Lessons from the Minthar Portfolio — What We Learned Building 17 Brands

Seventeen entities. Seven years. If someone had told me at the beginning that this is what we would build, I might have hesitated. But portfolios are not built from a single complete plan — they are built decision by decision, each opening a door you did not know existed. What I will share here is not theoretical advice — but lessons we paid for, some through success and some through pain.

The first lesson — and the most important: governance from day one, not day one thousand. In our earliest entities, we made the classic mistake: we said "we will establish the board and committees when we grow." The result was investment decisions without adequate oversight, overlapping authority between founders, and difficulty separating ownership from management later. When we started imposing governance from day one in newer entities — a small board even if only three members, an audit committee even with one independent member, documented basic policies — the results changed noticeably. Decision quality improved. Disputes decreased. The founders themselves felt more confident because there was a structure protecting them from themselves. Governance is not something you add later when you grow — governance is what allows you to grow in the first place.

The second lesson: technology is a multiplier — but only when built on mature processes. We invested early in building shared technology infrastructure for the Minthar portfolio. The idea was right — but the execution was initially inverted. We tried building technology systems before maturing the processes that would use them. The result: advanced systems that nobody used because the underlying processes were not documented or adopted. We learned that the correct sequence is: first, document the process manually; second, improve it; third, digitize it. Any technology built on an immature process amplifies chaos instead of reducing it.

Governance is not something you add later when you grow — governance is what allows you to grow in the first place.

The third lesson: operational credit lines beat large funding rounds. Initially, we thought like most investors: deploy a large sum upfront then monitor. We discovered this model creates two problems: psychological pressure on founders to spend quickly to justify valuation, and absence of incentives to build operational efficiency because money is "available." When we shifted to milestone-linked credit lines — each milestone with clear governance and operational criteria — founder behavior changed. They focused on building the institution rather than spending money. Every riyal deployed was tied to measurable real value. This compounding effect — where each stage builds on the previous — is what creates real institutions.

The fourth lesson: when to invest vs. when to build? Not every entity in the portfolio came through investing in an existing company. Some we built from scratch. We learned that the answer depends on one question: does someone in the market do this at the required level? If yes — invest in them and help them scale. If no — build it yourself. Shifra, for example, we built from scratch because the local cybersecurity market lacked a company combining deep technical expertise with local regulatory knowledge. Naqdi, we invested in because the team had a clear vision and all it lacked was institutional structure.

The fifth lesson: institutional discipline does not align with "startup culture." This will be an unpopular opinion — but an honest one. The "move fast and break things" culture does not work when building institutions in a regulated market. In Saudi Arabia, where regulations follow in succession and compliance is not optional, you need a culture that combines speed with discipline. This is not a contradiction — it is the real challenge. The entities that succeeded in our portfolio are those that managed to be fast in execution and disciplined in governance simultaneously. Not fast and chaotic — nor disciplined and slow.

The sixth lesson: a portfolio is a living organism — not a collection of assets. The biggest mistake a portfolio owner can make is treating their entities as numbers on a spreadsheet. Each entity has its own culture, team, and unique challenges. But the real power comes when you create connections between them — when one entity learns from another's experience, and when knowledge, tools, and talent flow between entities. This does not happen automatically — it requires deliberate design. At Minthar, we hold shared learning sessions across entities every quarter, and we share technology infrastructure, standards, and policies. The result: every new entity added to the portfolio starts at a higher level than its predecessor.

If someone asked me the one thing I would do differently, I would say: I would start with governance and standards before the first investment. I would build the institutional framework first — standards, policies, technology infrastructure, the credit model — then start deploying capital. What we did was the reverse: we invested first then built the institutional structure. That cost us time and effort in restructuring. The lesson is simple: structure before capital. Because capital without structure evaporates — but structure without capital attracts it.