ASaaSI Hiring
The roles that decide your next stage are the ones worth getting right.
Recruitment run by someone who has held the seat: deep role scoping, proactive search and decision support for SaaS operators, specialists and leadership across MENA.
What it costs
Price on request
Quoted per role, after a scoping conversation. What a Head of Sales costs to find is not what a mid-level engineer costs, and a single published fee would be wrong for both.
Why SaaS hires fail here
Most failed SaaS hires here are not bad people. They are the right CV for the wrong stage — a sales leader who has only closed enterprise deals with a brand behind them, hired into a company that needs a pipeline built from nothing. A generalist recruiter cannot see that: it is an operating judgement, not a screening one.
- You have interviewed a dozen candidates and cannot tell which of them has actually operated at your stage.
- The last senior hire looked right on paper and was gone within a year.
- Your agency sends volume — twenty CVs a week, none of them scoped to the role you actually need.
- You are about to hire a title you have never managed, and you have no way to test the answers.
- The role has been open for four months and the cost of that is now larger than the fee.
What the engagement covers
End to end, from what the role actually is through to the first ninety days of the person in it.
Deep role scoping
What this role must deliver in its first year at your stage, written down before anyone is approached. Half the roles I am asked to fill change shape during this conversation, and that is the cheapest change that will ever be made to them.
Candidate profiling
The profile behind the title: the stage they must have operated at, what they must have built rather than inherited, and the adjacent backgrounds worth considering. This is where a SaaS judgement beats a keyword search.
Proactive search and outreach
Approaching the people who are not applying, across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider region. The best operator for your stage almost certainly has a job right now.
Screening and shortlisting
Screened against the scope, not against the CV. You receive a short list with reasoning — including what each person is weak at and what that would cost you.
Interview and decision support
The questions that actually test a SaaS operator, a scorecard your panel can use, and a second opinion in the room when you are deciding between two finalists.
Offer and onboarding
Offer construction and negotiation for this market, then support through the first ninety days — the period in which most expensive hires are quietly lost.
How a search runs
Scoping conversation
One session on the role: the stage, the mandate, the team it joins and the money. You get a written scope and a fee for that role. If the honest answer is that you should promote internally or not hire yet, that is what you get.
Search
Profiling, mapping and outreach. You see progress weekly — who was approached, who declined and why — because a silent search is indistinguishable from no search at all.
Shortlist and interviews
A short list with written reasoning, then interview support for your panel. Volume is not the goal; four candidates you would genuinely hire beats twenty you would not.
Offer and first ninety days
Offer construction, negotiation, and a check-in through onboarding. The role is not filled when the contract is signed — it is filled when the person is operating.
Who this is for, and who it is not
This fits if…
- You are hiring a role that decides your next stage — a first sales leader, a head of product, a founding engineer, an operator who will own a function.
- You have a stage and a mandate, even if the job title is still unsettled.
- You would rather wait for the right person than fill the seat this month.
- You want to be told when the role you have written is the wrong role.
This does not fit if…
- You want a job post and a flood of applicants. That is a different service and it is cheaper than this one.
- You are hiring transactionally, at volume, for interchangeable seats.
- There is no clear role and no hiring plan — the scoping conversation will tell you that, but you can save the time.
- The decision is not yours to make and the actual decision-maker will not be in the room.
Before you ask
- What does it cost?
- It is quoted per role after the scoping conversation, because the work to find a Head of Sales is not the work to find a mid-level engineer. The fee is agreed in writing before any candidate is approached.
- How is this different from a recruitment agency?
- An agency screens against your job description. I test whether the job description is right for your stage first, using the same 7-Stage roadmap I advise on — and I have held the operating seat these candidates are being hired into, which is what makes the shortlist reasoning worth reading.
- Which markets do you cover?
- Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE most often, and the wider region for senior roles. The network is fifteen years of MENA SaaS operations, not a database licence.
- How long does a search take?
- Most roles take six to ten weeks from scope to signed offer. Anything faster than that is usually a candidate who was already looking, which is a smaller pool than the one worth searching.
- What if the hire does not work out?
- Guarantee terms are part of the written scope for each role, agreed before the search starts. I would rather put that in the contract than in a sentence on a web page.
- Can you help us decide whether to hire at all?
- Yes, and it is a real outcome. Several of these conversations end in a promotion, a restructured role, or a decision to wait a stage — none of which produce a fee, and all of which are cheaper than the wrong hire.
Tell me the role
Message me with the title, the stage you are at and what the person has to deliver in their first year. If it is not a search worth running, I will say so before either of us spends anything on it.