Most founders think growth comes from raising more, hiring more, and building more. Our guest today has done all of that, across five startups and he'll tell you that's money isn't the problem.

Ayham Gorani is a serial entrepreneur who has built and exited four companies across fintech, SaaS, and platform businesses. Now as the co-founder of PEMO, he’s on a mission to support SMEs across MENA with their all-in-one spend management software that gives entrepreneurs their time back and allows them to work on their business, not in it.

In this episode we get into why most startups fail to validate before they execute, why hiring more people can actually slow you down, why focusing on exit is overrated, and the one lesson he discovered in his founder journey that changed everything

0:00 Intro
3:44 Does the Founder Journey Ever Get Easier? 
5:56 Should You Have a Backup Plan?
9:46 How to Actually Validate Your Idea
16:21 Why Founders Think They Need to Know Everything
21:38 Working With Family 
24:20 How to Find the Right Co-Founder
30:36 How to Filter Through the Noise
35:47 You Are the Biggest Block to Your Own Success
38:17 When Is It Time to Move On?
44:33 The PEMO Journey
47:45 How to Deal With Competition
51:42 The Challenges of Experimentation
54:50 Hiring, Culture and Building the Right Team
1:00:35 Optimism vs Belief 
1:02:47 The Inflection Point 
1:05:25 The Fundraising Misconception 
1:10:43 What Every First-Time Founder Needs to Hear

Follow Ayham:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayhamg/
Website: https://www.pemo.io/

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