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 Ali Elfakharany (LinkedIn), VP of product for StatsBomb.

My name is Ali Elfakharany and I am the VP of Product for StatsBomb. Seven years ago, StatsBomb was a small UK startup that acquired a startup I co-founded in Egypt called ArqamFC. StatsBomb provides data and analytics to help sports people make better decisions and improve performance. My degree was in finance, with a minor in economics and entrepreneurship. I spent my college years interning in the banking sector in private wealth management and investment banking. My first (and only) real job prior to starting the company was at BECO Capital, a regional VC firm.

In hindsight, being around entrepreneurs all the time while I was working in VC was a big inspiration and gave me the courage needed to start. Doing that job, you very quickly realize that there is no right time or idea, and that the most important part is the courage and capacity to act and get started. When I left BECO, I left behind a job I enjoyed, working with people I respected, and a salary that was very competitive.

Now, I really enjoy the creative process of building a new product or feature using new technology. Bouncing ideas off of customers, designers, engineers and finding solutions to our customers problems is always a challenging but fun journey.

The worst part of my job is probably the grind of recruiting new people. Doing outreach, going through CVs, working hard on assessing and convincing people to join. It’s an endless process, and it’s difficult to figure out how well you’re doing as the feedback loop is quite slow.

If I could give someone who is thinking of starting their own business just one piece of advice, it would be to go read everything Paul Graham’s ever written on the subject.

We just recently launched our second sport, American football, and so we’re excited about what the future holds for us as a multi-sport company capable of taking our tools and platforms to other sports. Long-term, our aim is to be the sports data provider for anyone interested in sports (from media to fantasy sports to analysts at teams) at whatever level from the pros all the way down to your local 5-a-side.

The three most important KPIs that we look at are shipping cadence — how quickly we’re getting technical features launched; data collection speed — how many matches we’re able to collect data for per week; and customer churn — whether or not customers are renewing their annual contracts.

We’ve generally been quite capital efficient, as we’ve only raised a couple USD mn from angel investors and high net worth individuals. We are always exploring ways to fund new growth avenues for the company, whether via debt or long-term equity partners who can help accelerate our growth.

I’m not sure we’re quite bootstrapped or VC-backed — we’re somewhere in the middle. But I definitely think fewer businesses should take VC money. The VC business model is highly dependent on achieving huge scale, and a lot of businesses end up failing trying to accomplish something that wasn’t necessarily feasible. Extra money also distorts businesses and allows unprofitable businesses to survive for far longer than they should.

I’m blessed to have a great support system of mentors, a peer group, friends and family that I’m constantly asking for tactical help. The hardest thing about doing anything is managing your own psychology, and I’m grateful to have a full-time committee I live with (wife, sister and mother) who are encouraging me through my failures, helping me manage my psychology, and generally giving me a hard time.

Being the founder of a startup is a lonely journey. It’s a lonely job because you have nobody to blame but yourself when things are broken — and things are always broken, no matter how successful the company is. Very few people also have the context and information you have, which makes most advice you get irrelevant.

My family has always been quite supportive of my career choices. I’m lucky enough where my father has worked in tech companies his entire life and understands this universe quite well. He was a crucial part of encouraging me and making me feel safe enough to take these types of risks. My partner and her family have also been extremely supportive of some career choices that in hindsight were extremely risky.

I’m currently reading Killers of The Flower Moon, which is the book that the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie is based on. It’s about a Native American tribe that discovers oil underneath their land, become the richest people in America in the 1920s, and slowly start getting murdered away. I think it’s an interesting look at what happens when people stumble into resources or wealth and have a target on their back, and the parallels between the MENA region are interesting.

I read a lot of internet blogs/substacks for inspiration. My favorite two are Simon Sarris and @visakanv’s blog. I’d highly recommend them both for curious readers. Visa has two books that I’ve really enjoyed. The My First Mn podcast is also a fun one I listen to for inspiration on business. I also like reading lots of sci-fi for inspiration. Ted Chiang and Andy Weir are two of my favorite authors.

In my down time, I watch & play sports, enjoy puzzles and board games, and read lots of random sci-fi novels.

My favorite two startups are Replit and Driveline Baseball. Replit’s goal is to make the ability to write code as easy as the ability to write. I’ve written a blog post about why I think companies like Replit are super exciting. Driveline is a data-driven performance training center — helping baseball players pitch and hit better using state of the art technology.

If I wasn’t doing what I’m currently doing, I’d definitely work at Replit or Driveline Baseball, as I’m a big believer in their missions. I’d also definitely enjoy starting something new in industries I’m excited about, like skill development for athletes, independent media, or DTC brands.

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