7 things that entrepreneurs need to succeed, from the World Entrepreneurship Forum
Abdul Baset Al Janahi, CEO of Dubai SME
At the World Entrepreneurship Forum last week in Dubai, leading figures came together to discuss the future of entrepreneurship in the UAE. Over a two-day event at the World Trade Center, policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs built upon existing debates about what entrepreneurs need to succeed and came to conclusions about what needs to change.
Abdul Baset Al Janahi, the CEO of Dubai SME, began the conference with a call for fresh approaches. “We are honored at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Establishment for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises to organize this forum to discuss the development of entrepreneurship in the region, and how to evolve this vital sector to a higher level, by hosting a large number of the region’s intellectuals, business leaders, and creative minds, to encourage innovation and creative thought,” he said in the opening ceremony.
In the panels, entrepreneurs - moderated by entrepreneurs - built upon that tone, occasionally spouting platitudes but often pushing the envelope. On the first day, discussions at three sessions about women, angel investment, and investment vehicles offered insight into how stakeholders in the UAE can push entrepreneurship forward over the next decade.
What do women entrepreneurs need?
1. Role models.
The panel on “Enabling Women’s Entrepreneurship Development”
revisited data points that anyone following the Lean In movement is
very familiar with: women often
underestimate their performance, while men more often
overestimate theirs.
Why are women backing out, and how can we encourage them to go
through with the journey? Moderator Noor Sweid asked.
Hala Kazim, the founder of “Journey through Change,” an
organization that guides Emirati women through personal and
professional challenges, described a factor that will likely
resonate with any woman as the legacy of the past two generations:
women’s opportunities differ largely depending upon their context.
“My grandmother in the UAE was illiterate, while my grandmother in
Egypt was pursuing her university degree,” she explained. Context
dictates expectations, she continued. “Women quit because we don't
think we deserve better, and we don't think we can do it.”
2. A network of support.
Hazim touched upon a solution with which many women in our Wamda
for Women roundtables have also agreed: that women can affect a
cultural shift simply in the way they raise their children. And
yet, support in the workplace - and in setting new standards -
necessitates support. “We need to have a comprehensive support
system from society,” Fatima Abu Okab, the Deputy General Manager
of the Microfund for Women based in Amman, concluded.
What the ecosystem needs to encourage angel
investment
3. Success stories. The panel on angel investors
also revisited a standard argument that many investors and
entrepreneurs have made in the region: yes, we need more angel
investors. But to lure more investors, we need success stories.
After all, investment isn’t charity, serial entrepreneur and
investor P.K. Gulati pointed out.
“No investor invests to lose money,” he said. “They all invest to
get money out. We will succeed when we see people making money.
Remember when people used to queue for investment in this or that
real estate company? People will do the same when they see
returns.”
4. Government and private sector support, with a long term
view. Salam Saadeh, the founder of the first woman-led VC
in the Arab world, pointed out that pushing governments to create
tax incentives for entrepreneurs and getting the private sector and
large corporations more involved in supporting business creation
(echoing the premise of Corporate Entrepreneurship Responsibility)
would be crucial.
Both Saadeh and Gulati agreed that one of the biggest challenges to
entrepreneurship in the Arab world is uniting the various
communities in the region to prevent each ecosystem from remaining
its own silo. Of course, with each government supporting its own
population, fragmentation is a default position until the impact of
new businesses becomes great enough to motivate governments.
“Countries aren't encouraging freedom of mobility,” Saadeh pointed
out, while Gulati argued that setting up structures that offer
expats more ownership of their businesses will encourage more
startup activity, more success stories, and more angels.
“Otherwise, what’s to stop someone from just buying an apartment
and flipping it?” he said, pointing again to one of Dubai’s
historically lucrative investment methods.
5. More celebration of failure. Moderator Michael
Lahyani, the founder and CEO of Propertyfinder.ae, the Dubai-based
real estate portal (who was quick to joke that not all real estate
purchases should be discouraged), made a point that’s been made
often in the region (and has informed Wamda’s mandate): success
stories aren’t lauded enough in standard media. Gulati also
reiterated a theme we’ve taken to heart: celebrating failure is one
of the best routes to success.
What do startups need to guarantee a good crowdinvestment
campaign?
6. An existing network.
A third panel for the day focused on crowdinvestment, featuring
LouLou Khazen, cofounder and CEO of skills exchange community
Nabbesh, as well as Chris Thomas, the CEO and co-founder of crowd
investment platform Eureeca.
Lately, startups in the region are flocking to Eureeca in search of
funding after finding it difficult to secure investment from
institutional or angel investors, or, in Nabbesh’s case, to augment
an exsiting investment round. Thomas and Khazen’s advice on what
makes for a good campaign might prevent many a startup from
entering the process with the wrong approach.
The biggest element to keep in mind, previous crowdinvestees have
said, is that startups need to leverage their own networks. Once
startups get to 30% of their goal, it’s easy to pull in investors
from the broader community of investors in the region.
7. A plan of attack.
Thomas echoed the importance of coming to the table with an
established plan and a network at the ready.
“One of the main factors that determines the success of a crowd
funding campaign is social media,” he said. “If there's no
technology to allow you to engage your network to support you, it's
going to be very difficult. It's also about the friends and family;
we ask these companies to create a list of all of their friends and
family that they will reach out to for funding.”
Startups looking to close that round of $50,000 USD or so may want
to keep this advice in mind.
On the second day of the WEF, we headed into a very productive
Wamda Mix N’ Mentor event (more on some of our major
conclusions soon). Yet the first day set a forward-looking tone.
While pomp and ceremony will always be alive and well in
Dubai, lately fanfare has often yielded blunt
conversations, as entrepreneurs continue to advocate for the
support that they need to succeed.