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copy-cat

Localization: imitation or art ?

This is cross posted from Habib Haddad’s blog

When the Chinese internet giant QQ released Fanfou a few years ago many criticized it as an obvious clone to twitter. The same again happened with the launch of Watwet the Jordanian startup. After all, at first glance the sites do look a lot like twitter. Maktoob, the company behind the Arab internet success story was always described as the Yahoo of the Middle East because of the very similar services it provided. It didn’t come much of a surprise when Yahoo actually acquired the company in 2009.

But is localizing an existing product or business idea imitation or art, and does that limit innovation or actually requires it?

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Posted on June 30th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | 3 Comments »
The Arab Entrepreneurship Opportunity

The Arab entrepreneurship opportunity

(This is cross posted from Habib Haddad’s blog)

The Middle East and North Africa region is home to 350 Million Arabic native speakers, 65% of which are under the age of 30. While internet penetration is still low at 20% it’s growing at the fastest rate in the world, mobile penetration however is at 80% with about 220M users. The education and health are booming due to the fast population growth. This growth coupled with the wealth of some countries especially in the Gulf is creating significant opportunities that are yet to be explored.

However a large portion of the massive GCC sovereign wealth funds was historically invested in markets like USA, Europe and Asia, but the recent downturn has put pressure to finally look and foster opportunities in the MENA region itself. Governments all over the Arab world are also keen on accelerating entrepreneurship and have been shifting the mindset of their funds towards more early stage deals, hoping to create that ecosystem. The challenge here is that it’s not just a shift of mindset but also a shift in required skills; Investing in startups and SMEs in the MENA emerging market is far from similar to investing in a developed ecosystem where the returns and exits are more or less established.

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Posted on June 14th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | No Comments »
aub-campus

TechWadi is coming to Beirut on June 23, get your YallaStartup discounted tickets today!

TechWadi, the leading networking association for Arab and Arab American technology professionals is coming to Beirut and will be hosting an event at AUB Olayan School of Business on Wednesday June 23.

Join us for an energizing discussion on accelerating entrepreneurship and venture capital in Lebanon and across the MENA region. The Forum will bring together distinguished investors, executives, entrepreneurs and policymakers, united in their vision to create a vibrant world-class entrepreneurial ecosystem.

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Posted on June 11th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | No Comments »
Screen shot 2010-05-28 at 6.29.16 PM

مغامرات الانطربرونور الصغير

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Posted on May 20th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | 2 Comments »
arabnet-demo-startup

ArabNet Entrepreneurs, startup your engines!

Today is ArabNet Startup demo, we want to wish luck to everyone who is presenting and are looking forward to start mentoring some of the startups!

Posted on March 25th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | No Comments »
Arabnet-logo

YallaStartup to mentor ArabNet Startups!

As a lot of you know by now there is one hot event coming our way, and YallaStartup is a proud supporter ! ArabNet is the first international conference for the Arab web industry and will take place in Beirut on the 25th and 26th of March. It will bring together leaders from across the MENA, Europe and Silicon Valley to discuss cutting-edge trends and emerging opportunities.

The conference will also feature some very cool ideas and startups through pitch and demo sessions. We are happy to announce that YallaStartup will be offer mentorship for selected top startups/ideas. This means we will assign mentors from our pool of experts to closely work and help the startups with their needs.

We hope by doing this that we can help the startups with technical expertise, marketing, strategy and even linking them with the right investors. We hope this would help them achieve their real potential, so what are you waiting for, YallaStartup!

If you would like to also join our pool of mentors please email us at mentors@yallastartup.org

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Posted on March 8th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | 2 Comments »
ziad

“Ask the expert”; Don’t miss your chance to get your questions answered by a VC

We will be hosting a series of open sessions with industry experts where you will have the chance to ask questions directly to them. The top 3 to 5 questions/topics will be answered in a blog post. We hope to repeat this enough times to get all your questions answered.

We’ll start our first “Ask the expert” series with a venture capitalist. We are fortunate to have Ziad Sultan from Longworth Venture partners join us to kick things off. join us to kick things off. You ask questions and we’ll  pick the top 3-5 topics. Ziad will answer each of them in a blog post and on the Q&A site. Question collection will start today and will be open for one week.

