Khaled's talk in RiseUp Summit 2021 on learned lessons on scaling tech companies in the MENA region

1. Scaling Tech Companies

2. Khaled Rashad
CTO @ talabat
2007 2012 2017 2019

3. Lead across 9 markets
Win groceries & q-commerce
Build an ecosystem
Handle the scale
Transform the culture
Scale the team
We had a dream!

4. tech @ talabat
Create breakthroughs for customers,
partners, & stakeholders
Meaningful work & joyful environment
Continuously learn & improve
Support the ecosystem

5. Cairo & Dubai Tech Hubs
300 people from 50 countries

6. The Scale
400K+
RPM
130+
Services
2.8 TB
per week
4+ Million
Sessions

7. Startup Phases &
Challenges

8. Be aware of inflection points, prepare!

9. Startup phases
Validate Build Scale
Explore Expand

10. 1. Explore (Problem/Solution Fit)
Team
Just the founders
Technology
Don’t build; Hack it!
No MVP
Customer interviews
Tech discovery & feasibility

11. 2. Validate (Product/Market Fit)
Team
3-5 engineers
OK to outsource, but be
careful!
Recommended to have a
Tech Advisor
Technology
Early investments in good
tech practices will pay off
You will have to make
shortcuts; don’t panic

12. 3. Build (Full Product + Growth)
Technology
Slow down a bit
Invest in the fundamentals:
code quality, automation,
continuous refactoring,
CICD, etc.
Don’t over engineer. Please!
Team
10-15 engineers
Hire a tech lead (hands on)
Hire 1-2 seasoned engineers
Don’t outsource

13. 4. Scale
Team
30-70 engineers
Fully fledged tech
leadership (tech & people)
Focus on people processes,
define your culture
Build foundation teams
(SRE, data, security)
Technology
Eliminate single point of
failures; Horizontal scaling
Evolve tech practices
Full DevOps culture / SRE
Machine Learning & Algo

14. Very strong People Partner (HR)
How to hire?
How to onboard people?
How to grow people?
How to promote?
How to engage?
How to transition out?
Secret: Agile coaches can make great people partners!

15. Why is this small change taking
so much time?

18. 5. Expand (Multiple Products)
Team
70+ engineers
Competing priorities
Organizational complexities
Seasoned leaders with
organizational experience
Technology
System complexity
Platformize your tech
Empower team agility

19. Outcome
Team size
If you don’t handle complexities

20. Let’s start a
new
initiative

21. Identity
Database
API Gateway
Auth
Service
Order
Database
Order
Service
Vendor
Database
Vendor
Service Refactor
System Organization
Both need to be highly cohesive, loosely coupled

22. Not enough senior talent,
what to do?

23. “I'm not a great programmer; I'm
just a good programmer with
great habits.” Kent Beck

24. 1% better every week, in 2 years:
1.01 104
= 2.8x

25. If you don’t know where
to start, checkout
eXtreme Programming.

26. Katas
Pair/Mob programming
Knowledge sharing
Mentorship
Continuous feedback
Build a learning
community

27. Final thought!

28. Thank you!
/khaledrashad
@kgrashad