Entrepreneur Qatar January 2015 | Engineering Success

PR your business Eight communication tips for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs

Infusing innovation Dr. Maher Hakim Three necessary factors to establish a Qatari Silicon Valley

Onboarding clients Five essential steps to creating content for your company

James Reynolds

Engineering success IN DOHA

Moutaz Al Khayyat

‘Trep Toolkit

Hack your enterprise into 2015

Business plans, marketing plans, outlook revamp, niche predictions and staffing for entrepreneurs

Capital gains Flat6Labs launches new regional startup accelerator

Ramez Mohamed

Constructive criticism

ACTS Chairman Khaled Awad Qatar adopts measures of preparedness, prevention and precision

Qatar’s contractors incorporate best practices for industry advancement

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JANUARY 2015 | ENTREPRENEURMIDDLEEAST.COM | QAR15

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Entrepreneur january 2015

JANUARY 2015

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CONTENTS

Engineering success in Doha

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28

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INNOVATORS: Engineering success in Doha

Infusing innovation?

It can be done

Constructive criticism

TECH: SHINY

Moutaz Al Khayyat Qatar’s contractors incorporate best practices for industry advancement.

Dr. Maher Hakim Three necessary factors to establish a Qatari Silicon Valley.

ACTS Chairman Khaled Awad Qatar adopts measures of preparedness, prevention and precision.

#TamTalksTech Gadgets and doodads that you might’ve missed out on, sourced by a tech aficionado.

Yes, it’s okay to want them all… and no, it’s not our fault.

Moutaz Al Khayyat

32 ‘Trep Toolkit

Hack your enterprise into 2015 Business plans, marketing plans, outlook revamp, niche predictions and staffing for entrepreneurs.

10 EDITOR’S NOTE

By Fida Z. Chaaban

54 WD

My Passport Wireless

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CONTENTS

JANUARY 2015

80 Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem just erupted, and your startup might fit the bill

72 START IT UP: WACKY IDEA

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58

CULTURE: TRAPPINGS

TRAVEL

‘Trep gear The executive selection for the entrepreneur on your list that has everything. Okay, maybe for a little selfreward as well.

68 TRAVEL

Hang in there Five reasons why taking your vacation early in the year is a bad ideaMay Rostom has been there and done that.

Leisurely lifestyle Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme’s GM Alessandro Cresta wants you to visit his glorious property for business… and pleasure

70 LIFE

Business book rundown Amal Chaaban reviews a few business books for you before you hit the bestseller aisle. It’s true that not all executive material is created equally.

Artistic inclinations MENA platform lets you buy and sell fine art online, and the co-founders are an imaginative mother-daughter team!

74 STARTUP FINANCE

Rough ride Social entrepreneurs don’t have it easy raising capital, and PiSlice founder Genny Ghanimeh has seen it first-hand.

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88 START IT UP

Name game A list of 10 questions to ask before naming your business, and if you’re in ideation phase of your startup this is the time to weigh all of these factors.

80 STARTUP FINANCE

Put your cards on the table Flat6Labs CEO Ramez Mohamed talks about their newest venture in the UAE in partnership with two-four 54, and where he sees startup success. Oh, and he’s very, very frank.

52 Trappings

Q+A

Easy does it MICEit wants to make MENA event planning seamless, and their corporate background has made it possible… really.

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Future Concrete Qatar 2014

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Entrepreneur january 2015

TESTED BEYOND ENDURANCE The U-2 BLUE is the latest mechanical timepiece from Bremont.

Engineered for, and tested by the military. For the rest of us.

U-2/BL

www.bremont.com

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CONTENTS

JANUARY 2015

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‘TREPONOMICS: SKILLSET

ESQUIRE GUY

MONEY: ECON

YOUR MONEY

Keeping ‘treps in post secondary Melltoo Market cofounder Sharene Lee on how colleges can stay relevant in today’s startup world. She’s an academic, and she’s going back to her roots.

56 MARKETING

How-to PR your business The co-founders of DABO & CO, Camilla d’Abo and Lucy d’Abo, put forward eight communication tips for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

The problem with passion Ross McCammon talks about the reasonable limits of being passionate about your enterprise… and where you should be drawing the line.

The 2015 MENA Salary Guide Bayt.com’s Suhail Al-Masri on the compensation, benefits and rates of satisfaction for the year ahead.

Buzzing about Beehive Peer-to-peer lending makes an entrance in the GCC market with the new Beehive platform.

72 Artistic inclinations

66 FRANCHISE

Ins and outs UAE-based franchise expands outside of the GCC, and a North American franchise launches its first outlet in MENA.

60 Onboarding the right way Five essential steps to creating content that works for your business

by SEO pro James Reynolds. In brief: it’s a process that pays for itself in dividends.

56 Eight communication tips for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

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60 Onboarding the right way: Five essential steps to creating content that works for your business

BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATION: Untitled by Fadi Yazigi, Mixed Media, 70 cm x 140 cm

MARKETING

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SUBSCRIBE EDITOR IN CHIEF Fida Z. Chaaban editor@bncpublishing.net DIRECTOR Rabih Najm rabih@bncpublishing.net DIRECTOR Wissam Younane wissam@bncpublishing.net PUBLISHER Nehme Abouzeid MANAGING EDITOR Aby Sam Thomas CREATIVE LEAD Odette Kahwagi ONLINE LIAISON Kareem Chehayeb COLUMNIST Pamella de Leon CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Camilla d’Abo Lucy d’Abo Amal Chaaban Youmna Chagoury Kareem Chehayeb Tamara Clarke James Clear Genny Ghanimeh Maher Hakim Simon Hudson

Sharene Lee Pamella de Leon Suhail Al-Masri Ross McCammon James Reynolds May Rostom Tracy Stapp Herold Juan José de la Torre Jawad Sajwani Erika Widen

Images used in Entrepreneur Middle East are credited when necessary. Attributed use of copyrighted images with permission. All images not credited otherwise Shutterstock.

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In addition to our print edition, we’re bringing you all sorts of industry news on our web mediums. Joining us online means getting relevant business and startup content in real-time, so you’re hearing about the latest developments as soon as we do. We’re looking forward to interacting with our readers on all of our social media and web platforms- like any thriving business, we’re looking to give and take. #TrepTalkME is already happening on all of our digi platforms, and all good conversations go both ways. See you on the web!

EntMagazineME @EntMagazineME | @Fida Entrepreneur-me EntrepreneurMiddleEast EntMagazineME EntMagazineME EntMagazineME

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L a fra gra nc e ma s c uline a rde nte L a fra gra nc e a rde nte pour l homme

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EDITOR’S NOTE

#MasteringYou2015 Priorities, putting yourself first, and the unexplored potential of happiness

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know a few ‘treps, wildly successful ‘treps, and yes, they’re hardcore workaholics, but more than that, these people are shining examples of mastery. For the writers who are reading this, you’ll know how difficult it is to find a “master” of anything. It’s not a word I use lightly. I don’t think I have mastered much in my lifetime; I wish I had a long list of things that I’ve mastered to share. The questionable grammar in my monthly note to you all is a good indicator that I certainly haven’t mastered that particular art- I manage to pass that off as stylization (writers, again, that one was for you). You might already know that Aby Sam Thomas has joined our team as Managing Editor- he’s got the grammar part down pat, so you have him to thank for salvaging the English language in my letter each issue.

Those of you who talk to me on Twitter will have already seen me use #MasteringYou2015 on the timeline. Basically, I am tweeting things that I want to master- or at least apply consistently to my life and to my work. Some are easy to action (sitting for a proper work portrait), and some are seriously difficult and will hopefully come to fruition over

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the course of the year (make time for Russian language classes at Berlitz). #MasteringYou2015 is about really applying all the ideas to better my work and my life. Some of the tweeps have shared their #MasteringYou2015 goals already, and they run the gamut from travel to self-improvement and education. @IsmailSakalaki is going to try to learn to code, @JoesBox wants to master photography, @Mo_ForNow wants to complete at least two modules of life coaching certification, and @AdnanDawood wants to visit Tajikistan. There are tons more that have been tweeted at me, so do check out the hashtag to see what people are aiming for in the coming year- it’s interesting and inspiring stuff.

What do you want to master? If you prioritize personal greatness- and by this I mean your own personal definition of greatness- then I think you can possibly open up a world of self-fulfillment and happiness. Your own definition of greatness doesn’t necessarily have to do with your professional life, although I expect if you’re reading Entrepreneur, it most certainly will. I know that my estimation of personal greatness does

include perfecting my performance on the job, as when I do well at work, it does make me happy.

For the year ahead, bringing you the very best business and lifestyle content is high on my agenda, and I can think of little else that would prove as rewarding.

Tweet your own aspirations for the year ahead at me with the hashtag #MasteringYou2015. I’d like to see both your personal and your professional goals. Here’s to a productive and proactive year ahead!

Fida Z. Chaaban Editor in Chief @fida editor@bncpublishing.net

Educating tomorrow's doctors today Providing the highest level of education, research and clinical care Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar has now been established for more than a decade. Since then we have developed a cutting-edge biomedical research program and high-profile community outreach initiatives but the most important thing we have done is to create doctors.

Students have come to us from across the world and we have given them an education that is second to none.

They have travelled to New York to learn from physicians based at our parent campus and they have been supported every step of the way by our faculty.

Our graduates are now working in hospitals in the U.S. and Qatar, helping cure patients of a myriad of diseases. As they progress in their careers, our alumni will return to Qatar, enriching the knowledge-based economy, improving the healthcare system, and passing on their experience to future generations of doctors.

With dedication and determination, you too could make a difference and make your mark on the world.

www.qatar-weill.cornell.edu

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Emerson Buckley CONDUCTOR

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Facilitating success.

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Entrepreneur january 2015

German Chancellor Angela Merkel publically critical of Russian Federation intentions

HIV virus in Botswana reportedly a milder strain

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hancellor of Germany Angela Merkel made some critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of interfering with Eastern European countries, notably Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Citing Russia’s interference in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, Merkel -described by many as the “de facto” leader of the European Union (EU)- accused Russia of trying to make certain European states politically and economically dependent on Russia. Despite Moldova and Georgia recently signing economic deals with the EU, Russia has also ratified strategic partnerships with the two nations. While both Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel

Russian President Vladimir Putin

leaders speak each other’s native languages and have had relatively productive meetings in the past, the annexation of Crimea has led to a more heated, publically-aggressive relationship between Merkel and Putin. Putin clearly isn’t pleased about the Western-led sanctions, but Merkel is confident about its efficacy. In light of all this, publications worldwide have recalled an incident in 2007 where President Putin, aware of Chancellor Merkel’s fear of dogs, brought his dog Koni to the meeting, making her uncomfortable.

But with everything that’s happened since then, something suggests that the EU and Russia will be throwing even harder diplomatic punches going forward.

team of scientists from the University of Oxford have seen some preliminary promising results in their research on the HIV virus, using Botswana and South Africa as case studies for the same.

Taking history and evolution into consideration, they’ve noticed that the HIV virus in Botswana, which has been dealing with the problem long before South Africa, is milder.

Professor Philip Goulder of the University of Oxford explained that its ability to replicate is 10% slower than the virus’ replication rate in South Africa, thus being less infectious and requiring more time to develop into AIDS. So while it usually takes a decade to evolve into its full expression, this watered down form of the virus could take an estimated 12.5 years. Medical developments plus a weaker, less infectious (yet still dangerous) form of the HIV virus could means that there is hope for controlling the deadly virus.

HIV virus

Abu Dhabi firm buys historic New Scotland Yard structure

VLADIMIR PUTIN IMAGE © SLAVKO SEREDA / SHUTTERSTOCK | ANGELA MERKEL IMAGE © 360b / shutterstock

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t has been on the market for months, but December saw the sale finally happen of New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police, to the Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG) for a whopping US$580 million. (The New York Times) The landmark deal will see the 600,000-squarefoot property, which has been the storied home of the London police force for nearly half a century, be now converted into “a world-class multi-use development” that will be marketed under the name, Ten Broadway. As for the Met Police themselves, they will now relocate to their new home at the Curtis Green building on Victoria Embankment; a move that will, according to London Mayor Boris Johnson, save the police force about $9.4 million a year.

In a statement, Johnson said, “The sale of this under-used and outdated building means we can now not only protect that rich heritage, but also fund the new HQ and kit out bobbies with the latest mobile technology to secure the future of the force. This landmark deal allows us to preserve the past, whilst giving today’s

Met a vital cash boost so our officers can go on keeping London safe.” And for those of you wondering if the iconic “New Scotland Yard” sign in front of the headquarters has also been sold to the Abu Dhabi firm: worry not, for that revolving triangular “jobby” will also be moved along with the police force to their new home on Victoria Embankment.

Batelco appoints Muna Al Hashemi as acting CEO for Bahrain Bahrain’s primary telecommunications company Batelco has appointed Bahraini national Muna Al Hashemi as the acting CEO for its local operations. Al Hashemi isn’t a new face at Batelco, having joined the company in 1994 and heading its consumer division since 2008.

She replaces Alan Whelan, who will now focus on being the Group CEO of the Batelco Group. The Batelco Group, led by Chairman Sheikh Hamad bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, extends well beyond the GCC island state, with subsidiaries and affiliates in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Maldives. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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in the loop Saudi Rail 2015 to highlight local and regional efforts in transportation developments audi Rail 2015, an international exhibition for rail, metro lines, and urban transportation, is all set to be held from January 25-28, 2015 at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center. The event, which will display some of the latest railway products and equipment from international brands, comes at a time when 20% of Saudi

Arabia’s total construction expenditure is going towards three major railway projects- an estimated US$45 billion is currently committed to upgrading existing lines and building new rail networks across Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Rail 2015’s timing is relevant not only to KSA’s development plans, but also to the rest of the GCC’s. 32% of the GCC’s overall

Plunging oil prices spark global response

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s this yet another episode of price changes, or could this be a serious indicator of what’s to come for world oil? At the moment, signs point to the latter. With ISIS making over US$3 million a day in oil sales vis-à-vis the black market, and the market getting shaken up with the boom of the fracking industry, international oil prices this year have plummeted to an all-time low since 2009, a massive

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49% drop. The United States and Russia aren’t relishing the challenge, and OPEC’s member states (of which a third belong to the GCC) are more divided than ever. Each OPEC state has a different budget, which means that the members have different oil producing and exporting goals for economic stabilitylarger countries like Iran and Nigeria require higher oil prices to balance their budgets (over

spending on transportation developments have been allocated to rail projects, totaling a whopping $298 billion.

$100 a barrel), as opposed to smaller states like Kuwait and Qatar (less than $80 a barrel).

But even before reaching a consensus on a solution to fix this problem, there is another dilemma OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) needs to sort out: not all of its member states consider these price drops to be an issue to begin with. GCC OPEC states Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have shrugged off concerns about these lower prices, claiming that there is no need to reduce oil production and output, despite daily demand dropping to about one million barrels less than OPEC’s production target. With respect to Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, businessman HRH Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has been quite vocal about the Kingdom’s oil policy. He released an open letter to the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources H.E. Ali Al Naimi, expressing his concern on how the Kingdom has downplayed the significance of the decreased prices, noting that the 2014 budget relies almost entirely on oil revenues at 90%. Another factor that needs to be considered are the existence of influential oil-producing states that aren’t part of OPEC: the United States and Russia.

Over in the United States, where hydraulic fracturing or fracking has been the key technique of extracting oil, it isn’t a matter of whether to maintain current production or to cut back. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Oil production is at its highest in about three decades, and with

fracking being more cost-heavy than conventional extraction methods, they have to keep on with the practice to cover costs and debts. In fact, many analysts claim that fracking has played a significant role in causing the oil price to plummet.

Whether the U.S. fracking industry gets through this or not, most will agree that its “boom” period is slowly coming to an end. Finally, there’s Russia. It’s only getting worse for them, and the U.S.-European sanctions played a huge role in making it happen. Add that to plunging oil prices, and you have a currency crisis, rapid inflation, and a recession. This is obviously a huge problem to this massive oil producer, relying on oil and gas for 70% of its export incomes.

While Russia is preparing for a worsening recession in 2015, President Vladimir Putin has been adamant about not cutting production, claiming that it will be an opportunity for competitors to increase their share in the market.

Despite all the grey areas in this interesting chapter of the world’s most valuable fossil fuel, there are countries that will benefit from the price cuts, notably China and India. While China’s economy is starting to slow down, cheaper oil is something that they will definitely benefit from, and it could ease a few hardships they may face. India relies heavily on oil imports, importing about 75%, and it too will welcome lower prices, to ease costs that it faces. 2015 will be an interesting year for black gold.

HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal open letter published on his website www.alwaleed.com.sa

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INNOVATOR

Engineering success

How Moutaz Al Khayyat steered his four-year-old company, UrbaCon Trading & Contracting, into becoming one of Qatar’s leading contracting companies

By Aby Sam Thomas

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or a company that was established only in 2011, UrbaCon Trading & Contracting (UCC) has been extremely quick in making a name for itself in the construction industry landscape of Qatar, and indeed, the world as well. After all, the Doha-based company was recently ranked number 184 in the 2014 list of the Top 250 Global Contractors of the world as compiled by Engineering News-Record, with the construction industry-focused American publication noting that UCC had raked in a total revenue of US$1,192 million in 2013.

A cursory look at the several projects that UCC has been involved with in the past few years is enough to understand how the company has become one of the most influential contractors in Qatar. Heading UCC’s

impressive portfolio is the development of the Mall of Qatar, which, when completed in 2015, will be the largest shopping mall in the country. Other noteworthy projects UCC has been associated with include the Banana Island Resort by Anantara, the Lekhwiya Stadium at Al Duhail, and the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Convention Center. “We have undertaken a diverse array of projects over the last three years, ranging from palaces, hotels, football stadiums, marine works, underground car parks and island reports,” said Moutaz Al Khayyat, CEO, UCC. “Currently, UCC has many projects on the drawing board and under tender, ranging from resort complexes such as at Salwa, waterfront developments, football stadia, and of course, the completion within this coming year of one of our flagship properties, the Mall of Qatar.” january 2015 Entrepreneur

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INNOVATOR “UCC has already developed from being just a design build turnkey contractor to [becoming] a diverse portfolio of companies all aligned with the vision for the development of the country for the benefit of its residents.”

Moutaz Al Khayyat

When asked about the reasons behind UCC’s current high standing in the market, Al Khayyat pointed toward the commitment the company makes with its clients to ensure that their projects are completed in a safe, professional manner on time, in budget and in compliance with the highest quality standards.

“UCC has set itself apart from its peers with its ability to successfully perform and deliver a wide range of diverse

“UCC has set itself apart from its peers with its ability to successfully perform and deliver a wide range of diverse projects on a design build turnkey lump sum basis” 18

Entrepreneur january 2015

projects on a design build turnkey lump sum basis,” Al Khayyat explained. “UCC has achieved this by employing experienced professional staff at all levels, by building up a substantial in-house workforce of skilled workers, and by developing an extensive procurement chain in the local and international markets.”

Commenting on UCC’s rise to the top, Al Khayyat paid tribute to the company’s well-established heritage, as it is an offshoot of the very successful Al Khayyat Group.

“Our motto, ‘We Build Trust,’ in fact, originates from the vision of the [Al Khayyat] family many years ago when the business was first founded in Syria,” he said. “Throughout the last 30 years, we have maintained this vision, and

[we] aim to fulfill it with our continued sincere commitment to the requirements of our esteemed clients. UCC continues to carry forward this legacy.”

And to his credit, Al Khayyat made sure that UCC lived up

Souk Waqif underground car park

to the grandeur associated with his family’s name in a rather short span of time. The company may have launched in 2011 with a workforce of just 1,000 people, but today, UCC boasts of more than 12,000 employees, with its rapid growth also fueling the spawning of several subsidiary companies dealing with a variety of specialist activities, which include everything from design to marine works. And this kind of diversification is something that’s bound to work out well for UCC in the long run- after all, there is the matter of Qatar’s National Vision for 2030. “Qatar’s National Vision 2030 is built around the four pillars of economic, social, human and environmental development,” Al Khayyat explained.

“Development aligned with this vision will entail growth in all sectors. UCC has already developed from being just a design build turnkey contractor to [becoming] a diverse portfolio of companies all aligned with the vision for the development of the country for the benefit of its residents. >>>

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INNOVATOR Sheraton Doha Resort & Convention Hotel lobby

Further areas of interest aligned with the vision is the anticipated growth in hospitality, healthcare, education, manufacturing and farming. “the current investment into the country will not only provide opportunities for construction, but also multiple growth in all sectors, which will be a very positive environment for Qatar and its people.”

While UCC is already engaged in some of these sectors, further growth and diversity is a strong possibility at this time.”

The upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 is also playing a key factor in the growth plan Al Khayyat has for UCC. “There are many projects to be completed in line with the FIFA World Cup and the National Vision requirements,” he said. “We

are confident that UCC will undertake its share of these projects, and considering that we have [now] established the company’s reputation, we can build on it to ensure further compliance with our motto and vision. As we have seen in other Gulf countries, the current investment into the country will not only provide opportunities for construction, but also multiple growth in all sectors, which will be a very positive environment for Qatar and its people.” But that is not to say that the future is going to be all smooth sailing either.

“One of the most obvious challenges facing the industry in Qatar is the availability of materials,” Al Khayyat noted.

“Many materials are required to be imported [right now], and currently, this in itself potentially poses problems at border crossings and ports.”

However, Al Khayyat is hoping

“While our brand is now quite diverse, we are looking into the future to expand more into healthcare, and to expand and merge our hospitality and real estate opportunities.” for some relief on this front very soon as well. “The opening of the new Doha port will, of course, be a great asset for the country,” he explained.

“Also, the recent initiative to develop the infrastructure for new economic zones adjacent to the airport and the seaport will encourage tremendous business development, provide substantial growth opportunities, employment for many residents, and, of course, a more readily available source and selection of products for all industries.”

Given the sheer range of sectors and the variety of >>>

Sheraton Doha Resort & Convention Hotel

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INNOVATOR projects UCC works with, one can’t help but wonder about how Al Khayyat successfully runs what by all accounts seems to be a well-oiled business enterprise. “My leadership strategy is very simple,” he declared. “Honest, hard work, attention to detail and quality assurance of the end product. These principles ensure that we continue to

build trust with our esteemed clients. We, as a group of companies, know that we can undertake any challenge and succeed by adhering to these basic principles.” And it is this belief in the company and its founding principles that allows Al Khayyat to dream big when it comes to the further development of the UCC brand. “While our

brand is now quite diverse, we are looking into the future to expand more into healthcare, and to expand and merge our hospitality and real estate opportunities,” he said. “We are [also] looking closely at the education sector and certain manufacturing opportunities, including dairy products. All business endeavors follow the process of due diligence

“the recent initiative to develop the infrastructure for new economic zones adjacent to the airport and the seaport will encourage tremendous business development, [and] provide substantial growth opportunities.”

Mall of Qatar under construction

One issue that has received a lot of media attention in the recent past has been the poor treatment of migrant construction workers in Qatar. With respect to UCC, what is your take on this issue, and how have you gone about ensuring the welfare of your employees?

“Any successful business depends on its employees- these are the assets of the company, and this extends from the managers to the laborers. At UCC, we have developed workers’ accommodation that provides a safe, clean environment where employees can refresh themselves after a day’s work, with shops, mosques, kitchens, laundries and recreation areas.

UCC also has its own clinic with certified doctors and nursing staff available on a 24-hour basis within the complex. In addition to this, all UCC employees undergo

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and careful market research, and are [also] aligned with the anticipated growth of the country.”

And it’s not just Qatar that Al Khayyat has in his sights.

“While the majority of UCC’s projects are within the state of Qatar, we do already have projects in London, Morocco and Oman, and related businesses within the UAE,” Al Khayyat revealed. “UCC is also looking to expand to other markets, as appropriate opportunities arise.” Given its track record over the past few years, UCC seems to have struck gold with all of the opportunities it has found in the market so far, and so, it certainly looks like Al Khayyat will be overseeing the continuation of this trend over the next couple of years as well.

a thorough safety induction process and are equipped with all necessary personal protection equipment prior to entering any of the work sites. UCC also respectfully follows the summer mid-day working restrictions and provide re-hydrants to the workforce during the difficult summer months.”

