Eventtus on the map: How this Egyptian startup has quickly gone global
Photo: Mai and Nihal (centre), pictured with the rest of the #SheMeansBusiness team
It’s a common truism that friendship and business don’t mix. It’s also a concept that many established businesspeople promote: a friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
But every now and then, a duo comes along that debunks that popular belief and proves that having a friend by your side when working on a business can be an asset, not a liability. Case in point: Mai Medhat and Nihal Fares.
“She’s very detailed-oriented, and I am not, so she reminds me of things I need to take care of,” Mai told My Salaam. “She’s also very persistent; when I feel like I can’t do something, she has my back.”
Nihal looked at Mai and nodded in agreement. “She’s the opposite. While I’m detail-oriented, she focuses on the bigger picture. She brings me back to reality. So we complete each other in that sense.”
The Egyptian entrepreneurs are the force behind Eventtus, an event engagement platform and mobile app that helps businesses with ticketing, event planning and networking. While Eventtus has been gaining traction over the past few years, it was in mid-2016 that the brand was really thrown into the spotlight.
“I saw a video on Facebook featuring President Obama inviting entrepreneurs from around the world to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Silicon Valley,” Mai explained. “I had wanted to attend in the past but could never make it. I decided to apply this [time].”
Mai soon forgot about the application and carried on with her day-to-day work life. Months later, she received an email inviting her to the event.
“I received an email from the domain ‘whitehouse.com’ saying they wanted to meet. I forwarded the email to Nihal telling her it must be a joke, but she encouraged me to reply. It turns out they wanted to know about the company and what we do.”
When Mai went to meet with the event’s organisers, she was introduced to a PR representative for Mark Zuckerberg. “I had no idea he was going to be at the event!” Mai exclaimed. “We had a 10–15 minute chat, and then they asked: ‘Would you be interested in going on stage with Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama?’ And I was like, ‘What? Let me check my calendar!’”
Once she was over the initial shock, she got on the phone to Nihal. “I think at the beginning she didn’t really believe me.”
EVENTTUS ON THE MAP
Since Mai’s appearance, the brand started by two Muslim women from a country with limited support for entrepreneurs has gone on to establish itself as a globally recognised app to be reckoned with.
“[Meeting President Obama] was a great achievement, but for Eventtus itself, I feel the real achievement is building our client base and the testimonials we get from the customers,” Mai said. “We built something that competes on a global level. And it’s not because Mai met Obama; it’s because we have a solid platform that we actually managed to build something.”
Mai and Nihal, now 29 and 30, respectively, initially met at Ain Shams University in Cairo, where they were both studying computer engineering. “We became friends during the second year, and we’ve been friends ever since,” said Nihal. “After finishing, we tried to bring our graduation project to life, but we failed because we didn’t know a lot about how business worked.”
Photo: Pictured second from right, Mai Medhat during the #SheMeansBusiness event
Opting instead for full-time jobs, their ‘eureka’ moment came in 2011 during Startup Weekend, and idea for Eventtus was born. Armed with nothing but savings, family support and advice from mentors, Mai and Nihal got working on the concept and the app was launched in 2012. A year later, they set up a second office in Dubai.
“We were bootstrapping; we spent all our savings!” Nihal continued. “When we started, there were no accelerators or investors in Egypt. Even later, when we [were] approached by investors, we decided to launch the product first, get at least one paying customer, and then go to investors. We wanted to have a product that was working and selling.”
In 2013, they secured their first round of funding, reported to be EGP 1.2 million, from Vodafone Ventures Egypt and Cairo Angels, followed by a second round from Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP).
So where are they now? “We have our sales and customer office here in Dubai, and 90 per cent of our clients from are from outside Egypt,” Mai said. “But all our operations and development—the brain of the company—is still in Egypt.”
Now with a team of 25, Eventtus is firmly focused on expanding its client base. “We want to dominate the events space; we have done well in the last year, almost tripling our customer base, and now we want to get every single conference or exhibition in Dubai and the region,” Mai said. “Then we will start thinking about global expansion and our next physical presence by the end of the year.”
But their journey to success has not been easy. In fact, clients initially refused to take them seriously. “Whenever we would go and pitch something, I could tell clients are looking at me thinking: ‘You built it? You're the CEO?’” Mai said. “At the beginning, I used to feel disrespected by this, and I started to feel embarrassed and not want to go to sales meetings, but I learned that I had to overcome this.”
“As an entrepreneur, you have to learn to create your own way to overcome challenges. At the end of the day, if your product is good enough, it will speak for itself.”
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Rachel McArthur