Executive Magazine

The design challenge

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Moodfit

Industry: Interior design and ICT

Product: Interior design website

Product launch: 2015

Established: 2014

Employees: No fixed employees; 14 freelancers

Founders: Tarek Jaroudi, Mohamed Sabouneh and Ghassan Abi Fadel

In 2014 Tarek Jaroudi, Mohamed Sabouneh and Ghassan Abi Fadel, students in the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) MBA program, were frustrated with the lack of easy communication between interior designers and potential clients, and came together to form Moodfit. Having conducted extensive research with suppliers, designers and clients, the final product is an online interior design program which enables a user to transform a space with the help of top interior designers, and removes the need for the continuous on-the-ground presence of an interior designer; the only physical interaction is done with local home decoration suppliers. Through an interface the customer uploads photos of a to-be-decorated space, as well as the dimensions of the area, and subsequently receives three to five ‘mood boards’ (suggestions) from competing interior designers, the vast majority of which are Lebanese. There is no obligation to pay if the user dislikes the mood boards from designers, but if the user chooses to proceed they select a mood board and pay $300 per room to receive the basic package of services from the relevant designer (furniture plan and shopping lists). Target markets for the basic packages can be mid-income range individuals within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, but Moodfit are looking to expand to a more expensive ‘premium’ service which they would retail.

The website was launched in September 2015, and now the team has seven ongoing and 30 pipeline projects from all over the MENA region, despite only launching social media advertisements in Lebanon. The company has raised much of its funds through grants and competitions, and was the winner of the $15,000 first prize at the Darwazah Innovation Competition. Now Moodfit is looking for seed funding of around $300,000 to cover its first year of expenses, and enable them to hire their own developers and remove the need for continuous outsourcing. This is needed for its new platform, a more complete version of its current website, which it hopes will go live early 2016 – very much adhering to the lean startup model. Future expansion plans also include an app, unhindered by low internet speeds as Jaroudi explains the upload/download process is similar to that of the photo app Instagram. Moodfit’s revenue model is 20 percent commission of the user fee, and large scale referral fees from local furniture suppliers and manufacturers. Its projection for 2016 is a rate of four projects per month in the first month, growing at a rate of 15 percent, which it is already outgrowing due to positive exposure. This would allow them to break even in their third year and become profitable in their fifth.

Moodfit’s model is scalable, because it starts ‘lean’, and thus can be easily modified to fit all manner of customers, and appeals to the modern day crowd source mentality, which they utilize by connecting people to interior designers rather than placing them on a continuous payroll. The fully functioning automated version of the startup will be tried and tested in Lebanon and can be easily rolled out across the entire region. In terms of local job creation and social impact, Moodfit wishes to use the seed funding to expand and create a local sales and computer development team, and argues that its platform creates value by facilitating interior designers’ access to markets, thereby ensuring work, while simultaneously offering users the ability to use designers at affordable prices, without expending unnecessary resources.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Sky’s the limit

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Next Automated Robots (NAR)

Industry: Robotics and drone technology

Product: QuadroFighter drone

Product launch: 2016

Established: 2015

Employees: 2

Founders: Charlie Khoury and Nicolas Zaatar

The drone industry is growing and is fast becoming an indispensible part of a large range of consumer services. Analysts are predicting the sky as the limit for the industry over the next few years, with 2014 seeing drone startups raising $107 million worldwide, surpassed in June 2015 with $172 million, according to data from CB Insights, a venture capital and angel investment database centered in New York. With Amazon’s ‘Prime Air’ drone-based delivery system currently in development, and local street festivals such as Car Free day in Mar Mikhael on November 22 filmed by flying drones, drone usage is on the rise.

What started as a final year university project at the Lebanese American University in Byblos in August 2014 has evolved into Next Automated Robots (NAR), a startup in Speed’s acceleration program that is working to produce a fully-autonomous 24/7 drone called “QuadroFighter”. The aim of the drone is to detect wildfires at an early stage, and target markets are governments and private NGOs, or individuals cultivating wide areas of land. The drone alerts the user through desktop or mobile applications, without piloting, and relays the coordinates of the wildfire. The user interface is being developed by NAR and a demo is scheduled for presentation to investors in mid January 2016.

While the company is still very much in the early stages, and is prioritizing the research and development into flight times, the co-founders point to the wide array of practical applicationof the project. They argue that NAR can evolve beyond detection of wildfires. “As soon as we have the platform we can shift [drone usage] to any other thing that can be beneficial to society,” explains co-founder Charlie Khoury, “[for example] industries like oil and gas and agricultural industries,” where inspections can be carried out by drones. Revenues and operating costs are still under discussion within the acceleration program, as NAR is currently heavily focussed on research and development.

