It’s not about numbers. It’s not about ROI. And it’s more than customers. It’s about impact.

Impact means different things to different people, and it isn’t always easy to measure. Yet across every field, impact is what endures. And nowhere is impact more tangible than in startups, which are driven by purpose, conviction, and resilience. 

Here’s how startup founders in the Middle East define impact:

1) Aaqib Gadit, Founding Partner & Co-Founder, Disrupt.com

When you build ventures that compound each other’s capabilities, scale becomes inevitable. Each venture we power has a founder-led approach in the form of expertise, capital, and leadership, amplifying the unique value-add to support growth for all our ventures. That’s how we engineer compounding effects into company DNA and create an unfair advantage to scale at speed.

2) Dana Love, President, PoobahAI

Across a career spanning enterprise software, AI, and large-scale systems, it has become clear that technology creates the greatest impact when it removes barriers and broadens access. That belief guided our work this year, delivering a clearer, faster, and more attainable path to blockchain innovation. In 2025, the impact for us was scaled by making blockchain creation far more accessible. Instead of limiting innovation to highly technical teams, we focused on empowering founders, creators, and builders to launch real Web3 products in a fraction of the time required.

3) Dr. Moataz BinAli, CEO, Magna AI

In 2025, I learned that scaling impact is ultimately about choosing partners who help you build with precision. Launching Magna AI at GITEX with the combined strength of Trend Micro and Wistron Digital Technology Holding Company (WDH), and powered by next-generation NVIDIA technologies, marked the start of one of the region’s most ambitious AI transformation companies. The clearest lesson this year is that scale happens when people and partners execute with intent, and when that alignment is right, progress becomes tangible, immediate, and deeply meaningful.

4) Emma Goode, Founder, 24 fingers

One lesson I learned about scaling impact in 2025: stop building and start listening. The founders who created lasting impact weren’t the ones launching endlessly-–they were the ones running small tests and watching for signals. Every campaign, product tweak or message was treated as a mini experiment. Growth accelerated when founders paid attention to behaviour, not opinions, and were willing to pivot early rather than defend a plan that wasn’t working. This turned guesswork into direction–and direction into results. Listening at scale became the real growth strategy this year.

5) Fahad Al Turki, CEO & Founder, Green Sand Concepts

The biggest lesson was that scale only works when your foundation is strong enough to carry it. In 2025, I learned that brand mythology, operational excellence, and team alignment must grow in sync. You can’t scale a concept whose identity isn’t crystal clear, or a kitchen whose systems can’t travel. We slowed down where needed; codifying lore, elevating design standards, and empowering teams, so that every new space felt like a natural chapter rather than a copy-paste. Impact isn’t a function of footprint; it’s a function of coherence. When your story, systems, and people lock together, scale becomes a multiplier instead of risk.

6) Hachem Mahfoud, Founder, RBT Collective

In 2025, we proved impact is not created by isolated projects, it’s created by connected systems. “RBT” means “to link” in Arabic, and connection is at the core of our work. 

We define impact as the moment when partners can run the solution themselves, when the system becomes simple, transparent, and part of everyday operations. Impact happens when collaboration turns circularity into infrastructure. This year reinforced that lasting change comes from systems people adopt, maintain, and scale together.

7) Hannan Moti, co-founder, iCodejr 

2025 taught me that meaningful scale comes from going deeper, not wider. We focused on building strong local foundations, trusted B2B partnerships, teacher training systems, and high-quality AI & robotics experiences before expanding globally. That discipline helped us scale from the UAE into India and Europe with confidence. The key lesson: impact multiplies when you obsess over operational excellence at the micro level. Once the engine is tight, scaling becomes a strategic choice, not a gamble. Depth creates durability, and durability is what enables real impact.

8) Kanessa Muluneh, Founder & CEO, MULU

In 2025, I learned that scaling isn’t about headcount, it’s about working with the right talent who can build. For some reason, entrepreneurs always think that the bigger the headcount, the more we can get done. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite, especially in a saturated market. A smaller team with exceptional people will outperform a crowded office every time. An office full of people without clear direction isn’t scaling, it’s chaos. Real competitive advantage comes from the quality your team brings, not the quantity. Sometimes, you have to scale down the energy and the people around you.

9) Mahmoud Abusway, Founder & CEO, Esqyre

Reflecting on 2025, the clearest lesson was that scalable impact emerges not from tighter control but from building systems people trust. Our growth wasn’t the result of adding headcount; it came from strengthening the technology and processes that underpin our operations. By establishing clear, auditable systems and empowering small, focused teams with real autonomy, we were able to enter new verticals with greater speed and precision. In luxury service, sustainable scale is driven by clarity, trust and empowered teams, not micromanagement.

