Azarc X EFL - our MBA Ahmed Bahgat shares his experience
As the 2023 EFL programme nears an end, the Azarc team looks ahead to becoming one of Endless Frontier Labs’ (EFL) graduating start-ups from the 2022-23 cohort. We chat with Ahmed Bahgat, the NYU Stern MBA student who has been getting disruptive with us for this year’s program...
Firstly, what’s the EFL?
Founded at NYU Stern School of Business in New York City, Endless Frontier Labs (EFL) accelerates the success of early-stage science and technology-based startups through a goals-oriented mentorship program.
Placed at the intersection of world-renowned research and business leadership in the world's most dynamic and innovative city, the EFL program also draws from the knowledge of talented Stern MBA students.
Can you explain the program a little more and tell us how you ended up working with Azarc?
The EFL is focused on selecting massively scalable start-ups, advising them, and helping them with the biggest operational and often financial issues they may face when it comes to upscaling their business.
How they do that is through the support of senior executives, seasoned mentors – who can provide high-level advice on how you do in fact, scale a business – and MBAs. NYU Stern MBA students work closely with start-up founders selected for each cohort to fine-tune business strategies and can help develop financial models and explore potential markets for the duration of the program.
As one of the MBAs supporting the 2022-23 program, really, I’m there to help a business execute the decision they make during their journey and do some of the day-to-day tasks needed to help the business move forward on these decisions.
I supported the EFL through the start-up selection, with this year’s cohort totalling 75 out of 1000 start-ups that applied. Those 75 were then split between the three tracks – Deep Tech, Life Sciences and Digital Tech - with Azarc falling into the latter.
When I saw Azarc’s application, my initial thoughts were that it has pinpointed some really interesting tech, integrating a lot of systems together. Through my lens, then, given my background developed technology infrastructure for large banks before transitioning to investment banking, the disruptive tech piqued my interest. I indicated that and selected Azarc as my number one start-up, from then it was just a matching process to ensure we would be compatible and put our time together to the best use.
How have you found working with Azarc – what were your expectations of working with the Azarc team, and how did reality compare?
Initially, the extent to which MBAs and their skills would be needed was unclear. Coming into the project with an academic and financial background, we needed time to see where my skills could be applied. From my experience and insight into how other MBAs have found the program, I knew the need would be very varied, a factor that’s dependent on both the MBA and the start-up itself.
Even over the limited time we have working within the program, just 8 months, my experience of Azarc really shattered any expectations I had.
My experience has been on a different level. I caught up with everyone in the Azarc team through 1-2-1s and group calls every week, and the engagement levels were really high, which is a testament to how much they wanted to get out of the programme.
There is a great difference between team cultures. Azarc’s team and the culture they have developed are incredible. They thought of me as an employee, like one of them, and I valued that. There is an open dynamic, I was comfortable enough to be able to go to Dave, the CEO, if I wasn’t certain that an idea was worth investing time in. They all took the time to walk through the ideas and reasoning to make sure every decision was right for Azarc.
At the start, it wasn’t as clear how I could add value, but over time, I worked to operationalize the advice they were receiving from the EFL mentors.
A lot of the work we did over the past 6 months or so was focused on bringing a solution – Rune – to market and developing it. I spent a lot of time on this with the team, helping to put together the sales strategy for Rune and developing that strategy with the team to ensure we met KPIs and sales targets.
With the programme coming to an end soon, we’d love to know - what have been the highlights for you?
The best thing for myself and the mentors to see was Azarc evolving over the past 8 months. The team was focused on refining the product and solutions so they are positioned to succeed.
One of the things that will be key to that success is the team and how it maximizes the program's value. Azarc’s team is dynamic and was adept enough to learn from the EFL and all the strategic advice it has delivered.
Mentors can give a lot of advice, it’s up to the team receiving it to absorb and use that advice. Sometimes that insight can be conflicting, and maybe not contextualized, so being able to filter the advice mentors deliver is vital. I got to see first-hand the practice of how to use the advice best. The team was eager and interested in absolutely making the most of it.
The scaling of any start-up is different. A certain level of discipline and fortitude is required, as well as the ability to maintain flexibility to manoeuvre your strategy as it develops. Given Azarc’s attitude and approach over the past 8 months, I’m very optimistic about Azarc and what they will achieve.
Azarc is a great start-up, has a great team and a great solution in Rune for cross-border custom clearance – with the potential to change the industry. I hold Azarc and what the team is trying to achieve in very high regard, and I can’t wait to see what the team will do next.