OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK- Yaseen Abdel Ghaffar, founder and managing director of SolarizEgypt (LinkedIn).

I always knew I wanted to start a business of my own, but I had to find a real problem to solve and had to acquire a specific skill set first. My time working as a trainee manager at Edita enabled me to learn more about how the Egyptian market works, while my tenure at Exxon helped me understand how to run a business seamlessly. When I felt like I had gained enough experience to build a startup of my own, and after I discovered my passion for harnessing solar power to contribute to the betterment of the Egyptian economy, I founded SolarizEgypt.

We provide affordable, environmentally-friendly energy. When we first started, I learned the hard way that everyone wants to be sustainable — until they have to pay for it. Our main value proposition is to provide sustainable solutions that actually help businesses save money. We are taking high capex projects and converting them into an opex-saving setup for our clients. That’s why we decided to focus on water desalination and waste management, all of which require a tremendous amount of capex. We managed to find a cool solution that doesn’t require clients to pay for the capital expenditures: we pay, through data and equity, while providing them with a decent amount of opex savings without any of the operational risks associated with such projects.

So far, we’ve raised more than EGP 4.5 bn if we add the total amount of equity, debt and capital commitments to fund our future projects. Our series A round saw us securing EGP 50 mn for around 25% of the company from high-net-worth individuals through a consortium financing round, and we exited 74% of our assets in the series B round to Amarenco, an infrastructure fund. We don’t have any further funding plans at the moment.

We have capital commitments to co-develop 320 MW of assets over the next four years. We currently also have large scale facility agreements with several commercial banks totalling around EGP 650 mn.

What I love about my job is the fact that I have managed to create an entity composed of inspirational people that I truly admire. I know this may sound cheesy [laughs], but it's 100% true. I love spending time with my coworkers, and it’s incredibly rewarding to look around and see hugely talented people by your side.

I also really enjoy the impact element of my job. As a player in the solar industry, every megawatt we create is equivalent to planting 1 mn trees, and the fact that we’ve created 50 megawatts, effectively means that we’ve planted 50 mn trees. We intend to take that up to 100 mn trees very soon, or, in other words, a tree for every Egyptian. That’s the kind of legacy that excites me.

The founder’s journey is the loneliest one any person can take. As a founder, you’ll have access to information that you won’t be able to share with anyone, which can be extremely alienating. You can face a problem that could compromise the company’s survival — a burden that you carry alone — knowing that if you communicate such a problem to the team, you risk jeopardizing their morale.

The sacrifices an entrepreneur must make to focus on their journey are immense. If I said that I had to give up everything, I would not be exaggerating. I would have never imagined that building a startup would require such an exorbitant amount of brainpower, attention, and emotional stress. You don’t start to realize how demanding and draining the journey is until you’re halfway through it, and by then you have no other recourse but to just keep going. You will have to dedicate your mind, time, and money to ensure the success of your business. It’s a lot of stress [laughs].

Don’t worry though, there is light at the end of the tunnel: The journey, grueling as it may be, is also incredibly rewarding. So long as you are not a founder who is in the entrepreneurship game just to make returns; if you’re truly passionate about the problem your startup aims to solve, you will be able to dedicate your mind and time to prioritize your business and ensure its success.

It’s filled with rewards that make it worthwhile. When you see progress and observe that you’re making a positive impact and inspiring others, you’re empowered to keep going and forget about the harder parts of the job.

Our short term goal is to implement as many solar projects as we can before COP 27, which we consider to be a once in a lifetime event for Egypt. We are also focused on our water desalination projects, which we believe have tremendous potential given the problems the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam could pose for Egypt. We want to provide alternative solutions that would put Egypt in a better position.

A startup that I think is killing it is Mozare3. Their business model is brilliant and I’m very proud of their success. Their progress with regard to scalability is incredible, and their impact is out of this world.

In my spare time, I like to learn more about crypto and how it can change the future. I love to surf, and get out to the beach whenever I have the time.

The last great thing I read was The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. When you’re managing a thriving startup, you can lose focus of what personally matters most to you. It can become an addictive cycle; when you reach a target, you immediately start focusing on the next milestone. This book helped me remember my priorities; the book ultimately reminded me what my core business interests should be.

The most inspiring role model for me is my late grandfather and namesake, Dr. Yaseen Abdel Ghaffar, whose legacy lives on to this day, 20 years after his death. I’m lucky to share a name with that great man who created a charity organization that has helped over half a mn Egyptians get the healthcare they need. His legacy is eye-opening; it helped me realize how championing a cause that you believe in can help change the world for the better.