Hesham Zreik is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and the Founder and CEO of FasterCapital, a global online incubator and accelerator. He was ranked #39 among the Top 50 Investors by Forbes in 2018 for his successful investments and exits. With over 25 years of experience, he has invested in over 400 startups and co-founded more than 100, focusing on developing simple solutions to challenging problems. He is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council.
"The success of a startup is based on the provision of expertise rather than the provision of Money" is my motto. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs miss it. I have cofounded FasterCapital and validated the model from the beginning. I have worked with more than 30 entrepreneurs to validate the model over five years. FasterCapital has currently more than 50 companies that graduated from its technical cofounder program and more than 450 companies in all of its programs. FasterCapital has also more than +1000 regional partners worldwide who represent FasterCapital with more than 500 offices.
FasterCapital is a new type of incubator with ambition to solve one of the biggest problems in the incubation industry which is the lack of expertise and human resources needed to build/grow a business. Our model has been validated with many startups so far and it proves to be a great success. We complement what the entrepreneur lacks. Our model is called "co-funding & co-founding" meaning that FasterCapital will come as a cofounder (technical or business cofounder) and as a co-funder investing 50% of the money needed in the form of work per equity. This will enable non-technical entrepreneurs to find the right technical partner to help them build the company and technical entrepreneurs to find the business partner who helps in sales/marketing and scaling. My responsibilities:
- Setting up the model for the 'co-founder and co-funder'.
- Refining and improving on the model gradually over a period of 5 years.
- Supervise personally the development of each project both technically, legally and commercially.
- Validate the startup submitted with the other cofounders to decide on which to invest it, what kind of equity FasterCapital will be getting.
- Helped in strategic planning for the incubator and when it will be public
- Help through personal contacts to setup a good pool of mentors.
Forbes Technology Council
Member – Forbes Technology Council
2023 - Present
Responsibilities
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/people/heshamzreik/
Selected as a member of Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives. As a member, I contribute thought leadership articles, participate in expert panels, and collaborate with peers across the technology industry.
ZGroup Mobile
Technical Manager
Feb 2005 - Present
Responsibilities
- Building of an automatic convertor that can convert Java Me applications/games to Blackberry devices and later to Android devices.
- Designed of auto-wrapper that can inject ads into Java ME, blackberry and android games/apps.
- Designed and developed the company's system of serving our publishers by easily choosing the products from our catalogs. The system can easily discover any error in the typing of the product and correct it automatically. The system will also ensure there are no duplication of mobile content ordered between two distributors. This system is already being used by more than 600 distributors worldwide.
- Designed and developed RepGen which is reporting tool. It has allowed us to gather download reports from different publishers (each using different standard) and produce download reports for each developer in a unified format. This is very essential since ZGroup Mobile has more than 150 content providers and 200 publishers.
- Supervised the development of generic Instant Messenger (Rotto) to allow mobile users to send instant messages. Rotto supports known Jabber messengers such as MSN/Yahoo/Skype/gtalk. . . etc and we developed a dedicated versions that relied on our own servers.
- Designed, developed and implemented mLocalization: software allowing the automatic localization (translation of one language to another) of mobile applications directly from binaries. The solution is unique in the world and has been used to localize more than 2000 applications to different languages including Arabic, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese.
- Content2Mobile: Designed and implemented a set of software tools allowing the conversion of multimedia files from PC compatible version to mobile version. This can be implemented on videos, ringtones, and images.
- Search Engine Optimization Tools: Developed several SEO tools to improve the ranking of the website. This guaranteed top ranking of website zgroup-mobile.com on google, yahoo and other search engines. Technical Manager
ZGroup Mobile
CEO & Founder, developer and publisher of mobile apps
Feb 2002 - Present
Responsibilities
http://www.slideshare.net/zgroupmobile/zgroup-mobile-full-company-presentation
-Segmentation of market for the company's products and customize applications and services accordingly
-Secure exclusive deals for distribution of such as top movies and top actors/actresses plus top soccer players.
-Strategic partnerships with brand owners to convert their brands to mobile devices.
-Yearly gross income increased 100% from 2004 to 2005 and 30% y/y for the period between 2005 and 2011.
