💼 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 Ahmed Wadi (LinkedIn), co-founder and CEO of Money Fellows.

My name is Ahmed Wadi. I’m a computer engineer who studied in Germany, where I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s in computer science at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). My time at TUM was incredibly impactful in building a tech solution like Money Fellows.

Money Fellows is all about giving fair and trusted access to financial tools for people. We’re not just simplifying the existing concept of traditional savings circles (gam’iyyat) — we’re providing solutions to those who either already have access to credit, but find it painful and expensive, or don’t have access at all. Most solutions that existed before were incomplete and often not shariah-compliant. We have changed that.

I started my entrepreneurial journey in the TUM dorm rooms, actually. I had roommates, and we all lived in the same place, constantly solving problems we’ve encountered ourselves with tech solutions. I’ve always been drawn to this intersection of entrepreneurship and digital innovation. I actually went to Germany mainly because of a company we were trying to build. We had started two other initiatives before Money Fellows, so I’d say my career into tech solutions started in those dorms.

I recognized that there’s a major issue in the banking world when it comes to access to credit. When I needed some credit myself, it was a very tough process — I was shocked at how difficult it was. I had this knowledge and background of informal loans and savings through traditional gam’iyyat, but I never understood just how impactful it was. When I learned how common it was across the world and how much it has benefited people, I saw huge potential.

I learned a lot from previous experiences I’ve had, and I knew a few shortcuts to take. I knew that just launching fast and iterating to solve the real problem is what matters. Identifying problems that are actually validated as problems — not just ideas you have — is crucial. Some companies build for years because they want the perfect launch, but there’s no such thing, so immediately after identifying that idea and potential, we just started.

We don’t have direct competition, which is truly exciting globally. We’re the largest company that has managed to digitize this model. There have been trials from major banks and telecom companies across the world, but it has turned out to be a very complex product — unlike what I first thought when I saw it as a window. You need to manage credit assessment, fraud detection, bundling, recommending, managing equilibrium between borrowers, savers, and planners. It’s genuinely a very complex project with a long process and lots of iterations.

While there are buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services that are shariah-compliant and extend lines of credit, we’re fundamentally different. They’re more of a short-term, urgent use case, while we’re more of a long-term financial solution, a planning and wealth management tool. We rely on the idea of collaboration and group savings where members finance each other, and we manage connecting them, assessing them, and ensuring them. We don’t borrow from the bank at a certain rate and charge the client at a higher rate, so we’re a lot more affordable.

I think success is a fleeting feeling — we feel like there’s still a lot to accomplish. There’s a long way to go, and the market isn’t just Egypt, it’s global. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t celebrate every victory, even the small ones, especially early on when no one but us believed it would work. But we had a gut feeling. I would say the only lasting feeling that resembles success comes from the impact we see, from truly contributing to financial inclusion. More than half of our user base has never had access to formal financial systems. That gives us the motive to do something that’s not just convenient, but also truly impactful.

I don’t like the word “disruption.” I believe that we’re creating a new norm of accessing credit and savings using a model that’s been there for hundreds of years, that no one had really digitized at scale. In five years, I see us being a global player — not just operating in one or two countries, but internationally and past unicorn status. We want Money Fellows to be the go-to resort when it comes to achieving financial goals and needs, whether the options are traditional banks, BNPL, or credit.

The industry is tough. It’s very sensitive — you’re dealing with people’s money, it’s highly regulated, it’s political. And our model is very new. We had to draft the regulations. Banks didn’t understand what we wanted to do. We had to build a set of controls and build the product that works for us, not copy other players that have succeeded. This means dealing with a lot of uncertainty and discomfort, making daily decisions about things you don’t have past experience with, and being brave.

Three things I would be keen to change about the industry: regulatory speed — we spent a lot of time fighting for something that other companies had the infrastructure for; transparency and collaboration within the industry — every company and every bank operates in silos, but if we had a decentralized platform to share data about potential fraudsters, it would help every company identify them early on; and overall, more transparency, collaboration, and sharing across the industry.

I don’t think work-life balance is that big of a challenge. It’s overrated. It’s just about being efficient with your time, and it’s something everyone needs to learn regardless of their profession. Once you get out of the office, you need to disconnect. What that means is different to each person — it could be going to the gym, spending time with family and friends. Everyone needs to learn what works for them, then it’s not too difficult.

The last book I read was The MomTest by Rob Fitzpatrick. It’s about how to get genuine feedback — if you ask your mom for feedback, you might not get the information you need to actually improve. It’s all about the way you ask questions. But I’m more into listening to podcasts these days — things that I can consume on the go. I like TheDiaryof a CEO — I believe it’s important to be selective about who you take advice from. If you want to learn something, you need to know that you’re learning from the right people, and The Diary of a CEO interviews experts across different industries that really have something to teach.

What I would tell my younger self when it comes to setting up your business is that building a great team early on — a strong co-founding team — will help accelerate things. You can’t hire the best in the industry when you’re only starting out, so strong mentorship is crucial too. Finding the right mentorship along with the right team, especially ones that fill in gaps where you’re not a subject matter expert, would save so much time versus having to learn everything the hard way.

If I were to give advice to emerging entrepreneurs, I would say start lean, start quickly, start very small, and don’t over-engineer. Of course, you should be thinking long-term and solving a real problem that can actually truly scale. But how to implement it will probably come by launching it quickly and iterating. Start very small. Just start.