Lessons Learned from Mena’s Biggest Exit the Case of Talabat and Formation of Entrepreneurial Model to Spot the Barrier to Growth and out of Valley of Death

Abstract

Successful entrepreneurial start-ups follow somewhat similar pathways towards an entrepreneurial/corporate development and eventually an exit, where investors as well as founders are handsomely rewarded for their contribution by investors who purchase the company or float it in an Initial Public Offering at the financial markets. In this paper, we will explore and combine three different pathways for entrepreneurial companies towards corporation growth: 12 steps in value creation and corporate development, 6 steps in financing and 4 stages in knowledge creation. An attempt is made to combine and simplify the existing models with the purpose of identifying entrepreneurial barriers to growth and suggesting solutions. Furthermore, these models are tested and validated by so called “deep” qualitative interviews of 6 Kuwaiti entrepreneurs who are operating their own startups in Kuwait. The result is a Kuwaiti model for entrepreneurial pathways, pinpointing barriers to growth and ways out of the “Valley of Death” towards rapid corporate growth and entrepreneurial succession.