What audience should Arab startups target? [Poll Results]

Mohamed Marwen Meddah | September 16, 2008 | comment View Comments

In the latest poll on StartUpArabia, the question to the readers was: 

What audience should Arab startups target?

The result of reader voting came out as follows:

Target audience poll

Out of 79 readers who responded to the poll:

- 35% of them think that it depends on the service
- 32% think they should go for a global audience
- 22% responded that they should go for a wide Arab audience grouping both locals and expats
- and the remaining 11% voted for them to stick to a local Arab audience

Personally I share the opinion that it depends on the service; some services have a very local nature while others can be extended to the whole Arab region or even globally. But a number of other factors come into play as well in the decision, like for example whether they have the necessary time and budget to invest in scaling it and opening it up to more people; including technical, marketing, support costs and all the other costs that come with it.

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» Posted in: Inside StartUpArabia
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  • Yeah, that would be interesting to know.
    I'll try to run this poll again in the future with only those 3 options, and we'll see how it goes.
  • I wonder what would this poll's results be if it only had 3 options (Local arabs, arabs, global) ?
  • Well, I didn't really side with the majority just because they're the majority, it's because I really believe every project is unique and has its own set of inputs that determine what steps it should take.
    I already shared my thoughts on this in a previous article here:
    http://www.startuparabia.com/2008/05/where-is-y...

    Some ideas will only work great if they're applied on a very local level, I'm talking even city-level only; while other ideas can be generalized to the whole country, whole region or even whole world.
    So it really depends on the idea and how generalizable it is.

    I'll take a few examples of Arab startups that will hopefully explain the way I see it. Projects like meOwns.com or Questler.com for example are projects that have the potential to work and succeed on an international level, because the idea is generalizable and applicable to everyone.
    Yamli on the other hand is an idea that is applicable only to Arabs (locals and expats).
    And then you find the really local startups aimed at a certain country or even city.

    All I'm saying is that it's important for Arab startups to know how wide they want and can open up their project, so that they can take that into consideration in their planning.
  • Too bad you sided with the "it depends" crowd! As if Arabs have no say of their own. we all know that the majority of successful Arab Start-ups are geared towards the Arabic Speaking audience. Be it in the Arab world or outside of it.

    To not have an opinion is one thing, vote "don't know." But, to just join the majority that has others thinking for it is too low of a level for a website that strives to be the Arab equivalent of techcrunch!!
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