-Preparing a full marketing campaign for the launching of each new service or set of products.
-Analysis of the middle-east market and creating appropriate models and products to target it.
-Directly supervised and managed the creation of more than 200 games/applications for mobile devices.
-Managing and supervising the marketing and sales team. Each member has a yearly target divided to 4 quarterly targets.
-Creating new distribution channels with the new content and services.
-Building a clear process of how to manage customers and orders (with a simple custom developed CRM).
-Building a system to assess all employees' performance and improve their output.
-Continuous analysis of the market and its changing state on yearly basis and changing company's product development, pricing and offers.
-Setting a marketing strategy and marketing plan to sell all of company's products.
-Setting up the business model, pricing policy and negotiation margins in each territory.
-Establishing a standard of communication with companies and transparent business model to be used by the whole sales team.
-Get the best quality products delivered on time, on budget, and with a team of internal and external individuals that felt success at every level.
-Hiring and developing team, day-to-day management of the company, contacting clients and operators, pointing development directions and leading all projects.
-Build the company from scratch with no capital (started with $20/month). CEO & Founder, developer and publisher of mobile apps
ZGroup Mobile
Technical Manager
Feb 2002 - Jan 2005
Responsibilities
-Design and development of the initial framework for development of games and applications on Java enabled handsets (j2me technology). The framework allow for rapid production of mobile content and the achievement of compatibility with wide range of devices coming from different manufacturers.
-Continual update of the framework to meet the market challenges including:
Applications should run on slow devices (Java emulation)
Mobile handsets have constraints on binary sizes and memory
Fragmented list of mobile handsets as each manufacturer has their own lines of production with different screensizes, speed, supported libraries. . . etc.
-Designed and developed Maxxon which is a set of libraries allowing interaction between applications on mobile devices using GPRS/3G. Maxxon was used later to develop up to 12 multiplayer games allowing users who are remotely located to play together. This framework was then also modified to support multiplayer games over Bluetooth (19 games developed on this standard)
-Designed, developed and implemented zMoviePlayer which is a full solution of movie player on mobile handsets. zMoviePlayer was able to play movies on mobile handsets (even black/white handsets). The solution has two parts, a mobile part to play the movie and a PC part to convert any standard video file into our proprietary format for fast rendering on the mobile handset. Technical Manager Feb 2002 - Jan 2005 · 3 yrs
Edunoor
Angel Investor
Mar 2012 - Present
Responsibilities
Edunoor has developed several training and education solutions. We have built a portal allowing peer-to-peer education solutions where users can meet tutors (like private tutoring). We also have built several dedicated solutions that can be installed by universities, schools or teaching centers.
Our solutions offer several components such as online sessions, scheduling, social, search and discovery. All of those components integrate seamlessly to offer exciting service.
With the diversity of our products and the customization of our services we think that we can address all the issues facing online education and take it forward.
Entablet
Angel Investor
Sep 2013 - Present
Responsibilities
Entablet is a technology company specialized in Tablet and Mobile enchanting portfolio of solutions and services, with an engaging service catalog and an enormous service pipeline. Entablet has already produced several products: Tabvertise.com, enfleet and Tabpetit.
- Tabvertise.com: Tabvertise is a digital media management solution that is developed and available for both Display panels and tablets network. It gives the administrator full control over all tablets, displays and contents broadcasted individually or in groups and clusters, and it can be managed over the Internet using any form of secure connection.
- Enfleet: A fleet management system that can serve multiple clients at the same time. A distribution company can use it to control its fleet of cars, monitor their load, forward orders and many more. Any driver can use it also to report their location, loads and receive orders from adminitration or clients. The solution is also accessible to customers who would like to order goods from the company where they can see nearby vehicles and order goods from it. With serving these three different entities (Administration, Driver and customer), enfleet becomes the number one fleet management solution.
- Tabpetit: Imagine that when you Enter a restaurant, a tablet is handed over to you that allows you to control everything you want from viewing the items of the menu with full details about what it includes (if any is not suitable for you) and how it is cooked with a video clip to ordering your favorite dishes, to calling the waitress to asking for extra chair, to meeting the chef till payment and even leaving your instant feedback on every aspect you have experienced during your dinner.
