💻 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 Ibrahim Gharbawi (LinkedIn), founder and CEO of Bit68.

My name is Ibrahim Gharbawi, and I’m the founder and CEO of Bit68, an integrated software solutions company that seeks to provide real value and true partnerships to our clients, going beyond face-value requirements. I graduated from the American University in Cairo with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, and I’ve always been passionate about tech. What I learned at university, first and foremost, was discipline — I had to learn how to teach myself, how to find problems, and how to fix them. That is what has shaped my mindset.

I started off my career before graduation as a freelance software engineer — I never followed the traditional corporate route. The reason why I wanted to kickstart my career early on was because I wanted to be able to travel during both winter and summer breaks. I began honing my skills through extracurricular activities, even designing a stock market simulator for one of them. I started taking on more projects, and one thing led to another and I eventually found myself freelancing. Along the way, I noticed a gap in the market: the lack of strategic guidance to help clients turn their vision into reality.

I took the risk and founded Bit68 at a time when I was hindered by neither a full-time job nor financial responsibilities, given I was still a student at the time. In those early days, my main objective was to build something I could call my own, and not have to rely on the traditional corporate model and its hindrances. Today, we exist to offer our clients custom software solutions, and right now we’re 70 incredible engineers strong.

Back then, clients were, for the most part, dealing with freelancers or software development companies that didn’t quite get what they wanted. That’s when I realized that the main problem was that clients didn’t necessarily understand how the industry worked, and software developers only did what they were asked to do, never going the extra mile. In short, clients were looking for someone they could trust, someone transparent, and that was my main entry point.

What makes Bit68 different is that we exist to help our clients figure out exactly what they need, rather than what they want. One of the things we aid them in is identifying where their product lies on the maturity curve. We’re with them every step of the way, but we don’t sign maintenance agreements, we sign retainers. We have clients that have been with us since the very beginning, and we’re hopeful and confident that they’ll still be here for the next five, and ten years.

One day I came to the realization that this is what my career would look like forever. It wasn’t just a side gig, it was my future. The first time I felt truly successful was when I realized I couldn’t keep up with demand; writing proposals, following up with clients, and so on and so forth. It was a good problem to have. There is also a renewed feeling of success every time we launch a major website and it’s kept alive and running during times of heavy traffic. Prior to working with us, some clients would have their websites crash during Black Friday.

Bit68 has come a long way, and I still see further growth in our future. I want Bit68 to go global, and we’re already on the way. We’ve expanded to the UAE, and we’re working on expansions throughout the GCC, Europe, and South Africa. I envision us as a key player in the global industry. With the rise of AI, we’ve also been readying our squad to embrace a new era of AI transformation, and in doing so, hopefully becoming market leaders.

The economy has seen lots of changes since Bit68 was first founded, and to be quite frank, our industry actually benefited from them. During times of economic crises, particularly the pandemic and the devaluations, global businesses looked to us as a way to cut costs, and that was essentially what drove us to look beyond the Egyptian market. As of today, around 40% of our revenue comes from international clients, and we’re hoping to maintain that balance.

One thing I would like to change about the industry is checkbox delivery. Most large-scale projects usually operate on a checkbox basis, where service providers essentially work off a to-do list provided by the client. I would love to see more developers adopt an R&D approach and take on a hands-on attitude with clients.

The most rewarding aspect of running Bit68 is seeing our clients grow because of the work we’re able to provide. It’s always a wonderful feeling whenever I see a project come to life, problems solved, and solutions presented. What really keeps me going, however, is helping young talents grow into capable leaders. The most difficult aspect is maintaining a balance between timeliness, quality, and ambition.

Speaking of balance, I wouldn’t say I follow a traditional model of work-life balance. If I’m looking at things from a week-by-week perspective, I definitely don’t have a proper balance. If I go back and examine my life year-by-year, however, I’d say I definitely do. It’s a seasonal occupation, so there are months where you would work 24/7, and others where you’d have some extra time to yourself, and that personally works for me. I didn’t have that luxury in the early days, but fortunately I do now.

Most of my readings are quite technical, and there’s a certain book I’d like to recommend called The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. — It’s a series of essays on software engineering, and it tackles quite a few problems we find ourselves facing at Bit68. It’s been a great resource.

If I could go back in time and give my younger self some advice, I’d say this: give the traditional route a try. There are things I’ve learned through experimentation that I could have easily learned by staying in a full-time job with the right mentor. I’d also tell my younger self to start raising money much earlier. My younger self prioritized keeping all the equity over running faster, but had I welcomed investments sooner, we would have grown exponentially faster.

My advice for up-and-coming entrepreneurs would be to find a real problem and offer a real solution. Don’t just start a business for the sake of starting a business or hopping on a trend.