This Entrepreneur Went From Pro Basketball Player To Building A Business With 5,000 Employees
Idriss Al Rifai is helping us leap into a future where eCommerce businesses can serve everyone, and everyone can benefit from online shopping from their phones. His startup is well on the way to connecting four billion people who have been left sidelined by big industry incumbents and the old status quo. We got together for an episode of the Dealmakers Podcast. Al Rifai shared with our listeners how his time in the special forces prepared him for founding a startup, his thoughts on who to hire first, what the future of eCommerce looks like, and what’s different about launching a business in Dubai versus the USA.
Idriss Al Rifai is helping us leap into a future where eCommerce businesses can serve everyone, and everyone can benefit from online shopping from their phones.
His startup is well on the way to connecting four billion people who have been left sidelined by big industry incumbents and the old status quo.
We got together for an episode of the DealMakers Podcast. Al Rifai shared with our listeners how his time in the special forces prepared him for founding a startup, his thoughts on who to hire first, what the future of eCommerce looks like, and what’s different about launching a business in Dubai versus the USA.
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Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.
Here is the content that we will cover in this post. Let’s get started.
- 1. Survival & Team Sports
- 2. The Key Ingredients To Compelling Storytelling
- 3. The Gym For Entrepreneurs
- 4. The Crazy Ones
- 5. Early Stage Hiring
- 6. Fetchr
Survival & Team Sports
Al Rifai is a former pro basketball player and special forces operative.
He was born in Iraq, and moved to France when he was just three years old. In the special forces, he was deployed to 13 countries in just three years.
Unlike the movies, he says his intelligence work was basically being sent to random places, in the middle of conflict, with 20 bodyguards, and being tasked with talking to 10 people a day. You have no comforts. You don’t sleep or eat much. It is a lot of just surviving on the journey, amidst a lot of uncertainty. Yet, you have a patchwork of people you have to lead and empower.
Sounds just like being a startup founder, right?
Al Rifai was also a pro basketball player but found he spent too much time on the bench versus on center court. When he didn’t see making it into the EuroLeague or NBA happening, he decided he needed to find something else to pursue.
So, he went to do his MBA and moved to Dubai to do consulting.
The Key Ingredients To Compelling Storytelling
Consulting gives you skills in engineering. It is your way to break down big problems into small parts and championing those one at a time. However, Al Rifai says one of his biggest takeaways from that experience was storytelling.
It’s a skill you need at every stage of a startup. You have to use it to find your cofounder, investors, customers, and employees.
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