? And how do you set that relationship up for long-term success?

Sep 17, 2025

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11 min read

How to get  partnership terms right: legal and equity considerations

How to get partnership terms right: legal and equity considerations

Spelling out the hard stuff early; equity division, vesting schedules, roles and titles, decision rights, departure clauses – can save enormous pain down the road.

Sep 17, 2025

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3 min read

How to manage co-founder conflict

How to manage co-founder conflict

Even the “perfect” co-founder pairing will run into friction. In fact, you should expect it. A bit of creative tension is often the hallmark of a strong founding team. The difference lies in how you handle it.

Sep 17, 2025

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4 min read

How to test for co-founder compatibility and alignment

How to test for co-founder compatibility and alignment

A variety of approaches, from gut-feel heuristics to deliberate trial periods, to vet a co-founder match.

Sep 17, 2025

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4 min read

How Lean Technologies builds around the merchant’s hierarchy of needs

How Lean Technologies builds around the merchant’s hierarchy of needs

Lean’s Mehdi Tazi on why revenue in Saudi still skews to data while the UAE is driven by payments, how the firm applies Maslow’s hierarchy to merchant needs, and what A/B testing reveals about consumer trust.

Sep 15, 2025

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10 min read

The Gulf’s new space race for sovereignty

The Gulf’s new space race for sovereignty

Why sovereignty in space matters, the divergent bets of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the players shaping the race, and whether these efforts will coalesce into a regional ecosystem, or remain a contest for supremacy.

Sep 3, 2025

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9 min read

Inside the shifting landscape of debt financing in the Gulf

Inside the shifting landscape of debt financing in the Gulf

Armineh Baghoomian, Managing Director and EMEA Head at PFG, reflects on the $300M they’ve deployed across MENA, the region’s debt literacy evolution, why Tabby was an obvious bet, the typical ranges in the Gulf for spreads, fees, warrants, and covenants, the green (and red) flags they watch for when founders come knocking, and what excites her most about RNPL and B2B BNPL.

Aug 27, 2025

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10 min read

The battle to own Arabic AI voice

The battle to own Arabic AI voice

Why voice is arguably the most important AI communication interface; how Arabic dialectical diversity complicates matters; the regional use cases and verticals; the competitive landscape; and what might come next.

Aug 20, 2025

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9 min read

How AI is changing software testing

How AI is changing software testing

Two Tunisian founders behind one of Africa’s biggest startup exits are back, and targeting the slowest part of modern software delivery. Fresh off the back of a $9M Seed round, Karim Jouini shares how Thunder Code's AI‐driven “personas” test like domain experts, why early dilution can be a superpower, and the surprising policy shift that could reverse Tunisia’s brain drain.

Aug 6, 2025

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11 min read

The rise and rise of venture debt across the Gulf

The rise and rise of venture debt across the Gulf

What's behind the increase in new venture debt funds launching across the Gulf, promising “founder-first,” non-dilutive capital? Who are the players rewriting the playbook? And what does all of this mean for founders, investors, and LPs?

Jul 30, 2025

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7 min read

Tabby's tightrope: inside the numbers

Tabby's tightrope: inside the numbers

Unpacking Tabby’s Q1 2025 numbers in Saudi Arabia – profit surge, credit‐loss drag, break‐neck revenue growth, and the leverage‐heavy funding stack behind the Middle East’s most valuable VC‐backed fintech company.

Jul 17, 2025

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4 min read

How Adam Neumann Is Turning Riyadh into His Second Act

How Adam Neumann Is Turning Riyadh into His Second Act

$350 million from a16z, $300 million from 33 Saudi families, a full Saudi launch in 60 days, and 92% of “trial guests” now tenants. Is Flow just WeLive in a thobe, or the first real brand in the Kingdom’s untapped BtR market? We unpack what Flow is, why a16z doubled down, how Neumann went local overnight, and just how big Saudi’s premium-renting gap really is.

Jul 9, 2025

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5 min read

Valu and the Discipline Engine

Valu and the Discipline Engine

Inside Valu’s EGX debut: With Amazon now on the cap table, we unpack the model behind Egypt’s most disciplined fintech, covering product strategy, underwriting logic, unit economics, investor dynamics, and the operators running the machine.

Jun 25, 2025

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9 min read

Why Iraq is MENA's sleeping giant

Why Iraq is MENA's sleeping giant

What it takes to build a startup in Iraq, lessons from launching Careem, and why fragmentation, not TAM, is the real signal for venture-scale opportunity in frontier markets.

Jun 18, 2025

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13 min read

Tamara turned a profit, but the real story is how

Tamara turned a profit, but the real story is how

Saudi Arabia’s fintech crown jewel is now profitable. But its Q1 financials come with caveats, and reveal a seemingly quiet re-architecture of its business model.

Jun 4, 2025

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3 min read

Arabic healthcare: for us, by us

Arabic healthcare: for us, by us

Why obesity in the GCC isn’t just medical, how GLP-1s could be the iPhone of health, why D2C is a necessary (but temporary) proving ground, and what asynchronous care gets right about shame and scale.

May 28, 2025

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9 min read

Building the AI voice for global storytelling

Building the AI voice for global storytelling

Why localisation is the hardest problem in GenAI, how to build foundational AI in an ecosystem still playing catch-up, and why Dubai doesn’t need more capital, it needs more conviction.

May 21, 2025

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11 min read

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers

An 18,000-word playbook drawn from interviews with 7 of MENA’s top post-Series A founders, tackling how to build trust before brand equity, validate before users, retain in transient markets, and know when to follow data – and when to trust your gut.

May 14, 2025

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13 min read

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers (#2)

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers (#2)

An 18,000-word playbook drawn from interviews with 7 of MENA’s top post-Series A founders, tackling how to build trust before brand equity, validate before users, retain in transient markets, and know when to follow data – and when to trust your gut.

May 14, 2025

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2 min read

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers (#3)

How to get (and keep) your first 100 customers (#3)

An 18,000-word playbook drawn from interviews with 7 of MENA’s top post-Series A founders, tackling how to build trust before brand equity, validate before users, retain in transient markets, and know when to follow data – and when to trust your gut.

May 14, 2025

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2 min read

AdalFi: Powering credit infrastructure across emerging markets

AdalFi: Powering credit infrastructure across emerging markets

What it takes to digitise lending inside legacy banks without triggering resistance, how to underwrite customers with no formal credit history, and why AdalFi’s refusal to lend may be its biggest strategic moat.

May 7, 2025

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30 min read

Investing in MENA+ founders in the diaspora

Investing in MENA+ founders in the diaspora

The mechanics of how to build a high-performing syndicate, why values alignment is a competitive moat, and the MENA+ diasporic founders you should know.

Apr 30, 2025

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7 min read

Rewiring B2B finance in Pakistan and beyond

Rewiring B2B finance in Pakistan and beyond

What it means to build in a market where volatility isn’t a risk – it’s a cyclical certainty, why going top-down beats direct-to-MSME, and how you build real moats in enterprise fintech — not with UX, but with trust, switching friction, and time.

Apr 24, 2025

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9 min read

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