Business Growth Talks Podcast
Business Growth Talks is a podcast created and hosted by Mark Hayward. In this episode, Ibrahim talks about how he builds teams, how the family business grew, and how he arrived at search funds and Moonbase Capital.
The conversation traced Ibrahim’s path from his father’s business in Cairo, through INSEAD and McKinsey, back to the family company and its sale to Döhler, then to Stanford, where he discovered search funds, and finally to founding Moonbase Capital. It also covered what makes a good searcher and where Moonbase is headed, and closed with a quick-fire round.
Key takeaways
- Start with a shared plan, then build the team around it. Ibrahim begins with a few-day workshop where the whole team agrees where the company is going and what excites them. That makes it clear what talent is missing, keeps people aligned, and shows who is engaged with the dream.
- Growth isn’t the same as scaling. For Ibrahim, scaling means replicating a proven model in new places. At the family business, growth meant adding products (an orange yields oil, pulp and concentrates), new lines and a new ERP system. After the food business was sold to Döhler, he and his brother ran it as Döhler Egypt and took it to 600 employees in six years, with banks and hiring both easier under a multinational.
- Stanford was a detour that led to search funds. After the exit he went to Stanford with Silicon Valley and tech in mind, took a search fund course and was hooked. He cites Stanford’s ~33% average IRR over 30 years, then moved back to Europe and built a network of about 40 advisors to support searchers.
- The best searchers lead with vision and humility. A searcher must communicate a vision the team believes in, work one-on-one with people, and keep listening and learning from investors and advisors. Investors can’t predict who will find the best company, so they work closely with searchers and decide on the real investment only once a company is found.
- Quick-fire answers: his best career decision was to keep pushing out of the comfort zone. The best advice he received was from a McKinsey partner: feedback is for you, so don’t negotiate it. He says he has no regrets, and he is proudest of his family.