Oh can you imagine…..with a tax-free business climate, great central geography, access to existing and emerging markets, great weather, multicultural workforce, a fairly liquid environment…and combine that with a real interest in making it both easier to setup a start-up PLUS working with global payment gateways providers to maximize options for e-commerce start-ups and you end with even more reason to launch a tech start-up here.
I’d mentioned in a previous post that one of the key elements missing from the startup ecosystem in Dubai was the ability to fail due to outdated and immature insolvency laws. Good news came out today that just brought us one small step closer to a stronger ecosystem: “New bankruptcy law to be announced in the UAE within months.”
A new online course portal has launched in the United Kingdom. XCourse is an education portal selling online courses that customers can purchase to learn on their own time. XCourse is initially offering courses in Microsoft Office, Web Programming, Databases, Business and People Management, HR, Marketing, and Negotiation skills.
The time is right to create value at the sme level, create an ecosystem that incubates startups, make Dubai a globally-attractive place for top minds to start their new technology businesses, and create new momentum for Dubai outside the declining property boom and alongside the draw of tourism.
Jude Gomila, founder of Heyzap.com, did some re-jigging to Dave McClure’s model for mapping out a startup and his model is a good guide for anyone looking to launch an online business. The model is good for seeing interconnections and aligning the team. I wouldn’t just take the model and try to use it as a roadmap as-is, but use the model as a starting point to a planning session with your team to map out your own model.
An article trending highly over on Hacker News the other day was from a guy I had never heard of before: Derek Sivers.
Little did I know that Derek is the creative and now extremely successful guy behind CD Baby. Nothing like selling $100M in CD’s to quality you as someone I should really now. Anyway, apologies to Derek and on to the meat of what was trending…
Derek was writing about “confidence” and the indecision involved in taking the leap to start a new business. While this hits close to home since I am currently at the heart of starting 5 new initiatives at my current company, the part that struck me most was Derek’s reference to all the reading he had done.
Last week I attended the event “Best Practices in Entrepreneurship Policy (BPEP): An Arab Regional Conference of Practitioners & Scholars” put on by the Dubai School of Government. The topics included the lack of insolvency laws in the region, policy and regulation for entrepreneurship, educating entrepreneurs, funding and investing and good governance.