Why Have I Started Booktips?

If you are a co-worker, customer, or an investor it’s important for you to know the origin of the company you deal with, actually we consider ourselves a movement not only a company. This blog isn’t to convince you with any of our ideas or beliefs. Here is why I have started Booktips.

1. No other company would accommodate my thoughts.

For four years at my university, most of my colleagues and teaching staff perceived me as a strange person. They think so because of my opinions, reactions, and attitude towards the education process which was very disappointing for me. They argue that our university is a prestigious one and has a good reputation outside the Campus which guarantees good job opportunities for graduates. I believe that education and knowledge have a separate value regardless of the kind of job opportunities you may have. Earning your living is very important but this should not affect the perception of certain studies.

Studying history, law, or education is very undermined in my country and I think in many countries from salaries point of view. Does this perception for such studies affect their value and importance? To summarize my problem during my university period, I believe that a university should be a place to educate people how to solve world problems, yet the quality of a university is determined by to what extent they graduate good calibers for multinationals. Multinationals have a problem of how to maximize profit which is different from the real strategic problems of our world. Concepts like CSR is not activated in a proper way to make the conflict of interest between corporates and governments fade out. Adding to this, there is the point of omission of morale in studying management, which is my field. All of this made finding another company to accommodate this perception of world and education is impossible, so I started Booktips.

2. Challenging the Beliefs about my generation in my country.
I am a 23-year-old CEO. I started my career as an entrepreneur implementing his ideas and thoughts when I was a 17 years old secondary school student. I started three start-ups before Booktips where I built all my experience. I remember two beliefs during my 6 years entrepreneurial journey; one from the same age group which encouraged me to continue, the youth who in my country used to be perceived as a naïve and not productive. The other one from the elders, they believe doing something different will fail, so they don’t take youth dreams seriously. They think why do we give much attention to something/someone who will fail? He will at the end find a 9 to 5 job to earn his living. Changing the mindsets of old people in my country isn’t one of my dreams but they need to change for themselves.

But why is changing this way of thinking important? I will tell you a story, in 2012 Tesla company, founded by Elon musk the well-known entrepreneur, was about to go bankrupt because of the money they spent to invent new technology. President Obama decided to give Tesla 465$ million as a loan which will be repaid after 5 years with the help of Tesla model 3. This car represents achieving the dream of electrical car mass production. By 2018, Tesla model 3 will start invading US roads and it costs only 35,000$. Believing in youth dreams is not an optional thing in this era. Politicians attacked Obama for wasting the money of US citizens on a failing project. Now, America is leading electrical cars and clean energy market due to believing in a young entrepreneur’s enthusiasm and learning curve.

3. Build the institutions which represent your values to live in the world you aspire.

I don’t want to talk politics in this part but going through this point requires some political talk. Hopefully, no one will be prisoned because of it. I live in the Middle East where people are suffering in many ways. No sane person can deny how corrupted and underdeveloped this region is. I believe that corruption and underdevelopment have their institutions which make them continue towards their goals. The Arab spring just uncovered and shed the light on our big problems. This put a huge responsibility on our generation and it already made most of my generation feel depressed, unsafe, and ready to leave to look for better conditions.

Mr. Ahmed Zahran the co-founder and CEO of Karmsolar, a great solar energy startup inspired me to put the vision of Booktips. They invent solar energy solutions suitable for the Egyptian local market. They depend on understanding their country well to sustain their business. Solving other big problems in different fields other than energy also requires starting other companies that represent the ideas and values of this generation. Solving awareness problem is why we exist and we still crawl towards it through operating in the publishing industry.

4. Money is good.
The story of Booktips started while watching a TED Talk by Simon Sinek called “Start with why”. The talk highlighted something I believe, the main goal of a business isn’t money. Money is important to sustain our living, but every organization should have a social value around which all employees are centralized. We chose to spread awareness through encouraging purposeful reading.

Money is important and good to be the horse of a truck filled with values like spreading awareness. It gives you credibility, sound to be heard, and power to invest in long term payback goals. This is my story with starting and working on Booktips, what is yours?

Fady Mokhtar
CEO&Founder at Booktips.

One Response to “Why Have I Started Booktips?

  • Eman Abouzeid Hammam
    7 years ago

    It is excellent to stand up for what you believe no matter what! If every person in our region would do have some values and ideas and has the courage to stick by them, alot of things would have changed already. I believe the problem here is all about ignorance or I would call it illiteracy, I do not mean not knowing how to read and write. What is more dangerous is actually knowing how to read but never being taught how to think…! Money is good, we need to develop our economy, but still economy with no values and ignorant people would lead us to disasters. It is a closed circle, value comes first then comes the courage to do and we will gain as a result development, prosperity, and money. We have the Asian prespective as an example, education makes a difference not just economy.

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