OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK– Every Tuesday, Founder of the Week looks at how a successful member of Egypt’s startup community got their big break, asks about their experiences running a business, and gets their advice for budding entrepreneurs. Speaking to us this week is Mohamed Azab (LinkedIn), co-founder of healthcare company Seha Healthcare and pharma platform Grinta.

My name is Mohamed Azab, and I am a business owner and founder. I sold my first business, Hassab Labs, in 2015. It grew out of Alexandria to become a top lab firm in the country before expanding into Morocco, where it was acquired by a large Moroccan group.

I subsequently co-founded my second venture, Seha Healthcare, a healthcare platform designed for the middle-income segment. We invest in hospitals and polyclinics.

Our latest startup, Grinta, is a B2B e-commerce platform that connects pharma manufacturers with independent pharmacies in Egypt. The goal is to make meds accessible across Africa. Over the next two to three years, we intend to grow into Morocco, Nigeria, and Kenya.

I have always been an entrepreneur at heart. I prefer to build things, rather than being a part of the wheel, and I look to introduce concepts that will really impact the market. This is why I chose to delve into the healthcare sector despite having studied finance.

Grinta is trying to solve the issue of pharma access in Africa. Further south, you’ll find counterfeit meds, a severe lack of infrastructure, and very limited access to medical care. We are attempting to digitize that last mile of the pharma value chain across the continent.

The best part of my job is having a purpose. I believe that having a mission and a purpose are crucial. I also enjoy the ability to reinvent myself while running different businesses — a hospital, for instance, is a brick-and-mortar business heavy on assets, whereas Grinta is all about super fast growth.

There is no worst part of my job, but one of the biggest challenges at Grinta was raising our seed round during the pandemic, when global markets weren’t doing great and people had stopped investing.

Seha Healthcare has raised roughly USD 20 mn in the last five years, and Grinta has raised USD 9.5 mn since its inception last year. We aim to raise USD 20 mn or more for Grinta in the future. So far, Grinta’s investors include Raed Ventures, Nclude, and Endeavor Catalyst, as well as some Asian angel investors.

The KPIs that I look at change with time. We were focused on expansion at Grinta five to six months ago, but now we’re more concerned with growing steadily. There’s this great quote: “With chaos comes revenue, and with discipline comes profitability.” This explains the arc of our business.

Being a founder of a startup is a lonely journey if you are a solo founder. In my situation, I’m far from lonely because I have partners and we go through the journey together.

Grinta is a long-term play — I don’t see myself exiting in the next five to seven years, but it would be a success to have an IPO outside of Egypt.

I always listen to the Masters of Scale podcast with Reed Hoffman. I also recently watched The Mechanism, a Netflix drama about Brazilian politics. The resemblance between Latin America and our region is shocking. I’m also into reading Sufi books. It’s spiritual and gives me a good balance in life.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be part of the Endeavor entrepreneurs network. I’ve been a member since 2012 and have served on Endeavor Egypt’s board since 2016. It provides a great amount of inspiration. I’m especially fond of the Careem founders, Mudassir Sheikha (LinkedIn) and Abdullah Elyas (LinkedIn). The way they grew their business throughout the region, from Pakistan to Morocco, is very impressive.

I choose my team based on the 3 Vs: Vision, values, and value added. I am also a big believer in women’s empowerment, so I try to reflect this in my companies as much as possible. I would love to see more women co-founders — like our CTO, Yosra Badr (LinkedIn) — in tech going forward.

Mentoring is important to me. My co-founders and I are committed to assisting other entrepreneurs and investing in new startups. It’s always encouraging to watch the startup scene thrive.