Their only hesitation is the availability of parts, with no company supplying motors, controllers and batteries within Lebanon, thereby pushing NAR to source these components from outside the country. They are, however, keen to ensure their operating base remains within the country, and have expressed interest in opening a regional office to source parts. Khoury emphasizes that this technology is new to Lebanon, and within the market in the country there is enormous potential for NAR to grow, both nationally and regionally. Additionally, while their early detection of wildfires can have a positive environmental impact, NAR’s social impact can be seen through their potential recruitment – upon expansion – of local engineers and designers. As four respective engineers who graduated in classes that saw many of their peers move outside of Lebanon for employment, NAR is keen to emphasize how a new industry can incentivize young engineers to stay working in Lebanon through offering exciting opportunities in a fresh industry. Their focus, to integrate drones into everyday life, is the main persuasion tactic they will use on demo day to investors when they seek future funding.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

I am the passenger

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Carpolo

Industry: Technology and transport

Product: Ridesharing app

Product launch: 2016

Established: 2015

Employees: 2

Founders: Mohamad Nabaa and Ralph Khairallah

Carpolo was started by Ralph Khairallah, a business planning instructor with previous startup experience, and Mohamad Nabaa, a recent graduate in computer science from the Beirut Arab University, in mid 2015. It’s an app dedicated to carpooling and lift sharing for university students in Lebanon. Similar to the European website BlaBlaCar, which offers shared rides to passengers from drivers between cities, Carpolo aims to reduce carbon emissions and congestion through car-sharing in the metropolitan area, and is due to be piloted at AUB. “Commuting is a huge problem; Beirut is a cemetery as there is no parking and the traffic is deafening,” says Nabaa. He explains that while their starting market focuses on students, an ideal expansion would be to encourage commuters from wide metropolitan areas to use car-sharing facilities. The startup is currently enrolled in the Speed@BDD accelerator and has benefited from the $25,000 cash injection.

Since parking and commuting to campus is problematic, and there is no reliable public transportation in Beirut, Khairallah and Nabaa feel that traffic issues can only be solved by optimising the use of unoccupied car seats. This, they argue, is an obvious solution, as many students and commuters follow the same routes on similar schedules. Their app has three main marketed features aside from carpooling: live streaming (in real time) of voyages to and from campus, institutionally verified profiles (hence the start with universities) and a point exchange system to overcome the social awkwardness of exchanging money with peers and friends, which Nabaa and Khairallah say is culturally difficult in Lebanon. The point exchange works by deducting five points from the passenger and giving three points to the driver per ride, where Carpolo absorbs the extra two points so a 40 percent deficit is maintained in the system. The users then have the option to purchase extra points through their mobile provider. Carpolo has been granted access to Touch’s directory of billing to facilitate payment, with a future estimate price of $1 for 10 points, although monetization of the product will come later as the app will be rolled with free points initially to encourage and expand their user base. Carpolo currently has an agreement with Touch, and expansion plans include extending to other operators and universities across Lebanon. Greater usage of the app is rewarded with benefits through a loyalty scheme, where students who carpool frequently ascend through levels and have the option to redeem points with their operator for mobile perks.

The environmental and social impact is relatively clear, reducing emissions through the promotion of shared rides. Since they estimate that only 33 percent of AUB students own cars (which totals to nearly 3,000 people) they have been conservative about future revenue projections. The worst-case scenario estimate is $4,000 per month from 300 carpools in total from AUB. This includes the 70:30 future revenue split agreement they have with Touch, although plans have not yet been finalized. The product was scheduled to undergo beta testing at the end of November 2015, with the app due to be launched in Spring 2016.

January 22, 2016 1 comment

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Go figure

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Figurit

Industry: Media and information extraction

Product: Figurit dashboard

Product launch: 2016

Established: 2015

Employees: None

Founders: Haramoun Hamieh and Ahmad Sharif

Haramoun Hamieh, a digital content manager with five years experience at Al-Hayat newspaper, and Ahmad Sharif, a senior information management consultant at Layout International, came together to form Figurit after their apparent frustrations with the workflow process within the journalism sector. They have developed an “intelligent data-driven dashboard”, as described by Hamieh, to provide journalists with information and analytics in trending stories.