Here is how you can ask your questions:

  • Register on our Q&A platform if you haven’t do so already. It is important that you register so you can vote questions up or down
  • Add your question to the “answer” section here. (Do not create a new question in the Q&A platform, instead add as an “answer”)
  • Rate up or down other questions
  • Share the Question link on Twitter and/or Facebook
We will close the questions down in exactly one week so be sure to have your questions in asap. Oh, and don’t be afraid to ask tough questions :)

Ziad Sultan

Ziad focuses on investments in business applications and consumer media. His responsibilities span all aspects of Longworth’s investment process from deal sourcing and due diligence, to deal execution and ongoing support of portfolio companies.

Ziad joined Longworth from the Boston Consulting Group where he advised clients on a wide range of strategic and operational issues. Prior to BCG, Ziad worked as a consultant with Ernst & Young where he helped launch a new advisory practice focused on IT strategy and governance.

He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his graduate studies focused on artificial intelligence and digital signal processing.

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Posted on January 19th, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | No Comments »
lucky-six

The lucky six … and how we spent our holidays

We would like to first thank everyone who applied to the entrepreneurship course. We are very happy to have received a very positive response from more than 60 applicants. All applications and resumes were outstanding but we only had 6 free seats to offer. The free seats were offered by Potential, the company giving the course.

In our review process we gave priority to budding entrepreneurs, i.e ones who have just started their business. We also gave priority to those who didn’t have the chance to be exposed to entrepreneurship in their work or education. Our partner Potential also required the applicants to be present in the MENA region so we apologize to everyone who applied from overseas.

So here are the lucky six:

Tariq Al-Olaimy from Bahrain;  Muhammad Basheer from Qatar; Abdallah Absi from Lebanon; Muneeb Hussain from Morocco; Beshr Kayali from Syria and Firas Steitiyeh from Jordan

This is only the first of many more programs to come and we hope we’ll be able to accommodate everyone throughout. In the meantime check how we spent our holidays :)

[photo by Ruth Flickr]

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Posted on January 3rd, 2010 by Habib in YallaStartup | 2 Comments »
Dear Santa

We are giving away free entrepreneurship courses

We are almost ready to go live but first we would like to give away free goodies!

Potential generously offered our community free entrepreneurship courses. The course starts on January 5, 2010 and will meet online weekly for 6 months. It covers many topics such as polishing your idea, setting up your business, building the right team and attracting investors. You don’t need to be physically present, all you need is a computer, a decent internet connection and a couple of hours per week.

The fee is $2000 but YallaStartup will be selecting candidates to take the course for free, yes FREE! The only catch is that the deadline is getting very close and you need to apply ASAP so YallaApply :)

If you would like to apply please email us the following to apply@yallastartup.org before the 25th of December, 2009:

  1. a copy of your resume and/or bio
  2. short paragraph describing why you think you should attend the class and what you are expecting out of it

Ho ho ho …

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Posted on December 20th, 2009 by Habib in YallaStartup | 4 Comments »
entrepreneurship_roller_coaster

Let’s get this entrepreneurship party started!

Party theme

Our goal is to assist MENA (Middle East & North Africa) entrepreneurs transform their ideas to reality, taking their early stage startups to the next level. We hope to create the right channels and programs that cultivate a strong entrepreneurial community and we will be announcing some very soon.

Party hosts

We are three entrepreneurs from the Middle East. We founded, advised, fund raised and sold a number of companies in the US and Middle East. Throughout our journeys we faced a number of issues that we had to overcome, some were tougher than others. We realized that a lot of entrepreneurs in the MENA region face the same problems and we decided to do something about it.

Party people and Party food

As with every party, success is highly dependent on the people … and on the food!  There is no cover charge no dress code, and no reservations, just bring your own food, share and and receive. We are big fans of open communities and hope, to create that through YallaStartup! We will also be inviting many experts from various fields to share their deep expertise with all of us.

But most of all, enjoy it

Doing your startup is like being on a roller coaster, one day you are the king of the world, the next day you question yourself on why you took the jump. One thing is for sure, it’s one FUN ride. So be ready to enjoy it to the max!

Almost ready …

Yalla, we are almost ready to go live, but before we do so we are giving away free entrepreneurship courses.

–

Elie Khoury, Habib Haddad & Sami Shalabi

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Posted on December 20th, 2009 by Habib in YallaStartup | No Comments »
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