Growing A Start-Up: The Lessons Learned

In this Q&A Gary Knight, CEO of UK-based WOLF, discusses how he successfully launched an app to the Middle Eastern market – during the pandemic – and amassed over three million users.

Rewind three years. The world was about to enter a global pandemic where parts of the world would close for business and travel would be grounded. Without knowing how the lockdowns would pan out and change consumer behaviour, you’d be right to suggest launching a tech brand for the Arabic-speaking world, from our HQ in London, came with risk.

However, we took the risk and it turned out better than we could ever have imagined. In three years WOLF has seen huge growth, attracting more than three million users in the MENA region since launch, which was beyond expectations.

Here are the key questions to ask when growing a start-up:

1. How have you embraced agility?

It’s easy to think I’d say this because we had no choice but to be agile – however, that isn’t the case. This is a particularly crucial part of being successful for brands who operate in the tech sector. Technological advances develop at pace so tech brands must be able to react quickly and adapt their product or service in line with these changes. Every development we experience in this sector shapes a consumer’s needs and expectations so the demand changes.

I suspect it’s the same for other sectors that are particularly competitive. Financial services for example. As new players enter the market, brands need to be able to react and re-evaluate what their point of difference is that drives value to the consumer.

2. Why is it so important to understand your market?

Rather than trying to convince your market what they need, ask them what they want. Sounds so simple but you’d be amazed at how many businesses forget that.

Look at how your customers engage with your brand and service and react to what you see. You have an audience there that are already engaged with your brand, so if you can offer them even more, they’ll stay with you and help you grow your revenue.  Ask them what it is you need to know about your brand, because they hold the intel.

It’s important to understand that customer feedback will always play a vital role within a start-up business, so never stop asking. It isn’t just for the first year – it’s something that should always be considered. And ask the tough questions too; don’t just ask the things you want to hear.

3. What are the key challenges of expanding?

Every business is sometimes guilty of focusing purely on the numbers but much more insight into growth areas can be garnered from qualitative feedback from your target audience.

Numbers can be great to paint a general story of course, but analytics alone can be misleading and encourage poor decision-making.  Ultimately, they lead to an assumption – ‘sales were high because of that’ – so unless you ask the right questions to the right people it’s all just speculation.

Be led by your metrics and KPIs, but to truly understand the opportunities and decipher fact from assumption, base growth decisions on the fusion of numbers and real feedback to find the “why”.

4. Why do businesses need to look internationally for talent?

One of the biggest challenges that businesses have been experiencing for some time now is recruitment. At WOLF, we experienced those challenges first-hand when we looked to recruit software engineers, where demand in the UK had rocketed and there weren’t always enough talent to fulfil the vacancies. Brexit had already made it difficult for development talents to move across borders into the UK, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a further loss of resource as Ukrainian talent had to leave the UK for war.

To overcome the challenges, we looked beyond Europe. We turned our attention to the Middle East where we were operating because it was our core consumer market. It made sense for us to recruit our talent there. In doing so, we have learned valuable lessons for international recruitment – tax entities, language barriers, training, health and safety, law – there is lots to understand but it’s worth it. To grow a start-up, sometimes you must think differently in light of challenges.

5. How will your experiences shape you for the better?

We succeed by listening to and collaborating with our users. We invest in understanding what they want. We consistently audit our ‘product-market fit’ and make sure what we as a business are offering meets the needs and wants of our users. Regardless of industry, product or service, this is key to growing and scaling a business.

It is this approach that informed the launch of WOLF Qanawat, the latest refinement of our offering. New technologies now enable tens of thousands of users to interact together in real time, while enjoying audio events on WOLF’s unique stages inside its Channels. No other app in the Arab world combines quality audio broadcast, live chat and entertaining content creation communities like WOLF Qanawat.

It’s an incredibly exciting time for WOLF and the growth we have seen so far is only just beginning. Focus on that deep knowledge of your audience and their evolving needs and see the difference it can make to you too!