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 Safar (LinkedIn), one of the founders of Ascent.

My name is Omar Safar and I’m one of the founders of Ascent, the only indoor rock climbing gym in Egypt. I studied Accounting and Finance at the American University in Cairo and moved on to get a masters in the same field at the Westminster Business School in London.

I’ve been climbing for the past six years now. It all started in 2016 — I was in London at the time and I remember coming back to Egypt during spring break and one of my friends suggested we go to Dahab, which I had never visited before. When we got there, my friend wanted us to go rock climbing; at first, I refused to do it or even risk the chance of falling. Eventually, I agreed. There was a bedouin guide called Mondi who tied the harness on me and told me to “ascend,” and when I got down I said this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.

It took some time at first to actually decide to start Ascent. When I got back to London from Dahab, I started getting into rock climbing and bouldering (which doesn’t involve a harness). At that time, I was still doing my masters, which was in a very different direction from rock climbing, but I ultimately knew that climbing was what I wanted to do. When I graduated, I started working as an accountant at PwC, where I stayed for seven months but came to terms with the fact that the office work life is not for me.

When the pandemic hit, that’s when I told myself that it’s time to start Ascent. During that time, I climbed together on a small rock climbing wall with one of my closest friends — who’s as obsessed as I am with rock climbing — at his house. He mentioned that someone was interested in starting a rock climbing gym at his family-owned mall, and that’s when I met Youssef Shoukry (LinkedIn). Youssef is also a rock climbing fanatic and once we met, we instantly started planning and officially opened Ascent in 2021. What worked out perfectly is that we both had similar experiences and we wanted to make a living out of what we loved. We eventually connected with Sherif Hafez through Ascent, and he is now our third partner in the business.

At the start, we faced some liquidity issues and I couldn’t get the money that I thought I could. I ended up selling my car and taking out a loan, and my dad also pitched in. Aside from the financial aspect, mentally I had to prepare in the sense of sacrificing a stable job at my father’s consultancy firm, which would have provided me more money in the grand scheme of things; but I stuck to my principle of following what I’m passionate about.

There’s no worst part of my job — even the unglamorous bits, like managing the business’ finances, is necessary to make sure we can keep going, which in turn contributes to the best part of my job: Building this community of rock climbers and sharing that passion together. But I can tell you that what makes it difficult is seeing how new the sport is and how difficult it is to grow and create a knowledge base for climbing — a lot of people don't know that climbing is an Olympic sport and we’re trying to develop the idea that it is a sport. For me, aside from building awareness about the sport, I also want to educate people about how rock climbing can really help with your mental state; it clears your mind and helps you focus.

Our intention is to create more competitions and gain international recognition from the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), which would help us grow the sport in terms of awareness and to develop our own federation for climbing here in Egypt. We’re working on making our gym one of the few facilities in the Middle East that have both bouldering and rock climbing, and we’re planning to develop our competitions to make them more inclusive to include more aspects like lead climbing and maybe even speed climbing eventually.

My family and business partners are my biggest supporters and everyone in my family — except my dad, because he’s not a big fan of heights and likes to be in control [laughs] — enjoyed rock climbing at Ascent. But the person I turn to for business advice would be my business partner Youssef because he has a great capacity for problem solving and the ability to take action, which I’m lucky to have in a partner.

If I didn’t have Ascent, I would’ve probably been in Dahab working as a rock climbing instructor. I can’t begin to explain how much rock climbing means to me — it was a dream come true when we opened our doors and when I got certified as a rock climbing instructor in 2021. These were some of the best things to ever happen to me.

The last book I re-read was New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I’veread this book four times now and every time I read it, I discover something new. The book is basically a lesson in being in the present by making use of what you have now and seizing the day, which helps to avoid the “what if…” thoughts in retrospect. I highly recommend it — it’s life changing.

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