Entrepreneur – business angel in the Middle East

A lot as been written on twitter: business model, quality of service, etc…

So what can I add on top this? May be just my personal experience, because a lot of people around me still get what interest I find in twitter.

To me, twitter is amazing tool to learn about my industry, directly from people who make it and try to bring a small something in it.

That’s why the most important thing is not your followers number but who are you following. Sorry, Al gore despite having 11 000 followers + in less than 48, you are not a twitter hero. Choosing to follow, people who can help you and send you feedback, will make you one.

Following the right people will bring you the right information and the most interesting discussions

To see whom I’m following, go to my twitter http://www.twitter.com/hervecuviliez

I spend hours browsing Webby awards winners and nominees sites for the past 10 years.

So when they proposed me last summer to be their french ambassador, it took me less than one sec to say yes.

Promoting the Webby in france really means to me for two reasons: Webby honors digital excellence and I always tried to promote the french digital market especially thru my AACCI mission as VP.

plus, it gives me an additional reasons to come back in Paris every month.

So be prepare to heard more about the Webby Awards on this blog,

I hope we will see soon french sites and startups in the winners list.

Google is about to release its browser call Chrome. It’s for sure another step into the Google web domination and another hit into Microsoft business.

the good news is we gonna move a step further into the Web OS era.

But this announce make me feel sad for one reason, it’s a new threat for Firefox.

Not only because Google will have an unfair competitive advantage thru the integration of Gmail, Google search and others but mostly because 85% of Firefox revenues come from a single source: Google.

Let’s hope that’s Google won’t let them down and will continue to support this great initiative.

And you, try not to forget that it was Firefox who ends up a solo browser (internet explorer) dark age, when we will all rush to download this new toy.

I watched on techcrunch a couple of weeks ago the future of search by Google. It impressives me, not only because they will team up human rating with pagerank but also because it will create new sources of traffic creation for all of us (your name is visible on each comment & rating made). Google was already taken something around 75% of our attention, it will become with this 99%.

It made me realize that Microsoft will never catchup on web search. They are too far behind, even buying Yahoo won’t solve the problem.

Having said that, Mr Balmer should look at emerging countries and learn from their “jump to the next generation” attitude.

When you start traveling there, you realize they’ve chosen not to catch up but to invest into the next generation infrastructure and it’s a winning strategy: Estonia (called  E-stonia), Macedonia (wimax covered), Africa (mobile applications stronger than web ones), UAE (150% mobile penetration rate)…

That’s why should focus on the next big thing: Mobile.

Mobile is the big thread for Google (my previous post on this here).

Why? because with mobile will come new usage patterns. Today, everything start with google but tomorrow nobody knows what will be the entry point on mobile internet.  Google already working on it with Android and their strong presence in the iphone.

Of course, it’s easy to say not easy to do, but with Microsoft cash-flow, it should be doable.
My humble opinion

I just spent a year travelling in the middle east (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Lebanon,…) and I even moved recently to lebanon. I’ve met a lot of people in the industry there.

And I was impressed by the market evolution in a year.

• Internet penetration is booming (21,3% penetration with 32% in Kuwait or 38,4% in the UAE) more on Internet world stats.
• Mobile penetration and usage is even more impressive (150% in the UAE), see my previous post on this: Mobile innovation, start looking at emerging countries.

On the startup side, things start to be organized and new projects are released every week. here is some good sources of information:

• Arabcrunch.com is dedicated to profiling and reviewing Arab originated startups.
• Startuparabia.com is talking about Arab startups and entrepreneurs
• The twitter of PV Tribal DDB is giving daily news about internet and mobile markets in the region.

On the funding side, things are still a bit messy but one good initiative need to be be named. It’s the ABAN (Arab Business Angels Network) and they organize a meeting every quarter with for 4-6 selected startups + some guests.

My opinion? VC’s should start considering this market with a population of 200 millions people, a strong growth, and a huge appetite for new technologies.

Without disclosing any secret, guess where my next project will take place.

Some people have asked me if they need a domain name strategy, the answer is yes for this 4 reasons:

• Word of mouth is a strong source of traffic for websites but it’s also a source of
misspelling
• Every business becomes international, with this come the need to protect your
products names and brands in yours and future local markets
• Misstyping is a source of lost traffic
• To prevent cybersquatting (people that registers yours potential domain
names)

Domain names should be consider as an asset in a company but it’s to often undervalued by the management

Now, you know that the answer is yes, Where to start?

