From getting hacked to getting VC funding — a startup story

I have been asked that question from a friend of mine and I really couldn’t answer it in short conversation, the journey is full of ups and downs.

It started back 10 years ago in 2010, I was a team leader in a small software house, we were building websites and applications for customers.

One day I wake up in a phone call from my manager that one of our websites has been HACKED. I jumped out of my bed and opened my laptop … yes, its hacked.

It was a nightmare, I didn’t know where to start and almost lost my job back then. The short story that a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the website allowed him to log into the admin panel and take control of the website.

I was devastated but I decided that I need to learn more about security .. being a developer without know how to secure your code is not enough.

Two years later I was in good shape and started to work as a security consultant for development companies especially to work for developers to strengthen their codes.

Here we come, in 2016 I decided to quit my job and start a cybersecurity company, my dream was and still to enable developers to write secure code, to not face a disaster as I faced before.

Are you crazy? That what I heard from everyone at my friends, colleagues, starting a security company .. in the MENA region .. in Egypt ! and not a security service it’s a Product, a high technical product.

I admit it scary for me too, the economic situation and currency devaluation pushed a lot of talents to leave the country and work abroad. and the remaining is afraid to work for a startup.

Luckily, I found 2 co-founders who were my colleagues from my last company. and we incorporated the company in Delaware, US. to implement credit card processing via Stripe ( Thank you Stripe Atlas ❤️ ).

After days and days of a sleepless night, we have now a minimum product we can sell, we launched but no one came 😥

Ok, Let us discover channels to market the product. We listed the product in the beta testing website like beta list also submitted in Reddit, FB groups, Twitter .. everywhere

After a lot of hassle to get the words out, we got some users, and one day I opened my email to find confirmation about the first paid user 🥳

From getting the first traction to first paid user, to be accepted in Cylon accelerator in London Yay 🕺🕺 (After a lot of rejections from local accelerators).

But, We couldn’t get the UK visa (rejected two times). and Cylon opportunity disappeared 💔

And if that wasn’t enough, my two co-founders decided to leave. There is no much money in the company back then, and churn was very high.

There weren’t any lights at the end of the tunnel.

But I felt the spark again inside me, I must not ever give up. I need to push it further.

We changed the core product to focus more on finding vulnerabilities inside the developer code.

That’s the original goal, help developers to write more secure code.
We also decided to focus on companies that have it’s own dev team in-house.

But i need money to continue ….

I pitched the company to 50+ VCs & Angels and believe me that is a big number here in Egypt especially if you know that the total number of active VCs in Egypt was lower than 20 VCs, and nearly no active angel.

And the answer was ( No, We need some traction, We need a lot of traction, You are a solo founder now, Do you think you can build this technology ?!! )

My last pitch was to Arzan Capital, and I was very lucky because the venture partner is an entrepreneur, he co-founded Jeeran one of the first internet portal in the MENA region.

And guess what he is a developer by heart and he still writes code till now.

He was very interested in our product and after a couple of tough meetings they decided to invest. 🎉🎉

That was it, I expanded my team to include some crazy developers and security engineers like me, Who believe we can build that thing.

After a couple of months, we got more traction and we got into 500 startups accelerator program, the first in the MENA region. It was a life-changing experience interacting with well-experienced mentors coming from Silicon Valley.

We refined our Idea, our technology.

And now I’m happy to announce our product, Shieldfy — Your virtual security assistant.

Shieldfy assistant will analyze your code to understand its flow and monitor your code changes to detect vulnerabilities and security issues before it hits the production.

Now I believe more than ever that we will never stop until we empower every developer on the earth and no more vulnerable code will ever put companies and developers at risk.

We just getting started 💪

Stay safe, stay secure