With sustainability becoming an increasingly important facet of real estate projects in the Middle East, how has UCC gone about implementing such green principles in its projects in Qatar?

“Sustainability and environmental considerations are [becoming] increasingly more important in all projects.

UCC is already an affiliate member of the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS), and [it] looks together

with its design partners to provide value engineering at every opportunity, reducing construction material requirements, together with low energy options, solar power options and recycling of waste.

Currently, within UCC worker camps detailed design studies are in progress to process waste and in return, generate heat and energy, this in turn reducing the requirement for generators and in the process, fertilizer is generated as a byproduct. Within UCC’s expansive construction fleet, trials are also under way with hybrid additives developed in Australia that provide for a more efficient use of diesel, and, in turn, reduce harmful chemical release into the atmosphere.

UCC and its affiliated companies are committed to enhance sustainability of all projects and areas of the business at every opportunity.”

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january 2015 Entrepreneur

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INNOVATOR

Infusing innovation?

It can be done Three necessary factors to establish a Qatari Silicon Valley

By Dr. Maher Hakim

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wo years ago, I moved to Qatar with my family to teach at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. I moved here from San Francisco Bay Area, where I had been living for almost 20 years, building a number of tech companies from the ground up in various fields such as B2B e-commerce, healthcare mobile technologies, online education, and crowdfunding. Upon arriving in the region, I started to get involved in the tech startup ecosystem in Qatar and neighboring Arab countries. I began to wonder how the Silicon Valley success story could potentially be replicated in Qatar and the Arab region. How could we establish a culture of innovation entrepreneurship in the Arab world? What would it take for the next billion-dollar technology company –the next Google, the next Facebook, the next Uber- to come out of this region?

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During my brief time in Qatar, I have witnessed the attention the Qatari government has shown towards human capital and its keen desire to provide knowledge and education through renowned universities located in Qatar Foundation’s Education City. I have also had the privilege to see the encouragement and support given to Qatar’s youth to be creative, inventive and entrepreneurial to help them turn initial ideas into fruitful projects from various organizations such as Enterprise Qatar, Qatar Business Incubation Center, Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) and ICT’s Digital Incubation Center.

Major challenges along the way Despite the great support the Qatari government provides to cement the culture of innovation entrepreneurship in Qatar, there is much more to be done. Innovation is a process

that leads to the development of new products, services or processes that change people’s lives for the better, and in the meantime, generates substantial economic benefits for the innovators and their backers, or great societal benefits for certain communities. Innovation is a long, grueling and unpredictable process that follows nature’s law of the survival of the fittest. In this case, the “fittest” are the innovators who, on the one hand, do have the skills and stamina to endure the innovation process starts much earlier than the first glimpse of the idea appears –with the development of the would-be innovators themselves– the entrepreneurs who not only can think big but also have enough enthusiasm, passion and perseverance to endure the long and unpredictable innovation process.

the “experimental and iterative nature” of the process, and on the other hand, are able to continue to acquire and develop the resources (capital and people) needed to succeed.

The diagram below summarizes the various phases of the innovation entrepreneurship process and identifies the key forces that support it. The culture of innovation in Silicon Valley was spurred through the development -either organically or through government-driven initiatives- of these various forces. The same is now being recognized in various parts across the world from Berlin, Germany to Beijing, China.

Looking deep into these factors, one can easily identify three specific areas which require further development in order to achieve similar results here in Qatar specifically and the Arab region in general.

Firstly, as the diagram shows, the innovation process starts much earlier than the first glimpse of the idea appears –with the development of the would-be innovators themselves– the entrepreneurs who not only can think big but also have enough enthusiasm, passion and perseverance to endure the long and unpredictable innovation process. New research in innovation

has identified that true innovators are typically driven by a desire the change the status quo and a healthy appetite for taking calculated risks.

An environment where these desires are encouraged and developed will produce more would-be innovators than an environment where they are suppressed. Silicon Valley, by its very nature, is a magnate of skilled migrants (from inside and outside the U.S.) whose profiles closely match the behavioral profiles of would-be innovators. Qatar, and the Arab World at large, should work on encouraging its youth to develop the behavioral skills required for future innovators.

We must influence existing cultural habits that oppose change and hinder risk-taking. Universities also have a role to play in developing not just the technical abilities of their students, but also the behavioral skills that are needed to succeed in the innovation journey.

Secondly, as ideas move from the early-stage startup phase into the scale-up phase, significant followup funding is required. Because of the risky nature of the innovation process, this funding cannot be secured through traditional loan-based vehicles of financing (banks, etc.), but

Qatar Business Incubation Center (QBIC)

through a different financing vehicle known as venture capital. Qatar, and the Arab World at large, needs to develop its homegrown venture capitalists. These institutions are slowly starting to emerge in places such as Egypt, Jordan and UAE. They are, however, much more risk-averse compared to their American counterparts, and they tend to deal only with companies in the “growth” phase. >>>

january 2015 Entrepreneur

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INNOVATOR Qatar, and the Arab World at large, should work on encouraging its youth to develop the behavioral skills required for future innovators. We must influence existing cultural habits that oppose change and hinder risk-taking.

Qatar Science and Technology Park

the experience required to staff the company’s management throughout the scale-up and growth phases of the company.

Today, in countries like China, startup founders and investors are demonstrating big successes and reaping great profits from risky journeys they embarked on when establishing companies like Bidu and Alibaba– companies that generated wealth matching or exceeding most Silicon Valley firms. I believe that the next decade will witness the emergence of similar successful ventures in the Arab world, and Qatar can and should be part of these successes.

Thirdly, as the company enters the scale-up and growth phases, and as it hopefully succeeds in raising significant amount of funding to fuel its growth, it needs to acquire the talent necessary to move forward: skilled professionals who have years of expertise working in product development organizations in various roles from administration and sales, to marketing and engineering, HR, etc. In Silicon Valley today, as in other parts of the world, you will find plenty of professionals who have worked for decades in places such as Yahoo, Google, Intel, Oracle, and the like. These professionals have the expertise required to organize the teams and establish the processes required to scale-up and grow a startup.

Many of them are of Arab descent and are ready to move back to the Arab region and work at promising and well-financed startups, in part due to a strong desire to raise their children With the absence of established organizations in the Arab world today which develop technologybased products and services, recruiting and retaining these experienced professionals is key to building the innovation ecosystem in the Arab world.

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in an Arab or Islamic culture. With the absence of established organizations in the Arab world today which develop technology-based products and services, recruiting and retaining these experienced professionals is key to building the innovation ecosystem in the Arab world.

The role of the Qatari Government In light of the above, I believe that the Qatari government should continue to establish and support incubation centers to educate entrepreneurs and innovators, and provide them with the needed skills and support to help them succeed. These centers provide needed training, support and funding for innovation experiments in the startup phase. But this is not enough.

The government must help build and partially fund capital venture partnerships, staffed with experienced innovation entrepreneurs and investment professionals, who collectively possess the needed expertise and the ability to make investment decisions based on the value-creation viability of a startup and its founders.

With the right incentives, these funds will be able to invest in the scale-up phase of the right startup venture, and will be able to attract and recruit

Dr. Maher Hakim is currently an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar, where he teaches courses on innovation entrepreneurship, agile product and project management, IT consulting, and data management and analytics. He has 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley as a founder of five technology startup companies, and a product development executive at large software companies such as Infor and Autodesk. In addition to teaching, Dr. Hakim is an advisor and a mentor to a number of startup tech companies and is an active angel investor. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer-Aided Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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INNOVATOR

Constructive criticism ACTS Chairman Khaled Awad

Qatar adopts measures of preparedness, prevention and precision By Erika Widén

A “

CTS establishment was driven toward the embodiment of integrity powered by materials engineering knowledge. In addition, ACTS is not a common provider of third party testing and consulting services. We thrive to be a knowledge source to

our customers, empowering our work with technical solutions that will enhance the quality of the project.

We have a large realm of services, spanning from testing and quality control to geo-engineering, and covering a wide spectrum of construction materials and environmental assess-

ments,” says Khaled Awad, Founder and Chairman of Advanced Construction Technology Services (ACTS). A multinational organization established in Lebanon in 1996, ACTS opened a branch in Qatar in 2003, later expanding to include Saudi Arabia in 2012. Presently, the

Future Concrete Qatar 2014

company operates in different countries and has more than 600 employees throughout the MENA region.

ACTS is currently involved in a multitude of projects in Qatar. According to Awad some of the most prominent ones include the geotechnical and geophysical works for the Inner Doha Re-sewerage Implementation Strategy (IDRIS) with Ashghal, the framework for local roads and drainage for Ashghal.

“As well, we have recently completed the geophysical works for the first stadium for 2022 World Cup, and we are working on the Green Line, Golden Line and Red Line of Doha Metro for the geotechnical and environmental works.

Also, we have site laboratories in Sheraton park with QDVC, in Barzan a project with Descon at RasLaffan, in the East Corridor with China Harbour, and last but not least we have been awarded the quality control and testing works for the Lusail Road development project (CP4) with Midmak-Yuksel.”

ACTS contributes to the industry’s ecosystem by offering a slew of training programs in various tracks related to material engineering and technology. The major topics of the training programs include field and laboratory testing and evaluation of concrete and construction materials, concrete advanced technologies and “There are several challenges when it comes to big projects, and these challenges might last for the next 100 to 150 years.

The most important aspect here is to implement these projects in the right way, so that we cut down maintenance costs in the future.”

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acts website

“The size of the infrastructure projects in Qatar is expected to exceed US$70 billion (QR245 billion) in the next seven years, which we will not see in any other part of the world.”

mix design, understanding of ready mixed concrete, construction practices, mass concrete, hot and cold weather concreting, field quality control, inspection of structures, non-destructive testing and special investigations, soils testing and evaluation, and hot mix asphalt technology.

ACTS additionally acts as the Local Sponsoring Group for the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in the Middle East, and they facilitate ACI certification to individuals dedicated to pursuing a higher standard that remain valid for a period of five years. “These programs are designed for all personnel employed within the concrete industry. The average training program duration is three days,” says Awad. In addition they are in partnership with ASTM and recently announced a new intensive environmental training course called ASTM Phase I and II Environmental Site Assessment Processes, to be staged in Doha next month.

“In the same mission framework, we organize yearly an international conference themed Future Concrete, which has become a regional forum for presenting and discussing the latest advancements in concrete construction practices.”

The sixth international Future Concrete conference, held recently in Doha, welcomed professionals from across a number of industries. “The expert knowledge imparted through the presentations from Future Concrete is

what makes the conference very relevant. The size of the infrastructure projects in Qatar is expected to exceed US$70 billion (QR245 billion) in the next seven years, which we will not see in any other part of the world. This requires special attention to the quality control and sustainability aspects in order to enable buildings and facilities to have a longer life. Most of the structures in Qatar that are currently under construction need to be completed within a short timeframe. Here comes the role of technology to speed up the execution while maintaining the highest quality standards, and this definitely requires special efforts. The conference was a very well-attended, and the sharing of best practices, key developments and new technology updates were all very much ap-

preciated by the attendees,” says Awad. The conference highlighted the use of advanced technology in large scale, concrete projects in Qatar, and how it can be used to maintain project integrity and sustainability through ongoing quality control and recycling of materials. Future Concrete also imparted alternative strategies for projects data and information usage: how to manage and service these projects in the most possible cost effective way.

Overall, this can actually create a unique knowledge system in Qatar– if the concerned authorities are able to know how to extract and document relevant to be of use in future projects and facility management and service.

“There have been many developments in the concrete industry and technology used to make and recy-

ACTS Chairman Khaled Awad

cle it. The GCC region -and Qatar in particular- have been leading the way in using advanced technologies in large-scale projects. The conference discussed some case studies related to these technologies and how they can effectively be used in other projects. There are several challenges when it comes to big projects, and these challenges might last for the next 100 to 150 years. The most important >>> january 2015 Entrepreneur

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INNOVATOR Future Concrete Qatar 2014

aspect here is to implement these projects in the right way, so that we cut down maintenance costs in the future,” says Awad. One example? Preserving existing structures and preventing damage from the elements: “The weather in the Gulf and Qatar combines all the factors that lead to steel Most of the structures in Qatar that are currently under construction need to be completed within a short timeframe. Here comes the role of technology to speed up the execution while maintaining the highest quality standards, and this definitely requires special efforts.

corrosion, and therefore to concrete deterioration. Understanding concrete technology and translating that knowledge into adequate specifications and stringent quality control will enable better durability and thus reduced maintenance costs.

This is key in ensuring that the speedy construction will not become a future burden on the country infrastructure maintenance budgets,” continues Awad, “the other sustainability drive is recycling concrete waste into aggregates.

This will not just address resource scarcity, but also help reduce the environmental impact of concrete

production in Qatar which is expected to reach unprecedented levels in the coming years. It is noteworthy to commend the research work undertaken by the Qatari Ministry of Environment and TRL, as it is a solid platform for the use of recycled aggregates in concrete.”

Awad further adds how construction is still a laggard industry with respect to technology adoption. He believes there is a multitude of technologies which could be used in different parts of the supply chain.

“And we are witnessing the applications of those. As far as quality is concerned

there is a need to deploy integrated quality control tools to capture and mine data.” Subsequently, different technologies centred around the transfer of this wealth of data into management and streamlining processes could be developed.

“Qatar is set on a solid growth path. I believe it currently lacks the necessary KPIs for this growth with respect to the associated environmental impact.

By implementing such KPIs, Qatar would be able to develop an environmental knowledge base linked to construction activities, very valuable regionally and even globally.”

ACTS is the Local Sponsoring Group for the ACI certification in the MENA region • Concrete Construction Special Inspector • Concrete Field Testing Technician Grade I • Aggregate Testing Technician Level 1 • Aggregate Base Testing Technician • Concrete Strength Testing Technician • Concrete Laboratory Testing Technician Level 1 • Concrete Laboratory Testing Technician Level 2 • Shotcrete Nozzleman

Future Concrete Qatar 2014

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Entrepreneur january 2015

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‘TrepHack toolkit

Hack your enterprise your enterprise into 2015 into 2015 [The how-to]

Business plans, marketing plans, outlook revamp, niche predictions, and staffing

Y

ou may not have the formal business training acquired through in-market experience, but the basics can be learned quickly enough. Focusing on these essential elements gives you a pretty good idea of where to go, and how to get there by fleshing out the essentials-

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Entrepreneur january 2015

and yes, that means you need to sit down and work it all out. If you’ve had in-market experience from being part of a corporation, use this guide as a refresher since you’re ostensibly working with way less capital and staff than the company you left when you joined the entrepreneurial ranks.

Part one Mapping it all out

How-to build a business plan A business plan is a written description of your enterprise’s future. That’s all there is to it- a document that describes what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. If you jot down a paragraph on the back of an envelope describing your business strategy, you’ve written a plan (or at least the germ of a plan). About the only person who doesn’t need a business plan is one who’s not going into business. You don’t need a plan to start a hobby or to moonlight from your regular job. But anybody beginning or extending a venture that will consume significant resources of money, energy or time, and that is expected to return a profit, should take the time to draft some kind of plan.

Business plans can help perform a number of tasks for those who write and read them. They’re used by investment-seeking entrepreneurs to convey their vision to potential investors. They may also be used by firms that are trying to attract key employees, prospect for new business, deal with suppliers or simply to understand how to manage their companies better. So what’s included in a business plan, and how do you put one together? Simply stated, a business plan conveys your business goals, the strategies you’ll use to meet them, potential problems that may confront your business and ways to solve them, the organizational structure of your business (including titles and responsibilities), and finally, the amount of capital required to finance your venture and keep it going until it breaks even.

Sound impressive? It can be, if put together properly. A good business plan follows generally accepted guidelines for both form and content. There are three primary parts to a business plan: 1. Business concept Discuss the industry, your business structure, your particular product or service, and how you plan to make your business a success.

2. Marketplace section Describe and analyze potential customers: who and where they are, what makes them buy and so on.

Here, you also describe the competition and how you’ll position yourself to beat it.

3. Financial section This contains your income and cash flow statement, balance sheet and other financial ratios, such as breakeven analyses. This part may require help from your accountant and a good spreadsheet software program.

Breaking these three major sections down even further, a business plan consists of seven key components: 1. Executive summary 2. Business description 3. Market strategies 4. Competitive analysis 5. Design and development plan 6. Operations and management plan 7. Financial factors In addition to these sections, a business plan should also have a cover, title page and table of contents.

Length Depending on what you’re using it for, a useful business plan can be any length, from a scrawl on the back of an envelope to, in the case of an especially detailed plan describing a complex enterprise, more than 100 pages. A typical business plan runs 15 to 20 pages, but there’s room for wide variation from that norm.

Much will depend on the nature of your business. If you have a

simple concept, you may be able to express it in very few words.

On the other hand, if you’re proposing a new kind of business or even a new industry, it may require quite a bit of explanation to get the message across. The purpose of your plan also determines its length. If you want to use your plan to seek millions of dollars in seed capital to start a risky venture, you may have to do a lot of explaining and convincing. If you’re just going to use your plan for internal purposes to manage an ongoing business, a much more abbreviated version should be fine.

Stages of business and business plans Startups The classic business plan writer is an entrepreneur seeking funds to help start a new venture. Many, many great companies had their starts on paper, in the form of a plan that was used to convince investors to put up the capital necessary to get them under way. Most books on business planning seem to be aimed at these startup business owners. There’s one good reason for that: as the least experienced of the potential plan writers, they’re probably most appreciative of the guidance. However, it’s a mistake to think that only cash-starved startups need business plans. Business owners find plans useful at all stages of their companies’ existence, whether they’re seeking financing or trying to figure out how to invest a surplus.

Established firms seeking help Not all business plans are written by starry-eyed entrepreneurs.

Many are written by and for companies that are long past the startup stage. WalkerGroup/Designs, for instance, was already well-established as a designer of stores for major retailers when founder Ken Walker got the idea of trademarking and licensing to apparel makers and others the symbols 01-01-00 as a sort of numeric shorthand for the approaching millennium. Before beginning the arduous and costly task of trademarking it worldwide, Walker used a business plan complete with sales forecasts to convince big retailers it would be a good idea to promise to carry the 01-01-00 goods. It helped make the new venture a winner long before the big day arrived. “As a result of the retail support up front,” Walker says, “we had over 45 licensees running the gamut of product lines almost from the beginning.” These middle-stage enterprises may draft plans to help them find funding for growth just as the startups do, although the amounts they seek may be larger and the investors more willing. They may feel the need for a written plan to help manage an already rapidly growing business.

Or a plan may be seen as a valuable tool to be used to convey the mission and prospects of the business to customers, suppliers or others.

Determining the right plan for your business Business plans tend to have a lot of elements in common, like cash flow projections and marketing plans. And many of them share certain objectives as well, such as raising money or persuading a partner to join the firm. But business plans are not all the same any more than all businesses are. Depending on your business and what you intend to use your plan for, you may need a very different type of business plan from another entrepreneur. Plans differ widely in their length, their appearance, the detail of their contents, and the varying emphases they place on different aspects of the business.

The reason that plan selection is so important is that it has a powerful effect on the overall impact of your plan. You want your plan to present you and your business in the best, most accurate light. That’s true no matter what you intend to use your plan for, whether it’s destined for presentation at a venture >>> january 2015 Entrepreneur

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‘Trep toolkit Hack your enterprise into 2015 [The how-to] capital conference, or will never leave your own office or be seen outside internal strategy sessions. When you select clothing for an important occasion, odds are you try to pick items that will play up your best features. Think about your plan the same way.

You want to reveal any positives that your business may have and make sure they receive due consideration.

Business plan formats and types Business plans can be divided roughly into four separate types.

There are very short plans, or miniplans. There are working plans, presentation plans and even electronic plans. They require very different amounts of labor and not always with proportionately different results. That is to say, a more elaborate plan is not guaranteed to be superior to an abbreviated one, depending on what you want to use it for.

1. Miniplan A miniplan may consist of one to 10 pages and should include at least cursory attention to such key matters as business concept, financing needs, marketing plan and financial statements, especially cash flow, income projection and balance sheet. It’s a great way to quickly test a business concept or measure the interest of a potential partner or minor investor. It can also serve as a valuable prelude to a full-length plan later on. Be careful about misusing a miniplan. It’s not intended to substitute for a full-length plan. If you send a miniplan to an investor who’s looking for a comprehensive one, you’re only going to look foolish.

2. Working plan A working plan is a tool to be used to operate your business. It has to be long on detail but may be short on presentation. As with a miniplan, you can probably afford a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality when preparing a working plan. A plan intended strictly for internal use may also omit some elements that would be important in one aimed at someone outside the firm. You probably don’t need to include an appendix with resumes of key executives, for example. Nor would a working plan especially benefit from, say, product photos.

Fit and finish are liable to be quite different in a working plan.

It’s not essential that a working plan be printed on high-quality paper and enclosed in a fancy binder. An old three-ring binder with “Plan” scrawled across it with a felt-tip marker will serve quite well.

Internal consistency of facts and figures is just as crucial with a working plan as with one aimed at outsiders. You don’t have to be as careful, however, about such things as typos in the text, perfectly conforming to business style, being consistent with date formats and so on. This document is like an old pair of khakis you wear into the office on Saturdays or that one ancient delivery truck that never seems to break down. It’s there to be used, not admired.

3. Presentation plan If you take a working plan, with its low stress on cosmetics and impression, and twist the knob to boost the amount of attention paid to its looks, you’ll wind up with a presentation plan. This plan is suitable for showing to bankers, investors and others outside the company. Almost all the information in a presentation plan is going to be the same as your working plan, although it may be styled somewhat differently. For instance, you should use standard business vocabulary, omitting the informal jargon, slang and shorthand that’s so useful in the workplace and is appropriate in a working plan. Remember, these readers won’t be familiar with your operation. Unlike the working plan, this plan isn’t being used as a reminder but as an introduction.

You’ll also have to include some added elements. Among investors’ requirements for due diligence is information on all competitive threats and risks. Even if you consider some of only peripheral significance, you need to address these concerns by providing the information. The big difference between the presentation and working plans is in the details of appearance and polish. A working plan may be run off on the office printer and stapled together at one corner. A presentation plan should be printed by a highquality printer, probably using color. It must be bound expertly into a booklet that is durable and easy to read. It should include graphics such as charts, graphs, tables and illustrations.

It’s essential that a presentation plan be accurate and internally consistent. A mistake here could be construed as a misrepresentation by an unsympathetic outsider. At best, it will make you look less than careful. If the plan’s summary describes a need for $40,000 in financing, but the cash flow projection shows $50,000 in financing coming in during the first year, you might think, “Oops! Forgot to update that summary to show the new numbers.” The investor you’re asking to pony up the cash, however, is unlikely to be so charitable.

4. Electronic plan The majority of business plans are composed on a computer of some kind, then printed out and presented in hard copy. But more and more business information that once was transferred between parties only on paper is now sent electronically. So you may find it appropriate to have an electronic version of your plan available. An electronic plan can be handy for presentations to a group using a computer-driven overhead projector, for example, or for satisfying the demands of a discriminating investor who wants to be able to delve deeply into the underpinnings of complex spreadsheets.

It’s time for an overhaul

Seven reasons to update your existing business plan 1. A new financial period is about to begin. You may update your plan annually, quarterly or even monthly if your industry is a fastchanging one.

2. You need financing, or additional financing. Lenders and other financiers need an updated plan to help them make financing decisions.

3. There’s been a significant market change. Shifting client tastes, consolidation trends among customers and altered regulatory climates can trigger a need for plan updates.

4. Your firm develops or is about to develop a new product, technology, service or skill. If your business has changed a lot since you wrote your plan the first time around, it’s time for an update.

5. You have had a change in management. New managers should get fresh information about your business and your goals.

See this article in its entirety at Entrepreneur.com

Source: The Small Business Encyclopedia, Business Plans Made Easy, Start Your Own Business and Entrepreneur magazine.

