Three patterns from mentoring 30+ MENA startups
What I see across founders going through Brinc, Mashroo3i and Misk Launchpad — the same problems, in different costumes.
Heads up: placeholder draft for AJ to rewrite in his own voice. Numbers and program names are pulled from the public site bio, but the framing here is a first pass.
I’ve now mentored startups across Brinc, Mashroo3i Launchpad and Misk Launchpad — a few of them in real depth, most for shorter sessions. The teams are wildly different on the surface: different industries, different stages, different countries. But three patterns repeat almost every time.
Pattern 1 — They’ve built more than they’ve sold
Founders in the region often come from technical backgrounds and the regional talent market makes building cheap. So the team builds, and builds, and builds — and the first paying customer is still six months away.
I’ve started asking, very early: what’s the smallest version of this that I could pay you for today? The answer is often something the founder can ship in two weeks. Two weeks of selling almost always beats two months of building.
Pattern 2 — They’re solving a regional problem with global tooling
This one’s quieter but deadly. Founders read [Lenny / a16z / Reforge] and apply growth tactics that assume Stripe-grade payments, fast cross-border ops, and SaaS-friendly buyers. None of that is true in much of MENA.
Re-grounding the playbook in who actually buys, how they pay, and what cycle time looks like changes the product itself, not just the marketing.
Pattern 3 — Their advisors aren’t accountable
Most early-stage advisors give an hour of opinions and disappear. The founders who actually move forward are the ones whose advisors have something at stake — equity, public reputation, or just a recurring 30-minute slot on the calendar they have to show up for.
If you’re a founder reading this: ask your advisors what would make them uncomfortable if you failed. If the honest answer is “nothing,” you don’t have an advisor, you have a fan.
Mentorship is a strange thing to write about because every founder thinks their situation is the unique one. It almost never is — which is exactly why mentorship works at all.