Tchips, the Lebanese snack brand founded by Daniel El Kadi, began as a small booth he opened at 19. Most people around him treated it as a phase. Today, the company runs out of its own factory, sells across Lebanon, and exports to four Arab countries.
El Kadi turned the booth into a factory at 23. A year later, at 24, he launched Tchips officially as a packaged retail product. Two years on, he is 26 and managing a snack business that recently received a USD 300,000 offer on Shark Tank, with franchising discussions already underway.
From a Booth at 19 to a Factory at 23
The first version of Tchips was a single booth. El Kadi spent four years there before scaling up, building out manufacturing capacity, and turning the product into something he could put on shelves.
The retail launch came a year after the factory opened. From there, Tchips moved into Lebanese distribution and started crossing borders into the region.
Building Through Collapse and Two Wars
The years El Kadi spent building Tchips overlap with the worst stretch of Lebanon's recent history. He started his booth as the country slid into financial collapse and currency devaluation. He built the factory and the retail brand through two wars.
He is direct about that. He has made mistakes, he says, and learned from them. He has kept going. What gets posted online, he reminds his followers, is not a highlight reel.
Why Lebanon Is a Calculated Bet
People often ask El Kadi why he keeps building in Lebanon. His answer is partly love of country, partly stubbornness, and partly what he calls a calculated bet: if a manufacturing company can scale in Lebanon, through collapse and devaluation and war, it can scale anywhere on earth.
Financial pressure pushed Tchips toward telesales and alternative revenue streams that other companies would not have considered. Limited resources forced the team to run leaner than competitors with bigger budgets. Supply constraints sent him deeper into local sourcing and pushed Tchips to build a supply chain it actually controls.
El Kadi says Lebanese origin works in his favour in GCC meetings rather than against it. In that telling, where the brand was built becomes proof that the team can execute in conditions that are never ideal.
Shark Tank, the GCC, and What Comes Next
The national rollout is now matched by regional expansion. Tchips is selling in four Arab countries and El Kadi is in discussions about franchising. The USD 300,000 Shark Tank offer adds to that momentum.
Building in Lebanon, he says, has been the hardest MBA he could have taken.
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