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6. Your company has crossed a threshold, such as moving out of your home office, crossing the US$1 million sales mark or employing your 100th employee.

7. Your old plan doesn’t seem to reflect reality any more.

Maybe you did a poor job last time; maybe things have just changed faster than you expected. But if your plan seems irrelevant, redo it.

Part TWO Getting the word out

How-to create a marketing plan Firms that are successful in marketing invariably start with a marketing plan. Large companies have plans with hundreds of pages; small companies can get by with a half-dozen sheets. Put your marketing plan in a three-ring binder. Refer to it at least quarterly, but better yet, monthly. Leave a tab for putting in monthly reports on sales/manufacturing; this will allow you to track performance as you follow the plan. You should allow yourself a couple of months to write the plan, even if it’s only a few pages long. Developing the plan is the “heavy lifting” of marketing. While executing the plan has its challenges, deciding what to do and how to do it is marketing’s greatest challenge. Most marketing plans kick off with the first of the year or with the opening of your fiscal year if it’s different.

Timeline The plan should cover one year. For small companies, this is often the best way to think about marketing. Things change, people leave, markets evolve, customers come and go. Later on we suggest creating a section of your plan that addresses the mediumterm future- two to four years down the road. But the bulk of your plan should focus on the coming year.

Target audience Who should see your plan? All the players in the company. Firms typically keep their marketing plans very, very private for one of two very different reasons: either they’re too skimpy and management would be embarrassed to have them see the light of day, or they’re solid and packed with informationmaking them extremely valuable to the competition. You can’t do a marketing plan without getting many people involved. No matter what your size, get feedback from all parts of your company: finance, manufacturing, personnel, supply and so on, in addition to marketing itself. This is especially important because it will take all aspects of your company to make your marketing plan work.

Your key people can provide realistic input on what’s achievable and how your goals can be reached, and they can share any insights they have on any potential, as-yet-unrealized marketing opportunities, adding another dimension to your plan. If you’re essentially a one-person management operation, you’ll have to wear all your hats at one time- but at least the meetings will be short!

Cohesion What’s the relationship between your marketing plan and your business plan or vision statement? Your business plan spells out what your business is about- what you do and don’t do, and what your ultimate goals are. It encompasses more than marketing; it can include discussions of locations, staffing, financing, strategic alliances and so on. It includes “the vision thing,” the resounding words that spell out the glorious purpose of your company in stirring language. Your business plan is essentially the constitution of your business: if you want to do something that’s outside the business plan, you need to either change your mind or change the plan. Your company’s business plan provides the environment in which your marketing plan must flourish. The two documents must be consistent.

Why have a marketing plan?

1. Rallying point Your marketing plan gives your troops something to rally behind. You want them to feel confident that the captain of the vessel has the charts in order, knows how to run the ship, and has a port of destination in mind. Companies often undervalue the impact of a “marketing plan” on their own people, who want to feel part of a team engaged in an exciting and complicated joint

endeavor. If you want your employees to feel committed to your company, it’s important to share with them your vision of where the company is headed in the years to come. People don’t always understand financial projections, but they can get excited about a well-written and well-thought-out marketing plan. You should consider releasing your marketing plan -perhaps in an abridged version- companywide. Do it with some fanfare and generate some excitement for the adventures to come. Your staff will appreciate being involved.

2. Chart to success We all know that plans are imperfect things.

How can you possibly know what’s going to happen 12 months or five years from now? Isn’t putting together a marketing plan an exercise in futility, a waste of time better spent meeting with customers or fine-tuning production? Yes, possibly but only in the narrowest sense. If you don’t plan, you’re doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all. To stay with our sea captain analogy, it’s better to be five or even 10 degrees off your destination port than to have no destination in mind at all. The point of sailing, after all, is to get somewhere, and without a marketing plan, you’ll wander the seas aimlessly, sometimes finding dry land but more often than not floundering in a vast ocean. Sea captains without a chart are rarely remembered for discovering anything but the ocean floor.

3. Company operational instructions Your newest tech toy came with a set of instructions, and your company is far more complicated to put together and run than your tablet. Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company’s success. It’s more important than a vision statement. To put together a genuine marketing plan, you have to assess your company from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way.

What do you want to do with this enterprise you call the company in the coming year? Consider it a to-do list on a grand scale. It assigns specific tasks for the year.

4. Captured thinking You don’t allow your financial people to keep their numbers in their heads. Financial reports are the lifeblood of the numbers side of any business, no matter what size. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan. If people leave, if new people arrive, if memories falter, if events bring pressure to alter the givens, the information in the written marketing plan stays intact to remind you of what you’d agreed on.

5. Top-level reflection In the daily hurly-burly of competitive business, it’s hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren’t directly related to the daily operations.

You need to take time periodically to really think about your business- whether it’s providing you and your employees with what you want, whether there aren’t some innovative wrinkles you can add, whether you’re getting all you can out of your products, your sales staff and your markets. Writing your marketing plan is the best time to do this high-level thinking. Some companies send their top marketing people away to a retreat. Others go to the home of a principal. Some do marketing plan development at a local conference space, away from distractions, so they can devote themselves solely to thinking hard and drawing the most accurate sketches they can of the immediate future of the business. Ideally, after writing marketing plans for a few years, you can sit back and review a series of them, year after year, and check the progress of your company. Of course, sometimes this is hard to make time for, but it can provide an unparalleled objective view of what you’ve been doing with your business life over a number of years.

See this article in its entirety at Entrepreneur.com Source: The Small Business Encyclopedia and Knock-Out Marketing. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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‘Trep toolkit Hack your enterprise into 2015 [The how-to]

Attitude adjustment An opportunity for growth Defining failure in the context of entrepreneurship

By Juan José de la Torre

D

uring my career, I have had the opportunity to work closely with entrepreneurs, investors and various companies in developing innovative new ideas.

Through these collaborations I have witnessed (and sometimes been a part of), the resounding fear of failure, with business as usual set towards finding any way to reduce and mitigate risk, and in some cases almost eliminating it all together.

This approach not only directly affects growth prospects and freedom around concept development (lower risk equals lower reward), but it also affects how entrepreneurs and executives address new projects and the value that these projects can ultimately generate for entrepreneurs, enterprises, and society as whole.

We exist in a society that worships success. From

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Entrepreneur january 2015

athletes to politicians, to executives and workers in general, everyone wants to be successful. We therefore become accustomed to understand success as a viable way to progress, to evolve, to grow and eventually get a better “status”. Success is held up as the Holy Grail that will help us to be better and continue to evolve. Yet, this same obsession with success also leads us deny ourselves failure; hide, and avoid it at all costs. We reduce the risks and replace outright risk for “calculated risk”.

Calculated risk is in essence when the risk factor has been reduced to minimum replacing uncertainty with an “expected result”. Where is the creativity when we follow this approach? How can we truly innovate when the risk is zero? Does sustained decreased risk ultimately affect our ability to grow and

develop? By reducing the risk of failure, and ultimately avoiding it all together, are we restricting our ability to truly create?

Let’s view risk and the possibility of failure as they really are. In the MENA region especially, failure is not understood as a way to learn, evolve and eventually grow, but as a despicable event worthy of pity and shame. In particular, the digital ecosystem is a world of entrepreneurial failures. A recent global survey showed that 80% of new startups disappear before the first 18 months, and of the remaining 20%, 95% cease to exist after three years. As an entrepreneur, investor and mentor, I have been a part of these statistics. These stats should not scare entrepreneurs, but teach them that one of the key characteristics that they must have is being able to learn from failures, and persevere. There is a Japanese proverb that I think perfectly captures this message: “Nanakorobi Yaoki”, and it translates to “I’ll fall seven times and rise again on eight.” That’s the resilience that a good entrepreneur needs to have.

The entrepreneur must persevere despite difficulties along the path to his goal, because he is the motivator and the vital energy of the venture. An entrepreneur knows that the big payoff will only come if they are able to cope with difficulties, challenges and the risk therein. Facing the fear of failure and turning that fear into something positive will build greater awareness and acceptance of risk. An entrepreneur should also know that great rewards are associated with a risk which cannot always be minimized.

Finally, if good entrepreneurs fail, they learn from their failure and use it to drive them to success. From the standpoint of experience, both investors and executives

and even teammates, prefer entrepreneurs to have experienced failure. The uncomfortable situation of failure tests not only the character of the entrepreneur, but also his or her ability to reinvent and relaunch.

Tens of thousands of successful entrepreneurs have failed, and will continue to fail around the world. One well known example is Steve Jobs- he reinvented Pixar and then returned to Apple to turn it into the company’s largest market capitalization of NASDAQ. A true entrepreneur, Jobs was fuelled by adversity and decided to launch his own business and struggle against bureaucracy and cash flow, attract talent and win customers. This gave us a clear example on how for some of the best entrepreneurs, failure is the only way to grow.

So, peruse your dream knowing that failure is an option! After which you will only become better- especially when you’ve taken the lessons you’ve learned into consideration.

Juan José de la Torre is an expert in innovation, entrepreneurship and technology. A graduate of Industrial Engineering IAU, Master of La Salle and MBA from INSEAD, Juan José has developed his professional career in the areas of telecommunications, Internet and media working in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Currently, Juan José is based in the UAE as the Vice President of Digital at Intigral, one of MENAs leading digital companies. Talk to JJ on Twitter at @DeLaTorreJJ.

Part three Bringing in the best

How-to recruit and hire top employees in 13 steps As all employers quickly learn, there’s a world of difference between a worker who’s correctly matched to their job and their organization, and one who is not. But how do you find and match the right people to the right jobs? By including, in your comprehensive people strategy, a well-structured recruiting and selection program. The key to successfully developing such a program is to follow a proven recruiting process for the positions you need to fill. Resist the temptation to omit steps, because shortcutting the process can shortchange your results. Here’s what you’ll need to do: 1. Develop accurate job descriptions Your first step is to make sure you have an effective job description for each position in your company. Your job descriptions should reflect careful thought as to the roles the individual will fill, the skill sets they’ll need, the personality attributes that are important to completing their tasks, and any relevant experience that would differentiate one applicant from another. This may sound fairly basic, but you’d be surprised at how many small companies fail to develop or maintain updated job descriptions.

2. Compile a “success profile” In addition to creating job descriptions, it’s important to develop a “success profile” of the ideal employee for key positions in your company that are critical to the execution of your business plan. These might include such positions as team leaders, district managers and salespeople.

For example, let’s say you currently have 20 salespeople. Within that group, you have four that are top performers, 12 that are middle-of-the-road and four that aren’t quite making the grade.

If you could bump the number of folks in the top group from 20 percent to 33 percent, that could have a dramatic impact on your company’s performance. To accomplish that goal, you need to profile everyone in the sales group to identify any skills and attributes that are common to the top group but missing from the other groups. Using this information, you’ll be able to develop a profile to help you select the candidates most likely to succeed in that position. Remember, you can’t tell if you’ve found a match if you’re not matching candidates against a specific profile.

3. Draft an accurate ad Although some applicants will ignore these requirements and respond regardless, including this information will help you limit the number of unqualified applicants.

The position post should describe the position and the key qualifications required.

4. Opt for the right mediums Of course, the Internet has become the leading venue for posting job openings, but don’t overlook targeted industry publications and local newspapers. Post the ad in the mediums most likely to reach your potential job candidates- if you’re looking for hospitality staff, then seek out platforms that cater specifically to that niche. If you’re in the market for a new senior manager, your choice of platform makes all of the difference.

5. Develop a series of phone-screening questions Compile a list of suitable questions you can ask over the phone to help you quickly identify qualified candidates and eliminate everyone else. It saves precious face-to-face meeting time.

6. Review the resumes you receive and identify your best candidates Once you post your ad, you’ll start receiving resumes (sometimes many more than you anticipated). Knowing what you’re looking for in terms of experience, education and skills will help you weed through these resumes quickly and identify potential candidates.

7. Screen candidates by phone Once you’ve narrowed your stack of resumes to a handful of potential applicants, call the candidates and use your phone-screening questions to further narrow the field. Using a consistent set of questions in both this step and your face-to-face interviews will help ensure you’re evaluating candidates equally.

8. Select candidates for assessment Based on the responses to your phone interviews, select the candidates you feel are best qualified for the next step in the process.

9. Assess your potential candidates for their skills and attributes using a proven assessment tool A resume and phone interview can only tell you so much about a job applicant, so you’ll need a dependable assessment tool to help you analyze the core behavioral traits and cognitive reasoning speed of your applicants.

For example, a good test will provide insights as to whether the individual is conscientious or lackadaisical, introverted or extroverted, agreeable or uncompromising, open to new ideas or close-minded, and emotionally stable or anxious and insecure.

The success profile you’ve created for each position will help you determine which behavioral traits are important for that position. For example, you would expect a successful salesperson to be extroverted. On the other hand, someone filling a clerical position might be more introverted. These assessment tests can be administered in person or online. Online testing and submission of results can help you determine whether the applicant should be invited for a personal interview.

10. Schedule and conduct candidate interviews Once you’ve selected candidates based on the previous steps, schedule and conduct the interviews. Use a consistent set of 10 or 12 questions to maintain a structured interview and offer a sound basis for comparing applicants. What is your process for making sure they’re a good fit with your company’s culture? Decide whether your approach to the cultural question should include a second interview. Also, who else, if anyone, do you involve in the interviews to help make this selection and judge the candidate?

Your goal is to have a plan that will help you determine whether you have a qualified applicant who will fit into your company’s culture.

11. Select the candidate Make your selection by matching the best applicant to the profiled job description.

12. Run a background check You need to ascertain that the individual has been fully transparent. A background check can help to uncover any potential problems not revealed by previous testing and interviews.

13. Make your offer to the candidate The information you collected during the interview process will provide you with important insights as to starting compensation levels and training needs.

If you want your business to attract and retain good clients, your comprehensive people strategy must include a recruiting and selection strategy that attracts and retains quality employees.

Following a well-thought-out, structured process will help you best match the right people to the right jobs in your company.

Will you conduct pre-employment testing?

Before you start the hiring process, determine your strategy relative to how people fit into your organization. How much is it worth for you to know an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, not just as a hire/don’t hire test, but as a coaching tool to help you determine their training needs and the best approach to maximize the person’s productivity? Pre-employment testing is often overlooked, when it could be a very valuable tool. For example, if you find an applicant who fits the job description and appears to be the person you want to hire, pre-employment testing can help you determine how to work with them more effectively and move them along in your organization.

See this article in its entirety at Entrepreneur.com january 2015 Entrepreneur

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‘Trep toolkit Hack your enterprise into 2015 [The how-to]

Offline to Online (O2O)

By Dr. Kieran Mervyn

lthough it’s tricky to predict future trends within the e-commerce field due to the speed and development of mobile information systems, digital business infrastructures, mobile data terminals and enterprise business models, the rise of Offline to Online (O2O) Platform Designers is worthy of consideration because the web is becoming a

significant interface for offline transactions.

The complex e-commerce space is witnessing a shift to more fluid and horizontal networked entities, allowing for reduced risk and greater sharing of knowledge and intelligence both internally and externally. Simultaneously, the scope of innovation is expanding, and open innovation provides access to new knowledge and

enables the evolution of new strategies that keep firms agile and able to respond to opportunities.

Designers of unique O2O user experiences are The complex e-commerce space is witnessing a shift to more fluid and horizontal networked entities, allowing for reduced risk and greater sharing of knowledge and intelligence both internally and externally.

O2O firms and collaborations encompass a range of scales. Some of the smaller O2O services delivered are growing in popularity in conjunction with the spread of apps and e-transactions.

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Entrepreneur january 2015

WASSELNI.COM | YIWUGOU.COM

Trend prediction 2015 A

focusing on the process of e-bonding with customers before they navigate into the physical realm of stores to purchase offline products and services. O2O designers also focus on overseeing the post-purchase customer relationship. This is a complex socio-technical endeavour underpinned by innovative technologies, big data, creative planning, collaborative networking, implementation and evaluation. O2O firms and collaborations encompass a range of scales. Some of the smaller O2O services delivered are growing in popularity in conjunction with the spread of apps and e-transactions. For example, Wasselni, a Palestinian startup for local transportation, is using offline and lo-fi models to overcome the lack of 3G communication technologies and the blockade of Gaza.

O2O strategies are also being developed and implemented by large firms, thereby enabling the attraction of a wider and deeper customer base and hence greater revenues.

Chinese B2C retailers such as Yiwugouicom . and JD.com, Inc. are at the forefront of O2O. Yiwugou.com, an e-version of the company’s large physical store network, is broadening its brand recognition and increasing daily traffic through a carefully adopted strategy that includes building one virtual store per offline shop. Using 3D imagery,

The continuum of the O2O model extends into postsales services: online customer issues associated with returns or faults can be addressed in the physical stores.

each website is a replica of its offline stores. It also follows a long-term domestic and global partnership strategy, seeking to combine the e-commerce market across micro and macro contextual levels. JD.com, a network of convenience stores boasting 25 million customers and 6,000 national suppliers, is creating e-stores on the central JD.com e-commerce platform. Its O2O strategy allows any of its growing customer bases simply to collect goods from online orders from any store nationwide. Its innovative delivery platform also includes fast free delivery, ranging from 15 minutes to an hour after purchase depending on the service.

Conventional retailers will have a greater O2O capacity to integrate a whole-systems model of the customer life cycle.

The continuum of the O2O model extends into post-sales services: online

customer issues associated with returns or faults can be addressed in the physical stores. Significant commercial gains can thus be accrued by embracing a whole-systems O2O perspective. Mobile data platforms such as tablet computing devices, smartphones and e-books have blended with cloud-

based services to provide richer user experiences and innovative service models. The O2O service model provides fertile ground in which customers and potential customers can engage with service providers in a variety of mobile information platforms, both online and offline.

Dr. Kieran Mervyn currently teaches courses in leadership in the online MBA program at the University of Roehampton, London. He is the leader for the Learning and Leading in a Dynamic Era module, where Roehampton Online students examine skills and best practices relating to leadership in contemporary organizations. He is also codirector of AM2 Partners Ltd, a focused team of management and research consultants.

Put it to work Actionable advice • To satisfy the end user’s growing interest in compelling, engaging and interactive retail spaces and beyond, e-commerce designers employed by retailers must seek novel ways to maintain the current customer base and attract new customers in an aggressive global marketplace. This is important for customer satisfaction and retention.

• Designers must identify new ways of translating product information and communicating enticements. Don’t rely on internal expertise; instead, seek knowledge and intelligence beyond the confines of traditional silos normally associated with closed innovation and a firm’s private research and development practices. Considering that business survival rates are highest among firms engaged in innovation practices, it is essential for

designers to ensure that customer buy-in and input take centre stage from day one.

• Designers and service providers must focus on a range of components such as the physical interface via innovative prototyping techniques, real-time communication and enacting ideas in the real world before evaluating their effects. Planning, management and evaluation of the underlying logistics and information platform will be a continuing challenge.

• Retailers must embrace social media with a robust strategy to promote products and services in online settings in order to generate offline sales. For example, digital coupons can be embedded into offline points of sales (POS) and mobile payment through external QR codes.

january 2015 Entrepreneur

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TREPONOMICS

ETHICS | ESQUIRE GUY | SKILLSET | MARKETING | PRO

Keeping ‘treps in post secondary How colleges can stay relevant in today’s startup world By Sharene Lee

O

ver the past three decades, the world has witnessed a string of breakout successes that have put tech entrepreneurs in the spotlight: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and the more recent Tumblr, Instagram and Whatsapp.

The youth of today look up to billionaire role models like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jan Koum, all college dropouts.

Of the top 400 people on Forbes Billionaire list1, 63 are dropouts. Here at home in the Gulf, governments are anxious to encourage and foster entrepreneurship, but colleges are struggling to keep up. The pace of innovation has marginalized colleges, and the availability of non-traditional

learning via the Internet has made it possible for entrepreneurs to learn what they need to start successful businesses. “When these incredible tools of knowledge and learning are available to the whole world, formal education becomes less and less important,” according to Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame, another college dropout.2 I am an educator by training, and I taught five years in both primary and tertiary education in the UAE and Saudi Arabia before I left to found Melltoo, a social network that helps people buy and sell used things. Over the course of seven months since our launch in March 2014, we have worked with nine youths between

the ages of 17-25, from a variety of educational backgrounds, including six who were educated in the UAE. My interns are a motivated bunch; however, the majority of them needed to be trained from scratch in things that they should already have learned in college. Having insight as both an educator and a startup founder, here are my takeaways on what colleges in the region can do to stay relevant in today’s startup world.

1. De-emphasize structures

In the Gulf, college programs are highly structured and inflexible.

Perhaps as a means to control quality, professors are restricted when setting curricular objectives and students are expected to follow a rigid program in order to graduate. The bulk of assessment takes place in the form of tests which have right and wrong answers.

In reality, entrepreneurship is messy and doesn’t follow a set pattern. Each entrepreneur’s story differs from the next. Flexibility and being able to adapt are more important than following rules.

Colleges should introduce flexibility into degree programs. One way to do this is to allow students to create their own degree programs within a given discipline, a practice colleges in the West are adopting. In order to maintain quality, the final project should have the student put her learning to use. For instance, if the student is graduating with a degree in marketing, she might take art classes, graphic design, speech and acting classes, in addition to traditional marketing courses. Her final project might be to create a marketing presentation for a business that incorporates multimedia and graphics, and that is delivered to an auditorium full of students.

2. Flip “theory before practice” on its head

1 http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list

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Entrepreneur january 2015

| 2 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231717

The existing model of education is to first learn theory, then put theory into practice. In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, “theory before practice” is way too slow. First of all, academic thinking evolves slowly, requiring multiple layers of review before new ideas are accepted by the academic community. By the time an idea makes it into a textbook, it has become obsolete. In business, good

college courses can be structured similarly. Let the textbook be a reference, make the curricular a semester-long project that accomplishes practical (not theoretical) objectives. Instead of assigning problem sets in accounting, get students to work with SMEs in the community that need help with their accounting. Most local “baqalahs” or grocery stores probably do. The learning might be messy and not uniformed, but you can be sure that even the “C-students” will actually learn.

3. Re-assess assessments: get rid of tests

theory doesn’t always equal good practice. Business and entrepreneurship is about time and place. Today, businesses are fighting to acquire users by giving their product away for free. Amazon and Uber go even further and lose money while selling their product in order to crush competition and acquire users. Arguably, theory would discourage this but time and place demand it.

Entrepreneurs learn as they do. In fact, many entrepreneurs only learn what they have to in order to do what they have to. Learning without applying means forgetting; and there is no time to learn what cannot be applied immediately. When Melltoo onboards interns, we conduct a one-day workshop that paints in broad brush strokes the strategy of the company and where interns fit in. We provide some theory, but no one really “gets it”. The only purpose is to set context.

The real learning takes place when interns execute assigned tasks, and

Many of the most successful businesses of today were started in college dorm rooms by founders who later dropped out. If college acted like an incubator and made resources available for these founders, it’s arguable that they could have completed their degrees by founding a business.

Written tests and assignments are easy and efficient ways to assess large numbers of students. But they are only good at predicting success at one thing- test-taking skills. Right and wrong answers also give students incorrect impression that there is always a right way or wrong way to do things. This hampers problem-solving skills since students can’t think out of the box; they’re used to only one right way to do anything.

In the real world, entrepreneurs are tested constantly, but there is never time to prepare for the test and there is no right answer. What works for Souq.com doesn’t work for Melltoo.

Souq.com acquires users through advertising and paid ads; Melltoo, as a startup with limited resources, acquires users organically through app store optimization and growth hacking. What works for Melltoo today might not work for us tomorrow.

There isn’t one right way of doing anything in business.

Tests are not only poor at assessing skills, they also foster an anti-entrepreneurial mindset. Skills should be assessed through demonstration.

Minimize testing and emphasize practical application of skills. Management courses should have students managing people in achieving specified goals. Over the course of a semester, students can be placed into rotating teams where they each take turns managing a small group to execute a project (consider cross-curricular integration). For instance, a group of four students can group together for a week-long project to craft a marketing pitch for a well-known product targeted to a niche audience. The following week, groups are reshuffled with new managers and new projects.

