Elnahla Who

I’ve spent 20 years building software products, and nearly none of that speaking about it. Part of it was self-doubt; about how far my words will travel, how they will be read, and disliking the optimization game you have to play on LinkedIn.

Today is the day I decide that I will write, the way I want, about what I want, and let the pieces fall wherever the winds slot them.

I have lived 3 lives professionally, and I’ll share how I survived, thrived, and also magnificently failed in each of them.

In my first life, I spent 10 years building a startup in Egypt. Millions of users was the high point, but the journey ended with me flat on my face.

The second life was in the US. I took the ladder from the ground floor as a Product Manager to CPO in 5 years. I got to see venture-backed startups from the inside: how they grow, waste, succeed, and fail. Everything would seem “good” from the outside, but I saw the chaos firsthand, and more importantly, I found little fulfillment.

The third is happening now. I'm back in startup mode, building Perzimo, carrying the scars of a founder and the perspective of years as a Silicon Valley executive.

I think of myself as 3 persons in one, so much of what you will read is going to be from 3 blended domains: the artist in me who wanted to pursue a filmmaking career from the age of 10, the technical person who studied Computer Engineering, and the business person who ran a few businesses.

I won’t be boring, and I won’t write those sanitized feel-good AI-generated stories. It will be raw, emotional, and may occasionally get myself in trouble.