Omar Samra On Surviving Storms At Sea (And In Business)

Perhaps best known for being the first Egyptian to climb the Seven Summits, and later, for his harrowing ocean crossing adventure in the Atlantic Challenge (a 40-day, 3,000 nautical-mile journey where participants row across the Atlantic Ocean from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Caribbean), Omar Samra is an entrepreneur who has been shaped by adversity.

His journey in the Atlantic Challenge, which has been documented in the film Beyond The Raging Sea, saw him and fellow adventurer Omar Nour, in 2017, get lost at sea for 12 hours, surviving precariously on a raft before being rescued by a Greek cargo ship. In many ways, he tells Inc. Arabia, his adventurer mindset—which he had been cultivating for years long before he set out at sea—prepared him to deal with the host of challenges that he came to face as an entrepreneur with his adventure travel company, Wild Guanabana.

Critically, however, Samra believes that those moments of clarity at sea helped him truly understand what is at stake, whether in business or in his personal life. “Entrepreneurship is a very go-go-go culture, [and you go into it] without considering the costs it has on you as an individual, or on your family,” he shares. “People start businesses for a specific reason, and sometimes, you find yourself chasing things that are far removed from why you started the business in the first place.”

And that’s why, according to Samra, sometimes, being forced to reflect deeply can help entrepreneurs focus on what matters. “My ocean-crossing adventure was a very perilous journey, and I think there was a big shift after that which informed my life and my work,” he says. “Any big life event like this will force you to consider what you’re doing, and if it’s still aligned with who you are, and what you want to do. I realized from this journey that there was a lot of clutter in my life, in a physical, but also a conceptual, sense. I realized that we were doing too many products and services. It came to the detriment of my personal health and mind, but also to the detriment of the brand, and it was important to declutter and refocus, to deliver value and impact, and remain a memorable brand that means something to people.”

Samra started Wild Guanabana after having walked away in 2009 from a successful— albeit unfulfilling—career in investment banking and private equity. His objective then was to start a travel company that aimed to, as he tells us, “rehabilitate people’s relationship with nature, and in doing so, rehabilitate their connection with themselves.” However, in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Wild Guanabana lost 90 percent of its revenue—and that was when the lessons he learned at sea served him well, with him showcasing the tenacity required to deal with the choppy seas of entrepreneurship.

“I developed a lot of survival skills during [the pandemic], and I think my mindset of being an adventurer really helped, because there were a lot of difficult moments that were touch and go,” Samra says. “I became comfortable with uncertainty.” Indeed, Samra believes it’s the combination of his adventurer’s acumen and his entrepreneurial resourcefulness that helped him power through this difficult period for his business. But it also pushed him to develop new revenue streams for the company, as well as to develop entirely new businesses that ultimately cater to the same goal: to provide responsible and eco-friendly products for travelers across the region, helping them to discover new terrain, and bringing them closer to nature.

Omar Samra.

Today, Samra splits his time between running his businesses and its different brands, which offer a range of services that include designing bespoke adventure travel products, designing hiking, biking, and horse-riding trails for the likes of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Global and Al Ula, managing hospitality and glamping projects, and recently, building the first eco-lodge and conservation center on the Red Sea. That’s not including his personal projects, which include an upcoming book, a docuseries, and delivering motivational talks around the world.

And with the countless pivots, adjustments, and choices that he’s had to make throughout his career, he believes that he has bet on the right horse. “I think mass tourism is dead, and if it’s not dead, it should be,” he says. “I think the countries that have realized this and adapted are doing better,” pointing to Saudi Arabia, which has been quick to take up adventure tourism as it opens its doors to travelers from around the world. And while adventure tourism may not have the same market in the region as it does in, say, North America, Samra believes there has been a clear paradigm shift about how it’s perceived in the region.

"There were lots of misconceptions around adventure travel [when we started],” Samra notes. “People thought that hiking is something that you do if you’re on a shoestring budget. But they soon started to realize that, globally, lots of people travel in a very luxurious way, but they also go on adventure travel trips, and they’re happy to rough it up, because that richness of experience that you get becomes the luxury. Because you live a very sheltered life where everything is catered to, everything is a phone call away. So, stepping into this world, where you have to connect with people in a very deep way, with active listening or walking by yourself, with no distractions around except your breath and your steps, [is valuable]. The real luxury [becomes being able] to step away, and to have this type of experience.”

Having thus forged ahead with such innovative business pursuits, Samra brings with him a trove of insights that any fellow founder would find worthwhile. For instance, in a landscape where startups often seem more focused on chasing funding than actually developing their products or services, Samra urges entrepreneurs not to raise money unless they really need it. “You have to acknowledge and understand that the more money you raise, the more control you lose,” Samra says. “I think people want to raise money as an accolade. You need to deliver on these outcomes that you pitch, and I feel like a lot of money gets raised for the wrong reasons. People need to go back to basics—every percent of the company that you give away is a big deal.”

Samra also urges founders to avoid going at it alone when it comes to building their businesses. “Having a co-founder is very important, because being an entrepreneur is very tough,” he points out. “It means being constantly on, in a high-stress environment. So, having a team early on that has skin in the game and complements your weaknesses is really crucial.”

And this brings Samra to his final piece of advice for entrepreneurs: hire good people, no matter their cost.

“It took me a while to learn this last one, and I probably paid the price for this many times,” he says. “I spent many years early on operating on a shoestring mindset. If I had a budget to hire people, I would hire two people that weren’t as good as one person, and I would use the extra money for marketing. Over time, I realized that the best investment that you can make is to hire good people at whatever cost. You’re hiring with the mindset of being the least talented person in the room. You want to be redundant in your current role and free to do something else, which could be business development, bringing in more money, or coming up with creative, big-picture ideas. That’s something really important that I feel I would have benefited a lot from at the start of my journey. This is especially the case when you’re self-funded, and you do need to be frugal. But people are not where you save.”

Pictured in the lead image is the Egyptian entrepreneur and adventurer Omar Samra. All images courtesy Omar Samra.

This article first appeared in the April/May 2025 issue of Inc. Arabia magazine. To read the full issue online, click here.