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 Hanan Abdel Meguid (LinkedIn), co-founder of Consoleya and the founder and CEO of Kamelizer Spaces.

My name is Hanan Abdel Meguid and I’m the founder and CEO of Kamelizer Spaces, a hybrid workspace designed for businesses and independent minds to work and network.It’s a complete new concept that offers offices and coworking spaces as a destination with a hospitality twist.

It all started with Kamelizer, my angel investment studio focused on startups. There, I discovered the need to offer real estate as a service that allows young companies to scale their offices according to their business needs.Kamelizer Spaces is a personal investment empowered by my earlier successful journey at Kamelizer — I didn’t raise funds for it.

We live in a vibrant economy and adaptability is essential: In Kamelizer Spaces, we build office destinations where people come to work, network, meet up, or hold their events. We combine private offices, shared work spaces, and luxurious lounge spaces into a complete solution that allows you to focus on your business and enjoy a space that empowers you.

I am one of the early tech entrepreneurs in the Egypt startup scene: I was part of the Linkdotnet and Orascom Telecom phenomena, where we scaled from a 12-people operation in Linkdotnet in a small apartment in Dokki to over 3k people operating in 25 cities across the region. We were pioneers in empowering the digital lifestyle, delivering to the market a lot of internet and connectivity firsts such as Masrawy, yallakora, Otlob (now Talabat), TPay, and many more.

I never took a decision to build my business.I always follow my interest and build companies around the concept that I believe are needed — it’s just in my DNA.

I always joke that the journey from idea to reality is the journey I enjoy the most. It’s true; I get so immersed in taking a concept from zero to one that I go back to the first principle and examine the original assumptions — it always gives me an extra heartbeat to see the product alive and people enjoying it. Kamelizer Spaces in District 5 gives me that adrenaline rush, and since I just launched it, when I see people using the new space I feel my heart race — in a good way.

My business is empowering new and old businesses with office and co-working solutions that help them focus and provide the spaces needed to innovate. We live in an era where remote and hybrid work is a reality, so the foundation of how people use their work spaces needs to be different.

My plan in terms of growthis to partner with the right real estate developers that share the same mindset and priority of providing new office experiences as I am eager to serve the business scene and Egypt and empower their journeys.

The current aim is finding funds and investors targeted towards real estate and hospitality so that I can expand quickly in multiple locations. Transforming spaces is expensive, especially the ones that provide the luxury services that we do. The business model works as luxury is affordable when delivered in a shared model.

Being founder of a startup is a lonely journey in terms of responsibility, as you, and you alone, bear its burden. To me it is your duty to develop the communities around you that will make this less of a lonely trip. But if you are navigating everything alone, your chances of success or survival are slimmer.

I am blessed and lucky to have a lot of support systems: My team and I have a safe space to discuss and address tough situations together. My husband, who is also a successful entrepreneur, has helped me evaluate different perspectives and not to beat myself too much in difficult situations. His core motto for our small family is that we never give up, we keep walking. My mother and sisters are also there for me when I need that warm hug and unconditional love when the going gets tough.

Personally, I devour books and online information on a daily basis. This gives me a big push from all the community of practices that exist online, regardless of the problem that I am facing. We live in an era of no excuses — our will power is the muscle that needs to be trained.

Life is all about choices: It is important to make them conscious ones, as they always come with a tradeoff, and the term “give up” does not register with me. My choice has implications as there is always risk, so extra anxiety and long working hours that can affect my personal time are facts that I cannot avoid.

The best part of my job is meeting new people with independent minds. I enjoy learning from new experiences or new perspectives shared by others. We are living in an exciting time where change is happening quickly so you always need the wisdom of the crowd to help you digest and understand to get more out of life.

The worst part of my job is that I sometimes get overwhelmed with socializing. At heart, I’m an introverted technology geek, so with this new line of business it can be a bit much since it requires a lot of social interactions and networking.

My advice for someone starting out is to always roll up your sleeves and get busy. If you have an idea, start executing and taking steps before it becomes perfect. Most people don’t understand that execution is a muscle that only builds endurance by not having the right resources or by waiting for the perfect timing. You have to accept that the first version will not be the best, so you might as well start and then begin to improve on it, or as my motto says: It is never a good time — so you might as well do it now.

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