INTERVIEWER: MAHMOUD MANSI
EDITED BY: NADA ZEYADA
“Our success is based on our different point of views, which allows us to see the bigger picture and satisfy a larger audience.”
About Nutellopia: “The first Nutella Bar in Alexandria. We serve the most delightful and delicious desserts using only the best topping, Nutella!”
THE INTERVIEW
1-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Were you inspired or forced to make your own private business? What was your motive behind it when you already have a well-established career?
Sherif El Medany: Well first of all, we can say it was a mix and match between inspired and forced *grins*. I was inspired to do my own project as I always loved the idea of project management and of creating something new, something that would drive my passion and love for business. At the same time, I was forced to make this private business as after working for 3 years in the corporate environment, I was always touched by a quote saying: “If you don’t take risks you will always work for someone who did.”
So my main motive was my passion for making something new, and the challenge of turning a dream into reality.
My well-established career had a major role in helping me develop this business from the expertise I acquired from it.
2- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Did you previous experience in the food industry? How did you learn about this industry before launching Nutellopia?
Sherif El Medany: No, I had no experience in the food industry before, but I always believed in the idea that it’s never too late to learn something new. This belief was inspired from a friend I met in the USA, whom I found working as a car driver in New York. When we got to talk I found out that he was a well-established man who made a fortune from launching a series of restaurants which are still running until today. And when I asked him, “Why are you working on a limo?” He said that he loves to meet new people every day who are inspiring him and whom he had learnt from a lot.
So, my first steps were to start learning about cooking desserts and making a lot of trials. Eventually, most of them ended with a big explosion in the kitchen or a ruined cake *grins*. After this, came the step of mastering our products and designing them which was the responsibility of Aly Fayed, my partner, and whoever visited our store could say that he did a really good job in his task.Our team consisted of 7 partners; each of them was responsible for gathering information about the industry so we can be able to compete properly when first launching the business. It was one hell of a ride but I guess we succeeded in making it happen.
3- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: On what basis did you choose your team of co-founders and investors? What were the criteria?
Sherif El Medany: As I was saying before the team is formed of 7 co-founders each of them had a talent which made the choice really easy.
Aly Fayed: The enthusiastic person who doesn’t eat Nutella, which was really healthy for our business to see things from another perspective, also he helped a lot through his strong contact list and planning skills.
Mohanad El Gohary: The chill out person who is always keen on making decisions slowly but properly.
Doha Mourad: The young lady whom the business needed to add her girly touch. She was still in high school when she partnered with us, but with strong cooking skills, which was a strong added value to our business and a role model for every girl who can chase her dream at a very young age.
Ahmed Dowidar: The designer and branding specialist who made it easy for us to design anything we wanted in the place, starting from the packaging and ending with our visual designs.
Mohamed Samy: The energetic accountant who always had a different theory which most of the time proved to be right.
Karim Hegazy: The sweet talker, who has social skills and different perspective of the business and how to manage it in an easy way. He proved the theory of Bill Gates right: “I’ll always choose a lazy person to do the job because he will always find the easiest way to perform it.”
I guess this sums up how we all got together to make a team.
4- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: After you created the idea of the project and after you chose the partners, what was your first decision?
Sherif El Medany: Our first decision was to measure how willing we were to sacrifice for the sustainability of the business, and how long we were willing to stand by its side.
So our next decision was that we will work with ourselves until we learn every single thing about the business so we can better remotely manage it when needed. Whoever pays us a visit, will find always one of the founders on his way to greet him or her.
5- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: How did you start the recruitment process from A to Z?
Sherif El Medany: The recruitment process had many factors. The most important ones were the personal skills like the ability to talk with the customers and the technical skills in operating the space. We had a tough training period but it all ended up well. The middle-management recruitment was the hardest, as we needed to make them adapt to the system we were implementing and fill out the gaps that were being made.
We first had to go through a zillion interviews. Our questions were related to the business to assess their skills. We faced a tough situation at first at the opening stage that some of the approved workers did not show up and we had to fill the gaps ourselves, then we went through a filtration process when we had a full staff to reach the ultimate efficiency of the staff employed.
6- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: How did you filter the CVs? And what is your criticism regarding the quality of the CVs you received?
Sherif El Medany: Unfortunately many Egyptians do not know how to make a CV, at least the ones we filtered, as we found out hilarious stuff written in them. Many were written unprofessionally that even if the person is well-qualified, the CV is not in their favor. Eventually, we had to ignore the CVs and filter people by actually trying them; like giving them a grace period for a couple of days to prove they are hard workers, that they could add value under a strong supervision, and seeing how they would deal with different situations. If they manage to stay strong, they will get accepted.
7- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: The products of Nutellopia have very special standards. Do you have a Research and Development Department that is responsible for developing your recipes? Or is it the creativity of your chefs?
