Why You Need A Co-Founder

In this week’s post I’d like to share a personal story about how it took me 3 years to start Sirdab Lab. 

While doing my MBA in San Francisco, I got a chance to work closely with startups in an amazing accelerator program. I fell in love with the energy of the people and the fast progress they were making in short time periods. 

I decided that I want to start something similar in Kuwait. When I came back to Kuwait I spoke to one of my smartest friends, who was also interested in startups, and convinced him to work together on this. It took us a year of planning, but we didn’t move forward. I think the reason for this is that we came from the same professional background.

I joined Ernst & Young (EY) and almost gave up on starting Sirdab Lab. Then I met Abdullah Al-Sayer, founder of MrBabu.com, at Thukhur. My interest in working with startups rekindled, but it remained a passion without action.

In the 2014 Benchmark Forum I met Haider Al-Mosawi, a UX designer, who shared my passion for helping startups and providing the community with comprehensive support. We shared the same vision and spotted the same problems.

I asked Abdullah and Haider to join me as cofounders in building Sirdab Lab as a startup hub in Kuwait. They both agreed, and we started to execute on that vision. Each of the cofounders has unique skills that complement one another.

Being a startup founder is insanely demanding and incredibly stressful. It’s almost impossible to get started on your own, let alone building your startup and seeing it through to success. Most accelerator programs only accept startups with a minimum of two cofounders, because they know how hard it is for solopreneurs and it’s too risky to invest in them.

So if you’re serious about your startup, you need a cofounder. Don’t have one? Then I highly recommend you join our Co-Founder Speed Dating event this Wednesday. Follow the link below for more details.

See you soon 🙂 
Mona 
Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Sirdab Lab