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 Omar Abdelwahed (LinkedIn), co-founder and CEO at Egypt-based regtech company Valify Solutions.

My name is Omar Abdelwahed, and I graduated from the American University in Cairo (AUC), with a degree in computer science and a minor in business. During my last year, I joined a club called Entrepreneur Society, where I discovered my passion for entrepreneurship. By the time I graduated, I knew I didn’t want a 9-5 job. Even though the startup environment wasn’t as established at the time, I decided to take the risk and co-founded a startup with one of my friends, Ibrahim Eid (LinkedIn).

It was a simple concept, but we weren’t able to keep it afloat. That’s when I opted to work for IBM for seven months as a mobile application developer, which introduced me to the concept of identity verification, also known as EKYC, or electronic know your customer. After IBM, I worked as a business developer manager and product developer at Paymob.

After I quit my job at Paymob, I co-founded Valify Solutions with Ibrahim. My father, Ahmed Maher, was the one who suggested the idea and the concept spoke to me instantly. I always wanted to create a project that addresses a problem and has a distinct market advantage.

Valify is a combination of the words validate and verify. Valify Solutions eliminates the need for you to be physically present to validate your identity, allowing all verification to be done online using certain details. For example, you won’t need to go to the bank to update your personal information, instead, you’ll do it online through us. We do individuals’ authentication now and hopefully we’ll be able to do the same for companies soon.

We collaborate with several businesses across numerous industries including e-commerce, fintechs, banks, and telecom providers. Basically anything that needs to be taken care of for security compliance — ensuring that a service is being provided while preventing fraud and facilitating simpler accessibility. In addition to document data extraction and verification, we have facial recognition technology. For instance, if you take a picture of your national ID, we can extract and validate the information from it.

The most challenging stage of my Valify experience was transitioning from a startup to a scale-up, which means expanding from a small family to hiring 25-40 employees. This transition is significant because adding new calibers and modifying the structure is a critical point for the business. You must be extremely careful and not take the work culture for granted — it’s the foundation of your company’s success.

To become an entrepreneur, I essentially gave up being an employee with a good job and a stable salary. I also gave up peace of mind — establishing your own business can be incredibly stressful, and you never disconnect. Seeing the market need for Valify fuels my motivation and keeps me going.

The best part of my job is my team. We collaborate with various governmental entities, startups, and multinational corporations, so exposure is another advantage of my job.

The most difficult aspect of my job is coping with the macroeconomic environment’s effects on my company, such as currency depreciation and inflation. Another challenging part of the job is that we are a highly regulated organization, so the stress of deciding where to direct our attention — whether it’s toward a sector or continually looking for consumer demands — can be very draining at times.

If I could only give someone starting their own business one piece of advice, it would be: Team, team, and team. Team is key. I believe it’s more important than the idea itself, because it will help you navigate during market turbulence. Hire leaders, not employees. Also, if you are not having fun, then you shouldn’t be doing it. We adhere to a saying: “Enjoy the ride.”

The three most important KPIs I consider everyday are whether we are a necessity or a luxury for our clients, the number of transactions that we carry out, and the team’s internal satisfaction.

Whenever I am facing a difficult problem, I turn to my father. I truly look up to his 30+ years of experience in the banking industry. He was the regional COO of HSBC, then he became the CEO of consumer banking at CIB. Now, he’s the G-Strategy Officer at HSA company. I also turn to our investors regularly. 4DX Ventures is one of the investors we consult, along with many other angel investors who assist us on a daily basis.

So far, we’ve raised USD 1 mn. Our investors include 4DX Ventures, Tawasol, A15, Alsara Ventures, and angel investors including Selma Ribica. We are currently preparing for our fundraising round and hopefully very soon, we will be hearing positive news.

Valify’s growth strategy focuses on increasing our market penetration in the identity verification space at a customer level, as well as diversifying our offering. Based on our clients’ increasing needs, we are planning to introduce more services to ensure the full cycle is complete. As for our long term plans, we are looking to expand regionally.

It was difficult to persuade my family of my career choice at first. Even quitting IBM and joining Paymob was a stretch for them, but they eventually realized it was the right move. They began to go with the flow.

I am a movie buff, so whenever I have down time, I binge watch movies and play tennis.

I’m currently binge watching The Big Bang Theory, and have recently read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I also love reading books written by Dan Brown. I recommend listening to a podcast called Criminal. It talks about crimes and has loads of suspenseful stories.

Two startups that I believe are killing it are Thndr and Breadfast.

If I hadn't founded Valify Solutions, I would have pursued other projects. But I'm not completely opposed to working for someone else.

If I only had enough money to spend, I would spend it on customer satisfaction.