Member story
“I had many moments sitting in my office thinking "I wish I could just talk through this with someone".”
Majd Alaily
Solo Founder · Fankoosh Studios
Lebanon · 7azarfazar.com ↗ · Dec 2022
The Work
Tell us about what you are currently working on.
I've quit my job in big tech to build the next generation of content brands in the Middle East.
We are a newly launched digital media startup in the Middle East, focused on plugging the major gap that exists in Arabic content today.
Our ambition in Fankoosh Studios is to create a series of niche brands around passionate communities (gaming, cooking, travel, etc.).
Before
Before you learned about GrowthMentor, how did you deal with the challenges you faced?
I'm an avid researcher, and my approach when gathering information has two steps:
(1) going to Google & Youtube, typing out my question, and consuming the first 20 hits I get in each and
(2) specialized books on the topic I'm trying to figure out (hiring, collaboration, design, etc.)
The Decision
What ultimately compelled you to sign up for GrowthMentor?
I heard about GrowthMentor from a fellow founder. When he explained the idea, it immediately clicked: I could have access to people with extensive experience in fields I need help in.
Once I validated what the site was, the profiles that were there and that they could help, it became a no-brainer.
Inside the Platform
What's your favorite thing about GrowthMentor?
As a founder, you are faced with challenges every day.
It's even more intense when you are a solo-preneur and need to figure out everything from product, acquisition, legal and more.
I actually had many moments sitting in my office thinking "I wish I could just talk through this with someone".
As much as reading up and research helps, at the end of the day, talking to someone who knows a topic inside out is completely different.
What I like about GrowthMentor is that it gives me exactly this, the access to experts I can bounce ideas off and learn from.
What topics have you mostly discussed with mentors?
Pretty much everything a solo founder has to figure out at once. How to run and scale our content operation, our UX and sign-up flows, repurposing content for social, community building, and managing a remote team.
The Breakthrough
Is there a specific session/mentor that stands out in your mind as super helpful?
Honestly every session was valuable, so it's tough to single out just one, but a few moved things forward the most. Austin Mullins was brilliant on scaling our content operation, from recruiting to process to quality control. Rob Turlinckx went through our sign-up and user flows in detail and left me with a long list of UX fixes. And Zsuzsanna Ferenczi helped me think through managing a remote team, from culture down to the tactical side.
The Transformation
How has GrowthMentor helped you?
I've only been on GrowthMentor for a couple of weeks, but I can already tell you I have a document full of action items and thought starters from the meetings I've had via the platform.
To name a few, we are currently working on:
a list of UX enhancements to launch after we did user flow walkthroughs with designers on GM,
ideas on how to run our content operation, improve the process, and document our approach after meetings with content experts here,
reusing and recycling our content to build our social media presence, and
how to structure our team management taking into account the remote nature of our team.
The Verdict
What three adjectives would you use to describe GrowthMentor?
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