OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK- Nadia Gamal El Din, founder and CEO of Rahet Bally and Mumerz (LinkedIn).

My name is Nadia Gamal El Din, and I’m the founder and CEO of Mumerz and Rahet Bally. I studied finance at the American University in Cairo, after which I started my professional career as an assistant brand manager at Procter & Gamble.

When I became a mother at the age of 24, I realized there was a huge market gap when it comes to supporting new moms. I used to be a workaholic who thought that motherhood was going to be easy [laughs]. The day I gave birth I found out how wrong I was; becoming a new mom can be really scary.

Rahet Bally was born in 2015, not long after my son. I discovered that there wasn’t a single tailored support system for new moms in Egypt. This was when I realized that this gap needs to be addressed, and that’s when Rahet Bally came to life. I started off by creating a Facebook page and asked all the doctors that came to mind to help Egyptian moms by answering their questions at no charge. Surprisingly, these busy doctors were all on board and were as enthused as I was.

As of 2022, approximately 4 mn Egyptian moms are connected to Rahet Bally’s services, which now encompass financial, physical, intellectual, and social support for Egyptian moms. We launched the Rahet Bally price reduction card to help offset the costs of essential baby items, as well as pre- and post-partum fitness and nutrition programs at several facilities in Cairo.

One of our focuses at Rahet Bally is community-building: We launched Rahet Bally’s “The Cloud” to connect mothers with one another. It’s like a hotel for moms, where mothers can rest in napping pods, conduct business in work pods, attend workshops, socialize, and join book clubs while vetted babysitters care for their children. I see moms start crying when they come in because they genuinely feel supported. To provide credible content for women, we also launched Moms Mag, the first comprehensive content platform delving into all things related to motherhood in Egypt.

We were already super diversified at Rahet Bally, so I co-founded Mumerz as an independent startup to address a different problem: To give moms an all-inclusive online shopping platform. Along with my co-founder Amir Demian, we created an e-commerce platform that has a wide range of products, the best prices in the market, swift delivery services, and a qualified advisory team made up of moms to advise our customers on the products that best fit their needs.

Rahet Bally started as a bootstrapped business with a single angel investor, and given our success and exponential growth rate, I would prefer to remain self-sufficient for the time being and will not be raising capital right now. For Mumerz, we recently raised USD 1.2 mn in a pre-seed round led by Disruptech and a mix of angel investors, and we will be raising funds in another financing round this year.

As an impact-driven entrepreneur, I was initially against taking the VC route for Rahet Bally. I was always wary about the possibility of investors affecting my decisions. I couldn’t imagine how they would commercialize what my business is doing. However, with our plans to expand into Saudi Arabia and North Africa next year, I will definitely have to consider that route.

Focusing on my entrepreneurial journey meant I had to give up my social life. I love my friends, but I never have the time to go out with them. I give half of my time to my work and the other half to my son and my family.

The best part of my job is seeing the impact of our work and hearing how we’ve changed the lives of moms for the better. The amount of prayers, hugs and love we receive is honestly overwhelming, and it means the world to me.

The worst part of the job is the stress of having to work with hundreds of people on a daily basis, which can be hectic to say the least. I have to handle tens of brands, multinationals, and agencies everyday because the workload for our B2B arm is very intensive. I also get a lot of calls from moms. If anyone reaches out to me, I always feel compelled to help them. I know I should be delegating cases, but I don’t [laughs].

The last great thing I read was The Practice by Seth Godin. The book brilliantly describes how focusing on the process, instead of the outcome, can increase your chances of changing the world. This is exactly what I do at Rahet Bally. When you focus entirely on outcomes, you will inevitably become frustrated, because things never go as planned. The book spoke to me because it validates what I am doing; it’s all about practicing the same thing every day and being confident that results will follow.

A startup that I think is inspirational is Breadfast. I love the team behind the company, their value proposition, and their customer experience. I love everything about them.

My advice for any would-be founder is to never stop believing in your vision. Whenever things get tough, remember why you started in the first place. The journey of a startup founder is not an easy one. Remembering your goal is what will help you overcome the many challenges that come with the job. Don’t worry though, would-be entrepreneurs. The founder journey is not a lonely one, if you truly believe in the problem your business is solving. My businesses are truly fulfilling, and without them I would definitely be lonely.