Most founder stories skip the part where the dream almost dies. Houcem Maiza’s doesn’t.

In this episode of Above C-Level, Forbes 30 Under 30 gaming CEO Houcem Maiza sits down with host Mohammad Osama to trace the journey from a Tunisian garage to leading one of the fastest-growing gaming companies in the MENA region, TD7 Gaming. It’s a story that starts with betrayal, ends in acquisition, and proves that in the gaming industry, pragmatism beats passion every single time.

Houcem was 19, studying IT engineering with a finance degree, and convinced his friends to skip the usual path to Microsoft or Google to build a game studio instead. On launch day, not a single one showed up at the train station. He built the company anyway, secured a $10,000 check from a former boss after an eight-minute pitch, and got to work.

The first game, a mobile racing title, made exactly $2.47 in three months. All of it from his older brother trying to show support.

What saved the business wasn’t a better game. It was a trip to Dubai in 2018, a last-ditch move Houcem almost didn’t make, that turned into the pivot that reshaped everything. From a developer to aggregator, from a single failed title to a 301-game catalogue, from one telecom deal to a regional footprint that grew faster than anyone in the team expected. His company, Galactic, took off from there.

The timing was no accident. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has allocated $38 billion through Savvy Games Group to make the Kingdom a global gaming hub by 2030, while PwC’s research shows MENA gaming revenues reached $7.2 billion in 2023, with 68 million regional gamers projected to hit 87 million by 2026. Houcem was in the right place at the right moment, and has strong views on why so many founders around him weren’t.

Houcem also shares with Osama his thoughts on leadership. Why culture dilutes the moment you scale and what to do about it, how middle management is the hardest role to hire for, not the technical ones, and why he actually prefers working with Gen Z employees over anyone else.

If you’ve ever sat with a big idea and wondered whether you have what it takes to chase it, or whether the timing, the money, and the luck will ever line up the way they need to, Houcem’s story is for you!

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