I'm Youssef. I build and run B2B businesses for US clients from Alexandria, Egypt, and I share what I learn with people in the region who want to do the same. Here's how I got here.
At 15, I needed a better weapon in an online game called Silkroad Online, mostly to make a statement in front of my friends. My parents wouldn't let me work, and I was too embarrassed to ask them for money for something so "stupid". So I Googled "how to make money online", and the rest is history.
I started my first business at 17, offering social media services, and did a lot of freelance writing for US-based clients. Back then almost nobody in the region was talking about online opportunities, so I learned from American content and naturally started working in their market.
I fell in love with paid ads and focused on Facebook (now Meta) advertising, helping e-commerce businesses in Egypt grow. I graduated in Computer and Communications Engineering from Alexandria University in 2016, and ran my first Facebook Ads workshop in 2017. It was fully booked.
I started ContentPit, a productized SEO content writing service for US businesses. It's still running today, with a fully remote team of 40+ across Egypt and the Philippines, and more than 1,000 clients served, 80% of them in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
ContentPit taught me most of what I know about systems, operations and customer experience. The US market is competitive and unforgiving, so we had to keep raising the bar.
These days most of my time goes to ZipLeo, which helps local home-service businesses in the US grow, and BriskStaff, which helps US companies hire senior marketing talent. I'm also building a B2B SaaS for the US market.
My engineering background helps here. I enjoy tinkering with automation, self-hosted tools and AI, and connecting the technical side with the growth side.
Teaching is one of the things I enjoy most. I've spoken at dozens of events, from US-based ones to some of Egypt's biggest, like RiseUp Summit. Now I focus on helping agencies and freelancers in the region sell to the US. I always share it as my experience and my opinion, never as the only way to do things. I'm still learning too.
I started my podcast during COVID, when people still asked me what a podcast was. Khamsa Business now has 120+ episodes, millions of listens from 30+ countries and 400+ Apple Podcasts reviews. It started with my own experience and grew to host some of the most respected names in the industry.
In 2012 I got into shooting nature and travel videos, and for a while travel agencies paid me to document their trips. Eventually I had to choose between that and marketing. I still shoot for fun, and hope to do more of it one day.
Tell me where you're at and what you're stuck on. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.