#32-Abdulmajeed Al Sukhan (CEO of Tamara) on why building companies is tougher than fighting cancer

For me, I'm not talking about others, but I think there is a difference between something you know you can't quit mentally. It's tough. You can just quit, go get a job, and enjoy life.

I wake up looking for the toughest challenge out there. I'm that kind of guy who, if I play a game, I will never stop until I win. I want to win, I want to play the game, but then as I grew older, I realized it's a bit too childish to think about just gaming and winning. Entrepreneurship sparked something as I got older that I believed so much in: you wake up every day, you work really hard, you push yourself, but the impact goes way beyond yourself. It's not about you, it's not about your legacy, it's not about what you can do and what you cannot do. The beauty about building is that I don't envy people by the beach. I will go to the beach sometimes, but I will not be at the beach all the time. I love working and I love building things.

Listen, I never sold a lemonade when I was young. Let me be very clear: never had a lemonade stand, never did this, never sold anything to my friends in school. I'm not that kind of guy. I actually didn't like business people, and I still don't like some of them. I was really ideological about it, but that's who he is. He's natural about it. He led me to choose things in life. So when I graduated from school, I did very well because I wanted to do something in my life. I didn't know even what to do. I got accepted into medical school and engineering school, and then I went for computer engineering in the US. I learned immediately I don't want to be an engineer. I actually liked economics. I wanted to understand the bigger things because economics, the beauty about it as a topic, is that it's about what you're good at and impactful. With school, I started reading and meeting people and allowing myself to make different choices. Somehow, don't ask me how, I realized after my master's that I wanted to go into academia too. I had these moments of not knowing what I wanted a lot as a young person, but I was driven. After I finished my master's, I realized I'm not going to be a really good academic, a professor. I would not add value to the field. But one of the things we learned was about types of intelligence, and one of the most neglected types of intelligence is knowing yourself: what you're good at, what you're not good at, and doubling down on what you're good at rather than trying to improve what you're not good at. So I started realizing who I am as I grew up. I realized I see the big picture, I love working hard with people, I love smart people, and I love impact. Somehow, this was the answer: building.

I was not really that when I was young. I just grew to become who I am today. I always tell people who are getting into the workforce: one way to figure out what you want to do in life, because I don't think university prepares you for that, is to try a bunch of different things and figure out what you don't want to do. Through process of elimination, even that data point by itself starts guiding you in the direction of 'this is my calling, this is what I want to do.' This is so underrated. I don't recall being told this when I was young. I think it's very critical that if you find your path, because there is no one path in life, what matters is you figure it out. If you figure it out, you believe it so much that you know it is you, rather than it being chosen by your family or someone else.

The beauty about life is there are so many problems. As an entrepreneur, you need to know what you're about: are you a domain expert and that's what you want to be, or are you a problem solver? I don't think the best entrepreneurs are necessarily domain experts. They could be as they grow into it, but they actually start so out of the box that domain experts would call them crazy. The way I see how you pick whatever you go with is there is a lot of luck involved. The right idea at the right time will come to you. All you have to do is be ready. I had a good idea in food delivery. I was one of the first in the region, but I didn't have the money to fund myself. In Saudi especially, there was no VC whatsoever. I hit a wall, the worst wall ever: you had no safety net, you had nothing. Everybody said, 'We told you, don't quit your job, go back to your job.' Through this, I actually met my co-founder for the next startup. She would say, 'If I didn't do this, I wouldn't meet my second co-founder, and through the second startup, I figured out the business model.' I realized that in the region, grocery stores, especially in Saudi and most developing countries, have what they call 'the book' or 'the ledger.' Once they get to know the customer, they start giving them credit. I was fascinated. I didn't know anything about finance or banking, but I was not necessarily passionate about it. I was passionate about the problem when I saw it. I dug deep and realized this is a much deeper problem than just a grocery issue. It's offered not only by the grocery shop but also by the barber shop, the laundry shop, all the neighborhood shops. The way I prepare myself is to continue reading on an ongoing basis about different businesses and different companies. I still spend my weekends reading the financials of different companies and their annual reports to understand how they do things. You continue to build your knowledge until the opportunity comes, and once it comes, you have to believe 100% in it and go ahead.

