In the latest poll on StartUpArabia, the question that was addressed to the entrepreneur readers was:
What major obstacle did you face while looking to fund your project?
The result of reader voting came out as follows:
Out of 89 readers who responded to the poll:
– 37% of them responded that it was initiating contact with potential investors
– 29% said it was allocating and finding the right investors
– 18% think it was measuring the seriousness of the investors
– 8% believe it was the cost of connecting with investors (traveling and attending conferences …etc)
The remaining 7% cited other obstacles.
What do you think? Do you share the same view? What solutions do you see for these obstacles?
The solution is bootstrapping. We don't have enough serious investors, therefore entrepreneurs must learn how to launch their startup with whatever resources they have. If you have a good company, and your product/service sells, then it would be easier to get investors. You cannot fund an idea or a business plan !
Amad: from my experience, some investors had funded projects based on business plans, a real solid business plan that shows a marketable product or service. experienced investors can smell business value better than others. its all about the “IDEA”
Investment culture in the middle east is still very young. People with money mostly businessmen rather buy and sell hard products than investing in something they know as the internet.
If you can convince them to invest they want 51% because they have no idea about transactions. In internet start-ups the people are more important than hardware and if an investor takes 51% the team cannot work motivated. Try to explain this to a mid 50 old man that never used an Email.
Of course there are exceptions.
where do you live?
I live in Tunisia (I think it's an Arabic country) and I met few business men (Real Estate), they were a lot interested on the Internet and wish they can invest on it. The proof is the ever raising number of websites, even food companies now uses websites to promote their products.
The lack of startups in the Arabic world is not because of our Business men that don't know the Internet, but because of you that don't know how to code a program, present a plan and explain to them how your product help the world and instead just write a stupid comment stating that 50 years old never used email.
salam,
I do live in europe but follow the arab startup scence daily. as much as I hope for a great future in this area I think I've to agree in a certain way with omar.
there is still a lack of professionalism especially in presenting and understanding of the market. I do think that the arab startup scene made huge steps in the last couple of years but still has to learn a lot….