Ezzedine Cherif

01ROOTS

I come from a family of entrepreneurs

My grandfather, Mokhtar Othmani, was one of the Othmani brothers behind NCA-Rouiba, one of Algeria's best-known food and drinks companies. The family had settled in Tunis in 1910 and moved back to Algeria in the early 1960s.

I grew up around that story. Starting a company never felt like a leap. It felt normal.

Black and white family photo of three young men, including Mokhtar Othmani — FAMILY ARCHIVE · MOKHTAR OTHMANI IS IN THIS PHOTO

Mokhtar Othmani walking down a street, 1994 — FAMILY ARCHIVE · 1994

Aerial view of the NCA-Rouiba factory yard — NCA-Rouiba factory site, mid 1970s

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NCA was founded in 1966, four years after independence, in a converted warehouse near the village of Rouiba, with about 50 employees making tomato purée, harissa and jam. The Rouiba fruit-juice brand took off from the 1980s. By 2019 the company had more than 3,000 people and had been listed on the Algiers stock exchange since 2013. The group's latest revenue, in 2023, was about $50 million.

In 1991 the family negotiated the licence to produce Coca-Cola in Algeria through a new company, Fruital Coca-Cola. The first can came off the line in August 1993, in the middle of the country's civil war. The plant was attacked in 1994, and they rebuilt it.

From the NCA-Rouiba case study

Map of the Othmani family migration between Aurès, Tunis and Rouiba — The Othmani family's migration, 1800s to 1962

Cover page of the 1972 NCA balance sheet — First archived financial record, financial year 1972

Worker at a can-sealing machine — Can-sealing line, mid 1970s

Two women sealing jam cans — Sealing jam cans, mid 1970s

Cans of fruit in syrup on the sealing machine — Sealing machine for fruit in syrup, mid 1970s

Peppers in a processing vat — A vat of peppers before processing, 1980s

NCA stand at a trade fair — NCA-Rouiba stand at the Algiers international fair, late 1980s

Company history and images: Family Business Histories, Othmani Family Business Profile, NYU Abu Dhabi and Tharawat Family Business Forum, 2021. Images courtesy of the Othmani family.

022018 · AGE 21

I nearly died, and it sped everything up

In 2018 I was hospitalised with a pneumothorax, a collapsed lung, and spent four weeks in hospital. When I got out I decided to live each day as if it were my last, and to accelerate my entrepreneurial journey.

Ezzedine in a hospital chair with a laptop and phone, a drip in his arm — Laptop in hand, drip in arm

Ezzedine and a friend sitting on a hospital bed — In hospital, 2018

Hospital room with a wall-mounted TV — The view from my bed

That same year I launched Startup Factory, which helped young entrepreneurs across Tunisia register 70 companies in 9 months.

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Chest drain tube and dressing — The chest drain

Startup Factory, my 2019 sketches of the app

Hand-drawn phone wireframes: choose a legal form, compare SARL, SUARL, SAS and SA, create a SARL, enter the address, name and capital deposit bank — MY 2019 SKETCHES OF THE APP · CHOOSE A LEGAL FORM, COMPARE THEM, CREATE A SARL

In 2018 I started giving talks on entrepreneurship at conferences like these

Ezzedine speaking into a microphone at a 2018 conference — 2018 · Q&A

Ezzedine on stage at a 2018 entrepreneurship talk — 2018 · ON STAGE

A packed lecture hall at a 2018 talk — 2018 · FULL HALL

03AGE 23 · TUNISIA

I went viral for arguing with Shark Tank's jury

At 23 I appeared on El Pitch, the Tunisian Shark Tank. The jury disqualified me as a "student-entrepreneur". I debated them on air about it, and the clip went viral.

My live TV moment, the day I was disqualified

Three contestants standing on the El Pitch stage

042019 – 2022 · SPLIT

I raised $500K and learned three expensive lessons

Split was a carpooling app for Tunisian students, and it reached #1 in the Tunisian App Store charts. The raise taught me:

1Who you pick as a co-founder matters more than almost anything.
2Giving away too much equity kills motivation.
3Paid ads are a drug for early-stage founders who want to please investors.

App Store chart with Split in first place — Split, #1 on the App Store

Split listing on Google Play with a 4.1 rating — Split on Google Play: 4.1 stars, 62 reviews

Web Summit badge reading Ezzedine Cherif, Split — Web Summit Lisbon, 2021

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I moved to the UK with no contacts and no plan

I came on a tourist visa and had never even visited. I went to escape life in Tunisia and to build the career I'd been picturing.

UK visit visa in Ezzedine's passport, valid until 3 February 2023 — The UK visit visa I arrived on, valid until February 2023

I joined Entrepreneur First's cohort LD19, then became the first growth hire at OneShot.ai, where I learned distribution from the inside.

When I'm 50 and successful, I'll come back and invest in startups back home, by patriotism. But right now, the barriers to progress imposed by my country make it nonsensical for me to stay.2023 interview

Empty room with suitcases and bags on the floor — Suitcases in an empty room

Thumbs up in front of the Bethnal Green Underground sign — Bethnal Green, after dark

Ezzedine standing in front of a screen at a Techspace event — At an Entrepreneur First event

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A speaker presenting to an audience at Techspace — A talk at the event

A speaker presenting to a seated group — In the room

Laptop on a desk showing the words Finding Your Edge — Finding your edge

06NOW

I make videos, and some of them travelled

50M+views, all on my own account

45Kfollowers, built with content alone

0paid promotion, no team, no agency

I shoot, edit and post everything myself as @ezzedeean. Every one of those 50M views is organic and on my own account. The videos below travelled furthest.

INSTAGRAM · MY MOST VIRAL REEL“tired of feeling like a 2nd class world citizen”597K likes · 3.7K comments

LINKEDIN · MY MOST VIRAL POSTHow to spot video trends before they go viralAn AI agent I built, shown on LinkedIn

LINKEDIN · A VIDEO I MADE FOR OLLOTeaching 30 fund managers to build their own AI agentsMade for Husayn Kassai, founder of Ollo

Hello, I'm Ezzedine.

About me

Six facts about me

I come from a family of entrepreneurs

I nearly died, and it sped everything up

I went viral for arguing with Shark Tank's jury

I raised $500K and learned three expensive lessons

I moved to the UK with no contacts and no plan

I make videos, and some of them travelled

Selected work

Hook

CodeWords.ai

OneShot.ai

Anam.ai

Split

Startup Factory

In the press

Interview with Hamza Belloumi, one of Tunisia's best-known journalists, on building Split

Pitching on Tunisia's startup show

Talking about Split to about a thousand people at Esprit School of Business, Tunis

Split x Ezzedine Cherif, for a student media at Université Paris Dauphine

TotalEnergies Startupper de l'Année laureate

On Split's carpooling model and Tunisia's startup scene

An untold story of the Tunisian startup

Split wants to become Africa's leading carpooling app

Outside of work

Say hello