10) Marisa Kamall, Founder, GAIA

In 2025, we scaled by going deeper, not wider. We focused on trust, honest dialogue, and spaces where women could stretch themselves and make braver decisions. That depth created momentum—members accelerated faster, referred others, and pulled our mission into new industries without us forcing scale. The lesson? Organizations often chase reach, but sustainable impact comes from environments where people genuinely grow. Build depth first, and scale becomes a by-product.

11) Martin Popilka, Founder, P1 Energy

In 2025, we learned that the real barrier to scaling clean fuels wasn’t chemistry—it was infrastructure. Centralized refineries are slow, capital-heavy, and impossible to deploy where fuel is needed. So, we turned the refinery itself into a product. We built a modular, quick-to-deploy system that enables local production of 100 per cent fossil-free, drop-in fuels anywhere in the world. By making fuel production repeatable, software-controlled, and location-agnostic, we removed the biggest bottleneck to scale. The lesson is simple: when clean solutions work with existing engines and infrastructure, impact can scale immediately.

12) Mohamed Afifi, Co-Founder, HIFI

In 2025, our biggest lesson was that impact scales fastest when infrastructure fades into the background. At HIFI, we learned that money needs to behave like software: programmable, adaptable, and designed for change. By simplifying the core and making payments, compliance, and treasury composable, our partners could move faster, manage risk in real time, and expand globally without adding operational drag. The takeaway was clear: flexibility is the new efficiency. The organizations that scale impact best are the ones that build systems ready to evolve, not just grow.

13) Michael Jabri-Pickett, Founder & Managing Director, This. Is. Dubai

Have a plan in place, know your target audience, and then be prepared with almost no data and only your instincts to change direction. 

For me, impact is created when the right story meets the right audience at the right moment. It’s that simple and that hard. Our job at TID is to make content that sticks and sparks conversations. We offer a point of view.

14) Mona Faraj, Co-Founder & CEO, ExploreTECH

Scaling impact is not about doing more; it’s about focusing on what truly moves the needle and building with the industry, not for it. By engaging hotel brands, vendors, and partners as co-creators, the platform evolved into a shared solution the community felt ownership of. Impact scales when you open the doors, listen actively, and allow your community to influence the build. Collaboration didn’t just guide our progress—it multiplied it.

15) Muna Mustafa, Co-Founder, SupperClub Middle East

One lesson I learned while scaling impact in 2025 is the importance of preparing every department for growth and still expecting things to break along the way. Even with strong systems and proactive planning, rapid scale brings unpredictable challenges. By accepting this as part of the process, we’ve been able to manage our emotions better, stay solution-focused, and respond rather than react. It’s helped us grow with more resilience, clarity, and calm.

16)  Nesma Amin, CEO & Co-Founder, Aziza

In 2025, our biggest lesson in scaling impact was learning how to stay agile while listening deeply to our users. As a small team, we moved fast, learned quickly, and weren’t afraid to pivot when something wasn’t working. Every drop-off, every confused user, and every piece of feedback became an opportunity to understand our community better—listening, truly listening, revealed insights we could never have predicted from the outside.

17) Nuwaid Pocker, CEO & Founder, Dieture

 For us, scaling impact in 2025 meant creating systems that transform preventive health into a regional, technology-led platform—rather than a local solution.

18) Rami Tabbara, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Stake 

 In 2025, we scaled impact by expanding access to more forms of real estate ownership across new geographies and investment products.

19) Ruairi Tubrid, Founder, HealthStay.io

In 2025, we scaled impact by staying relentlessly focused on the problem we solve and the ROI we deliver to hospitals. Founder-led sales allowed us to stay close to customers, refine the product quickly, and clearly communicate value. We invested heavily in building a strong company brand through consistent LinkedIn presence and thought leadership, which helped open doors organically. We built a lean but highly capable team, rewarded performance, and created a culture of ownership. Being a part of the Hub71 community gave us constant exposure to opportunities, mentors, and partnerships. All of this compounded steadily and sustainably.

20) Sahar Karoubi, Founder, Bambuyu 

As we grew beyond e-commerce, we learned that impact at scale requires listening closely to local insights and adapting quickly. That balance of speed with intention allowed us to grow without diluting our values & DNA. Equally important was the role of community and collaboration. While harder to measure, 2025 reminded us that no business is an island and that progress accelerates when brands and partners work together. Communities like TiE Dubai and TiE Women offered mentorship and perspective as we navigated growth. Ultimately, impactful scale comes from relevance, consistency, and the willingness to evolve alongside your community.

21) Wesley Crook, CEO, FP Block

In 2025, scaling impact meant helping teams cut through noise and focus on what actually drives adoption. Across the projects we supported, the founders who made the biggest leaps were the ones who combined conviction with disciplined execution. They understood their customers deeply, built fast without compromising quality, and avoided being distracted by every new trend or piece of feedback. We saw the impact scale fastest when teams owned their technical foundations and moved with clarity of purpose. The lesson is simple: real progress comes from consistent, focused execution, not from chasing momentum.