My online venture

Indeed, it was! Back in early 2001 I was using the back of my math notebook to sketch some ideas, write some thoughts and dreams of what I want to be in the future. And believe it or not, they are all coming true. (Well, except the part where I win the Oscar, but that's subject to change!!)

Here is what I wrote about the fictional project (yes, it was very fictional at that point):

1- I want it to be web enabled:

Back then, the Internet was relatively new in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A lot of families were simply not willing to allow Internet access at their homes because of the fear of possible inappropriate content. On the other hand, the Internet was mentioned everywhere, in the school, in the media and even on corn flakes boxes.

Now, for any consumer oriented web product to work in that climax, it would need a huge marketing effort that is well beyond my capabilities. And then up pops the crazy idea; why can't I make a safe Arabic web browser that will allow families to use the Internet safely and without worries about the barriers of language and/or technical expertise.

I spent the whole month of Ramadan of that year working with my dedicated team which consisted of yours truly (As the CEO of course) and my younger brother Adel (Lead Software Developer) on developing the project. Once that was done, it was handled to Quality Assurance Department (My mom and my beloved sister).

And guess what, it worked! My mom managed to create an e-mail account and my sister made her first website. This encouraged me to create a website (www.yahadi.info) where the browser could be downloaded for free, and then start looking for sponsors to help with the cost of hosting it online (which was really costly at that time). So I partnered with my uncle (Waleed Jadallah, who suggested the name by the way) and the Yahadi project was ready for public use on the 24th of February 2001.

2- I want everybody to know about it:

I started submitting the website to search engines, discussion forums, TV shows, magazines and news paper. The result was that 4,000 people downloaded the browser during the very first month. My inbox was filled with hundreds of e-mails containing comments, suggestions, feedback or simply encouraging words about the project. Today, 40 magazine articles, 9 TV interviews and 5 radio channels have already covered Yahadi Web Browser. (You can find them all on the Yahadi website) and to this date, approximately 100,000 people from 60 countries have downloaded the software (across its four versions).

3- I want to win prestigious awards with it:

The publicity I got made me confident enough to start sending the project for competitions. And it is at that point that you really hope that you were doing the right thing because the project will be judged by industry and academic experts. Fortunately enough, the Yahadi Web Browser won the first place in every single competition it entered (local, regional, and international). Whether the competitors were high school students, university students, scientists or companies; the project managed to get the highest commendation of judging panels.

However, it is because of the continuous self reviews and updates that we were able to do that. We believe that if we had stopped at the first competition, the others simply would not have happened.

4- I want to make money out of it:

This goal wasn't really a priority because I was more concerned with delivering a product that everybody can make use of. In late 2004 I started thinking about building a business model around Yahadi so that it can generate some profits that can cover part of the cost involved. At that time I read an article about the Zayed University e-biz challenge III and started preparing for the transition to the e-business world. With the help of my teammates (Gauttam Goenka and Ruba Ayyat) and advisor (Dr.Gregore Weiche) we investigated prices, payment systems, revenue models, affiliate schemes and market segmentation among many other issues.

Now, the thing about this competition is that the judges want to see you striving to unleash your creative side; they weren't really worried about the implementation or the technicalities at this point. And so we submitted a 9-pages business plan along with a CD that contained a focus group video that we conducted to prove the market need for a product like Yahadi.

The business plan made it to the finalists list and then ended up fourth. The prestigious gala dinner (Yes, the food was great!) proved to be a trophy in its own right with crowds of entrepreneurs, media, academics and of course business investors. It was a great networking opportunity and I did my best to get the most out of it.

Thanks to e-biz challenge, Yahadi is now available online ready for sale. The only thing left is to start a proper marketing campaign. And we are currently looking for investors to help us with that.

5- I want to take it further:

Yahadi is not our first product and definitely is not going to be the last. Our field of work involves web design, multimedia, software development, 3D Animation, e-commerce and education among many others. We consider it our duty to deliver a satisfying user experience in every product so we always put quality first. However, as the complexity level is increasing with every new project; it's very important for investors to understand that the real investment is investing in our minds and not just our products. IT is the kind of business that requires patience in development and funding, but when the payback time comes, it pays in large figures!