Episode: 39 — "Every Problem Has a Solution" · Full Episode #39
Date: 1 December 2020 (Season 4)
Language: Libyan Arabic
Ayman Kteit (أيمن قطيط) is a Libyan entrepreneur, born in 1980. He holds a degree in computer engineering, which he has never used professionally. He is the founder of Organic Land, a Libyan cosmetics company, and later pivoted to private-label manufacturing under the brand Metamorphia. His career is a sequence of reinventions — each one forced by circumstance, each one built from almost nothing.
Ayman's first day in business earned him fourteen Libyan dinars. He was selling toiletries from the trunk of his car — no shop, no brand, no infrastructure. The figure is unremarkable as revenue. It is significant as a starting point: the entire trajectory of Organic Land, the cosmetics company, the factory, the brand — all of it began with a man and a car trunk.
See: Fourteen Dinars
While wandering — Ayman did not describe it as a deliberate search — he stumbled into a bakery run by a French chef. The chef, for reasons Ayman did not fully explain, offered to teach him pastry-making free of charge. The education was informal, unplanned, and transformative. Ayman went from having no knowledge of baking to building a bakery business, entirely because he walked through the right door at the right time and someone chose to help him.
See: The French Chef
In 2014, war returned to Libya. Ayman's bakery was destroyed. An Italian investor who had been involved in the business vanished — left Libya and cut contact. The loss was total: the physical space, the partnership, the investment, the plan. He was back to nothing.
Ayman claims to have been the first person in Libya to use influencer marketing, in 2016. He promoted Organic Land products through Libyan social media figures at a time when the practice was virtually unknown in the country. The approach worked. But success attracted imitation.
As competitors copied his products and marketing strategies, Ayman made a structural decision: he stopped competing in the retail space and pivoted to private-label manufacturing. Under the brand Metamorphia, he began producing cosmetics for other companies rather than selling directly to consumers. The move shifted him from a crowded market to an empty one.
Fourteen dinars. First day. From a car trunk. (EP 39)