Again, use the text as a reference and

the professor acts as a facilitator and mentor. Grades are assigned based on success of the project, self and peer assessment against a pre-defined management skills rubric.

4. Business programs should be run like incubators

Dave McClure of 500 Startups, a micro VC and accelerator based in Silicon Valley, says, “Rather than pay US$50,000 for an MBA to read about other people’s businesses and not learn much, why not let us give you $50,000 to succeed or even fail at your own business and learn a lot?”

Few people can argue that learning by doing doesn’t work. If the goal is to foster entrepreneurship, why not incorporate starting up a business as part of the curriculum? Many of the most successful businesses of today were started in college dorm rooms by founders who later dropped out.

If college acted like an incubator and made resources available for these founders, it’s arguable that they could have completed their degrees by founding a business.

Startup incubators support founders by providing workspace, mentorship, and camaraderie among startups.

These elements are all available in a university. Workspace is plentiful, professors should in theory be the best mentors, and camaraderie is easy to build among college students working and living together. If colleges leverage their available resources, the costs of starting a business are far lower within a college setting than outside. Visa fees, rent and utilities are paid, there is access to a pool of inexpensive labor (other college students), users are easier to acquire (other students, alumni, staff, the surrounding community), the college can subsidize marketing costs through internal marketing channels (campus newspapers, listservs, campus media), and local partners and investors are much easier to connect with through the collegiate network.

If entrepreneurship is truly the end goal, regional colleges and universities have some programmatic adjustments to make. The key to training future entrepreneurs is to create an environment that is as similar to the business world as possible. Loosening up structures, emphasizing skills other than test-taking skills and learning while doing are the way to go. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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money

ask the money guy | vc viewpoint | your money | ECON

The 2015 MENA salary guide The compensation, the benefits, and the rates of satisfaction

By Suhail Al-Masri

D

oes your staff grumble that they feel underpaid or that they believe that their work is worth more money than they are making? they’re not alone. For 26.6% of respondents in the Bayt.com Employee Retention in the MENA Workplace poll, February 2013, competitive salary and benefits packages were the most important factors for employee retention in the MENA region. Moreover, 45.2% of respondents in the same poll left their last job

because they weren’t paid enough. Bad pay and benefits is selected in yet another poll

by Bayt.com, the Workplace Dynamics in the MENA poll, June 2013, by 20% of MENA professionals as the top reason why they would leave their job.

In order to have a closer look at the current situation of working professionals in the MENA region, Bayt.com conducted its annual MENA Salary Survey 2014. The survey results –based on data collected online from more than 9,500 professionals

from the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia– give insights into the salary levels, compensation packages, bonuses, and costs of living in the region. The survey also measures overall employee job satisfaction.

that they receive a basic salary plus benefits, such as housing allowance, transport, children’s education and more. For over a third of respondents (34%) who receive a basic salary along with other benefits, the basic salary consists of 51-75% of their monthly salary, and 14% state that they also receive a commission on top of their basic salary and benefits. The preferred pay structure in the MENA is a 100% fixed-pay structure (favored by 53% of respondents).

A large proportion of MENA

Current salary levels, satisfaction and expectations

Across the MENA region, 53% of professionals surveyed in the Bayt.com MENA Salary Survey 2014 indicate

> Salary comparison 10 3 10 3

67

70

68

64

67

70

68

64

20

18

20

22

20

18

Total

UAE

Total

UAE

10 3 10 3

20

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia

10 3 10 3

22 Qatar Qatar

9 3 9 3

71

14 4 14 4

63

71

63

17

18

10 2 10 2

66 66

22

15 5 15

9 4 9 4

5

56 56

24

16 16 5

10 3 10 3

5 65 65

22

56

67

56

67

23

20

17 2 17 2

13

14

4 13

14 7

4

7

62

67

55

62

67

55

19

16

24

22

24

22

23

Kuwait

Bahrain

Oman

Lebanon

Jordan

Syria

Egypt

Morocco

Algeria

Tunisia

Kuwait

Bahrain

Oman

Lebanon

Jordan

Syria

Egypt

Morocco

Algeria

Tunisia

17

18

Competitive with what other companies offer in your industry Lower than other companies in your industry Competitive with what other companies offer in your industry Higher than other companies in your industry Lower than other in your industry Dont Know/ can’t companies say Higher than other companies in your industry Dont Know/ can’t say

20

19

16

24

Base: Total (9537), UAE (2176), Saudi Arabia (2444), Qatar (484), Kuwait (422), Bahrain (114), Oman (176), Lebanon (295), Jordan (597), Syria (108), Egypt (1860), Morocco (225), Algeria (474), Tunisia (162) Base: Total (9537), UAE (2176), Saudi Arabia (2444), Qatar (484), Kuwait (422), Bahrain (114), Oman (176), Lebanon (295), Jordan (597), Syria (108), Egypt (1860), Morocco (225), Algeria (474), Tunisia (162)

Q. For the work that you do, is your salary...

Q. the work that you do, is your salary...

All For figures are %’s All figures are %’s

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Entrepreneur january 2015

chart © bayt.com

10 3 10 3

professionals are not satisfied with their income, with 45% claiming to be dissatisfied with their pay, compared to just 3% who are highly satisfied with what they receive.

28% believe that men and women receive equal pay for doing the same work. The majority (67%) of professionals surveyed believe that the salary they receive is less than what other companies in their industry pay. Over a quarter of MENA respondents (28%) do not expect to receive a raise in 2014, though 37% anticipate receiving a pay rise of up to 15%.

Across MENA, the most common benefits received by employees are personal medical insurance, bonuses and transportation allowance. For 35% of MENA professionals, foregoing part of their salary

to work more flexible hours is something they would consider.

According to 62% of respondents, their company does not pay for any overtime they do. Companies that do pay for extra office hours, for the most part, pay a normal hourly rate (43%), though 41% pay time and a half.

Only 22% of companies in the MENA region pay employees for time spent doing civil service.

advancement (40%), senior management (35%), and their colleagues (34%).

Drivers of loyalty at work

End of service benefits

38% of respondents in the MENA state that loyalty to their company is not based on the salary they receive.

Rather, they consider that their loyalty is based on their line manager (42%), opportunities for long-term career

Less than half (48%) of MENA respondents receive an end-of-service gratuity, while 14% receive a pension upon retirement. 31%, however, receive neither, though 51% of those who do not currently receive a pension state

that they are interested in a pension plan to which they would contribute a percentage of their basic salary, in addition to the company’s contribution.

Insurance plans

The majority of MENA professional (68%) have access to medical insurance for themselves through their company, and 36% >>>

january 2015 Entrepreneur

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money

ask the money guy | vc viewpoint | your money | ECON

have access to insurance for their dependents, too. For the most part, companies are responsible for payment on medical insurance claims– both for personal and dependents. Although, a further two fifths of respondents share responsibility of medical insurance payments with their employer. Insurance plans are active from the first day of hire according to 41% of respondents.

Top expenses

A large proportion of MENA professionals is not satisfied with their income, with 45% claiming to be dissatisfied with their pay, compared to just 3% who are highly satisfied with what they receive.

Keeping your employees once you have them is a thorny problem. Although it’s not only about the money, it does play a fundamental role when comparing offers from potential employers. Our studies have shown, time and time again, that top talents are invariably first and foremost seeking some degree of medium to long-term job security. These professionals look for companies that provide a healthy degree of career longevity and sustainability for their staff. Fair compensation and benefits fall under this bracket including a compelling salary, performance-based bonuses, personal (and family) health insurance, retirement schemes, and children’s education support.

Salaries and the rising cost of living

83% of respondents in the MENA predicted an increase in the cost of living in 2014.

Among other factors affected by the rising cost of living in the region, this rise has limited the ability to save.

In matter of fact, 36% of MENA professionals claim to save nothing from their monthly salary. Despite this, 44% of respondents believe that they are better off, in terms of quality of life, compared to other people of a similar generation in their country of residence.

61% of MENA professionals believe that salaries in their country are on the rise.

This is considered to be due to inflation and the rising cost of living (62%), as well as economic and opportunity growth (34%) and pay rises in the public sector (17%). Factors observed by MENA professionals that are inhibiting salary increases include poor economy (43%), employer-friendly laws (35%), and poor corporate performance or decreased profitability (21%).

Overall, 29% of respondents believe there is a skills shortage in the region.

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Dining out is considered to be the top monthly expense by 31%, followed by travel (29%) and entertainment (18%). Holidays taken by MENA respondents in the last 12 months have mostly involved travel to local destinations (33%). 36% of respondents have not been on holiday in the past 12 months.

Getting the salary equation right

Suhail Al-Masri is the VP of Sales at Bayt.com. Al-Masri has more than 20 years of experience in sales leadership, consultative sales, account management, marketing management, and operations management. His mission at Bayt.com goes in line with the company’s mission to empower people with the tools and knowledge to build their lifestyles of choice.

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INNOVATOR The FitRepublik facility in Dubai Sports City

Profiting from passion FitRepublik’s Ali Al Amine sees entrepreneurship as the way forward By Aby Sam Thomas

I

t’s hard not to be taken in by the enthusiasm resplendent in Ali Al Amine’s voice as he talks about his new venture, FitRepublik, the latest entry in Dubai’s burgeoning health and fitness industry. But do not dismiss FitRepublik off as just another gym in Dubai- because it is, really, a whole lot more than that.

Located in Dubai Sports City, FitRepublik is a state-of-the-art sports facility that spans over 100,000 square feet and acts as a one-stop shop for a variety of disciplines that include functional training, strength and conditioning, mixed martial arts (MMA), gymnastics, swimming and more.

As the Managing Director of FitRepublik, Al Amine was understandably excited as he talked about the facility, which, at the time of this interview, was only a few weeks away from its official launch slotted for this month. As Al Amine sees

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it, FitRepublik will stand out not just for being a world-class sports center, but also for being a community-driven enterprise that caters to, well, everyone. Al Amine stated that while FitRepublik has left no stone unturned in its attempt to be seen as an elite environment, he was, at the same time, very emphatic in his insistence that the facility is not just for an elitist crowd.

“I think FitRepublik is not an intimidating place,” Al Amine said. “That’s the most important component. Because, usually, [places like] gyms, for some reason, intimidate people. Because you think, in the back of your mind, that you need to fit to be fit. This is definitely not that kind of a place. If you feel you’re not fit, then come to FitRepublik, because that’s where you’d fit.” But that’s not to say that FitRepublik isn’t a good place for fitness enthusiasts, professional athletes

and the like- on the contrary, this kind of clientele is served just as well as anyone else by this world-class facility and its workforce of more than 100 people, which includes coaches who are Olympians and international record holders.

And getting FitRepublik to cater to this kind of diversity is something that Al Amine and his team have tried very hard to achieve with the facility’s set-up and operations. “FitRepublik houses the diverse spectrum of including every potential person, because we believe fitness is relative to one’s self,” he explained.

“We don’t benchmark except onto our individual customers. Your aspirations are your aspirations, and we believe that if we can make you a better version of yourself, then we have succeeded, and you have succeeded as well. You’re happy, and we’re happy. So rather than us come and tell you what you should be doing, you tell us what you’d like to do, and we will partner with you to help you realize your objectives. That’s a very big component of our story.”

With this idea in mind, FitRepublik has been designed as a quality environment that caters to the fitness needs and interests of both adults and children, while also playing host to supplementary facilities that include a retail store selling

fitness and exercise-related products, accessories and dietary supplements. In addition, FitRepublik has collaborated with “foodie nutritionist” Nathalie Haddad to build an in-house café and kitchen within the facility that will specialize in producing and serving healthy, nutritious meals that will be mindful of each FitRepublik member’s training goals and personal preferences.

Given the features it boasts of, it may seem a little curious that while Al Amine calls FitRepublik “a place for everyone,” he also notes that every individual that becomes a member of the facility also gets a customized plan in line with his/ her interests and goals. These two things may seem to be at odds with each other, but that’s where the FitRepublik backend shows its mettle. “We have invested heavily on our infrastructure from an IT perspective, which enables us to service people subjectively,” Al Amine explained.

“What I mean by that is that when you join FitRepublik, we are capable of identifying for you a tailor-made membership…

We take your psychological likes and dislikes into consideration, and from there, we go on to your physiological capacity: your age, your strength, your capabilities, etc. And then, from that, we figure out what is the best membership for you- so that technology enables us to develop a customized program for each individual.”

Al Amine’s ease when talking about the technology aspect of FitRepublik is reflective of his background in the technology sector- in addition to his role at FitRepublik, Al Amine is also currently

Ali Al Amine, Managing Director, FitRepublik

Nathalie’s Cafe at FitRepublik

the Consumer Channel Group Lead for Microsoft Corporation in the Gulf. When asked if he was worried that his new entrepreneurial venture would interfere with his existing job, Al Amine said that he didn’t expect such a scenario to happen. “There’s no crossing over of these two things, as they are two independent subjects,” he said. “I am in love with my job at Microsoft, and I am equally in love with my opportunity as an entrepreneur.

Dubai is an economy that provides an opportunity for people like me to be both.

So... happy days!”

Al Amine also noted that Dubai was the right place for an enterprise like FitRepublik to happen. “Dubai offers [a kind of] greenfield infrastructure, where you find it very easy to open a company, to recruit people, to set up your business, to market your business, to create a wordof-mouth and social environment around what you do in a very pleasant, easy way,” he explained. “The barrier to entry is much easier in this part of the world, because all the foundations are all laid down in place. The economy is also a rich one, and so that also helps a lot.”

But that also means that FitRepublik is going to enter what is a fairly established, but still growing, market for health and fitness in Dubai. However, Al Amine isn’t too worried about the competition. “I think our concept stands out by its very nature,” he said. “But at the end of the day, this is a generous market. And more importantly, there is a fight for quality.

The consumer in Dubai is a consumer that seeks quality. And I think when we compare ourselves to quality service providers, I think there is an opportunity for us to share the market and coexist in a healthy manner.”

And if there are any doubts about the Dubai population’s interest in something like FitRepublik, then head over to the company’s Facebook page, and its 17,000+ fans might help melt those worries away. But perhaps a better indication of FitRepublik’s viability as a business can be seen in the people that have invested in the project. “Our founders are the who’s who of entrepreneurship in this part of the world,” Al Amine revealed. “We have Fadi Ghandour, who’s one of the iconic individuals in the emerging markets, a person we all look up to. He’s like a north star when it comes to entrepreneurship.

Then there’s Arif Naqvi, who leads the largest private equity firm in the Middle East. This is a gentleman that has shown all of us in this region that entrepreneurship is the way forward in this part of the world. So both of these gentlemen have been very inspiring and very supportive, and they have left nothing on the table to support us and put us in a position where we can go and excel, and do what we can do best.”

Given that FitRepublik has its origins in an idea that was born more than three years ago, it’s quite interesting (and inspiring) to see the zeal and fervor with which Al Amine talks about his enterprise today. When asked about how he navigated the hurdles and pitfalls that are to be expected in the development of such a grand project, Al Amine smiled and said, “I’d say I’m a victim of passion.

I’m a victim of dreaming and having big aspirations. I’m 39-years-old, but I dream like a seven-year-old. So it’s in my nature to be overworked, to have sleepless nights.

Because I think that’s the adventure.”

“It’s actually very similar to the logic behind FitRepublik,” he continued. >>> january 2015 Entrepreneur

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INNOVATOR

“I think it would be a little bit of a disappointment for a human being to live his life and not explore his true potential physically. If you can be mobile, if you can be balanced, if you can be stronger or

faster or more powerful, and you have all these years of your life without experiencing that, then it’s kind of like a missed opportunity. I actually believe in that same idea when I work. And so, I think if there’s

Pumping iron

The boutique fitness franchise trend is taking off

By Tracy Stapp Herold

T

he world of fitness franchising has grown dramatically in recent years, and in a landscape once dominated by big-box gyms, the boutique trend is rapidly gaining ground.

On the surface, the appeal of smaller, specialized facilities is obvious: they cost less to open, require fewer employees and are easier to run than their largescale counterparts. But their real strength lies deeper- in their ability to attract a passionate client base. “Whenever you have that niche market, where you’re not trying to be everything to everyone, you’ll get enough people that are excited about being able to do that thing they love,” says Michael Parrella, CEO of Levittown, New York-based iLoveKickboxing.com. “In a big-box gym, they have grander facilities and more equipment, but you’re just a number. You build a tribe with a boutique fitness facility.” This is what FitRepublik is determined to prevent; their aim is to present a large-scale health and wellness model but operate on a clientby-client basis.

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Nick Berry, president of Fitness Consulting Group, the parent company of Fitness Revolution and Athletic Revolution, agrees.

“Consumers are becoming more ambitious with their fitness levels,” he says. “They’re looking for that service of fitness, not just access to fitness equipment.”

Here’s a look at a few of the specialties of the top new boutique fitness franchises- the trends within the trend.

Group training Several top new franchises offer group training, including U.S.-based Fitness Revolution, which evolved from the work that Berry and his partner, Pat Rigsby, did as business consultants for personal trainers and other fitness professionals.

“As a business, the one-to-one [personal training] model has always been kind of broken,” Berry says. “It’d be very difficult for a person to create a true livelihood out of.” Group training allows the trainersturned-franchisees at Fitness Revolution to offer their clients many of the benefits of personal

an opportunity out there that I can run after, I will do it even at the cost of having difficult moments in my life. Because I think the joy of what I am doing really overtakes everything else. So it has been tough, but I wanted tough. I didn’t want it any other way.”

And that’s the mantra that Al Amine would advise for his peers in the entrepreneurial community of the region to take up as well. “I think everything you do should be an adventure,” he said. “You have to always do your best, because your life is short and you always have to have fun, and you always have to try things and fail. Failing is a very big part of having fun.

I think, for you to have an adventure, you need to fail. I think people should be more accommodating to failing, because failing should not hurt you, it should make you stronger. And as cliché it may sound, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

training at a lower price. But financial considerations aren’t the only reason for the activity’s rising popularity.

“There’s some real psychology and motivation around a group setting,” says David Long, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Floridabased Orangetheory Fitness.

“People get the instruction they need to be effective, and there’s a real big social element and accountability to it, too.”

Kickboxing Kickboxing is another wellrepresented trend in our list of top new franchises, with three companies comprising more than 200 American franchise locations. When asked why kickboxing has become such a popular workout, Parrella notes, “There’s just something empowering about it, something primal and combative. It’s in our DNA.” And it seems that sense of empowerment is appealing particularly to women, who make up 85% of the customer base of iLoveKickboxing.com.

In fact, it’s proved so popular that Parrella has had to change his franchise model, which originally allowed existing martial-arts facilities to cobrand with iLoveKickboxing. com. The franchised kickboxing classes quickly outgrew such facilities, leading owners to move them to separate,

dedicated gyms- and Parrella to focus on offering stand-alone iLoveKickboxing.com franchises instead. “We now have facilities that literally have waiting lists to get in,” he says.

Interval training The American College of Sports Medicine’s annual survey of fitness trends has a new number one: high-intensity interval training, described as “short bursts of high-intensity bouts of exercise followed by a short period of rest or recovery.”

“The science behind interval training is getting people in certain heart-rate zones to improve their cardiovascular health as well as their ability to burn calories and body fat,” Long explains. For that reason, personal-health technology plays an important part in Orangetheory’s signature 60-minute workout, alongside treadmills, rowing machines and weights. Clients’ heart rates are monitored throughout the workout and displayed on flatscreen TVs. “People like seeing the results of their efforts,” Long says. “We’re using a very scientific approach to give people much better results in a quicker period of time.” As other interval-based fitness franchises start to crop up, he’s certain competition will comeand soon.

See this article in its entirety on Entrepreneur.com

The FitRepubik facility spans over 100,000 sq. ft.

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ETHICS | ESQUIRE GUY | SKILLSET | MARKETING | PRO

The Esquire Guy on the problem with passion

By Ross McCammon

W

e take the value of “passion” for granted. You have a business? You have an idea?

Well, then you need passion when you talk about it. You talk about it with passion, you get “converts”.

You get converts, and those converts “evangelize” for you. Passion begets passion begets passion. And let the people say: Hallelujah!

Ugh. There are those of us who don’t respond well to extreme passion.

We’re the skeptics. And we’ve always annoyed the zealots: why won’t they just listen?! Well, the passion is making it hard to listen.

The problem with passion is that it can cloud your message and overshadow your mission enough that it’s no longer clear what you’re talking about, or even what your business is. The more passionate you are, the less professional you seem- the less human you seem. At some point, passion begins to mask the humanity it seeks to express. Passion has diminishing returns.

On the highway of enthusiasm, you need to stop and stretch your legs every now and then, take a restroom break, buy some beef jerky. You need to relax and look around. By acknowledging -even vaguely- that your idea is not The Great Idea but one in a cosmos of good ideas, you’re making your notion even more appealing. You’re placing it in a sane context- the context of the rigor that it will take to get the idea off the ground.

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The advantage, of course, is that passion costs nothing to implement.

It’s not a budget item. You just have to muster it. And this is why it’s overused. Says Mike Manning, co-founder and CEO of DealVector, an online network for fixed-income investors: “When you’re creating something out of nothing, you’re often selling a vision, because you don’t have the metrics. So I think an awful lot of being an entrepreneur speaking to employees, funders [and] customers is allowing that passion to substitute for metrics.”

But there’s a way to be passionate. A method, even. It involves what absolutely no expert refers to as the “enthuse, temper, enthuse” approach.

The idea is to occasionally, and quite explicitly, undercut your passion with self-deprecation or, even, hedging.

The idea is: when you’re talking passionately about your product, idea or business, you need to tone down the enthusiasm, so that it’s obvious to your audience that you aren’t on

KEY TECHNICAL MATTERS > Use body language when expressing passion. > As long as it’s body language that doesn’t involve raising the roof. > Or pelvic thrusting. > Or indiscriminate fist bumping. > Or shielding your eyes as if from the wattage of your own brilliant idea. > Or chest beating, which has worked for exactly two people: King Kong and Celine Dion. > Closing your eyes and reciting a quote you found by Googling “passion quote” will not make you seem authentically passionate. > Note that passion butts right up against a lot of other, less positive qualities, such

as: mania, scumbaggery and an eagerness possibly fueled by cocaine. Fine lines there. > Words to use instead of passion (which is an overused word): hunger, enthusiasm, drive, excitement, zeal. > Not-so-good words to use instead of passion: obsession, infatuation, paroxysm, strong urge, zealotry. > Your general demeanor should be somewhere between ardent and fervent. > If you find yourself being merely keen, then you are not passionate enough. > If you find yourself being vehement, then you are too passionate. > If you find yourself being taken away by the police, then you are way, way too passionate.

some one-track mission to convince everyone of your brilliance.

On the highway of enthusiasm, you need to stop and stretch your legs every now and then, take a restroom break, buy some beef jerky. You need to relax and look around. By acknowledging -even vaguely- that your idea is not The Great Idea but one in a cosmos of good ideas, you’re making your notion even more appealing.

You’re placing it in a sane contextthe context of the rigor that it will take to get the idea off the ground.

“I think you can own the part of the wild-eyed entrepreneur to some degree, as long as you can do it with humor and levity and be clear you’re not taking yourself so seriously,” Manning says. “You need to do it with enough humor so that people understand you’re both in the part and playing the part.”

Being wild-eyed is not a virtue.

Unmitigated passion is a marker associated with various psychological disorders. You need to seem sane.

The best way to do this is to look at your pitch or speech as a conversation. Your passion must be inclusive.

Otherwise you’re imposing your idea on people, instead of helping them understand why it’s so good for them.

In a conversation, you need to pick up on cues. This is not a new idea; in sales you’re taught to ask a lot of questions to hone in on your audience’s needs. “If you just start talking

without truly understanding your audience, you run the risk of making incorrect assumptions,” says Lee J. Zane of the Department of Management at Rider University. “When I used to do sales work when I had my software business, we would do conference presentations where we’d invite 20 firms in and present our software, and I wouldn’t start until I’d asked a bunch of questions. Why are they doing this now? What problems do they have? Then I could go in and be reasonably enthusiastic in a presentation, because I knew what they were looking for.”

