6 months after Namshi was acquired, on 15 October 2019, I saw Hosam Arab behind a glass door of a tiny meeting room at Wamda's offices in Dubai Design District.
That day, I saw one of the early sketches of the supply chain of what later became Tabby.
It filled me with a strange joy. He didn't go to start a fund or sit on boards - the traditional path founders take when they retire from action. No. He's back. And better yet, he looks hungry.
Perhaps you don't know, but Hosam had single-handedly resurrected Namshi from the fate of being the biggest flop in MENA #startups history.
Namshi was founded in 2011 as a copycat of Zappos - one of the many copycat plays launched by Rocket Internet to capture whitespaces in #MENA and flip it later to a global brand who wants to expand to the region. That was the standard playbook in MENA venture until 2020.
In October 2012, Namashi raised $20M to scale, in what was the biggest round in MENA history. They expanded to GCC and added tens of product categories. Then a few months later, Namshi raised a $13M extension and expanded to Egypt and Lebanon among many regional markets.
Naturally, the breakneck speed and premature scaling caused Namshi to burn the cash and practically collapse. All the co-founders left or were let go. Only Hosam stayed with an enormous mission of turning the ship around from a $33M write-off hole, the largest in MENA startup history at the time.
But Hosam did it. In only 4 years, Namshi consolidated its key markets, got rid of many product categories, and re-built around a brand play targeting millenials. Thanks to Rocket's disclosures we know that around 2015-2016 Namshi was able to finally grow again. In 2017, Emaar acquired Namshi in a process that ended in 2019 at roughly $300M valuation.
It's not a simple story of building from zero. It's a story or reversing a massive $33M down spiral momentum. Literally, building from sub-zero.
These stories are not common in our region, but when they appear we see real value taking shape in extraordinary ways.
I like to think it's key individuals. The sheer determination of individual human beings who do not dwell on "the journey" but actually want to reach a destination come what may. Hosam is the brightest example in MENA on the founders side. On the investor side we see individuals like Rabih Khoury, the OG exit architect in MENA, and Omar Almajdouie, whom I like to call the godfather of Saudi venture.
Key individuals when they rally support around them can cause a shift in the entire space. We saw this in almost every successful ecosystem around the world.
Yes, empowering key individuals can do wonders.
Looking forward! 🙌