Looking Ahead w/ Mohamed Ahmed

Founding a startup is a big financial risk. You are probably giving away some predictable income and jumping into the unknown in the hope of generating more money and eventually creating some financial freedom. But this dream of financial freedom doesn’t happen in the early stages of your startup unless you are super lucky. You will face long times of low or no income at all. 

If you don’t have the right plan and preparation in place, your personal finances might be severy impacted and eventually let go of your dream of financial independence too early. In this episode, you will learn the following:

This is the fourth episode in the entrepreneurial conditioning series. In this episode,  you will learn how you can condition your family and friends to build a robust support system around you.

You will learn:

If you haven't filled out the entrepreneurial conditioning assessment yet, you still have a chance to do so. It is FREE btw :)

This episode is my third episode of the entrepreneurial conditioning series. I'm talking in this episode about mental resiliency and how you can take control of your mind and form a more balanced perspective about yourself as an entrepreneur. I'm also sharing how I found my WHY or intentions behind founding my startup. 

You will also learn about the thoughts-emotions loop, which can impact your ability to make the right decisions if you don't address the negativity of such an internal process. 

You also learn how to separate your identity from your startup to reduce mental stress when you get feedback and address it much more effectively. 

You haven't filled the entrepreneurial conditioning assessment yet, you still have a chance to do so :)

This episode is the 2nd in a series of episodes to talk about entrepreneurial journey conditioning. Throughout this series, I’ll share with you my entrepreneurial journey, learned lessons, and some interesting stories that you can carry with you to think deeply about your journey as an entrepreneur.

Today’s episode is about

Here is a link to the entrepreneurial readiness assessment I explained in this episode as well. To make the best use of the upcoming episodes, please fill out that assessment and look at the generated analysis.

https://www.mohamedfahmed.com/workshop-ers

Until the next episode, keep looking ahead!

This episode marks the start of a series of episodes to talk about entrepreneurial journey conditioning. Throughout this series, I’ll share with you my entrepreneurial journey, learned lessons, and some interesting stories that you can carry with you to think deeply about your journey as an entrepreneur.

Today’s episode is about

Here is a link to the entrepreneurial readiness assessment I mentioned towards the end of the episode. To make the best use of the upcoming episodes, please fill out that assessment and look at the generated analysis.

https://www.mohamedfahmed.com/workshop-ers

Until the next episode, keep looking ahead!

This episode’s guest is Mike Fraser, the co-founder of Refactor, recently acquired by Sophos corporation - a British-based security software and hardware company. We talked about his entrepreneurial journey from the beginning to his recent exit. We delved into why he decided not to take any VC money to grow his startup and how he managed to do so. We also chatted about his startup pivot and how that led to great success and eventually an exit. Mike also shared his thoughts about building a support structure around you as an entrepreneur. And finally, Mike shared his advice about when to start thinking about your startup and how to keep going if you are already a full-time entrepreneur.

Please pass it along to someone you believe can apply some of what we discussed here at their jobs or personal lives. For updates on upcoming episodes,  or how to be my next guest, please visit my website MohamedFAhmed.com.

Keep looking ahead!

Start with the customer or the customer obsession is all about setting the right priorities both strategically and tactically. It is the north star for the whole company. The absence of that north star makes teams confuse the problem with the solution. It impacts team productivity and sometimes makes teams lose the sense of direction.

In this episode, we talked to Ahmed Badran, the CTO and co-founder of Magalix, about customer obsessions or start with the customer leadership principle. We talk about when we were first exposed to this concept and how different companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, and also successful startups implement it in both daily and strategic decisions.

Bias for action is to keep moving fast and learn by doing rather than spending too much time analyzing or creating unverified assumptions. Bias for action is critical in environments where uncertainty is high, and agility is a critical aspect of your business model. In other words, if you are a startup or want to operate like a startup, bias for action should be the first building block of your culture.

In this episode, we share our stories from AWS, Microsoft, and our current startup about the best ways to build a bias for action culture. We are also discussing the ICE model to evaluate ideas before you start high-velocity experimentation. We also talked about the best personalities to hire and have in your team to have that natural tendency to experiment and move fast. 

Below is a link to a nice article explaining the ICE model 

Startups are about moving fast and figuring out the product-market fit quickly.  Implementing a learning culture is key to your innovation journey. That's why you want to nurture healthy learning from failures in your startup culture. 

Blameless learning culture will help you as an entrepreneur achieve the promise of building a startup, moving fast, and innovating much faster than anyone else in the market.

In this episode, I discuss with Ahmed Badran, my CTO & co-founder, the CoE framework to establish such a culture to build strong and resilient teams. We share our experiences from Amazon and Magalix to apply the best practices and encourage your team to learn from their failures continuously.