🍼 OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK- Every Tuesday, Founder of the Week looks at how a successful member of Egypt’s business or startup community got their big break, asks about their experiences running a company, and gets their advice for budding entrepreneurs. Speaking to us this week is Roba El Gindy (LinkedIn), founder of Egyptian parenting platform Tribe.

My name is Roba El Gindy, and I’m the founder and CEO of Tribe. If I had to describe Tribe very quickly, I’d say it’s the village that it takes to raise a child. Tribe is an online parenting platform that exists to lift the invisible weight off parents — the guilt, the fear, the pressure to be perfect, and the self-criticism — replacing it with clarity, confidence, and joy. We created Tribe with all that in mind.

My academic background has definitely had an impact on my career. I graduated from the American University in Cairo with a major in marketing and a minor in psychology. That combination gave me an interesting foundation for what I’m doing now in terms of understanding human behavior, formulating strategies, and discerning people’s needs.

I jumped into marketing right after graduating — I spent some time at Orange and later P&G, where I led Gillette in the region for quite some time. Working on different global brands and leading growth and communication strategies taught me discipline, communication, and responsibility. After that, I jumped into F&B, where I led marketing efforts for brands such as Crave and Qahwa. It was quite the shift, but I was very interested in operating on a smaller scale and seeing the speed at which things were done on the ground.

It was when I got pregnant that everything changed. I found myself approaching my pregnancy the same way I approached work — prepared and studied with a project manager mindset. I started to tumble, realizing that parenting today isn’t the same as it was for previous generations, and there weren’t any resources readily available. I remember telling a few of my therapist friends, “I want to study parenting; not the fixes, but the pre-emptives.”

Years later, when I started studying parenting coaching, graduated from the first program, and launched an earlier business, Egyptian preacher and television host Mustafa Hosny hosted me on 12 episodes of his show Konoz. The episodes, where we discussed best parenting practices and shed light on their roots in Islam, were watched by mns of Arabs across the world. I got thousands of messages. That’s when I decided I would build Tribe.

Tribe started in 2023, and fully launched by the end of 2024. Parents struggle, and they’re raising children in a world that doesn’t necessarily mirror the one they grew up in, and so they’re unable to get the support they actually need — our own parents’ advice is no longer relevant. The need was there, and the expertise was there as well, but no one knew how to make use of it. Parents would take their frustrations and questions online, but more often than not the searches would yield irrelevant results, or at least ones that were Western-oriented and didn’t fit the context of our societies and cultures.

What makes Tribe different is that we’re a one-stop shop for parenting resources. You can get consultations with experts through the platform, access our on-demand course library covering parenting challenges across different age groups and tracks, and talk to Nour, our own culturally relevant AI parenting assistant, which offers round-the-clock support. I would get calls at 2am and I wouldn’t be able to answer them. At the end of the day, I’m human.

Parenting crises don’t have standard hours, and Nour is who you go to when you need immediate advice, regardless of time and place. Nour, I believe, will be our main differentiator moving forward. A friend and mentor of mine once told me I’m pioneering Parenting Tech, and I believe that our use of today’s tech is what will continue to set us apart.

Hearing back from the parents Tribe has helped is what makes me feel like I’ve done something I can call successful. A mom could tell me that she finally managed to foster a healthy relationship with her kids because of Tribe, another would tell me she learned to pause and savor time with them. These are always heart-warming moments to hear about. Another aspect that makes me feel successful is being able to recognize patterns and provide solutions accordingly.

Right now, we’re serving Arab parents in 12 countries, including Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden. Arab parents are all around the world and we go where they take us. Tribe began spreading because of these families. I’m building Tribe to be the most trusted, culturally relevant parenting ecosystem for Arab parents anywhere and everywhere. Over the coming years, I hope to see it in over 100 countries — I’m a dreamer. By constantly adapting to new technology, I’m confident that I can get Tribe there.

There have been economic challenges, yes, but if that’s taught me anything, it’s that our kids are the one thing that matters. Children will always be their parents’ number one priority — even if the economy takes a hit, people will never skimp on their child’s wellbeing. We then started asking ourselves, how could we create pro-bono resources for parents? How can we create general guides around the most critical of pit stops or challenges? Because of the economic challenges, it’s become part of our DNA to be able to create solutions that work, whether paid or unpaid. It’s shifted Tribe to be even more of a purpose-led cause — one that doesn’t pause during hard times.

There are lots of perceptions pertaining to parenting in Egypt that I’d like to challenge. One being the obsession with perfection. Parents — especially mothers — often obsess with being perfect to the extent that it pushes us off the edge. I know it’s part of pop culture, it’s fun to relate to being superheroes and so on, but at the very core of it, it’s overwhelming. It’s unrealistic. Another perception I’d like to challenge, and one that I feel like is already being addressed, is that parenting isn’t just a mother’s job. It’s not just a mother’s and a father’s either — it takes a village, a tribe.

Knowing that my work adds joy to family dynamics is a very rewarding feeling. The most difficult part, however? You’re working with people’s wounds, living their problems every single day — fears, unmet needs, rocky relationships. You just have to teach yourself to remain grounded, because you have your own tribe waiting for you at home.

Tribe is an entirely different work experience than everything I have experienced my entire career thus far, which was structured — Tribe is anything but. Work-life balance, then, looks different. I don’t have fixed hours, and I’m lucky to have my own tribe to support me in reaching harmony between work and life. It’s all about adjusting.

There’s a ton of advice pertaining to how to start your business, but what I’m more interested in is helping people find their area of interest first. So my advice to up-and-coming entrepreneurs is this: find your spark, the thing that lights up your soul. Ask yourself: what can’t you stop thinking about? What’s a problem you’re always trying to solve? Even if there’s virtually no market for it, it doesn’t matter — once you find that space, it’s yours.

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