You can’t know what people are looking for when you’re too busy telling them what to look for. Passion is important, but it has to be tempered.

It has to seem connected to reality and to your mission that was (presumably) thoughtfully considered and rigorously executed. It’s good to seem passionate. It’s better to seem driven.

See this article in its entirety at Entrepreneur.com

Unmitigated passion is a marker associated with various psychological disorders. You need to seem sane. The best way to do this is to look at your pitch or speech as a conversation. Your passion must be inclusive. Otherwise you’re imposing your idea on people, instead of helping them understand why it’s so good for them.

Want Fervor With That?

We asked Loren Bouchard, writer and creator of the Fox animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers, to tell us what makes Bob, passionate owner of a hamburger joint, a well-rounded character.

“The key to balancing passion is humility. When we write a character who’s super-passionate, but we want them to be likeable and relatable, too, we use doubt and humility as our secret ingredients.

Bob knows he makes a great burger- a truly original and creative burger. We’ve layered Bob’s character with all the attributes of a real artist- a beef artist, let’s call him. And Bob, like many real artists, has pursued his passion to the point that he is actually trying to make a living at it. And that’s when things get tricky. When the artist doesn’t immediately succeed in his chosen field, doubt comes and visits him like a dark spirithe sees himself struggling, sees his family having to sacrifice, to do without, all so that he might practice his art.

Now you have a relatable character. That guy is the guy you want to meet. He’s humbled by circumstance, but does he still make a great burger? Of course he does. He makes the best burger around. He’s confident and resilient, and he’s making burgers at the peak of his burger-making powers. You love his burgers!

He just can’t pay his bills. He can’t afford that nice thing he wants: the condo with the yard, maybe. Is he bitter? Well, define bitter. He’s exactly the amount of bitter that many great flavors are: coffee, etc. (Those are bad examples. You get the idea.)

Passion and confidence are great, but without humility they seem naive, unrealistic, teetering toward narcissistic. Add a healthy dose of humility, though, and you’ve got the stuff- the makings of what we might call Character with a capital C. We think real character is a good ingredient for storytelling and a good ingredient for humans, too.” -As told to Michelle Juergen (who is rather passionate about Bob’s Burgers)

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CULTURE

business unusual | LIFE | TRAVEL | DESIGN | TRAPPINGS

The executive selection ‘Trep trimmings

From better goods to boardroom wardrobe bests, each issue we choose a few items that make the approved executive selection list. For the first issue of the year, we present deLaCour fine timepieces to keep you looking sharp (and on schedule).

“Since tomorrow”

If you’re not yet familiar with the deLaCour range, we’re here to keep you in the loop. Co-founded and launched in 2003 by entrepreneurs Alfred Terzibachian, Louai Kuzbari and Pierre Koukjian, the Swiss timepiece company caters to a niche clientele.

Available in the GCC, deLaCour timepieces are released in limited edition collections and crafted by hand with attention to aesthetics, and of course, to precision. The first showing of deLaCour timepieces took place in Basel, Switzerland, at the country’s annual Baselworld international watch and jewelry industry show, followed by the brand opening their first standalone Geneva boutique two years later in 2005. www.delacour.ch

deLaCour Bichrono Tech

Just in time

Tenth Annual Middle East Watch of the Year Awards

Tenth annual Middle East Watch of the Year winners

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The tenth annual Middle East Watch of the Year Awards took place in Dubai, UAE on November 27, 2014. Staged at The RitzCarlton DIFC in tandem with the Salon des Grandes Complications exhibition, the event awarded 11 categories across horlogeriespecific themes. The 12-member panel of judges included timepiece journalist Roberta

Nass, Head of Christie’s Watch departments Hong Kong and Dubai Frederic Watrelot, and H.E. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Khalifa of Bahrain. Organized

by MPP Middle East, sponsored

by Audi Corporate and supported

by Bang & Olufsen, the Watch of the Year Awards distinguishes brands for areas of design, craftsmanship, and function.

business unusual | LIFE | TRAVEL | DESIGN | TRAPPINGS

CULTURE

You’ve got baggage!

Mark Giusti carries-on

Mark Giusti’s diverse selection of everything from the carry-on to weekender duffels make great options for ‘treps on the go.

Here are two of our top picks from the brand’s Bring Back Time range, but there are a few more gems we’d like to call our own. www.markgiusti.com

OVERNIGHTER For the overnight work trip, we like the Mark Giusti Jet Set Leather Suit Carrier with ergonomic multi-compartments.

Made of 100% grained calf leather body and trim, the Leather Suit Carrier is available in solid black or a black and brown combination.

Part of the brand’s collection of better leathers, it’s got an adjustable shoulder strap and a reinforced handle to prevent wear and tear. The interior is lined with cotton sateen, so it’s device-screen friendly. Pick this piece up to satisfy both on and off the clock needs.

FREQUENT FLIER The Jet Set Leather Travel Bag with outside laptop compartment might be just the ticket.

The roomy, clean-lined 100% calf leather carry-all is just enough for the on-flight essentials. In basic black, it’s good-looking and sturdy- reinforced handles with a cotton sateen lined interior means it’s a long-lasting investment. The large zippered compartment has some give to store extras, but keeps its shape overall; perfect to go from the terminal and straight to the boardroom.

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TECH

SHINY | WEBSITE TO WATCH | GEEK | MOBILE TECH | ONLINE ‘TREP | THE FIX

#TAMTALKSTECH A new year brings new goals and aspirations, and your gadgets need to be able to meet your needs.

Check out this issue’s selection that enhance productivity and put you on the path to #MasteringYou2015.

Make your mark Montblanc develops digital writing instruments

In a recent collaboration, Montblanc lent their superior craftsmanship to Samsung’s advanced S pen technology to create two new gadgets: the Pix Pen and e-Starwalker Pen. Elegant upgrades of the original S pen, the instruments function like a stylus. The new pens give you the flexibility of writing by hand Montblanc Screenwriter App For iPad

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on both paper and a device using a single instrument. Ideal for use with the Galaxy Note 4, the Pix Pen features an e-refill in blue and black ink, while the e-Starwalker Pen includes an e-refill and an analog refill. iPad users are also invited to join the revolution, since the luxury Maison teamed up with AKQA to create the StarWalker

Extreme ScreenWriter and ScreenWriter app. The pen and app work together to allow iOS users to sketch and make notes by hand. Revive handwriting –an art form that runs the risk of falling by the wayside- by making your mark on an electronic device with a timeless Montblanc writing instrument.

Starwalker Extreme Screenwriter

Back it up WD introduces wireless, portable storage

WD has expanded its portable storage range to include My Passport Wireless, a Wi-Fi enabled storage solution for all of your devices. It allows you to save, access and share up to 2TB of content from any mobile device. You can backup media and files as you create them. My Passport Wireless is packed with features that make it an ideal companion for on-the-go storage. It broadcasts its own wireless network which allows up to eight devices

WD My Passport Wireless

to connect at the same time, features a high speed USB 3.0 connection when you need to transfer large amounts of data quickly and has a built-in SD card slot to copy data from an SD card. WD also added integrated FTP which allows the drive to connect directly to compatible wireless devices like cameras. Accessing stored content is just as simple as saving it using the WD My Cloud mobile app for Android and iOS.

Give it your all ASUS Zenbook UX303

The new and improved ASUS Zenbook UX303 is thin, light, powerful, and comes in smoky brown- a stylish new color. This generation of Zenbook wows with a 13.3 inch full HD display, high-fidelity touch actuators which are more than twice as sensitive as the industry standard and a fourth generation Intel Core

i5 or i7 processor. With NVIDIA GeForce graphics, 2GB of video RAM and SonicMaster audio all wrapped in a sleek aluminum body, Zenbook UX303 looks as good as it performs.

Whether multitasking or gaming, this new Zenbook gives you the computing power you need to get things done.

ASUS Zenbook UX303

Jean machine Betabrand and Norton develop RFID-blocking jeans

#TAMTALKSTECH Tamara Clarke, a former software development professional, is the tech and lifestyle enthusiast behind The Global Gazette, one of the most active blogs in the Middle East. The Global Gazette has been welcomed and lauded by some of the most influential tech brands in the region. Clarke’s goal is to inform about technology and how it supports our lifestyles.

See her work both in print regional publications and online on her blog where she discusses everything from how a new gadget improves day-today life to how to coordinate your smartphone accessories.

Visit www.theglobalgazette.com and talk to her on Twitter @GlobalGazette.

It’s been estimated that 10 million people could be victimized by scams that retrieve and misuse personal data. Betabrand, a crowdfunding clothier, has partnered with online security company Norton to help you prevent getting digitally pickpocketed (and falling prey to identity theft) with RFID-blocking jeans.

So how exactly can denim keep your personal data safe? Credit cards containing RFID chips are vulnerable to skimming devices. The READY jeans feature two pockets lined with special RFID-blocking fabric which shields your credit cards and prevents thieves from stealing your information. Advertised as subtly stretchy and machine washable, the jeans are maintained just like regular denim.

Could fashion really be the next frontrunner for preventing identity theft? Unlikely, but cool all the same.

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ETHICS | ESQUIRE GUY | SKILLSET | MARKETING | PRO

Eight communication tips for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs How-to PR your business By Camilla d’Abo and Lucy d’Abo

T

en years ago, Lucy and I set up our integrated communications agency with a team of two (namely us), in a one-bedroom apartment. A decade later, we are a multi award-winning company with more than 60 talented team members, representing the world’s leading international clients, running a digital division and are now proud to be in much bigger and better premises. How did we do this? Not through a large marketing budget or advertising campaign. Not through international affiliations or local partners. The success of our business has been built through the power of establishing a market-leading reputation. To build this reputation we have focused on many of the tools that we deliver to our clients; fantastic quality work, exceptional client servicing, innovative creative ideas, and the power of good PR.

Our clients’ success has been our number one priority, and in turn they have been our best business development tool and have championed our services amongst their own networks.

Fundamentally, we have grown organically based on the strength of our reputation and our dedication to our work. To help other budding entrepreneurs build their own reputation and benefit from the power of PR, here are our top tips to get SMEs on the radar of potential investors, clients and talent: 1. Identify your news story

Think about what makes you special.

Are you the first to introduce a service or product to the market?

How will this impact the wider business community? Is there untapped potential in a certain sector that you are able to meet unlike your competitors? Or are you the first SME to breakthrough with a new service for a specific demographic? Identify your story– the reason why someone should sit up and take notice of you.

Use this story to pitch to the media.

2. A targeted approach rather than a scattergun one

Now that you have successfully identified what makes you different to your competitors, you can start sharing this with media. The key is to ensure you reach the right people. So in other words, if you are a construction company looking for investment, being interviewed on a travel blog is not going to help you get funding. Search online or buy local newspapers and magazines. Understand who your target audience is, what they read, what they listen to and then start targeting that media. Although it will seem daunting to make a journalist phone call out of the blue, they are actually a lot more accommodating than you think, so give it a go.

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mouth tool at your fingertips and the cheapest. Talk about your exciting growth plans and encourage others to be part of that journey. The more people hear about you, the more successful you are perceived to be.

6. Network and learn how to “work a room”

3. Amplify your reach

Now that you have appeared in your chosen publication, you should begin to share links of your coverage to your wider network. Encourage your network to comment and like your posts.

The more people who see you sharing your success, the more they will want to be part of that success.

4. Don’t shy away from tapping into your own network

We all have personal networks, whether it’s friends from university or former colleagues. More often than not, they want to hear what you are up to and share in your successes. Send out regular email updates. People buy in other people. Today’s investor doesn’t always wear a pinstriped suit and sit in a bank, they are just as likely to be sat at a café reading their Twitter feeds on their iPad.

The key to successful networking is having a genuine interest in people.

Fortunately, in this market you meet people from a variety of backgrounds and industries. Networking is a skill in itself and one that does not come naturally to most people, but one that can reap dividends in terms of getting a foot through the door in terms of an all-important meeting with a potential customer or client. Once you’ve got that foothold, make the most of it.

7. Be prepared

Ensure that you have your “elevator pitch” ready. This is a 60 second overview of what your business is and what you can bring to an investor or client that no one else can. If you can’t explain the benefits of what your business can bring to the table, don’t expect others to understand why they should support you.

8. Substance and style are crucial

Platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook can be harnessed to ensure you are on the radar of potential investors or clients.

Use a blog to highlight your industry expertise and start conversations with digital influencers in your field.

Digital is the most powerful word-of-

Every interaction with any customer, large or small, is an opportunity to make a good impression. Ask yourself whether you know your clients’ business back to front. How does your product or service enhance their portfolio? Do you have a presentation to share with them? Is it slick? Would it install confidence in them of your ability to grow a successful company?

Camilla and Lucy d’Abo, Managing Partners of DABO & CO, boast more than 15 years of experience within their respective fields. With Camilla overseeing all PR communications and strategic campaign activities, and Lucy

leading all concept creation and strategy for events region-wide, DABO & CO has grown significantly over the past 10 years into one of the leading integrated communications companies in the Middle East, specializing in PR, event management and digital engagement. Inspired by a commitment to strategic creative solutions and quality client servicing, Camilla and Lucy and the team at DABO & CO have accumulated an extensive corporate and consumer PR brand portfolio, including some of the world’s biggest brands, such as Nike, Canon, BMW Group, HSBC, Marriott and DHL. Company and personal accomplishments between the d’Abo sisters comprise of winning over 20 awards including being named joint Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2014 Gulf Capital SME Awards.

5. Embrace digital channels

Ready for business du and Microsoft team up to offer UAE SMBs low-cost access to the Office 365 suite of cloud-based services

By Aby Sam Thomas

W

hen you’re starting up a business in the UAE, you may want to make use of the latest technology tools and services in your office; however, the cost and difficulties involved in setting them up with the requisite hardware, support systems, etc. can be seen as a deterrent to such a plan. But now, a new partnership between du and Microsoft is hoping to help SMB enterprises in the UAE get past the aforementioned issues by offering them direct access to Microsoft’s Office 365 suite of cloud-based productivity applications and services. Besides getting low-cost access to a variety of enterprise technologies such as business-class email, online meeting tools and cloud storage space, customers signing up for du’s Office 365-enabled packages will also be able to purchase all of the services they need from just one supplier, through one support center, and then be charged for it all in one consolidated monthly bill.

“We completely understand the needs and challenges of SMBs, and from our experience, we have seen that they are early technology adopters, if products are packaged right,” said Hany Fahmy Aly, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Business, du. “By offering the Office 365 suite of packages across all our core mobile and broadband services through our new collaboration with Microsoft, our SMB customers will benefit from yet another incredible effort to bring value-packed, enterprise-grade solutions to this market.”

Microsoft’s Office 365 packages are being offered by du across all of its mobile, device and broadband portfolios. www.du.ae/Office365 january 2015 Entrepreneur

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CULTURE

business unusual | LIFE | TRAVEL | DESIGN | TRAPPINGS

Leisurely lifestyle

Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme for business… and pleasure

A

lessandro Cresta, General Manager of globally-renowned Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme, says that while over half the hotel’s guest roster is business-related, it’s all about turning your corporate trips into an opportunity to promote work-life balance. Cresta joined the Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme 18 months ago, having previously worked in other French hospitality properties and across the European Union including Switzerland, England, Germany, Czech Republic, and also here in the region in Dubai. “50% of our business GM is business Alessandro travel related, Cresta but nowadays

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people are mixing business travels with leisure goals. We do welcome people from this region all year around for business and for leisure visits, and we are receiving official delegations as well at the hotel.” Part of the Palace Hotels Group, the Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme is only one of their exceptional properties; Cresta says that the Group’s Hôtel du Palais by Belmond in Biarritz is another gem, citing its location and arresting ocean view as just two reasons to visit.

“One of the most important facets to succeed in luxury is to anticipate the needs of the guests, and to give a lot of importance to the human being factorthe spirit and the values of the employees,” he adds, discussing their businesstravel marketing approach. Cresta notes that the hotel’s staff excel at developing personalized service strategies, and that they consistently adapt their offerings to suit guest needs. “On a very regular basis,

we organize meetings, conferences and boards for French and international companies,” and for those guests they ensure that all business-amenities are readily available. It’s part of their larger aim to facilitate a smooth corporate environment for visitors, and an overall pleasant experience. And when you’re ready to unwind after the conference is over?

Cresta suggests the following agenda for your downtime: “Start by having a sports wake-up in the morning followed by a sauna [session] or a hammam, a healthy breakfast at Les Orchidées accompanied by international newspapers, followed by a seat at La Terrasse to check email and computer work. A snack at La Cheminée is a must to taste the delicate dishes of the kitchen of Jean-François Rouquette, then you may go for two hours of shopping with a private driver. On your return, have a Haute Couture Massage or a Crème de la Mer treatment at our spa, then enjoy a wonderful cocktail at Le Bar, a dinner at lLe Pur’, and finally indulge in a cigar at La Terrasse… Enjoy!”

One final nod to your busy schedule?

The hotel spa specializes in treatments for jetlag. Pack your bags!

Recommended by the GM CORPORATE SPECS “Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme features a set of different conference rooms, including two boardrooms. The latest and most modern techniques are available to meet the guest’s requirements. We regularly organize international meetings for worldwide companies with European offices based in Paris with a connection throughout the world with link-up facilities.

Our spaces are very functional and adaptable to all kinds of events, press junkets and road-shows, and more. The

Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme [has] a very large selection of more than 80 amenities for our guests, each of them adapted to the nationality and the preferences and the profile of the guest. This choice is based on our past experience, and this service is personalized as much as possible.”

MUNCH “I love to have dinner at Le Pur’ by Jean-François Rouquette, our Michelinstarred restaurant, with its intimate atmosphere and its open kitchen. It is a must to

see the ‘ballet’ of all the chefs preparing the dishes! My favorite dish is his crispy veal sweetbreads with white truffle from the Alba region.”

EXEC STAY “Our personalized service is essential to make stays productive and enjoyable.

Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme reflects the true value of the companies through a unique luxury experience. We have nine Concierges in house; they are all part of the prestigious association Clefs d’Or and we are proud to mention that our

Head Concierge is also the President of the Clefs d’Or in France, representing all national and international events. Our Concierges are attending to more than 200 requests per day.”

PLUSSES “The very central

position in the heart of Paris is certainly a wonderful perk, very next to the shopping area of the Place Vendôme and the Rue de la Paix, the Tuileries garden, the Opera House, and the bank and lawyers district of the Parisian center.”

Suite Vendôme Terrace

Suite Vendôme

Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme Spa

Le Pur’ Restaurant

january 2015 Entrepreneur

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TREPONOMICS

ETHICS | ESQUIRE GUY | SKILLSET | MARKETING | PRO

Five essential steps to creating content that works for your business By James Reynolds

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M

ost businesses are now aware of the need to create fresh, new content for their websites, perhaps in a bid to improve sales or customer service, or to raise brand awareness. However, not all of these businesses are aware of just how crucial it is to have a carefully considered and organized strategy in place for content creation. Before going ahead and spending good money and valuable time on content creation, there is a lot to consider: audience, reach, aims, timing, delivery, to name but a few. These five essential steps along with an all-important planning document available below, will ensure that each and every new piece of content has been carefully organized to ensure it reaches exactly the right people at the right time in order for you to maximize its efficiency and meet your goals.

1. Define your goal

Content marketing can have huge payoffs, but to make it work for your business you must invest time, and lots of it. If you want that time to be well invested, it’s important that you start with the end goal in mind. Before you begin, get very clear on the goal for your content marketing efforts.

With content marketing there are a number of possible business goals you can have: 1. Brand awareness 2. Lead generation and nurturing 3. Customer conversion 4. Customer service 5. Upsells 6. Subscribers Depending on your scenario, each one of these goals could be a good fit for you. Perhaps you’re trying to create a program that increases awareness?

Maybe you are looking to improve your position in the search engine results, or simply drive more leads into the sales funnel? Get focused on the end result before you start and you’ll stand a far better chance of building an asset that works for your business in the way that you want it to.

Get subscribers, get customers

When someone opts in to receive email from you, they give you permission to market to them. Well-crafted permission based email marketing

can allow you to develop one-to-one relationships en masse, like no other marketing channel can. Step one is to acquire subscribers, then over time through anticipated, personal and relevant emails, you can turn those subscribers into passionate buyers.

Soon after launching in 2008, the Content Marketing Institute found that their email subscribers closed to customers three times faster than non-subscribers. Since then they have focused around the one goal of growing their email subscriber base. It now stands at over 90,000.

How to get subscribers

In order to build an email subscriber base, you will need to offer something of value on your website as a fair exchange for a new subscriber’s email address. Few, if anyone, will give up their email to be added to a newsletter, but many will happily exchange their email to download a premium piece of content such as an e-book, a cheat sheet or an educational course on a topic that’s relevant and interesting to them. To get more subscribers, offer more content like this. A simple cheat sheet or resource guide pro-

moted in your website’s sidebar and on pop-up forms will do well, but by far the best strategy I’ve found for growing an email list is the content upgrade.

Content upgrade

Recently I‘ve noticed a few of my savvy marketing friends adding bonus content to their blog posts. Brian Dean who wrote a great blog post called Google’s 200 Ranking Factors had added a free Ranking Factors Checklist as a bonus to his post. I also saw that LeadPages.net were giving away free bonuses with all of their blog posts. Not a generic bonus but a specific bonus with each piece of contentsomething that would help the reader get even more out of the post and take their learning to the next level.

I followed suit and implemented the same strategy on my own website starting with my podcast episodes.

Instantly I went from adding just a few email subscribers to more than 80 per episode. I now create content upgrades for every piece of content I post to my blog, and if you are serious about building an email list then you should too. >>>

Pencil me in Carbon Graphite as an alternative energy?

S

ometimes the most incredible things come from the most unexpected sources. Manchester University Professor and winner of the 2010 Noble Prize in Physics, Sir Andre Geim, has tipped graphene as a huge game-changer in the hunt for green energy. Graphene, considered

the thinnest material that we know of thus far, has a strange quality that allows positively charged hydrogen atoms to pass through despite being resistant to all other gases (hydrogen included!). What does this mean? For a while now there’s been much talk about fuel cells, which use hydrogen to generate electricity, and they’ve been considered the ultimate green technology that will eventually power cars. This discovery means that graphene can be the key to more efficient fuel cells, and increases the chances of fuel cells using hydrogen fuel from the atmosphere. Generating power that way is carbon-free, and leaves no hazardous byproducts.

Graphene could be the next source of energy that we all rely on. Move on petroleum?

january 2015 Entrepreneur

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TREPONOMICS

ETHICS | ESQUIRE GUY | SKILLSET | MARKETING | PRO

2. Define your audience persona

If your content marketing is to be a success then you must plan your content to fill the wants and needs of your audience, not your own. This is an important point. Business owners and marketers all too often bend their content to their own thinking. If you do the same, your content marketing will fail. Before you begin your content marketing program, get very clear on who you are talking to with your content by developing audience personas.

Most businesses will have at least one audience persona, but others will have several. For example, a nursery school will have all these audience personas: children, parents, teachers and local authorities. Content for each of these personas would be very different. You can develop your audience personas by asking a few key questions of your audience: 1. Who is he or she?

2. What information does this person need?

3. What does this person care about?

Don’t assume the answers, instead interview your audience. Take time with this process but don’t shoot for perfection, you just need to be detailed enough to guide your content creators.

3. Create a content segmentation grid

In the past we would advertise our businesses by blasting our message in the general direction of our audience persona. The theory went that if you blasted loud enough and long enough, eventually you would reach some of your audience. While advertising does still work, there is much waste, because naturally for most it will not be the right time, the right place and the right message. To ensure you deliver the right content at the right time you need to study your customer’s buying process and your own sales process. Consider what content your customer needs when they first come to know of you versus the final stages of a negotiation. At each stage of their buying process (and your sales process) different types of content will be required to help move them to the next stage.

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simple sales cycle something like this: Contacts People who have contacted you or with whom you’ve been in contact.

Leads People you have identified as being in the market for your solution.

Qualified opportunities Qualified as having a need and the budget for your solution.

Finalists Considering your solution as one of finalists.