Back to intelligence: you've got to know what you're good at. I am good at pain. I know that I can sustain pain for a long time. I think this is very critical for an entrepreneur. If you like comfort, if you like to avoid pain, then entrepreneurship is not for you. I know that I'm good at pain, whether it's shame or whatever that feeling of being under pressure. I learned how to cope with it as I grew older, and I was willing to do everything to make it work. I did my readings before my first startup, and I realized there is no one who made it big that had a plan B. You cannot have a plan B. You have to hit a wall. If you have a plan B, you will take it. It's a mental exercise of handling pain to the extreme where you know you can go through it, figure it out, manage your body, train yourself to handle it. Whether it's failure, shame, bankruptcy, whatever, it's something you can never control. You do your job, then you go to bed. That's what I do: I do my job and then I sleep.

This was before I started my first startup. After I graduated from my master's, I came back to Saudi. I was actually in Dubai when I realized I had it. I was going for my CFA exam at the time. That experience taught me a lot about pain. I was happy, very happy, enjoying my time, going out, chilling, doing nothing. Going through cancer is definitely tough. For me, I think there is a difference between something you know you can quit mentally. It's tough, you can just quit, go get a job, and enjoy life. Most entrepreneurs are very talented; they will get a good job. There is no entrepreneur I've met that is not able to get a good job. So mentally it's very tough. Through that experience, I learned that I can actually be happy even if I don't have things that people think they need to have to be happy. So whatever happens, I can be happy. I have not understood myself, which I think is very critical. The journey to know who you are and why you're doing what you're doing is important. There are people who do it for the money and they make a ton of money, but I don't want to be them. I don't like them. They're not fun people; they're too rigid, they just want to make money. I want to build companies, work with people, and enjoy it. If I do well, we do well together. If I don't do well, I did my job and it is what it is. That understanding of who I am played a critical role in knowing that I will continue to build companies as much as I can.

100%. Listen, I disagree with you that it's a sprint. You need to sprint sometimes, but you need to pace yourself. It's exactly like a marathon. If you actually sprint the whole marathon, you can collapse. So you have to know who you are and build your stamina, just like in sports. Mentally, I'm building my stamina in many ways. You have to be so close to burnout but not in it. It's a fine line that you need to know about yourself. You know when to take time off, cut off completely, and you know when to go at it. For instance, sleep: it's not that I don't have nights that I don't sleep, but most nights I sleep well because some people overthink things they know they cannot control. Naturally, they go into it, and the same thing applies to building companies. It's very important that you have that capacity for control, and that comes from things not related to business, like running and discipline. Thanks to my mom, I'm really good at discipline. She used to take me to the mall when I was young and say, 'You know what, not everything you want you should get.' I grew up with that, so I'm disciplined when it comes to food and so on. Discipline came from my mom. If you are intentional about it, then you become in control of yourself. Many people talk about what they want but can't push themselves. Something is missing, and I think it's because they're not disciplined enough to feel in control. To make sure you're not burning out, you need to be disciplined in many ways. I try to be as disciplined as possible when it comes to knowing that you just let go, take a breath, and focus. One more thing: in my personal experience, I read a lot about entrepreneurs. It's very critical to know as much as possible, read about them, spend time reading about how they do it. If you're disciplined and you do all that and you're good with pain, but you don't know anything about what you're doing, you won't go anywhere. You have to do the work related to your business. You need to make sure you have the best team. If you don't have the best team, something will fall at the end because you have too much on your shoulders.

100%. I actually believe this is a superpower. You have to work on discipline and think about discipline. It's a character, not just work. You cannot just be disciplined at work; you need to take control of who you are as a person and make sure that whatever you do, regardless of what people say, you're good with it. With discipline, you know that whatever you're doing, you're good with it.

