Angels and Exits
Jordan’s emerging eco-system
Rami Ejailat is the founder of IT support agency Experts 911 in Amman, an entrepreneur who left a stable job in a leading IT solutions distributor to pursue his dream of owning his own company. Ejailat is modest yet engaging as he outlines his priorities; family, community, and business ambition. He is honest about the challenges. “For an entrepreneur, struggle comes with the territory. It’s not an easy task, because you have to work late at night… you have to wear many hats… marketing, sales, accounting, finance. It can be a lot of stress. Starting a new business from scratch is definitely not easy.”
For an entrepreneur,
struggle comes with the territory.
Even with financial help from friends and family, which is common in Jordan, Ejailat needed more support. He secured initial investment from Oasis 500, a seed-funder and business incubator set up by HM King Abdullah, but the gap between the seed-funding he received and the big bucks of venture capital investment seemed unbridgeable. “That’s when MENA Apps came in and provided additional angel investment and acceleration to help me boost the idea, and so far we have been successful. The support, mentoring, and other assistance from the team behind MENA Apps was invaluable.”
Ejailat started with two employees, three years ago. Experts 911 now has eight full-time employees, and continues to grow. “We’re looking to hire even more. We have over 90 satisfied customers. That, for me, is helping the community; creating jobs, helping other businesses.” MENA Apps is a hybrid angel investor and business accelerator set up by Dr Abdulmalik Al-Jabr and his wife Rania Ghosheh. The model is based on their personal belief in an individual entrepreneur and their willingness to back that belief with their own money.
World’s highest per capita levels
of social media usage
offer entrepreneurs huge potential markets.
The region has a population of some 400 million, with 70 per cent aged 34 or under, internet penetration is roughly 50 per cent, and they enjoy the world’s highest per capita levels of social media usage, offering entrepreneurs huge potential markets, particularly in online business.
The mission of MENA Apps is to mobilize economic and social development through commercial activity. This is exemplified by the company’s charitable foundation, which draws five per cent of profit and supports ARABRENEUR, a network contributing to the growth of a socially conscious economy and civil society in the MENA region.
The MENA Apps proposition is based on four pillars: physical hosting in a serviced office location; real-life mentoring by experts in all areas of startup
and general business life; ‘door-opening’, or introductions to potential investors, partners, and customers; and funding, via pitching opportunities with angel, venture capital, and institutional investors.
Ghosheh and Al-Jabr believe that Experts 911 demonstrates the ideal characteristics for angel investment, because it is adding value socially as well as financially, contributing to the welfare of the whole country. Ghosheh adds; “We feel that we really accomplished our mission with this type of investment.”
This entrepreneurial community consists of a partnership between two businesses, MENA Apps and Oasis500, and Int@j, a private non-profit organisation promoting Jordanian software and IT services industry. The partnership:
- accelerates start-ups and entrepreneurs;
- connects start-ups to mentors and other players in the eco-system;
- opens doors for start-ups to grow locally and internationally;
- provides training and guidance on good governance and management of companies; and
- empowers youth and women in the MENA region.
Learn more about Amman entrepreneurial community (FR) and the ETF project.
