Mo Hikal

Designer//Engineer — Serial Founder — Re-engineering product & self

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

#NewProfilePic 🙄😁

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

Me years ago: "I refuse to waste my life working 8 hours a day for a company. I want freedom." 😤

​Me now: Works 16 hours a day, weekends, and holidays on my own startup.

​The math isn't mathing. But I’m never going back.
#ceo #Founder

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

Noise happens by default. Clarity is a fight you have to win every day.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

I turned 33 this year. As a designer obsessed with symmetry and repeating numbers, I decided this is the year for a total system reboot.

The Diagnostic: I’ve been running my "hardware" (body) into the ground. Working 18-hour days. Loving the build, but neglecting the vessel.

Current Stats: Weight: 150 kg (330 lbs). Startup Users: 0.

The New Algorithm:I am setting a new KPI for my life. A perfect inverse correlation:

As the weight goes DOWN to 99 kg (218 lbs) 📉 The user count must go UP 📈

If the number on the scale drops, I am winning. If the number of users grows, I am winning.

I am re-engineering the product and the person at the same time.

Watch the numbers flip.
#BuildingInPublic #Health #SaaS

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

I am a Designer/Engineer.

To me, they are the same thing. Design is "How it works." Engineering is "How it holds together."

If you separate them, you get pretty products that break, or ugly products that work but no one uses.

The magic happens in the intersection.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

That MVP turned into "Banzinty," a platform that ran for years and expanded into retail and loyalty.

The lesson? Constraints are a superpower.

If we had 6 months, we would have over-engineered it. Because we had 5 days, we built exactly what mattered.

Perfection is the enemy of execution. Ship it.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

I once received a phone call that every founder dreads yet secretly craves.

"Mo, we are in trouble. The previous vendor failed. We have a national launch event with Ministers in 5 days. We have no code. No design. Can you save this?"

The project: A digital payment app for the National Oil Company. The timeline: 120 hours.

Most said impossible. I said: Lock the doors.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

For 4 days, we lived in that room. Coffee, code, and adrenaline.

On Day 5, I stood backstage at the event. The Minister tapped the screen.

It worked. The transaction went through. The pump opened.

The relief was physical.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

Stop building features. Start removing friction.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

We are drowning in tools that promise to save us time, yet we have never been more busy.

I audited my time last week. 40% was spent just managing the software that is supposed to manage my work.

Updating Jira. Checking Slack. Cleaning up Notion. Organizing Figma layers.

That is not work. That is administrative overhead disguised as productivity.

We have confused "activity" with "progress."

Real work happens in deep silence, not in a noisy notification feed.

I am slowly deleting every tool that requires me to work for it, instead of it working for me.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

The result? We built fast. We scaled. And we exited.

The difference wasn't me. I was the same Mo. The difference was Alignment.

If you are in a partnership right now that feels like a bear market, stop opening new positions. Set your stop loss.

And for your next venture, agree on the breakup before you agree on the startup.

Don't pay the tuition I paid. It’s too expensive.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

I want to make a confession.

I’ve founded 4 companies in the last 12 years. Two crashed and burned. One exited successfully. And I’m currently building the fourth.

But here is the embarrassing part. The part that proves I was an absolute idiot.

The two companies that failed? They were with the exact same partner.

Yes. I failed once. Then I looked at the wreckage and said, "Let's do it again with the same setup."

That is the definition of insanity.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

Before we agreed on how to split the millions, we agreed on:

How will we fight? How will we fail? How will we separate?

It sounds pessimistic. It was actually liberating.

Because we knew the worst-case scenario, we could run at full speed toward the best-case without fear.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

@garrytan We both know builders don't have a 'relax' setting.
​AGI just means we get to skip the boring parts and go straight to the impossible problems. Sign me up for the second option.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

It wasn't millions, but for a teenager in a small town, it was a fortune. It taught me that Skills = Freedom. I didn't start with a business plan. I started with "Play." The best businesses always start as play.

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

At 15, I became a "Founder" without knowing what the word meant.

I was building websites on forums just for fun. I thought it was a game.

Then, a stranger DM'd me: "Can you build one for me? How much?"

I was shocked. "Wait, people pay for this?"

[Mo Hikal @imoawya]

I built it. I got paid.

Eventually, one of my hobby sites became one of the largest forums in the Arab world.

I received an offer to sell it. In today's terms, that was my first "Exit." 😂