Sherif El Medany: Yes, we do have some sort of a Research and Development Department which is operated by me and Doha. Our goal is to always improve our products and develop new recipes to continuously innovate and serve new ideas to the audience to keep on the fast pace of the competing market we are in. In addition, we seek to guarantee our leadership of this market that serves products that no one has seen in Egypt before.
8- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: From your point of view, what are the specifications and qualities of a professional chef, and how to test these qualities through an interview?
Sherif El Medany: Our main concern and quality is commitment. As I said before, the kitchen is being operated by the owners to always guarantee the best quality served to the audience. Accordingly, the professional chef, from our point of view, should be able to be creative and flexible enough to adapt to our ongoing development process. This specific quality is easy to detect in the chefs at the interview. Specifically at a flexible place like ours which offers Chocolate Shawerma, which is first of its kind, as well as Magic Jars, Nutella Molten Cake and our exotic breakfast, all of which are new to the market. It is impossible to find someone who knows how to make them by experience.
9- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Aside from the obvious success principles of Nutellopia, what are the internal reasons of your success together as a team?
Sherif El Medany: Our success is based on one major thing which is our “differences”. Some other people would say that success comes when they all think alike. From my own point of view, our success is based on our different points of view, which allows us to see the bigger picture and satisfy a larger audience.
Another factor would be the ability of the team to get up after a strong fall, a quality that is hard to find in some other teams.So, passion towards the business would be the perfect answer as we all share the same passion.
10- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Are you outsourcing your social media and marketing campaigns? Why?
Sherif El Medany: The answer would be 50% yes and 50% no. We do outsource with social media agencies but with our ideas. All the partners had previous experience in travelling and following the foreign and exotic ideas, so we try to introduce new marketing ideas to the Egyptian market like giveaways, festivals and professional videos,which are all made by us; specifically, our creative partner Ahmed Dowidar, who also works as a lecturer in the university. So, yes we do outsource, but no we make it our own way to a creative extent.
11- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Does your employer know about your private business? Did this create any conflict? Does this affect you in your career in a positive or negative way?
Sherif El Medany: No, none of the employers know about our private business, but no conflicts were created as all the team is able to provide professional work at both careers without any shortage in performing their tasks.
My own opinion would be that all of us have been affected in a positive way in our careers as we learned a lot from Nutellopia, because not less than 10 years of experience have been provided in this project. Therefore, all the co-founders have a wider view of business now and can both positively affect their career and employer, and can also provide an expansion for Nutellopia.
12- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: In your day job you work as a financial auditor. What is your opinion about HR in Egypt in general from an auditor’s perspective? And what sort of advice would you pass to HR professionals?
Sherif El Medany: My own advice would be that HR in Egypt are so bookish and traditional, most of the recruiters search for qualities in a person and do not think about developing creative minds. They only search for people who are able to perform donkey-work. On the other hand, all of the HR departments in all developed countries search for the creative youth and give them space to create and add value to the organization. Take Google for example and see how they recruit people. You will find out that this is their main reason for success. So my advice is to start giving space to their new hires, and allow them to add values to their organizations, not just teach them simple steps to work in a bookish environment, which is a great hindrance to Egypt’s economy.
13-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: In Nutellopia, how do you audit the responsibilities of each of your employees? And how do you audit the quality of your products?
Sherif El Medany: We do have an audit system for each and every function. The idea of an audit is to set up controls to allow people to monitor each other to reach transparency and make it harder for anyone to break the chain or the system. So, for example, we have someone who closes the financial closing at night, then the manager oversees his work and ensures his accuracy, and then my turn comes to compare this data with the system that we use and do my analytics along with the inventory count to ensure that the data I got was reliable. So, this control could help the financial process be more firm and strict. For Aly, he does a product count on a daily basis and then sends me his data from a separate point of view, which I then compare to the system to ensure that accuracy was obtained. So overseeing and audit could always help a system to improve the controls and facilitate the work done, and to efficiently manage your resources without wasting any of them.
14- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: If someone from the readers is willing to start their own business. What would be your advice for them?
Sherif El Medany: “If you do not take risks you will always work for someone who did.”
But actually it’s not only about risk. There are several factors that I would like to advise people about:
1- Always be different. People who imitate are not authentic.
2- Do the opposite of everything you hate about your job. For example, if you are tightened to certain working hours, try to give your employees a flexible working environment. You will find out that they will work harder, smarter and more efficiently.
3- Be nice to your employees. Treat them like team members and always use their ideas and also appreciation is always the key.
4- Be a smart planner, and even a smarter implementer.
5- Serve people in the best way you would like to be served. This is the key to success, so you have to work yourself in your business until you are able to make all your team with the same professionalism.
6- Always start a business with a team, not alone. Your team will always have diversified opinions, which is always healthy to the business.
7- Be creative.
8- Do not forget number 7.
9- Be a risk-taker.
10- Always keep on training, improving your skills, your team, and your employees.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Mr. Sherif, thank you for being so generous with us in the interview. I am sure the readers will have a lot to learn from Nutellopia as a one of a kind case-study.
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