Waleed Tuffaha is one of the founding engineers at Jawaker — Jordan's latest success story. Jawaker, a developer of mobile card games was acquired for 205M USD in Sep 2021. Since day one, the company's leadership team has focused on profitability and long-term sustainability. They have only raised a small seed funding round in 2011. 

Waleed joined Jawaker in 2009 and helped build and launch the first iteration of the product. Today Waleed leads and manages the product and tech team at the company. On the episode, we walk through the journey of Jawaker, reflecting on how they built things back in 2009 and how they steadily and organically grew their user base throughout the years. We also chat about their progressive product development process, the impact of cool-down periods, and how they were able to recreate the social experience of playing cards in the app. Finally, Waleed highlights the big role culture and leadership has played in retaining and developing their team all throughout the years. 

00:51 - 03:01 Waleed's career path & early days at Jawaker

03:01 - 03:46 What Jawaker looked like in 2009

03:46 - 06:37 Acquiring early adopters

06:37 - 10:04  Replicating the social experience of playing cards on the app

10:04 - 15:37  Focus on profitability over growth since day 1

15:37 - 17:39 How and when did the team grow

17:39 - 23:03  The impact of cool-down periods between development cycles

23:03 - 26:36 Listening to customers & prioritizing requests

26:36 - 29:47 Determining your own speed of growth

29:47 - 31:29 Current structure of product and tech teams

31:29 - 33:45 What the future holds for Jawaker

33:45 - 39:33 What made the company a success

Let's Talk Product is brought to you by Propeller, a seed-stage venture capital firm based out of Jordan. If you're building software out of MENA, get in touch, we'd love to talk! 

Iyad Aldalooj is the co-founder and CEO of Penny software, an end-to-end procurement solution for enterprises. Prior to founding Penny in 2020, Iyad was the General Manager & Marketing Director at Careem in Saudi Arabia. On the episode we learn more about Iyad's journey and delve into the steps they're taking in building a global SaaS product.

01:19 - Iyad's first startup & role at Careem
12:40 - What is penny software?
15:00 - The evolution from a B2B marketplace to procurement software
18:47 - Building for the global market from day 1
22:16 - Why the focus on KSA for now
26:57 - When's the right time to scale enterprise software?
28:27 - MRVP (R for repeatable), not MVP, in B2B
33:18 - Prioritizing problems to solve in B2C vs B2B
35:34 - Managing requests from prospect customers
38:52 - Launching in an emerging vs mature market first?
43:26 - Hiring top talent

Let's Talk Product is brought to you by Propeller, a seed-stage venture capital firm based out of Jordan. If your MENA-based startup is looking for an investor, get in touch, we'd love to talk! 

Walid Daniel Dib, co-founder and CEO of Hala (previously Addenda) has taken several turns to get to where he is today. Back in 2018, him and his brother started off by building a blockchain solution to streamline workflows between insurance companies. A year or so later, the brothers had went through several pivots but were still not seeing any significant traction. In essence they were building solutions in search of a problem.

Today, Hala is insurtech that is building a subscription-based ‘lifestyle’ insurance to cover your car, home, and personal belongings. They made a wise and final pivot to B2C and have only been growing ever since.

On the episode we get into the details of the big and final pivot and the lessons learnt along the way. We also talk about how they’re making insurance a tolerable and pleasant experience for consumers in the Middle East.