As Technology takes a huge part of our life and many of our daily actions depend on it, it’s so obviously that we should benefit from it in emergency situations. SavMe app uses the latest smartphone technologies (camera, GPS location, compass,... etc) to help caller and operator deal with the situation at hand quickly and efficiently.Once personal information display on operator screen, caller Medical history appears as well, in order to help the operator react faster. SavMe provides an operator with colored emergency cards reflecting caller Medical status (red: severe allergies and Medical devices - yellow: taking medicine - green: good to go).SavMe has taken the need of mute people into account and allows for text interaction with the operator. This feature is also essential if the person is unable to speak because of a danger that might occur to him/her or when he/she becomes speechless and unable to describe the situation.Video
conferencing allows the operator to understand the situation at hand and how to react to it correctly (an image worths thousand words). The operator can also give directions on how to provide first aid to other parties involved.
Fixiest
Seed Investor & Mentor & CT
2017 - Present
Position
Seed Investor & Mentor & CT
PutTag
Angel Investor & Mentor & Chief Strategy officer
Dec 2013 - Present
Position
Angel Investor & Mentor & Chief Strategy officer
BookThatBook
Seed Investor and CTO
2017 - Present
Position
Seed Investor and CTO
Meetingg
Chairman & Seed Investor & advisor
2012 - Present
Position
Chairman & Seed Investor & advisor
Mp3Ready
Angel Investor & Mentor: Search Engine for Mp3 music, Deep Web
2017 - Present
Position
Angel Investor & Mentor: Search Engine for Mp3 music, Deep Web
BazarMaker
seed Investor & Mentor
2014 - Present
Position
seed Investor & Mentor
PickTaxi
Investor & Advisor & Board member
2014 - Present
Responsibilities
whitelabel platform to manage fleet of taxis
Fulhost
Angel Investor & Chief Technology Officer
2013 - Present
Responsibilities
Vertical search engine for hosting providers
LetusCloud
Seed Investor & Mentor
Mar 2012 - Present
Responsibilities
Clouding and Virtualization
ME2TV
Angel Investor & Tech cofounder & Mentor
Apr 2013 - Present
Position
Angel Investor & Tech cofounder & Mentor
MobAdv
Investor & Mentor
Oct 2012 - Present
Responsibilities
automatic wrapping of mobile games & mobile apps with geotargeted ads
TVlize
angel Investor, Technical Cofounder
Oct 2012 - Present
Responsibilities
TV social platform
BeamGift
Seed Investor & Mentor
2012 - Present
Responsibilities
digital mobile coupons and gifting
PinProfile
Investor & Mentor:
2014 - Present
Responsibilities
Search Engine for people for recruiters and sales people
Education
Heriot-Watt University
Doctorate
2009 - 2013
Field of Study
Doctorate - DBA
The Arab Academy For Management, Banking And Financial Sciences
Master in CIS
2006 - 2008
Field of Study
Master in CIS - Computer Information System
H
Higher Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology
Engineer
Field of Study
Engineer - Electrical and electronic Control and Automation
Key Achievements
Forbes Top 50 Investor
Ranked #39 among the Top 50 Investors by Forbes in 2018, recognized for successful investments and exits.
Forbes Technology Council Member
Member of the Forbes Technology Council, contributing thought leadership on technology and executive topics.
Founder & CEO, FasterCapital
Co-founder and CEO of FasterCapital, a leading global online incubator and accelerator.
Serial Entrepreneur
Serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in leading multinational businesses and building innovative startups.
Investment & Mentorship Profile
Hesham Zreik is a highly active angel investor and mentor, with a portfolio spanning diverse sectors and technologies, often taking on technical co-founder or CTO roles.
Hesham Zreik possesses a comprehensive skill set that spans deep technical expertise, strategic business development, and executive leadership in the startup ecosystem.
Technical & Software Development
Mobile ApplicationsAndroidJavaPerlMobile Games
Business & Strategy
Start-upsEntrepreneurshipNew Business DevelopmentStrategic PlanningBusiness Planning