Addis Ababa: building behind the scenes

Yesterday I shared what I’ve been doing as part of my work supporting entrepreneurs.

Today is about what has been happening on the other side of my life:

Building a company - Qesem Creatives

Over the past year, our startup has grown faster than we initially expected.

And growth, I’ve learned, is exciting — but it also exposes everything that isn’t ready to scale.

We moved into a new office.

We expanded the team.

We restructured our SOPs and internal processes.

We implemented platforms to improve how we communicate, assign responsibilities, document decisions, and manage projects internally.

We introduced new business verticals and started thinking much more intentionally about where the company should focus its energy.

But one of the biggest moments was closing our last fiscal year with a level of revenue that, when we started, we genuinely didn’t think we could achieve this quickly.

I’m proud of the number.

But I’m even more proud of what had to happen behind that number.

The late nights.

The proposals that didn’t turn into contracts.

The projects we underestimated.

The systems we had to rebuild.

The difficult conversations.

The clients who trusted us.

And the team members who continued showing up and figuring things out with us. Ruth Takele NATAN BIRHANU Eyob Lemawosen Nahom Takele Samuel Bereket Dagi Dave

One lesson has become increasingly clear:

Starting a business requires energy. Building a company requires systems.

We’re still learning how to make that transition.

There is still a lot to improve, but looking at where we started and where we are today gives me a lot of gratitude — and even more ambition for what comes next.