Founded in 2015, the content discovery concept offers more than just an alert to current trends. Figurit’s unique selling point is their ability to offer in-depth analysis of the news, rather than simple traffic analytics, and present information which is grouped into one electronic resource. Their dashboard is key in reducing the time spent in content discovery, often by wire services that are ultimately outsourced, and to improve results through accurate visualization with a dashboard of visualized scientific analysis of big data. For example, a google search on the ‘Greek crisis’ will yield a list of links that are identified through inclusion of those keywords. Figurit, however, aims to go one step further by collating a large amount of information into a digestible and selectable package which includes historical analysis of trends, competitor coverage and a key to the main actors within a story, with other metrics like sentiment analysis, coverage scope and geo-mapping of events. The technology behind the dashboard extracts data from news sources, and algorithms analyse the content. The algorithms can harness the power of natural language processing (NLP) – a field of artificial intelligence – that has real-world applications in discourse analysis and automatic summarization. They can also be programmed to identify parody or erroneous news sources and will be included in the Figurit dashboard to, for example, notify the user when an actor is first mentioned in relevance to a trending story (e.g. Nicolas Sarkozy in the Greek crisis). Figurit has direct appeal to any individual involved in investigative journalism, with a wider appeal to all news and content production companies. For scalability and applicability, the technology also has the ability to forecast trends and notify individuals of breaks to patterns within content analysis.

The intention is to start with English websites and later expand the dashboard to incorporate other languages. The initial target market is digital news startups, for which the co-founders have developed their minimal viable product (MVP), and have used a cash injection of $25,000 from AltCity’s bootcamp, which they are currently enrolled in. Their current business model will generate revenue from direct sales of subscriptions to freelancers, at an estimate of $150 per month for two users, and a larger publisher package to newsrooms, which extends to five users and includes historical data for $300. Their expectations of total revenue are built on a target set for the 36 month mark. At this time they would hope to see 300 paying subscriptions per month that they calculate will bring in recurring monthly revenue of $60,000, with estimated operating costs at 30 percent of revenue, minimized due to the cloud-based nature of the dashboard. Hamieh cites future investments as a key boost to their development, and will appeal for a maximum of $200,000 from external investors at a pitching event sponsored by Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s central bank, scheduled for December 18, 2015.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Smart city life

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Markelligent

Industry: Technology and analytics

Product: Solutions using IoT sensors and analytics

Product launch: 2015

Established: 2014

Employees: 9

Founders: Elias El-Khoury and Fadwa Mohanna

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of connected objects – to the internet and to each other – which through embedded sensors share information across a network and allow for the collection of data, and the ability for those selfsame objects to be controlled remotely. For example, a smart fridge that knows when a door is left ajar, can subsequently be closed through an app after alerting a user.

Markelligent, a startup founded at the end of 2014 by Fadwa Mohanna and Elias el-Khoury, aims to harness the IoT through collecting data from the sensors and providing companies with services relating to data analytics. Their intention is to offer IoT solution packages to citizens’ pre-existing problems, generating revenue for Markelligent and improving the quality of collective lives. Once a challenge has been identified, Markelligent develops the needed sensors to measure the readings related to that challenge and start collecting all kinds of data generated by those sensors on their cloud. Then, they start analyzing the data which can be displayed in a dashboard format, enabling the management of the client to track the progress and take the relevant actions accordingly. Their target markets are corporations, municipalities and large entities, and their expansion plans eye the Gulf and Europe as regional areas for future operations. At the end of its first year, Markelligent is cash positive, has organic growth fuelled by customers, has projects on the back of initial self funding, and has seven employees in Lebanon and three outside.

Examples include one of their current projects ‘Smart Parking’, which enables people to find the nearest empty parking location within Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This IoT implementation is one example of using such innovation in a ‘smart city’ context, which has a wide applicability that extends beyond traffic congestion. These cities have electronic hardware embedded throughout multiple objects, which work to improve city efficiency by connecting the infrastructure to the behaviour of people, and translating it into data analytics, such as notifying councils when garbage bins are overflowing which is currently done in Milton Keynes in the UK. Though the trash analogy will doubtless take time to be rolled out across Lebanon, the wider scalability and applicability is large, especially as cities become more energy aware and environmentally conscious across the globe. Markelligent is working both with Bluetooth and low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology for entities with limited connectivity capabilities, thus increasing their market attractiveness.

