Here’s a story you may recognize. Ten years ago, two young Jordanian entrepreneurs founded an internet services company to foster an online community through which Arabic speakers could access and generate content. At the time, Arabic-speaking Internet users were only in the thousands and there were no regional venture capital (VC) funds. Undeterred, the entrepreneurs continued to experiment with different business models in the Web 2.0 space until they found one that worked. With some financial support from their families, the entrepreneurs were able to set up an office in Amman, launch their business and become pioneers in developing content for the world’s 320 million Arabic speakers. If you identified the company as Maktoob, you’d be correct, and know that the story’s climax is last year’s $164 million acquisition by Yahoo!, marking the first major deal of its kind in the Middle East. But, you’d also be right if you
