Beirut’s Bright Future as a Tech Hub for MENA, If Its Politicians Will Allow It

1)Internet speed is a problem. Engineering talent is extinct (all the good engineers leave the country). Like i said people are leaving so no experience from outside is coming in.

2)Some of these startups mentioned are dead, even some of the names are people i worked with and have not a single success story (some not all) which diminishes the credibility of this article. As for the promising startups like Anghami, they have a better understanding of the arab culture and connections, let alone the reality of the situation as opposed to information perceived from such articles.

1- I agree that Internet is quite problamatic for the country but it is not insurmountable with a bit of planning, but that means spending on energy on something you should not.

2- The companies mentioned (like most startups in the region) start out by copying business ideas and models from other places. That does not mean they are not working on some interesting things but the truth is most are not focused on this. Some companies that get no light are working on some really interesting things such as better power management, hydroponics, controllers for elevators, telecom infrastructure, bitcoin etc. These are few and in between but they do exist. Also I dont think focus on Arabic internationalization is an easy manner it might not be as difficult as saying chinese internalization (baidu anyone) but still.

Allow me to give my opinon on the problems of the community:

a- High Cost of living and few opportunities for second chances: Beirut is not a cheap city by any measure and the tech scene is very small (very few big companies) what this translates too is that talent of any kind (business or engineering) is reluctant to do startups where risk of failure is high since they are not sure they are able to pay the bills if it flunks and they cant land a job

b- Too small a market: Needless to say Lebanon and the region is a small market more importantly it is a small market of early adopters so it is very difficult to make a quick experimentation of the viability of ideas

c- Shortage of talent: It is no secret that most talent leaves the country mostly because salaries outside are way more then they can find in the country. Also the society is so small that anyone who stays is bound to know and be compared to someone of similar (or less) skill and making 5 times the salary and that tends to be emotionally tasking and propagates the cycle.

d- Lack in belief in quality from the region: There is a problem region wise where everyone seems convinced that anything coming from Europe, Japan and North America is of higher quality then things coming from the region. Accordingly all companies in the region without connection to outside are short-changed decreasing their chance of success.

e- Extreme selection bias: Everyone in the eco-system from VCs, Angels (the few that exist) and Enterpreneurs judge success and returns based on what is happening with the most successful silicon valley companies and therefore they demand same results claiming same hurdles. This is simply not true. The problems are different and they require a different solution.

Finally let me say Beirut is not ideal I know I have had (and continue to have) my crisis of faith in the matter but the potential does exist. We face similar problems to many upcoming tech communities and then some and we sure can achieve with more constructive discussions which hopefully such a discussion will start.