Verbal agreement You are chosen.

Define your own sales cycle, and then using a content segmentation grid, map your content to the appropriate stage. Why is a content segmentation grid important? It stops you falling in to the “spray-and-pray” trap. Instead of creating content and throwing it out anywhere at any time,

the content segmentation grid helps you plan and deliver relevant messaging (that moves people towards your desired action) by ensuring the right content is received by your audience at the right time.

I should note that whilst the grid is drawn in a linear fashion, don’t force your audience through every step if they are ready and willing to move faster. If someone contacts you qualified and ready to do business with you, give them your case studies and product information, don’t send them your white papers designed for awareness and education. Some will drive slowly through your content cycle, some will drive at break-neck speed.

Ensure you have a slow lane and a fast lane set up for both.

4. Ensure all your content has a call-to-action

Effective content that works for your business will always give opportunity for your audience to respond. Whether that be sharing your content via social media, downloading your content upgrade, buying your product or service or any other action you want someone to take. If the body of your content has served its purpose it will have engaged, educated, inspired and built trust with your audience. That trust can be repaid to you in kind, such as a share or comment on your blog, or in business with the purchase of your product or service. Always tell your audience what they should do next. Keep them moving through your content segmentation grid.

Call-to-action tips

Here are a few tips to consider that will help you craft calls-to-action that elicit a better response: Micro-commitments Early in the buying cycle use small micro callsto-action such as “share this post on social media.” New engagers are more likely to make a micro commitment and it makes them more inclined to make a larger commitment later.

Ask questions End your content with a question. It will encourage your readers to post a comment (a microcommitment).

Clarity Make your calls-to-action very clear. Use simple language and display your main call-to-action in a stand out color.

Reduce friction Use the minimum number of form fields possible for sign up forms. Make it frictionless for your audience to take the next step.

You can see how I apply these rules myself within the call-to-action I’ve included further on.

5. Build an editorial calendar

If I have to name just one thing that will be responsible for making or breaking your content marketing, it is the editorial calendar. For your efforts to be successful you need to approach content marketing less like a marketer and more like a publisher. Instead of short-term tactical content campaigns you need a long-term strategy consistently delivered over time. I have been using content marketing in my busi-

ness since the beginning, and whilst I have had many successes during that time, by far my best results have come recently. When I compare my Google Analytics statistics from October 2013to October 2014, every measurable metric is up: traffic, time-on-site, bounce rate and conversions, they are all improved.

While I made many small improvements to my content marketing approach over the course of 12 months, the one big change I made was consistency.

Consistency doesn’t mean more

In the past I published no less than I do now, in fact give or take I probably posted more then, however the frequency at which I published was inconsistent. I now stick to a strict calendar; my podcast is released every Tuesday, my marketing cartoons every Friday, and it’s a schedule my audience have come to expect and look forward to. Consider this, could Entrepreneur magazine have built such a large audience and subscriber base if it published every once in a while as opposed to every month?

Highly unlikely. You need to apply the same consistency to your publishing schedule, and the editorial calendar is the tool to help you do that.

What exactly is an editorial calendar?

The editorial calendar is much more than just a calendar with content assigned to dates. A good calendar maps content production to audience personas (see point 2), the content segmentation grid (see point 3) and the various media channels you are using. Beyond dates and titles for your content, your editorial calendar should also include the following: Prioritized list An inventory of content. Could include content ideas, content from third parties or old content you will repackage.

Content producers/editors Who is responsible for creating and publishing the content?

Channels A list of channels where the content will published, such as your blog, Slide Share, e-book etc.

Dates When the content will be created, edited and published- setting deadlines.

Set up your calendar in a way that works best for you. I prefer to use a simple spreadsheet which you can create with one tab for each month or all on one sheet. Across the columns you might have: • Headline • Content type • Audience persona • Person creating the content • Date due • Editor • Channels • Publish date • Status (I like to color code this red, amber, green) • Notes • Call-to-action Whilst you can use software as a service offerings like Kapost, HubSpot, Contently and others to manage your editorial calendar, the best tool when you are starting out is a spreadsheet. I have our editorial calendar loaded to a Google Drive spreadsheet where all my team can access it online. It’s a simple set up and very effective.

Using these five essential steps will ensure that your content is efficient, that it will be well-timed, and honed to the audience that will make the greatest difference in meeting your goals. Once you put this simple process in place, you’ll ensure the same results from every new piece of content. Your content really will work wonders for your business! Has your content creation thus far achieved the goals that it set out to? What difference do you hope to make by using these steps?

James Reynolds is the founder of Veravo which consists of two search engine marketing agencies; SEO Sherpa and Click Jam. He is also the host of the Traffic Jam Podcast. Reynolds is fanatical about all things search, social and content on the web. Visit his blog at Veravo.com and talk to him on Twitter at @FollowJames. Reynolds, a contributor to several leading publications, mentors startup companies in his free time to positively contribute to the MENA region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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innovator

CATCH New York exterior

Catch of the day

The big boys of NYC nightlife and dining experiences are coming out to play… in Dubai

E

ugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum are definitely foodies, but more than that, they’re foodie entrepreneurs. While we weren’t able to get the most candid interview with them –like most U.S.-based figures of business they’ve clearly had media training- we were able to get some strategic info about their upcoming UAE launch of CATCH, and how they plan on addressing operations literally a world away from their base of success.

“Without a great food product you are unable to be successful in this business. After food comes service and then the environment- in that order. Doing all three of those elements

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well is the key to achieving the allusive balance necessary for a dynamic hospitality brand,” says Remm, one half of the EMM Group, a hospitality-centric company with several original awardwinning concepts in their portfolio. The EMM Group co-founders have teamed up with local partners to bring their concept to the Middle East. “Our partners at GHAM, [Global Hospitality Asset Management], are established players in Dubai, matching our experience in the U.S. with their position in the local market.

Our relationship with them has made it possible for us to enter such a highly competitive hospitality environment,” says Remm.

While they will slightly be adapting the concept for the UAE’s market, “CATCH is a global seafood concept that plans on sticking to its roots. Originality is what sets us apart and what is going to be the key to our success,” says Birnbaum.

The duo are realistic about Dubai’s market, and they admit they’re going up against established F&B market players: “Being the new kids on the block in any market can be a blessing or a curse- how that plays out has a lot to do with how you approach the challenge. I would not feel comfortable entering Dubai as a group from New York without local partners who are integrated into the com-

munity. The team at GHAM have a great reputation and some really fantastic properties in their portfolio.

As I mentioned earlier, we never would have entered the market without a local partner, and we found more than that in this group. Their passion for the worlds of restaurants and nightlife, and understanding of the dynamic between the two, is very similar to ours which makes for a great alliance and an ideal partnership,” adds Remm confidently.

Established in 2006, EMM Group has several globally-recognized hospitality concepts; their portfolio includes Abe & Arthur’s, SL New York, Tenjune, and The Chandelier Room at the W Hoboken, recently re-branded and “re-conceptualized” as LULU’s. In preparation for their first project outside of the U.S., Remm and Birnbaum says that they

personally frequented multiple existing high-end venues in the UAE market to get a handle on what exactly they were up against in terms of competition.

“We like to absorb things firsthand and felt the best way to see how CATCH would fit into the Dubai scene was to go and spend some time there ourselves.

We visited Abu Dhabi and Dubai about a year ago and tried to take in as much of the cities’ hospitality culture as possible. We dined at three restaurants a night and talked a lot about how CATCH would work within the framework of the culinary landscape.”

The two frequent their own venues for both enjoyment and business purposes, and both have a love of F&B business being as much about the overall social experience, in addition to high quality food and beverage offerings.

“We admire the dining and nightlife scene in Dubai.

Its international appeal is magnetic and we recognize that pull, as it has already attracted many of the most respected and popular establishments from around the world,” says Birnbaum.

“Not only does Dubai play host to the world’s jetsetters, moguls and socialites, the city has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. People are flocking here for its local originality and universal flavor. These people are our target market.”

In brief How much do celebrity affiliation and appearances affect the success of a hospitality outlet?

ER “Celebrities have enjoyed

CATCH New York since we opened in 2011. Everyone from Brad Pitt to Rihanna has been to our venue.

It’s exciting for guests to see famous people and we respect that so we’re happy to embrace them when they come but also do what we can to protect their experience.”

MB “Tremendously. Every notable personality I can think of has been through the door at CATCH New York. From Jay Z and Beyoncé to David Beckham and Steven Tyler- it wouldn’t be a Monday night at CATCH without at least a few boldfaced names.”

Eugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum

How much importance do you give these social media marketing channels as F&B entrepreneurs?

ER “We definitely use social

as a tool for communicating, but we try not to overthink it or make it too gimmicky.

Like anything else, if you lose the authenticity that is tied to the identity of the brand, people stop listening.”

MB “While we do acknowledge the importance of social media, we focus on keeping it authentic. We post food we love and our guests do the rest. With so much out there in social media, we aim to keep our message short, sweet and real.”

What is your idea of a good time for an evening out?

ER “A good time is a great

meal with a great group of friends. I like being able to try a lot of different dishes in a family-style environment in a lively room with good conversation and like-minded people.”

MB “Being at a big table at CATCH NYC with many friends, laughing over dinner until the wee hours of the morning is my favorite thing to do!”

CATCH New York interior

“the city has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. People are flocking here for its local originality and universal flavor. These people are our target market.” january 2015 Entrepreneur

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FRANCHISE

Kcal interior

Healthy growth Kcal Healthy Fast Food gets started on its Middle East expansion

By Aby Sam Thomas

I

t’s not often that one gets to see the words “healthy” and “fast food” legitimately associated with each other, but co-founders Mark Carroll and Andreas Borgman have managed to do just that (and achieve success as well) with their Dubai-headquartered food and lifestyle company, Kcal Healthy Fast Food. While Kcal’s restaurants have become known as a wholesome, nourishing, and yes, tasty alternative to the regular fast food outlets seen in this part of the world, its Kcal Extra division helps people lead better lifestyles by delivering bespoke healthy meals directly to their homes.

Since its launch in the UAE in 2010 with a workforce of just 12 people, Kcal is today a 350-member enterprise

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with seven restaurants in the country, and it is now all set to expand its operations in the Middle East with the launch of its first non-UAE franchise in Egypt. Given the political situation of the country, the choice of Egypt to launch Kcal’s Middle East expansion may seem like a curious one, but Carroll and Borgman say the research they did about the nation convinced them it was the right place to grow their business in the region.

“When we started looking at Egypt, it wasn’t a great time,” Borgman remembers.

“At first, we weren’t sure if it was the right market to start our global roll-out in, but our minds were changed after we visited the country. We saw an energetic country with huge potential, and of course,

people always need to eat. We conducted a thorough market study, which involved analyzing demographics, consumer behavior trends and competitors, and realized Egypt was perfect for Kcal. We have also

partnered up with a franchise partner who is aligned with our beliefs.”

But Kcal’s launch in Egypt marks just the start of the company’s growth plan. “We have an aggressive expansion plan for 2015,” Carroll says. “We want to roll out more Kcal Healthy Fast Food restaurants in Dubai, and we are planning to launch Kcal Healthy Fast Food and Kcal Extra in the other Emirates [of the UAE] and throughout MENA. 2015 will see us opening franchises in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan. These are areas we have identified, and [we] are in the closing stages with franchise partners.” And the Kcal team is leaving no stone unturned in their attempt to ensure a streamlined, strategic rollout of their various franchises in the region. “We have partnered with the reputed franchising consultant, Francorp Middle East,” Carroll says. “Working alongside them, we are working toward implementing a sustainable franchising model. Within our franchises, we have area coordinators and a franchise team, which will ensure proper quality standards are being adhered to.”

“In order to ensure the same standards and quality [across all our branches], we pride ourselves on having a detailed franchising manual describing operational procedures, Co-founders Mark Carrroll and Andreas Borgman

FRANCHISE marketing strategies, hiring policies and everything else that needs to be kept in mind about the Kcal brand,” Borgman explains. “I’d also say that having a good solid working relationship with our franchise partners is key, allowing for communication lines to be open. Having the right team makes it so much easier.” But that’s not to take away from the important roles Carroll and Borgman are playing in building and growing the Kcal brand- the two of them are strong proponents for a holistic approach toward healthy living and active lifestyles.

Kcal chocolate banana treat

“As obesity numbers reach alarming heights globally, urbanization and the sedentary modern lifestyle are not helping the world cope with its obesity problems,” Borgman says. “We have identified that there is real need for real food and healthy alternatives in the fast food category, particularly in the MENA countries. Kcal Healthy Fast Food fulfills that need.”

“Today, Kcal is more than just a foodie company,” Carroll says. “Kcal embodies a lifestyle that caters for all those who want to eat well and feel good about themselves. Fast food needn’t be boring or restrictive. Quite the opposite, because with Kcal, you don’t need to sacrifice the food you love to be healthy. We’re passionate about conveying this message, which lies at our very core. We want to capture hearts and minds, not just locally or regionally, but globally. We want to make the world a better place. And we believe Kcal is just what the world has been waiting for.

Eat well. Be well. That’s all it boils down to, really.”

Living it up

Jamba Juice taps into the GCC’s growing healthy F&B market By Kareem Chehayeb

L

andmark Group is bringing in a new brand to the GCC that they hope will satisfy foodies and health freaks alike.

Jamba Juice, imported by the Group’s F&B division Foodmark, debuted their first UAE outlet at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Mall. According to Shobhit Tandon, Business Head at Landmark Group, they’ll be satisfying the existing healthy indulgence market niche while simultaneously onboarding new health-conscious customers who aren’t already familiar with the global brand. “Foodmark, which is our food and beverage division in Landmark Group, has entered into a master franchise development agreement in January 2014 to develop Jamba Juice across the Middle East.

We plan to open a minimum of 80 Jamba Juice stores across GCC over the next 10 years,” explains Tandon.

What’s your take on the healthy F&B market in the UAE?

In the UAE, consumers are broadly divided in two groups, one is the “Emerging Health Conscious”, people who want to change their lifestyle by adopting healthy habits in food and daily routine, and the other is “Progressive Health Conscious”, people who work out and eat healthy food routinely. We feel that this category will only become larger and stronger as we progress. While maintaining a healthy lifestyle is desirable, there are limitations to maintain it. Health and wellness, in the context of beverages and foods, is very fragile, in terms of sustenance and resolve.

It’s not that people don’t want to have healthy food and drinks. But there is a common perception -and to a large extent, reality too, which plays the biggest hurdle- that they

will have to compromise on taste. In short, people usually sacrifice health for taste when they feel like indulging, and vice-versa, when they feel guilty of the indulgence. Therefore, it is a very evident need gap of the millennials that Jamba has pitched in to fulfill. Jamba Juice gives its consumers the guilty pleasures of indulgence, but, at the same time, it is guilt-free. Not just guilt-free indulgence, but “healthy indulgence”.

How does Jamba Juice fit into the UAE market?

Jamba Juice is the number one smoothie brand in the United States. With over 850 store locations globally across the USA, South Korea, Philippines, Mexico, Canada and now the UAE, Jamba Juice is committed to spreading health and wellness across the world through delicious and nutritious beverages and food. Healthy living has become an important part of people’s lives, and Jamba Juice provides healthy and nutritional food with a quality, price and convenience that hasn’t previously been available in the UAE market. At the core, Jamba Juice is a provider of health and wellness in the context of beverages and foods- a context that has a direct impact on vitality and healthy living.

Jamba Juice follows the principle of being global but thinking local, and in the UAE, it will provide new flavors to appeal to the unique taste profile of the region, including special date-flavored smoothies and juices, as well as healthy wraps based upon favorite regional flavors. With Jamba we’re bringing the world’s best smoothies to the Middle East, and we believe all our customers will have a fruitful day.

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Hang in there Five reasons why taking your vacation early in the year is a bad idea

By May Rostom

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f you’re anything like me (or any other human being on the face of this earth), you treasure your vacation days as much as a little kid treasures their blankie. You hold on to them like they’re you’re last days on earth, and “spend” them when you think it’s ab-

solutely necessary. However, finishing up your vacation days early on in the year could possibly be the fastest way to burn out and the worst idea you’ve come up with. Here are five reasons to make you hold on to your vacation days a little longer:

2. Blue moon

4. To the victor

Because you woke up tired this morning and you really can’t walk in a straight line.

Call it a hangover, a long night in front of the TV or just a bad flu, make sure you always have two emergency days left for days you feel under the weather… or the blanket.

Because motivation is usually needed by the end of each fiscal year rather than the beginning of it. Reward yourself for the hard work you’ve done at the end of the year to get yourself enthused, and to push yourself to work harder to the next reward.

3. Lone ranger

5. Midlife crisis

Take a vacation when everyone else is vacationing, like summer for example. If you finish up all your holidays early on in the year, by the time you’re worn out and actually in need of some time to chillax, you won’t be able to. Plan your annual vacation with friends or family ahead that way you can all enjoy your time together instead of wasting your precious days off at the mall.

Because one day you’ll wake up and feel so self-conscious about your life choices and job that you will not want to get out of bed. On days like these, you’ll question the past 15 years of your life and you’ll probably want time off to reevaluate your whole direction.

Make sure you have a few days set aside for days like these, when things don’t seem to be going your way.

1. Wild card

Because you never know when your friends are actually finally going to Yacht Week.

That trip you’ve always talked about with the guys will eventually come up at the most inconvenient time, especially when you’ve used up all your holidays chilling at home on a couch on a staycation. Always make sure to leave four days aside as an emergency vacay just in case your friends actually do plan to go somewhere.

Hospitality hub Nikki Beach Hotels & Resorts announces Middle East property

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or those of you in the Middle East dreaming of Miami Beach, we’ve got some good news to share: Nikki Beach Hotels & Resorts is expanding to Dubai in a partnership with development company Meraas Holding. Announced by Nikki Beach Worldwide founder and owner Jack Penrod on CNN International, it’s the first GCC expansion of the hospitality hallmark brand. The 52,000 square meter property will devote 400 meters to a white sandy beachfront, and will boast numerous F&B outlets onsite, the trademark Nikki Spa

by ESPA, and Tone Fitness Center. Designed in collaboration with DSA Architects International and interiors by Gatserlia Design, the five-star resort will be located on Pearl Jumeira to give visitors the allure of island solitude while still being connected to the city (and sigh, the real world).

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Nikki Beach Marrakech

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READ BETWEEN THE LINES BUSINESS BOOK RUNDOWN

By Amal Chaaban

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ust because an author demonstrates great sales doesn’t mean their business advice is applicable in the boardroom or even good for practical application otherwise. Our reviewer takes a look at some of the titles getting hype recently and gives you the executive summary.

Before you hit the business bestseller aisle, read these reviews to see which of these known books are actually worth your while.

Employer Brand Management Richard Mosley In times past, people in the job market had very few demands of their employers- a steady pay cheque, some good benefits, holiday time and they were satisfied. That was then. Now, job seekers have a myriad of possibilities and their expectations have gone up, way up. It’s no longer enough to just offer the basics. For an employer to stand out, they have to manage their reputation in much the same way they do for clientele. Into this fray enters Richard Mosley’s new book with some solid advice on how to create and manage an attractive brand as an employer; he writes

concisely so that there can be no mistaking his meaning or just how seriously he takes this issue. Potentially the most attractive thing about this book is just how simple he makes it sound to build and maintain a good brand. From the get go, the employer is given three basic tenets that should be a part of building any brand with the note of how these tactics have worked for one of the most well-know fast food franchises in the world. Employer Brand Management is a great read for any business looking to attract (and more importantly keep) the cream of the employment crop.

Targeted: How Technology is Revolutionizing Advertising and the Way Companies Reach Consumers Mike Smith In a world where attention spans are shrinking, and where new technology is old almost before it starts, it can be incredibly challenging for advertising departments to get their message out and to make an impression on consumers. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Internet- with a mere mouse click, consumers can move away from a page without ever having noticed your company’s ad. With the number of adblockers available for free online, it becomes doubly challenging to tap into a market worth potentially millions of dollars in sales. Targeted looks to address that by provid-

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ing the knowledge on how to get the best bang for your advertising buck. Smith provides a clear explanation of the pitfalls (and wins) of search engine marketing, and also imparts some solid info on what to do and how to do it. This is not a book for laypeople in marketing as all the terms and acronyms are confusing at best and dizzying at worst. This is, however, the book every marketing department should read before launching any sort of online campaign, as it does provide some concrete how-to tips about ways to stretch your marketing budget.

Me, Inc.: Build an Army of One, Unleash Your Inner Rock God, Win in Life and in Business Gene Simmons There is no doubting that Gene Simmons can be considered the best case scenario of the realization of the American dream. Brought to the United States by his mother as a child, Simmons learned early on the value of hard work and ingenuity. Simmons has forged an empire that includes one of the most successful rock bands of all time (KISS), a clothing line, restaurants, and various other commercially viable ventures. Detractors of Simmons have labeled him brash and

arrogant in the past, but this reviewer ventures a guess that they are either highly envious of his success or unaware of his incredibly humble beginnings. Me, Inc. is a summary of his thoughts on life and success, and while it is not a typical business book (far too entertaining), it does have really actionable points on what it takes to be a success and get ahead. The average reader will have no problem getting through this book and with diligence, successfully applying his advice.

Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage, And Delight Customers Online Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah Getting noticed on the net and drawng customers can be difficult, to put it mildly. MIT grads Halligan and Shah have written a how-to book to take the sting out of all of the work that goes into what is essentially a quick view or transaction. Inbound is made for those of you who wants to harness the clout of the web, including the all-powerful social media machine, to draw in those much-needed clicks. Covering everything from website design

to creating strategy, the book is a well-written and (somewhat) entertaining take on how to use the web to create a successful sales strategy. The language is clear, the ideas fairly easy to implement, and most importantly, there are very few confusing acronyms for people who don’t actually have a background in marketing. Notably, the “To Do” lists at the end of each chapter help the reader stay focused- do pay attention to these useful add-ons.

One paywall to rule them all Dutch “iTunes for Journalism” startup receives funding

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BLENDLE SCREENSHOT BLENDLE.NL

ewspapers and magazines worldwide are adopting paywalls, and they are here to stay. A necessary evil for those in the publishing business, one unified paywall for all of a country’s major titles might make the situation more tolerable for readers and media outlets alike. A startup in Netherlands has started it with Blendle, a self-proclaimed “iTunes for journalism” platform where users can read

articles from the country’s variety of major dailies and magazines, see what’s trending among curators and friends, follow certain topics or journos, and only pay for articles that they want to read, with the option of getting a refund. Upon registering, new users can access €2.50 worth of material for free with articles costing €0.20 on average, and publishers keeping 70% of revenue. The product of two

former journalists, co-founders Alexander Klöpping and Marten Blankesteijn wanted to offer the option of consuming and paying for a news article to be as easy as downloading an all-access app. In an industry where print readership, sales and ad income is on the decline, there is hope.

In a piece released on Medium in October, Klöpping wrote that one month after its launch in April, Blendle had “more than 60,000 registered users” (50% of those users are under the age of 35) with “20% already converted to paying users.” At least in Netherlands, it looks like millennials do want to read and they’re willing to pay for it, too. The Economist is the first English language title to join Blendle and start selling material in a pay-per-view model.

New York Times Co. and German publisher Axel Springer have invested €3 million and will jointly receive a 23% stake in Blendle, giving the startup a valuation of around €13 million (WSJ). According to The Guardian, Klöpping has plans to expand in another European country, and optimistically needs to onboard “at least 60% to 70%” of the country’s print media outlets for proper market penetration. www.blendle.nl january 2015 Entrepreneur

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Above: Untitled by Fateh Moudarres, oil on canvas, 60 cm x 42 cm

Artistic inclinations

MENA platform lets you buy and sell fine art online By Pamella de Leon

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ith annual art fairs like Art Dubai and Galleries Night, plus cultural districts such as Alserkal Avenue bringing in visitors to see regional and international artists and showings, there’s evidently a great interest in MENA artists and artwork. It’s an ideal time to start investing in hallmark works, but when we think of buying art, admit it, what comes to mind?