Markelligent is determined to remain in Lebanon, and ultimately rejected plans to relocate to Dubai. Instead, they have chosen to recruit local talent in Lebanon, with most of their staff located in Beirut. Whilst they cannot release financials, Mohanna stresses that they expect to double in size by mid 2016, and aim to employ individuals in research and development, software and quality control.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

The key code

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Le Wagon

Industry: Education

Product: Coding bootcamp

Product launch: 2015

Established: 2015

Employees: Recruitment on a project basis

When Malik El-Khoury returned to Lebanon in 2014, he was surprised at the lack of appropriate developers he could recruit for the tech startup he wished to establish. After spying a gap in the market, he decided in 2015 to licence the ‘Le Wagon’ program from the French coding school of the same name, which was formed in 2013 by Boris Paillard. Though the program itself is not an original startup, the idea of licensing and hosting such an event displays an entrepreneurial tour de force from El-Khoury, and is worthy of one of Executive’s top 20 places in this year’s startups in Lebanon.

The first coding session, which entailed a 9-week intensive coding bootcamp, offered participants a chance to become a fully fledged junior developer in a comparatively short period of time. The course is conducted in English, is limited to 25 participants per cycle (to ensure a strong coverage by tutors) and costs a subscriber $4,500 for the entire venture, but subsidies of up to $1,000 under certain conditions have been offered. There are no prerequisites to learning to code and thus the bootcamp appeals to anyone who wishes to become a developer even if they have no previous professional or higher educational experience. Participants must, however, complete the Ruby track on the open online educational resource, Code Academy, which gives them the basic building blocks and allows the students from ‘Le Wagon’ to hit the ground running from day one. In terms of speed of education, the students in the bootcamp learn at a much faster rate compared to similar university courses, as the volume of material covered in one day is enormous. El-Khoury invested his own capital to start and maintain the first session, but expects it to become profitable after several cycles, and insists that the focus should be on retaining talent in Lebanon.

While a debate exists over the quality of computer science education in Lebanon, there is no doubt that every startup and company which focuses on tech is in need of developers, and ones which have skills that do not create back end development confusion, or ‘spaghetti’ code. Bootcamps which target this niche in the education sector will surely increase in demand, and the licensed program offers employment as bootcamp teachers to local strong programmers, as four of the tutors of El-Khoury’s first cycle were Lebanese. After the successful completion of the first cycle, ‘Le Wagon’ plans to launch its next session on April 11, 2016.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Connecting Lebanon

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Lebtivity

Industry: Event management and ICT

Product: Website and web app

Product launch: 2012

Established: 2012

Employees: 3 part-time; 2 interns

Founders: Randa Farah, George Zeenny, Teddy Zeenny, Rana Abou Rjeily, Charbel Jamous

Lebtivity was started in May 2012, after one of the five co-founders realized there was no central page in Lebanon that contained information about future hiking events. After brainstorming, they decided to expand beyond a page dedicated to hiking to include all types of events in Lebanon. Since their inception, the website has grown and people are allowed to add their event to the page for free. Randa Farah, one of the co-founders, has spoken of the positive feedback that Lebtivity has received, with many users remarking how surprised they were at the sheer quantity of events taking place in the country. Sharing events on such a platform is a “win-win” situation for everyone; the event planners, the attendees and ultimately the entertainment industry in Lebanon.

Lebtivity encourages participation in their online social calendar by not charging to upload events to their website. Their business model, however, is based on advertising packages, where individuals can pay for social media exposure with different Lebtivity partners, and adverts publicized on the website. Events are sorted by popularity, granting those with more ‘likes’ or views greater visibility. Lebtivity boosts the events on various platforms. Aside from advertising, Lebtivity also generates revenue by acting as intermediaries for providers selling different services to event organizers at preferential rates. Examples include catering, hostessing, live streaming and photo booth machines.

Thus far, Lebtivity is self-funded, and the five founders have invested their time and money into the platform. While their motivation was borne out of a desire to promote the country and encourage social support to local events, they are now looking for angel investors in order to secure greater funding to the platform. The value Lebtivity adds to the Lebanese economy is on all levels; from small restaurants to large events, adding their details to Lebtivity will boost their visibility through a central page and increase the likelihood of having customers. This is supported by their website traffic, which at time of publishing counted over 1 million unique visitors to the website since its creation. The variety of events also encourages users to attend different events to the ones they originally search for on the platform. While for now Lebtivity is in Lebanon, they wish to expand to other countries regionally and globally, and have conducted small test trials in Canada. Current projects in the pipeline also include improvements to the online platform, and ultimately expanding upon Lebtivity’s own software development team by recruiting local talent. Their philosophy is to promote the positive side of the country – “you have your Lebanon and I have mine” says Farah, quoting Gibran Khalil Gibran and explaining that to her, Lebtivity shows that it is a country of culture and art.

