Yousef Galal is introduced as the co-founder and head of technology at Clickit, a fintech platform for educational institutions. He discusses his background, starting the business after college, and the lessons learned from building a successful organization. He talks about his sports background and accidentally starting the company after winning an entrepreneurship competition with his co-founders.

The initial competition-winning idea was an integrated platform for events on Facebook. However, feedback from professors led them to evolve into a standalone platform focusing on recurring payments. They initially tried to cater to various industries before focusing on education.

The company, initially named Qless, faced challenges in landing deals, spending 12-14 months without success. They built a static demo platform and gathered feedback from potential customers. The belief in the potential of their idea pushed them to keep going despite the initial struggles, self-funding the platform development.

Clickit discovered a gap in the education sector regarding online payments, as schools were not investing in software and payment players were not focusing on building specific software for schools. This led Clickit to focus solely on education, although it took time to fully commit after closing deals in other sectors.

The first five to ten deals were extremely difficult, with the first one taking around 12 months. Selling the idea and changing the mindset of school owners were challenging. They learned to tailor their pitches to different stakeholders and embraced rejections as learning opportunities.

COVID-19 turned out to be beneficial for Clickit. Schools that were previously hesitant reached out to implement online payment solutions. Securing a partnership with the Ministry of Education in late 2020 was a major turning point, leading to serving a larger number of students. This led Clickit to shift from B2B sales to targeting school management companies.

Yousef and his co-founders worked part-time or full-time jobs to sustain themselves during the early stages. Yousef's experience at Dell provided valuable insights into team management and internal processes, which helped Clickit scale later. He had no regrets about leaving his corporate career, as it was always part of his plan.

Clickit prioritizes agility and feedback from employees, adapting the organizational structure multiple times. They encourage a bottom-up approach, giving employees input on how to improve processes. Everyone is empowered to contribute ideas and participate in different functions, fostering a culture of personal development.

Facing challenges in hiring top talent, Clickit implemented a software engineering boot camp to create a talent pipeline. The boot camp provides practical experience and prepares candidates for the real world. The program has been successful in converting interns into full-time employees, and it has expanded to other teams within the organization.

Tensions are normal, and that open communication is key. Advice for entrepreneurs in their 20s: the twenties are the best time to try starting a business as there a very few commitments to lose. The startup experience is very different from the corporate world and offers fast-paced learning opportunities, and startup employees should be ready and open to a challenge.