Karim Akram, managing director of Lyve: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week for a special Olympics version of My Morning Routine is Karim Akram (LinkedIn), co-founder and Managing Director of property management startup Lyve, who is currently in Paris as the head of the Egyptian Olympic Committee’s Technical Committee.

My name is Karim Akram. On the entrepreneurial side, I founded Orion360 — an IT consulting firm — and I’m the co-founder and managing director of Lyve — an app for managing residential communities. On the sporting side, I used to be an 800m champion and I’m now a member of the board of the Egyptian Athletics Federation and the head of the Technical Committee at the Egyptian Olympic Committee. I’m also a father of three children, aged 26, 24, and 19.

I’m here at the Paris Olympics as part of my role as the head of the technical team at the Olympic Committee. I arrived here with my group on 18 July and we’ve been working on a number of things, including the logistics of arrivals and departures for the 148 Egyptian competitors that qualified for the games. I’ve since been doing a lot of work related to logistics, sorting out training locations for players and following up with both the players and the organizing committee.

My morning routine here at the Olympics is quite different from my normal one back at home. I usually start my day at 7:30am with the Chef de Mission meeting, where all the countries have a recap on all the issues they’ve faced so far. We also have the logistics plan of who’s arriving on a given day, and who’s leaving. That also gets sorted out in the morning. That was a constant thing I had to handle everyday until about two days ago. I’m also trying to go to the gym three times a week while I’m here.

It’s very difficult to keep a routine here. You’re working seven days a week, sleeping at 1:30am everyday — it’s kind of hectic. Now things are a bit more stable, so I have a bit more of a chance to enjoy going to the different games.

Team Egypt is performing in line with expectations so far. We’ve won one medal so far in fencing, which we expected to win, but we also lost a medal in shooting that we had been expecting to secure. The football team is doing much better than expected and that is a sport that has a lot of followers. I think we’re doing quite well.

There tends to be a lot of criticism directed towards athletes during these competitions, but it’s important to remember that everyone here is among maybe the top 50 in the world at what they do. They all earned their right to be here. In my view, even if you’re last in the Olympics, you’re still an olympian — and that’s a great honor. Whenever I hear people criticize athletes who maybe haven’t been doing too well, I ask them, where do you rank in your own profession on a global scale? If you’re in the top 50, then maybe you have the right to criticize. Otherwise, you don’t.

I think people will be pleasantly surprised. Most of the medals we expect to win are in the games that are taking place closer to the end. We’re expecting medals in taekwondo, modern pentathlon, weightlifting, and wrestling. It would be great to achieve a medal in football as well.

The medal in fencing and our football team’s victory over Paraguay to reach the semifinals were probably the most exciting moments for me so far. But generally speaking, since this is my first time attending the Olympics, just walking around in the Olympic village with over 10k athletes — the best of the best — and just walking together, dining together, that’s a dream for anyone who does sports. The feeling is phenomenal, and it’s a real sporting spectacle.

It took a while, but I’m now able to enjoy the games as a spectator. The first few days were the most hectic, but since things have stabilized a little, I’ve been trying to enjoy the games a bit more, obviously prioritizing following our Egyptian players. It’s been a lot of fun.

Back in Cairo, I’m a pretty early riser. I wake up around 6:30am, I have my coffee, then get my news before heading to the office at around 8 or 9am. I work until around 5 or 6pm, mostly doing calls and team meetings. I also do a lot of client meetings — something I really enjoy. I like staying connected with all of our key clients. It takes up about 25-30% of my time. After that, I’ll usually either get some exercise in or I’ll have more meetings with either the federation or the Olympic Committee. I’m not an exercise in the morning kind of guy, so I’ll often try to do that before I get home.

At Lyve, we aim to completely automate the interface between residents and management in gated communities. I used to be a treasurer for homeowner associations, and I used to have problems reaching out to management and getting things done. That’s how it all started. We closed our first agreement with Palm Hills back in 2016, we launched in the summer of 2017 in Hacienda Bay and Hacienda White, and we became pioneers in the field. We closed our first pre-series A funding round with Algebra Ventures in 2018, and we’ve since become a fast growing, profitable business. We’ve helped residents request services, file complaints, and generally have easier access to management. We were also among the pioneers of using QR codes — we issued over 1 mn QR codes last summer alone. We have over 180k users, 150k of which are registered units.

We’re looking to expand into new markets in the coming period, with markets in the Gulf and Africa being our intended destinations. We have plenty of discussions in progress, and we’ll hopefully close the agreement by the end of the summer. We’re in late discussions with big developers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE at the moment.

In real estate, I think the most surprising thing has been that most real estate firms have really basic IT capabilities. What we’re seeing over the last three years is that these firms are starting to really grow their tech infrastructure, which has been a big help to us in terms of integration. The app has also been helpful to our clients in that regard, especially in aiding the payment process.

We’ve also seen a trend in people moving away from large homes in favor of buying smaller apartments or renting. I don’t subscribe to the idea of a looming real estate bubble that’ll burst anytime soon. People are just favoring smaller, more affordable units — but the demand is definitely still bigger than the supply, and that will continue to be the case.

The one constant for me is to constantly be thinking about growth. I’m always thinking about what’s next, and how to move forward. For the company, I’m thinking about how to take Lyve to the next level, and what needs improvement. But even in sports — what value are you adding everyday? In sports, at work, even at home. That’s the question I’m always asking myself.

I would say I’m something of a workaholic. Back when I was based in Turkey, I had a manager who used to lecture me about having to slow down and find some balance, but I find it really difficult. I’m definitely not a good example of work-life balance, but it’s something I definitely do need to work on. The situation in the Olympics obviously exacerbated that. I can’t wait to go back to Egypt and get back into my normal routine.

I’m not super organized either. However, I’m extremely disciplined with time. I get really frustrated when people aren’t on time for things. My discipline is what helps me get my day organized.

I’m a big enjoyer of business books. I’d recommend one called The Lean Startup — which is a bit of a cliche recommendation, but it’s quite great — and Surrounded by Idiots, which gave me great insight on people’s differences and how different people need to adapt to each other. Those are the two most interesting ones I’ve read recently.

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