January 22, 2016 1 comment

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Dual nature

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Krimston Two

Industry: Telecommunications and technology

Product: Dual SIM appliance

Product Launch: 2016

Established: 2014

Employees: 13 contracted employees worldwide

Founders: Fouad Fattal and Nabil Nasr

Shareholders: Nicolas Sehnaoui, Ghassan Hasbani, Walid Rizk, Bassem Boustany, Walid Hanna, Raja Gedeon

Krimston labels itself as inventing the solution for all Apple lovers who are recurring travellers and tired of having to switch phones when abroad. Co-founders Fouad Fattal and Nabil Nasr have developed a product, due to go live early 2016, that is a new SIM card solution to enable users to operate a cell phone with two SIM cards. The product, which looks like a phone cover, can be understood as a ‘phone without a screen’. A SIM card slots into the cover, and a downloaded app enables the user to interchange between the two SIM cards and use them both, for example, by allowing them to choose between a domestic and foreign line for placing calls and sending messages. The ‘cover’ also offers charging capabilities and is a hotspot that enables 3G usage of the inserted SIM’s data. The IP for the device has been registered in the UK.

Having raised $400,000 by the end of 2014 from angel investors and loans, the co-founders travelled to Silicon Valley to produce a prototype that could be taken to production and specifically appeal to iPhone users. Krimston will be piloting the product in February through a Kickstarter campaign, and will use feedback to improve their product. The target market is the global iPhone usage of 400 million devices worldwide, though their initial production batch will be 10,000 units, which Fattal hopes will be followed by exponential growth upon successful sales, and an injection of at least 150,000 units by the end of 2016 into the market across the globe, with manufacturing done in India and operations conducted in Lebanon. Their target market are dual SIM card users for travelling, and also individuals who wish to cherry-pick the best features of two different line operators.

While Krimston are still finalising the final retail price, current estimates are at $199 per device but subject to the feedback from focus groups. The device is a hybrid that operates as a phone but appears as an accessory, and marketing ploys will need to be implemented carefully so users understand the true value of the device. Fattal and Nasr have secured another loan from Lebanese financial company Kafalat of $400,000, which ensures production will happen, and Fattal estimates that by mid 2016 total expenditure will hover at $800,000, the bulk of which will be on research and development and tooling. Their six-member strategy consultant heavy board also features the familiar faces of Nicolas Sehnaoui, former minister of telecommunications, and Walid Hanna, managing partner at Middle East Venture Partners.

Fattal emphasises that Krimston wishes to operate from Lebanon but has the world as the target market. Since this type of operation requires a lot of different talents, Krimston’s future vision is to create a professional entity where individuals can deploy their knowledge, rather than travelling abroad, and the end goal would be to seek partnership with Apple, pending a Made For iPhone (MFi) certification and licence. To feed back into the ecosystem, Krimston will look to hire developers (specifically iOS), electrical and technological engineers, a sales and in-house marketing team and a logistics and customer service department, and wishes to keep all operations within the country. Fattal has great enthusiasm for employing Lebanese talent, and estimates that their multicultural society and ease of adaptation to environments will allow them to become a strong sales team, which he envisions being online, through distributors (and therefore retailers) and business-to-business.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Sweet dreams (are made of this)

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Dream Matcher

Industry: Event management

Product: Networking conference

Product launch: 2012

Established: 2012

Employees: No fixed employees; freelancers

Founders: Ali Chehade

Ali Chehade’s Dream Matcher networking event began as an online startup, inspired by an idea for a television show which subseqently pivoted into an offline company. The Dream Matcher ‘experience’ is a networking event that lasts for a couple of hours and hosts 50 to 70 people. During the event, participants write their dreams on post-it notes, stick them to a large wall and have them viewed by others. In a bid to help one another achieve their ambitions, participants with relevant skill sets approach the post-it writer during the event to offer their assistance with their ‘dreams’. This can be scaled up to corporate or entrepreneurial oriented spin offs. The former is marketed to small-to-medium enterprises and the latter offers a variety of entrepreneurship prizes (such as co-working spots and advertising space). Since 2012 more than 50 events have been organized inside and outside Lebanon, in places such as the US and Spain. Their pilot corporate event was tested on PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dubai in February 2015, who approached Chehade after hearing about the Dream Matcher. According to Chehade, the experience was well received by the roughly 80 employees who participated, and was followed by discussions with private companies in Lebanon to build up their corporate segment.

