Angel e-mail (written for Scale Up MENA! Masterclasses)
From: Mohammed, local angel mentor
To: The new startup team
Re: Congrats on your new startup
Hi team,
Congratulations on your latest startup. I am super excited to see talent such as yourselves spending your time and energy to build the future growth companies our region needs.
As you know, we have a lot of early-stage startups; but, we do not have a strong enough pipeline of high-growth, high-value scale ups. This is where you come in.
Given your experience and the booming ecosystem we enjoy in the region, the conditions have never been better for you to launch, scale and win big. You know, as a local angel, with 15 years of experience investing into local startups, I really want to see more young companies, with great founder teams, such as yourselves, move fast and scale fast. Remember, as an angel investor, I want to make money on your success, not just mentor you on the early days of the founder’s journey.
Many years ago, I was one of the earliest investors into Careem. That was an amazing journey. Ever since, I have been looking for founders that can scale and outperform Careem. Is that you, I wonder? Now, in my experience working with founders in the region, I think there are ten key questions you and your team need to crack to win.
1. Scaling mindset (Owned by the team) How big do you dare to dream? Do you have local, regional or global aspirations? Are you ready to think big and win? Many founders in MENA tend to think very locally, and I think that is holding us back. Step one, let’s get the right scale up mindset.
2. Foundational equity (Lead: CFO, IRM) How should you split and structure your early founder equity. I like the Carta 2025 report on Foundational Equity. It’s a great pre-read over a coffee. Also think about how you plan to manage your cap table for the long-term, including share classes, dilution, advisor equity and much more.
3. Customer discovery (Lead: CRO) Ah, going out and talking to customers. Something every founder should do, but few do enough. Just think about how you can engage with customers and users early. Don’t pursue your own ideas. Get customers to tell them what they want.
4. Financing (Lead: CFO, IRM) How will you finance the founder’s journey, with equity, grants, debt, investors (SAFE, CLA, equity), revenue, ARR and project financing? There are many tools of finance available to great founders such as yourselves. Learn to use them all.
5. Product development (Lead: CPO) Building Gamma pitch decks is easy. Building world-class, level 5 products, is hard. The Chief Product Officer needs to be extremely focused on building the best possible product to win.
6. Scaling with AI (Lead: CPO) “Every company in MENA needs to become an AI company”, said one of my friends at BECO Capital. Your AI investments should cover product development, customer success, GTM and more. AI investments should go to level 5 as fast as possible. Make sure to become an AI-first team!
7. Which markets do we focus on? (Lead: CRO) Ah, the infamous market expansion. As former head of sales at Microsoft, I know everything about sales and go-to-market. Question is, do you? There are many, many markets to choose from. Which one are planning to expand into? Staying close to home or going global?
8. Annual recurring revenue (Lead: CRO) For startups, there are few milestones as important as the 100.000 ARR, 1M ARR, 10M ARR and 100M ARR. Annual recurring revenue is the lifeblood for every company, but only 2,3% ever make it to the 10M ARR mark, and less than 1% make it to the 100M milestone.
9. Liquidity &, maybe, exit (Lead: CFO, CEO) Across my 96 angel investments, the biggest challenge for founders has always been to understand, “I want some money back” on my investments. How are you planning to be ‘best in class’ when it comes to early returns and liquidity to your investors. I don’t need everything back, but maybe around 4-5 years in, I want to see some partial liquidity. And, naturally, I am looking for the team that can outperform Careem, with a 3,1BN exit in just seven years. Can you?
10. Team performance (Lead: CEO) Building a startup is hard. Really hard. We all know that. That is why a world-class, truly impressive team such as yourselves is needed. The role of the CEO is to build and lead a truly outstanding team – and that is something I am blessed to invest into. What we see across our top performing companies is the following team composition: CEO – in charge of overall strategic direction and team performance. Might need to make some tough calls, but largely leading by example and pushing the team to perform.
CFO – owns all things finance, accounting, cash management, capital strategy and investments. Should have a general passion for cash and excel spreadsheets. Also owns the CFO Management Dashboard and cap table.
CRO – leads all things revenue, ARR, market expansion and investments into the commercial side of the company. Will have to juggle many conflicting priorities, including making some tough decisions on where to invest and where to expand into. Should be able to get the team to 10.000 ARR, 100.000 ARR , 1M ARR , 10M ARR and 100M ARR, maybe more too?
CPO – as product officer, owning both product development, all tech and all AI efforts across the company. This is the technical genius, and still able to combine product development with strong commercial leadership. After all, we are building a future breakout winner, not a R&D project.
IRM – the investor relations manager handles all things investor mapping, investor engagement, early investor discussions and securing term sheets at scale. Working closely with the CFO to lock in funding rounds, and making sure the company can secure the right investment instruments at just the right time.
With those words, let me just say, I am here to help.
We need more founders like yourself. We need more founders that can scale. We need to shift the region from ‘startups’ to ‘scale ups’. Now the only question is, can you outperform Careem?
Good luck,
- Your friendly angel Mo