Quiet hallways and elitist artsy

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types. This is where Artscoops comes in, an online platform specializing in buying and selling art from MENA artists and commercial galleries.

Being an online avenue, it can reach the niche of art buyers who are more comfortable browsing collections in the comfort of their homes sans the intimidating mise-enscène of a gallery. When asked about establishing an online art space instead of having an

offline presence, co-founder Raya Mamarbachi pointed how there’s already major galleries doing that effectively across the Middle East. With online art platforms becoming more familiar internationally, there’s a need for a platform dedicated to MENA buyers too, adding that Middle Eastern buyers, “especially young buyers”, are busy and would likely take advantage of browsing online.

With access to an online global market, lesser-known artists can have a wider reach, and first-time buyers can take the initial step in acquiring their first piece, which will be a step toward art-buying becoming a mass adopted cultural movement.

How did Artscoops get started? Growing up in a household with collectorparents, Raya Mamarbachi -whose background is in digital and traditional marketing and online ventures- always had a penchant for galleries and museums, believing art to be a better investment than stocks. While helping a charity auction for Syri-Arts in October 2013, Mamarbachi checked with organizers to determine the ratio of pieces that were bought physically in Lebanon compared to the ones purchased online. The result?

“It was something like 30:70 with the majority being bought on the Internet. This proved there is a market for an online art business.” Mamarbachi decided to set that up with her mother, May Mamarbachi, an art collector and seasoned entrepreneur, who has represented The Victoria & Albert Museum of London for The World Ceramics Show in Damascus. As a mother-daughter

Co-founder May Bendki Mamarbachi

team, their “start was challenging, but as our roles and skills are complimentary; the dynamics work well.” Raya is responsible for the overall day-to-day management of the company, while May handles managing Artscoops’ relationships with artists and galleries featured on the site. “When you work with a family member, [the] most important [thing] is to not mix personal and business life.” As art enthusiasts venturing into the business side of a creative industry, legal agreements with artists and galleries took time. Another challenge?

Their online payment gateway proved to be difficult since they wanted to be transparent to their user base. Mamarbachi also stated that there’s still the “fear when buying art online”, referring to people’s doubts about the artwork authenticity and seller reputation. No need to worry though, all of the works on Artscoops comes with a Certificate of Authenticity provided by the gallery or the artist.

The numbers are looking positive for them too. In an art and finance report released last year by Deloitte, it was found that 79% of art collectors and 69% of art professionals think that the online art auction market will become a successful business model.

Artscoops’ revenue streams include a mix of commissions from the website’s sales, having an art advisory/consultancy arm for corporations and individuals and online auction and offline themed popevents- the Holiday Pop Up event, being the most recent.

When they first started, their selection consisted of artists they knew and recognized.

Currently, they are looking for artists that are “analytical about our world, its turmoil and try to express this in their art”, while also considering their educational background and issues expressed in their art. In terms of their criteria for artwork to be sold, it is

Co-founder Raya Mamarbachi

based on the subject and engagement with their mediumsbe it photography, oil and acrylic paint, video or installations. As of December 2014, the most affordable piece you can get is Maya Hage’s oil painting of Radiographie at US$800. The most expensive one is Hussein Madi’s Untitled 1 and Untitled 2 individually priced at $57,000. Despite being a young site (they launched in September 2014), their “multi-phase” marketing approach helped them gain momentum. Artscoops were initially (and still presently) using online media and mass marketing, building followers through their own networks and social media and by physically attending global art events. They also welcome competition, confident that what sets them apart is “continually updating their database, offering additional features on the website, independent content/weekly editorials and our contacts both with galleries and artists alike.”

Notable mentions FARHAD MOSHIRI This Iranian artist is famous for his distinct jars and bowls painted with calligraphic texts consisting of poetry snippets or everyday terms from daily life in Tehran. A regular in contemporary Middle East and Arab art auctions over the last couple of years, his work is part of The British Museum’s collection.

KHOSROW HASSANZADEH One of Iran’s leading artists, Hassanzadeh creates figurative paintings in different mediums including ink, collage, silk screens and ceramic tiles. His work is part of public collections at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the Tehran British Museum or the London KIT Tropen Museum.

HUSSEIN MADI Born in Lebanon, Madi created his first alphabet-themed composition in 1973. He’s since moved on from graphic work and sculpture, focusing on individual letters, rather than words or sentences. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the British Museum and Tokyo’s Ueno Museum.

NUMBERS “Artscoops’ portfolio comprises of more than 160 works from 45 artists from the MENA region.”

MEDIUMS “Photography has, so far, been the favorite medium of Artscoops purchasers. Selling sculptures online is very difficult as a medium. Buyers prefer to buy up-and-coming names or well established artists than ‘unknowns’. Furthermore, price point is important online.”

Above: Untitled by Fadi Yazigi, Mixed Media, 70 cm x 140 cm

artscoops website | artworks © artscoops.com

In an art and finance report released last year by Deloitte, it was found that 79% of art collectors and 69% of art professionals think that online art auction market will become a successful business model.

What’s on their agenda?

Besides looking for partners, artists and galleries from the MENA region (and abroad), they’re planning to offer additional features for the website and there’s an app in the works too. The founders are also looking into introducing other mediums such as video, installations, art books and design objects. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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of assessing risk, given the unique nature of cultural and business resource issues and investor networks.

Thirdly, and most importantly, investors usually depend upon comparable investment activity that helps validate and support an investment thesis around market opportunity and valuation levels. That backup and peer justification doesn’t exist in many social venture markets, where activity is a lot patchier, and those markets have yet to demonstrate clear trends in delivering investor returns. All of this limits the availability of capital in social ventures.

The landscape is slowly changing and we’re witnessing private and governmental initiatives for budding entrepreneurship ecosystems in almost all countries in MENA.

Rough ride Social entrepreneurs don’t have it easy raising capital

By Genny Ghanimeh

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t one point, NGOs and charity organizations were the only options for alleviating societal ills, but in today’s increasingly interconnected world, we’re facing more complexity in issues which require more innovative and sustainable solutions. This has led to the rapid upsurge of social entrepreneurship; now socially-conscious entrepreneurs tackle local and global social challenges, while generating profits.

According to John Green, “social ventures have at their core a strategy to deliver explicit social impact in combination with sus-

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tainable business growth, recognizing the power of business in tackling social issues around the world.”

In theory, social entrepreneurship is an amazing concept but the practical process in progressing from an idea solution to a business ‘sustainable’ operation has its most critical challenges, in particular during the startup financing stage.

Social ‘treps face their first challenge: how do they get the initial financing?

Typically, a regular startup would turn to the following channels of capital: network investments, banking, equity debt, convertible

debt, crowdfunding etc., with a relatively straightforward process for funding channels that are revenue options models.

However, social ventures don’t have the same flexibility in their identity structure on leveraging capital the same way as regular startup ventures do. First, equity or VC financing usually expects an exit strategy that does not automatically exist in social ventures that plan on generating impact for the long haul. Second, the risk appetite for investors adjusts with the existence of proof of concept models.

However, social ventures exacerbate the challenge

What is the global trend for social ventures to clear the financing hurdle?

To access the aforementioned capital streams mentioned before, social ventures have to do several things, including intensive market research to prove the need and execution capabilities. But funding roadblocks might arise, and for that, social ventures look into the following three options: leveraging partnerships, philanthropy organizations and social cause competitions and funds.

Firstly, regarding revenue sharing partnerships, it involves social entrepreneurs thinking innovatively and identifying partners who can bring economic value to both parties. The partner may share intellectual value or property, which adds value to the venture in a completely unique way. The beauty of this avenue is that it is a win-win situation for both parties involved.

pislice WEBSITE

Secondly, regarding philanthropic money, it is a large pool of capital that can be tapped into. However, the definition of philanthropic money has shifted over the years from being simple donations, which are commonly seen today as an unsustainable way of giving.

The new direction for this new wave of philanthropy is today called impact investing. For entrepreneurs, this source of capital is advantageous in that it requires lower than market rate interest or return targets, and for the philanthropists, a principle attraction in that the returned capital can be recycled into other charitable activities. It must be noted that the concept of impact investing is still evolving, and as such, it needs more time to expand to accommodate for the growing number social enterprises.

Finally, startup competitions, accelerators, angel investors and impact funds are the new buzz words in the industry, and they provide valuable exposure and mentorship leading to capital for social ventures.

Good avenues to explore would be university business plan competitions as well as business incubators and accelerators, which are widespread in most big cities, like Echoing Green, Unreasonable Institute, Endeavor Global, the Global Social Venture Competition, and the Hult Prize. Since most of these initiatives exist so far on committed and passionate donors, the challenge would be to identify sustainable models. startup competitions, accelerators, angel investors and impact funds are the new buzz words in the industry, and they provide valuable exposure and mentorship leading to capital for social ventures.

How did we get funded at Pi Slice?

In practice, what model examples do we have of social venture startups who are securing financing? At Pi Slice, when we went for our first funding rounds, we learnt from meeting diverse investors to rely on all funding channels. From the beginning we had some pre-seed angel money that helped us to get started, and allowed us with Microworld.org from the group PlanetFinance.org to build a revenue sharing partnership model– we’re big fans of partnerships and creating shared value.

We also participated in different entrepreneurship competitions, as much as time and timing allowed us to- the exercise of preparing for a competition, being mentored and presenting the case to the jury is very beneficial to reassess the model whether one gets funded or not. We still needed money, so we approached philanthropy capital while still pitching the project focusing on financial and operational metrics. At the end of the day, social investors or philanthropists, like any investors, need to know that you can be sustainable, scalable and that you won’t require any other emergency rounds of financing.

Finally, we also engaged with VCs, and set together future milestones to pitch them at a time when they would be interested to come in- this is a very useful exercise to set standards and milestones achievements in foreseeing the growth of the venture.

Our experience has taught us to knock on all doors and try all funding models, because each model has its own added value and can prove to be crucial for a new trend to be successful.

What is the future outlook of social venture financing?

We all know today that the MENA region has a big unemployment/youth unemployment problem, and that realistically we can help solve part of that problem by creating jobs through encouraging small startups. The problem is that startups struggle with access to talent, markets, and capital. The landscape is slowly changing and we’re witnessing private

and governmental initiatives for budding entrepreneurship ecosystems in almost all countries in MENA, fostering positive trends related to these >>> regarding revenue sharing partnerships, it involves social entrepreneurs thinking innovatively and identifying partners who can bring economic value both parties. The partner may share intellectual value or property, which adds value to the venture in a completely unique way.

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challenges. That being said, the gap between the capital need of these startups and available seed money and support by investors or institutions is still too big, all more so for social ventures even though they are needed to solve, innovate and disrupt societal issues and challenges. The change is happening anyway, and more and more people are realizing the value of sup-

porting such startups while creating impact for the wider community. Maybe the MENA region is still not there yet in terms of global standards and networks for social ventures, but societal issues -and the will and commitment to solve them- are definitely there, and sometimes this is all it takes for a movement to be in motion and for the change to leapfrog.

Following her passions for microfinance and online industries, Genny Ghanimeh founded Pi Slice in March 2012 and negotiated a partnership agreement with MicroWorld from the Group PlanetFinance to build and administer the first microlending online platform in MENA. Ghanimeh began her career in Development Project Finance, and later shifted her focus to finance and business development, where she honed her entrepreneurial skills in founding her first company Pro-ID in 2003. She also consulted in setting-up and managing a financial security semigovernmental company in Dubai, and in 2007, Ghanimeh founded and managed Pi Investments.

Social investors, social activists and social ventures talk back What’s happening in MENA? In analyzing the capital flow for social enterprises, the picture behind this reality around the world adjusts depending on what region you go to. In the western markets such as the U.S. or Europe, capital structures are becoming more inclusive for social enterprises.

But what’s happening in regions such as MENA?

entrepreneurs in MENA seeking financing not to overly pitch the social aspect of their ventures and instead to focus on financial metrics when presenting their ideas. I do envisage this will change gradually over time as the investment community increasingly appreciates the collective value of the triple bottom line, but we are not there yet.”

Badr Jafar Crescent Group “It’s tough. The funding circles in our region do not yet see this space as a robust enough asset class to warrant serious attention. There is a broad perception that there is a definite trade-off between social impact and financial returns, and so I have heard many investors argue that they would rather contribute to social gains through straight charity without mixing it up with profit-seeking. For this reason, I always advise budding social

Medea Nocentini C3 Consult & Coach for a Cause “Social entrepreneurs in MENA have to make a choice when registering their license: either as non-profits, in which case they cannot raise funds from typical investors or generate revenues from trading activities (limiting their opportunities to scale and sustain themselves through business activities), or as forprofits, in which case they are not allowed to raise donations or apply for grants (limiting their opportunities to leverage the powerful combination of investments and donations that their social enterprise status could unleash). In a region where social and environmental needs are pressing, social enterprises have significant market potential. We might not need to label Middle Eastern social enterprises as such, as they represent attractive investment opportunities by the nature of the market.”

Badr Jafar

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Ali El Idrissi J.P. Morgan Social Finance “In MENA, there has been a flurry of new initiatives supporting entrepreneurship from competitions such as the Hult Prize, the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition or the MIT Global Startup Workshop to accelerators and incubators such as Oasis500 in Jordan, Flat6Labs in Egypt and international networks like Endeavor and Ashoka expanding their MENA footprint. However, the amount and diversity of funding still lags behind other emerging markets and there is a significant opportunity for high-quality MENA social enterprises to tap into international networks and funding sources, which rarely have access to such investment opportunities. In parallel, philanthropic capital in the region should be used in a more strategic way and provide early stage funding for social businesses.

There is an opportunity for large philanthropic organizations and corporates to act as pioneers in providing this type of capital.”

Soushiant Zanganehpour Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship “From my experience advising in the region, I see a range of options available to SE’s for their first financing. Regional competitions like MIT Arab Busi-

Soushiant Zanganehpour

ness Plan or Acumen Dubai’s regional social venture challenge provide chances for those with a bit more than a simple idea to compete for early stage preseed funding. Those with just a pitch, a nimble business plan or small working prototype, can access the local accelerators like Oasis500 and Flat6Labs for early stage business development support and funding, usually for a 10-15% equity swap.

Bootstrapping is another option that many SEs rely on; there is no quicker way of testing a value proposition and an idea’s efficiency when you’re using your own funds. Finally, some SEs do engage in an emerging and informal angel network of high net worth individuals for seed or pre-seed financing in their home countries. Success and the existence of these networks very much depend on the level of local SE activities, the status of the ecosystem (like awareness about the concept), as well as the entrepreneur’s ability to penetrate into various social networks.”

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Easy does it

MICEit wants to make MENA event planning seamless

By Kareem Chehayeb

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ICEit’s co-founders were inspired by a problem they’ve faced working for over a (combined) 23 years in the hospitality industry. “We have firsthand seen and identified the troubles of managing an event both as service providers and event organizers,” says co-founder and COO Rola Fayyad.

Fayyad, alongside founder and CEO Mohammad Turki Khalil, claim that MICEit “will streamline the long and hectic event planning process”. Khalil has been active in the hospitality industry for 13 years, mostly in marketing and sales with vast experience in MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions). Fayyad has been involved in the hospitality and aviation industries for over a decade, primarily in marketing, sales, and commercial management.

MICEit co-founder and CEO Rola Fayyad

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Here’s the thing though; even after reading all the online material I can about MICEit, I still can’t wrap my head around how extensive this portal is. You can tell that their experience in the industry has played a huge role in making sure that they cover just about everything. It’s not just booking venues, and sorting out plane tickets and hotel rooms; you can sort out A/V services, registration and ticketing services, and even florists. Having all your needs sorted out through one portal is very helpful, especially given that you have the rates and options right in front their primary audience has been “the top 300 corporate event bookers”, and they’ve received tons of support from hosts and vendors alike.

of you. Fayyad mentions another benefit when she points out that “one of the biggest pains for event organizers is collecting various quotations from multiple vendors.” All the different costs of an event will boil down to just one bill.

Where better to launch MICEit than in the founders’ native Jordan?

MICEit’s co-founders said that their primary audience has been “the top 300 corporate event bookers”, and they’ve received tons of support from hosts and vendors alike. So while they are trying to bring Jordan to the forefront, Fayyad is also looking beyond its borders, as they are “focusing on international clients to book in Jordan, our service will simplify their procedure as they aren’t located here.” Being a web-based portal, it comes as no surprise that MICEit

hasn’t been a capitalintensive venture, though it does come with its own costs. Fayyad listed “operations, administration and website development” as their current pay-outs, but expects their balance sheet to look a little busier once they work towards regional expansion, in anticipation of “more incurred costs for travelling, marketing and development.” As they don’t have any angel investors, she admitted that she is hoping to find one soon to help fund MICEit’s next stage, which is estimated to cost US$150,000. Regarding ROI, Fayyad couldn’t give us any numbers, but said that MICEit will “break-even in two years from commencement.”

Setting numbers aside, the portal itself is a priority: “Website development started in September and the MVP [model-view presenter] was out in November.” Fayyad and Khalil took on offline events to “test the product to confirm our algorithm is correct.” The website’s beta version has since been launched, and both Khalil and Fayyad have been working hard on finetuning it since they began in early 2013, when they started conducting market research. “We started pitching to Oasis500 to get seed funding at the beginning of 2014, and successfully joined their batch one in August.”

Being a web portal, it’s expected that a sound marketing strategy can truly make or break your business. Fayyad further delved into their marketing strategy, whose main goal is to “increase our visibility in the market and influence bookers towards technology for events.” While breaking old habits is no easy feat, she claims that it hasn’t been all that difficult. “In Jordan, it’s easier since we

MICEIT WEBSITE

have the experience and connections,” said Fayyad, “so performing sales calls closes deals and word of mouth is strong.” That said, she did say that their approach would have to be different in newer markets that they expand to, giving the UAE as an example. Social media also plays a huge role in helping MICEit bring in as many potential clients as possible from as many sources as possible. MICEit currently has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the everpopular Instagram. Their most effective platform?

“Twitter gives us the best results as we can target our audience.”

A subtler feature of MICEit that I noticed (and appreciated) that I thought played a positive role in marketing is having a product or service Arabic-enabled. It sounds like something trivial for a venture from the Middle East, but you’d be surprised. Having an Arabic-enabled MICEit is a standout feature. “All booking engines are in English and rarely support Arabic; we want to break that habit and go local,” referencing a 2012 Google report that claimed that Arabic-only web content only makes up 3% of all web content. Despite the fact that MICEit is still at a nascent stage, it appears that they’ve achieved quite

a bit. They’ve organized events in Jordan for Google for Entrepreneurs, Google for Developers, and Startup Grind Jordan, and they have already signed eight memorandums of understand-

ings with companies to be their exclusive portal for event planning. “Our sales pipeline consists of up to 35 events for the upcoming year, impacting on revenue of $40,000!”

MICEit co-founder and CEO Mohammad Turki Khalil

MICEit will be making its way into the GCC in Q2 2015, though Fayed didn’t confirm which country will be first, as they are trying to find solid partnerships to make the transition smoother. “We are still working on which country to penetrate first, noting top MICE countries are UAE, Qatar and Oman.”

They also hope to diversify the types of events on their roster, with Fayyad hinting at opening the platform up to social events after the third year. The co-founders want to make seamless events a reality- MICE and easy!

It’s not just booking venues, and sorting out plane tickets and hotel rooms; you can sort out A/V services, registration and ticketing services, and even florists. Having all your needs sorted out through one portal is very helpful, especially given that you have the rates and options right in front of you. january 2015 Entrepreneur

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Capital gains Flat6Labs CEO Ramez Mohamed

Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem just erupted, and your startup might fit the bill

Flat6Labs CEO Ramez Mohamed

A

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bu Dhabi is a perfect fit as a rapidly growing market. Abu Dhabi has more than US$100 billion earmarked for education, housing, and transportation under its 2030 Economic Vision. Abu Dhabi is also ranked 23rd of 189 economies for ease

The launch of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in November 2014. twofour54 and Flat6Labs have partnered for the new UAE accelerator.

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of doing business. The UAE is a highly conducive digital market with 78% smartphone and 94% Internet penetration- among the highest rates globally. Beside the ample government support in Abu Dhabi, twofour54 has successfully become the home to leading media companies and a growing production base for Hollywood films. Also, Abu Dhabi is now becoming home to large industrial companies that could benefit from innovations generated by startups.”

That’s what Flat6Labs CEO Ramez Mohamed has to say about why they’ve chosen Abu Dhabi as their newest venturebase. Mohamed agrees that the newly appointed Managing Director of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi, Nina Curley of startup-centric Wamda fame, is perhaps what one would call a dream fit for the operation.

Her extensive background and network is one of the biggest value-adds of the region’s new accelerator. Mohamed smiles as he mentions the flurry of headlines that accompanied the announcement of Curley joining the company. “She just recruited 50 mentors for Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi; mentors on design, mentors from LinkedIn, Facebook. She’s amazing!”

The question, as Mohamed puts it, is not why not Dubai, but rather why not Abu Dhabi.

He doesn’t agree with the pervasive idea that Dubai is considered the region’s Silicon Valley. He points out (correctly) that while the upper management or business development startup personnel are often based in Dubai, their actual production hubs are based throughout MENA in their home cities that are

“as a founder, when my development office is in Beirut or in Cairo or in Amman, I’m paying them way cheaper than what I would in Dubai or London or San Francisco.” much more affordable, and afford them a multitude of plusses: “You can’t say that Dubai is a ‘startup hub’. You can say that it’s a place to find opportunity to start a business, to scale and to develop your business. Abu Dhabi is similarly very well positioned, and we saw that no one was making use of that. As Arabs, in our home countries, we know the talent, we have market access, we know how to do things there, and we are good at it. We always make use of this as a good sell to investors when talking about our startups. So, as a founder, when my development office is in Beirut or in Cairo or in Amman, I’m paying them way cheaper than what I would in Dubai or London or San Francisco.” The 30-year-old CEO’s background in technology spans various arenas over a 10-year period; he’s worked in mobile applications and software, and his passion for the MENA startup scene is enough to keep you riveted while he opines on everything from the somewhat pervasive startup “entitlement” attitude to where he sees deficiencies, and still better, where he sees potential for growth and expansion. Prior to being recruited by Flat6Labs for the regional CEO position, he oversaw and developed the

FLAT6LABS WEBSITE

mobile business app area of Sarmady, a Cairo Vodafone Company. A Computer Engineering graduate of Alexandria University, Mohamed is extremely engaged in the spacea day after this interview took place in the UAE, he was off to participate as a panelist at BDL Accelerate 2014 in Lebanon, a two-day startup conference. He is, like many successful people, realistic about the kind of time investment it takes to do things well. This isn’t to say that just because he works “between 16 to 18 hours a day”, and doesn’t take weekends off that he expects startups to do the same: “I’ve been thinking about this a lot- I don’t want to be preaching about work-life balance and then doing something different. A huge part of my life is my career and seeing the company grow and progress.

Almost all of my friends have the same work cycle I do.”

He’s also got personal startup experience: “It was nothing exciting, but we made some good money.” And now he’s got the professional experience- all of these factors combined, paired with Mohamed’s realistic enthusiasm helps propel Flat6Labs as a whole, and subsequently their startups case by case. “Two of our great success stories are Egypt’s PieRide –they’ve created a community and they’re addressing the traffic problemand Nafham. Nafham is one of the biggest educational platforms in the region; they have more than 15,000 videos on their website now. More than 100,000 lessons are watched on Nafham per day, and they’re partnered with Google and Intel.” Nafham graduated from Flat6Labs Cairo’s second >>>

The launch of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in November 2014.

“You can’t say that Dubai is a ‘startup hub’. You can say that it’s a place to find opportunity to start a business, to scale and to develop your business.

Abu Dhabi is similarly very well positioned, and we saw that no one was making use of that.” january 2015 Entrepreneur

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Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi launch at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in November 2014.

cycle, and the videos covering Egyptian, Saudi, Syrian and Algerian school curricula are aggregated by teachers and volunteers. There are more than 4,000 crowdsourced videos “growing at a rate of 70% per annum, Nafham is undoubtedly positioning itself as the leading educational platform in the MENA region.”