While there are no fixed employees, the capacity to create jobs indirectly through its networking event renders it worthy of Executive’s attention. The concept is marketed to young professionals but participants are often drawn from a wider market. With regards to social impact, there have been successful pairings of employee with employers, and the creation of startups through individuals who met through their networking experience at Chehade’s events. Nour Atrissi, for example, secured the entrepreneurship prize of the “How to start your business” course from AMIDEAST Entrepreneur Institute through the 2013 Dream Matcher Entrepreneur edition, which enabled her to co-found another Executive top 20 startup, Teens Who Code.

The scalability factor results from their business model, which identifies licensing of the program as a source of income; the package will be outsourced and licensed worldwide, without the need for physical on-the-ground presence. Ticket sales to individuals for the non-specialized events, which are held every month in Beirut and in various cities across Lebanon over the last year, are also a source of income. With revenues in 2015 standing at $20,000 at time of writing, Chehade has earmarked the corporate events as the main breadwinner in terms of revenue for future financial projections.

As a tool for exposure, Chehade also describes the recent media and corporate partnership with the television show Bala Toul Sireh on the Future TV channel, which will air success stories from the event, in a bid to gain momentum. Chehade’s future growth plan in the long term sees licenses being rolled out worldwide, and wishes to restart the online platform.

January 22, 2016 0 comments

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

To be heard and not seen

by Executive Editors January 22, 2016

written by Executive Editors

This company is part of Executive’s Top 20 for 2015. Read more stories from our entrepreneurship in Lebanon section, for the latest analysis on the country’s ecosystem.

Fallound

Industry: Technology and social networking

Product: Mobile app

Product launch: Late 2015

Established: 2015

Employees: 4

Founders: Stefano Fallaha and Emad Yehya

Adviser: Habib Haddad

Fallound is a startup founded by Stefano Fallaha and Emad Yehya, a high school student and a computer science undergraduate at AUB respectively, who identified a gap in the social networking and messaging market. Habib Haddad, the chief executive officer of Wamda, serves as their advisor. Their product is a ‘hands-free voice-based’ app which uses 27 second voice notes to create and deliver a stream of online content that forms the base for a social network. Fallaha conducted extensive research into how podcasts, an episodic series of digital media files, could gain greater traction and success, and from this developed the idea of having a short voice clips platform, hot on the heels of the way many users in Lebanon and the wider region send voice notes through the mobile messaging giant WhatsApp, which still predominantly caters for text chat facilities.

The app works by allowing the user to create a profile and upload voice clips which can be adjusted with ‘audio filters’ such as backing music or voice alteration. These clips are tagged for their content, for example ‘science in Lebanon’, and contribute to a news stream of consecutive clips which can be searched for, selected and played by the listener, akin to a playlist on iTunes with skip and other features included. Yehya is the brain behind the construction of an algorithm which automates and selects which clips from which profiles are fed to the user, and in which order. Fallaha also notes that user popularity metrics will be built into the algorithm’s programming. The content is people generated, and can be controlled using voice commands. Their main marketing feature is that Fallound caters for individuals who are occupied by a task, like driving, and can only operate in a hands-free capacity. The ‘voice’ is a traditional method of communication, and Fallound wishes to re-modernise the usage which they believe has the power to outstrip texting on the basis of its simplicity and speed.

Fallound’s main source of revenue will be through radio advertising, an industry which is worth $34 billion per year worldwide according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ global and media outlook for 2014-2018, as the app itself will be free to download. The project has thus far been self-funded, with estimates around $15,000 to date. Fallound has scheduled to launch the Android version of their product at BDL Accelerate on December 10, and their iOS version in January 2016. For seed funding, Fallound will seek investment of $100,000 to $150,000 from angel investors. Their future projections are estimates, but they anticipate heavy usage of the app in the first year, as they have entered discussions with Touch, a mobile operator in Lebanon, for future collaboration projects. They have planned for their marketing campaign to include celebrity endorsement, which Fallaha has also approached, and preliminary testing from 200 beta testers of their most viable product has yielded very positive results according to Fallaha. Fallound’s target market is global, as everyone who uses app-based services is considered a part of it, and their current focus is to create a large user base. Their expansion ideas would also bring more developers onto the team, which would provide many needed job opportunities to encourage Lebanon’s programmers to stay in the country with employment.

January 22, 2016 0 comments