SaaS operations & transformation
SaaS made simple.
Mohamed Elsherif — SaaS operations and transformation advisor, founder and CEO of ASaaSI Middle East. Fifteen years running the operating layer of SaaS companies across MENA, not advising it from outside.
- Crowd AnalyzerChief Operating Officer, 2022–2025
- Extend | The Ad NetworkBusiness Insights Director, 2021–2023
- The American University in CairoResearch & Teaching Assistant, 2020–2025
- Egypt University of InformaticsAdjunct Instructor, 2026
- University of YorkMSc Social Informatics
Three ways I work
Operations & transformation advisory
For founders and executives past validation, where the constraint has moved from the market to the way the company is run. Hands-on, for a defined problem and a defined period.
Training
The 7-Stage MENA SaaS Growth Roadmap, taught as live cohorts through ASaaSI Middle East. Arabic-first, execution-first, with exit criteria at every stage.
Speaking
AI, Arabic media intelligence, and what building SaaS in this region actually costs. For conferences, newsrooms, universities and internal leadership sessions.
The work, in numbers
Ten years of cohorts, workshops and one-to-one sessions, alongside the operating roles rather than instead of them. The teaching came out of running the function: three offices reopened, a team taken from two to over a hundred, and more than $1.5M in SaaS sales inside two years at Crowd Analyzer.
The 7-Stage MENA SaaS Growth Roadmap
Every SaaS company is somewhere on this map. The stage sets the constraint, and the constraint sets the work. Exit criteria at every stage — you leave when the evidence says you can, not when the quarter ends.
- Stage 01Validation$0 – $1k MRRFounders only
- Stage 02MVP$1k – $10k MRR2–3
- Stage 03Acquisition & Distribution$10k – $30k MRR4–8
- Stage 04Customer Retention$30k – $80k MRR10–20
- Stage 05Product Focus$80k – $200k MRR20–40
- Stage 06Scalability and Growth$200k – $500k MRR40–80
- Stage 07Governance$500k+ MRR80+
Brands I have worked with
Extend
Crowd Analyzer
FIFA
Agthia
BLVD World
McDonald's
World Bank
Riyadh Season
The American University in Cairo
AUC School of Continuing Education
Brands and organisations I have worked with, directly and through Crowd Analyzer and Extend.
The through line
I spent the first half of my career teaching machines to read Arabic — social listening, sentiment, media intelligence, in a language most tools were never built for.
The second half has been operations: building the insights function, then running the company. Both jobs are the same job. Take something messy and regional that the standard toolkit cannot see properly, and make it legible enough to act on.
If the operating layer is the constraint, start here.
Tell me what is actually blocking you. The advisory form asks for the constraint in your own words, because that is the part I need in order to say anything useful — or to tell you that you do not need me.