During the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan, Ramadan Kareem is one of the standard greetings. In means literally, “Ramadan is generous.” This year, as you can see, Ramadan falls during a very hot August, with very long days. I have fasted on and off, however being my first Ramadan, I have felt very weak.
Here is an update on what I have been up to:
Bader Young Entrepreneurs Program
Friday, August 5th
Today I met with Antoine Abou-Samra, Managing Director of Bader Young Entrepreneurs Program. Like others in the Lebanese entrepreneurship/startup ecosystem, he is passionate about entrepreneurship as a movement and a cause. It is hard to disagree, as many enterpreneurs that gain access to expertise and funding, can have an exponential impact with those inputs.
Bader has an extremely impressive network of entrepreneurs, and mentors, and moreover, they started the first Angel network in Lebanon, Lebanese Business Angels. They also are partners with the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition, one of the most prestigious in the region. Finally, Bader is doing work on the global scale (ie WEF’s, Global Competitiveness Network) to enrich the Lebanese market.
Thursday, August 4th
I ended up being almost a half an hour late to my second meeting with David Munir, of Alt-City. As usual at Alt-City, there was an army of staff and volunteers ready to tackle the days work in the space. In Beirut there are two types of ‘taxi-like’ transportation. One is a normal taxi, and the other is called a service- pronounced ‘sir veece.’ Services are the cheaper of the two, but they pick up and drop off people as you go. Thursday morning I got a tour of Beirut, on the way to my meeting with David. Suffice to say, that if time is money, maybe services aren’t the cheapest way to go. Anyhow, David was gracious despite his team of 7 in his next meeting that had to wait for us to finish.
David and I discussed the long term potential of Vil-Cap and the benefits that Alt-City could bring. David also informed me as to some of the shortcomings of Lebanese entrepreneurship culture. Just like in the United States, entrepreneurship can sometimes be seen as a way to make ‘fast money,’ or a way ‘to the top,’ the lack of infrastructure here supports that thinking. Unfortunately, entrepreneurship is grueling, hard work, with low success rate, and a lot of room for self-doubt (speaking from experience here). As Lebanon becomes more and more a place of entrepreneurship, I believe that (like other places), it will be the social entrepreneurs who win the day. They know how to turn a profit, but see farther than the singular bottom line.
David and discussed how there is a lot more opportunity in Lebanon beyond media and entertainment. Again, I believe that Village Capital may be successful here because we have success out side of the ‘traditional’ venture investors; the ones only looking for the hockey stick curve, that is. We look for ways to help entrepreneurs make education, energy, transportation, etc. better.
David, the rest of the VilCap team, and myself will be building out a marketing plan for this Fall complete with workshops, mixers, and other events. Individuals from different parts of the community can ‘get to know’ social entrepreneurship, and it will serve as a primer for a VilCap cohort this Spring.
Berytech Fund (<<–Press Conference and investments announcement, click hear), Seeqnce
Wednesday, August 3rd
In the morning I attended a conference where the Berytech Fund announced three new investments. The investments were in Yalla Play, ButterflEye, and WEXT. While none of the enterprises fit completely within our social enterprise criteria, it is a good taste for some of the tech start up potential in Lebanon. Additionally, Nicolas Sehnaoui, Lebanon’s Minister of Telecommunications, was in attendance and spoke about the upcoming, country wide bandwidth upgrade. I am looking forward to this as much as anyone!
In spite of a 100 degree fever, Samer Karam showed up to meet with me and tell me about his incubator/accelerator space, Seeqnce. Seeqnce, like others in the start up space, is focused on mainly mobile and web-based ventures. Samer was extremely encouraging as we discussed the landscape here in Lebanon. “If anyone tells you what to do, or that what your are doing is wrong, don’t worry about it,” he told me. “The start up scene is so young here that there is plenty of room for experimentation.” Samer is working with a lot of other groups in Beirut, and hopefully we can add VilCap to the list!
