ACCELERATING MENA ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Scale Up MENA!
Launching a startup is easy. Successfully developing the product, get early customer traction, raise first SAFE note, expand into new markets, raise venture capital and scale? Much, much harder.
Designed for Middle East & North Africa accelerators, incubators, startup teams, board members, early-stage investors, and anyone dealing with startups and scale-ups in the region, Scale Up MENA! helps you understand, experience, and overcome the growth challenges startups often face when trying to scale.
100% based on the MENA startup ecosystem.
how it works
Scale Up MENA! in 30 sec
You and the team are the co-founders of a startup. Your goal is to build and scale this tiny startup to a successful scale-up in MENA.
Design the strategy, set foundational equity, raise early-stage SAFE financing, build the product, launch in the market, secure first revenue, scale your ARR, use new AI tools, launch product upgrades, expand into new markets, secure venture financing, ramp up your ARR, secure growth financing, sprint to global leadership, exit successfully and generate massive wealth for yourself and your investors.
Along the way you will meet Ups (Boom), downs (Bust), investors, Super Angels, World Famous Advisors. You will develop strategies, funding structures, business models, pitches, deal with strategic dilemmas, build your investor pitch, master cap table math, deal with exit scenarios and learn how to develop your long-term capital strategy.
You will be competing with a long line of strong MENA startups, all set on finishing ahead of you.
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Content deepdive
Scale Up MENA Engine
Scale Up MENA! is built around these eight key topics – all vitally important for a successful founder to build and scale. During the Simulation, participants will be working on these eight topics, building knowledge, insights and mastery to then apply into their real-life settings.
Team
How can we develop the right leadership and team performance?
Equity
How Should our foundational equity be set, and distributed over time?
Financing
How will we use a mix of dilutive and non-dilutive financing sources to scale?
Product Development
How can we quickly ramp up our product portfolio?
Scaling with AI
How can we scale faster and smarter with new AI tools?
Market Expansion
How can we expand into the right markets at the right time?
ARR (annual recurring revenue)
How can we successful expand our ARR to 1M, 10M, 100M and beyond?
Liquidity and Exit
How can we structure the best paths to liquidity and exit for different investors at different stages?
“The Scale Up! Masterclass was a great model for learning – I wish school curricula would adopt this! You get hyper learning from the simulation, combined with the team and introspection. All entrepreneurs should do this!”
canvases
Scale Up MENA ! Toolkit
All participants will receive a personal copy of the powerful, visual Startup Toolkit. These visual tools have helped 1000’s of founders develop their growth strategy, raise financing and build amazing companies.
Learn to use the tools. Apply them onto your own, real-life startup.
“A Scale Up Masterclass can be a true boost for any founder. In MENA we need to scale faster, raise capital faster and build great companies faster. Scale Up MENA! fits perfectly to this goal. We are excited to collaborate on bringing Scale Up MENA! to the region”
Content deepdive
Built on real MENA content
The program is based on 100’s of hours of research into the MENA startup ecosystem, with real investors, real events, real term sheets and more. This makes it a highly targeted and extremely relevant experience for the founders. During the Masterclass participants will be exposed to 100’s of real life MENA ecosystem players.
Content deepdive
What You Will Experience
You and your team will take on the role of a young startup team. You will be challenged to develop a strategy and make strategic decisions under time pressure, notably with regard to investors and investor syndicates.
You will be exposed to strategic dilemmas, hostile competitors, demanding investors, complex deals, liquidity crises, and all the factors a startup team has to deal with as it tries to get to a successful exit.
Many people get overwhelmed. They function poorly as a team. They get stressed. They make bad decisions. They are unable to collaborate on strategy. They are unable to handle tough competitors. They make bad deals. They are unable to handle cap tables.
This is by design.
Companies
Fintech, lifestyle or tech? Select among 40+ MENA startup case companies
Market Expansion
You may start in Dubai or Cairo; but where should you expand to? What is the best market expansions for your strategy?
Investors
Investor Development might be the toughest challenge for startups and scale-ups. Structure 5-8 funding rounds, just like in real life…
Advisors
Need help to secure late-stage financing, lean on the MENA Investment bankers to help you navigate the intricacies of complex deal structures.
Super Investors
MGX, Wamda Capital and Venture Souq; just three of the 500+ investors you might meet.
Ups & Downs
Suffer the downturns and surf the upturns of startup life. Get exposed to 100’s of scenarios and every shade of startup life. All built on real-life events.
“It was engaging, insightful, and impactful. Experiencing Scale Up! gave me another perspective on the fundraising process, the various dynamics and how things can play out over time. Anyone building a startup who might need external funding would definitely want to invest the time to go through this experience.”
the team
Key Roles on Your Team
Each team will have two to five participants, with four to five being the target number.
Founder CEO
The CEO is responsible for overall team performance and company development. Needs to handle complexity and be able to ‘see through the fog’.
Founder CSO
The CFO is in charge of all aspects of finance, liquidity, cap table, and financial performance. Will work closely with CEO, but needs to ‘stay on top of cash and financing’
Founder CRO
The Chief Revenue Officer is in charge of all things marketing, GTM, business model, market expansion, revenue and vitally, ARR.
Founder CPO
The Chief Product Officer leads all aspects of product development, product roadmap, ultimately securing global product leadership.
Founder IRM
The Investor Relations Manager is the ‘secret weapon’ many startup founders wish they had. In charge of all things investors and fund raising.
Format
Our Success Stories, Online and In-person
Scale Up! MENA can be used in-person, as well as online. Here are some success stories showcasing our different formats.
get in touch
Bring Scale Up MENA! to Your Ecosystem
Want to bring Scale Up MENA! to your city? Want to host a Masterclass for your ecosystem? Want to take your startups through a Scale Up MENA! Masterclass?
Get in touch with us today.