It’s quite simple

First thing, keep in mind that registering a domain cost only a dozen of dollars; so
don’t hesitate to cover all your needs.

Then, start to answer to each of the first 3 bullets point above. Remember that
generally, cybersquatters are more creative than us.

• What king of misspelling can be done with my brands and products? Commons are with or without “-“ for composed words, with or without silent vowel (try amazone.com) or an H in your name, etc…
• Try to forecast your international expansion and start to register all local domains you will need in the coming years (don’t forget to apply the misspelling check for each local market)
• With out being paranoiac, try to anticipate possible mistyping around your brands and register them (try amzzon.com or hervecuvilliez.com / hervecuvilier.com /hervecuvillier.com)

Once the list is done, select you registar and get your credit card ready.

Don’t forget to manage DNS on each domain.

Review it every year.

and one last tip, turn on the autorenew function, it will ease your life next year.

Yesterday, It was my birthday. I don’t tell that for those who forgot but to thank Facebook. I never received so many happy birthday greetings.

Some were honests and recognized that they remembered because of facebook, others called proudly because this year, they remembered.

Special thanks to Remi, he left me a message to not wish me an happy birthday because it’s too easy now with facebook.

So thank you, facebook, for this little moment of social networking

Most of startups are relying on online advertising with the very same principle: create a service, get a massive audience and try to monetize it.

Everything seems to be ok as long as online advertising is growing fast.
But the future of online adverising is elsewhere.

The online advertising 1.0 (today) is a copycat of the traditional advertising: Get me a massive audience, interupt what they are doing to expose my brand or at most click on my ads.
I’m talking about any kind of display advertising ( banners, over the page, etc..)

The online advertising 2.0 (what I’ve called Advertising on demand in a recent post) will be totally different by moving from a “look at my fantastic product” attitude to a “what can I do for you” one.
I mean by that propose to customers services they care about in your aera.
Nike made that move sometimes ago with product like Nike Ballers network, a facebook application where basketballers can: find a court, add your home court, find a game and schedule your own game and invite other players

Startups will have to review their copy if they want their share of the online advertising manna.

They will have to propose customizable version of their product in order to move their ad based business model to a b2b services businness model.
And from the success and the leadership will depend their revenues on the B2B side. Big brands don’t work will losers.

A couple of months ago, I have created an account on Kiva.org. Kiva enables you to loan to small businesses in developing countries.

You can see my lender page here.

I’ve helped among others 2 projects, one Internet cafe (Loan Requested: $975.00) in Ayacucho, Peru and one bookstore (Loan Requested: $975.00) in Agoe, Togo.

Small Amount of money to be honest ($100 + $10 donation to Kiva). It was a trial to verify by myself if the social business concept is really effective.

The answer seems to be yes because i just received the first repayment from both projects.

It’s a great feeling to see these projects becoming a reality and more important repaying their debt to give others the opportunity to been also helped.

I’m working on a project in the mobile area. I love this moment when you just keep thinking / discussing about it.

but here is the big question? what will make the difference ?

Of course, I start to have some experience but frankly it sometimes really hard to figure out what will make that vital difference.

Here is what I’ll try to always have in mind

Insights: my marketing background has taught me that a new service has to be based on a real need or solve something. We all are lazy, we don’t use something because it’s really smart or high end technology, but only because it’s fun or it helps. Never compromise on this.

KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid): as soon as, we have this good idea, our first temptation is to sophisticate it more and more, adding options, etc…
You should do the opposite by trying to squeeze everything that is not vital to serve your idea. that way, you will make a easy service/product to use. If I need to read the manual, you are done. To read more on this: an article of Jacob Nielsen on BBC.co.uk: Web users getting more ruthless.

User Experience: you can the best idea ever if the user experience is weak, you will fail.
that’s where the alpha and beta version is useful, getting feedback not only for the marketing trick.
A good way to illustrate this is the following: In the Internet and Mobile, the User Interface is like a windows between the consumer and your service. The clearer is your window the more you consumer is seeing your service.

Timing: I’m actually reading “the singularity is near” by Ray Kurzweil and I will quote him on this:

Most of the inventions fail not because the R&D department can get them to work but because the timing is wrong

Inventing is like surfing: you gave to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right time hope that helps.

Please, don’t hesitate to comment and share your finding