By: Ingy ElSafy

Cairo Mubasher: When asked about his advice to the youth who want to establish their own business and startups, the Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris said, during the RiseUp Summit 2019 that was on 5-7 December at the American University in Cairo (AUC) – New Cairo:

Patience & Persistence; youth start a project or a business, then after a year or so, they no longer feel interested in it and they shut it down. Afterwards, they launch another project of which they get bored in six months and believe that they won’t succeed, so they consider a new project, and same scenario repeats itself. Projects require time.

Don’t listen to older people; when the youth seek advice, the adviser mention what they themselves could have done when they first started their business and, yet, most of you are better than the adviser.

Filter what you hear; listen to what you are being told and filter the advice; however, not listening to people at all is wrong. A person can tell you information, not advice, amid a conversation that you can benefit from.

Work within a team; an entrepreneur can team up with a couple of other people without the necessity of being the “big commandant” and the rest are lower than him in work. Old stereotypes are over, the concept of the teamwork nowadays is almost better.

El Gouna Startup Hub

Speaking on the last day of the event, Samih Sawiris, told the crowd that “The CEO of Orascom, Khaled Bishara, has startups -just like you- and he asked me not to forget mentioning that we have a startup hub in El Gouna and we are welcoming everybody” to come and open their business.

“For me, this has been the best addition in the past few years as we are trying to make El Gouna a real city in which people can find everything, doctors, engineers, factories, hotels, universities and different activities.”

It is worth noting that during the event, Samih Sawiris commented on the latest acquisition news that went viral on media.