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Young people in the Middle East are constantly being told that their national economies can no longer absorb them. They have college degrees, are trained in marketing, computer sciences, languages, hospitality, architecture and engineering, yet, most companies in the region don’t have entry-level jobs for them. Arab youth are risk takers and unorthodox thinkers. They are smartphone owners, savvy internet users, multilingual, and multicultural. They have every prerequisite for success. But the corporate world still does not trust them enough to give them a chance to succeed and prove themselves. Today, the solution might well be entrepreneurship. Indeed, times have changed in many parts of the Middle East. Business owners and governments in the GCC and Levant are investing heavily in entrepreneurship programs. The UAE has numerous free trade zones and a growing number of startup incubators. Jordan is the leading Arab country in Information Technology. Saudi Arabia leads the region and ranked among the top 20 global countries in the annual “World Bank Easiness in Doing Business” report. In 2013, the Central Bank of Lebanon allocated $400 million for Lebanese banks to invest in startup equity funding. The future looks slightly brighter for those who want to create and help others create new jobs. But to succeed as an entrepreneur in the Middle East you need more than the support of private and public organizations in your country. The following are a few overlooked criteria that can be crucial to your success:
The first step to do business is incorporation. The place of incorporation is important because different governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region offer different incentives for doing business. Don’t cut yourself off by doing business in an investment-dead area while you can establish your business in any of the 20+ more dynamic MENA countries. The GCC offers higher incentives to start a new business than smaller economies in North Africa, for example. Egypt offers a larger consumer market than smaller GCC countries. The hospitality infrastructure in Morocco is more developed than Algeria. The UAE alone has 40+ free trade zones which offer 100% ownership of assets, tax income exemption, 100% tax exemption on trade, 100% repatriation on capital, and a 50-year exemption of corporate tax.
Some entrepreneurs think that the Arab region is a wide, borderless economic region. This is unfortunately not true. Arab countries have different laws and regulations. Consumers in the region speak different dialects, have different incomes and cultural backgrounds, and adopt new trends at varying speeds. What you can do is start with one market and then spread out to conquer other markets At Melltoo (where I work) we developed a mobile app that helps users buy and sell their second-hand items anywhere in the world. We realized shortly after the launch that we will be better off targeting Dubai and the UAE market, before expanding to other Arab countries, and ultimately, the world. Today, we manage several apps in a few countries such as the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Focus means discipline. As entrepreneurs, or marketers and business developers working with entrepreneurs, we tend to come up with ideas all the time. The real job is maintaining focus and implementing these ideas. This also means rejecting some ideas that don’t match your focus strategy. Melltoo’s focus strategy, for example, is to become a marketplace “built on trust.” And we have oriented all our product features and marketing efforts around this focus.
Melltoo’s mantra is user-first. This means that we build our app around our users’ needs. This also means that we will always respond to your concerns on all of Melltoo’s communication channels. You’ll get free advice from us on selling on mobile and help with app features. We will also tell you if your item description is too short or ineffective, for instance. We’re always building new apps that match the needs and choices of our users, such as the Uni-App in the UAE, and guess what, we’re hiring! If you would like talk about entrepreneurship or youth employment in the Middle East, tweet me at @AhmedMedien. Photo credit: Kris Krüg
