#395 – How Bassem Hamdy created something no competitor can touch

A story about destroying your own work—and creating what lasts.

This episode is for sales-led SaaS founders who suspect their product is slowly becoming a custom shop—and don't know how to stop it.

Bassem Hamdy, CEO and Co-Founder of Briq, has spent 25 years in construction technology—three software revolutions, three companies.

He says Briq found product market fit every 24 months. Each time meant tearing something down to build the next version.

Each time, the same thing triggered the rebuild — the company had started solving for individual customers instead of the market.

And this inspired me to invite Bassem to my podcast. We explore why the instinct to please your biggest customers creates exactly the kind of fragility that kills companies. Bassem shares hard lessons about killing a product he spent two years building, the moment his QA team exposed how far the company had drifted, and why domain expertise—not platform size—determines who wins in vertical AI.

We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – Acknowledge you cannot please everyone – Master the art of curiosity

Bassem's journey proves that remarkable companies refound themselves before the market forces them to.

Here's one of Bassem's quotes that captures what happens when a company starts drifting:

"Software is like jello. You slap that thing, it's going to shake the hell out of it. So the moment you inject that code, that's client specific, you're pooched."

By listening to this episode, you'll learn:

• Why saying yes to customers can turn your product into something nobody else wants
• When to check whether your team is building a product or managing client tickets
• Why deep domain expertise matters more than platform size in the age of AI
• How one metric—revenue per employee—changes every decision a CEO makes

For more information about the guest from this week:

Guest: Bassem Hamdy, CEO and Co-Founder of Briq

Website: briq.com