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.
A very relevant article that was recommended to me was Paul Graham’s article from Feb ’09: “Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe.”
I won’t steal too much of the thunder from reading the article for yourself, but the key point is that could you short-circuit the long development process to create a replica of Silicon Valley. Given the money is could be done.
Dubai and the rest of the GCC are great examples of franchise cultures. Rather than wait and build local brands in retail, commercial, education and manufacturing, it has been licensed from abroad. Much of the local wealth has been built by Emiratis serving as the local vendor of foreign brands. The local 51% partner of any major international brand: Toyota, McDonald’s, Sony, etc is without doubt a wildly-diversified family-run conglomerate. We are no strangers to importing best-of-breed here.
Big thanks to the team at Dubai Eye 103.8 who had me on the radio for an hour yesterday talking about the Startup Visa Dubai idea.
You can listen the show here:
* Startup Visa Dubai pt .1
* Startup Visa Dubai pt .2
* Startup Visa Dubai pt .3
* Startup Visa Dubai pt .4
Leave your comments, keep the discussion alive, get in touch and spread the word!
I’ve been getting more interest and generating more informal discussion on the Startup Visa Dubai so I thought I would do a bit of objection handling. I lean toward the tech-side so that will come out in my answers. This is a work-in-progress and I look forward to contributions and contrarians:
Q: What is a Startup Visa for Dubai?
A: A Startup Visa for Dubai is a class of visa that allows entrepreneurs of any nationality who secures verified Dubai-based funding (institution or resident/citizen angel) that enables them to establish a business in Dubai and issues visas.
Q: It can’t be that simple, so what are the finer points?
A: The startup founder is required to secure the support of an investment body (vc, pe, etc) or resident/citizen angel who co-applies for the Startup Visa and commits to providing a minimum of $250,000 of investment capital and the founder maintains a minimum of 20% equity. A government body with advisory from credible VC’s, entrepreneurs and lawyers vet the applicants and issue the visas. The Startup Visa allows the founder to issue up to 5 additional visas (open to ideas here of course), and includes milestones for growth and profitability to issue additional visas. The founder can also setup either inside or outside a free zone and requires no “local” partner. The Startup Visa has a standard 3-year term.
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.
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.