StartUpArabia

Mohamed Marwen Meddah | December 19, 2009 | View Comments

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Photojonet, the online photo service that was launched from Jordan, to provide digital photo printing services at good prices, and was previously reviewed here, was shut down all of a sudden a few days ago. The service’s twitter account then promised a new version would be up under a new name soon.

We got in touch with the CEO and co-founder of the service, Issam Hijazi, and he gave us some insight into what’s happening.

Photojonet was initially founded by Issam Hijazi, who started work on the project as part of his graduation project, and Rami Al-Natsheh who came up with the initial idea and invested in it. The service was launched in July 2009, and apparently just a few months into the life of the project, some differences started surfacing between the co-founders related to managing the project, that finally led them to decide to go their separate ways. Hence, the service was shut down.

Anyway, according to Issam Hijazi, he has been working on getting resources and relationships back together to relaunch a similar service under a new name. The code is currently being re-engineered, as well as the whole infrastructure for the web application.

A number of new features are being implemented too, as well as the use of other new technologies. The plans are also to expand it to beyond just photo prints, to include an online store covering more photo related products.

Issam shared the name of the new service with us, but asked for it to remain confidential for the time being. We’ll bring you more information about the new site once it’s launched.

This story though also highlights one of the challenges that face entrepreneurs when launching a startup, and that is working with the right co-founders and clarifying all the important details from the beginning, so as not to run into any big hurdles like this while the focus should be on building and growing the business.