For me, we had a strategy workshop. To sustain that tempo, I had to skip and eat only one meal. I realized I could actually have a good day with one meal. After that, I decided to give it a try and go for one meal a day, which I had heard about but thought was crazy. Nobody can live with one meal, but we do in Ramadan. But people eat a lot in Ramadan; that's not one meal, my friend. So I realized this is actually doable. It's all about discipline. I eat ice cream every night as a reward because I'm keeping my calories exactly where I need them, but I'm being disciplined during the day and fully focused. That was a shock to me. I learned that it's possible to be so in control that you can do something you thought completely insane. If I tell most people, they say you can't have energy, but they're absolutely wrong. I didn't know before that people can live without food for 60 days. This impacts all areas of your life. My focus, as a CEO managing more than 600 people, it's a tough day every day. You have to be focused, be in the moment, be able to listen. You need energy, and your digestive system requires a lot of energy if you eat. So I rather have it shut down; my blood is all in my brain, I'm fully focused during the day.

Yeah, roughly. But I think the story of Tamara is a story of a startup that happened at the right time. Thanks to the amazing transformation that we all feel in the region with Saudi leadership, the market has transformed significantly. Not only funding, but also culture. There was no culture of startups, hard work. It was just have a nice good job and then take a good summer. That's how it felt. But now it's the complete opposite, from funding to culture. We were ready with the right leadership. We developed what we were ready to do, which is a positive note for the region: we have the talent, we have the people. Now funding is available. Money looks for return. If you have a great company with a great business opportunity, as of today, the region has enough money to fund you. Of course, Tamara is an exceptional case. I don't think every startup can raise that much. But the funding environment today, the culture we have, and the amount of talent we have, is definitely way better than when I started my first company. If these three things exist—talent, culture, and capital—you can build a great startup.

I think, as we agreed, there are multiple ways to do it. I don't think you need to fundraise to get things done. But there are certain industries where you have no choice but to fundraise because if you don't, you won't have the capital to serve the customer. If you're building a SaaS, for instance, you might not need to fundraise if you have enough capital yourself, friends and family, bootstrap, get revenue, and build it in your own way. But if you're building a fintech or something that requires capital, you have to fundraise. Never think about capital as an achievement. I refuse to celebrate raising money. Even in the team, I personally don't celebrate rounds. They are not achievements in themselves; they are recognition, no doubt. But as an entrepreneur, you should not think about them. Make sure your focus is on the customer, on the numbers, on actually progressing. Money will come. In the meantime, you have to make sure you're actually selling. If you're a founder that needs capital, you have to sell your vision, especially if you need capital given the competitive landscape or the business model.

When I was young, I was naive. I thought there's nothing called luck; you get what you deserve. Then I grew up and realized the number one factor in a company's success is timing, 100%. That's a lot of luck. It's not purely luck, but it's a lot of luck. Even Steve Jobs said it very eloquently: 'Those who make the most in technology are those who don't create a cycle but actually catch a cycle right at the beginning.' Those who create a cycle die. So it's my favorite question in interviews. It's a very cliché question: work hard, work smart. But a lot of people think working smart is enough. It is not. Work hard, work smart, get lucky. I absolutely believe it. I'm lucky to be born in Saudi, lucky to be who I am in this family. I'm lucky in many ways that I didn't choose. We don't choose a lot of things. But once you know that this factor is critical, you appreciate it more and you attract it. I believe I'm lucky. Is it possible without hard work? No. But it's a requirement as well. You have to do all that and you have to get lucky.

100%. To what you said, when you think about it, if you believe you're lucky and you believe in luck, you become positive. People are attracted to positive people. If you say, 'Oh, we're not going to make it,' you're in the wrong place. But if you tell people, 'We're going to make it,' and you get lucky and you make it because they stick with you, or you meet people, you have to be positive. You have to make sure people around you feel that energy. If you're negative, people around you will feel it, and it will not work for you.

Thank you for having me.