Tag: Dan Stuart

GoNabit Goes Live In Another Arab City With Deal In Beirut

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GoNabitGoNabit, the online group-buying platform, that was launched for the region from Dubai earlier this year, has officially launched its first deal in Beirut Lebanon, marking its expansion into the third Arab city for it, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Just like in other cities, GoNabit will be featuring deals that people can sign-up to receive and buy if they’re interested, within a limited timeframe, with the deal only taking place once a minimum number of buyers commit to buying.

The first deal in Beirut is one for women, a 61% discount on a blow dry, manicure, and pedicure at the Fadia El Mendelek Salon in Beirut.

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GoNabit, An Online Group-Buying Platform For The Region

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GoNabitGoNabit is a new online group-buying platform, that was recently launched for the region from Dubai, and that helps people come together to save and discover locally with some really interesting deals.

Each day GoNabit features one huge deal per city; People sign-up online to receive the deals, and if they wish to participate in the deal they do so using their credit card. Once the minimum number of buyers is reached the deal tips, the credit card gets charged, and GoNabit sends the buyer their voucher. Buyers then print their voucher and redeem it with the local merchant.

Each deal is only available for a limited time, and if the minimum number of buys is not reached before the deal closes, no one is charged, but no one gets the deal either.

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Interview with Dan Stuart, Managing Partner At Intilaq

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Dan StuartOne of the most interesting developments that have taken place recently in the internet entrepreneurship and venture capital space in the Arab world has been the launch of Bayt’s venture capital arm “Intilaq”.

To get even more details about this exciting bit of news, I got to ask Dan Stuart, who is Head of strategic initiatives at Bayt and a Managing Partner at Intilaq, a few questions about it all; why they’re doing it, why now, where they’re going and more.

I’d like to thank him very much for taking some of his time to answer these questions and provide us all with more insight into this new venture.

What made Bayt decide to move into the venture capital space?
The vision and mission of Bayt.com don’t say anything about being strictly a job site, per se. From the outset, the founders were focused on creating a Middle Eastern institution that empowers people in the region to build better lives. Jobs were the primary focus because of their direct impact on lifestyle – and we have maintained a firm leadership positioning in that domain as measured by any parameter – but from the outset we recognized that there are many other opportunities to better people’s lives in the Middle East. Combine this affinity to the people of the region with a first-hand understanding of the unique needs of the region as well as the challenges in starting a business in the region, and add to that a strong desire to expand our scope and invest the capital reserves that we have built over time, and we decided that an investment arm was the logical next step.

Why did you choose to do it now?
There has never been a better time to start an online business in the Middle East. Internet penetration is skyrocketing, there is a huge bubble in regional demographics at the youth level, successful online business models are prevalent globally, but still relatively nascent regionally, and agile and open source technologies are making it easier to put vision into reality. Inefficient processes are ripe for disruption, and with funding and mentorship, we think that there is great potential for not only local/regional Internet successes to emerge, but truly global leaders. There is no reason that a Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook, Baidu, Salesforce, or other online tech leader cannot – and should not – emerge from the MENA region.

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Bayt Launches Intilaq, Gets Into Early Stage Funding For Internet Startups In The Arab World

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IntilaqBayt.com, the leading job portal in the Arab world, is launching a new and very interesting initiative called Intilaq, that aims to fund, mentor and support aspiring entrepreneurs with early-stage technology startups.

Intilaq is interested in funding and supporting startups based in the Arab world, or who are interested in relocating to the region, that drive regional internet adoption, usage and functionality.

Intilaq is not an incubation program, nor a competition, what they’ll be doing is evaluating ideas and people on an on-going basis, looking for the right fit, and funding chosen projects in exchange for equity in the company. Depending on how much progress the entrepreneurs have made, the funding could be at a seed round or at a follow-up round.
There is also no defined amount with which they are seeding the fund, choosing to remain flexible and acting on a case by case basis.

Intilaq is interested in hearing from both technology geeks, who have technical talent and a great innovative idea looking to start a company, as well as business people, who have great business aptitude (e.g., operations, sales, marketing, business development, finance) and who want to work with technical people to build a great company.

By doing this, Bayt is looking to invest some of the experience and money it has gained over the years, building their own success, into new startups in return for equity, or the benefit of a strategic acquisition, or even to just help grow regional Internet usage and winning by growing the online employment market for Bayt.com.

Besides funding, experience and mentorship; Bayt also offers to help with invaluable industry contacts from around the region, and even workspace in some cases whether at their offices in Dubai Internet City or one of their other offices around the Arab world.

The Intilaq team is made up of Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt.com, and Dan Stuart, the Head of Strategic Initiatives at Bayt.com; both as managing partners, with Dan running the day-to-day operations.

# Intilaq

Bayt Launches Contest To Crowdsource Explanatory Videos

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Bayt.comAfter asking people to help them redesign their website in a previous initiative covered here; Bayt, the leading Middle Eastern job site, has now launched a new video contest soliciting help from creative people in creating a visual style for a series of multimedia videos that can clearly explain what Bayt.com does and how their users can get the most out of the website.

Dan Stuart, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Bayt, created two scripts for the videos, and launched a microsite where he asks people to submit one video that shows their use of an original visual concept to one of his scripts.

The winning video concept will receive the contract to create more than three trilingual videos for Bayt.com. Also, both the winning designer and design will be promoted on Bayt.com, in all contest-related PR, and promoted on the contest Microsite.

The deadline for submissions is March 6th, 2009.

For more information, to submit videos and for the legal details, you can check the contest microsite that can be found here: icandraw.bayt.com