Mohamed also mentions KSAbased Sawerly as a significant success story from Flat6Labs Jeddah. “Sawerly graduated from Flat6Labs Jeddah’s first cycle as one of the first online marketplaces to book photographers in the KSA and the greater MENA region.

Sawerly has been making great strides and expanded their database to over than 350 photographers, and delivered tens of photo shoots across the Kingdom in the past few months. Sawerly have made numerous media appearances, attended many conferences, and recently won the first place prize for ArabNet Riyadh 2014 and the Get in the Ring Competition in Saudi Arabia.”

Launched in Cairo in 2011, Flat6Labs celebrated their three-year anniversary in October of last year. After

Sawerly has been making great strides and expanded their database to over than 350 photographers, and delivered tens of photo shoots across the Kingdom in the past few months.

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while the upper management or business development startup personnel are often based in Dubai, their actual production hubs are based throughout MENA in their home cities that are much more affordable, and afford them a multitude of plusses.

Cairo, Flat6Labs Jeddah was developed in partnership with SME-champions Qotuf Al Riyadah in KSA. Their new base in Abu Dhabi isn’t the only

announcement; late last year they announced that an early stage investment company is on the agenda. The goal? To invest 50 million Egyptian pounds (approximately $7 million) in 100 startups over the next five years. In the same announcement, Flat6Labs also stated that they have plans to get even bigger with later expansions across MENA, including Turkey.

What does it take to make Mohamad warm up to your startup idea? “I don’t look at the startup as a ‘person’. I don’t feel like I have to be personally attached to the startup or like them to be able to deal with them on a daily basis. It’s mainly about the team: are they really passionate about this? You can really see it in their eyes- are they hungry to make this work? Do they know what they need to get this up and running? Do they have the skills? Do they have the right people on their team? Some startups haven’t even Googled the competition; they don’t know the market that they’re

trying to enter! This is the most frustrating part of our work- they don’t do the research to see and understand what they can offer better than their competitors. We mainly counsel our startups to be as professional as possiblewe have many sessions and mentors on everything from communication to the more detailed parts of business.

We offers training and tons of sessions.”

Ultimately, Mohamed is clear on what the new accelerator sees as a recipe for successful startup candidacy: your business needs to have the right elements, in the right order, and that includes dedication and know-how. If your startup has the potential, then they’re behind you all the way with everything from skill-building to financing. Startups heading to Abu Dhabi, you’re about to capitalize on the region’s newest (and possibly most proactive) ecosystem in the region.

Their philosophy starts at the very top, and it pervades every aspect of the process.

SAWERLY WEBSITE | FLAT6LABS WEBSITE

start it up

BY THE NUMBERS 57 The number of companies created across Egypt and KSA by Flat6Labs Jeddah and Flat6Labs Cairo.

160 The number of entrepreneurs behind these same companies.

15 Amount in millions of Egyptian pounds raised in funding in Egypt alone.

400 The number of jobs created in KSA and Egypt by these companies.

50% The percentage of Flat6Labs companies registered regarding their follow-on funding rate.

40 The number of different investors from across the globe to date.

60 The number of mentors and speakers available to provide tutelage to Flat6Labs startups, in addition to more than 30 local, regional and global part-

ners, prior to the launch of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi.

7,000 The number of training hours given to Flat6Labs startups over a three-year period since inception.

80 The number of companies Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi is targeting for launch over the next four years. www.Flat6labs.com

H.E. Noura Al Kaabi, CEO, twofour54, at the launch of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PARTNERSHIP “Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi

will utilize twofour54’s local expertise and facilities combined with insights from Emirati business leaders, global technology experts, local and regional investment experts and leaders to be one of the fastest and easiest routes to set up digital businesses in the UAE. twofour54 has also seen Flat6Labs as one of the best accelerator models in the region to grow a startup ecosystem based on innovation in the capital of the UAE. twofour54 is supporting Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi with seed capital, facilitated licensing, and regulatory services, office space, access to media production facilities, exposure to twofour54’s network of experts and mentors, integration with twofour54’s training programs and access to venture capital for graduated startup companies.”

MISSION “Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi’s vision is to be a global hub for digital innovation that will support a generation of entrepre-

neurs from the UAE and abroad to launch media and digital businesses in Abu Dhabi, and scale to regional and global markets.”

WHO “We accept startups in any stage: idea, prototype or released product. Its main focus will be on digital content and ecommerce, social media and citizen journalism, media and video production, and mobile applications. Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi will be open to any entrepreneur from around the world to apply. We don’t have specific quota based on a certain demographic, although we would love to see more local entrepreneurs applying to join the program as we always work closely with different local ecosystem stakeholders in markets we operate in to support local entrepreneurs. We believe that the community is the main pillar for the long-term success of any accelerator program, so we are planning several programs and activities to engage the local community and encourage local

entrepreneurs to launch their businesses through Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi.”

BENEFITS “We will provide each one that joins Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi accelerator program with seed funding of up to $50,000 for equity of 10% to 15% with opportunity for matching funds upon graduation.

We are also providing them with a large array of services like strategic mentorship, a creative workspace, legal support, a multitude of perks that are worth more than $300,000, facilitated visa acquisition, licensing, and regulatory services, entrepreneurship-focused business training, and directly supporting them through an expansive network of partner entities, mentors and investors.”

CRITERIA “We usually focus on three main criteria when selecting teams to join any of Flat6Labs’ programs. Firstly, the idea; how innovative and disruptive it is. Secondly, the market; how big the target market is, the potential for growth and scaling, and how the competition looks like. Third, the most important of all is the team, its members’ background, and if they possess the skills needed to successfully build the product, enter the market, and scale the business in the future.”

INTAKE “Our model is based on an accelerated pace of investment cycles. We will be running four month cycles twice every year- in each cycle, we are expecting to accelerate 10 startups. We opened the application of the first cycle during the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in November and we january 2015 Entrepreneur

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ask the money guy | vc viewpoint | your money | ECON

The buzz about Beehive

Peer-to-peer lending makes a GCC entrance

By Aby Sam Thomas

I

f the discussions conducted at the Entrepreneur Middle East Enterprise Agility Forum in November last year were any indication, then one of the biggest problems that SME

owners in the region face is raising capital to grow and develop their respective businesses. This is especially true in the economic ecosystem of the UAE- a recent survey of 157 SME owners, founders

“Although the UAE has a healthy SME sector, [with] there being around 300,000 SMEs representing around 60% of GDP and over 90% of employment, they still suffer from a lack of relevant funding options.”

and CEOs in the country by souqalmal.com found that only 28% of respondents had taken financing from a bank, of which 58% found the process to be an arduous one.

With this being the scenario, it should come as no surprise that SME owners in the region are keenly looking out for alternative financing options to grow their businesses, and so, the newly launched UAE-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, Beehive, seems to be an answer to their prayers.

P2P lending, also known as marketplace lending or social lending, refers to the practice of investors lending money directly to borrowers without going through a financial intermediary such as a bank.

While the practice is today quite prevalent in the U.K. and the U.S., it is still quite a

novel concept in the Middle East. Beehive claims to be the first P2P lending platform for SMEs in the UAE, and it is designed to be an online marketplace that allows businesses to get direct access to lower cost finance, while also being a place where investors can diversify their investments, manage their risk and get better returns as well. However, it must be noted that Beehive is not aimed at startup or preprofit businesses- it’s instead targeted toward established businesses that have been in operation in the UAE for over two years, and are now looking for expansion capital to fuel their growth.

“By using our innovative software platform, we’ve been able to streamline many of the processes required as part of the SME funding journey,” says Craig Moore, Founder and CEO, Beehive. “We believe both businesses and investors benefit from our online marketplace, in the form of reduced finance costs and better investment returns.”

“For many investors in Europe and the U.S., P2P lending forms a part of their alternative investments as part of a diversified portfolio, especially as saving rates have been historically low,” Moore adds. “Beehive thus offers local investors an opportunity to support UAE business growth while benefiting from attractive rates of return.”

“Also, because investors can lend from as little as AED100 to creditworthy businesses, they can diversify their investments across a portfolio of companies that helps manage investment risk,” he explains.

“Beehive offers businesses the opportunity to reduce their cost of finance and accelerate their time to finance by reducing the cost and complexity of conventional finance sources.”

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beehive website

money

Craig Moore

“Each loan will make monthly repayments providing a steady income stream for investors.”

But it’s not just the investors that benefit from BeehiveSMEs stand to gain a lot from it as well. “There is a significant funding gap across the MENA region, estimated at over US$200bn,” says Rick Pudner, Chairman, Beehive.

“Although the UAE has a healthy SME sector, [with] there being around 300,000 SMEs representing around 60% of GDP and over 90% of employment, they still suffer from a lack of relevant funding options.”

“Beehive offers businesses the opportunity to reduce their cost of finance and accelerate their time to finance by reducing the cost and complexity of conventional finance sources,” Pudner says.

“Because investors bid to lend in a reverse auction process, it means that businesses receive the lowest rates available from the crowd.” And the platform that Beehive offers is indeed getting noticed in the marketsince its soft launch in October last year, the company has funded six UAE-based businesses, providing each of them with a cash injection of between AED 100,000–AED 500,000, which was culled from more than 500 local investors. One of the companies that got funded through Beehive was change management consultancy GENYX, which was seeking capital to bring new associates on board as part of its client portfolio development strategy. “We found the Beehive process to be customer-friendly, easy to execute, and swift,” says Dave Dimmell, Managing Director, GENYX. “Many banks are not focused on SMEs; those that are have bureaucratic processes or often seemingly unhelpful managers who don’t clearly see SME requirements.

Beehive is making a very

“P2P lending is estimated to originate around $9 billion of loans globally in 2014, but with current growth rates, this is projected to be $1 trillion in the next ten years.”

valuable contribution to the SME community in the UAE, and we see them as a strategic partner for SMEs.” Dimmell’s comments are are representative of the market reaction Beehive has seen in the past few months. “We’ve had a fantastic response to Beehive,” Moore says. “All of our businesses have reached their funding target in 14 days or less and at highly competitive rates, which has delighted our clients. Our online marketplace directly connects SMEs who need credit, with investors who are eager to provide it.” According to Pudner, who was formerly the Group CEO of Emirates NBD, the timing is right for UAE SMEs to take advantage of the Beehive concept to grow their businesses. “P2P lending is estimated to originate around $9 billion of loans globally in 2014, but with current growth rates, this is projected to be $1 trillion in the next ten years,” Pudner says. “We feel the timing is right for the UAE to embrace and take advantage of this technology to drive local economic growth.”

“With the prospect of Expo 2020, in addition to some of the regional initiatives, we feel there’s a real spirit of optimism amongst SMEs,” Pudner adds. “And by bringing investors and businesses together, we’re really excited

that Beehive can help foster mutually beneficial partnerships for growth across the UAE community.” As for Beehive itself, it does seem safe to say that the buzz about the company is only going to get louder- Moore says there are plans underway for Beehive to grow beyond the borders of the UAE, and more. “We do have plans to expand, not just geographically, but also our product range,” he says.

“Conversations are already taking place in markets that we believe will benefit from our innovative approach to help solve SME financing.

Watch this space.”

Rick Pudner

How Beehive Works Beehive’s online marketplace facilitates flexible funding for established businesses seeking investment between AED 100,000 and AED 500,000. Individual investors can invest from as little as AED 100 and bid to lend money, choosing how much they will lend and at the interest rate. Beehive then facilitates the loan agreement between the business and investors, charging a small percentage fee of the loan amount. The business receives funding typically in around seven days, and investors receive monthly repayments at target rates of between 8% and 12%. www.beehive.ae

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RAK Free Trade Zone Providing Global Reach for Successful Businesses

W

ith more and more companies choosing to set up on UAE shores, Ras Al Khaimah Free Trade Zone’s (RAK FTZ’s) status as a leading regional business gateway is driving strong interest from entrepreneurs, SMEs and large corporations.

The benefits of setting up within a UAEbased free zone are numerous, and with the country’s laudable 23rd place ranking in the World Bank Doing Business 2014 report, the nation’s star is rising.

Companies registered with RAK FTZ enjoy numerous advantages, with 100% ownership and 100% tax-free status as solid draws for individuals and companies with their eye on expansion into the region.

With a nearly 15-year pedigree and an international community of more than

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8,000 registered companies, representing over 100 countries, the free zone has a successful track record that can be traced to several crucial factors, RAK FTZ CEO Peter J Fort says.

“Location is everything, and with access to the rapidly developing emerging markets of the Middle East and Africa, and the UAE’s long-established reputation as a vital link between East and West, RAK FTZ is primed to help companies capitalise on trade opportunities on our doorstep and farther afield,” Mr Fort says.

The fact that the emirate is a mere 45 minute-drive from Dubai and the UAE’s other major logistics hubs is an added bonus. Significant government infrastructure investment in recent years has further boosted road, air and maritime connectivity.

“RAK FTZ is here to help make it faster and easier to start and grow your company,” Mr Fort says.

This means going the extra mile to fast-track the bureaucratic process and eliminating unnecessary red tape. Thanks to its close co-operation with local government entities, RAK FTZ is able to help new businesses get up and running with minimal delay.

This handholding approach extends all the way from initial registration and the visa process to office set-up, human resources assistance and IT support.

Ras Al Khaimah’s own established industrial and commercial base covers a wide range of industries including pharmaceuticals, ceramics, plastic products, aluminium, steel, cement, construction materials, real estate, health care, and tourism.

“This economic diversity is directly reflected in our set-up, with a collection of specialised locations specifically created to service the wide-ranging needs of our client base and supported by tailor-made packages for individual consultants through to industrial manufacturing companies,” Mr Fort says.

It is also a well-documented fact that the costs of living and doing business in Ras Al Khaimah are markedly lower than in other emirates, and the decision to set up at RAK FTZ can be achieved at a significantly lower cost, thus allowing clients to achieve the maximum return on their investment.

The free zone’s quartet of specialised locations comprise an Academic Zone, Business Park, Industrial Park and Technology Park with a comprehensive suite of available set-up solutions.

The Flexi Facilities package with access to shared networked stations and offices, is ideally suited to SME clients. The Executive Office option targets medium-sized businesses and offers UAE residence visas as well as competitively priced office space.

Peter J Fort, RAK FTZ CEO

Industrial Park

Short- and long-term leasing opportunities with tracts of available land are on offer at the Industrial and Technology Parks for industrial, logistics and service industry purposes. Accessibility is also key to the success of these two business parks, with both sites located close to the emirate’s airport and seaports, customs department and government administration offices.

In addition, RAK FTZ is the only free zone in the UAE that allows clients to build their own labour accommodation on site, eliminating the risks and costs associated with transporting labour.

“The overarching theme that connects all areas of the expanded RAK FTZ operation is our commitment to providing a costeffective solution for every type of business, and our client diversity endorses this flexible approach,” Mr Fort says.

Providing a helping hand to businesses

is also a core element of the RAK FTZ client support mandate, with value-added services such as advertising, procurement, event management, recruitment and training assistance available to the free zone’s partners.

“We also understand the importance of international awareness in driving economic opportunity for the emirate and commercial

opportunities for our partners,” Mr Fort says.

“Our presence on three continents, with liaison offices in Germany, India and Turkey as well as an active calendar of delegation visits and international seminars designed to showcase our facilities and clients, is a clear measure of our continued intent to take business to the next level.”

The liaison offices in other nations act as an extension of the RAK FTZ service offering, and can also help potential clients to start the registration process, without having to leave their home country. Additional support is provided by satellite offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and multilingual client service team members.

“With transparent and investment-friendly laws and regulations, lack of restrictions on profit and capital repatriation, affordable cost of living, and a cost-effective businessfriendly approach, we take our business, and our clients’ businesses, extremely seriously,” Mr Fort says.

RAK FTZ Business Park

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Wacky idea | who’s got VC | Q&A | STARTUP FINANCE

Oracle Arena, Oakland

acronyms, which mean nothing to most people, and picking a name whose first letter is closer to A than Z because certain algorithms and directory listings work alphabetically. “When choosing an identity for a company or a product, simple and straightforward are back in style and cost less to brand,” he says.

5. Is the name easy for people to spell?

Name game

10 questions to ask before naming your business

By Lisa Girard

W

hat’s in a name?

When deciding what to call your company, the answer is plenty.

A business name can be too broad- or too confining. It can be too quirky- or not memorable enough. The challenge is to pick a name that’s catchy, but also fits well with your particular type of business. Here are 10 questions to ask as you ponder various names, keeping in mind that the choice could make all the difference in establishing your company in the marketplace.

1. What do I want a name to accomplish for my company?

A name can help separate you from competitors and reinforce your company’s image, says Steve Manning, founder of California-based Igor, a naming agency. He suggests clearly defining your brand positioning before choosing a name, as Apple did to differenti88

Entrepreneur january 2015

ate itself from corporate sounding names like IBM and NEC. “They were looking for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different,” Manning says.

2. Will the name be too limiting?

Don’t box yourself in, says Phoenix-based Martin Zwilling, CEO and founder of Startup Professionals Inc., an advisor to early-stage startups. Avoid picking names that could limit your business from enlarging its product line or expanding to new locations, he says, citing the example of Angelsoft.com, a company formed in 2004 to help connect startup companies with angel investors.

A couple of years ago, the company realized it needed to appeal equally to venture capital and other types of investors. So, it did a costly rebranding to Gust.com,

which is less specific and evokes a nice “wind in the sails” image.

3. Does the name make sense for my business?

For most companies, it’s best to adopt a name that provides some information about their products and services. That doesn’t mean it can’t also have a catchy ring. Lawn and Order, for example, is a good name for a landscaping business because it gets people’s attention and also clearly relates to the company’s services, Zwilling says. While unusual words like Yahoo and Fogdog sometimes work, quirky names are always a crapshoot.

4. Is the name easy to remember?

The shorter the name, the better, Zwilling says, suggesting that business owners limit it to two syllables and avoid using hyphens or other special characters. He also recommends skipping

That may seem to be a given, but some companies purposely select names that consumers can’t easily spell. It’s a risky strategy to try to make a company stand out, and some naming consultants recommend against it. “If your name looks like a typo, scratch it off the list,” says Alexandra Watkins, founder and chief innovation officer of Eat My Words, a naming service based in San Francisco. She also believes that it’s important that your name be spelled exactly as it sounds.

Otherwise, you will forever have to spell it out for people when saying the name or your company’s email or website address aloud.

“Think of how often you have to spell your own first or last name for people,” she says. “Why would you want a brand name with the same problem?”

6. How will potential customers first encounter your name?

Some naming experts believe there are exceptions to the easy-to-spell rule, especially if most people will see your name for the first time in a print or online ad. For example, consider Zulily, the online company offering daily deals for moms, babies and kids. “If you just heard that name, you might not guess how to spell it, but the company’s aggressive online ad campaign has meant that most

people first see it spelled out,” says Chris Johnson, a naming consultant in Seattle and author of The Name Inspector blog, who came up with the name Zulily. “The payoff is that the unusual sound and spelling of the name have helped them create a very distinctive brand.”

oracle areNA image © KATHERINE WELLES / SHUTTERSTOCK | YAHOO! IMAGE © KATHERINE WELLES / SHUTTERSTOCK | gust website

7. Does the name sound good and is it easy to pronounce?

Manning says the sound of the name is important in conveying a feeling of energy and excitement.

You also must be sure potential customers can easily pronounce your company’s name. “It is a hard fact that people are able to spell, pronounce and remember names that they are familiar with,” he says, pointing to Apple, Stingray, Oracle and Virgin as strong names. But he doesn’t like such company names as Chordiant, Livent and Naviant. “These names are impossible to spell or remember without a huge advertising budget, and the look, rhythm and sound of them cast a cold, impersonal persona,” he says.

8. Is your name meaningful only to yourself?

A name with hidden or personal meanings evokes nothing about your brand, and you won’t be there to explain it when most people encounter it. “Refrain from Swahili, words spelled backwards, and naming

things after your dog,” Watkins says. She gives the example of Lynette Hoy, who was using her first and last name for her PR firm in Bainbridge Island, Wash.

The name didn’t work because it failed to evoke Hoy’s fiery personality and passion, Watkins says.

So, the company was rebranded Firetalker PR, and Hoy took the title of Fire

Yahoo! World Headquarters, Sunnyvale, California

Chief. She called her office The Firehouse, and began offering PR packages such as Inferno, Controlled Burn and The Matchbox. “Her entire brand is built around that name and lends itself to endless ways to extend the name,” Watkins says.

“Her prior name didn’t lend itself to any theme or wordplay.”

hard, angular letters like Ks and Ts and Rs,” Manning says. Other visually appealing names include Volvo because it has no low-hanging letters and Xerox for the symmetry of beginning and ending with the same letter.

9. Is the name visually appealing?

A great name is worthless if someone else already has laid claim to it. “Get it right the first time,” Watkins says. “A third of our business comes from companies who are being threatened with trademark infringement.”

You also want to consider how the name looks in a logo, ad or a billboard, Manning says. He points to Gogo, the inflight Internet service provider, as a good name for design purposes.

“It’s the balance of the letters, all rounded and friendly, versus a word with

10. Have I conducted a proper trademark search?

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the switch

4. Get a mentor

Get yourself a mentor or a business coach, someone who can be there during the tough periods you may go through.

And for a startup, there will be several such periods, and they will last for a long while. I might sound a bit depressing, but then again, not all businesses or business owners strike gold. Many of us struggle, and many of us quit, or have to quit. Of course, there are also proven methods to start a business.

I suggest checking out The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

5. Trust your intuition

Nothing ventured, nothing gained Five things to know as a fresh ‘trep

By Jawad Sajwani

W

hen I ventured into the land of entrepreneurship, little did I know that the experience was going to yield profound learning that would thereafter impact every aspect of my life. Before I started my own business, I was an executive for 12 years, and while I had seen a lot of success and there was plenty more of it on my horizon, I still felt that something was missing. I wanted to do something for myself, and by myself. Hence, I made the

Having an innovative model is of no use if the industry is not ready or not willing to accept it. If you’re adamant enough to stick to your model, then ensure that you have the stamina and the resources you need to run the business for a long time.

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Entrepreneur january 2015

decision to start a business.

Now, after four years as an entrepreneur, I look back and feel a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. I’m not a millionaire yet, and I’ve not achieved all my goals either, but the journey has been truly amazing. Here are five things that I learned during my time as an entrepreneur, which, I hope, will be of benefit to you all as well:

2. Know your industry

Do your homework on the industry you are venturing intoand this means real research, not a Google search. Know your competition, and know how the industry works. Get to know what type of business models work and what do not.

Having an innovative model is of no use if the industry is not ready or not willing to accept it. If you’re adamant enough to stick to your model, then ensure that you have the stamina and the resources you need to run the business for a long time. These resources, be it human capital, financial resources or IT infrastructure, will be the fuel that you will run on, so be prudent and have a long term plan.

1. Start small

3. Know your customers

First of all, have faith in the idea you have for your business. Make it a small one, so that if it does fail, you can go back to it, improve it and bring about changes to your business model to make it a successful one. If, in any case, this cannot be done, then you can still pull the plug on it at a minimal loss, since it’s a small venture.

After all, they are the ones who will buy your product or services. So, make sure you understand how they think and what would make them buy your service. Also, be prepared to tell your customers why you are better than your competition in the market.

You need to have a clear idea of who your clients are, and what they want.

Your intuition, your gut feeling, is a very strong weapon that you have in your business arsenal. Many times, it will seem to fail you, but rest assured that such experiences will provide you with valuable life lessons instead.

Sometimes, no matter how much data you may have, your gut feeling will be the crucial factor in making a decision, so trust in it.

Jawad Sajwani, a MBA graduate of Bradford University, is the co-founder of Authenticity Coaching & Consultancy, and is the first Emirati male coach to obtain Accredited Certified Coach Certification (ACC) from International Coaching Federation (ICF). As an executive and entrepreneur coach, Sajwani works with individuals who want to create a sustainable focused business or a career using DiSC® assessment tools as part of his one-to-one entrepreneur coaching program. His passion is to learn and to share his knowledge and experience as a former executive and current entrepreneur.

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